Chapter 58 - Harassing Little Su... Exchanging The Sea Expansion Pill For Information

Seeing Yang Su like this, Xi Shen blinked a few times, before he looked over his shoulder at the envelopes and asked, “Do you need help because of all these envelopes, what are they?”

Yang Su nodded at Xi Shen's words before saying, “Elder brother Xi Shen, they are invitations to join the various factions in the Sword Pavilion. Over the past few days after the Freshmen Disciple Competition, more and more people have been coming to our mansion to persuade me to join theirs. They even went so far as to start offering an exorbitant price for me to join.”

As Yang Su spoke his voice became more and more bemoaning.

After listening to Yang Su’s explanation, Xi Shen walked around him to the table with the pile of envelopes while saying, “So these people were trying to harass you into joining their Factions, even as going far as to offer money for you to join them?”

Xi Shen reached the table and picked up one of the envelopes.

It was red in color and on it's front the words, “Fire Phoenix Soaring Cloud Dragon Faction” were written in elegant letters.

Reading the name, Xi Shen's expression turn dumbfounded at the absurd and rather amusing title.

As he had thought previously, these Factions harassing Yang Su to join them were these so-called Puppet Factions.

Factions with legitimate intentions wouldn’t go as far as to try and bribe someone into their faction.

But what was irking Xi Shen about this situation was why they thought it was a good idea to try and poach his assistant into joining them.

Yang Su’s talents were revealed to be extremely high during the Freshmen Disciple Competition, but him being his assistant should have deterred anyone from trying to recruit him.

Were they really that dismissive of his identity? Or were these disciples just stupid enough to think that he would let Yang Su join them?

Any which way, Xi Shen didn’t like them harassing little Su.

While Xi Shen was shuffling through these envelopes with these ridiculous names on them, and Yang Su was standing silently off to the side, the voice of someone calling out at the main entrance of the mansion reached their ears.

“Hello?!! Is anyone here at the moment?!!”

Yang Su was about to go and answer the door while wearing a defeated expression, but Xi Shen stopped him and went himself.

Taking the final bites to finish his fruit, Xi Shen slowly approached the newly rebuilt double gate entrance, and open the small gate that was on one of them.

Xi Shen then came face to face with a short and fragile-looking youth that had on the Alchemy Division’s yellow robes, that looked too big for him.

Xi Shen recognized this youth to be the one who had created that Alchemy pill that had a bit of Chaos Qi within it. He had thought it was another one of those poachers.

Bai Xiaofung, who had his eyes lit up when he saw Xi Shen, cupped his fists and then introduce himself, “Greetings second prince, my name is Bai Xiaofung and I’m the second son of the Bai Clan Head!”

Slightly taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm of this youth, Xi Shen asked, “Why is the second son of the Bai Clan Patriarch here at my place of residence?”

Not that he was complaining as he had wanted to ask this youth about that pill of his. He just didn’t expect that Bai Xiaofung would present himself to him instead.

When Bai Xiaofung heard Xi Shen’s question, he blanked out for a second. He actually hadn’t thought about what he would say once he was here. It wasn’t like he could come out of nowhere and demanded the pill from the second prince’s assistant. All his focus was on what he would do once he got his hands on the Sea Expansion pill.

While Bai Xiaofung was contemplating what to say, Xi Shen stepped aside and said with a smile, “Why don’t you enter for a cup of tea? You can tell me what you're here for during our little chat.”

Bai Xiaofung snapped out of his thoughts and perked up at Xi Shen’s words. After nodding his head, he enter the courtyard and followed behind Xi Shen after he closed the get and headed for the main dining room.

….

…

..

After blowing on the cup of tea Yang Su's hand just served, Xi Shen took a sip before he looked to Bai Xiaofung across from him and asked, “So have you had time to gather your thoughts?”

Bai Xiaofung was gazing at Yang Su even after he had served him a cup of tea and stood off to the side next to Xi Shen, but snapped back to reality when he heard Xi Shen's question. After thinking for a moment, he then said, “Is second prince willing to part with the Sea Expansion pill?”

When Xi Shen heard that a smile formed on his lips before he said, “What are you willing to give in exchange for it?”

Seeing that Xi Shen didn’t immediately deny his request, but rather asked for a price, he got hopeful that maybe he could get his hands on it.

Excitedly Bai Xiaofung said, “Whatever the second prince wishes to trade for it I can get it, whether it's Spirit Stones, Spirit Artifacts, or…”

Before Bai Xiaofung could finish his spiel, Xi Shen raised a hand and cut him off.

“I don’t lack any of those, if I wanted to I can get just about any item on this continent with a simple request to my father.”

Bai Xiaofung could only stare dumbly at Xi Shen when he heard that.

‘It must be nice to be a prince…’

While that thought crossed Bai Xiaofung’s mind, he asked Xi Shen, “So what does the second prince want for the Sea Expansion Pill?”

With a rather carefree smile on his face, Xi Shen said, “I won’t ask about why the second son of a major Clan would need to negotiate for a Sea Expansion pill from me, but I do have something in mind for what you can trade for the Sea Expansion pill.”

When Bai Xiaofung heard the first half of Xi Shen’s sentence, he had on a wearily smile as he thought in his heart, ‘This must be strange for someone else, but if it wasn’t for father cutting off my allowance and even forbade me from requesting a Sea Expansion pill from mother, then I wouldn’t be in this situation.’

Upon hearing Xi Shen's latter half of his sentence, Bai Xiaofung perked up and asked, “What might that item be? If it’s in my ability to get it for the second prince, then I'll surely hand it over to you.”

Xi Shen responded, “It’s not an item, but rather information…”

Bai Xiaofung wore a confused expression when he heard that, but he continued to listen to Xi Shen’s words nonetheless.

“This information should be simple for you. If you can tell me what material you used to concoct that pill you used to injure Zhang Xiang, then the Sea Expansion pill is yours.”

Bai Xiaofung's eyes light up at the ease with which he could get the Sea Expansion pill. Xi Shen was neither asking him for the formula nor his concocting methods, but just the ingredients.

“Second prince that request is easy to fulfill. There are a total of 18 ingredients I used to make this pill using a unique concoction method I had come up with. The 18 ingredients are, the Devil Tail grass, the Moon Devour herb, the Sliver Dragon Ginseng…”

As Bai Xiaofung rattled off all the ingredients, images of those plants and herbs he had seen in his family’s public archives appeared in Xi Shen’s mind.

“The final two ingredients are the Red Lotus spirit herb and the seeds of a Smoldering Iptus tree.”

When Xi Shen heard the final ingredients he frowned at Bai Xiaofung as he said, “When those ingredients are concocted together, they could potentially create a pill as destructive as yours due to the contrasting Yin and Yang energies within them, but it wouldn’t be as exaggerated as the results your pill had shown during the Freshmen Disciple Competition. There’s another ingredient you aren’t mentioning.”

Bai Xiaofung, who had an eager expression on his face, suddenly sported a confused look as he said, “Second prince those are all the ingredients within the pill. I’m not hiding any other ingredient from you if that is what your thinking.”

Xi Shen narrowed his eyes at Bai Xiaofung before he said, “As an Alchemist, I’m sure you would know that the pill you concocted was completely abnormal. These ingredients don’t match the massive explosion the pill caused, even with a special concoction method. If you don’t want to tell me what other ingredients you had used, then you can see yourself out, I don’t have time to waste on this.”

Hearing Xi Shen’s words, Bai Xiaofung’s expression went from confused to slightly angry.

“Second prince there’s no reason to be so unreasonable. I have already told you all of the ingredients I used to concoct the pill just like you requested. To then have me see myself out after I had told you everything and not exchanging the Sea Expansion pill, aren’t you going back on your words just because you refuse to believe me? As an Alchemist, I know that the pill is strange, but compared to the others I have concocted before, that pill is normal to me.”

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~Fun Fact~

The term "See yourself out", is an extremely rude way to tell your guest to leave, and it's basically the same as saying, "Screw off I don't want to see your face anymore."

Anyway, see ya!! ~waves gb~