Chapter 178: What Can You Tell Me?

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The banquet celebrating Lord Feng Gui’s new status comes and goes without any fanfare. Or rather, there is a lot of fanfare, but none of it is the unwanted kind. The celebration goes precisely as intended, without chaos, destruction, or death. Lord Feng Gui is not the Patriarch yet, but he will be, and the Eternal Flame Clan has chosen to accept it without struggle.

The days that follow the banquet are almost boring in how mundane they are. There are no angry outbursts or silly grudge matches. The Sparring Hall is almost unreasonably subdued, as if the disciples there feared the act of making a fist.

Liu Jin cannot say he dislikes it. In fact, he wishes the Eternal Flame Clan could be like this more often.

Elder Xue has finally stopped swamping him with work in the Apothecary, an opportunity he has used to walk around the compound and enjoy the rare peace and quiet. In the morning, Liu Jin visited the Medical Pavilion and was pleased to see everything going smoothly. Then, he decided to check up on the other disciples who had been in the Dead Plains.

“It’s time I challenge Feng Zhi!”

A mistake, in hindsight.

“That’s a horrible idea,” Liu Jin tells Huang Shing.

The two are in the Summer Forest, well away from prying eyes and ears. Huang Shing is in the middle of a simple tree-cutting mission. Mundane as the task is, there is a reason why Huang Shing is doing it beyond solitude. Like Liu Jin, Huang Shing is someone whose cultivation increased significantly while in the Dead Plains. His body needs to relax and properly stabilize before he can train in earnest once more.

“Putting aside his high cultivation level, Feng Zhi’s father is slated to be the next Patriarch,” Liu Jin points out as he helps Huang Shing cut the fallen trees into smaller pieces and tie them into bundles. “Feng Zhi has also been given credit for the discoveries in the temple. In all the time we have been here, his star has never been higher.”

“That might be true…”

“Might be?”

Huang Shing clicks his tongue. “Brother Jin is far too harsh.”

“I find it important to keep certain people honest, especially to themselves,” Liu Jin says as he finishes bundling a few branches. “Whether in cultivation or status, Feng Zhi is stronger than you. Challenging him is a horrible idea.”

“Hear me out, Brother Jin,” Huang Shing says, holding up his hand. “Certainly, Feng Zhi is more popular than me, but he’s not as popular as he could be!”

“Oh?”

“People don’t like Feng Zhi much,” Huang Shing tells him, lowering his voice. “That’s what Senior Brother Xi told me.”

“You have been talking to Xi Mou?” Liu Jin’s eye twitches. “The same Xi Mou who was part of Lord Feng Shang’s faction in the Dead Plains?”

“I figure if nothing was done about him when he came back, then it’s safe,” Huang Shing shrugs. “Senior Brother Xi has sort of become a leader among the younger members of Lord Feng Shang’s faction now that the other tournament participants have left.”

“He’s deliberately egging you on to cause trouble.”

“Almost certainly,” Huang Shing says, nodding eagerly. “I’m not that dumb, Brother Jin, but I don’t think he’s wrong when he says Feng Zhi is not that popular. Despite his position, he’s not someone who has much support.”

Liu Jin frowns. Though he does not like to admit it, Huang Shing has a point. Due to Feng Hao’s existence and Lady Ling’s influence, Feng Zhi has few true allies in the Eternal Flame Clan. Rather than a Young Master, most people probably think of him as a “spare.”

“And if we’re talking about cultivation, the gap that seemed so insurmountable when I joined the Eternal Flame Clan is much smaller now.”

Huang Shing raises his hand to the sun.

“I just need a little more for him to be within my reach. This is not arrogance, Brother Jin. I have defeated people who surpassed me in cultivation in the past. I have always been stronger than my level would suggest.”

Liu Jin sighs.

“Aha!” Huang Shing points at him. “I know that sigh! It means I have a point, but you don’t want to admit it!”

Liu Jin tilts his head to the side. “Do I have so many sighs that you can differentiate between them?”

“You sigh a lot, Brother Jin.”

Once again, Huang Shing is not entirely wrong. About the difference between him and Feng Zhi, that is. While Huang Shing has kept growing, Feng Zhi has not advanced even a single level in all the time they have known him. The difference between them has shrunk to the point where it is only a little over half a realm.

However, even taking into account the curse of the Earth Realm, that is still an insurmountable obstacle under most circumstances. Huang Shing might be stronger than his level would suggest, and were they talking about anyone else, Liu Jin would be forced to admit he might have the smallest odds of winning. Maybe one in fifty.

But this is Feng Zhi they are talking about.

“Feng Zhi is also stronger than his level would suggest,” Liu Jin tells him, stacking bundles of branches on top of each other. “That is not even taking into account the Eternal Flame. You have no answer to that.”

Huang Shing crosses his arms and looks away. “Is it really that great?”

“Yes,” Liu Jin replies. “Yes, it is.”

Though he has only felt it a few times and seen it less, that was more than enough for Liu Jin to get a good sense of how powerful the Eternal Flame is. Feng Zhi might only be in the First Level of the Earth Realm, but the Eternal Flame allows him to wield far greater power.

“Even if he underestimates you at first, you are not strong enough to immediately end the fight. He’ll soon start taking you seriously. Once that happens, you will lose. And if you actually prove strong enough to make him use the Eternal Flame, you will die. It is that simple.”

“Argh!” Huang Shing runs his hands over his hair and yells at the skies. Nearby birds fly away in fear. “Friends are supposed to encourage each other, you know?”

“I am encouraging you to live.”

Huang Shing flinches and clutches his chest. “That one cut deep, Brother Jin. I think I just took more damage right now than in all the time I was in the Dead Plains. Even the dragon didn’t hit that hard.”

As if weighted down by gloom, Huang Shing slumps against a tree and sits down on the dirt.

“What am I supposed to do about Yi Jiao then? The whole point of coming here was to rescue her, but the months have passed, and I have done nothing!”

“Correct me if I am wrong,” Liu Jin says, sitting down on top of a fallen tree, “but despite your claims, you weren’t exactly shying away from those girls at the party.”

“This and that are different!” Huang Shing repeats his words from the party. “Yi Jiao and I… we were never…” He blushes. “….as physically intimate as you and Sister Mei are.”

“I’d be surprised if you were considering your ages when you were separated. Families tend to be protective about that sort of thing. I imagine meetings between the two of you were heavily regulated.”

“Not at first,” Huang Shing answers. “When we were kids, we used to play around a lot. No one minded it then. When it became an official engagement, yeah, there were always chaperones. I couldn’t just visit her. They had to be formal meetings and the like. It was all so stiff.”

Liu Jin can easily imagine it. As a child, his interaction with Xiao Shuang had all been heavily controlled. He’d thought it was because of her condition, but things would have likely been the same if she was perfectly healthy. Important families tend to be heavily protective of anything that could potentially threaten their daughters’ virtue.

“After we were separated, I began traveling…and well…” Huang Shing blushes bright red. “It looks bad if the wandering hero doesn’t accept a maiden’s kiss for his good deeds! That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?”

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Liu Jin says nothing. Saving damsels and the associated rewards are not a matter he has any experience with.

“Anyway! It doesn’t matter! I still need to save Yi Jiao!”

“Do you even know where she is? Have you encountered any clues about her whereabouts during your time here?”

“No,” Huang Shing admits, hanging his head. “I was hoping defeating Feng Zhi would make him reveal that.”

Liu Jin wants to sigh but doesn’t because Huang Shing just told him he sighs too much.

“There’s no guarantee he’ll do that. You don’t even know if she’s in the compound. The Eternal Flame Clan has several branches all over the empire and beyond. She could be in any of them.”

“But why would he kidnap her if he’s not going to keep her close? Unless… Do you think he threw her away?”

“Does that strike you as something he would do?” Liu Jin asks.

“I don’t know…” Huang Shing bites his lower lips. “There are stories about his father.”

“Something tells me Feng Zhi is not much like his father.”

“But he did steal my fiancée! Which does sound like what his father would do! But… I wanted him to be worse,” Huang Shing admits. “When I came here, I was expecting him to always act like a petty tyrant. A spoiled brat. But he isn’t like that. It’s annoying! I… don’t understand him at all.”

Fiercely protective of his brother. Temperamental. Focused. Stubborn. Those are all things Liu Jin knows about Feng Zhi, but at the same time, he understands what Huang Shing is getting at.

“We don’t really know much about him, huh?”

~~~

“I was wondering how long it would take you to visit me.”

Lady Ling’s manor is the same as always, and its owner is no different. Always elegant, Lady Ling is dressed in silks and adorned in jewels. Aromatic incense is heavy in the air, making everything look just a little hazy. It is too extravagant to welcome a simple visitor, but Lady Ling is nothing if not extravagant.

“My lady, I came here the same day I returned to the Dead Plains,” Liu Jin replies.

“And you immediately disappeared in the depths of the Apothecary ever since.” Lady Ling points at him with her fan. “Xue has been hiding you from me all this time.”

“My lady looked for me?” Liu Jin blinks. “Whatever for? I thought it was enough that Elder Xue brought me so my lady could express her thanks.”

“That was before I learned how much you had done for my dear Hao. You have gone above and beyond all my expectations. However, Xue has kept you so guarded, you’d think there was something harmful about a lady wishing to express her thanks to her son’s protector.”

“Elder Xue worries about me. That is all.”

“Am I someone to be worried about now?” Lady Ling scoffs. “Oh well, I suppose her old age has finally made a shred of motherhood bloom in that woman. It is amusing as it is inconvenient.”