Chapter 230 - A New Plan (2)

Xu Yuan slept like the dead. By the time he woke again, night had already fallen. There were no lights burning in the room, but by the moonlight filtering in from outside, he could still make out someone seated at the desk. He circulated his cultivation art slightly and sharpened his senses.

It was Lou Ji. Perhaps afraid of disturbing his sleep, she had left the lamps unlit. Wrapped in an embroidered fur coat, she sat in the darkness, carefully reading through document after document. For someone like her, light or darkness made little difference.

Xu Yuan was just about to sit up and make a few jokes when something hanging outside the open doorway caught the corner of his eye. He focused his gaze. It was a woman. And he knew her, one of the managers Hua Hong had sent over.

“You’re awake?” Lou Ji’s airy voice drifted across the room, and the patterned lamps immediately lit up. She rose slowly and thoughtfully poured him a cup of tea. “Here. Have some water.”

Xu Yuan rubbed his brow, accepted the cup, and took a sip. “Waking up to a corpse is a little frightening.”

Lou Ji smiled faintly. “Good. If it can frighten even you, imagine what it’ll do to everyone else who comes here to report.”

Xu Yuan glanced at the corpse hanging from the beam outside the door. “Killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys?”

“More or less.” Lou Ji dropped onto the edge of the bed, holding a cup of hot tea of her own. She took a small sip before continuing, “The second and third groups of managers from Hua Hong’s side have arrived as well. The more people there are, the harder they become to control. That woman accepted a few benefits and allowed the Myriad Manifestations Sect to secretly move some goods out of the warehouse in the eastern part of the town.”

Lou Ji glanced at Xu Yuan. “What would you have done, Changtian?”

Xu Yuan was silent for a moment before answering honestly, “I probably would have just given her a warning.”

Lou Ji let her teacup float before her and leaned back on both hands against the bed. She chuckled softly. “Changtian, a warning that never draws blood isn’t much of a warning. Let them see blood every now and then, and your warnings will start carrying weight.”

Xu Yuan drank his tea without replying.

Lou Ji sighed lightly, amusement entering her voice. “Big Sister doesn’t actually mind them accepting benefits. After all, I accepted benefits from you too. But before taking anything, they should first remember where they stand.”

Then her tone abruptly changed. Like a performer in a Sichuan opera switching masks, her expression became faintly aggrieved. “Changtian, look at how hard Big Sister has worked. I’ve been handling your affairs from morning until night—”

“Big Sister, that was a Beguiling Sakura Flower.”

“You’re not cute at all.” Lou Ji snorted and rose to her feet. She had only taken two steps when her expression changed yet again. Turning back, she asked in a gentle voice, “Changtian, I examined the condition of that Beguiling Sakura Flower. It must have bloomed fairly recently, didn’t it?”

Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the headboard. “You can tell even that?”

“Big Sister works with poisons, after all~” Lou Ji narrowed her eyes with a smile. “No matter how well it was preserved, an old flower could never retain that much vitality.”

Xu Yuan did not hide it. He nodded. “It did bloom recently.”

“What about the Beguiling Divine Sakura?” Lou Ji’s breath caught, then quickened. “ She knew far too well how valuable such a thing was. If they could obtain it... But when she noticed Xu Yuan instinctively glance away, her heart sank. “Don’t tell me you destroyed it.”

Xu Yuan cleared his throat. “Ahem. It’s a little complicated.”

Unless he kept the Splendorbloom Sect’s secret realm entirely hidden, there was no concealing the sword marks Ran Qingmo had left on the tree itself.

At his answer, Lou Ji clenched her fists. Source qi even began leaking from her body. This prodigal little bastard!

Still sitting on the bed, Xu Yuan began inching backward. “Wait, Big Sister. Wait. Hear me out first.”

“Fine~” Lou Ji was not Xu Changge, so at least she was willing to listen to an explanation. Wearing a smile that did not reach her eyes, she said, “Go ahead and make your excuses, Changtian. I’m listening.”

Xu Yuan immediately poured out the perfectly reasonable story he had prepared in advance, carefully leaving out anything that did not need mentioning. “...And that’s more or less what happened. If we hadn’t cut down the Beguiling Divine Sakura, we never would have escaped.”

Lou Ji stood beside him and listened to the entire account. The dangerous aura around her gradually subsided, and a trace of heartache entered her expression. “Honestly... acting like a complete idiot.”

Xu Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. He had only just begun to smile when his vision blurred.

Lou Ji’s voluptuous figure appeared beside him as though she had teleported. THUD! She drove a fist into the top of his head.

“Xu Changtian, just what cultivation realm are you in right now?” she demanded coldly. “There are secret realms in this world that even I wouldn’t dare enter carelessly, yet you enjoy risking your life? The next time you stumble across one and charge inside without thinking, Big Sister has plenty of newly developed poisons that still need testing. Would you care to volunteer?”

With that, Lou Ji gave a sharp snort, turned away, and returned to the desk. Her face was icy as she resumed reading the documents without another word.

Xu Yuan sat on the bed clutching his head until the pain eased. Then he rose with an awkward smile, walked behind her, and began massaging her shoulders. “Big Sister, I understand. But could you perhaps keep this matter—”

SLAP! Lou Ji slammed the document in her hand onto the desk and glanced sideways at him. “I can keep it from your father.”

Xu Yuan relaxed.

“But I’ll tell that brat Xu Changge.”

After negotiations with Lou Ji completely broke down, Xu Yuan simply gave up. He handled only the highest-level decisions and dumped every other matter onto her. You want the Beguiling Sakura Flower? Then work for it honestly.

The price of having Lou Ji manage all the tedious affairs was that several more bodies soon appeared hanging from the eaves outside Xu Yuan’s room. Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone below them became much better behaved afterward.

And with Lou Ji serving as his highly overqualified hired hand, Xu Yuan suddenly found himself with far more free time. All he had to do was occasionally trade empty words and argue in circles with the upper ranks of the Myriad Manifestations Sect.

Time passed one day at a time, yet progress remained slow.

After more than ten days of taking a hard line, however, Xu Yuan finally experienced just how difficult it was to take control of those businesses. His attitude toward the Myriad Manifestations Sect abruptly changed.

The Chancellor’s Manor made concessions. Of the businesses the Myriad Manifestations Sect was surrendering as compensation, Xu Yuan promised to leave the other side a certain percentage of profit-sharing equity.

Most of these stakes ranged from 10%-30%..

Naturally, those shares would not belong to the Myriad Manifestations Sect as a whole. They would be distributed among certain aristocratic clans within the sect. Nor would Xu Yuan give them away for free. In exchange, the total compensation would be reduced by a corresponding amount, and the Chancellor’s Manor would receive dividend rights in some of the sect’s remaining businesses.

Xu Yuan was attempting to form a simple community of shared interests with the Myriad Manifestations Sect.

The message was clear.

Yes, the Chancellor's Manor had taken a slice of their cake—but with the Chancellor's Manor backing them, that cake could grow far larger.

The Chancellor’s Manor would eat the meat, while the Myriad Manifestations Sect could drink the broth. And in time, the meat in that broth would be no less than what they had once eaten themselves.

The price of this approach was that the Chancellor's Manor suffered a considerable loss at the negotiating table. The total compensation fell from the original 90 million taels to roughly 80 million.

However, if Xu Yuan’s plan succeeded, the Chancellor's Manor would infiltrate the Myriad Manifestations Sect’s businesses until they were riddled with holes within a dozen years, or perhaps only a few.

Given enough time, they might even be able to engineer a revolution within the sect using nothing but money.

After wandering around Myriad, Xu Yuan returned and brushed the dust from his clothes. ℯℯ𝑙.

Aside from the eastern district, which remained firmly under the Blackscale Army’s control, the town’s residents had largely returned to their prewar lives.

The war had been brief, after all, and most of the destruction had been confined to the areas around the city walls.

The pleasure houses and taverns along the Willowcreek River were still alive with music and dancing, as prosperous as ever.

Xu Yuan entered his guest room. The hired hand slaving away for the Beguiling Sakura Flower was still diligently buried in official documents. He sat down opposite Lou Ji, poured himself a cup of tea, and asked, “How are things today?”

Lou Ji gave him a tired, reproachful glance. “Your father was quite pleased with the proposal you made, but matters aren’t going so smoothly on the Myriad Manifestations Sect’s side.”

“Oh?” Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow, took a sip of tea, and asked unhurriedly,

“That Xia Wenlin again?”

Lou Ji nodded. “Yes, him again. He’s obstructing the plan.”

Xu Yuan tapped his fingers against the table and smiled. “So the Myriad Manifestations Sect does have someone clever after all.”

Lou Ji handed him a document. Her eyes curved into a smile as she asked in a perfectly casual tone, “Would you like Big Sister to get rid of him for you?”