The Silly Alchemist

“YOU think of questions. How could I possibly come up with more questions? This is all your doing, YOU solve it,” the emperor went back to his throne as he spoke to Ye Lang. 

“Me? Fine!” Ye Lang looked at the emperor, “is that all? Anything else?”

“No, but think carefully! Come up with questions suitable for them. You are authorized to make any decisions,” the emperor smiled.

“You made me come all the way for this? You could have just sent a messenger!”  Ye Lang nagged.

“Stupid, the emperor is giving you a chance at handling the emperor’s problems…” the seventh princess exclaimed angrily, knowing well that Ye Lang does not understand the complexity of the situation.

Allowing Ye Lang to come up with questions was, in a way, giving Ye Lang the task of choosing his future subordinates. This was a task of utmost importance, that was why he was summoned!

Once Ye Lang left to design problems for everyone, surely the prince and princesses and the ministers would treat him better, for they’d want to have more support from Ye Lang.

This meant that Ye Lang had just received a central location in this game of thrones, and he was a powerful kid now!

And for this, everyone was shocked at the emperor’s decision, no one thought that the emperor would give Ye Lang such a position. Could it be, that the emperor had plans of giving up his throne for the seventh princess?

The seventh princess was Ye Lang’s betrothed, and with Ye Lang having such power, it was obvious that he was giving the seventh princess an advantage.

In the eyes of everyone in the room, the seventh princess is not the prettiest nor the wisest. Allowing her to ascend the throne would cause a lot of doubts across the kingdom.

However, with support from the Ye family, as well as with Ye Lang’s abilities, this might just be possible.

Which is why, at this moment, the seventh princess and Ye Lang had just become everyone’s target. A sudden target no one had expected!

This kind of thinking only lasted for a while because everyone soon pushed away that thought.

All because Ye Lang...

“There’s no need to go back and think, I’ll just write a few questions, let the princes and the princesses solve it and write the answer down on a piece of paper,” Ye Lang was too lazy to go back and think, so he decided to finish the problem here.

Such a short amount of time was not enough for Ye Lang to come up with difficult questions, so he just thought of questions no average person could answer.

“Of course, there is a rule. For every question, you are to think of the answers on your own, write as much as you can. You are allowed to work together, but no one is allowed to talk! If there are no questions, we start in half an hour!”

Ye Lang took out his pen and paper and started to write questions down...

“So, what do you think?” Ye Lang asked his sister.

“…I can’t answer any of these…” Ye Lanyu’s face reddened.

“You’re so stupid, of course you can’t! I was talking about my calligraphy, doesn’t it look awesome? Ye Lang laughed.

“Go to hell, do you still want to live?! Talking to your sister like that! Your calligraphy IS pretty though, when did you learn to write like that? Ye Lanyu shoved Ye Lang and leaned in to read.

“Hehe, I’ve practised. There just hasn’t been enough opportunities for me to show it off,” Ye Lang laughed.

He practised while he was studying the martial arts treasury and hadn’t touched calligraphy since. He was still able write it elegantly nonetheless.

Even so, Ye Lang rarely showed off his calligraphy skills because he did not have much interest in it and did not have a lot of chance to do that either.

And because Ye Lang rarely wrote, his style of writing became something like an art piece many wanted to keep. It was valuable.

Especially now. His calligraphy was about to be a precious treasure of the century not only because of the rareness of it but because his questions were about to change the destiny of the kingdom…

“Alright everybody, gather around and take a good look at the questions!” instructed Ye Lang. The guards then hung his questions on the wall.

Everyone laid their eyes on the words. Hopelessness and nervousness began to show in their faces not because of Ye Lang’s elegant writing, but because of the questions.

Soon, everyone looked at Ye Lang. They stared as he and Ye Lanyu gossiped and drank tea.  All of them had a shocked expression on their faces.

This was because after looking at all of the questions, they realised could not answer most of the questions. Some could not even answer a single one.

However, when they saw the seventh princess’s confused face, they knew she couldn’t answer the questions as well and sighed with relief. At least they weren’t alone.

At least they knew, Ye Lang was not only tough on them but the seventh princess as well.

“Ye Lang…why are all of these questions so weird, do they have a proper answer?” At this moment, even the emperor had to ask.

“That’s right you brat, this isn’t the time for jokes! You should go back and think this through!” Ye Chengtian, the representative of the Ye family, exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, all of these questions have an answer, it’s just that average people are unable to answer them,” Ye Lang smiled.

“Are we really only average? Why can’t I answer even a single question?” the seventh princess gave up, lamenting with some frustration now. She was not as smart as the other princesses, but it was unbelievable to think that she could not answer even a single question.

“Am I really that stupid?” the seventh princess whispered to herself.

“This has nothing to do with stupidity, even the smartest people could not answer these questions. This is not a test of intelligence,” Ye Lang gave a small smile.

“??” the seventh princess didn’t understand. If these questions were not testing their intelligence, then what were they for?

“Why don’t you stop thinking and drink some tea with me?” Ye Lang invited the seventh princess, and she accepted the invite. She shook her head one last time at the questions, then started chatting with Ye Lang.

The two of them talked and laughed, with the seventh princess occasionally hitting him softly...

They did not care about anything else, for these little squabbles for power had nothing to do with the couple. All they needed was each other...