The Silly Alchemist

The entire Ye family was on edge, worried sick. Their young son was missing! The Ye couple was so upset they hadn’t slept well in three whole days.

Little Lanyu hadn’t been faring well either, she had no appetite at all. Out of all four siblings, she was the closest to Ye Lang, they were always together. Perhaps it was because the thirteenth prince was the only sibling younger than her, she’d enjoyed the feeling of being the elder sister for once.

The disappearance of the thirteenth prince even caught the Emperor’s attention. Not only was he constantly aware of every update available for the search, he even dispatched many men to aid in the search for the missing boy.

“Are you doing your jobs right?? It’s been three days and all of you, this many of you, can’t even find one five-year-old child?!” yelled the patriarch of the Ye family, Ye Yi.

“This doesn’t make sense. We’ve been searching the town for three days straight. Do you think Ye Lang went out of town?” said Ye Yi’s wife, Ruan Lian’er, worriedly. With the current situation, it wasn’t hard to take this as a possibility.

“That’s impossible, he’s just a young child. Unless... he was deliberately taken out of town…” Ye Yi furrowed his brows. He’d ordered men to search outside the town borders, but the thought of it was still so harrowing Ye Yi didn’t dare think about it.  

It could only mean bad news if someone had brought Ye Lang out of town. A headache and a heartache.

“If anyone dares to harm my son, I’ll make sure to destroy his entire family!” murmured the anxiety-ridden Ye Chengtian. His murmur was soft but his words were firm.

“Chengtian…” his wife, Long Anqi, held his hand tightly. Her tone was complicated as if she’d accepted fate.

At this gloomy moment, a miracle had happened. Everyone was surprised.

“Master! Master! The thirteenth prince, the thirteenth prince...” a servant came running in. The servant was in a flurry as if something unbelievable had happened.

“What’s going on? Updates on the search?” asked Ye Yi worriedly. The servant’s expression stirred an unpleasant feeling in his belly.

“The thirteenth prince, he… he…” the servant wheezed.

“What about him?! Speak!” exclaimed Long Anqi.

With a deep breath, the servant finally finished his sentence. “The thirteenth prince is home.”   

A moment of silence.

“What?! Is this true? Where is he?” everyone in the house exploded in motion. They rushed forward to claw at the servant’s clothing, rapidly firing questions at him. The servant was pleasantly surprised at the sudden attention.

“The thirteenth prince just entered the premise. He even brought a little girl with him,” answered the servant. It was obvious he wanted to say that before the young boy came into sight, to bask in the very last of this brief attention.

Unfortunately, they shoved him aside as soon as he finished the first half of his sentence. No one paid attention to the “brought along a little girl” part.

Ye Yi and the worried crowd sprinted to the front yard, immediately greeted by the sight of Ye Lang and a little girl. The girl looked around his age, but evidently not human. This wasn’t any of their concern as all they wanted to do now was to rush forward and embrace the thirteenth prince tightly. They needed to know if he was alright.

The first one who got to Ye Lang was the weakest among them all -- his mother, Long Anqi. At the sight of her son, the worried mother had given her two hundred percent-- no, actually more- all to sprint as fast as possible towards her son. As soon as she got to him, she wrapped him in a tight hug.

“Sweetie! Where have you been? Have you been eating…” fussed the mother, using one arm to check her son for injuries and the other to block the worried crowd from hugging Ye Lang too.

The young thirteenth prince shook his head. “No, mom. There was delicious food, and I a great time,” uttered the young boy slowly.

“What?” after Long Anqi made sure the boy was unscathed, “Where have you been? Who brought you there? And who is this girl? Eh, hold on… this girl…”

It was at this moment that Long Anqi had realized that the girl standing beside her son looked very different from them. Wait. Right. The girl wasn’t human at all.

The little girl had large eyes, small canines peeked through her smile and feline ears that stood proudly on the top of her crown. She even had a small tail trailing behind her! It was obvious she was a beastman.

But here lies the problem. Was she from the cat race or the tiger race? Both of these tribes shared similar morphological features, especially when young.

“Oh, I bought her. They said she was the best tiger girl you can find in town.” answered the thirteenth prince promptly.

“...”

Everyone didn’t know how to react to that, they just fell silent and stared at the young boy in front of them confusingly.

“You bought her? Where have you been? It’s been three days! Also, how did you even get out of this compound? You can tell me slowly, my son,” questioned Long Anqi. She was curious about her son’s experience during his disappearance.

The others around stared at the thirteenth prince in anticipation. They wanted to know too.

“Oh dear, it’s very windy out today. Let’s go in,” before her son could speak, the mother scooped her son up and entered the building. She didn’t want her son to catch a cold.

That seems to be a great idea too, now everyone can rest and converse over some tea.

The young thirteenth prince continued to narrate his three-day experience once everyone had settled down. Some parts were vague and needed some guessing as his ability to express was rather limited.

Thank god everyone here could understand the young boy perfectly. Their jaws were wide opened from the beginning to the end, they were shocked to the core. It was insane!

First, the boy explained how he escaped the Ye residence. His answer had everyone present stunted. Not that it was complicated, but it was way too easy.

“I left. Just like that. No one stopped me or looked at me at all!” chirped the thirteenth prince.

Yeah, that’s right. The entire Ye residence hadn’t noticed him at all that day. That was how the five-year-old had escaped in broad daylight.

Of course, there were other contributing factors too. One of it was that the Ye family had many residents, so young children around his age were not all that rare of a sight. Aside from a few people, the majority of the family hadn’t seen the thirteenth prince before!

The Ye residence’s security guards were pretty strict about the entrance of non-residents, the level of strictness was almost similar to that of the palace. However, there was a blind spot in their vigilance---they didn’t care much for people leaving at all!

A five-year-old child didn’t raise much suspicion either.  

Ye Lang’s success in exiting the residence was, of course, the result of many coincidences. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been this simple for him to waddle out of home.

Still, it was an amazing feat.