Chapter 206: After Joy Comes Sadness for Ye Dai
“Oh no, I can’t seem to gather my true qi!”
“Mm? Something’s wrong. My spirit ocean seems to have sucked in something!”
“Ah, my true qi can’t be gathered either!”
Everyone on Ye Dai’s side started yelling all of a sudden.
Ye Dai’s face also greatly changed, because he too discovered that he couldn’t summon his true qi. Not only his men, but even he himself had an empty dantian, as if his true qi was locked by something and he couldn’t gather the slightest bit of it.
Chen Li’s face had drastically changed. It was as if he was a duck whose throat was being clutched by a hunter as he emitted raspy sounds, “Jiang Chen, you used poison?”
“Congratulations, you’ve guessed correctly. Chen Li, is it? How many times the agreed upon rate do you think you can get now?” Jiang Chen had a shadow of smile on his face.
Chen Li’s disposition was ashen faced as his arrogant flames seemed to have been directly put out with a bucket of cold water. His face was filled with a terrified look, “Jiang Chen, if… if you dare kill me, the Precious Tree Sect will never let you go.”
Jiang Chen’s face darkened, “Give me a reason not to kill you.”
“I… ” Chen Li’s first notion was to say that ‘I’m a genius of the Precious Tree Sect and a disciple of the Sect. You’d be making yourself out to be an enemy of the Sect if you killed me.’
However, he wasn’t a complete idiot after all. Those sorts of weak threats weren’t useful in a moment like this.
You wanted to kill the opponent first and now you were caught in their plot. Why would they not kill you now because of a few threats? How was that possible at all?
“Jiang Chen, tell me what you want. I will bring it out if I can. We have no enmity between us and we’d both be dying because of wealth. I kill you because I’ve been hired by another and because I seek wealth. If you kill me, there’s nothing in it for you, so why bother? You can gain great benefits if you don’t kill me. I can also swear to the heavens that I’ll never seek revenge on you and cause trouble.”
One had to say that Chen Li was a very practical person. When he saw that the circumstances weren’t looking right, he would immediately beg for mercy and present his soft side. He wouldn’t dither about at all.
“I can, not kill you. I don’t need your ransom money and I don’t need you to swear an oath to the heavens. I only have one request.”
“Please tell me!” Chen Li was overjoyed and rushed Jiang Chen. “Tell me, I can agree to any request.”
“Only one of you can leave this place alive. I’ll let you go if you kill them all.” Jiang Chen said with a faint smile.
“Do you mean that?”
“Do I look like someone who jokes?” Jiang Chen faintly asked.
Dan Fei walked up at this time. “Jiang Chen, please give me some face and let them go this time.”
Jiang Chen was dumbfounded. “Why?”
Dan Fei said faintly, “Just tell me if you agree or not!”
Jiang Chen was momentarily struck speechless.
“If you kill them now, it’ll be easily traced back to you when we leave. You’ll be a public enemy of the Skylaurel Kingdom then. Even if you have the Skylaurel Kingdom Medallion, it wouldn’t help you. That Chen Li is a disciple of the Precious Tree Sect. It’ll be troublesome if you kill a disciple of the Sect.”
Dan Fei looked at Ye Dai. “I’ll be sure to report to the lordmaster the truth that Ye Dai wanted to kill his own brothers. His days as first prince are numbered. His enemies will naturally take care of him then, why dirty your hands?”
Jiang Chen was of a mind to turn her down, but Dan Fei was quite resolute in her request. He could only look at Ye Rong with resignation, “Fourth prince, I will no longer involve myself in this matter. You do as you see fit.”
Ye Rong looked ruefully at Dan Fei and decided to make a friendly gesture at no extra cost to himself. “Sister Dan Fei, I’ll listen to you. However, I’m afraid that Ye Dai is unwilling to give up and he will still make trouble for us when we leave this mountain valley.”
Dan Fei didn’t allow Ye Dai to be killed also because she was thinking of past history. Whether it was Ye Dai or Ye Zheng, they had both received tutelage from the lordmaster and they had grown up a step at a time in his care.
Although Dan Fei wasn’t kindly disposed towards them, and she disliked them even, she still wasn’t willing to see them die here.
Ye Rong was the same as Jiang Chen in that he was more than unwilling to see the situation develop thus. However, the greatest difference between him and Ye Dai was that he could contain his anger of the moment.
Since Dan Fei had promised that she would make a report to the lordmaster when they got out, Ye Dai was as good as nothing. As long as Ye Dai was stripped of his titles, he, Ye Rong’s, greatest competitor was no more.
Since Ye Dai was no longer a threat to him making a play for the throne, there would be more than enough chances to kill him in the future even if Ye Rong didn’t kill him today.
Ye Dai thought he was dead without a doubt and didn’t hold any hope. When he suddenly heard that Dan Fei was begging for mercy on his behalf, he was overjoyed.
“Number four, don’t kill me. Anything is yours if you don’t kill me. I promise that I won’t contest for the position of Crown Prince when we leave, and that I’ll be a powerless royal who doesn’t inquire after matters of politics in the future. I can also swear to the heavens that I will never seek revenge for what happened today and I will never cause trouble again.”
Ye Rong’s brow creased. “It’s not that I’m not killing you, it is because sister Dan Fei is sparing your dog of a life.”
Dan Fei also felt disgusted by Ye Dai’s ugly display. “Ye Dai, conduct yourself well. You’re being let off the hook this time because I’m begging for mercy for you on the lordmaster’s behalf. You won’t be that lucky next time.”
“Yes yes, sister Dan Fei, it’s all my fault. My mind was in a haze. I was blinded by power and I will absolutely turn over a new leaf when we leave.”
Jiang Chen shook his head with resignation. Bad habits could never be changed, just like a stray dog that would always resort to eating sh*t if it had nothing else to eat. Ye Dai was just that sort of dog.
It was actually allowing latent danger to exist if they let this kind of person go. According to Jiang Chen’s intentions, killing him with one strike would be the cleanest way to handle this.
However, since Dan Fei’s words had come to this point, Jiang Chen couldn’t very well insist on still moving forward. After all, this was still nominally Ye Rong’s decision.
If Ye Rong could bear to do so, then why wouldn’t he, Jiang Chen, be able to?
Ye Dai was just a prancing clown at the end of the day. Jiang Chen wasn’t afraid of him at all, and his vision didn’t rest on the layout of the single city and pond that was the Skylaurel Kingdom.
Honestly speaking, Jiang Chen didn’t have to fear that Precious Tree Sect disciple even if he hadn’t used poison.
Dan Fei looked a bit apologetically at Jiang Chen. She knew that her request was a bit out of bounds. She’d accomplished nothing in this battle. So logically speaking, she had no right to be making such a request of Jiang Chen.
“Thank you.” Dan Fei walked close to Jiang Chen and spoke in a low voice.
“It’s nothing.” Jiang Chen wasn’t a person who was mindful of personal gains and losses. The Northern Palace disciple he hated the most was dead, and so, the great majority of his anger had been dissipated.
“Let’s go.” Ye Rong also walked close to Jiang Chen. “Jiang Chen, it’s all thank to you this time. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unbearable to contemplate.”
Ye Rong’s heart still fluttered a bit with fear when he thought about what had happened. He’d been in the throes of despair with what happened today already and hadn’t dreamed that he’d be able to make it out alive. He was prepared to fight to the death.
He didn’t think that matters would suddenly develop in this direction and that a one eighty turn would suddenly occur.
The first prince had been strutting with pride and he thought that victory was within his grasp when he’d been suddenly slapped down.
And Ye Rong, who’d been slated for a sure death, had turned into the final victor. However, Ye Rong didn’t dare style himself as the victor as he knew that all of this was due to Jiang Chen.
Without Jiang Chen, they’d probably all be cold, hard corpses by now.
Although he spared their lives, Jiang Chen hadn’t planned on curing their poison. It was a good thing that the poison wouldn’t last long and it would automatically disperse after roughly two hours.
Lin Qianli and Ye Rong’s two personal guards showed no mercy however, as they made of with all of Ye Dai and Ye Zheng’s hunting trophies.
They’d spared the people, but they would have to still take some interest.
Even Ye Rong didn’t stop them.
Ye Dai and the others had retained their lives, how would they dare erupt in hostilities with Ye Rong’s men over a bit of personal belongings? They all felt indignant but they didn’t dare voice it as they docilely handled over their goods.
When the group of people walked out of the valley, Ye Rong was in a fantastic mood. Misfortune had come as a blessing in disguise. He never would’ve thought that they’d come in chasing a spirit creature but would end up precipitating all those events to happen.
They’d truly reaped rich rewards this time, and he wasn’t thinking about the hunting trophies that they had taken from Ye Dai. Ye Rong didn’t care about those gains at all.
His greatest gain was that he’d defeated Ye Dai. Clearing the biggest obstacle in the war to be Crown Prince was the greatest gain of all.
The group of them walked forward when Xue Tong, scouting the road ahead, suddenly quickly dashed back. He was carrying something in his hand. It was an exceedingly small spirit creature and it’d seemed to be tortured by someone. There were countless numbers of injuries on its body and it dripped blood along the way. It appeared to be dead for a long while.
“Young master, we discovered this up ahead. The injuries of this spirit creature are quite bizarre. It looks like someone’s purposefully tortured it to death.”
…
About fifty or sixty meters from the mountain valley, second prince Ye Qiao looked in a carefree manner at the mountain valley.
“Ling Xuan, is there any new intelligence?”
“In response to the second prince, the latest intelligence is that the first prince and third prince have already met up and they are heading to the mountain valley. It looks like the two parties will meet up.”
Ye Qiao’s demeanor was leisurely. “Good, good. The heavens really are helping me, hahaha.”
“Remember, infuriate that pack of Goldbiter Rats at all costs. You must spark a horde of rats to the greatest degree possible and lure them to that valley. We’re going to clear out the lot of them without using a single soldier or pawn from our side.”
A ruthless light shot out of second prince Ye Qiao’s eyes.
“Ling Shi, go with Ling Feng. Particularly Ling Feng, he’s well versed in the habits of spirit creatures and he knows how to madden them. He knows even more about how to incite a horde of beasts and he knows how to lead them to the mountain valley.”
Ye Qiao nodded in satisfaction. “It’s said that soldiers are expensive because they’re elite and not because of their numbers. Ye Dai is an idiot because he always brings a huge pack of practitioners with him and he always spends money wrongly to hire those sect disciples, but he still ends up with a face full of dust every time. He has a good background and he is used to using great power to oppress his enemies, but he forgot that the true practitioners, the truly superior ones, find their brains more useful than force!”
“The second prince is wise!” Ling Xuan also smiled. “It was our luck that allowed us to discover the Goldbiter Rats’ nest.”
“Alright, it’s about time for us to retreat. Once the horde of rats is set into motion, they’ll be absolutely and incredibly destructive. It’s likely that nothing within a radius of a hundred li will be safe. Notify Ling Shi and Ling Feng to be careful of their safety. Remember to leave methods of contact so they can reconvene with the team as fast as possible.”
Ye Qiao retracted the smile on his face as he cast a final look in the southwestern direction with his sinister look. He laughed lightly as he said, “Ye Dai, Ye Rong, and you idiot Ye Zheng, I hope you aren’t my brothers in your next life. Even if you reincarnated ten times, you’re destined to lose if you fight me.”
“I, Ye Qiao, am the true candidate for Crown Prince. The only candidate!”