The Silly Alchemist

“Sir, m’lady…”

As soon as Ye Lang left the Miracle Square, a crowd of people was spotted along the sides. They were looking at him with a weird expression.

“Why… do you all look so perverted?” Ye Lang hesitantly took a step back, sticking close to Xuan Yuanbing for safety.

They started to sweat profusely, evidently nervous.

“Sir, that is not our intention… May we enter the garden? We just want to see how it’s like in there,” Feng Xing appeared out of nowhere, the guy sure seemed to be at every corner of the city. Was there nothing better to do?

“Go ahead! Just don’t ask me anything, go figure it out yourselves,” Ye Lang had no objections to his request, the garden was meant for the public anyway.

The curious alchemists couldn’t help but sigh as Ye Lang had refused to reveal anything about his peculiar formation.

When Ye Lang had laid the formation, his process and strokes were in plain sight. The boy had no intention to keep it a secret, believing that the fellow alchemists would’ve used the opportunity to record it. However, its complexity was a big problem.

Ye Lang was absolutely demotivated to explain the details, hence he decided they should learn on their own. That way, they’d be able to improve their skills!

Just like that, Ye Lang exited the premise while everyone else swarmed into Miracle Square.

They were in disbelieve as they approached the newly-formed garden…

The Miracle Square was indeed miraculous, a one of a kind masterpiece. It was breathtakingly beautiful, having everything placed at the right places and made of natural materials. Despite the garden being a joint effort of Ye Lang and Xuan Yuanbing, the structures didn’t seem man-made at all!

The overall theme of the garden was its tidiness. The design of the roof, pillars, walls and so on were uniform, everything was impeccably harmonious.

However, that wasn’t the most impressive part- the plants in the vicinity looked like they had been rooted here for decades.

How on earth did Ye Lang do that? Was this really a miracle?

“Eh? Where’s everyone? Where are all the alchemists?” Ye Lang had finally arrived at the arena, surprised at how empty it was/

“… Sir, that is a question you should ask yourself…” replied the person in charge helplessly.

Ye Lang returned a puzzled expression, “What does this have to do with me?”

“Sir, what were you doing before you came here?”

Ye Lang jogged through his memories: “Before coming here, I was eating…”

“…”

The seventh princess was exasperated, “Oh, come on! He meant that your formation earlier pulled everyone away from the arena, that’s why it’s empty…”

“Yeah, the seventh princess is right. All the alchemists including our panel of judges left to study your formation, there’s no one left for the competition!” confirmed the staff with a few nods.

“So there are no more battles today? I’ll just come back tomorrow then,” Ye Lang observed the venue, the contestants and spectators were painfully scarce, the competition obviously couldn’t go on for today.

“Yeah, no more battles today. You should go back and get some rest,” replied the staff with the utmost respect.

“Let’s go back! You should get more rest before your battle tomorrow!” Ye Lanyu pulled Ye Lang away to her quarters. The institute had arranged dorms for all its competing students.

“Where are you going? We should head this way!” Xuan Yuanbing grabbed Ye Lang’s other arm in the other direction, wanting to bring him to the Cloud Palace instead.

“No, it’s this way!” Ye Lanyu tugged.

“No! This way!” Xuan Yuanbing tugged.

“This way…”

“This way!”

Ye Lang was pulled back and forth like a poor ragdoll, thankfully the ordeal didn’t last long. The girls released his arm to glare at each other, forgetting about Ye Lang for a bit.

“He’s my brother so he’s coming with me!” jeered Ye Lanyu.

“Not fair! You’ve enjoyed years of his company and I’ve only had him for a day…” Xuan Yuanbing was not giving up.

“You had him every night, you don’t need more of his company!”

“Hey, those were dreams, not reality!”

“I don’t care! He’s coming with me no matter what!”

“You’re so barbaric! No wonder he’s afraid to be with you…”

“…”

The heated argument halted, the two girls quickly realized that they were left behind, Ye Lang was gone! The seventh princess and Zhen Xiaoyan were gone too!

“This is all your fault!” the two pointed fingers at one another before storming off to find him. With Xuan Yuanbing here, it wasn’t a problem to locate the boy as long as he was within a certain radius.

A slight rewind to a few minutes prior, Ye Lang yawned, bored out of his mind as he watched the two girls argue. He looked to Zhen Xiaoyan, “Fatty, we should go!”

“Oh, sure…” Zhen Xiaoyan slow blinked, turning to look at the girls. They probably won’t be done soon, she thought. Xiaoyan then left with Ye Lang obediently.

Of course, the seventh princess chose to leave with Ye Lang. There was no way in hell the princess wanted to remind Ye Lanyu, the princess was delighted to have his sister away from him. The seventh princess could finally enjoy some alone time with Ye LAng!

Albeit so, Zhen Xiaoyan was still there. Thankfully, the girl’s meek personality made her presence mild so the seventh princess could still have Ye Lang all to herself.

Ye Lanyu looked around. Aside from her and Xuan Yuanbing, there were two Light Riders watching from aside. They were merely there as guards, the two ladies had not bothered to notify them as they were not to be involved in the Lady’s affairs.

Xuan Yuanbing strode in a direction, following her hunch that Ye Lang was near. Ye Lanyu quickly followed suit.

Jealousy throbbed in Ye Lanyu’s heart, she envied the bond Xuan Yuanbing shared with Ye Lang. The fact that the Lady could sense Ye Lang’s location by mere hunch and their empathy towards each other’s feelings was a huge punch in the gut too.

But soon, the girl was able to find a little leverage-

“Where are they?”

After trailing behind Xuan Yuanbing for a while, the Lady had started to seem lost, not knowing where to go next.

“I… don’t know…” Xuan Yuanbing went silent, she looked helpless.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Weren’t you two able to sense where you both were?” Ye Lanyu was taken aback. Didn’t Ye Lang have this ‘feeling’ too? They were very sensitive to each other’s movements too.

“We can but that ability is confined to a certain distance. The further the distance, the weaker the feeling and if we’re too far apart, the feeling disappears…” said Xuan Yuanbing dejectedly.