The Silly Alchemist

“Excuse me, have you seen a guy and a girl?”

The three girls separated to look for him. While the blocks were all connected to each other, everything still felt very far from each other in this place. Their voices might not even reach Ye Lang’s ears.

They resorted to asking people, then describing Ye Lang to other people. Thank the heavens Little Xin was with Ye Lang. This made him a lot easier to describe. It would’ve been awful if he were alone!

“How was it? Did you find him?”

The three girls met at one point, asking each other the same question. The answer was obvious now, none of them found him.

“I’ll go…” the three girls muttered at the same time, then separated again.

During this process, there were people who could provide information about where Ye Lang was but they still couldn’t find him because they would always arrive later than he did.

In reality, Ye Lang had always been walking within the compound. His location was just perfectly mismatched with Ye Lanyu and the rest. Sometimes they were very, very near to each other, but unfortunately wouldn’t meet…

In the beginning, Ye Lang wanted to look for Ye Lanyu and the rest. As time passed, he had forgotten about this and started to stroll randomly as he admired the furnishings and decorations of this palace, also the hidden alchemy formations in various places.

“Ye Lang! Why are you here? I was just thinking of paying you a visit!” As Ye Lang walked, someone recognised him and immediately shouted for him.

“…”

Ye Lang was staring at a wall, and after hesitating for a long time, turned to leave as if he didn’t hear the person.

“Fuck! Don’t act like you didn’t hear me. I’m telling you, if you don’t solve this today, I’ll fuck you up!”  This person had appeared before Ye Lang, roaring furiously.

“You are…” Ye Lang thought for a moment. He often couldn’t remember much about people he hadn’t met in a while- especially those he wasn’t very close with in the beginning.

“Fuck! How dare you act like you don’t know me!! I’m Edward!!” That person was Edward. And he was furious.

“Ah… You’re Edward… No wonder I thought you looked familiar. You’ve become a lot fairer, I almost couldn’t recognise you!” Ye Lang smiled as he finally remembered who this man was. This only made Edward angrier.

“Wow, and you dare say I’ve become fairer?!” Edward was boiling now. This topic was a trigger for him.

His skin had never returned to its original state, there was still a little black in his skin tone- well at least it looked more like a handsome, healthy tan than anything. That was why he wasn’t too mad.

However, he was still holding the grudge- still mad at Ye Lang for giving him the wrong medicine, then Ye Lang’s irresponsible behaviour of not seeing through his recovery.

“You’re welcome, it’s a compliment! You’ve mostly recovered!” Ye Lang smiled as he patted Edward’s shoulder.

“Recovered?! Are you comparing THIS to when I was COAL-BLACK?! Ugh, I was so embarrassed!”

“But weren’t you still running around as usual? You were fine!”

“Forget it, never mind. Is there a way for me to go back to my original skin tone?” Edward waved. He didn’t want to argue with Ye Lang either. It was better to go straight to the topic.

Ye Lang regarded Edward. He examined Edward very carefully, then gave a very confused look. “You’re not a girl, why do you care so much? Even Arwen, a girl, doesn’t even care as much as you do! You’re a whole MAN…

“Sigh, what they say is true. Some men secretly care more than women…” Ye Lang shook his head sadly.

What are you sad about?!

Edward wanted to ask but soon decided he should give a little context or the people around them might misunderstand the situation.

“I only want you to bring me back to my original colour, it’s not a huge request! And this was because of you, so you’re responsible for it!” exclaimed Edward to explain the situation to the people around them.

Ye Lang stopped for a moment, then asked, “This IS your original state, didn’t you look like this?”

“Nope!” Edward immediately shook his head.

“Show me what tone you were last time, I’ll see what I can do,” Ye Lang was still a responsible doctor after all. Since there was an unsatisfied patient, it was time for him to fix the problem. But…

“And how will I do that?!” huffed Edward. There were no cameras on the mainland… But even if there were cameras, they wouldn’t be able to show his skin tone accurately.

Edward was only a little darker than before! It was nothing!

“Oh… Oh well, I can’t do much if you can’t show me what you looked like. How would I know you’re not lying?” Ye Lang shrugged then turned to leave.

“…”

Edward wanted to keep Ye Lang here, still concerned about this tiny problem. However, he didn’t have a good argument against Ye Lang’s shameless reason either.

He didn’t have enough evidence!

“Ye Lang…” he shouted again, thinking of using another method.

“Go away!! So what if you’re a little darker? Why would I take the time to fix your skin if I could use that time to save a few severely ill patients? I’ve never met a man like you!” scolded Ye Lang. He wasn’t even looking at Edward in the eye in the end.

To be fair, Edward was being unreasonable. He had been talking about this tiny problem of his for a while now. It was understandable in the past since he was about to meet his wife, but it was annoying that he was still talking about it now.

Also, he should have thanked Ye Lang for defeating his opponents. This was ungrateful of him.

Nevermind. After Ye Lang left that day, he never explained to anyone about Ye Lang’s situation either. Everyone still thought Ye Lang was there for the actual matchmaking.

It would have been understandable if he was just ‘deep in love’ especially when he and Kesha were still in the honeymoon phase. However, it had been a while and he still never remembered to explain. This was unacceptable.

In simple terms: while a person like this wouldn’t blatantly betray you, he’s still not worth keeping as a close friend!