When you thought you knew where something was, then went looking for it, you were bound not to find it. That rule applied to both love and frenzied shopping.
So when Luo Qian emerged from the Bamosi Shop, Tie E had vanished. Most likely, they had both gone looking for each other. Tie E was probably blaming Luo Qian for being a "disobedient" child who couldn't stay close behind him.
The Alchemy market was like a maze, as though it had been made for Alchemists from the start. Luo Qian carried his son on his shoulders, looking around as he walked. He turned down one narrow street after another until he no longer knew where he was. Suddenly, a hand reached from behind and clapped him on the shoulder. "I finally found you..."
Tie E looked to have bought quite a haul. Luo Qian couldn't help suspecting that, while "searching" for him, Tie E had also been busy choosing gifts for Yifen. And he had no desire to work out which of those two activities had taken up more of Tie E's attention.
"All right, can we go back now?" Luo Qian asked. Tie E nodded. "I've spent all the Saint Stones. Let's go." Luo Qian's heart bled. He had given Tie E three hundred Superior Saint Stones, enough to pay the wages of the five people in his household for a year.
He sighed. "Let's go." Oblivious to Luo Qian's coldness, Tie E asked, "We don't come here often. Why didn't you buy anything?" Luo Qian wanted to tell him they had come to make money, not spend it. But then he remembered that Tie E was in love for the first time. It was understandable that his head was spinning, so Luo Qian swallowed his words.
The two