The real reason he started teaching the secret technique on such a large scale was because of the impending Shinobi World War.
Clan members would inevitably have to go to the battlefield. Losing a bit of lifespan was better than dying outright. It was with this in mind that he decided to teach the forbidden technique.
But if he had a falling out with Mei at this critical juncture...
After thinking it over, Gisei decided to at least hear Mei's request before giving her an answer.
Half an hour later, Mei dragged the jinchuriki back into the hall.
She casually tossed the unconscious man onto the ground. "I'm going to use him for experiments. I refuse to believe I can't fix this."
Gisei's mouth twitched. "Hey, I'm still counting on sucking chakra from him. Don't kill him."
"Suck chakra? You can't do that kind of thing here. You'll suck him dry."
"Tailed beasts are life forms made of pure chakra. They possess endless amounts of it. How could they possibly be sucked to death?"
Mei shook her head. "I know better than you do. My home here is... special. If you suck its chakra here, it has no way to recover what it loses."
Gisei asked in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"Hasn't Shiro told you yet?" Mei looked at Gisei in silence for a moment, then revealed a bitter smile. "Fine, I'll tell you. Butterfly Habitat Valley is completely isolated from the outside world. It's a closed-off space—so closed that you can only enter and exit through summoning techniques."
Seeing that Gisei still didn't quite understand, Mei sighed. "This place was sealed by someone using a Space Sealing Technique. You can understand that much, right?"
Gisei still couldn't wrap his head around it. A Space Seal?
He had taken a good look at the terrain of Butterfly Habitat Valley before. Although he hadn't explored every inch of it, there was no doubt that the land area was enormous.
Is sealing such a massive area of land something a human can even do?
Mei knew he couldn't understand, so she pulled him out of the main hall and snapped her fingers lightly.
The once-sunny sky suddenly turned dark, and immediately after, dense, glowing formula markings appeared across the entire dome of the sky.
Gisei watched, dumbfounded. "What is this?"
Mei waved her hand, and the sky returned to its original, sunny appearance.
"Everything you see here is created by my genjutsu. That scene just now... that is the true face of this place."
Mei had once again refreshed Gisei's understanding of the Naruto world.
This kind of thing... well, a human definitely couldn't do it. But Mei wasn't human.
After a brief silence, Gisei shrugged. "So since this is a sealed space, you want me to help you break the seal?"
Mei shook her head. "That can't be done. I've studied this seal for hundreds of years and I know for a fact that it's impossible to break from the inside. To break it, one would have to start from the outside."
"It's just a pity that starting from the outside is also impossible, because even I don't know where exactly I am sealed."
If the location of the seal couldn't be found, then there was no way to break it from the outside.
If neither inside nor outside was possible, wasn't this sealing technique just unsolvable?
Gisei gave her a strange look. "According to what you're saying, the seal can't be broken. So what help do you want from me?"
"The seal indeed cannot be broken, but have you ever thought about why you were able to appear here?"
Gisei looked thoughtful. "The summoning technique?"
"Exactly. That is the favor I need from you."
Use the summoning technique to summon Mei out of here?
"If it's just a matter of summoning you out, that should be simple, right? Has no one been able to do it for hundreds of years?"
Mei gave him a strange look. "I've said it so clearly, and you still can't guess?"
"What do you mean?"
"I told you just now that the 'me' in front of you is just a consciousness. My true, main body is right under your feet!"
Gisei looked at the ground beneath his feet, then looked outside the main hall, and the corner of his eye began to twitch uncontrollably.
"Don't tell me... everything here is built on top of your main body..."
"That is the reality of the situation. Since it was designed to seal me, this entire sealed space was created with a sealing technique tailored to the size of my main body."
Gisei remembered how exhausted he had been when he summoned a five-hundred-meter rock. He also remembered the ridiculously complex sealing technique Mei had carved on his body—and she had even called it a "simplified version."
A "simplified version," my foot!
He didn't know exactly how big the entire Butterfly Habitat Valley was, but this main hall alone was five hundred meters wide, not to mention the endless sea of flowers outside...
He clicked his tongue. "I think this matter... even if you work me to death, I can't do it. In fact, even if the Sage of Six Paths himself showed up, he wouldn't be able to do a thing."
Mei was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Indeed, that is the case, which is why I need your help."
Gisei smiled bitterly. "It's precisely because I can't do it that I can't help you. Even if I filled every single chakra point in my body with seals, I still couldn't do it."
"Of course you can't do it alone. But what if there were more people?"
Hmm?
Gisei finally understood what Mei was getting at. "You want me to gather more people to perform the summoning technique together?"
Mei smiled and nodded, then walked to a bed, took out a scroll, and opened it. "Sign your name. This is my summoning scroll."
Gisei took a look and found that there were only a few names on it—three, to be exact. One of them was his grandfather's.
"Why couldn't the people from before help you?"
Mei's face turned ugly. "The first two guys agreed verbally but were actually lying to me. As for your grandfather, he never took this matter seriously. So, what about you?"
Gisei's mouth twitched. "Can I ask why they lied to you?"
"Hmph. You humans are the most selfish creatures. They only wanted me to stay here to help your clan gain power. They were worried that once I left, I would escape their control."
Gisei scratched his head. "Since you know you were deceived, why do you still help our clan now?"
"I have no choice. Besides, I have plenty of time. As long as your clan continues to ask me for power, I won't give up on trying to get out."
Gisei chuckled twice and said, with a straight face, "If our clan no longer asked you for power, you wouldn't have a source of life force. In the end, you just want to control your own destiny."
Mei nodded. "I don't deny that's part of it. Actually, I still don't trust you even now. It's just that Shiro told me to trust you. I trust Shiro, and I know he wouldn't harm me."
Gisei shrugged indifferently and pointed at the scroll. "Even if I sign this scroll, it's impossible to summon you out, so what's the use of signing it?"
"Does this count as you refusing my request?"
Once Gisei figured out Mei's situation, he began to feel like he had nothing to fear. As for why Mei was sealed here in the first place, he wasn't curious at all.
The joys and sorrows of humans cannot be shared. Let alone the joys and sorrows of a human and a butterfly.
At this moment, he only felt bored.