"Aaah!" Han Li thrust one hand high into the air and clenched it into a fist, letting out a cry of excitement.
In that moment, his childish nature was laid bare for all to see.
It seemed his hypothesis was correct: closed doors and windows hindered the bottle's attraction to those threads of white light. Only in a wide, unobstructed space could the bottle draw the light threads more effectively, and the ball of light it formed would grow larger.
Although he had no idea where these threads of light came from, or what use the bottle had for absorbing those tiny specks of light, he felt he had taken a major step toward unraveling the mystery.
Han Li felt that he was on the verge of cracking the bottle's secret, and the thought filled him with exhilaration.
He waited until just before dawn, when the glow surrounding the bottle finally faded away and it returned to its usual stillness.
During that time, Han Li had been crouching nearby, observing the bottle's changes while keeping a constant lookout to make sure no one else discovered what was happening here.
He bent down, picked up the bottle, and inspected it.
Nothing seemed different from before — the stopper was still sealed tight, refusing to come off.
Han Li was disappointed, but seeing that it was already late, he had no choice but to reluctantly put the bottle away. He still needed to rush back to his stone chamber to sit in meditation and practice his cultivation.
Over the next several days, the same phenomenon occurred each night at a certain hour. Countless threads of light, like moths drawn to a flame, were pulled toward the bottle, then transformed into swarms of tiny light specks that the bottle devoured greedily.
Just as Han Li assumed this phenomenon would continue every night, on the eighth day, something different happened.
When Han Li arrived at his usual spot and set the bottle down, the light-absorption phenomenon lasted only a brief half-quarter of an hour before stopping entirely. Then the dark green patterns on the bottle's surface suddenly blazed with a dazzling green radiance, and several golden characters and symbols appeared on the surface. These strange characters had fluid structures and peculiar strokes, carrying an indescribable aura of antiquity — they flickered and drifted ceaselessly across the bottle's surface.
This bizarre display lasted only an instant before everything vanished, leaving behind only a few raised golden characters on the bottle, as though all had returned to where it began.
After the strange events of the past few days, Han Li was no longer as shocked by odd occurrences as he had been at first. Even something stranger happening on this bottle would not easily startle him anymore.
He casually picked up the bottle and, almost unconsciously, tried to twist off the cap.
Lightly, effortlessly, the stopper came free from the bottle.
He couldn't believe it! Han Li stared at the cap in his hand, stunned.
Just like that — effortlessly, without any special technique — had he really solved this problem, this great puzzle that had tormented him for days?
Once Han Li confirmed that what lay before his eyes was truly real, that the bottle's secret now sat right before his gaze, he could no longer contain the excitement surging inside him. He pressed his eye to the bottle's mouth and peered in.
Inside the bottle, a single droplet of jade-green liquid, no larger than a soybean, rolled slowly about, casting the entire inner wall in a luminous green glow.