The Silly Alchemist

“The meeting? Ah, I forgot! I think Father wanted me to meet him...” Tigress finally recalled her father’s instructions.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here. We volunteered to be the messengers... but we didn’t expect to be stopped from entering!” Athena shook her head, tired.

“Oh, apologies for troubling you. Thank you so much!” Although Tigress didn’t like them, she still remembered her manners, maintaining her aura of elegance as she always did.

However, Athena’s response was puzzling. “Um, I think you’ve mistaken. I wasn’t talking about you!

“??” Tigress was confused now. Who else would she be talking about? Wasn’t she the one who was chasing them out?

Was Athena being sarcastic then? She didn’t sound like it though.

“There was a human girl! What’s up with HER? She refused to let us near your room, and when we insisted, she attacked us.... Thank goodness we ran! Or we would end up like your furniture...” Athena peered fearfully at Little Xin as she spoke.

Tigress finally understood that she wasn’t robbed, it was just Ye Lang’s precious Little Xin!

“Oh, right. I told Little Xin not to let anyone disturb us yesterday. Now I know why no one woke us up this morning!” Ye Lang finally recalled giving Little Xin the instruction to guard the door.

Athena was stunned for a moment upon hearing him, turned to the silent Little Xin and asked in surprise, “She’s with you?”

“Yep!” Ye Lang nodded.

“This is ridiculous! You’re having fun with the tiger girl in there and even got someone to guard the door!” Athena gave a look of disgust.

Anyone would’ve defended themselves but Ye Lang and Tigress completely ignored her and carried on with life.

Tigress did not want to explain, she was tired of it. Her relationship with Ye Lang had always been difficult to explain. As for Ye Lang, he did not understand Athena’s subtle implications at all, it WAS fun spending the night with Tigress.

“Can we leave now?” asked Athena when Tigress finished washing up too. She had been waiting too long and was getting impatient.

“No, Master hasn’t eaten breakfast yet so please wait a moment! Master, what would you like?”

“Fishball noodles!”

“I’ve used up all the fishballs last night...” Tigress had expected this but she simply could not cook the dish without fishballs!

This scene reminded her of the time her little master once insisted on ordering fishball noodles at a fancy restaurant. She tried not to smile from the thought.

“Then I’ll have beef belly noodles!”

“Hahaha... Alright...” Tigress could no longer hold back her laughter.

“??” Athena and Taeya didn’t understand. What was so funny? And it was the tiger girl who was laughing!

“Would you both like a bowl too?” offered Tigress casually... though a little too casually because she had already left for the kitchen before they could answer.

“...” After a moment of silence, Athena shouted, “Yeah, we’ll have a bowl each! We haven’t had lunch!”

“I haven’t had lunch either, I want two more bowls too!” interjected Ye Lang.

“...”

Hey kid, we know you’ve missed breakfast but meals don’t work that way...

“Who is she?”

When Tigress started cooking, Taeya scurried to help out in the kitchen too, leaving Athena with Ye Lang. Athena had started to take an interest in Little Xin.

Ye Lang had been spending so much time with her, how could she have missed this entire human girl? She was certain she’d never seen this human in her life.

Or more specifically, there were only a few human girls in the tiger tribe lands and she knew them all- this Little Xin was not one of them.

“Little Xin,” Ye Lang replied without further elaboration.

Athena probed further. “What kind of human is she?”

“Little Xin!”

“I’m referring to her background. Why is she here?”

“She’s my Little Xin, she’s here because I’m here.”

“...”

Athena realised asking more questions would be futile, for his answers were all similar. The only thing she knew was that this human girl was named Little Xin, she was with Ye Lang and that was it.

With more questions, Athena was certain he would say no more!

She decided to ask Little Xin herself in the future. Unfortunately, since her understanding of Little Xin was of the two points above, she might never know Little Xin would not be able to give her answers either.

While she was speechless from exasperation, Ye Lang suddenly gasped.

“What happened? What’s going on?” Tigress ran out of the kitchen clad in her apron, holding a pair of long chopsticks. She was in the middle of boiling the noodles!

“Why are all the chairs ruined? I have nowhere to sit!” Ye Lang pointed at a tattered, broken heap of a chair on the floor.

“...”

The three girls were silent, then shook their heads. “You’ve just noticed?”

Your reaction time is impressively slow, kid...

“What?”

“What what? Master, your Little Xin was the one who broke the furniture! She was stopping these two nosy people from disturbing us,” Tigress spoke as she walked back into the kitchen.

“Nosy? We’re here to bring you to the meeting! They’re concluding the results of the mock war, you must be present for it!” Athena said plainly as if she was not angry at all- though she added softly, “I knew you were having a fun night here with your master, so much fun you forgot about your own father!”

Ye Lang only heard bits of the conversation, therefore he had to ask, “What did you say?”