Chapter 773 (1/2)

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.

To be honest, Ye Lang had long forgotten about all the evil deeds Zhao Yarou had once done. Now, he just thought she was a great sister-in-law. Her company wasn’t a bad thing at all.

During these three years, she had completely abandoned her empress facade and learned how to care for him- although it was all very chaotic in the beginning. She had made so many hilarious mistakes that Ye Lang didn’t know to laugh or cry.

But they both had lots of warm and happy memories!

Zhao Yarou had always been a resilient person. She would never give up on something she thought she could do. Ye Lang had no doubt on this because she had proven this again and again.

Just like that, Zhao Yarou slowly picked up many skills. She became talented in sewing, food and housekeeping. With her psychotic personality and absurd talent, he had to admit that nothing could stop her.

In terms of culinary skills, Zhao Yarou had learned from Ye Lang, read the resources in the book tower and tested on her own. Very soon, she had won his stomach over and his view of her improved by the day.

At this point, Zhao Yarou truly understood that winning a man’s heart was easy. You could just start with winning his stomach over, at least this was the case with Ye Lang.

As long as you made good food for him, he seemed to treat you better. She also understood why he liked Zhen Xiaoyan so much.

It wasn’t because of her sweet personality, it was also because of her cooking.

She also asked him about her cooking compared to Zhen Xiaoyan’s but received a very frustrating answer that never changed.

Ye Lang’s answer was forever this--- Fatty’s food is the best but yours is great too!

Due to natural talent, no matter how hard she worked, she would never be able to exceed Zhen Xiaoyan. Zhen Xiaoyan didn’t just have a natural talent, she worked hard too.

This meant that while Zhao Yarou worked hard, Zhen Xiaoyan worked hard too. Since Zhen Xiaoyan was born with more talent in this area, Zhao Yarou would never be able to overtake her.

However, Zhao Yarou still should work on improving herself. Ye Lang said the only way to exceed someone else is to first exceed yourself!

Zhao Yarou was just a little frustrated. She knew that everyone had their own strengths. Although her cooking wasn’t as good, she had other strengths.

Many people would’ve taken her spot, they just never had the chance!

“What are you laughing at? That’s rude! I was just thinking about an important problem, now I’ve lost the train of thought…” huffed Ye Lang.

“Stop thinking, let’s eat first! You have time anyway. After eating, we have to go plant vegetables in the garden. We’re running out of vegetables soon,” said Zhao Yarou, pulling him away.

“We are? Alright.” After that, he followed her out. Just as she said, they had a lot of time left. Only three years had passed, they had seven more years.

He could take his time with research but not with food. They understood this well!

They could not use space items in here. If they wanted to eat, they either had to farm it or take it from the storage.

Initially, the kitchen’s storage had huge amounts of food stored. At that point, they both never really paid attention to the stocks so all they did was eat. Both of them had lived their entire lives with everything cared for so naturally, they did not understand this concept.

Even worse, Zhao Yarou was the one in charge of cooking here. As an empress, she never had to do this. In the beginning, she had many failed cooking endeavours and those wasted lots of food.

In the end, they realised a serious problem-- they had run out of food!

Ye Lang had to cultivate the Satiation Technique and make Satiation Pills for Zhao Yarou, then plant vegetables immediately. They planted a kind that grew the fastest. Thank goodness the seed store here was very well organised. After a week, they survived on vegetables as they waited for other crops to ripen.

They couldn’t just plant one type of fast-growing vegetable, they planted many crops. They weren’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Initially, Zhao Yarou was very interested in Ye Lang’s satiation cultivation. Also, she thought he was lying to her so she could have the satiation pills instead of him. She was very emotional and touched by this.

Of course, even after knowing that Ye Lang’s cultivation was effective, she was still very touched!

Ye Lang’s Satiation Technique was not related to any magical essence, plus his Internal Work (neigong) cultivation had attained a very high level. With just some training, he could remain satiated for a long time. If he were a beginner like Zhao Yarou, the effects wouldn’t last as long.

Zhao Yarou wanted to learn but he did not teach. This was because he would have to first teach her an entire system of knowledge about Internal Work. This wasn’t something Ye Lang intended to pass to anyone, not even Ye Lanyu and the rest so definitely not Zhao Yarou either.

Zhao Yarou could only clench her teeth, she didn’t say much about it either.

Ye Lang had been cultivating his Internal Work all along. After arriving here, he cultivated even more. This environment did not affect cultivation of Internal Work and martial arts.

Plus this place was like a forced retreat environment, hence his Internal Work started to improve quickly.

Ye Lang sensed that he was soon approaching a bottleneck and it was time for a proper retreat. This retreat was probably going to be a long time too, perhaps one and a half years.

Under such circumstances, he should have immediately gone into retreat but because he was interested in studying this space and alchemy, he did not put cultivation as his priority.

That was why Ye Lang still hadn’t gone into retreat, instead spending his days studying the alchemy resources left behind by the Tiangongyue tribe!

But no matter how much he put it off, what must come, will come…

One day, Ye lang felt like it was time for him to cultivate until he reached a breakthrough. If he did not go into retreat, it would affect his physical state and capabilities.

“Zhao Yarou!” Ye Lang looked at her as she cleaned up after their meal.

“What’s the matter, brother-in-law? Are you still hungry?” she asked gently. At this point, she was as gentle as her name was.

[Note: ‘柔 rou’ in Yarou means gentle/soft]

“No, I’m full! I need to talk to you about something. I might be in retreat for a while. During this period, you’ve got to take care of yourself,” instructed Ye Lang as if he was talking to a younger sister.

Although he wouldn’t admit it, after all this time, he already saw her as his own younger sister. The seventh princess’ younger sister was also his younger sister.

Before this, he just didn’t like her because of her actions. Right now, at least in here, he finally recognised her as family.

“Retreat? What do you mean?” she asked, confused.

She knew what retreat meant but martial artists and magicians went into retreat to meditate or cultivate their douqi. Without magical essence here, she didn’t understand how Ye Lang would go into retreat.

Ye Lang’s cultivation involved him sitting cross-legged; she just treated as him spacing out. When he cultivated his martial arts abilities, she thought that was just regular training. Martial arts could be practised without magic anyway.

“I’ll be cultivating in retreat. I should’ve done this a long time ago but I delayed it for research,” said Ye Lang.

“What are you cultivating? There’s no magical essence in here,” she said, stunned.

“It’s just my own cultivation, I don’t need magical essence. You can do it too. Don't just cultivate your martial arts techniques, go train your douqi. Perhaps you’ll improve even faster like that,” said Ye Lang.

“??” Zhao Yarou did not understand.

She was a martial artist-- many people knew this, though they did not know how strong she was.

Because she never had to use her abilities!

Ye Lang knew about this too. She did not hide her training from him, hence he had witnessed her abilities.

After that, Ye Lang truly understood that Zhao Yarou was a terrifying person and his prior feeling was right. Thank goodness he did not provoke her.

“Just don’t disturb me there… Also, take good care of yourself. I don’t want you to be starving when I come out of retreat…” said Ye Lang.

“I won’t! Once was enough, I won’t make the same mistake twice,” she said.

“Alright, I’ll be conducting my retreat in the martial arts arena. You can come look for me if there’s an emergency,” he said.

“Will it affect you if I come visit?” Zhao Yarou realised that he was talking about something she mustn't do unless it was an absolute emergency.

“It will. The cultivation could go wrong, I might go insane, and my retreat will fail,” said Ye Lang casually as if they weren’t important.

“...” Zhao Yarou now understood she would never disturb him no matter what. Unless it was an absolute necessity.

Zhao Yarou was also very happy to hear that even if Ye Lang went insane from a cultivation gone wrong, he still wouldn’t abandon her.