Chapter 152: Cold-blooded Five (2)

Because this was the headquarters of the Cold-Blood Syndicate, its members naturally would not allow Ye Lang to wander about freely. They restricted his movements, forbidding him from entering certain areas, which was the main reason they kept a close watch on him.

In fact, even if no one were watching, the moment Ye Lang approached somewhere he shouldn't, someone would inevitably step out to stop him.

Fortunately, Ye Lang was merely taking a stroll, so anywhere was fine by him. He had no desire to enter the restricted zones anyway, wishing to avoid any unnecessary trouble.

Along the way, everyone Ye Lang encountered looked completely normal—meaning they didn't fit the typical Cold-Blood Syndicate persona at all—which inevitably left him a bit puzzled.

"Excuse me," Ye Lang asked, "do all the members of the Cold-Blood Syndicate only come out at night and turtle up inside their homes during the day?"

"This... of course not!" the servant replied. "The reason you don't see members of the syndicate right now is because they all have their own duties. Those who need to go out left long ago, and those who stay behind are mostly resting, waiting for their next mission." This was common knowledge, so there was no need to hide it.

Besides, in everyone's eyes, Ye Lang was essentially a walking corpse; sharing a few secrets with him was of no consequence. Because of this, their guard against Ye Lang wasn't as strict as it would be toward an outsider.

Naturally, true secrets were never mentioned, as even the lower-ranking insiders might not have the right to know such matters.

"Ah, I see. Then why didn't I see any of you yesterday?" Ye Lang suddenly recalled that he hadn't laid eyes on a single normal person the day before.

"At night, most of us go off to rest, and there are certain things we aren't permitted to know, so we try our best to avoid such situations," the servant answered, sounding somewhat wistful—perhaps yearning for the day when he too would be let in on those secrets and formally inducted into the Cold-Blood Syndicate.

"No wonder!" Ye Lang remarked before continuing his stroll. His presence drew the gazes of quite a few people along the way. Although they put on casual fronts, the unguarded looks in their eyes made it clear how curious they were about him.

Up to this point, Ye Lang seemed to be the strangest anomaly to ever appear here!

As for why Ye Lang didn't find the situation bizarre—when it really ought to have aroused suspicion—the reason was quite simple: he simply hadn't given it a second thought. He couldn't care less why no one questioned him or why nobody found it suspicious.

Of course, had he wished to investigate, he would have quickly discovered—as he had the moment he first entered the courtyard—numerous hidden alchemical arrays. The purpose of these arrays was to obscure vision, preventing outsiders from seeing the true state of affairs within, all without arousing suspicion.

After his walk, nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Ye Lang returned to his reading. He immersed himself in studying these unwritten, exclusive alchemical arts, which temporarily allowed him to put certain matters out of his mind.

For the next few days, Ye Lang's routine remained largely unchanged: reading books, taking walks after meals, and sleeping.

The rest of the household slowly grew accustomed to his existence, used to seeing him stroll around the courtyard. Sometimes they even left him entirely to himself—though only on the surface, for the moment he made any suspicious move, someone would immediately intervene to stop him.

Meanwhile, Cold-Blood Thirteen had remained sequestered in his laboratory throughout this period without stepping out even once. He was presumably engrossed in completing his experiment, and barring any unforeseen accidents, he should still be alive.

At least, that was Ye Lang's assessment. Alchemy experiments carried inherent risks, he noted; minor mishaps resulted in nothing more than superficial scrapes, while major ones naturally left no bones behind.

Still, given Cold-Blood Thirteen's capabilities, accidents were unlikely. Well, presumably unlikely...

That day—

"Ah..." Ye Lang stretched lazily after finishing a book and closed the cover. "Alright, I've finished all the reading. It's time to put theory into practice. Coincidentally, there are some materials inside!"

"Inside" referred to the first and second laboratories. While Ye Lang possessed plenty of alchemical materials of his own, these secret arts required very unique components, some of which he lacked.

Of course, if Ye Lang wanted to substitute them with other items, he could easily do so; he only needed to grasp the underlying principles and integrate them into his own alchemy.

However, these techniques still warranted practical testing. Only through hands-on experimentation could one truly understand them, otherwise, knowledge confined to books would never truly become one's own.

And yet, Ye Lang remained completely oblivious to the fact that his actions might alert Cold-Blood Thirteen, forcing the man to take notice of him rather than leaving him to browse books and roam about freely as he currently did. Well, at least it still counted as freedom.

Thus, Ye Lang experimented inside the laboratory, verifying his hypotheses step by step. Another stretch of time passed in this manner, and Cold-Blood Thirteen still had not emerged.

If Cold-Blood Thirteen had known what Ye Lang was up to in here, he would have rushed out instantly. Nonsense—if he didn't come out now, his laboratory was going to be written off!

*If you want to play around with alchemical experiments, fine, but why do you always run such bizarre tests that ruin all my materials and cause collateral damage to boot?*

*Furthermore, use whatever materials you need, but why are you secretly pocketing the rare ones? Granted, this isn't the third laboratory, and the materials inside aren't the most vital, but they are still hard-earned!*

Little did he know, this was simply Ye Lang's habitual style: constantly tinkering with eccentric ideas and frequently brewing up hazardous creations. Zhen Xiaoyan and her peers knew this all too well, having suffered collateral damage from Ye Lang's antics since childhood.

If they had known he was messing around with alchemy here, they would have fled as far away as possible, terrified that the laboratory's defensive arrays wouldn't be enough to withstand Ye Lang's devastation.

Ye Lang seemed to realize this to some extent, which was why he tried to conduct his experiments primarily in the second laboratory, where there were fewer items. Naturally, any items he deemed useless were temporarily stowed away in his spatial ring.

That's right, it was only temporary—definitely not embezzlement!

One rather curious detail eluded Cold-Blood Thirteen: didn't he explicitly instruct his subordinates to keep an eye on Ye Lang? Why on earth did they let him run amok like this?

The reason was quite simple: during the initial period, Ye Lang hadn't acted out of line or spent time in the laboratories, leading the syndicate members to assume he had no interest in such things. Consequently, they had stopped watching him closely.

By now, the members had grown accustomed to Ye Lang's presence. Without paying deliberate attention to his whereabouts or activities, no one bothered to check what he was doing.

(To be continued)