"Sorry we're late," Wen Cheng said as he walked into the house. "Hmm? Oh, we're the first one to come?"
"Master, come in," Alex said and saw the woman next to him. "Senior Cai Ping, greetings."
"Alchemist Yu," the woman greeted. "I didn't think I would get to meet you so soon. I only just recently found out that you disciplined under my husband as well."
"Oh, I thought more people knew that," Alex said.
"Only the people from the sect knew that," Wen Cheng said. "People from the outside were mostly unsure of everything."
"I see," Alex said. "Anyway, senior Cai. How have you been doing these days? Last I saw you was some 5 decades ago, wasn't it?"
"I've been doing fine," the woman spoke. "The years have been mostly mundane, but I managed to get promoted to becoming the head of the Pink Cloud auction house of this city, so my days have passed by without becoming too boring."
"How did you guys meet?" Alex asked. "Or rather, how did you get close?"
"Well, since Luo Mei returned and Liu Xun got promoted from his post, I couldn't find anything to do in the sect at all. I wasn't planning on taking another disciple, so I instead started handling outside relations."
"As a result, I had to frequently visit the various auction houses. Being the best one there is, I had to visit the Pink Cloud auction house the most. We were acquainted for a long time, but meeting week after week got us closer."
"Then, one day I decided to ask her to marry me and she accepted," Wen Cheng said happily.
Alex smiled. "Once again, congratulations on the marriage," he said.
He took the two of them into the house and let them talk with the rest of his family.
After leaving the Hong Wu sect around the evening, they had come to the small house that his mother stayed in.
Alex only considered it small based on the places he was used to living these days, and in truth, the house was far larger than even the mansion back on the farm.
Once his master and Cai Ping settled in, another pair arrived outside the door. Alex quickly opened the door and smiled widely when he saw his senior sister and her husband.
"Brother Yuhan!" he shouted and stopped. "No wait. Brother-in-law!" He opened his arms wide and went in for a hug.
Du Yuhan wasn't expecting any of that at all, so when he was hugged, he involuntarily tried to push Alex away. Unfortunately for him, Alex was simply too strong to be pushed away by a True King realm cultivator like him.
Alex let go of him a second later and turned around to see his senior sister snickering a little. "What?" he asked.
"He was nervous about meeting you again after so long and the first thing you do is hug him. Look at how flustered he's gotten," Luo Mei said and held onto Du Yuhan's hands. "I told you. He hasn't changed much. He's still the same person."
"I guess so," Du Yuhan said and turned to Alex. "I hear you went through quite a bit of trouble to get back here. Have you been doing alright?"
"I'm splendid," Alex said. "What about you, brother-in-law? How have you been? You've been treating my senior sister well, right?"
"I don't think I can even treat her wrong if I wanted to," he said. "She has her master and senior brother to fall back on if I ever did anything to hurt her."
"Now she has another brother too," Alex said. "Come on in, you must've heard there's another me too, right? Let me take you to meet him."
The three of them entered and joined the group. They started talking within themselves and after a while, Liu Xun joined them as well.
The group started asking Alex questions about his travels, and although he had spoken about them multiple times just that day already, he still told them all about it all over again.
They had known where he had been to these past few decades from his family, but hearing about his journey and how he got there was interesting on its own. Hearing how he became a King was even more surprising to them.
"Right, where's Scarlet?" Graham asked. "I thought you would bring her to introduce her to your mother."
"I was planning to, but she is more interested in being with the White Tiger right now. She must be curious about her home, so she couldn't come with us this time around," he said. "I will probably bring her the next time I come back."
"You are going to leave again?" Wen Cheng asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "I need to take aunt back there to help with the teleportation formation, while I, myself, have to be there for Pearl. On top of that, I have a few things I have to take care of on the other side and only then can I really be free to stay here without any worry."
"Are you going to the Luminance empire?" Helen asked. "Can I go there too?"
"You want to go back there?" he asked.
"I need to meet my master. He helped me so much, so I should at least thank him before I leave, shouldn't I?" Helen asked. "I also wish to see the sect one last time."
"Hmm, that should be fine," Alex said. "I will take you too then."
"Oh... will you be going there tomorrow?" Luo Mei asked.
"No, we have about a week before we need to return," Alex said. "I will be spending the next week between the two sects."
"By the way, young brother," Liu Xun asked. "Do you have anything interesting that you can give us? Some unique pills you found on your journey?"
Alex smiled and even chuckled a bit. "Of course I do," he said. "Let's see... these two pills should help you the most."
He brought out two pill bottles and started handing around the pills throughout the room. Aside from Graham, his clone, and his daughter, everyone else got the pills and looked at them curiously to try and figure out what they were.
"These pills improve your Earth spiritual root and Water Spiritual root. If you have either of those roots, you should eat the corresponding pill and cultivate tonight," Alex explained.
"They do what?" Cai Ping looked at the pill with a surprised look on her face. "How can that be?"
The others weren't very surprised as they had seen a similar pill before.
"Well, this one is not for me," Luo Mei said and handed back one of the pills. As she only had a Superior water spiritual root, she didn't need the pill to improve her nonexistent earth spiritual root.
Even the water pill wouldn't help her much because of how good her Water spiritual root was, to begin with, but she still took it.
The rest of them accepted the pill and were more than fascinated with it.
"What are these lines?" Wen Cheng asked while pointing at the pill veins.
"Those are called Pill Veins," Alex explained. "You don't have to worry about those for now. Just eat the pills after you return tonight."
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