I became the King of Ryukyu

The chubby boy had already noticed Zheng Yilao's arrival. He pretended to be serious, holding his pen with a very earnest posture, but the crooked handwriting on his notebook betrayed his lack of focus—his crotch was glowing green, obviously hiding a game console.

"Cheye, come here, help your brother try something." Zheng Yi handed the pill to him.

Tetsuya looked up, glanced at the dark dumpling, then at Zheng Yi's sincere eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief: "So it's just food! I thought you, Prisoner, came to confiscate my game console!"

Without hesitation, he took it, popped it into his mouth, chewed it twice, and swallowed it.

"...It's a bit hard to eat." Tetsuya smacked his lips and gave his assessment, "It tastes like burnt rubber mixed with chili powder."

Then he pretended to lower his head and continued doing his homework.

Zheng Yi waited for thirty seconds, then for a minute. Cheye's health bar remained completely still on the game panel; there was no health deduction, no poison debuff, and not even a single negative status effect.

"So...no other feeling?"

"No, it's not." Tetsuya didn't even look up. "It just tastes awful. If you still have any of this candy, don't give it to me next time, Yoshihiro."

Zheng Yi was overjoyed. If Che had eaten it without any problems, it meant that the pill was at least non-toxic.

It seems I've mastered the heat this time; maybe I've actually refined something useful.

He returned to the attic excitedly and examined the black pills carefully for a while, finding them more and more pleasing to the eye.

According to Zheng Yi's estimation, this elixir should be an enhanced version of the famous febrile disease formula, Beijing Tongrentang Angong Niuhuang Wan, which has the effects of awakening the mind, opening the orifices, and repairing nerves.

Like Gu Yongtai, I suffered a head injury and remained unconscious for so long. The hospital's conclusion was that the probability of me waking up was extremely low.

Zheng Yi activated [Spiritual Transformation], and his face and figure blurred, transforming into the appearance of a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and sporting a side-parted hairstyle.

It was the same doctor I met at Shuri Fourth Hospital last time.

It was late at night when he rode his bicycle to Shuri Fourth Hospital and slipped in through the staff entrance on the side. The night shift nurse in the inpatient department was dozing off at the front desk. He lowered his footsteps, walked down the corridor, and pushed open the door to the private room.

The room was quiet, save for the regular beeping of the electrocardiogram monitor. A thin man lay on the bed, pale-faced, his eyes closed.

Zheng Yi stood by the bed, holding the dark pill in his hand, and took a deep breath.

Brother Yuta, this is the best I can offer right now. I hope it will be useful.

He pried open my mouth, stuffed the pill inside, and then fed me a sip of water to help me swallow it.

What happened next was completely beyond Zheng Yi's expectations.

Like Koyuta's body, I suddenly twitched, and then—stood up straight.

Yes, I stood up.

It wasn't the gentle image of a patient slowly opening their eyes upon waking up, but rather like a puppet suddenly pulled up by strings, sprang from the bed in an instant, back straight, eyes wide open, pupils dilated.

Then he started hopping around.

He was really jumping. His lower body remained in a stiff position, but his upper body, with his arms raised in front, was moving up and down in an extremely bizarre rhythm, just like the Qing Dynasty zombies in old Hong Kong movies.

Zheng Yi instinctively took two steps back, his back hitting the ward door. His mind raced: What's going on? Is the medicine too strong? Or is there a problem with the proportion of one of the ingredients in his prescription?

But does this count as an awakening?

At least it makes muscle rehabilitation easier, right?

Zheng Yi still believed that his elixir had not failed and that it still had its merits!

At that moment, footsteps and the voices of nurses could be heard in the corridor.

Zheng Yi didn't have time to think. He rushed back to the bedside, grabbed Rugu Yongtai's shoulder, and forcefully pushed him back onto the bed.

The old zombie struggled a couple of times, still making "hoarse" sounds, but its strength gradually weakened, and it eventually returned to a lying position and closed its eyes.

The waveform on the electrocardiogram monitor remained stable.

It was as if nothing had happened.

Zheng Yi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, quickly left the ward, slipped out of the hospital, rode his bicycle at breakneck speed back to the attic, locked the door, and leaned against the door for a while to catch his breath before calming his heartbeat.

Good heavens. The effects of this pill are far more potent than he expected—it does have a mind-awakening effect, but it's clearly too harsh.

My reaction, like that of Gu Yongtai, shows that the active ingredients of the pill did indeed penetrate the blood-brain barrier and stimulate the nervous system, but this stimulation was completely uncontrolled. It was more like forcibly waking up a dormant brain with an electric shock than gently repairing the damaged neural network.

Cheye was fine after eating it because his 200-pound digitized body had a built-in "Big Stomach" passive ability, which gave him a 30-point poison resistance bonus. It wasn't because the pill was safe and gentle.

This is troublesome. The chubby boy is too fat, the old monk is too old, and the white dragon is not even human. None of them are suitable for drug experiments.

Should we go to Toyong Palace Yuichi to be a guinea pig?

Zheng Yi thought about it and decided to give up the idea.

We should first conduct experiments on living animals with physiological structures similar to humans so that the great first genius of Kume Island can go further on the path of alchemy.

The animal laboratory of the Faculty of Biology at the University of the Ryukyus. He remembered that a group of macaques were kept there for laboratory purposes.

The next morning, Zheng Yi skipped his main class, which was quite unusual for him.

He first pulled out the authentic American passport, activated [Spiritual Transformation], adjusted the facial contours against the passport photo, and transformed into his appearance once again.

Riding his bicycle, Zheng Yi arrived at a large car rental shop in Naha City. He pushed open the door and greeted them in fluent English, "Hi, I'd like to rent an SUV for the day."

The receptionist took the US passport, glanced at it, and immediately became respectful. After verifying that everything was correct, she began processing the paperwork, without even checking the driver's license or anything else.

Zheng Yi experienced the authority of the world's police force for the first time.

He paid a deposit of 50,000 yen, signed a few forms, and received the keys to a Toyota Highlander in less than 15 minutes.

Arriving at the entrance of the animal laboratory of the Faculty of Biology at the University of the Ryukyus, Zheng Yi turned off the engine, got out of the car, took a deep breath, and activated [Spiritual Transformation] again—this time transforming into that Kansai animal protection uncle in his early forties who spoke with an Osaka accent.

He pushed open the lab door, and the technician at the front desk, wearing thick glasses, looked up at him and said, "Hello, how can I help you?"

"Oh, thank you so much!" Zheng Yi bowed slightly, his tone warm yet polite.

"I'm Yamada from the Kansai Native Animal Conservation Association. Our association is currently conducting a study on the ecology of native primate habitats and we'd like to purchase a few laboratory monkeys for behavioral observation. We heard that your association has a batch of surplus macaques; I wonder if you could transfer a few to us?"