Chapter 041

Since that's the case, Lou Hao is one of us. For my own people, I never hold back.

Bai Xiaoyu: "You don't need to pay for the previous expenses. By the way, I have something else for you."

Lou Hao: "I haven't even started working yet. It doesn't seem right to use such expensive potions without repaying you."

The price Bai Xiaoyu mentioned earlier was not high at all. If it were the Huang family, the price for such top-notch potions would likely be double.

Bai Xiaoyu picked up a box of potions from beside him and placed it on the ground, then opened it.

Lou Hao's eyes twitched; inside was a box full of potions. In terms of potions, he could barely be considered well-informed. Just by taking a glance, he could tell from their clear, transparent colors that these were all top-notch potions.

Bai Xiaoyu waved at him. "I've seen your physical condition before; you were severely injured and need proper care. These are cultivation potions and repair potions. Use them for now."

Lou Hao was stunned. "Are you saying you're giving me this entire box of top-notch potions?"

Bai Xiaoyu nodded. "If you run out, come get more yourself."

Lou Hao looked at Bai Xiaoyu, then at the box containing at least a hundred bottles of top-notch potions, feeling completely overwhelmed by Bai Xiaoyu's wealth.

These were top-notch potions! Even in the Imperial Star headquarters of the Huang family, it would be hard to find so many of the same type of top-notch potions all at once.

Seeing Lou Hao staring at the box of potions in amazement, Bai Xiaoyu didn't say much. He just said, "I've been too busy lately. The herbs sent by the two legions haven't been processed yet. I'll finish making the potions they need and then talk to you. Help yourself."

With that, Bai Xiaoyu patted Big Black Egg and began refining potions.

He worked quickly, processing a hundred portions of herbs at a time.

Big Black Egg stood guard beside Bai Xiaoyu, slightly blocking Lou Hao's view.

Watching Bai Xiaoyu refine potions with such fluid movements, Lou Hao was utterly shocked. He had some doubts before, but seeing Bai Xiaoyu refine potions with his own eyes...

Who would have thought that the notorious underachiever who scored unprecedentedly low at the Imperial Military Academy and had both F grades in mental strength and physique would now be a master in potion-making and cultivation?

People often say that fortunes change every thirty years.

But this has only been three months!

Back then, he was the top student, while Bai Xiaoyu was at the bottom.

Now...

He never imagined he would be saved by Bai Xiaoyu one day.

After finishing the potions, Bai Xiaoyu said to Lou Hao, who was still in disbelief, "Xiaolou, come help pack these potions."

Lou Hao shuddered. "You call me Xiaolou? I'm two months older than you."

Bai Xiaoyu glanced at him. "Now I'm the boss. Besides, Xiaolou sounds nice."

Fine, Lou Hao resigned himself and started packing the boxes. Touching the potions still warm from refinement, he couldn't help but feel attached.

Bai Xiaoyu: "Stop touching them. Pack them first. You can touch them as much as you want later."

Lou Hao: "How is that possible? These are all top-notch potions. Everyone in the galaxy treasures them."

Not only did Lou Hao touch them, but he also couldn't resist rubbing his face against them.

Bai Xiaoyu watched with a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "This is a repair potion, double S grade. It's for the Sixteenth Legion. Remember, don't mix them up. After I finish the potions for the Sixteenth Legion, there are still the Twenty-ninth Legion's potions. Mark the types and quantities clearly and pack them properly. Today, you can try it out. This will be your job in the future. I'll give you the contact information of the people responsible for this aspect in both legions. You'll handle the handovers with them."

Lou Hao finally realized something was off.

Wasn't he supposed to manage and expand the potion shop? Why was he now packing boxes and handling handovers with the Sixteenth and Twenty-ninth Legions?

Lou Hao suddenly paused. "Wait, you said the Sixteenth and Twenty-ninth Legions?"

Weren't those the two legions he had always wanted to join? Not just him, but all his classmates dreamed of joining them.

How did these two coveted legions become associated with Bai Xiaoyu?

Even the siblings of Bai Xiaoyu in the Imperial Star had no connections there, and Bai Qi had faced repeated rejections. Now, Bai Xiaoyu had somehow befriended both legions.

Lou Hao looked at Bai Xiaoyu as if he were some kind of monster.

Until Big Black Egg shook, he snapped out of it.

Looking at the subtle positioning, it was just enough to block his view and remain in a defensive stance.

Lou Hao analyzed it and found that Bai Xiaoyu was within Big Black Egg's protective range. If he attacked Bai Xiaoyu, Big Black Egg would be perfectly positioned to block his best attack route.

Rubbing his still sore nose, Lou Hao wondered what kind of egg this was. It was terrifying.

After finishing the batch of potions, Bai Xiaoyu turned to Big Black Egg. "Big Black, Xiao Budian is looking for me. I don't have time now. If you don't go back, he'll guess you're here. Be good, Big Black. Go back and absorb some nutrient solution. I'll come pick you up later, okay?"

Big Black Egg wobbled, bouncing a few times, and pointed towards Lou Hao with its body.

Bai Xiaoyu patted the egg. "Don't worry, Xiaolou's physique is worse than mine was back then. I can knock him down with one punch now."

Lou Hao: "..."

Who are you looking down on?

Even if his physique wasn't great, his combat experience remained. He didn't think he would lose to Bai Xiaoyu, who hadn't learned any combat skills.

Big Black Egg seemed to size up Lou Hao, then reluctantly left after Bai Xiaoyu's persuasion.

Lou Hao: "..."

Was he just being looked down upon by an egg?

After the big black egg left, Bai Xiaoyu turned to Lou Hao and said, "Since Big Black is gone now, take off your shirt."

Lou Hao was startled and took a few steps back. "What do you want to do?"

So he couldn't help himself after all and was finally going to make a move on him?

Bai Xiaoyu was speechless. "What are you thinking? Zhang Yi said there are two wounds on your back. I remember your beast form has wings, right? Were they cut off?"

Lou Hao's face darkened as he thought of Huang Ming's chubby, jiggling face. He gritted his teeth and replied, "Yes, I can't transform into my beast form anymore."

Bai Xiaoyu: "Let me see."

This time, Lou Hao didn't hesitate; he took off his shirt and turned around, presenting his back to Bai Xiaoyu.

Bai Xiaoyu saw two strange scars on his back, below the shoulder blades and on either side of the spine.

He had assumed the wings were cut off, but they weren't. The wounds looked like they had been forcibly dug out, with the joints connected to the spine broken.

Even without wings, a beastman could still transform into their beast form. Lou Hao had been drained of a large amount of essence blood and had also overdosed on the Berserk Beast Potion, which prematurely exhausted his body's potential and vitality, leading to his current state.

Bai Xiaoyu frowned. "Looks like we need to help you recover soon. Otherwise, your current body won't be able to handle the workload ahead."

Lou Hao: "???"

His back felt oddly prickly. So far, even when helping pack potions for two legions, he had managed perfectly well.

Bai Xiaoyu glanced at the time. "Now that everyone is bringing in herbs, come with me."

Then Bai Xiaoyu introduced Lou Hao to the parents of Xiao Shiqi and Xiaoba, handing over the responsibility of receiving the herbs.

He transferred some credits to Lou Hao, making him responsible for paying the parents and purchasing the herbs.

He also instructed Lou Hao to contact the previous parents regularly to send nutrient solutions to the other children besides Xiao Shiqi and Xiaoba.

And...

Lou Hao's face fell. "Wait, wait, all these tasks are mine?"

Bai Xiaoyu nodded emphatically. "Exactly."

Lou Hao: "There's no one else?"

Bai Xiaoyu: "There's me, but as the store manager, I need to refine potions and incubate eggs. I really don't have the time. You'll have to work hard and bear more responsibilities from now on."

Lou Hao: "..."

He had initially thought Bai Xiaoyu was distributing top-grade nutrient solutions across the entire galaxy, assuming it must be a sizable operation. But now he realized that this massive Pharmacy Department had only two people. Before he joined, wasn't Bai Xiaoyu running things alone?!

He had underestimated the situation!

Bai Xiaoyu patted his shoulder. "Think about the Huang family. Even if our potion company currently has only two people, as long as you work hard enough, surpassing the Huang family will be no problem."

A huge pie dropped on his head, and Lou Hao nearly broke down. "Why do I have to work so hard?"

Bai Xiaoyu: "You said you would handle everything in the Pharmacy Department. Keep up the good work."

Lou Hao wanted to run away with the flying machine that very night.

Bai Xiaoyu then led him to the nutrient solution refining machine, explaining while placing the herbs inside.

"This is the nutrient solution refining machine. It can produce up to two thousand bottles at once, but it has a cooldown period. It can be used every eight hours."

He only learned about the cooldown later. The system's products were somewhat unreliable.

Lou Hao looked at the machine with unbridled amazement. "Which company made this? It's simply perfect."

Not only did it produce S-grade top-quality potions, but it also reduced the number of herbs needed from over a hundred to just a dozen! This was unheard of.

The Huang family's nutrient solution refining machine was ten times larger. Each batch required a group of pharmacists working tirelessly for five to six hours.

Now, for the first time, he saw a machine where Bai Xiaoyu could produce two thousand bottles within half an hour!

Lou Hao touched the silver-white metal machine, marveling, "Amazing. If only it could operate without limits. By the way, which company makes this?"

Bai Xiaoyu: "It's ours. There's only one, so forget it."

It was a prize from the system; otherwise, there wouldn't be any.

Lou Hao: "One machine is far from enough. The output doesn't even match the quantity of nutrient solutions the Huang family provides on a single planet."

Listening to Lou Hao, Bai Xiaoyu gained a deeper understanding of the scale of the Huang family's operations.

With hundreds of thousands of planets across the galaxy, D36, where Bai Xiaoyu was located, was a small planet compared to Imperial Star, which was a hundred times larger. Moreover, it was a rebuilt planet with sparse population. Yet, even such a planet was divided into over a hundred districts, each with at least one nursery.

Imperial Star, with its dense population, had even more districts, and each district had at least ten nurseries.

The Huang family's potions occupied 15% of all nurseries' affiliated pharmacies across all planets, and their territory was constantly expanding.

To overthrow the Huang family, they needed to increase their potion production significantly.

Lou Hao stared at the nutrient solution refining machine, almost mesmerized.

After staring for several minutes, he suddenly turned around, looking at Bai Xiaoyu with intense eyes, seemingly harboring some ulterior motives.

Bai Xiaoyu: "Xiaolou, what's up?"

Lou Hao: "I have a roommate whose family specializes in developing advanced machinery, weapons, and mechs."

Bai Xiaoyu understood immediately: "You want to trick him over here? That’s not very nice, is it?"

Lou Hao chuckled a few times: "He’s a research maniac. If I just send him a few photos of this thing, he’ll rush over here, scrambling and panting, without even bothering to pull up his pants."

Bai Xiaoyu searched his memory and recalled the person always fiddling with various small parts around Lou Hao, regardless of the occasion. The smile on his face grew wider. "Indeed."

Lou Hao said, "This is called fishing like Jiang Taigong."

However, Bai Xiaoyu, remembering that this was a product of the system, couldn’t help but warn: "This thing isn’t easy to study. Even if he figures it out, he might not be able to replicate it."

Lou Hao replied confidently: "I believe in that guy’s abilities. Even if he can’t make an exact copy, at least a low-end version should be doable."

With that, he immediately used the military-grade optical brain provided by the Sixteenth Legion to take photos of the device in operation.

Meanwhile, at the top-tier instrument research base on Imperial Star.

A young man had been busy all day and took a quick shower before getting into bed.

He glanced at his optical brain; that guy had been missing for almost two months, and the Huang family claimed he was on a special mission.

Recently, he had a nagging feeling that something was off. This time, after finishing his work, he planned to go back and ask his older brother to help investigate.

He really didn’t want to leave the base to waste precious time on that guy, as the little parts here were a hundred times cuter than that snake!

Suddenly, his optical brain received a message. His gaze fell on the sender.

Ah, if that guy hasn’t died, then everything’s fine. Time to sleep; there’s still early morning research tomorrow.

At that moment, as if sensing his actions, another message arrived just as his eyes were about to move away from the optical brain. This time, it was an exceptionally clear photo.

The young man’s eyes narrowed, and he immediately sprang out of bed.

He quickly dialed the other person’s optical brain: "Give me the address!"

Then, grabbing a jacket, he rushed to his mech and headed towards D36 Star.

At the same time, the Huang family received the news. Their high-grade nutrient solution equipment was almost complete, just one step away, when the researcher ran off...

It was meant to counter the supreme-grade potions made by the master alchemist on Bai Xiaoyu’s side, since even though their level was higher, the quantity was limited.

Now, the Huang family was grinding their teeth in frustration and hurriedly sought other researchers. Unfortunately, the others were far less skilled and couldn’t even begin to tackle the problem.

They had no choice but to desperately continue contacting the original researcher, but to no avail.

The Huang family was nearly driven mad.

On this side, after handing everything over to Lou Hao, Bai Xiaoyu felt much more relaxed.

Of course, for the sake of the other’s health, he had helped prepare several medicinal baths for him over the past few days. Now, Lou Hao could finally carry a box of potions without gasping for breath.

He spent more time focusing on refining potions and taking care of the eggs in the nursery.

This morning, good news came from the Sixteenth Legion, saying they had found the Bone Flower.

While waiting for the Bone Flower to arrive, Bai Xiaoyu prepared various auxiliary herbs.

He checked all the eggs and found that the difference in size between the undamaged and damaged eggs had grown even larger.

A few days ago, he had no solution, but now he finally had a way to change things.

However, he had only seen the Bone Flower in the old ancestors’ notes and had never refined it before.

He needed to see how much of the Bone Flower was delivered. If the amount was small, he would have to be extremely careful during refinement.

After all, there were too many damaged eggs. If he failed, and there wasn’t enough to repair them, it would be troublesome.

Just as he was preparing to refine other potions, the robot received a delivery.

Bai Xiaoyu opened the box sent by the robot, revealing a round, plump human skull inside, complete with facial features, especially the eye-shaped holes, which looked exactly like a skull except for the blood-red flower growing from the top.

He reached out, touching the forehead-like area with his fingertips, feeling its icy coldness. He gently tapped it with his knuckles, producing a crisp sound.

The Bone Flower was indeed as described: not only in appearance but also in texture and surface composition, it was extremely similar to bone.

There appeared to be only one.

But time was running out. When checking the damaged eggs earlier, he noticed that the most severely damaged egg was losing vitality, and its development was gradually stopping.

This was clearly a sign that it was turning into a silent egg.

The transformation period for a silent egg was three days, and this egg had started transforming last night.

The longer it took, the greater the impact on the egg.

Therefore, Bai Xiaoyu decided to start refining the Bone Flower right away.

He opened the alchemy furnace, placing the herbs in order, and carefully removed impurities with fine threads of mental power. Once all the auxiliary herbs coalesced into a translucent mass, he knew it was time.

He placed the skull-sized Bone Flower into the furnace, enveloping the small red flower with mental power and intensifying the heat to burn the bone-like petals. He also used mental power to gauge the required temperature until the Bone Flower turned white and seemed about to break. Then, he guided the liquid closer, allowing it to slowly integrate with the dried Bone Flower.

Soon, the Bone Flower softened and began to melt, dripping drop by drop.

Bai Xiaoyu’s eyes showed a hint of relief; so far, this step was perfect.

Next, he carefully refined the small red flower wrapped in mental power into a liquid and stored it separately.

By then, the Bone Flower had become a semi-liquid paste.

Bai Xiaoyu pinched a bit out; it felt smooth, soft, and warm, not sticky, almost like touching human skin.

Bai Xiaoyu looked at the two masses, one white and one red, vastly different in size yet appearing incredibly harmonious, and knew it was done.

After packing them up, he had the robot carry the alchemy cauldron and followed him to the cultivation room.

As soon as he went down, he saw Lou Hao standing guard at the door, looking exhausted. The moment he arrived, Lou Hao stared at him intently.

Bai Xiaoyu was surprised: "Are you guarding the door like a door god?"

Lou Hao: "Boss, I've been waiting for you. Start the broadcast quickly; I'm getting anxious."

Bai Xiaoyu glanced around and indeed, it was time for the live stream. He didn't know why Lou Hao, who had been busy running around for the past two days, suddenly came to watch his broadcast, but he didn't ask further and started the broadcast as usual.

As soon as the broadcast began, the two old professors waiting in his live stream immediately started speaking eagerly.

"Streamer, have you thought it through? Your junior brothers and sisters..."

"Yes, how many can you take? Even a few would be fine..."

Before Bai Xiaoyu could answer, he saw Lou Hao jumping up and down with extreme excitement, gesturing wildly at him.

Lou Hao: "Boss, please! Accept them all, every single one of them! Both the pharmaceutical and cultivation majors are talents fought over across the entire galaxy. Others have to fight for them, but now they're offering themselves. Can we just accept them with tears of joy?"

I’m about to be swamped with work!

Bai Xiaoyu's lips curved upward. Was it really that exciting? Once they arrive, won't you still have to arrange everything?