Chapter 48: Undercurrents

Deep into the night at the Cui Clan's assembly hall, a lively banquet was playing out when an irritated voice came from the side of the hall,

"Now that we're done with this, why don't we go into the real reason we're here".

A deafening silence lingered in the air as everyone looked at who had spoken so rudely.

When they saw who it was though, they just wore wry smiles on their faces.

The person soon added to his words saying, "I don't have all night, besides I don't want to breathe the same air with these profiteering merchants".

Laughing filled the hall except  for the mocked merchant families who weren't even meant to be in their gatherings on a normal day.

Cui Shu Lan held a feathered fan as he watched the situation play out, after all this people were beginning to get cocky and they were actually beginning to compete with the noble clans for resources.

Although no one calls them that, the chivalrous faction has always called themselves that.

"Brother Sun!!how could you say such a..."

The irritating voice came out again, as a young man dressed in pure white swordsman robes came forward threateningly, "Say it again...who is your brother?!! Say it!.

Who looks like a fat pig like you?!"

Speechless, the merchants could only look at the situation with a dumbfounded expression. Master Fu looked at the Cui Shu Lan who seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

"..."

Seeing no response yet from the other party, the young man sneered and said aloud, "Can anyone give me any news on this Gu Lin Fang fellow?!"

"Young Master Sun, is still as vigorous as ever. You want to challenge him?" Cui Shu Lan gave the young man a side long glance before looking away and drank wine.

"Of course!!, I will eradicate this scourge and his entire clan from this city. I can ignore the others because they choose to be silent, but this Gu Lin Fang has gone too far!!" He roared self righteously, hoping to get supporters but who knew that no one had even flinched.

'huh? Has my departure from the Northern desert reduced my prestige so much?!' Sun Wu Tang wondered seriously.

Master Fu finally pieced together the young man's identity.

Sun Wu Tang, First son of the Sun clan and aspiring patriarch.

He was about 5'4 in height but had  [Heaven Asunder], a powerful and strange cultivation method that inserts heavy vibration in his Qi, making it difficult to block his martial arts techniques.

Some years back, due to his high level talent, he was taken to the central plains in order to seek refuge in the Wudang sect but failed to get in because of an unknown reasons.

Luckily he was able to worship under a master and became a flower prince!.

Master Fu's eyes flashed as he looked at Cui Shu Lan, he suddenly understood his intentions when he invited the young man.

He was obviously trying to instigate the young man into finding trouble with Gu Lin Fang and also intended to use the chance to understand Gu Lin Fang's roots in the central plains, should the matter escalate.

'but how come I don't feel that is all?!' Master Fu frowned a bit before turning to look at the merchants.

"!!"

At this time, Cui Shu Lan's voice broke through his thoughts, "I will advise you to give up, how can you send yourself to death so easily?.

Better to call your master to do the challenge instead".

Sun Wu Tang scoffs and looks at his fellow clan members before responding to Cui Shu Lan, "How are you so sure that I can't beat him".

This time, the old man's face blackened as he scolded loudly, "can you not see it yourself? Are you blind?!! You are just in the foundation building realm, what could you possibly do?.

Maybe you don't understand clearly...let me ask you, how many qi gathering realm warriors can you defeat?".

Sun Wu Tang laughs in a manner that showed that he felt insulted, "Is that even a question, as many as they come ".

Master Fu couldn't help rolling his eyes at the boy, before providing 'timely' help to Cui Shu Lan, "obviously, the young boy has been a flower vase for a long time and doesn't understand these things".

Everyone suddenly laughed at this, the ugly merchant faces became refreshing.

"You!"

Cui Shu Lan smiled at those words,'this is why I like intelligent people '.

With that thought, he looked at Sun Wu Tang's father, "Let's cut the long story short, patriarch Sun, it's better you advise your son in the ways of Jianghu, even if the shifting palace doesn't wish to".

"Hmph!"

Suddenly another one of the big chivalrous clans said something to ease the tension, "Anyway, we must make sure to confiscate the properties seized by the Gu clan immediately!".

Cui Shu Lan looked at the Sun clan patriarch one more time, he never liked this man who could challenge his position. Even if the man was just the leader of a branch family, his prestige was almost rivalling his own due to his connections.

'anyway, the seed is already planted' he smiles at Sun Wu Tang lightly before returning to the discussion.

"We don't have any basis to do such, he defended against a kill order fair and square, so everything should belong to them by right"

"What about the Zhao clan's property?"

"It doesn't concern us as the Zhao clan is still standing".

"Damn it!, What do we do?. We can't let them gain any confidence now, especially now with the jade pool at dragon pass.

We can't afford to release any quotas and we need to fight for the young ones together!".

Cui Shu Lan was really enjoying the conversation as it was all happening according to his plans, he fanned himself slowly before saying, "how about having our merchant friends, deprive the Gu clan of any sales?".

Everyone looked at the Merchants immediately, they were willing to sacrifice them to the Demon cultivator's anger but still gave verbal promises of providing support.

___________________

Inside Gu Lin Fang's new study, which was within his pavilion…

Some time after using the Story edit, he had been getting random notifications from the system about his increasing Notoriety or him falling out with different merchant groups.

Now he had a very serious expression on his face, "Something must have happened not too long ago".

But that wasn't the only situation.

Gu Yu Xing sent back some news, they had found a path that led to the slums when one of his people outside the city, informed him of a valuable Intel.

And that was what Gu Lin Fang didn't understand.

He could not understand why Zhao Ye Ma's reinforcement team would suddenly take the Xu family members and go all the way to the {Dragon pass} all of a sudden.

Who was Zhao Ye Ma?

He was the Zhao clan's publicly acknowledged number one expert. He was someone capable of coming and going as he wished even when surrounded by hundreds of enemies.

His Mad Lion title was no joke and Gu Lin Fang believed that, due to his impulsiveness, he would definitely come for blood.

So why the sudden divert in attention.

"Shit! I really need my personal information network" Gu Lin Fang couldn't help grumbling as he thought of this situation.

'why would the merchant groups suddenly turn faces with me and leave their neutrality' he wondered silently while triggering every single trait or personality that might help with the thinking.

He felt that everything was connected, even the changes in Zhao Ye Ma's movement.

Unable to come up with anything, he pulled out Li Zhu's corpse.

First he renamed it by calling it 'Shadow guard'.

He dressed it up, in a black martial suit and created a connection.

Looking at himself with a different set of 'eyes' was really amusing. He passed the Demon suppressing Pagoda to the corpse puppet and moved out immediately.

He has never liked being passive.