Chapter 158: Honorarium

Taking his younger brother with him, Zhao Xiluo left the place right after cordially inviting Bai Yunfei to come as a guest to the Zhao one day. And with several words of goodbye, the two brothers and uncle left.

Watching the three Zhao family men leave, the entire Ye family in audience had been speechless. They had originally believed that a fight to the death was inevitable, so how had this conflict suddenly resolve amicably with both sides becoming friends?

Ye Ting hung his head down low with a complicated expression on his face. The house of Ye had been put in a tizzy because of the bullying of the house of Zhao. If he had enough power, then Ye Ting wouldn’t have been so willing to resolve this matter peacefully. Instead, he would have strode towards them with a heroic air to demand retribution from the Zhao. But with Zhao Xiluo returning to Gaoyi City with unbelievable strength and the Water School as his patron, the house of Ye was once more stuck in the underdog position. But with Zhao Xiluo being the one to make amends and offer up an apology and recompense for what damages the Zhao family had incurred, Ye Ting could be said to be placated. If Zhao Xiluo had desired to instead suppress the Ye, then even Ye Ting wouldn’t be able to offer up any resistance.

Helpless, Ye Ting sighed to himself, “Sigh! Perhaps this was for the best! A mysterious ending to this mysterious conflict. But my Ye will feel wronged even with this end...”

“The Liu has the Wood, and the Zhao has the Water. Even the scions of the two houses are talented. Tianwen is strong, but compared to those two, he is nothing considerable. If only the Ye had such a mountain to rely upon….” By this point, Ye Ting’s eyes had already flown to Bai Yunfei as if to measure him up. “A great deal of reason why Zhao Xiluo came to resolve this issue so peacefully is because of this Bai Yunfei. Just what sort of man is this one? Even You Qingfeng of the Wood School looks favorably on him, if Zhao Xiluo’s words can be trusted. And his sworn sister is in the Wood School as well, which sect has such an up-and-coming youth like him….?”

Not too long after the people from Zhao left, the Ye had been able to receive another rare guest. It was the lord of the Liu, Liu Kun. With him was his second son Liu Jin and his youngest son Liu Shun.

When Bai Yunfei saw Liu Shun, he couldn’t detect a single scent of wine around him. Instead, Liu Shun had looked every single inch the part of being a regal scion to a wealthy house. It was almost as if he had never drank wine before and was thus sober into a hyper state of health to follow his father and brother without a word of complaint.

Liu Jin had the appearance of any average youth his age. He was slightly pudgy and wasn’t a soul cultivator. But he was still a promising young man. Rumors had it that the business of the house of Liu was completely managed by his supervision, meaning that his trip to the Ye this time with his father was more than likely a business deal. Clearly, this was a sign of the Liu hoping to create friendly relations with the Ye.

When the Liu and Ye came together, Bai Yunfei had politely excused himself on pretext of needing to focus on building up his strength. He had no interest at all in what the two houses would say.

When Bai Yunfei had shown up, the look on Liu Kun’s face became even more cordial. This had reaffirmed Ye Ting’s thoughts on getting on Bai Yunfei’s good side. He knew that today’s events were practically pushed into the way Bai Yunfei had wanted—even if Bai Yunfei did nothing, the attitude between the Liu and the Zhao had changed drastically. It was clearly all because of how Bai Yunfei had been in his home and was willing to help his house.

After returning to his room, Bai Yunfei thought back to what had happened earlier today. Thinking about just how there were no more problems to be had with the Ye, Bai Yunfei’s thoughts then wandered off to his fight with Zhao Xiluo.

Although there hadn’t been an actual ending to the fight and was only a single exchange of soul skill between the two, Bai Yunfei had learned plenty from it. His strength previously had been extremely lacking and was unable to learn anymore from combat experience. But as a late-stage Soul Sprite, his understanding of the elements of the world was even better than before. He could feel the adept skill in which Zhao Xiluo had manipulated the elemental water, and it had been at a level of mastery far better than what Bai Yunfei could even attempt.

Soul Apprentices, Soul Personages, and Soul Warriors focused on increasing the physical strengths of their bodies. Soul Sprites, Soul Ancestors, and Soul Exalts were of the ‘elemental realms’. They could absorb and the power of the elements in the world. To be more precise, they could ‘borrow’, ‘control’, and ‘manipulate’ the power of the elements. This was what Hong Yin had told him once before, but Bai Yunfei hadn’t paid too much attention to it before. But now, he was starting understand it piece by piece.

In the following days, Ye Ting had hurried to consolidate his strength by fostering a good relationship with the Thunderbird. After the soul contract had been formed, the eyes of the Thunderbird grew more lively by the day as it gradually regained its sentience.

Bai Yunfei had desperately wanted Hong Yin to see what had happened here. He knew that Hong Yin would definitely want to find a way to free the enslaved soulbeast puppets that the Beast Taming School had possessed. There was no way for the two to contact one another, but Bai Yunfei was sure that they’d meet again in the future. In any case, nothing would happen to the Thunderbird as it lived with the Ye. When it was time, Bai Yunfei would tell him.

Ye Quan and Ye Tianwen had already set about to restarting their businesses while Jing Mingfeng went out with Tianming for the day to roam around Gaoyi City. Bai Yunfei had decided to follow the two once before and had decided to do so no longer in the future. These two were clearly children at heart. They’d find fun in watching crickets making noise for half the day even. For that, Bai Yunfei had decided that it’d be better to go by himself—just as long as he didn’t get lost.

Bai Yunfei paid a visit to the Zhao where he was warmly greeted and received. It had been an awkward experience, to say the least, for Bai Yunfei since just several days ago, Bai Yunfei had killed the caretaker for this house.

But after a series of talk, Zhao Xiluo had mentioned that there had been an agreement between Zhao Chuan and the Beast Taming School. The two sides had colluded under some sort of mysterious secret where even part of the businesses that the Zhao had were thrown in to sweeten the deal. Once Zhao Chuan had disappeared, the plot had been uncovered, and the Beast Taming School had no other choice but to flee. Bai Yunfei didn’t know how this information came to be, but he didn’t know whether it was true or not either.

Five days later, Bai Yunfei had decided to leave Gaoyi City to continue on with his travels.

That night, he was in the middle of looking over the things in his Space Ring when Ye Ting made a sudden visit. Speaking several words of courtesy, Ye Ting then handed a rather dilapidated book to Bai Yunfei.

“The house of Ye was able to overcome this time of crisis all thanks to lord Bai’s assistance. I’ve heard Tianming say before that lord Bai had interest in the art of throwing daggers. I believe this item will serve some benefit to you then. Please take it as a way for the house of Ye to express our thanks….”