Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 106: Han Yu’s First Day in Alchemical Hell

Han Yu regretted everything the moment he stepped into Li Mei’s hut again the next morning.

Technically, it wasn’t even a hut anymore. It was more like a shack that had suffered repeated alchemical accidents and adapted to them through pure trauma. The wooden walls were scorched in artistic patterns. Several of the support beams looked slightly melted. One of the windows blinked at him for some reason.

He took a deep breath.

"Okay, Han Yu," he muttered to himself. "You survived the soup. You survived the spontaneous breakthrough. You can survive this. Probably."

The door opened before he could knock.

A puff of pink smoke escaped the threshold, accompanied by a small girl wearing goggles.

"Morning!" Li Mei chirped, poking her head out from behind a stack of cauldrons. "You’re just in time. The Slumbering Vine accidentally woke up again and now it’s trying to eat the broom."

Han Yu peeked inside and saw what looked like a plant possessed by a caffeine demon wrestling with a mop.

"...I have made a terrible life choice," he whispered.

"You’re wearing your servant uniform, good!" Li Mei clapped. "It’ll make cleanup easier. Most of the stains are magical, so just... don’t inhale them." fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Han Yu looked down at his fresh robes and made peace with the fact they would die young.

The lab itself was something out of a sect horror story. Shelves were stacked with glowing jars, several of which hissed when he passed. A cauldron in the corner was breathing. Breathing.

There was also a tea table.

The tea table was... alive.

It opened one eye as Han Yu walked by.

"Hey," it said gruffly. "You the new guy?"

Han Yu froze. "...Yes?"

"Name’s Tea Table. Don’t spill tea on me or I bite."

Han Yu nodded slowly. "Understood, Tea Table."

He had no idea how the table could talk, but he reckoned it probably had to do with one of the experiments that Li Mei had done.

"Good lad."

"Ignore Tea Table," Li Mei said. "I originally made him as a test for a broken formation I found somewhere."

"A broken formation can turn a table alive?" Han Yu couldn’t believe it.

"Well, it was a rather mysterious formation. Likely part of a larger array. Large arrays like that can have their own formation spirit. Basically, a soul with its own consciousness. It didn’t work at once but I spilled a bunch of failed experimental vials on it." Li Mei explained. "The Tea Table ended up gaining consciousness without any of its useful functions." She added.

"..." Han Yu had no words for that.

Only Li Mei would be able to turn a table sentient with a broken formation and some failed experiments.

Having said that Li Mei then tossed a rat in a lab coat onto Han Yu’s shoulder. "This is Warlord Sniffles. He’ll guide you through the basics."

Sniffles saluted.

"I remember him. Though..." Han Yu blinked. "Does... does he actually understand alchemy?"

"More than you do," Li Mei replied with a shrug. "He and other several rats like this have begun to understand basics of alchemy over time."

Han Yu opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. Han Yu had alreyad seen the miraculous abilities of the rats before. He had even been blessed by them as such, believing that they could also do some basic alchemy didn’t seem that strange.

"...Okay."

They got to work.

Han Yu’s first task was to help organize Li Mei’s "potion backlog," which turned out to be a euphemism for ’the shelf of unlabeled chaos.’

One vial emitted giggles.

Another kept changing colors and screaming "Pick me!" Clearly having gained some level of sentience due to another formation.

A third had a note that read: "Do not open unless you wish to relive the worst memory of your childhood in 4K spiritual clarity."

Han Yu left that one alone.

Next came the pill testing. Again.

Li Mei had set up a table of "safe-ish" pills she wanted to test "in a more controlled environment," which apparently just meant "not inside someone’s soup."

"I’m going to say no," Han Yu said immediately.

"But—"

"No."

"Just a small one."

"No."

"What if it gives you laser vision?"

"Laser vision isn’t worth the risk of butt wings, Li Mei!" Han Yu replied.

"Butt wings are majestic," she muttered. "besides do you even know what Laser vision is?" she asked.

"I don’t, but I’m still having nightmares from the slightly translucent skin incident, so it doesn’t seem all that good."

"Okay, that one was mislabeled. And to be fair, you did look very glowy."

"NO MORE PILLS TODAY."

"...Tomorrow?"

"Maybe."

"Yay!"

Han Yu buried his face in his hands.

Eventually, after narrowly dodging three more experimental explosions and a very flirtatious jar of spirit slime, which was created from an amalgamation of who knows what, Han Yu finally flopped onto a chair near the window. Warlord Sniffles sat on his shoulder, chewing a dried apricot with the confidence of a rat who had seen things.

"I used to have a normal life," Han Yu sighed. "I swept floors. I fetched water. Occasionally, I got chased by angry servants. But this? This is madness."

Sniffles squeaked in agreement.

Then again... he hadn’t been chased once today. No mop duty. No chamber pot assignments. No one threw a shoe at him. And he had broken through to the Ninth Stage of Body Tempering.

He sighed.

"...Maybe this isn’t the worst job in the world."

"Exactly!" Li Mei said, popping out from behind a bookshelf. "Besides, you get front-row seats to scientific history. Also, possibly front-row seats to your own funeral if you drink the wrong potion, but that’s part of the adventure."

"I want a raise," Han Yu muttered.

"I’m already paying you two silver coins per pill test."

"I want hazard pay."

Li Mei grinned. "Done."

Han Yu blinked. "Wait, really?"

"Sure. One extra spirit stone every time you explode and survive."

"...Fair." Even Han Yu couldn’t say no to a Spirit Stone when he was just a servant.