Chapter 60: A forced bet

When they reached the faction, Cao Yun had already told everything to the two women. Zhi Yin did not show any emotion. On the other hand, Ling Hui did not seem to remember how to talk. But in the end, it came back to her.

"You rebelled against the entire Dragon's Fire Faction?! Are you insane?! Our faction barely survived last year because we were bidding our time for this one and you just antagonized the richest faction of all, and full of alchemists!"

"Sister Ling, please." Thousands of thoughts were going through Zhi Yin's mind right now, she needed some calm.

"I'm sorry, I did not think that they would go to such lengths..."

When they entered the faction residence, a young woman was tending to a man who looked exactly like her. However, his complexion was pale and he seemed to be sleeping.

"Sister Zhao, how is your brother?"

"Faction Leader, he's still very weak. He's been asleep since you've left."

Cao Yun got closer and saw that there were bandages all around his torso.

"I have a pill that might help him."

He took out the Cold Blood Clotting Pill with highest level of quality and gave it to the woman. She had a strange look and saw the alchemy emblem on his chest as well as the emblem of their faction.

She looked toward Zhi Yin and, seeing her nod, she finally woke up her brother. He was barely conscious and ate the pill without thinking. If his sister gave him something, it should be good for him.

In a matter of minutes, his face came back to life. Several minutes later, he fully woke up. He would have to wait an hour or so before having all his vitality back. The Cold Blood Clotting Pill was specifically designed to help replenish lost blood. It could not heal anything, but as the wound had already been treated, the pill was really useful.

Zhi Yin finally spoke. "Brother Chen, let's talk about what we're going to do."

"Yeah. You put us in a terrible situation! How could you pay back if something bad were to happen to Fairy Zhi?! Even your life could not compensate that!"

Zhi Yin looked at her sister and went back to Cao Yun. "Brother Chen, it's best we discuss it in private."

-

"The Dragon's Fire Faction is not a group of fighters. I badly wounded four of our attackers, but they were at least twelve. However, they could most likely ask the help of other factions to take us down in the wild. Even though it's against the rules of the Wubei Sect, as long as they're not caught, there's no crime.

This was probably a warning. But from what you told me, they can't just force you to leave the market due to these inner disciples who got interested in your pills. It could hurt their reputation if they prevented the sales you already promised.

More importantly, they probably lost quite a lot by battling with you and the prospect of your True Essence pills should be very alluring right now. If my guess is correct, they did this attack because they want to ask something of you."

And sure enough, an envoy of the Dragon's Fire Faction came knocking.

While Cao Yun and Zhi Yin were talking, they heard a huge commotion outside. They quickly went out and saw sister Zhao beating a man on the ground. Other members of the Dragon's Fire faction stood there doing nothing.

"Sister Zhao! Sister Zhao!" Zhi Yin rushed to stop her sister. But she was mad.

"He boasted about trying to kill my brother! Let me kill him!"

"Sister Zhao!" Zhi Yin could contain her but not calm her.

"Sister, it's fine... You'll just bring more trouble on us." Her brother stood up and went to hug her.

Zhi Yin finally showed some emotion as she looked at the men before us. "Why did you come here?"

Zhuge Si was leading the group. "Oh, Miss Zhi, we just heard about your misfortunes in the woods and we came to give a treatment for your wounded member. But your friend misunderstood and beat one of us with so much violence... Such a crime would probably be severely punished by the disciplinary pavilion."

"What do you want?" The members of the Dragon's Fire Faction were all smiling, except the guy who got beaten up. On the other hand, Cao Yun and all his faction were full of rage and resentment.

"I have a proposal for Junior Brother Chen, a bet of sorts." Zhuge Si walked closer to Cao Yun. "An alchemy competition between you and our most talented alchemist within the Earth rank, tomorrow in the market in front of everyone. It will be a great entertainment."

"What will be the stakes?"

"Well, if you lose, you must definitively leave the Heavenly Swallow Faction and you may never sell another pill in the Wubei Merit Market without our authorization."

"And if I win?"

"Then everything will go back as usual."

"I refuse!" When he answered, everyone got surprised except for Zhi Yin.

The first to talk was not Zhuge Si but Ling Hui. "You rascal! That's how you're going to repay us?! You create the problems and when it gets worse, you just run from it?! You!"

"Sister Ling, silence! Listen to what Brother Chen has to say."

"Thank you, Faction Leader. Zhuge Si, aren't four of your members wounded?"

Zhuge Si immediately knew what he was getting at, but everything had been taken care of. "Oh, Brother Chen, many of our members are outside the sect. I cannot know if they are wounded or not." Indeed, the four wounded members were being treated outside of the sect.

"Do you think we'll find evidence of Zhi Yin's attacks on them?"

"Brother Chen! I have no idea what you're referring to. Are you accusing us of something?"

"I guess they're not in the sect. But do you think Guest Elder Xiao wouldn't be able to find them quickly?"

Zhuge Si got silent. He didn't know how close Cao Yun was with Xiao Xuefeng. Would she really waste her time to help him find four of their members? In fact, Cao Yun himself was not very confident about it, but he knew how to lie perfectly with his mind cultivation. He could pretty easily control his emotions and had even been able to lie to Spirit Warriors.

"If I were to trouble Guest Elder Xiao right now, how long do you think it would take her to find your brothers?"

"I don't know what you're talking about... But it would not change the fact that your member viciously attacked one of us!"

"Indeed. But what if I were to accept another bet? If I lose, I'll adhere to your conditions. But if I win, you must forge a contract with our Heavenly Swallow Faction for the sale of our pills with a 25% commission. You'll also add a clause allowing us to buy anything in the market without any interference." Cao Yun hesitated but seeing Zhuge Si's face, he pressed on. "And you'll gift me the Praying Demon Pill."

Cao Yun had decided that selling pills was taking too much of his time. So if the Dragon's Fire Faction could do it for him, that would be great. It also was a way to try and find peace. If they showed to them that they were making a huge profit thanks to the Heavenly Swallow Faction, they would have no more reason to try and hurt them in the wild. It was the best thing he could come up with to try and solve this particular problem, because no amount of rules or pacts could do anything. The rules already forbade this kind of behavior but as long as they thought they could do it without leaving any evidence, they probably would.

"Brother Chen, I know of no interference in our market. About the contract, I cannot agree to such terms. Even the biggest factions give us 30% of commission."

"Then, if I lose, I also give you two of my three True Essence Low-Level Qi Gathering Pills. And if I win, in the contract, you'll declare that any seller who would refuse us a sale could never do any business with your faction."

"Brother Chen, maybe the disciplinary pavilion should just take care of this situation."

"Yes, Senior. I'll go inform Guest Elder Xiao immediately. I'm sure she'll be happy to help treat your poor wounded members lost in the wild."

There was an absolute silence as both men stared at each other. In fact, they were both bluffing. Their member who got beaten up earlier was not really hurt, he had taken a pill to facilitate bruisings so he looked very rough. But if an elder were to look at him, it would be apparent that he was fine. After all, no alchemist would agree to be beaten up for a plan. His cultivation was higher than that of Sister Zhao and her punches did almost nothing.

On the other hand, Cao Yun had no idea whether or not Xiao Xuefeng would help him. And even so, with his past experience with the disciplinary pavilion, he was not too sure about their ability to serve justice fairly.

Zhuge Si was usually a very good judge of character, but in this case, he wasn't sure. Cao Yun was able to hide his true intentions so deep that even he could not see through.

"Brother Chen, my final proposal. I hope we can all agree.

If you lose, you must definitively leave the Heavenly Swallow Faction. You may never sell another pill in the Wubei Merit Market without our authorization and you must gift us your three True Essence Low-Level Qi Gathering Pills.

If you win, you will receive the Praying Demon Pill for free. We'll forge a contract with your faction for a commission of 27%. And we'll publicly announce that anyone refusing to sell to any member of your faction will never do business with us ever again."

Zhi Yin butted in. "Make the announcement an official rule ratified by the disciplinary pavilion and we'll have an agreement."

"Fairy Zhi?!" Ling Hui could not believe what was happening. Were they really going to bet with the faction who tried to hurt them? And were they really relying on Cao Yun for this?

"Fine, Junior Sister Zhi. We agree on the conditions of the bet."

"How will the bet be settled?"

"Oh, it' easy. You and our alchemist will both refine a pill the other one has chosen, under the Human rank of course. Then we'll examine which one has the highest quality."

"Any pill can be chosen? Even an original creation?"

"Of course not. We'll limit ourselves to the pills of the 'Ten Thousands Earthly Mysteries'."

Cao Yun knew this book. It was just an encyclopedia of many Earth rank pills. There were not exactly ten thousands recipes, but several hundreds. He had read this book since he had started to learn alchemy and got it perfectly memorized. His opponent wouldn't be able to surprise him with a pill he didn't know. Immediately, he started to look for the most difficult pill possible in his memory.

"Who will examine the pills?"

"We asked Instructor Meng to be our referee. He's your instructor, so you should have no problem with him making the decision, right?"

"What about the ingredients?"

"Each alchemist will bring the ingredients necessary for the refinement of the pill they chose."

Cao Yun could not buy any ingredient. If he agreed to these terms, he would simply lose by disqualification.

"Your faction will provide the ingredients since you made the bet. And if you fail to do so, I will automatically win the competition." Cao Yun didn't like that because they could potentially tamper with the ingredients but he had no choice as he couldn't buy a single ingredient.

"Fine, I agree." He stretched out his hand to shake hands with Cao Yun, but he had another opinion on the matter.

"Let's put that on paper."

Zhuge Si smiled and agreed. They both signed a contract, following all the rules of the Wubei Sect.

-

After their departure, Sister Zhao was only worried about her brother and Ling Hui was going insane.

"You think you have any chance of winning?! And even if you do, they can attack us again in the wild! You screwed everything up! You destroyed Fairy Zhi's ambition, you bastard!"

This time, Zhi Yin did not even try to calm her as she was on a rampage. She really needed to vent her anger.

"Brother Chen, how confident are you?"

"I have to admit that I'm unsure."

"Unsure?! Unsure he says! Awesome! Unsure! Unsure!" Ling Hui went on breaking some furniture.

"Then, we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there."

"Can't you just call Guest Elder Xiao like you said?" Still screaming, Ling Hui was starting to make sense.

"Let's assume she listens to me and finds the four wounded members. We may be able to prove that you fought, but can you prove that you weren't the ones who attacked first?"

"So you were just bluffing?!"

"No, they don't want this to be publicized either. Even without proof, it will be obvious for almost anyone and they may still suffer from this in their business."

-

In the Dragon's Fire Faction, the atmosphere was more serene. A very relaxed Zhuge Si was talking with Wen Zhu.

"Faction Leader, I told you that Chen Guo would accept."

"But we will probably never recruit him. Let's say he joins one of the big factions and become more and more powerful in both martial arts and alchemy. Then we will have a terrifying enemy, both inside the sect and maybe even later outside."

"We'll just have to play our cards well when he leaves. I used the stick. You must use the carrot when the time comes."

"And you're sure we will win against him?"

"Faction Leader, I will pit the best of us against him, there is no way he can win. We'll crush him! I already know the pill I'm going to use to make him lose."

"But don't go overboard. As you said, we need the stick and the carrot. I'll also have to smooth things over with Fairy Zhi. She's also very talented, and unless you're able to completely crush her, you should not make her an enemy."

"Faction Leader, I'm ready to take the full blame for this decision. You can pretend that you knew nothing and blame all of it on me."

"Zhuge Si, losing you would also be a terrible loss. Just win the bet and then I'll appease Fairy Zhi and Chen Guo. I'll gift him the Praying Demon Pill to show my sincerity. For Fairy Zhi, what she wants is to preserve her faction, I'm sure I can think of many ways to help her achieve her goals while keeping her in check. I'll need your help on this point. Fairy Zhi is not a stupid person."

"Do not worry, Faction Leader. After tomorrow's competition, everything will be as it should."