The Silly Alchemist

I am Ye Lang. I’m a very ordinary member of society, I have a very ordinary family and I live a very ordinary life. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll marry a very ordinary, easy-going woman as my wife. The second part is especially important. My girl should be easily contented, she shouldn’t always pine for this or that. Of course, then I will sometimes splurge to give her a surprise.

Then, I’ll continue to live an ordinary man’s life. We’ll have a child, then raise the child to be someone significant. We’ll be like everyone else, we’ll want our child to succeed in life.

Perhaps I’ll have one or two significant events in this lifetime of mine but in general, I am a regular person. My entire life will be ordinary.

I think living my life like this isn’t too bad. Perhaps that’s because I’m ordinary. However, something very surprising happened to me, this very ordinary man, something my ordinary little heart couldn’t take.

That day, I suddenly felt like donating some blood but they tested something wrong with me. I then went to the hospital for a checkup. I can never describe what I felt when I read the medical report- perhaps because my mind went blank.

I can’t remember what the disease was called, but its medical term was very long. It was a very rare disease, less than a thousand people have this in the world. This was definitely not a disease an ordinary man like me was supposed to contract. I should have gotten some small thing like catch a cold or a fever.

God, you think too highly of me.

This disease isn’t always fatal, and if symptoms didn’t show, you’d look exactly like anyone else. However, once the symptoms show, then your life would be in danger. Due to its rarity, the treatment for this is rare too and the medical bills aren’t something a regular person can pay.

Let’s not talk about that. Will my parents be able to bear this news?

Therefore, I made a decision. I spent a little time on a makeover so people would feel like I have an easy-going, happy-go-lucky heart. My name has the word ‘Lang’ in it, so I’ll live up to it.

[Lang = to waste time, do nothing etc.]

At that moment, I thought how beautiful it would be to be able to explore the world within a lifetime.

But three years ago, I think it was three years- I’m not sure-, I had another sudden mood to hike alone in the desolate mountains. Just me with my tools.

Unfortunately, but also, fortunately, I lost my footing and fell off a cliff.

Losing my footing was the unfortunate part. The fortunate part was that there was a lake, coincidentally, at the bottom of the cliff. The next part is unfortunate though, it was a valley. A valley without an exit.

Similarly, there was another silver lining. There was a martial arts treasury. That’s right. You didn’t read wrong, and I didn’t make a mistake. It was a martial arts treasury.

This treasury had everything. Not just secret martial art, it had other stuff like medical texts, weaponry scriptures, Qimen Dunjia etc. It had everything you’d think of from wuxia novels.

Also, I feel like the person who left this treasury behind must be a very outstanding educator for no matter the martial arts or other scriptures, the person kept very detailed references. Each contained detailed explanations of each technique.

Even a person like me, a person who’d never known anything about martial arts or Chinese medicine gradually started to practice the arts. I even began to gain a deeper understanding, then mastering each technique. There weren’t any obstacles to my learning then.

Of course, in the beginning, I didn’t think any of this was real. I thought it might’ve been someone’s joke. I was a patient with a terminal illness after all, so I was quite desperate. Perhaps I’d be able to cure myself. Therefore, I practised my Qigong, learned some acupuncture etc.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I fully immersed myself in cultivation. I don’t know how much time I’d spent on it. I don’t know how many years later did I finally learn half of what was in there.

Yeah, I’m just an ordinary person. Naturally, I won’t learn anything I don’t have an interest in. I only learned techniques that looked impressive so when I left the place I could show off.

Sigh, if it weren’t for that asteroid. The asteroid that suddenly appeared in the sky, the asteroid that hit me. If it weren’t for that, I would have lived such a beautiful life. I’d have all the money in the world, I’d get girls anywhere-basically anything and everything I wanted.

Did I recover? I’m not too sure about this either. I didn’t check at the hospital. I didn’t die that few years and based on my own pulse, I was a strong, healthy man.

That’s all for my last words.

Alas, I want to add: Brother, take care of our parents, our uncles and aunts and grandparents and brother. I’ll be leaving for another world.

One more thing, I wanna say that if the heavens let me come back just one more time, I won’t be shouting to the heavens like that Wang Chongyang, declaring myself ‘having no equal on this earth.’ I freaking jinxed it. Just after leaving his closed-door cultivation, Wang Chong Yang died after getting hit in the head by a shoe. Well, at least his corpse was in one piece. Instead of becoming ‘the one with no equal under the heavens’, I was pounded to pulp by some random asteroid.

Alright, that’s what I, Ye Lang, a person who was supposed to no longer be ordinary, but rather very cool, but still end up ordinary, want to write for my last words.

One more last, last, thing. I want to tell you about my wish. Yeah, a wish I have for my next lifetime. I’ve been ordinary all this lifetime. Next lifetime, I want to be born to a powerful, influential and filthy rich family.

I want to squander money, I want to be a prodigal son!!

…

In the capital of the empire, in an area where all the aristocrats lived was a massive, luxurious mansion. It was the biggest mansion in terms of land size in this region, this capital city, this empire, maybe even this entire mainland.

Most of the palaces of various kingdoms might not even be as spacious as this mansion, not as luxurious. If it weren’t in the Soaring Sky Empire’s capital city, if it weren’t in this aristocratic region, people would’ve suspected it to be a palace. Although it didn’t have the architectural style of one, people would still have their suspicions.

This was because the Soaring Sky Empire’s palace was also massive, also uniquely magnificent. The most powerful and influential of the kingdom had many massive mansions too so this made this particular mansion slightly not as eye-catching. Only slightly.

We should now introduce to you this mansion’s name. It had an oddly regular name- the Ye Residence.

And that was why there weren’t any impressive, cool names in the area. Not even something a little grander like ‘Magnificent Mansion’ -- how embarrassing would it be to call your house that, when it’s next to the Ye Residence?

From its name, you can tell that it belongs to the Ye family. To have such a huge ancestral home, this family must obviously be huge.

On the mainland, as long as you mention someone with the Ye family name, everyone would think of the Soaring Sky Empire’s Ye family. For a thousand years, they’d been known as the most prestigious ancestral line of the East. 

On this very day, there was a newcomer in the Ye family again. Why ‘again’? That’s simple, that’s because the Ye family had a new member almost every month.

The Ye family truly lived up to their reputation as the best. Not only were they the most well-off in terms of money and power, but they were also the largest in numbers. After a few thousand years, there were already tens of thousands of names in the family ancestral book. And this was just the living, not including the ones who’d passed away.

Perhaps this was why the Ye Residences had to be so big. This was only the ancestral home though. If everyone stayed in there, even the Soaring Sky Empire’s palace grounds wouldn’t be enough for them.

However, this new member was peculiar. Something caught people’s attention. He was the Ye patriarch’s grandson. And also one of the potential heir to the ancestral seat’s son. He might be the next patriarch after this father.

As for why everyone used the word ‘son’ instead of 'daughter' even before the birth, there would soon be an answer.

‘Dad, don’t you think your grandchild’s entrance is a little too extravagant? The birth hasn’t even happened yet and look at the beautiful rays in the sky. It’s like a deity just descended from the heavens.’