1657 The Prince

'Brother?' Alex thought and looked at the man in front of him.

The young man looked disheveled, weary, and very afraid of whatever was happening. His clothes were simple if not cheap, and he didn't look as though he kept proper care of himself.

He was tall, just as tall as the Crown Prince, and had a slightly thinner face with more pronounced cheekbones. His hair was mostly short and his eyes looked hollow.

Even through all that, he did look somewhat similar to the Crown Prince. He definitely was his brother.

This man, despite his current looks, was Long Huan, the 2nd Prince of the Empire. 

"You should not have come here, brother," the young man said with an annoyed look.

The Crown Prince seemed as confused as Alex was. "What is going on, Luoyang? Why were you hiding my brother?"

The woman grumbled and looked toward Long Huah, looking for help.

"Sister Luoyang, just bind him with something. You created this problem, deal with it," Long Huan demanded.

"What is going on?" the Crown Prince shouted even loud. "Luoyang, explain to me."

Long Huan took a long look at his brother before asking something. "How much do you know?"

"About what?" the Crown Prince asked.

"About me, my situation," he said.

"About this? I don't know. I wasn't aware you were here until I just saw you, Huan," he said and turned toward Luoyang. "Why were you acting like you were going to be caught when it's only my brother here?

The woman gave a sharp look, almost as if seeing something. She turned around toward the second prince. "I don't think he knows," she said.

"Know what?" the Crown Prince asked.

"About my situation," the second prince said, looking for hints of something.

"Neither of you two is making any sense to me right now," he said. "First of all, why are you here in the Zhan family manor? How long have you been here? I thought you were roaming the empire in secret."

The young man looked at the Crown Prince for a long time before his eyes slowly started going wide. "Dear god! You really don't know. You're not acting, are you?"

"About what?" the Crown Prince was starting to get fed up.

Alex was very curious as to what he had stumbled upon as well. The 2nd prince of the continent was hiding in the manor house of his brother's fiancee? What sort of situation was this?

From what he had been told, the young man was busy traveling the empire, and the one who had told him that was the Crown Prince. Now, it seemed that the Crown Prince himself wasn't aware of what his brother had been doing at that time.

"We don't have time for that," Luoyang spoke up. "If anyone finds out the Crown Prince and the King of the Southern Continent have gone missing from their room, it is going to create a big enough ruckus that people are going to come look in here. Let us do what we came here to do and be done with it."

The Crown Prince frowned. He wanted answers. But before he could speak, his brother spoke up.

"That's right," he said. "We can deal with him coming here later. At least it is good that he doesn't know what is going on. That would've been more trouble than I could handle."

The Crown Prince moved forth and grabbed his brother by the front of his robes. "What the hell is going on? You will explain this to me!"

The 2nd prince looked frightened for a moment, his hands reaching for his storage bag, but he stopped himself when he saw Luoyang arrive.

"Stop it!" she shouted, pulling away her fiance.

The Crown Prince saw the look of horror on his brother's face and stepped back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" He turned around to look at the woman by his side. "Luoyang, I need to know what is happening. Please," the Crown Prince said.

The woman only shook her head. "I promised him to not say," she said.

The 2nd prince stared at his brother and after a bit of deliberation started speaking. "I will explain what is happening, brother. But not right now. There is something more urgent right now."

"What is so urgent?" the Crown Prince asked.

The 2nd prince ignored him and turned to look at Alex. "You must be the King of the Southern Continent," he said, slowly bowing in Alex's direction. "I never thought I would get to meet you. I should have probably gone to meet you when I first learned about you, but I was a little worried that I would be seen by my father's men at the time."

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Prince Huan," Alex said. "If you needed something of me, you could've come for me anytime."

The prince grimaced, thinking back to the time when he had ignored the chance. "No matter, it's better late than never," he said. "I hear you are the best when it comes to healing or making pills in general."

"I would say I have a bit of talent," Alex said. While it was a small part of the Alchemy God's Knowledge when compared to the ingredients and alchemy, he still had the medical knowledge of the Alchemy God in his mind.

That was not something one could just scoff at, despite the massive limitation he had on it.

"No need for modesty, Your Majesty," Zhan Luoyang said. "Everyone already knows you're the best. You bested His Majesty in a formal alchemy battle after all."

"You'll be surprised how much the Dragon Emperor has improved in that time," Alex said. Alex had improved as well, but he wouldn't say so.

"Please, come with me," the 2nd prince said. "I am in desperate need of your expertise on this matter."

Alex followed the prince and arrived in front of the door with a barrier on it. The 2nd prince pulled out another medallion from his hand and made a small opening in the barrier just large enough for a door.

Then, he walked in.