The night air was cool, and the bright moon hung high.
Xiao Yan lay on a roof beam somewhere in the Pill Tower, his right hand tucked beneath his head and a flask of clear wine in his left, quietly gazing at the bright, round moon.
For his fifteen years in the Xiao Realm, he had always looked up at a moon formed from nihility devouring flame. Starfall Pavilion was situated within the Star Realm, where the scenery outside was also difficult to see. Tonight, at last, he had a rare chance to admire the moonlight.
"When did the bright moon first appear? Wine in hand, I ask the blue heavens. In those celestial palaces above, what year is it tonight?" Xiao Yan raised his flask toward the great round moon, a trace of loneliness that did not belong to this world seeping from him.
"Mmm~, ah~!" Suggestive lamplight glowed in the dim room. Yao Lao sat panting in a chair, while Xuan Yi straddled his thighs.
"Whew." Yao Lao wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at Xuan Yi. "Let's take a break."
"Giving out already?" A hint of disdain appeared on Xuan Yi's face.
Facing his old flame's expression, Yao Lao said without batting an eye, "It's been six hours since we came back this afternoon. Six hours! Even a seventh-rank pill should be out of the furnace by now."
"Hmph. You're the greatest alchemist on the Dou Qi Continent, and you spend six hours refining a single pill?" Xuan Yi sneered.
"Hehe, let's take a break. Just a little break." At that moment, Yao Lao seemed even more thick-skinned than Xiao Yan.
Xuan Yi rolled her eyes at him, stood up, and dressed herself, covering her figure with its mature allure. She said mildly, "Do you think our Pill Tower could take this opportunity to gather these young alchemists together and give them some proper training?"
"That's your Pill Tower's business. I'm not one of your people." Yao Lao shook his head with a smile.
"With your strength, you're more than qualified to serve as the Pill Tower's Fourth Giant. If you were willing, Xuan Kongzi would even give you his position as Chief President." Xuan Yi gave Yao Lao a complicated look.
"Hehe, I'm used to living free of restraints. Being part of an organization carries too much responsibility. I'll stay out of it." Yao Lao shook his head again, still smiling.
"You old bastard!" Xuan Yi glared at him, then angrily lay down on the bed with her back to him, refusing to speak.
Yao Lao chuckled and walked over to the bed without even pulling up his trousers.
"Don't be angry."
"My little Yi."
"Darling..."
As he coaxed her, one of his hands slipped beneath her qipao again.
"You old bastard!" Xuan Yi abruptly turned to stare at him.
"Even if you won't join the Pill Tower, you have to help guide this Youth Class."
"I'm going back to Starfall Pavilion in a couple of days," Yao Lao demurred. "My disciple still needs to explore the Northwest Continent."
"What's so worth exploring on the Northwest Continent? Don't tell me... you don't want him to exchange knowledge with the Pill Tower's high-ranking alchemists?" Xuan Yi suddenly smiled.
"Exchange knowledge with the Pill Tower's high-ranking alchemists..." Yao Lao hesitated. Although he was widely regarded as the continent's greatest alchemist, that did not mean he knew everything or could do everything.
Even the Medicine Emperor had occasionally sought advice with humility.
There were different levels of alchemy, but no alchemist was perfect. As the continent's holy land of alchemy, the Pill Tower's countless years of accumulated knowledge and experience were undoubtedly an enormous temptation to any alchemist.
"I'm just afraid the boy won't want to." Yao Lao shook his head helplessly.
"Why wouldn't he? Your disciple is cut from the same cloth as you. You're both beasts in gentlemen's clothing. You look respectable, but you're lechers through and through."
Xuan Yi sneered. "He went out of his way to visit my Ying'er this afternoon. I'm sure he had lust on his mind. And from the looks of it, he even has designs on that little girl from the Dan Family.
"He's young, but his ambitions certainly aren't small."
His ambitions are far more than merely big, Yao Lao sighed inwardly, then declared with righteous indignation, "Nonsense! How could you call my disciple a beast in gentleman's clothing?"
After a pause, he added solemnly, "There's nothing gentlemanly about him!"
In the Dan Family's residence, Dan Chen sat staring blankly into a mirror, a purple jasmine blossom flecked with starlight still tucked into her dark hair.
"Am I really going to be his little second wife?" The girl's face fell again.
"He's so bad. Will he bully me...?"
An introverted girl like her, who had been carefully sheltered since childhood, was much like the well-behaved girls in school back on Earth. Boys with a roguish streak like Xiao Yan often found it easy to win them over.
Many honest boys always viewed these things through a schoolboy's mindset. Why would such a quiet, pretty girl fall for a scumbag or a hooligan?
What they failed to understand was that these girls were not necessarily attracted to scumbags or hooligans.
Perhaps what they loved was simply that ray of light that burst so fiercely into their hearts when romance first began to bloom. Unfortunately, that light often came from somewhere far from good.
Sadly, these shy, innocent girls were terrible at saying no, and as time passed, they often fell completely.
In truth, if those boys had been a little braver back then, perhaps they too might have had a chance to win their own white moonlight.
At the Cao Family residence, Cao Ying lay quietly in bed after waking in the middle of the night. Ordinarily, she would already have been cultivating or refining pills. Her strength came not only from her heaven-defying talent, but also from her own diligence.
Tonight, however, Cao Ying remained in bed, indulging in a rare bout of laziness.
Whenever she closed her eyes, that handsome face with its hint of roguishness appeared in her mind.
As she recalled the two times Xiao Yan had thoroughly defeated her, along with his domineering manner that afternoon, the corners of Cao Ying's exquisite lips curled upward. Hers was a face beautiful enough to topple nations.
"Bastard!" she muttered, though who knew what she was thinking.
Girls like her often had a particular weakness for that trace of tenderness hidden within a man's domineering manner. Of course, that only held true once he had won their admiration.
If Xiao Yan had tried playing the domineering boss before winning Cao Ying over, she probably would have slapped him away, even if he was Yao Lao's personal disciple.
The sun rose in the east and set in the west. Once the long night passed, it slowly rose from the east again.
The world continued turning as usual. The only difference was that today, there were two more girls with tangled feelings, and one young man who had awakened from homesickness.
"Whew!" He had actually slept until dawn. Xiao Yan stood and stretched his limbs, then circulated his Dou Qi slightly, evaporating the lingering alcohol from the previous night.
Unfurling his Dou Qi Wings, he flew toward Starfall Pavilion's residence.
"Hm?" Yao Lao was actually absent?
"Off visiting his old flame again?" Xiao Yan frowned slightly, then put it out of his mind and returned to his room to consider what he should do next.
According to the original plot, this actually isn't the best time to go to the Jia Ma Empire to chase girls. I'd miss plenty of chance encounters that lead to romance. Besides, I've only just made some headway with Cao Ying and Dan Chen.
Xiao Yan had intended to remain at the Pill Tower a while longer, but one problem kept troubling him: heavenly flames!
Without heavenly flames, he would forever be constrained by the Flame Mantra, and his cultivation speed would fall far short of what it had been in the Xiao Clan. That alone would have been tolerable. The real problem was that dreadful feeling of kidney deficiency.
Moreover, once he obtained heavenly flames, his alchemy could rise another level, giving him a chance to reach Seventh-Rank Alchemist sooner.
As he pondered this, Xiao Yan suddenly saw a kidney-deficient old man walk in.
"Teacher! What happened to you?!" Xiao Yan cried in alarm.
Before you continue