The Attack of the Wastrel

Just as Xie Jianyu’s attack was about to strike Rong Yuan, a strong sword force flashed from behind Rong Yuan and sliced through Xie Jianyu’s attack. It continued on its path towards Xie Jianyu and struck against Xie Jianyu’s chest in the blink of an eye.

Despite Xie Jianyu’s use of earth-based spiritual energy to block against the attack, he was thrown back a few meters and he slammed on the ground. Blood pooled around him and his eyes filled with anger and resentment.

“You actually hid a strong Martial Artist behind you this whole time!”

Glaring at Hua Qingcheng who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, Xie Jianyu accused, “Is this how the Xia Kingdom treats its guests?”

Just as Xie Jianyu spoke, the sound of footsteps emerged from down the hall.

Rong Yuan did not directly answer Xie Jianyu but turned in the direction of the footsteps and said, “Why exactly did your King send you here?” Rong Yuan clapped his hand twice previously to call Yuan Zheng to bring men forward.

As Xie Jianyu turned towards the doors of the hall, he spotted familiar faces.

This was a guard that the king of Fengyang Kingdom had sent to accompany Xie Jianyu. Because the guard was very capable, Xie Jianyu had looked highly upon the guard. What did Rong Yuan mean?

Feeling Xie Jianyu’s gaze on him, the guard, Hu Lie winced in pain at Yuan Zheng grabbing him before he cried out to Xie Jianyu, “Master, please save me. These men from Xia Kingdom are ruthless, they want to lock all the men of the envoy troop here.”

Xie Jianyu’s eyes narrowed and he glared angrily at Rong Yuan.

“You bunch of…!” Before he could finish, he was cut off by Hua Qingcheng’s lotus flute.

“Shh…you are not allowed to curse in the Royal Palace,” Hua Qingcheng reminded kindly. The sound of the flute threw Xie Jianyu off for a second. The sight of Hua Qingcheng playing the flute was beautiful and even men would fall for him, Xie Jianyu was no exception to that.

As Xie Jianyu admired Hua Qingcheng, he did not notice Gu Lingzhi feeding Hu Lie a medicine. In the next instant where Hua Qingcheng regained his senses and was about to erupt with anger again, Gu Lingzhi’s soft voice rang through the hall, “Tell me, before you came, what did your King tell you?”

“I…” Hu Lie’s nervousness was evident then and he opened and closed his mouth several times. His eyes shifted slightly and he tried desperately to resist the effects of the medicine. However, there was no way to reject the medicine from his system and his face wrinkled in agony.

“Don’t worry, say it. As long as you tell the truth, I can help you,” Gu Lingzhi coaxed.

She had fed Hu Lie a spiritual medicine that was used against criminals. However, the ingredients for this medicine were rare and only a handful of people knew how to cultivate such a Truth Serum. Hence, this Spiritual Medicine disappeared from the continent over the years, but Gu Lingzhi had gotten the recipe for the pill from the main palace. She had not expected to use it so quickly.

“What did you do to him? Let him go!” Sensing Hu Lie’s agony, Xie Jianyu thought that Gu Lingzhi had fed the guard some poison and strongly accused her, but was held down by Hua Qingcheng, who calmly said, “Don’t be anxious, watch and see.”

At that point, Hu Lie was in a confused state of mind. He could only feel his mind spinning. He answered all of Gu Lingzhi’s questions truthfully and his honesty in answering the questions frightened him as he had undergone strict and tough training for any interrogations. His mind and willpower to fight against the effects of the drug gradually wore down and after fifteen minutes of struggle, he fully relented and exposed the truth.

“Before I came, the King asked me to observe Prince Yi’s every move. If the Xia Kingdom knew that the Fengyang Kingdom was allying with the North Qiu Kingdom, I should kill Prince Yi. Even if I can not kill Prince Yi, I was to poison him secretly and disable him forever. Whichever method it was, the king would take the opportunity to use the matter as a trigger point and declare war on the Xia Kingdom……”

As Hu Lie spoke the truth, shock, surprise, disbelief, and finally pain flashed through Xie Jianyu’s eyes.

He could not believe that the brother that he had looked up to for so many years would want to harm him. It was clear from Hu Lie’s words that his brother wanted him dead for a very long time.

“Is it that hard to understand?” Looking at the pain in Hu Lie’s eyes, Gu Lingzhi continued, “The military rights of Fengyang Kingdom in your hand is enough to make him hate you to the core.”

As a king, he would want to be in control of everything. Who would not be scared if the military right of a country did not belong to you? In addition to the havoc that came before the new king was elected, it was unsurprising that the King was dissatisfied with his younger brother.

However, the Fengyang military rights were in the hands of Xie Jianyu and without absolute confidence, the King would not take action against Xie Jianyu. This led to many years of pretending to have a good relationship with his younger brother and hence, why would he let go of such a good opportunity to get rid of Xie Jianyu?

Xie Jianyu, who had control of the military for so many years was not dumb either. He had not imagined that such a thing could happen and once the truth was exposed to him, he blamed himself for not looking at the whole picture before. Then, he began to realize how lucky he was, for escaping death many times before. His respect towards the King of Fengyang Kingdom turned into bitter resentment and hatred.

What was more painful than being betrayed by someone he loved the most?

“Are you willing to be used by him?” Rong Yuan stepped towards Xie Jianyu and observed his facial expressions carefully. With a slight hesitation, Rong Yuan continued, “The North Qiu Kingdom is ambitious. Do you think that after they rule over the Tianyuan Continent, they would really abide by their promise and share the land with the Fengyang Kingdom? By that time, the most likely thing that would happen is the North Qiu Kingdom turning against you. Are you willing to see Fengyang City fall to the North Qiu Kingdom after all your ancestors’ hard work in building the kingdom?”

Rong Yuan had touched the weakness of Xie Jianyu and he instantly objected, “No! I am not willing to!”

“Then collaborate with us,” Rong Yuan directly replied. “If you work with me, I will help you get back everything that belonged to you and I will help you bring Fengyang Kingdom down the right path.”

As Gu Lingzhi heard Rong Yuan and Xie Jianyu’s exchange, she could not help smirking and shuddering at Rong Yuan’s words. She admired Rong Yuan for choosing his words carefully at the right moment.

Xie Jianyu lowered his head for a moment, his eyes turned bloodshot before he suddenly whipped his head up and stared at Rong Yuan, “I am willing to work with you!”

With the answer he wanted, Rong Yuan smiled widely, “Trust me, you will not regret this decision.”

At that point, Hu Lie had just regained his consciousness from the effects of the drugs and his face fell at Xie Jianyu’s words. He shifted slightly under Yuan Zheng’s hold and gritted his teeth, “It isn’t the time for you to die yet.”

Yuan Zheng pressed a few acupoints on Hu Lie to seal his cultivation before he threw Hu Lie down towards Xie Jianyu.

“You…” Xie Jianyu stared at his most trusted guard with mixed emotions in his eyes. He knew that Rong Yuan had spared Hu Lie for Xie Jianyu to interrogate Hu Lie and dispel any suspicions Xie Jianyu might have. As such, Xie Jianyu stepped forward and allowed his spiritual energy to enter Hu Lie, effectively sealing off Hu Lie’s cultivation.

Rong Yuan knew that Xie Jianyu had been injured and even if Xie Jianyu had agreed to collaborate with Rong Yuan, it was not a good opportunity to talk. Without wasting further time, Rong Yuan called for men to arrange a place for Xie Jianyu to stay.

Other kingdoms that sided with the North Qiu Kingdom were surprised and given a glimmer of hope when they saw that Xie Jianyu was treated well by Rong Yuan. In the following few days, groups of envoys from five different kingdoms were sent to Xia Kingdom in the hopes to get on Rong Yuan’s good side.

“Although the North Qiu Kingdom has lost a few Demigods, they have deep roots. Who knows how many experts they have hidden away? In addition to the kingdoms who are helping them, there is no point even if we expose their schemes.”

After close to a month, Rong Yuan had met with envoys from almost every kingdom, whereby some envoys came out of goodwill while others came after an invitation by Rong Yuan. There was only a minority of kingdoms who had not sent envoys to the Xia Kingdom and this was due to the different plans they had regarding the matter or their lack of willingness to become enemies with the North Qiu Kingdom.

That day, Rong Yuan and Rong Han were gathered in a room with a few others. Xie Jianyu had been the person who made the comment on the experts of North Qiu Kingdom previously.

In actual fact, Xie Jianyu was not supposed to attend the meeting that involved only trusted aides. However, Rong Yuan considered his status and military rights over Fengyuan Kingdom and hence, Xie Jianyu was invited to the meeting as well.

On one hand, Rong Yuan wanted to test Xie Jianyu’s capabilities. On the other hand, Rong Yuan could tell that Xie Jianyu was genuinely keen on allying with the Xia Kingdom.

The moment Xie Jianyu entered the meeting room, he understood Rong Yuan’s intentions from what he saw. His previous hesitation over Rong Yuan’s promise to him was completely dissolved and he began to open and voice out his opinion during the meeting. Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan’s abilities to see through people was once again displayed in this instance.

It was definitely the King of Fengyang Kingdom’s greatest mistake to hand Xie Jianyu over to the Xia Kingdom.

“In your opinion, what should we do?” Rong Yuan calmly asked. He wanted to see what brilliant strategy the proclaimed war god of Fengyang Kingdom would have.