Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
On the third day of his stay at the Xiahous, Jiang Chen finished the last treatment session of acupuncture. Lord Xiahou exhaled a foul breath, looking happy. The depressing feeling in his body was completely gone.
“It’s magic. It’s magic!” he said in an exaggerated tone.
“Lord Xiahou, you’ll be fine as long as you go slowly and step by step in the future,” Jiang Chen said.
“Certainly, Jiang Chen! Today, we should celebrate.”
Jiang Chen had planned to leave as soon as possible, but he couldn’t reject the invitation of a lord. He had to stay.
It was the same long table that they had sat at on his first day there. All of the Xiahou family members were there.
Xiahou Xue was sitting next to Jiang Chen. Her makeup was just perfect. She looked charming and attractive.
“Lord Xiahou, the Elixir Association is urging me to go to the Heaven Divine City as soon as possible, so, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave after dinner,” Jiang Chen explained first. Otherwise, he would have to stay here longer.
“So, what’s your decision? My daughter is great, right? She’s perfect for you.” Lord Xiahou didn’t forget to bring up the most important thing.
The Xiahous sitting by the table smiled, but they meant no harm to Jiang Chen. Lowering her head, Xiahou Xue was rubbing the corners of her clothes. She looked embarrassed and shy.
If Jiang Chen hadn’t seen how passionate she was when secretly meeting with that man the other night, he would have bought it.
“Lord Xiahou—” Jiang Chen was about to say something.
“Lord!” The butler who had made Jiang Chen uneasy walked through the door. This butler was actually a great Venerable, but he was willing to dress like a butler.
He glanced at Jiang Chen, his look too complicated to interpret. Then he whispered into Lord Xiahou’s ear.
Lord Xiahou, who had been beaming, soon looked colder and colder. The other people sitting by the table sensed there was something wrong. They stopped talking, too.
The atmosphere in the room was suddenly very strange.
Staring at Jiang Chen, Lord Xiahou asked, “Are you sure?”
The butler nodded without adding anything, and Lord Xiahou smiled again, but this smile was a little spooky. He leaned forward to approach Jiang Chen aggressively.
“Jiang Chen, your master calls himself the Flame Emperor, doesn’t he?”
“Eh?” Jiang Chen had no idea what he meant, but he was impressed by the lord, since his attitude had changed almost immediately.
Pah! Slamming on the table angrily, Lord Xiahou said, “The Jiangs did an investigation. There was only one Flame Emperor all over the Nine Realms, and he disappeared hundreds of years ago. No one knows whether he’s dead or alive. Is he your master?”
“Would there be a problem with that?” Jiang Chen didn’t answer his question directly.
“Is your master already dead?” Lord Xiahou asked.
“Dead or alive, does it really matter?” Jiang Chen said, amused.
“You’re a darn crook!” Lord Xiahou turned his back on Jiang Chen. Throwing the plates before him at Jiang Chen, he said in a profound voice, “Is a dead Martial Sovereign still a Martial Sovereign?”
The Jiangs were the most scared upon learning that Jiang Chen’s master was the Martial Sovereign. They even wanted to find Jiang Chen and apologize to him. However, before anything, they had to confirm everything was true.
So, the Jiangs had even paid to the Three Upper Realms to get information. That was how they had learned about the Flame Emperor.
Then the Jiangs announced the information they had found eagerly to the world. Even if Jiang Chen really had a master who was a Martial Sovereign, this master was already dead.
In other words, the Martial Sovereign couldn’t help Jiang Chen do anything.
The Jiangs even learned that more than one person had received the Flame Emperor’s inheritance. Whoever was wearing a ring in the shape of a burning flame was his follower.
Lord Xiahou gazed at Jiang Chen. As expected, he saw the ring. The dishes were burnt by the fire of anger Jiang Chen emitted before they could get him.
Getting to his feet, Jiang Chen said coldly, “Lord Xiahou! I’m here to treat you. I didn’t say anything about my master, did I?”
He was incredibly angry. Even if his master wasn’t a Martial Sovereign, what did it matter? He hadn’t conned anyone in the name of the Martial Sovereign.
“You aren’t being honest with me! You wasted my kindness. Besides, if the Jiangs hadn’t announced the news, and you had agreed to marry my daughter, that would have been marital fraud!” Lord Xiahou said in anger.
“Father, don’t get angry with such a shameless person,” Xiahou Xue comforted her father immediately.
Jiang Chen noticed the kindness of those sitting by the table had disappeared. They were looking at him with disdain and pity.
“Let me say it again: I never thought about agreeing to the marriage. On the contrary, I treated your old problem and cured you.” By then, Jiang Chen couldn’t stand them anymore. He spat, “Are you Xiahous morons or what?!”
“How dare you!” The butler, who was a great Venerable, would never allow him to insult the Xiahous this way. He strode forward to teach him a lesson.
“If you dare!” Jiang Chen wasn’t scared at all. He said, “You, the Xiahous, bite the hand that feeds you. If you dare do anything to the alchemist that came to help you, let’s see whether any Elixir Association will cooperate with the Xiahous in the future!”
His warning was a wake-up call to everyone on the scene. Even the butler involuntarily stopped walking forward.
“It’s no longer an era in which the Elixir Associations are the most powerful.” Showing her true colors, Xiahou Xue said, “That means a Heaven Alchemist of the Elixir Association is nothing to mention.”
She hated that Jiang Chen had claimed he had never thought about marrying her. She felt insulted.
Seeing who she really was, Jiang Chen shrugged his shoulders. He said, “The Xiahous are an interesting family. You talk about everything based on identity. Let me ask you one thing. I didn’t charge you anything for curing your father. Do I owe you something instead?”
“Charging us? You want to charge us? How would I know that I’ve already been cured? Will your treatment leave me any side effects? You’re so young. Maybe you just misled me by telling me I was cured,” Lord Xiahou questioned Jiang Chen.
“So, what are you going to do? Are you going to kill me since you’ve learned that my master is a dead Martial Sovereign?” Jiang Chen looked as if he had eaten something disgusting.
“Get out of here!” Lord Xiahou pointed at the door, then a team of soldiers walked over right away, approaching Jiang Chen to drive him away.
Jiang Chen was so angry that he burst out laughing. He said, “I know how to walk.”
He turned around when he was at the door. Looking towards Lord Xiahou, he said, “Bear this in mind. I always charge strangers for the treatments I give them.”
Before Lord Xiahou came back to himself, he had flown into the air and disappeared. Lord Xiahou snorted, not taking his word seriously.
“Father, I told you that you shouldn’t rush. You almost married me to a piece of crap of unknown origins,” Lord Xiahou’s daughter said.
“I was wrong about him. People are really cunning nowadays, especially those from the Three Lower Realms,” Lord Xiahou said.
The dinner party ended on a sour note. Lord Xiahou went back to his room, somehow feeling uneasy.
It wasn’t because of guilt, since he was still angry about the energy and kindness he had wasted on Jiang Chen those days. However, he couldn’t relax.
He was thinking again and again about what Jiang Chen had said when he was leaving.
Did he…?
Something suddenly occurred to Lord Xiahou. Panicked, he went to the back room as soon as possible, going through the curved passage that led there.
