“Oh? Don’t you worry. You’ll distill into a fine wine, too.” A giant hand closed around Hui and lifted him into the air.

Hui struggled, desperately fighting against the hand, but it held him tight. His fists bounced off its flesh like stone. He dragged out a void talisman and pointed it directly at the hand, but the hand didn’t flinch. Eyes still sealed shut, Hui couldn’t tell if he’d done any damage to the hand, but when he patted it, the skin remained intact.

Dammit! How high-realm is this senior? Is she at Chen Wuya’s level? Or maybe… higher?

He struggled harder. The hand shook him. “Enough of that.”

As soon as it shook him, Hui stopped struggling. Killing his qi, he retracted his awareness to his core. His body stopped moving, and his heart stopped beating. Introducing a tiny scrap of his soul to his death qi, he exuded an aura of death alongside an aura of soul death.

The hand stopped. “Eh? He’s dead?”

After a moment, the entire world lurched as the giant shrugged. “Oh well. As long as he’s freshly dead, the wine should still taste fine. A pity about his cultivation level, though. Fifth-realm cultivator wine isn’t a delicacy you come across every day, after all.”

The hand released him. Hui tumbled through the air and splashed down into thick, sweet liquid. At last, whatever force had held his eyes shut vanished, though, committed to playing dead, Hui didn’t open them or exert any force whatsoever over his body. He drifted down into the wine, pretending to be no more than a corpse.

You know, I’m starting to feel like maybe Fen Long locked these people up for a reason, Hui mused as he floated in alcohol. Honestly, compared to Chen Wuya, this woman might be worse. At least Chen Wuya just wants to beat people up, and mostly Fen Long, at that. This woman’s brewing people into alcohol!

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed off into the distance. Hui floated there for another few seconds, then opened his eyes and released his hold on his qi.

The second he released his qi, his qi began pouring out of him. The alcohol leached it out of him, sucking it hungrily out of his body. In a bare moment, all the excess energy he’d gathered vanished, devoured by the alcohol.

Whoa! Hui pulled his qi back, killing it down again. His qi stopped pouring out of him. The alcohol kept lapping at his body, searching for his qi, but Hui kept a tight hold on it, desperately holding back. He stared around, searching through the alcohol. Zhubi, is Zhubi okay—

Calm down, Hui. Zhubi is the master of playing dead! You are but the student! He’ll also be able to kill his qi. He’ll be fine, as long as I retrieve him before that crazy senior drinks him up!

Hui carefully adopted a lotus pose, mindful not to exude any extra qi. Even moving his body as a mortal would mobilized his qi enough for the liquor to sap it away. Horrified, he tightened his grip on his qi, only allowing the absolute minimum out. Even then, the liquor remained at the verge of his consciousness, desperately sucking at every drop it could reach. Hui kept drawing his qi back until it finally stopped stealing his qi, but at that point, he couldn’t extend anything out of his core. He hesitated, then reached enough qi out of his dantian to circulate it to his eyes. At the very least, I need to see. Even if the alcohol is going to devour my qi, I can handle it at the level of ‘being able to see.’

So. Where am I?

A thin golden tinge colored the liquor Hui hung in, the same exact color as his life qi. Hui frowned. Is that… because of my life qi that it’s gold? This liquor is terrifying!

If I could steal it, it would make an excellent weapon! Imagine splashing this liquor on someone in the middle of battle. It would essentially be an instantaneous cancel!

I mean… I need to remove this dangerous liquor from the hands of this malicious senior before she throws someone else in here. Like Li Xiang! How terrible would it be if she tried to bottle Li Xiang?

Actually... wait. Is this giant the mysterious senior I was dealing with earlier? The cute voice is the same, but… well, that mysterious senior had normal-sized legs, and her voice didn’t reverberate like this one’s does. Besides, Li Xiang and her vigilantes have been living in this space for a long time, and no one mentioned disappearances in the village. Maybe this is… an echo of the senior, trapped in this infinite space?

An echo… or a heart-demon?

Hu’s heart jolted. He licked his lips, then regretted it as a bit of the alcohol flowed in and sapped his qi from inside him. If it’s a heart-demon, it’s enormous. Many times the size of the actual senior. Could it be that this senior was overcome by her heart-demon after… whatever fighting happened, and lost herself to liquor? Then, perhaps the reason why she wants to stay in this realm… is because the space traps her heart-demon, and allows her to continue living as herself, even if only in a limited form, unable to ever leave this secret realm again.

I… really have to revise my view of Fen Long. Doesn’t it seem like he’s trying to rehabiliate these mysterious seniors? In Chen Wuya’s case, he wanted Chen Wuya to pick something other than the sword. Metaphorically speaking, was he asking Chen Wuya to consider peace rather than bloodshed? Ah… I feel kind of guilty about breaking Chen Wuya out, in that case. He certainly refused to learn that lesson.

Then, in this case, is it rehabilitation? Is there something the senior can do to eliminate her heart-demon… something she is, perhaps, unwilling to do? But what would that be? She doesn’t seem stubborn like Chen Wuya, unwilling to learn her lesson. If anything, she seems grateful to have this space, since she’s happy to live here and keep her heart-demon locked up. In that case, what’s so horrible about this situation that she refuses to rehabilitate herself and instead chooses to keep her heart demon alive, if locked up, rather than remove it and exit this space?

Maybe I’m wrong, and she can’t be rehabilitated. Maybe it isn’t that she doesn’t want to, but that she simply can’t. Still… I think it’s a theory worth exploring.

But first, I need to find Zhubi!

He peered through the alcohol, carefully examining the outside world. He hung in a glass liquor bottle, and all around him, strange things hung suspended in other bottles of liquor. Precious herbs, strange treasures, the corpses of various spirit beasts and cultivators, all hung in clear liquor. The cultivators wore ancient robes, torn and tattered, and the spirit beasts’ corpses had degraded heavily, bits of flesh peeling off to reveal the bones beneath.

Hui widened his eyes. All those treasures…

No, Hui, don’t be stupid. The liquor will have sapped all their qi away long, long ago. By now, they’ll be nothing but mortal items, with nothing special about them but their appearance. The only prize here is the liquor.

Hmm, aside from us, it seems like no one’s stumbled in here in a long time. But where’s Zhubi? Zhubi… Zhubi…

A huge snake caught his eye, half-coiled in a huge bottle of liquor across the room from Hui. He squinted through the liquor. Pale scales… belly up… He’s resumed his true form for some reason, but otherwise… that’s got to be Zhubi, right?

Alright. So Zhubi’s over there, and I’m over here. First, I’ve got to get out of this liquor. He kicked his legs, swimming upward. Qi sapped out of his body, sinking into the liquor around him. Hui wrinkled his nose, annoyed. Cut me a break, senior! Come on! Can’t it stop trying to kill me for ten seconds?

Floating around, he stared above him. That’s a long way up, and it looks like there’s a cork. Should I break the glass instead?

Rogue’s voice sounded in his mind. Eh, maybe now isn’t the right time to say it, but you’d make a great weapon right now. Imagine! All we have to do is put our hand on an enemy and send them to your side, and the liquor takes care of the rest.

What about Zhubi, though? Mortal pointed out, concerned.

Okay, modification. Sectgoer rescues Zhubi, then hangs out in Zhubi’s liquor, Rogue suggested.

I am slowly losing qi, you know, Hui pointed out, annoyed.

We can send you qi. Like we do with First! Rogue said, excited.

Hui rolled his eyes. I have better things to do than hang in liquor all day.

Like what? Hold hands with Li Xiang? Rogue asked.

Rogue, calm down. Sectgoer, you’ll be more use to us outside of the liquor than inside it. But… I don’t suppose you could take some of that liquor with you…? Healer asked.

I’d love to. But where should I put it? Hui asked.

Healer paused. We could drain it into our dimensional ring.

What if it negates the enchantment, though? Peak Lord pointed out.

What about the blood qi gem? What happened to that? Healer asked.

Hui considered. What if we need blood qi for Jin Xian, though? The liquor will destroy any qi we put it in. Or… absorb it.

There was silence as they all considered it.

…I’m generally against drunken jiangshi, Healer said.

I think we’re all in agreement there. But does she need the blood qi anymore? Rogue argued.

Actually, if we put the liquor in the blood qi, there’s a good chance we’ll just end up with blood-qi-flavored liquor, and no one wants that. Besides, didn’t we lock someone in that gem? Hui said.

…Did we?

We might have.

Uh… maybe they were already inside when we got the gem?

No, we definitely put someone in there. A ghost of some sort.

…Oh well. I guess he lives there now.

In any case, we should probably leave the blood qi gem alone. Can anyone buy a new spatial treasure that we can put the liquor into? Hui asked.

Give me a moment… Healer said.

Hui floated in the liquor. Any second now.