Hua She'er: Her Majesty Was Eating Very Well Indeed!

"Ohhh!!"

Yan Lin's howls echoed through Wude Hall from time to time. The battle that day was even fiercer than yesterday's, and the sounds carried beyond the hall.

Hearing them, the Snake Guards at the nearby palaces began letting their imaginations run wild again.

"Morning practice has started again?"

"From the sound of it, things seem even more intense than yesterday."

"Her Majesty is far too brutal."

And that was exactly how rumors were born.

About an hour later, the sounds in Wude Hall gradually faded. Hua She'er carried the battered Yan Lin through the air back to the Saint King Palace. She even prepared a medicinal bath specifically for him to speed up his recovery.

Queen Medusa had ordered all of this, but Yan Lin was hardly grateful, since she was also the one who had beaten him.

"Commander Hua, what the hell was wrong with that woman today? She practically beat me to death."

Soaking in the bath, Yan Lin complained to Hua She'er in a thoroughly disgruntled tone.

Not only had Queen Medusa raised her strength to the Da Dou Shi level today, but she had also unleashed her big moves, pummeling him as though she were using the Pegasus Meteor Fist.

Damn it, if he could beat her, Yan Lin would have made that beautiful snake learn exactly why flowers were so red.

Hua She'er knew that "that woman," as Yan Lin called her in his sulk, referred to Queen Medusa. Although the wording was deeply disrespectful, since it was Yan Lin saying it, she felt there was nothing wrong with it.

"Your Majesty Saint King, Her Majesty told me to tell you to read fewer human dirty books," Hua She'er advised.

"Huh? Dirty books?"

Yan Lin looked baffled. He never read that stuff.

What respectable person read dirty books?

He liked cartoons—the kind he could watch, listen to, and learn from.

More importantly, even if he did read dirty books, what business was it of Medusa's?

Hua She'er could see his confusion from his expression. After a moment's hesitation, she guiltily told him the truth. "Her Majesty already knows about your conversation with Cauliflower Snake yesterday."

"So she knows, big... wait, you mean the Queen... knows everything?"

Yan Lin's mouth had been moving faster than his brain. Once reason seized the high ground, he finally reined in his temper. Swallowing the words on his tongue, he asked again, sounding a little guilty.

Seeming to understand what Yan Lin meant, Hua She'er nodded firmly. "She knows everything, including everything you told Cauliflower Snake about picking up women."

"Fuck! Which bitch snitched on me?!"

Yan Lin abruptly stood up in the bath. Medicinal water cascaded down his body, leaving his upper body, with its sharply defined abs, completely exposed to the air.

Caught entirely off guard, Hua She'er's eyes went round. So... big!

Hua She'er, who exuded the allure of a mature beauty, turned her head away with a faint blush on her lovely face. Yet her eyes kept sneaking honest little glances back, and she murmured enviously to herself, Her Majesty was eating very well indeed!

But when she remembered that Yan Lin had called her a bitch, her astonishment gave way to anger.

Although she bore some responsibility for this, she had merely followed Queen Medusa's orders. The fault was not hers.

She had even spoken up for Yan Lin. Hua She'er felt rather wronged.

Forget it. Since he has such a nice body, I'll forgive him this once...

Hua She'er was having trouble keeping her eyes from sneaking looks at a certain someone's physique, but Yan Lin's next words shattered her composure again.

"It must be that bastard protecting me in secret. Only she could know that much."

"Damn, what a blabbermouth. Following me around in secret is one thing, but snitching too? Absolutely no class. I hope she stays single for the rest of her life and any son she has is born without an asshole..."

The more Hua She'er heard, the darker her face grew. Her small hands clenched into rock-hard fists, her knuckles cracking.

She had the urge to fly over to Yan Lin and give him a vicious beating. But remembering his exalted status, Hua She'er ultimately refrained from striking her superior.

"Saint King, you had better watch yourself."

Leaving those curt words behind, Hua She'er flew out of the Saint King Palace's Bath Palace in a fury.

Yan Lin had been swept up in his temper, but hearing her sudden remark actually cooled his anger.

Watching Hua She'er fly away in a streak of light, he looked puzzled and confused. "Why does she seem even angrier than me? I didn't offend her, did I?"

"Could it be..."

Boom!

As a possibility suddenly occurred to him, a thunderclap seemed to explode above Yan Lin's head. An inexplicable sense of social death washed over him.

"No way, no way. It couldn't be that much of a coincidence!"

"She's the blabbermouth who snitched on me?!"

Someone who knew his exact whereabouts, whom he had met, and what he had said... Yan Lin could think of no one other than the powerful member of the Snake People Clan secretly protecting him.

Hua She'er could not have known so much because Queen Medusa had told her. Yan Lin knew the Queen was not a woman of many words.

That left only one truth: Hua She'er was his guardian.

Thinking about how he had insulted Hua She'er right to her face, Yan Lin felt he really was daring—and rather embarrassed, too.

Fortunately, Hua She'er was calm and professional enough not to explode in fury on the spot.

This enormous blunder also extinguished what remained of Yan Lin's anger in an instant. He obediently soaked in the bath and received his medicinal treatment.

Once his injuries were no longer much of a problem, Yan Lin headed to the Pill Hall, ready to receive Deis's instruction.

Pill Hall, Alchemy Room One.

"Saint King, a cauldron with two openings is already sufficient for you at present..."

Deis, the Hall Master of the Pill Hall, began teaching Yan Lin the fundamentals of alchemy.

Deis also came from the Snake People Clan and, like Yan Lin, was one of the Snake-People.

When his talent for alchemy had been discovered in his youth, the clan's senior leadership had made his training a priority.

Deis's aptitude for alchemy was quite good. With years of preferential resource allocation from the Snake People Clan, he had advanced all the way to Fourth-Grade Alchemist.

He was now the highest-ranked alchemist in the entire Snake People Clan.

Not even the human alchemists captured from outside could surpass him. The best among them was only a Third-Grade Alchemist.

Deis was the only Fourth-Grade Alchemist in the entire Snake People Clan. Naturally, he had become the Hall Master of the Pill Hall and taken charge of it.

Since Yan Lin wanted to practice alchemy, he naturally needed the best teacher, one he could trust. Deis's loyalty to the Snake People Clan was beyond question, making him the inevitable choice.

It was very difficult to achieve anything in alchemy by fumbling around entirely on one's own.

With someone guiding him, he could avoid many detours.

That was the benefit of having a teacher.

Under Deis's hands-on instruction, Yan Lin, a complete novice in alchemy, soon gained some basic understanding of the craft.

"To refine medicine, you must first turn Dou Qi into flame. Saint King, give it a try..."

Under the guidance of Deis, a Fourth-Grade Alchemist, Yan Lin began practicing turning Dou Qi into flame.

He seemed quite gifted in this regard, succeeding on his first attempt.

Deis was generous with his praise, then began guiding Yan Lin through his first attempts at refining medicine.

Inevitably, Yan Lin made mistakes.

Either something went wrong while extracting the medicinal ingredients' essence, his control of the heat was poor, or he was not yet skilled enough at using his soul perception.

Through repeated failures and adjustments, Yan Lin finally succeeded in extracting the medicinal ingredients' essence and condensing it into a paste as night fell.

He had made the lowest-level healing medicine, somewhere between ungraded and first grade. Since it had not formed into a pill, he still did not qualify as a true First-Grade Alchemist.

Of course, for Yan Lin, becoming a true First-Grade Alchemist was only a matter of time.