Took the Wrong Medicine

"Lucia, did you use the Divine Crimson Pill you refined yet?" Quentin Lian asked.

Lucia shook her head.

"Not yet? Good." Quentin said. "Divine Crimson Pills are extremely rare—keep it safe."

"I've only got one left," Lucia said, her expression hard to describe. "I gave the other one to His Majesty the Celestial Emperor, but he didn't use it. When I tried to get it back, he refused to return it."

Thinking about it brought back the memory of going to see the Celestial Emperor.

Back then, she told the Celestial Emperor, "Your Majesty, I heard from Fifth Highness that his issue was resolved ages ago, so he never needed the Divine Crimson Pill. Could you please give it back?"

The Celestial Emperor replied, "It's gone."

"Gone? Where did it go?" Lucia's eyes widened.

"Sigh! Every time Little Five gets mad, I coax him with candy pills. Yesterday he got mad again, so I gave him some candy pills. I grabbed the wrong bottle and fed him the Divine Crimson Pill instead."

Lucia couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Your Majesty, do you think I'm stupid? He's way too old to still be eating candy pills!"

"Really." His Majesty the Celestial Emperor looked perfectly serious. "Once I realized he'd taken the wrong medicine, I thought, well, since he already swallowed it, I might as well ask him some true questions—you know how Little Five is, he barely talks. Sometimes I honestly have no idea what's going on in his head."

Lucia just stared at him, stone-faced. There was no way she believed the Celestial Emperor's nonsense!

"So I asked him, why did you join the Divine Commanders’ Camp? And after joining, why did you suddenly go into closed-door cultivation? Do you think my Divine Commanders’ Training Camp is some kind of child’s game—you come and go whenever you want?"

The Celestial Emperor glanced at her. "Divine Lady Lucia, want to guess what he said?"

Lucia's instincts screamed trouble.

Sure enough, the Celestial Emperor put on a look of tragic heartbreak and said, "He actually told me he joined because he wanted to chase after a certain girl. Now he's leaving because... he wants to marry her, so he’s training harder to become stronger and protect his future wife and kids."

"Your Majesty!" Lucia ground her teeth. "Stop making stuff up! There’s no way you gave the Divine Crimson Pill to Fifth Highness like it was candy! If you wanted my pill, you could've just said so! I'd have handed it over! Goodbye!"

She turned on her heel and left.

Behind her, the Celestial Emperor called out, "Hey! Don’t you want to know who that girl is?"

Lucia simply cast a spell and ran off.

And just like that, the Divine Crimson Pill was gone for good.

......

"He wouldn't give it back?" High Goddess Vivian Lu asked, sounding baffled. "Wait, does the Celestial Emperor really have the nerve to take something from a child?"

Lucia sighed, "Exactly!"

Quentin Lian just laughed and shook his head. "Honestly, the Celestial Emperor would absolutely do something like that! After all, it’s been twenty thousand years since anyone saw a Divine Crimson Pill!"

"Twenty thousand years?" Ryan Lu's jaw dropped. "So that makes it a super treasure!"

"Of course!" Luna Lian said. "In the Palace Guard Barracks, Divine Crimson Pills are top-tier treasures! Just gathering the ingredients took Father several thousand years!"

Ryan clutched his chest in dramatic agony. "How could we just let His Majesty pocket it without an explanation? No way! When we get back, sis, I’ll go with you to demand it! We have to get it back!"

Lucia groaned, "...Forget it!"

She really didn’t want to listen to any more of his nonsense.

He’d already left her mind in knots.

It had taken her ages to finally shove those tangled feelings aside and focus on studying spell arrays—only then did she manage to take first place in the final assessment.

Just then, a Divine Attendant arrived to report that Divine Lady Tanya Lu had come.