the silly alchemist
I will be online on the alchemist Discord channel at 8th Nov 2020, 1am GMT 8+ (or 1pm -7th Nov- New York Time I think?) to celebrate the end of The Silly Alchemist. Come say hi! I love talking to you guys.
Finale chapter will be released at 12 am, which is one hour before the discord hangout session. See ya!
“So that’s why Her Majesty insisted on locking you up. You’re the largest variable in this world!” sighed Sha Lan.
“If you want to talk about variable, Zhao Yarou’s the one. She’s always changing her mind…” said Ye Lang.
“You troublemaker, that’s just a person who changes her mind. That’s a thing women do, that’s not considered a ‘variable’.”
“Is there a difference? I think it’s all the same?” answered Ye Lang cluelessly.
Ye Lang was still as confused as before. No one knew how Ye Lang spent his ten years. But this was great too. He remained the same guy everyone loved.
“Yarou, come here so I can take a good look at you!” said the Soaring Sky Emperor calmly. No one knew what he intended. Was he just a father who wanted to see his daughter, or was there something else?
“It’s fine, you can see me from there. You want me to help you conquer the world but that’s not going to happen. We don’t need to talk about it,” said Zhao Yarou honestly. “It’s true I wanted to conquer the world but that was when I was the empress, I don’t want to help another person conquer the world. When I help others, all they do is say I’m useless…”
“…”
Did someone call her useless? Was it because Ye Lang called her useless many years ago, leading up to her conquering the world to prove that she wasn’t useless?
If that was true, that meant the chaos of this world right now was all to prove her worth to Ye Lang. The mess we’re in is all because of Ye Lang’s idiotic nonsense?!
“No matter what, it must be related to you. You little troublemaker, something you said when you were a child led to the mess in this world today. Only you two crazy troublemakers could wreak such havoc.” Princess Longji felt a headache coming. She was unable to even scold Zhao Yarou at this point, as the culprit was still Ye Lang.
Princess Longji was right. Nothing of this scale had ever happened before, the entire world erupting in war over a few sentences between two people.
Perhaps it was just one of the reasons, the earliest one. The escalation of the situation had many contributing factors, the Soaring Sky Emperor was one of them.
“Eh? Your Majesty, why aren’t you dead?!” Ye Lang finally noticed the emperor, though his response was a little too late.
“…”
“If you aren’t dead, wouldn’t that mean Zhao Yarou didn’t actually kill her own father?” Ye Lang looked at Zhao Yarou as if this was great news.
“Brother-in-law, do you think I’m such a bad person? I’m just a weak and gentle little girl…”
“Go away, who are you tricking? Everyone knows you’re insane! Wait, Zhao Yarou, you knew all the answers to my test questions, right?” Ye Lang suddenly remembered the psychology test he gave out years ago.
“I did. When you wanted to shake me off, you asked me to answer them. I couldn’t, so you told me to go play by myself…” said Zhao Yarou.
“Did that happen? That’s odd. It should be impossible to get all the questions right, even a psychopath shouldn’t be completely psychotic,” said Ye Lang.
“If you knew about this, why did you still answer the questions?” asked the seventh princess. Wouldn’t that just make other people think you’re crazy?
“Because I really could answer some of the questions. Since Ye Lang had already called me crazy and didn’t want to play with me, I decided to might as well go full-on crazy. Also, I think you all thought it was normal for me to have such a response. You wouldn’t think I was faking anything on purpose,” said Zhao Yarou mildly.
“..”
This woman was terrifying!
“So you’ve planned on taking the throne for a long time, it wasn’t a recent plan at all. That was why you were so prepared. But I still don’t understand one thing– when did you start preparing?”
“When I was about seven or eight. It was more convenient planning it as a young child…” said Zhao Yarou.
That was horrifying!
Even without that psychology test, everyone could tell she was a psychotic woman!
“Alright, let’s stop talking. We need to run immediately!” said Ye Lang.
“Why?” Everyone was confused.
“Because the emperor just ran. If he’s retreating so quickly, I think we’re in grave danger.” Ye Lang pointed at the retreating emperor.
“Little Ye Lang, why did you choose to be smart now? But you’re all finished anyway! I do not need to capture you. I just need to kill you all and nothing shall stop me from conquering the world!” The Soaring Sky Emperor was now very, very far away. He was about to leave the ancient ruins.
He was telling the scary truth. This was a congregation of the most powerful people in the world, including Ye Lang and Zhao Yarou.
If these people left this place today, Soaring Sky would lose the war. If these people died here, all of Soaring Sky’s opponents would be greatly weakened.
“Run!” Ye Lang immediately started sprinting.
“Hey, hey! Ye Lang, what can he do anyway? Keep in mind we’re all very powerful people,” yelled Ye Lanyu, running after him.
“You stupid! What’s the use of being powerful? We still cannot withstand physical damage. He just needs to collapse this entire structure and bury us in here! How will we survive that? Even if a portion of us survive, we will still suffer major losses!” said Ye Lang.
“He’s going to blow up the place? Don’t we have Little Xin? She can control his alchemy bombs.”
“Little Xin only controls things with alchemy formations, some types of alchemy do not require formations. They’re purely chemical reactions! Nothing can stop those!” huffed Ye Lang, irritated.
Little Xin could control some items but she was not the ultimate remote control. If she could, then she would not be ‘Little Xin’ but a god.
“Then…”
“Shut up and just run!” interjected Zhao Yarou.
“…”
As they ran, before all of the Soaring Sky people could escape, there was an explosion at the entrance of the ancient ruins.
“Boom!”
“Aaah! Zhao Yarou, your father’s insane! He’s going to kill his own subordinates too, and there are so many people here!” yelled Ye Lang. He didn’t expect the emperor to be this direct.
“…”
Everyone clearly understood the thinking of the emperor now. His change in personality upon receiving power was terrible indeed.
“Your Majesty…” The Soaring Sky subordinates who hadn’t reached the entrance stood stunned. They were the lucky ones. The ones who were nearest to the entrance would never have the chance to gawk at anything ever again.
Reality could be so cruel sometimes!
“Are you talking to me? I’m not ‘Your Majesty’ anymore,” said Zhao Yarou with a grin.
“Stop looking, that exit’s useless now. Are there any more exits?” The young war strategist had also been abandoned.
“Nope, there’s only one here!” said Ye Lang. He looked at the young man. “Why… do you look so familiar…”
“…” The strategist was silent and then shook his head. “You, how could you… One day, my name will travel across the lands, I will be the best…”
“Ah, I know! You’re that… that… that…” Ye Lang pointed at him but still could not remember his name. He did remember the man though.
“My name is Chu Jiu! This is the three-hundred-and-seventy-ninth time I’ve told you! I’m not telling you next time,” said the strategist, Chu Kiu. It was obvious he had said this at least three-hundred-and-seventy-eight times. He always said he wasn’t going to tell his name again, but did anyway.
This Chu Jiu was the young man Ye Lang often met at the library. Like Sha Lan, all three were frequent visitors of the library and often ran into each other.
“Oh! Right, right! Chu Jiu! Why are you here?” asked Ye Lang.
“I’m now the number one strategist in Soaring Sky…” said Chu Jiu proudly. He had already achieved his goal of many years.
“Oh, then how are you related to this place?” Ye Lang did not really care.
“Because I helped His Majesty with his plan to kill you all, but in the end…” Chu Jiu shrugged. He was quite nonchalant about the whole situation, given he was about to die.
“So this is your plan! Everyone, go beat him up!” roared Ye Lang, pointing at Chu Jiu.
“…” Chu Jiu was silent, shocked. If these people beat him up, was he going to survive?
“Cough, cough. I’m just a strategist, I just make plans. Everything else is none of my business. Everyone, calm down, we need a way to escape or His Majesty will blow up the place with gunpowder.
Gunpowder! That was just a chemical reaction, they wouldn’t be able to control it!
“Yeah, Ye Lang, think of something! Don’t just stand there!
Everyone started to hurry him, he was the one who could think of a plan. If he had no ideas, then all they could do was await death.
“Oh, there is a way to leave,” said Ye Lang flatly.
“What is it? Hurry up, I’m dying here!”
“Go back to the place we came out from…” Ye Lang ran back to the empty space where everyone had gathered.
“Ye Lang, what are you doing? Unless you want to send everyone into prison?” asked Li Yue. She had been here for ten years, she was the most familiar with this place. She knew there was only one entrance and exit.
If they did not want to die, they could actually hide in the Tiangongyue prison. Although they would be locked inside, at least they wouldn’t die.
“Do you all want to go there? It’s not a place where regular people can survive. Zhao Yarou and I could, but I can’t say the same for you all,” said Ye Lang.
“…We don’t want to go then! Tell us, do you have another way?” Li Yue understood upon hearing him that he must have another idea.
“Of course! Do you know why this place can send us to the prison cells? Because this is a teleportation alchemy formation. Its destination setting was just set to one place. All we need to do is change the destination and…” Ye Lang started to talk about technical procedures and only a few people understood him.
“Enough, enough! Just tell us what’s the use of that.” Li Yue’s face darkened, she wanted to punch him. How dare he talk so much during a moment like this?!
Ye Lang continued, “We can change the coordinates so that it’ll transport you all to somewhere nearby. Because we don’t have another teleportation formation outside and there are so many of us, we can only teleport a very short distance! Li Yue, tell us the direction and distance of the safest spot outside!”
“The best place should be three kilometers northeast of this place. Is that alright?” asked Li Yue.
“Should be fine! I’ll get Little Zero to wait for us at that spot. All of you, stand in the circle in front.” As he spoke, he also contacted Little Zero through Little Xin so Little Zero would head northeast.
“Let’s begin!”
When everyone went up, Ye Lang started to transport them by the batches. It probably required some time. But this should be faster than the emperor’s people collecting enough explosives.
“It’s all up to you now, sweetie!” Ye Lang carried the baby over, then pointed the markings on her forehead at an item. The formation had to be activated by the Tiangongyue’s special markings.
The baby did not understand anything, just waving her limbs happily. She seemed excited he was carrying her.
She cooed and yelled, “Papa… Papa…”
“Hey, call me Brother, don’t call me Papa, I’m not that old.” Ye Lang was very annoyed.
“Papa…” The baby slapped her hand across his face. Although it wasn’t a strong slap, everyone heard it loud and clear. It sounded painful. Also very odd.
“…”
At the same time, he had already activated the teleportation formation. The crowd disappeared in batches.
“Ye Lang, aren’t you coming with?”
“You all first. Zhao Yarou and I will go last. I need to stay here to work this thing,” said Ye Lang. At that point, he just mentioned Zhao Yarou out of habit. She could’ve left first but it was just a habit after ten years.
No one thought about it, it was all the same. Still, some volunteered to stay with him.
“Tigress, Fatty, hurry. Zhao Yarou, You go too. It’s the last batch!” Very soon, they were the only ones left.
“No, I want to be with you!” said Zhao Yarou. Everyone else paused.
“Why? I’ll go later, why do you want to go with me?” Ye Lang asked, puzzled.
“I’m worried you won’t have a way to come out after you send us out!” said Zhao Yarou. “I know about this formation, a person must stay behind to activate it.”
“Is that true? Master?” asked Tigress immediately.
“It is true…” said Ye Lang.
“Then I will stay with you!” said Tigress immediately. The few girls too.
“Ugh, what are you trying to do? I said I will go later! When have I ever lied?! Although someone needs to control this thing, there’s a lag! And that window is enough to send me over! Do you understand?” huffed Ye Lang without a hint of gratitude.
“Zhao Yarou, how could you forget? Didn’t you run inside ten years ago too? And that was after you activated it, no?”
“Hehe, I forgot. Sweetie, come to Mama first. Papa needs to travel fast later.” Zhao Yarou smiled and then reached to grab the baby. But the baby clung to Ye Lang and refused to let go.
“…Hmmph, all you do is cling to Papa…” Zhao Yarou understood she wasn’t going to get the baby off him. After they removed the seal on the baby, Ye Lang was the first person she saw. And Ye Lang was the person she liked most.
“It’s fine, she can follow me. I can still run with her,” shrugged Ye Lang.
“Alright!” Zhao Yarou nodded and went into the circle with the rest. It was a little crowded inside. When she noticed that the rest of the circles were empty, she ran over and gestured for Ye Lang to head to her circle later.
This formation wasn’t one circle but many small circles. They were all entrances to prison cells. Ye Lang had adjusted all their settings so they could be activated at the same time.
At this moment, Ye Lang did not notice Zhao Yarou leaving to another circle. Naturally, he did not see Zhao Yarou gesturing for him to get in with her.
“Alright, the teleportation begins!”
After activating it, he ran to the nearest circle. He didn’t care who was inside. It was just a split-second decision.
Zaho Yarou did not hold any grudges as she understood why he did that.
Then, space contorted and everyone felt weightless for a second. In the next moment, they felt gravity once more and their surroundings had changed completely.
“Ye Lang, be careful!”
“??”
“Haha, do you all really think you can run from me? You all still fell into my trap in the end!”
Ye Lang looked around and they were completely surrounded by people from Soaring Sky. This wasn’t a safe location at all, more like a tiger’s jaws!
But Ye Lang did not really care.
“It must be because Little Zero was stupid enough to let them follow her!” Ye Lang pointed at the flying boat in the sky, putting the blame on her.
“…” Little Zero felt wronged. She wasn’t stupid, he was! Ye Lang was the one who gave the instruction for her to come to this spot. Wasn’t that a public announcement that everyone should pay attention to this place?
They thought Soaring Sky wouldn’t be able to react in time either but unfortunately, they were coincidentally heading in this direction too. Li Yue had forgotten that they also had to look for a safe spot to retreat to if they were going to blow up the ruins.
“Master, what do we do? Do we kill our way out?” said Tigress, clenching her teeth at the Soaring Sky Emperor.
“What’s the use of killing so many people? We just need to get on the flying boat. We don’t have many people here,” said Ye Lang. “Tigress, since when did you become so violent?”
“I’ve been at war a little too much, perhaps I became a little violent from that! I’ll be aware of it from now on!” said Tigress after cocking her head to a side to think.
“Get on the flying boat! Little Zero, activate the defense mechanisms, activate the recognition systems and land the boat!”
“Why descend? Ye Lang, won’t it make it easier for other people to shoot the boat?” Ye Lanyu and the rest thought it was safest for the boat to be high up in the air. If it descended, it would enter their range of attack.
“Don’t worry, they can’t break our defense systems. I spent too much time on it. If they still don’t get the hint, we can retaliate too,” said Ye Lang.
“But what if they get on the boat?” asked Ye Lanyu.
“They can’t, we’re the only ones that can enter,” said Ye Lang with a grin.
“??” Everyone was confused.
“Just wait and see!” Ye Lang smiled as he carried the baby. The baby shrieked happily as she pointed at the sky.
No one paid attention to her, they were busy digesting his words.
They soon understood. It was a very strange thing…
When the flying boat landed, Ye Lang’s camp entered very smoothly. They scrambled inside quickly, afraid Soaring Sky would catch up. Starting a battle now would be very inconvenient and put them at a disadvantage.
But just as everyone prepared to fight to their deaths, they realised no one from the other camp could get on the boat. Or more specifically, they could not approach the boat.
There was a recognition system. Anyone who did not pass the recognition test would not pass the defense system. They cannot get near the boat.
Ye Lang did not explain its mechanism in detail, filtering out a lot of information.
“Leaving already?” said the emperor. He felt fear the moment he witnessed Ye Lang’s magical abilities. If Ye Lang successfully left this place, he was going to lose the war.
What choice did he have? In terms of military power, the other side was more powerful. In terms of technology, the other side was possibly more advanced with Ye Lang there too.
“You think we’d wait for you to send us off?” said Ye Lang.
“Aren’t you missing someone?” asked the emperor.
Last two chapters will be uploaded tomorrow, usual time!