Ruyi led her to the lab. It had started off as this little dungeon in the ground, but over the years Ruyi had tacked centrifuges, smoke vents, and a tiny garden to the top for quick-and-dirty ingredients. The insides were strung up with pipes, humming with dial-ridden instruments sunk into the walls. The rest of the space was clogged with papers and scattered with the shells of a kind of nut she liked chewing while brewing. It was a glorious mess. It was probably the closest thing you could get to a map of the inside of her head.

“This is your lab?” said Tingting, coughing through a cloud of fumes.

“Yup,” said Ruyi proudly.

“Wow. It’s very different to what I’d thought…”

“Why? How’s your lab like?”

The Princess bit her lip. She looked like she had a thought, but was struggling to find a polite way to say it. “It’s…different,” she managed. “But I like this too! I think it’s really charming.”

“It’s neat, isn’t it? Hey—want to see what I’ve been up to?”

Tingting made a noise of curiosity.

“Remember that Codex I borrowed from you? I’ve started on the brews...” Ruyi stepped around a clump of stacked papers on ginseng which she called the ‘Ginseng Mountains,’ squeezed her way between two refrigerators, and came upon a clearing dotted with brews. Eight in all, softly bubbling.

“I’ve ordered all my ingredients save for one. The Guild doesn’t have it.”

“What is it?”

“Demon’s flesh.”

Tingting made a hacking noise, but this time there were no fumes.

“Well, it needn’t be flesh. Most any demonic body part will do.”

“Um,” said Tingting. She looked like she had a lot of thoughts on that, but was struggling quite hard to find a polite way to say them.

“Um,” she said again. “You’re not planning on drinking these elixirs, are you?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m not insane,” laughed Ruyi.

Tingting sagged with relief. “Oh! For a moment I thought—”

“I’d test them first, perhaps on parakeets and mice. We’ll see what goes from there.”

“Um!” squealed Tingting.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t know. It’s—it’s kind of… weird, I guess…” said Tingting with her mouth. Her face said, “Oh Heavens, this girl has gone kooky.”

“I know! It’s a weird ingredient in a strange brew from a suspicious tome. It breaks a lot of rules. But great things often come from strange places, don’t you think?”

“Um…” Poor Tingling looked quite frazzled. “I guess? Still—demon’s flesh, I don’t—you’re really, really not meant to ingest it. Isn’t it illegal? Like… death-penalty illegal?”

Ruyi rolled her eyes. The law. What a way to ruin the mood.

“It’s only illegal if they find out,” she said breezily. “And I certainly won’t be telling anyone. Will you?”

“N-no, of course not! Still—I don’t know—it seems kind of dangerous, doesn’t it?”

“But what if there was a way to detoxify it? Imagine! A demon’s powers in a human body! How cool would that be?”

“Cool,” said Tingting. “Yeah, um. Cool! I guess—I guess I could see it?” She was struggling mightily now. “You will be careful, right? You promise?”

“I won’t do anything stupid,” sighed Ruyi. “Why does everyone think I’ll do something stupid? Trust me, it’ll be fine. Enough of this! No more work stuff. Want to do something else?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Yes please!” gasped Tingting. “Like what?”

“How does a picnic sound?”

“I’d love that,” said Tingting with that shy smile. Ruyi swore she was doing it on purpose. It was unfair, a secret weapon she could pull out to scramble Ruyi’s brain whenever she wished.

In fact Ruyi’s suggestion was a ruse. Really Ruyi just wanted to get her alone and out of the house where they could kiss and cuddle in peace, away from any meddling mothers.

As it turned out, this plan worked splendidly.

***

“Master Bu has rejected your request to requisition the Devil’s Heart Hyacinth,” Gao informed her mid-brew.

“What?! Why?”

“I imagine it has something to do with your proclaiming to the Alchemy community in that column that his life’s work wasn’t fit to wipe your ass.”

“I mean, it isn’t,” said Ruyi. “What am I supposed to do? Lie?”

Gao rapped her on the head with a ladle. “Ow!”

“You could be nice about it, girl.”

“Why should I be?”

“Are you aware you are an incredibly difficult person to work with? It may behoove you to not piss off half the folk you meet.”

“Well, they don’t like me. So I don’t like them back.”

Gao looked ready to rap her over the head again; she ducked pre-emptively. “And there is your issue, idiot girl. You assume everyone you meet doesn’t like you so you don’t give them a chance to like you. Would it kill you to drop the bratty act until you actually get to know them? You are so closed off it is a professional liability.”

“I assume everyone I meet doesn’t like me ‘cause it’s true,” snapped Ruyi. Was Gao serious? “You don’t know what it’s like to be me!”

“I have one eye, I am ten years from the grave, look astonishingly homeless, and most who see me are afraid I might rob them,” said Gao dryly. “I think I know something of prejudice. You are not the only one who’s suffered from it, believe it or not. No one cares as much about your lack of a core as you do. People do not go around whispering, ‘Look! It’s that cripple girl! Let us gather to laugh at her behind her back!’ as you pass. If they feel anything, it is a brief pity—and they move on with their days. It is your condescension thereafter that seals their opinions of you.”

That was especially infuriating because it was, to Ruyi’s chagrin, painfully accurate.

She stormed out, steamed for half a day, and at last had to admit Gao maybe had a point.

***

Ruyi didn’t know how she’d get her demon flesh, but she had an idea of how she might get an idea to get it, which was good enough for her. One day when Jin was drilling his spearwork in the courtyard, poking at an ironwood dummy which as far as Ruyi could tell had done nothing wrong, she barged on in.

“I want to see you fight,” she announced.

“Bad idea,” grunted Jin, not even turning.

“Jin,” whined Ruyi. “I’m so stressed out I need to go to the Lower City to unwind. And if you don’t help me, I’m going to do something stupid. That’s how stressed I am.”

“That…is….something stupid,” gasped Jin between thrusts.

“If you think that’s stupid, you underestimate me. I am capable of levels of stupid you cannot even conceive of.”

Sighing, Jin set down the spear. “It’s not safe in the Underground. It’s not like in the streets of the Lower City.”

“Why? What’s so bad about it? It’s not some nefarious haven of crime where all kinds of lowlives gather, right? Like thugs and gangs and maybe even demon cultists?”

“That is precisely what it is. And if I’m fighting in the ring, I can’t protect you.”

“Who says I need protection? I can handle myself just fine, thank you very much.”

“What happens if a man with bad intentions accosts you?”

“I will eviscerate his genitalia. With a well-placed kick, or, failing that, a punch. I have thought this through.”

Jin groaned at the sky. “…Why are you like this?”

“So will you take me?”

Jin took a few breaths before answering. “Why are you actually here, sis?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t want to see me fight. You’ve never cared about fighting.”

“People change.”

“Maybe. Or maybe this is related to the project you’ve been complaining about every dinner for the past month?”

Ruyi froze, then squinted at him. “You know, you’re sharper than you look.”

“So why are you actually here?”

“I just want to poke around the Lower City! Especially the out-of-the-way places. Get some hard-to-get ingredients. Ingredients that might not be in normal shops, y’know.”

Jin resumed his staring contest with the sky. A few breaths later, the sky won.

“Fine. You can come. I’ll leave you with Mei—she’ll take good care of you. She knows the Underground better than than I do. She’ll get you what you need.”

“Thanks!”

“No worries,” sighed Jin.

He seemed surprised to find her still standing there a few breaths later, shuffling nervously.

“What is it?”

“I know I can be loud and unreasonable,” she mumbled. “And I know—I know I can be… difficult to work with. So, I guess, thanks. For dealing with me.”

Jin blinked. “There are times I want to dunk your head in the East River, don’t get me wrong. But don’t be too hard on yourself, Rue. Most times I do enjoy spending time with you.”

“…Really?”

“Yes, really. Of course. I’m your brother.”

“….I’d hug you right now if you weren’t so sweaty and gross.”

“It’s just sometimes,” said Jin, sidestepping her comment, “It feels like you want to fight the world. You don’t need to do that—the really is no need to get so defensive. Some of us care about you. We just want the best for you. That’s all.”

“Excuse me? I don’t get defensive! I—”

She blinked at Jin’s deadpan stare. Then blushed.

“Ah. Yeah. I’ll work on that…”