Supreme Emperor of Mist

"Shopkeeper, a bottle of ten Martial Foundation Pellets!"

"Shopkeeper, one bottle of fifty Spiritual Accumulation Pills, please!"

"Owner..."

"Boss..."

The business in the shop is flourishing on the first day it was opened to the public.

Another month has passed since after the incident where Hu Jia and Zhou Mei met and exchanged a few words inside of Qin Lan's room. It made Qin Lan curious about what they've talked about while kneeling on the ground. He gave up eventually on prying for an answer after a while.

In his mind, as long the two can peacefully see each other, that would be enough for him to not be entangled in a sticky situation between them.

"Manager Qin, the products from Qin-Zhou Spiritual Herb Garden is here. Would you like us to bring it into the refining room right now?" You Qing came to Qin Lan's side and gently whispered beside him.

After properly fed and cultivated for an entire month, he's no longer looking as malnourished as before. The current You Qing has started to match the young master more than Qin Lan does.

"Yes, You Qing. Please order the shop assistants to move the material there. I will be using that room a while later." Qin Lan nodded as he continues to finish the paperwork on his table.

"Understood. I'll arrange for that right now." You Qing cupped his hands together and left Qin Lan's room. Not too long after that, another visitor came into his room after knocking on his door.

"Are you still working?" Zhou Mei asked as she peeks through the gap in the door she opened slightly.

"Of course, big miss from the Zhou Family. I am not as vacant as you do to be able to run around without anything to do." Qin Lan teased her without turning his head away from the paperwork.

But listening to her voice somewhat made his moment happier as there's someone to talk with him here while he's doing his paperwork. Although Qin Lan seems to be talented in all sorts of things, paperwork was the least amongst his favorite thing to be done.

He would rather walk into the muddy field to harvest edible lotus root and not seated here writing reports and managing paperwork.

"You talked as if I am not helping..." Zhou Mei pouted.

She gently walked into the room with light footsteps. Each of her steps was as gentle as a tune from the zither.

"Sister Jia-Jia said that the available pill back in the spiritual cave is almost used up. She'll be coming over this evening to collect some to be brought back." Zhou Mei reminded Qin Lan about what Hu Jia said a day or two ago.

"Yes - Yes. I remembered it. I'll go and refine the pills once I'm ready here, alright?" Qin Lan shook his head after listening to how close the two of them right now. He might be curious to the point of asking them what happened if it was not because he's worried about Zhou Mei asking him some weird questions again.

"Open your mouth." Zhou Mei's word caught him by surprise as she suddenly tried to feed a piece of osmanthus cake into his mouth. He immediately noticed the slight blush on both of her cheeks the moment Qin Lan shifted his gaze upward.

"I - 'll do it on my own... Thank you." the Eight Transformation Treasured Brush quickly moved into the gap between his ring and pinky finger to save the day as Qin Lan catches the cake with his hand.

The atmosphere was a little awkward as Qin Lan caught the osmanthus cake from Zhou Mei's hand. Although she did not manage to feed the cake into his mouth, their fingers still ended up touching each other.

A jolt of electrical current went through their finger as they kept their hand back.

Embarrassedly, the two quietly enjoy the osmanthus cake as Qin Lan continues with the paperwork on the table. Close to an hour later, the two finally came out of the room.

"Then... I'll bring the paperwork back to my father..." Zhou Mei shyly excused herself. If this scene was witnessed by the outsiders, perhaps nine out of ten people will assume something has happened between them.

Qin Lan went into the pill refining room after he takes a walk around the store. Looking at the stack of Waving Pine Grass and Energy Accumulating Fruit as tall as a mountain, Qin Lan had the urge to smile.

Fueling the flame under the cauldron with his seventh-level Spiritual Energy, Qin Lan fired five medicinal pots at once to start the refining process.

As there was no specific requirement in refining the Martial Foundation Pellet, Qin Lan has no reason to use Spiritual Energy in his Dantian. The root bulbs are manually prepared and cleaned before they were tossed into the cauldron for the cooking stage.

"Tok - Tok..." a few knocks soon came from the door. And since he was in the middle of preparing the content in the five medicinal pots, Qin Lan simply waved his hand over at the door.

His control over materializing Spiritual Energy was so emphasized to the detail, it nicely removes the stopper off from the door without damaging it in the process.

"Come in," Qin Lan's replied without turning his head to the visitor at the door.

Two young girls about twelve years old soon entered the Pill Refining Room with a basket full of Rock Lotus Fruit and Wooden Barks from some trees.

"Teacher, we're ready." one of the two girls politely addressed Qin Lan as 'teacher' as they standby on a nearby table with their own Medicinal Cauldron.

"Good. Now repeat what you've learned yesterday and prepare the Jewel Lotus Fruit. I will start to teach both of you how to prepare the Blood Clotting Pill after each of you finishes refining twenty Jewel Lotus Fruit today." Qin Lan patted their head as he instructed them to start their lesson.

The two girls are called Zhuge Xinyu and Zhuge Yanyu. They were a pair of twins Qin Lan found when he was looking for talented individuals in the street of Fuyun City.

"Yes, teacher!" the twin girl with barely enough Spiritual Energy as a first-level Flesh Refining Cultivator answered. They clumsily started by adapting what they learned from Qin Lan to refine the Rock Lotus Plant in front of them.

Qin Lan smiled as he glanced at the twin girls he picked up on the street with 100 Flesh Foundation Pills.

'Who would have thought that I'll be able to get two little brats with some talent in pill-refining just from paying for the burial fee for their parents?' Qin Lan thought.

Waving his hand slightly, Qin Lan removes all the impurity residues inside the five medicinal pots. A kind of solution is soon added into the cauldron to allow the powder extract from the Waving Pine Grass to crystallize.

'Senior Zhuge and your wife, please trust them to me. The Kuangshan Lu Sect and Qin Faction will not mistreat both of them as long I'm alive.' Qin Lan made a promise.