Chapter 235 - Imperial Capital or the North (2)

Everything now made sense. The sects had no shortage of clever people. The imperial clan and the Chancellor's Manor might currently be all smiles as they talked of peace, but what had happened more than a decade ago was still there for everyone to remember. There was no chance the sects would lower their guard.

The foreign races surrounding the Great Flame Empire could be wiped out, certainly.

There was simply no need to do so. Maintaining the current balance best served the sects’ interests. After all, once the imperial clan and the Chancellor's Manor finished dealing with the foreign races, who knew whose turn would come next?

The Emperor understood what the sects wanted. Since he could not act openly, he had acted in secret. He had begun laying the groundwork years ago.

The initial reverses in the northern border, the repeated defeats caused by the various factions obstructing one another, and even Northseal being placed under siege had most likely all occurred with the Emperor’s tacit approval.

Because the Emperor knew Northseal would never truly fall.

The sects could not allow that final line to be crossed.

And so he had permitted it.

On the surface, Princess Wuyuan had led 40,000 troops to relieve Northseal, dragging the sects along to reclaim lost territory and launch a retaliatory offensive against the barbarians.

In reality, the provisions and equipment had already been delivered.

Once the northern frontier army reached the border, it would cease to be retaliation. It would become extermination. They would slaughter the barbarians until nine houses out of ten stood empty, leaving them unable to recover for a century.

At that thought, Xu Yuan let out a breath and echoed her words. “What a shame indeed...”

He was hardly a member of some animal-protection society. If those green-skinned and dark-skinned foreign races were wiped out to the last, he would not lose a moment’s sleep over it. Had the Emperor’s plan succeeded, then when they eventually moved against the sects, they would at least no longer have to worry about the barbarians marching south and turning into some final boss.

Still... Xu Yuan looked at Lou Ji helplessly. “Big Sister, it seems I still overestimated how low these sects were willing to sink.”

They had destroyed the Emperor’s plan by cutting off their own limb. The method left no obvious flaw, and afterward there would be no righteous cause for settling accounts with them. At most, they would push out a few scapegoats for the Emperor to execute.

Lou Ji did not seem surprised in the least. She giggled softly. “A bottom line? What’s that? Their very existence is built upon stealing the country. If they’re already willing to usurp the state, what’s so strange about betraying their own race for the sake of profit?”

Then she raised a hand and patted Xu Yuan on the head. Her eyes curved into two smiling crescents, though the look was somehow rather dangerous. “But Changtian, this game isn’t over yet~”

Xu Yuan froze for a moment, then quickly understood. “Father prepared another move?”

“Not your father. Zong Qingsheng. He smelled something wrong in the earlier battles and went to the northern border ahead of time.” Lou Ji’s red lips curled upward. Her tone was faintly disdainful, but the appreciation in her eyes was plain to see. “I always thought that brute only knew how to fight your big sister over money at the end of every year. Turns out he does have his uses.”

Xu Yuan thought for a moment and recalled what he knew of the man. Most of it came from his memories of his previous life. In this life’s memories, the man had barely appeared at all, because he rarely visited the Chancellor's Manor.

Most likely, he was avoiding suspicion. He commanded the entire military force under the Chancellor's Manor. If he spent too much time there, he would inevitably cross paths with the other senior figures, especially Hua Hong, who controlled the Calm Sky Merchant Association.

From the look of things, the man possessed a keen political instinct.

In Azure Point, however, Xu Yuan had remembered him very clearly. Zong Qingsheng was one of the senior figures of the Chancellor's Manor who, upon learning of Xu Yinhe’s death, had chosen to follow him into the grave.

And he was also a terrifying late-game boss.

“He brought troops with him?”

“What else would he do?” Lou Ji answered as though it were obvious, smiling as she spoke. “That old man cultivates military-formation skills. On his own, he can’t even beat a second rank cultivator. What use would there be in sending him alone? He brought 30,000 elite Blackscale troops and is hiding in a mountain hollow beside a river near Black Dragon Mountain, waiting for word from your father.”

“He brought a Skyfone?” Xu Yuan asked.

“Yes.” Lou Ji nodded. At the mention of it, a trace of displeasure appeared on her alluring face, and she pouted. “There are only three experimental Skyfones at the moment. One is with your father, one is with that brat Xu Changge, and the last is with the old man. Even I don’t have one. Tsk, tsk...”

As she spoke, Lou Ji suddenly shot Xu Yuan a flirtatious glance. “Changtian, your brother only has that Skyfone because he’s the heir. In the future, he’ll probably hand it over to you...”

Xu Yuan rolled his eyes. Here she went again. The moment this old auntie saw an opening, she started fishing for benefits. They had known each other for less than a month, and she had already squeezed 15 million taels of silver out of him, along with two priceless Beguiling Sakura Flowers that had long since vanished from the world.

Had Xu Yuan not insisted on saving the final flower for Su Jinxuan to study, Lou Ji would probably have taken that one too.

Lou Ji leaned closer and tugged lightly at Xu Yuan’s shoulder with an imploring look. “Changtian...”

“You want me to go ask Xu Changge for his Skyfone?” Xu Yuan asked, glancing sideways at her.

“Mhm, mhm.” Lou Ji nodded so enthusiastically that the rest of her moved with it.

The corner of Xu Yuan’s mouth twitched. He pointed at his own nose. “No, seriously, Big Sister. What makes you think that bastard Xu Changge would give it to me? Because I’m good at getting beaten?”

“He wouldn’t dare.” Lou Ji’s elegant brows shot up. Then she spoke to Xu Yuan in a gentle voice. “Big Sister will go with you. If he dares hit you, I’ll beat him up for you.”

Xu Yuan looked at her, utterly unmoved. “Oh, really? Because I seem to remember that whenever he used to hang me up and whip me, the person laughing the hardest was you.”

It was an absolutely impossible task. He had been coveting that Skyfone for far too long. Want it? Not a chance.

Lou Ji looked at Xu Yuan pitifully. “Big Sister really won’t do it again...”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Xu Yuan waved her off, employing the ancient art of delay. Then something seemed to occur to him, and he lowered his voice as he steered the conversation back on track. “So Father intends to cooperate with the Emperor on this matter?”

Lou Ji knew she had no chance. She gave a cold snort, sat down in the chair opposite him, and planted her long, pale legs on the desk with a heavy thud. Folding her arms, she reminded him irritably, “Changtian, although there is friction between the Chancellor's Manor and the imperial clan, cooperation remains the greater part of our relationship.

“If the imperial clan and our estate ever became completely opposed, then unless some earth-shattering change occurred beneath Heaven, the sects would simply bleed the Great Flame Empire dry one step at a time. In the end, the empire would fracture, and the world would return to what it was 10,000 years ago, a land ruled by sects.”

Hearing this, Xu Yuan stared at those long, snowy legs and felt rather speechless. Of course he understood that.

Thanks to the cooperation between Xu Yinhe and the Emperor, two monsters who had seemingly dropped from the Heavens, the combined strength of the imperial clan and the Chancellor's Manor was now closer to matching all the sects beneath heaven than at any other point in Great Flame Empire’s 1,300-year history.

There was no chance they would begin by turning their blades on their own comrades.

Across the countless timelines in Azure Point, even after chaos erupted and continued into the middle stages, the imperial clan and the Chancellor's Manor had always stood together during the early stages.

The only reason Xu Yuan had asked was that if the Chancellor's Manor intervened now to break the encirclement, the barbarians were almost certainly finished.

And that did not fit the later plot at all.

The barbarians had little presence in Azure Point, mostly because there was no female lead among them, but they still appeared to some extent in nearly every route. If they were exterminated now, the entire later storyline would be thrown into chaos.

In other words, within Azure Point, his father should not have chosen to cooperate with the imperial clan on this matter. There had to be more to it. Was it because of Xu Yuan’s existence? Had his father changed his decision at the last moment because he believed he now had a new heir?

And then there was that Ninth Princess, Wuyuan. She had never appeared in Azure Point at all. Most likely, she had died during the war against the barbarians.

As Xu Yuan considered these matters, his thoughts gradually wandered farther and farther away.

“Changtian... Changtian. Changtian!” Lou Ji’s voice abruptly dragged Xu Yuan back from his thoughts. She pouted and asked, “What were you thinking about just now?”

Xu Yuan came back to himself and smiled. “Nothing. I was considering Father’s choice.”

Lou Ji looked at him suspiciously, but did not press the matter. She simply returned to her earlier question. “Changtian, are you coming with me to the northern border, or are you heading straight to the Imperial Capital?”