The Silly Alchemist

"Damn!"

"No!"

"No way!"

The seventh brother was counting and every once in a while, he'd start to shout and curse as the checklist shocked him to the core. He never would've guessed!

"I knew that the brat thirteen was godlike, but I never knew he was this crazy! He had this much fortune under his name…”

At the moment, the third brother was bored so he decided to count Ye Lang’s assets with the seventh brother. Not only him, but there were also other people watching too as they were curious how much wealth a godlike prodigal son like Ye Lang had.

"East Ming Lake Tower, the most popular restaurants in the Soaring Sky Empire, probably even across the mainland! He owns seventy percent of their shares!"

"West Mountain Iron Mine, the largest iron mine found, is owned entirely by him..."

"He even has a piece of the Anna Mercenary Group. I've heard of it, but still, this is shocking to know!"

"Seventh brother, these don't count as anything. Look!"

"What?! Fuck me, this brat has another city! What the fuck, it's the newly built Rising City!"

In seventh brother's hands was a contract that even Ye Lang had no clue of when it was acquired. On top of that, it was a foolproof signature of a city's owner transferring his ownership over to Ye Lang.

Which means, the first city that Ye Lang had acquired wasn't this Ye City, but rather another city outside.

Although Ye Lang's fortune came from a wide variety of places, there was still a similarity to all of them. These investments were originally losing money and were things people wanted to get rid of. Ye Lang's plan from the start was for them to keep losing money.

He did make losses from them. However, many of his properties had sudden turnarounds which made him huge profits.

They made a very long list...

"Seventh Brother, you’re finally rich! You can play to your heart's content now. Poor me, I’m just a figurehead commander without a single soldier to my name," sighed the third brother. The seventh brother had found his passion, but the third brother still had not found his.

He was a genius military-wise. However, that wasn't the route these cities were taking, so he felt like they’d left him to rot. He didn’t have an army to command. 

"Relax, although we're building a free city, we still need defences. You’ll get to lead an army soon! I believe that it'll be coming soon, and when the time comes, it'll be all for you!" said Ye Yi as he had yet to leave.  He wasn't eavesdropping intentionally, simply waiting for the servants to finish cleaning up the house.

The third brother grew excited for a moment. "That's great. It's just, there are no huge wars here..." sighed the third brother once again, returning to his depressive state. Even if he did conquer everything nearby, it wouldn't interest him as the scale of the war wouldn't have been anywhere close to the size of a small battle in the Soaring Sky Empire. And their policies didn't allow for any attacks whatsoever.

"Third brother, how could you be so stupid. If there's nothing here, why don't you go to other places and just leave a group of people to defend here? You can also assign some of your men as mercenaries and join other wars. That way, you can train your soldiers and also make money!" said the seventh brother, paving a path for the third brother. Of course, his other motives were very clear- 

This was a pathway to riches!

"While your goal is disgusting, it’s still a great idea," replied the third brother, glaring at him at the same time.

"You are to provide the military funding, and the military shall keep whatever it earns!" demanded the third brother.

"..."

And just like that, strange mercenary group appeared on the continent. They only took part in war assignments and nothing else. The peculiar thing was that the death rate of this mercenary group is close to zero.

Everyone knew that this mercenary group had an amazing leader, who seemed like he could see through the entire war zone, predicting danger and avoiding anything that could potentially harm them.

Of course, this wasn't simply due to the fact that their leader was an incredible one- their soldiers were extremely capable too. They were all masters and completely different from your usual mercenaries. They had a tactical understanding of one another similar to that of an actual military army with high levels of coordination.

This group of mercenaries was undoubtedly built by the third brother, this group was now known for its high fees and efficient payment collection.

Despite them being merely mercenary soldiers, the way they operated was almost as if they were special forces!

...

In the morning, everything seemed to be different from yesterday, but it was simply the items that were different, not the people!

The people could not accept the fact that Ye Lang was now king. However, they had no reason to appeal or fight back as King Gao Fei willingly handed over the kingdom to Ye Lang.

However, what would the outcome be if they did fight back? 

This would've simply yielded the same ending. Ye Chengtian and the others would take hold of political positions and keep it for themselves without considering how the people who react. They had no doubt they’d be able to remain in power. 

Ye Chengtian and the rest now passed a message to the rest of the world, that this city would exit the Thirteen Alliance as they did not wish to be part of any military force. They would remain neutral. 

As a result, there was friction amongst the remaining twelve countries. Under the strong leadership of the Ye Family, they finally gave up on forcing Ye City to return to the Thirteen Alliance, even considering working with them now. 

Everything went smoothly as planned…

…

Ye Lang’s dream.

“You’re finally here! I thought you never wanted to see me again!” cried the girl in surprise. Her face lit up when she saw Ye Lang, but it soon turned into a frown. 

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to see you,” replied Ye Lang, ignoring the fact that she was upset. 

“Hmmph, you never wanted to see me in the first place! It’s been forty one days, you never appeared once! God knows how long I’ve been alone here!” huffed the girl angrily. 

“Forty-one days, you just said so yourself!” said Ye Lang blankly. 

“...”

The girl was at a loss for words. 

“So tell me, why did you disappear for forty-one days?” she asked after a long pause. 

“I can’t tell you that. I’ll wake up if I say why.” He shook his head. 

"Oh, does this have something to do with your identity?" replied the dream girl with understanding.

They both knew that if they spoke about anything related to their identities, their ‘connection’ would break and Ye Lang would find himself awake again.