“Go, you just want to shake me off anyway. Now you have one less person to meddle with your business, right?” Ye Lanyu sarcastically blurted.

“Hah, about that… You’re partially right!” Ye Lang chuckled as he replied.

“Hmmph!”

“You two…Ye Lang, just tell us your motives already.” The seventh princess promptly reminded Ye Lang that he had been beating around the bush thus far.

“Oh yeah, right, the reason I asked about cousin Zhiqing’s wedding is because I wanted to give her a new house as a present, by the Vast Moon Lake.” Ye Lang explained.

“So it’s for that, well then it’s nothing too surprising. But why do you have to ask if she’s married?” The seventh princess did not find Ye Lang’s intention of giving his cousin a house surprising, but was instead baffled by the way he phrased his question.

“If she’s marrying then it can act as a belated wedding gift! If she’s not, then I can prep it for the future,” Ye Lang replied.

“…All that just for this, you sure are…” The seventh princess was speechless.

“If you’re offering, it’ll be rude if I don’t accept. This is nice of you,” Ye Zhiqing replied. “Alright, I’m going back to my room for the night, you guys go on, alright!”

Ye Zhiqing upon finishing her sentence solemnly departed, her emotions somehow still as unexpressive as always.

“You little idiot, don’t bring up a woman’s marriage prospects like that…” Ye Lanyu grumbled as she knocked on his head.

“Why?”

“Cut it out, no means no!” Ye Lanyu and the seventh princess replied almost in unison as Zhen Xiaoyan awkwardly giggled by the side.

Subsequently, the rest of them spent the next few moments in the courtyard with Ye Lang, with dinner prepared by Zhen Xiaoyan’s mother. They then returned to their respective rooms, notably by Ye Lang’s declaration that he had more to deal with the next day, along with Zhen Xiaoyan and Little Zero.

Ye Lanyu and the seventh princess would usually give in to Ye Lang’s requests, and now that he made himself clear, they decided to call it a night, nevertheless both spending the night in Ye Lang’s own block.

This is what they said: if Zhen Xiaoyan and Little Zero, along with the young princess could have a sleepover here, why couldn’t they?

It sure wouldn’t matter, to Ye Lang at least. As long as they steered clear of his bedroom, he couldn’t care less where they chose to spend the night!

……

The next morning, Ye Lang woke up early but Zhen Xiaoyan and the mouth watering breakfast she prepared were ready before he was!

Zhen Xiaoyan’s breakfast had ample variety of savoury and sweet, a feast so grand that it could be both breakfast and lunch at once, for ten!

“Xiaoyan, I know you fancy Ye Lang but isn’t this a little too much?” The seventh princess appeared blurry eyed before everyone as she pointed at the food on the table.

“No it’s not that…he’s just gonna eat a little…” Zhen Xiaoyan shyly answered, her head hung low.

“If he’s just gonna eat a little, then are these all for us? There are five of us but this is far too much…Oh, right almost forgot about you too…” The seventh princess was a little confused by their numbers, she was quite certain before that there were only six, and the little princess which was hardly significant.

And other than Ye Lang, they were all women, so the food was far too much for their servings!

The seventh princess was quickly reminded of a certain something, which was Zhen Xiaoyan’s unique physique, and to sustain herself she required a daily serving of ten times that of a normal person. It was something she was supposed to know but had slipped from her mind from the prolonged absence between the two.

“Oh you guys are awake already? Seems like I’m the last to rise today. Princess Kaline is already at sword training this early in the morning, well I’m such a letdown!” Ye Lanyu whilst speaking strolled towards Ye Lang, made herself comfortable by her seat and began dining in on breakfast.

“Sis, you consider that a letdown?” Ye Lang was confused by her statement.

“I’m just kidding, can’t you tell?” Ye Lanyu was blunt with a reply.

“……”

After breakfast, Ye Lang led his little band of people to handle the alchemy & Qimen formation in Ye City.

Whilst designing the layout of Ye city, Ye Lang blended the Qimen formation into the mix, with the alchemy formation as supplement during an emergency, in which he could activate an impenetrable formation so sturdy it would put the gods to shame.

This design was just for the rare occasion of an emergency, and during its creation Ye Lang was still unsure on how it would be activated and what catastrophic event would put it to use. If that event actually happened, he would be glad that he opted to set up the defense mechanism in the first place.

The emergency formation was set with the intention of last resort, which naturally would mean hardly anything to the lives of its inhabitants. The other formation however, channeled the spiritual qi of the earth and sky into the formation, which brightened the mind and invigorated the body of its inhabitants, and in the long run, made the city folk stronger.

With the beneficial effects of the energy concentration, cultivations of the townsfolk would be amplified, and with the activation of the formation, its benefits would gradually be presented to the forefront.

And for that reason alone, Seventh Brother was not picked on by the townsfolk, leading him to evade Ye Yi and the others, even as far as to run towards Ye Lang to whine that he had made him an outsider in his own city.

Ye Lang barely reacted. It was his work after all!

And because of that, masters emerged one after another in Ye City, even in Ye Academy alone. Their reputation of being the best through the mainland had been exponentially solidified by the stream of talented members.

The points where the formation was drawn was marked prior in Ye Lang’s city sketch before it all started, and now that it was all ready and running, he just needed to activate them.

What use was a machine that was turned off after all.

Ye Lang’s current formation was just as such, parts were ready and in place, but the formations were not activated, some even missing a part of the circuit, some missing the most trivial of hardware.

What Ye Lang needed to do was to power up those that were ready for use, connect the circuit to the ones required, fit the tiny parts to the ones lacking and he could finally call his project a huge success!

It sounded like a straightforward plan, but it was worth noting that Ye Lang’s formation encompassed the entire Ye City which meant the formation was gargantuan. With such phenomenal size, the parts lacking were naturally substantial, which meant there was much work to be done.

The simple yet huge project took Ye Lang and his little team of three a full ten days to complete. During those ten days, they left at the break of dawn and returned in the wee hours of night, venturing to far corners of the city to complete their mission.

Ye Lang’s presence in the city throughout this period caught the attention of quite a few, nonetheless were only told from heresayers that he was loitering around different parts of the city each day. No one knew what he was up to because it was meant to be kept a secret within the Ye family only!