So Wei Po-Yang

he’s this chinese dude
super into the arts of alchemy
but not the stupid bullshit arts of alchemy
like turning mercury into gold
or shit into sausages
no
wei po-yang is all about transmuting dying
into NEVER DYING
in other words he is trying to make a pill
that will make him immortal

to that end
at eighteen
he goes up in the mountains
and builds a little house
and spends all his time rooting through the woods
for herbs
and minerals

somehow Po-Yang gets three students
one of them is a dumbass
but he’s a pretty nice guy
the other two are cleverdicks to the max
and Po-Yang gets to thinking hm
my cleverdick students are devious
and they prolly don’t give a shit about the tao
they just wanna live forever
I WILL CONDUCT A TEST

so he calls his three students together
like guys
hey
i made the pill of immortality
check it out
and his students are all like WHOAWAOWOWOAWOWOHOAW
and Po-Yang is like I WILL TEST IT ON MY DOG
so he gives the pill to his dog
and then the dog
stops moving and breathing
and the smart students are like aw fuck
looks like we fucked up again
and Po-Yang is like no not necessarily
maybe it has a different effect on humans
who wants to test it
anyone?

so when none of his students are like YES GIVE ME DEATH PILL
Po-Yang is like fine I’ll try it
and he takes a pill
and does a faceplant into the dirt
and stops breathing

so then his two smart students are like welp
looks like Po-Yang succeeded in making
the exact opposite of the pill of immortality
it would be pretty stupid for us to take those pills now
having witnessed TWO SEPERATE LIVING BEINGS DIE
after ingesting them
time to cut our losses and go
and never tell anyone because they might think we killed him
PEACE

so they get the fuck out of there
leaving dopey mcdumb to stare blankly at his teacher’s corpse
and finally he gets up like hmmmm
master has always been super cautious
SURELY he wouldn’t eat a pill he thought would kill him
even though that is clearly what he did
I think I’LL take one of these poison capsules
so he takes one
and then goes to sit down
and wait to die i guess
when suddenly Wei Po-Yang stands up
like CHARLIE YOU HAVE INHERITED MY CHOCOLATE FACTORY WELL DONE
and then his dog wakes up too!
and then all three of them go shooting up to heaven
even though i’m pretty sure this is just like
a death-induced hallucination
being had by the dead student
as he lies twitching on the ground
foaming at the mouth

except then the two smartasses heading back down the mountain
see the two men and the dog flying through the air
like WOOF WOOF MOTHERFUCKERS
and they’re like OH NO WHAT
WHAT HAPPENED
HOW DID OUR SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCTS
ACTUALLY END UP DENYING US IMMORTALITY
so they run back up to Po-Yang’s crib
but his fire has gone out
and there are no more pills
so they have to be mortal FOREVER
or i guess until they die

moral of the story
if a charismatic religious figure offers you a pill
eat it
even if it has been clearly demonstrated
numerous times
to be deadly poison
in fact
especially in that case
take two if you can
take a dozen
take all of them
come on don’t you want to be immortal

The end.