The Silly Alchemist

Times flies. Five years passed in the blink of an eye.

It was a sunny afternoon. Pedestrians walked their different walks along the calm little street.

It looked very normal, but everything changed once they heard a sound. Eyes sparkling, the crowd started to come to life.

“The thirteenth prince is coming! He’s squandering money at the Smiling Pavilion! There are limited seats, best hurry up if you want to go!”

“Ah, the thirteenth price is coming to be prodigal again.”

“ The Smiling Pavilion! I’ve never been to such an expensive place.”

“Haha! I’m going to eat and drink something good today!”

“……”

All of a sudden, everyone on the street dropped everything to run towards the most luxurious restaurant on the street——The Smiling Pavilion, cheering as they entered.

At the same time, they were aware that although Ye family’s thirteenth prince was a prodigal person, he wouldn’t be prodigal on purpose for others. He wouldn’t specially request for more seats if you didn’t get one.

Therefore, anyone who wanted to enjoy free lunch had to fight for a seat. They were all probably running the fastest they’d ever run in their lives now, desperately hoping they’d grow two more legs.

The entire imperial capital knew about Ye Lang being prodigal for the sake of being prodigal, yet the Ye family never restricted his spendings, allowing him to squander money as he wished.

Someone roughly estimated he’d squandered almost a million gold coins in the past few years. This was sufficient for a family to be wealthy for several generations! Only the Ye family had the financial ability to allow him to squander this much money.

Why were they so calm about his spending habits? Was it just because he was special? Everyone was curious, but as time passed, people slowly got used to it and forgot to look into this matter.  

“Sorry, we don’t have any tables left.” Even the ones who ran to enter quickly were blocked by the restaurant staff in the end. It wasn’t like they didn’t want to earn more money, there were no seats left! They had no choice.

“Aargh! Why can't you make this place bigger? The seats run out so quickly!” they shouted, dissatisfied.

Buddy, our place WAS big enough. We’re the largest among all the restaurants in the imperial capital! It’s just that, even if the restaurant were much bigger, the seats still wouldn’t be enough for everyone. We’re not a city square!

In the restaurant, at the seat next to the second floor's staircase, was a young little aristocrat and an adorable tiger girl. You could enjoy the view of the entire restaurant from here.

“Tigress, what are they doing?” asked the little aristocrat quizzically as he watched the lively scene, holding the menu.

“Hmmph, they’re here to take advantage of you! Master, do you really have to be prodigal?” asked Tigress helplessly. She’d asked him countless times, yet his answer was always the same.

“No, my job is to be a prodigal son. I want to squander money. I want to be prodigal,” declared the little prince solemnly. This was probably the most serious sentence he’d ever said in his life.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Tigress shook her head, thinking of a way to reduce her young master prodigal habits. If she couldn’t stop him, she could at least reduce his squandering a little.

Tigress had been by his side these past years to control his lavish habits. If she weren’t there, perhaps the spending would’ve been many times more.

“Let’s order! Waiter, give me a bowl of fishball thick noodles,” ordered the little aristocrat very directly. It was his favourite type of noodles, also something the little tiger girl cooked for him often.

It seemed like she liked fish a lot, perhaps because she was related to the feline race.

The waiter fell silent, then said, “We don’t have thick noodles.”

This was a place of luxury, they had very few ‘commoner’ food. The waiter didn’t seem to want him to order this anyway, they’d make much lesser money that way.

He had the support of the boss too. The boss wanted to milk this Ye family’s fat goat as much as he could. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t have expected that their greedy ideas would have consequences later…

Of course, one of the reasons was also because they thought they shouldn’t serve him such ‘lowly’ types of food in an upper-class restaurant.

The little prince read the menu, then said, “Oh, a bowl of fishball hefen noodles then.”

[Note: hefen noodles are a type of wide, flat noodles]

The waiter fell silent once again, then said, “We don’t have fishballs.”

“Oh, then beef thick noodles.”

“... We don’t have thick noodles.”

“Then I want fishball noodles.”

“...We don’t have fishballs.”

“Why do you have nothing here? And they said this was some top-notch place… Then I want cuttlefish thick noodles.”

Everyone was frustrated by now. How could you say that? That’s your problem! This thirteenth prince was as problematic as they’d heard.

“We don’t have thick noodles!!” The waiter was about to cry now.

“Again? Then I want fishball rice noodles.”

“No fishballs!!” Kill me, please.

The tiger girl couldn’t take it any longer, “Master, they don’t have thick noodles and fishballs. So you can’t order any combination with thick noodles or fishballs.”

“Oh, no combinations… Then I’d like only fishballs.”

Oof. Everyone fainted.

“No fishballs!!”

“Thick noodles?”

The waiter jumped from the second floor. He wasn’t moving now.

“What happened to him? The stairs are over there, not here,” he asked very slowly, staring at the waiter on the ground.

“Master…” The tiger shook her head with an exhausted smile.

“Tigress, there’s nothing here. Let’s go somewhere else. We won’t go to places like this anymore,” Ye Lang stood up, left a little money for the tea then proceeded downstairs.

This tea money was still way too much to the little tiger girl. She quickly exchanged the gold coin on the table for a copper- this was something she had to do very often.

“?? He’s leaving?”

Everyone stared in stunned silence as the little prince walked downstairs to leave. If he leaves, will that mean we have to pay for our meals?

“Thirteenth master…” Someone hinted a little reminder, hoping he’d leave something (or money) behind.

“Have a great meal, you don’t have to see me off,” said the little prince very politely.

“Master, let’s go.” After witnessing what just happened, the little tiger girl quickly led the little prince away. She knew what these people wanted, and also knew her master was a little slow. He’d never take the hint, that they wanted him to pay their bills.