Edited by Aelryinth

With the gods of harmony keeping watch on them, Zhang Che was intimate with Huang Tielan for only a short while before they stopped and started working seriously.

While the two were moving the ingredients out from the store room, Zhang Che suddenly asked, “Right, did you buy enough ingredients?”

“What?” Huang Tielan couldn’t react to his question immediately. Afterwards, she stared at him harshly, saying, “Are you asking this on purpose? Do you not trust my skills or what?”

However, she sounded a little lacking in confidence. Huang Tielan paused for a moment, then said, “Hmm, I have already calculated things when I bought the ingredients. I can concoct three sets of cultivation fluid, at the very least. Succeeding is definitely not a problem.”

Zhang Che relaxed after hearing this.

With three whole sets of ingredients, in addition to Zhang Che providing Huang Tielan with the perfect recipe, it would have been impossible for her to become an intermediate beast card cultivator at such a young age if she couldn’t concoct the cultivation fluid despite all that.

“Alright, then. Everything’s here. Let’s start,” Zhang Che nodded after moving all the ingredients out and stood at the side very tacitly. There was nothing he could help her with for what was to come. Naturally he could only watch from the side.

Having entered working mode, Huang Tielan’s face was serious. She moved the ingredients to the side in an orderly manner, then turned to look at Zhang Che and asked, “Which beast card am I working on first?”

Zhang Che nearly slapped himself; he had forgotten to take out the beast cards! He hurriedly took out both the Purple Jade Condor and the Dark-Scaled Lizard Commander beast cards and placed them on the table, then said, “Let’s work on the Dark-Scaled Lizard Commander first, then. This one uses fewer ingredients.”

After waiting for a short while, seeing Huang Tielan still not getting to work, Zhang Che looked at her, confused. He saw Huang Tielan frowning. She hesitated for a moment and said, “Get your humanoid pet to come help. This is my first time concocting cultivation fluid for such a high quality beast card, after all. I’m afraid I’ll mess up.”

It was a dark gold-quality beast card! Even though Huang Tielan had some confidence in concocting the cultivation fluid, she didn’t dare to be careless about it. It was better to have the elemental queen help her wherever she could.

After all, the elemental queen’s refinement efficiency for several ingredients was far higher than using machines. This time, Zhang Che actually slapped himself on his head, saying, “Aiya, just look at me. I actually forgot about this matter. Wait a moment.”

Done speaking, he beckoned for the elemental queen through their spiritual link. Soon, the elemental queen came walking in from the other villa. She didn’t show any dissatisfaction on her face, although she was in the middle of an intense chess match online, with a few long strings of chess pieces tangled together. However, she immediately made her way here when her master called for her.

She clearly understood what was important and what was not.

With that, all the preparatory work was done. Zhang Che nodded at Huang Tielan, and she started operating some machines on the lab’s main table.

Immediately, Huang Tielan began extracting the essence from some plant ingredients. After extracting three types of essences, she asked the elemental queen to help her refine a fist-sized mineral that resembled crystal, refining it into creamy-white translucent powder.

Of course not all of the powder was needed to concoct a set of cultivation fluid. Huang Tielan picked up an exquisite scale at the side and measured out some of it, then added it into a petri dish.

Zhang Che couldn’t understand the process at all, so he couldn’t offer any help, and could only stand at the side to watch. He realized a different kind of beauty was exuding from Miss Tienan when she worked seriously, dazzling him so much that he couldn’t bear to blink his eyes.

—-

Time ticked away by the seconds. A little less than half an hour later, all the ingredients were extracted and refined. They were added into the petri dish in a specific order.

At this moment, however, the fluid in the petri dish suddenly boiled. The color quickly turned cloudy. In the end, many tiny droplets visible to the naked eye appeared.

“Aiya, why did it fail?” Zhang Che sighed regretfully. He felt the whole process went by very smoothly. Why did it turn out like that at the end?

Huang Tielan seemed to have expected this, however. She furrowed her brow slightly, explaining, “There are too many ingredients, and the timing to add them in is very precise as well. I might not have done very well in several areas.”

-Ugh… this… could it be my foul mouth attribute in effect?-

Zhang Che couldn’t help but think of what he said earlier. He smiled awkwardly and consoled Huang Tielan, “It’s fine. Isn’t there an old saying that went ‘failure is the mother of success’? We’ve got its mother in our hands. Success will surely come to us obediently now!”

Huang Tielan clicked her tongue and said in frustration, “Tch, what kind of stupid analogy is that!?”

Afterwards, she swiftly poured the ruined cultivation fluid into the recycling bin at the side and cleared the things away on the table, ready to try again.

Zhang Che hurriedly stopped her. “No hurries. Take a short break and clear your mind first.”

Huang Tielan thought for a moment and went with Zhang Che’s suggestion. She stopped what she was doing, and the two came out of the lab and took a walk in the villa’s courtyard. When her mind was clearer and she was feeling confident again, she returned to the lab.

—

This time, Huang Tielan’s expression was even more serious. Her handling of the ingredients was meticulous. The timing of when she added the various ingredients was calculated precisely in her heart, ensuring no mistakes were made.

As for the elemental queen, her control of flames was already top tier. While helping Huang Tielan refine ingredients, she could even spare attention to watch the screen on her personal terminal, which was displaying a chess match between two famous ninth-dan players.

Even so, all the ingredients refined by the elemental queen fully met Huang Tielan’s requirements. No mistakes were made by her.

Zhang Che gasped in amazement at the elemental queen’s ability, feeling ashamed of himself at being so inferior.

—

This time, all the ingredients’ essences were added into the petri dish after more than half an hour.

When the final ingredient was added into the petri dish, Zhang Che was even more nervous than Huang Tielan. He stared at the petri dish, worried that something would go wrong.

Fortunately, like Zhang Che had said earlier, the mother of success was in their captive, and success had no choice but to come redeem her! The cultivation fluid was successfully concocted. Inside the transparent petri dish, a faint milky fluid was emitting a starry luster, giving off a sense of mystery.

“We should have succeeded this time, right?” Zhang Che asked carefully, as he didn’t understand anything about this.

Huang Tielan showed a faint confident smile and nodded. She affirmed him, “Mmm. We’ve succeeded. There should be no problem from here on.”

While speaking, Huang Tielan placed the Dark-Scaled Lizard Commander card into the petri dish, then quickly put the cover on.

—

What followed was waiting. The two didn’t want to just stare at the petri dish. They decided to go stroll around the courtyard again.

It was already close to midnight. Various noises were reduced, but faint conversation could still be heard from the villa next door.

It seemed like his mother Sun Lan and his great aunt, Sun Shaoying, and the others, were still in discussion with Qu Wenjing’s parents about the couple’s matters.

They were probably confirming their marriage, since they discussed for so long.

At that thought, Zhang Che looked at Huang Tielan at his side, his heart stirring again. -Looks like I have to find a day and ask great aunt to make a trip to the Huangs.-