The Silly Alchemist

“Mr Ford, this is your number. Keep it with you.” A staff member handed a sign with the number to Ye Lang.

Unless they came often, customers were given temporary numbers. The Soaring Sky Empire was a place of high traffic, most people were visitors and did not stay long.

“9526? Interesting.” Ye Lang was stunned for a moment then kept his number.

A surge of familiar emotions came rushing as he stepped into the auction hall. The bustling atmosphere, the sounds of rich folks showing off all boosted his mood.

“It’s starting!” Ye Lang said excitedly as he looked for a seat.

“...”

As he sat down to watch the auction goods presented on stage. Suddenly, he felt an aura of violence... He turned... “FUCK!” Ye Lang leapt away in surprise but...

“Ahh...” Ye Lang flailed his arms and legs.

THUD!

His chair collapsed on the ground after his flailing, while Ye Lang fell on his ass, looking very pathetic.

“What’s the matter with you?” a cold, sharp voice came from a frigid girl next to him, surprised at his reaction.

She intended to intimidate him so he would leave but she didn’t imagine she’d scare him THIS much!

“Nothing, I think I saw a ghost!” Ye Lang composed himself. I don’t know her, why am I even afraid of her?

And because he was in disguise, he deliberately wiggled his ears and his tail...

“...” The frigid girl was silent. What are you wiggling your tail for? And did you just call me a ghost?

From his expression, it was as if he had been scared by something familiar... but there wasn’t anyone nearby... She didn’t think she looked THAT scary nor had she met him before.

Whatever, if he says he saw a ghost, he saw a ghost.

The frigid girl decided to ignore Ye Lang but he was doing something odd again... Ye Lang dragged his chair far away from her. Once he was sure they were a safe distance apart, he focused on the auction once again.

What is he doing? Could he be interested in me? That’s why he’s playing this weird game?

Hmmph, that would be very dumb if that was true!

The frigid girl looked at him in disgust, though she wasn’t sure if she knew this teenager from the fox tribe.

If only she knew this was Ye Lang, then she would’ve smacked him to teach him a lesson!

This girl knew him, though they were not close...

“Li Yue, be my wife!”

“Go away, you idiot!”

“...”

“Ye Lang, I’ll tell you one more time— I don’t like you and please stop being weird!”

“I like you, that’s my business... What has that got to do with you?”

“...”

...Yep, this frigid girl was Li Yue. Once upon a time, due to a misunderstanding at a consultation with a fortune teller, Ye Lang attempted to court Li Yue for years. However, he then suddenly decided to stop and since then they never met.

Ye Lang wasn’t intimidated by her, he was just too surprised to see this person after all these years.

Then again, it had been years and years. At least eight years! He could recognise her the moment they met because Li Yue had very unique eyes...

Li Yue’s pupils were different from regular humans, hers were silver!

This was also one of the reasons why Ye Lang had such a huge reaction. The hall was dim and seeing two silver eyes staring at you wasn’t the most pleasant experience.

Ye Lang decided to keep a safe distance from her just in case. He would be in deep trouble if she recognised him.

At the same time, Ye Lang realised the Tianji Armour he needed was well within his reach— Li Yue was wearing the suit of armour!

Looks like the Li clan had passed their family heirloom to her. He wondered why they didn’t give it to one of their elder grandsons instead, for example Li Yan, the guy who took Ye Lang’s Romantic Floor for himself.

Everyone who knew about this was puzzled too. It didn’t make sense. Perhaps she was merely in charge of it for the moment!

At this point, Ye Lang had no plans to take the Li family’s Tianji armour so he didn’t care. He didn’t make any attempts to take it from her.

In reality, he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Only the owner of the armour can take it off him or herself. Even Ye Lang’s best alchemy tactics would not be able to pry the armour off her without her consent.

This was why Ye Lang did not even consider the Li family’s Tianji armour as an option. Stealing was impossible, and if he showed up at their mansion asking to borrow it, it didn’t even matter if the Li family would want to help Ye Lang— the fact that he was currently a wanted criminal of the empire was enough for them to chase him out.

“Fuck, how could they auction that?”

After a couple of boring pieces, the auctioneer presented a very odd object, so odd even Ye Lang was puzzled.

It was a Guqin, a musical instrument Ye Lang had also once used. He’d placed it in the Romantic Floor as decoration. This Guqin was of great quality and had special alchemy formations on it, therefore it was valuable.

However, this was Ye Lang’s property. Why was it being auctioned off?

“This has once been used by someone we all know but we can’t name. We shall start with one thousand gold coins.” Ye Lang was surprised an instrument he played would be priced at a thousand gold coins.

This Guqin was worth only a hundred gold coins, yet its starting bid was a thousand here. That would mean its final bid would be higher!

Was he really THAT famous? Damn! Yay!

“One thousand!”