Chapter 1071: Night Meeting

"Talk? You seized my daughter, then tell me you bear no ill will and came with sincerity?" Sha Rulai laughed from sheer fury.

Niu Youdao said, "I had no choice. If I hadn't done this, Mr. Sha would never have shown himself."

"We can talk. But first I want to see my daughter. I need to confirm she's safe."

"Not yet."

"And this is your sincerity?"

"The sincerity I intend to show isn't limited to returning your daughter safely. I'll show Mr. Sha another kind of sincerity as well. I truly want to cooperate with you."

"Another kind of sincerity?" Sha Rulai's gaze flickered. "What?"

"Once I've seen Mr. Sha's sincerity, naturally I'll let you know. To be frank, your daughter now knows certain things she shouldn't know. Once Mr. Sha sees his daughter, you'll naturally see my sincerity as well, which is precisely why I can't let you see her yet. In other words, you must first put my mind at ease. Otherwise, you'll never see Sha Huanli again."

Sha Rulai turned and swept a cold gaze across the surroundings. "How many people did you bring?"

"Only myself. I imagine Mr. Sha chose this meeting place and thoroughly searched the surroundings before revealing yourself. If I had others hidden nearby, they shouldn't be able to escape your eyes and ears."

"Only you?" Sha Rulai plainly did not believe him. He turned back, his face twisting with menace. "Aren't you afraid I'll kill you?"

"Mr. Sha, fighting and killing are things crude men do. At our level, if every problem still has to be settled by fighting and killing, then we'll spend the rest of our lives fighting and killing without end. Violence won't solve the problem between us tonight."

Niu Youdao planted his sword against the ground with one hand and waved the other dismissively. "Let me speak frankly. Since I dared come, I'm not afraid you'll attack me. You may not even be my match. Who kills whom is still uncertain. At the very least, if I decide to leave, you may not be able to stop me."

Sha Rulai raised an eyebrow. "I may not be your match? Heh. Then perhaps I should weigh your measure and see where this confidence of yours comes from."

"There's no need." Niu Youdao waved again. "I've already said that fighting won't resolve our problem. And I don't imagine you want to create some great disturbance in the middle of the night and draw attention here."

"I don't believe you're alone. You couldn't possibly have abducted my daughter without a trace by yourself. In other words, whoever stands behind you already knows about me. I've shown myself now, so what is there left to conceal? Didn't you seize my daughter to hold me hostage? Have them come out."

Niu Youdao shook his head. "You've misunderstood. I don't intend to coerce anything from you. I simply refuse to let someone manipulate me from behind the curtain. Seizing your daughter was only a way to confirm whether the person behind the scenes really was Mr. Sha."

"I don't like this arrangement where one of us stands in the light and the other hides in the dark. All I want is a sound cooperative relationship with Mr. Sha. And let me remind you again: once you see your daughter, you'll naturally know who the people behind me are."

"Cooperate?" Sha Rulai said. "What do you have that qualifies you to cooperate with me?"

"I'd like to know how to answer that myself, but I still don't understand Mr. Sha's intentions. I don't know why you're helping me. If I can't even understand that, how am I supposed to discuss cooperation with you?"

"Someone secretly helps you, and you're still unhappy about it?"

"Happy? Of course I'm happy. But even more than that, I've been constantly on edge." Niu Youdao looked at him. "Mr. Sha, let's speak openly and plainly. Explain clearly why you've been helping me, and I'll take you to see your daughter immediately. That's my one condition. I will not go back on my word."

"And if my explanation doesn't satisfy you?"

"Then I'll have no choice but to keep your daughter as a hostage. So long as she's in my hands, you won't dare do anything to me. Is that assessment wrong?"

Anger flashed across Sha Rulai's face, but anger solved nothing. It was merely an emotion. In the end, he still had to face the situation calmly.

"I can explain it. Whether you'll believe me is another matter."

"How will we know unless you try?"

"If I told you that I helped you simply because I genuinely wanted to help you, that I have no intention of controlling you from behind the scenes and only want to see you grow powerful, would you believe me?"

"Only because you want me to grow powerful?" Niu Youdao looked puzzled. "Why? I want a reason."

"Because of my daughter. For her sake, and for my own."

"What does my growing powerful have to do with your daughter?"

"What kind of man are you? What have you done in secret? Don't you know that yourself? Once you've grown powerful enough, do you really think you'll meekly submit to the present order?"

"You mean that once I've grown powerful, I'll resist the present order?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Niu Youdao was still puzzled. "You want me to resist it? You're one of the beneficiaries of the present order. What good does my resistance do you? And what does any of this have to do with your daughter?"

"A beneficiary?" Sha Rulai gave a bitter edge to the word. "Yes, I've benefited. Benefited so much that even now my daughter cannot marry like a normal woman."

"She's only an ordinary person. While her mother was alive, she wanted her to live an ordinary life. That was her mother's wish, and it is mine as well."

"You think I'm a beneficiary because you're looking only at the surface. Roughly speaking by generation, I'm among my master's third generation of disciples. The two generations before mine are dead. Sooner or later, my generation will face the same calamity."

"And it's not only me. You know Lan Ming. He had brothers before him too. Lan Daolin killed them all. People like us can be utterly devoted, can serve with absolute loyalty, and in the end we still can't escape the same fate. As for why, I imagine you can understand."

Niu Youdao fell silent for a moment before saying slowly, "Power. The Nine Saints don't want anyone capable of challenging their supreme authority. Is that what you're saying?"

"In the eyes of the Nine Saints, father and son, master and disciple, all are merely pieces to be used. Perhaps they truly do possess feelings between father and son, master and disciple. Perhaps they need those feelings too. Sometimes we can even sense them."

"But the moment they believe there is any possibility that you might challenge their supreme power, every bond of kinship can be crushed to powder in an instant."

"For disciples like us, the higher our cultivation becomes, the more urgently danger closes in. Take Wuliang Garden. We don't even dare approach it, for fear of provoking the slightest suspicion."

"But avoiding it is useless too. The more carefully you avoid it, the more they'll decide you're deep and calculating. In the end, no matter what you do, it becomes a mistake."

"I already have some idea what my eventual fate will be. Even after marrying Luo Fangfei, I still won't escape that calamity in the end. And eventually, Luo Fangfei will meet the same fate."

"My own death is nothing worth grieving over. But once I'm dead, do you think my daughter will come to a good end?"

"If you know all that," Niu Youdao asked, "why don't you resist?"

"People like us are watched too closely by the Nine Saints. They won't give us an opportunity. Any opportunity we seem to see may itself be a trap. We have no way to rebel through our own strength. Others before us tried. They all died miserably."

Niu Youdao seemed to understand something now. "So you want to borrow outside strength. You want me to grow powerful and resist them?"

Sha Rulai nodded.

"After so many years and so many people, why choose me?"

"Because you're bold. Because you dare resist. Look at the people of the various sects. Do you think they dare?"

"But courage alone isn't enough. A man also needs ability, otherwise courage merely sends him to his death. You have certain methods for resisting."

"And strictly speaking, I didn't choose you. I happened to encounter you, discovered that this possibility existed in you, and decided to test it."

"During the Tiandu Secret Realm trial, you actually dared kill people in Tiangu. That caught my attention. But as I've said, courage by itself is useless. I wanted to test your ability, so I demanded that you take first place. I drove you toward a dead end to see whether you could survive adversity."

"If you'd died, the matter would've ended there. I certainly wouldn't have arranged for you to enter Sacred Realm."

Niu Youdao frowned. "Wasn't it your wife Luo Fangfei who personally named me for the Sacred Realm tempering? You arranged that?"

"You know quite a lot. Yes. The reason she named you was because I manipulated matters and used her."

"Then when Luo Fangfei later sent me out of Sacred Realm, was that your arrangement too?"

"That was an accident outside the plan. I never imagined she'd truly manage to get you out."

"Ding Wei was presiding over Misty Pavilion, and Shouque Villa was under his control. Ding Wei would never have given Luo Fangfei that face. Who could've known Ding Wei would be absent at the time, while Huang Ban, who was responsible for Shouque Villa, would also be away? She happened to exploit the opening."

"That caught me completely by surprise. I did not arrange it. It truly was an accident, and because of that accident my master became suspicious."

Niu Youdao said, "If that's the case, something still doesn't add up. If you wanted me to grow powerful, why arrange for me to enter Sacred Realm? Isn't that sending me to my death? You should know perfectly well that no matter how the rectification of Misty Pavilion ends, people like us are ultimately walking a dead road."

Seeing that Niu Youdao had already understood the fate awaiting the inspectors, Sha Rulai nodded slightly. His manner opened up further. He stepped closer until his face was nearly against Niu Youdao's.

"Grow powerful outside? Do you really think there are no Misty Pavilion spies around you? Every unsavory thing you do outside is under Misty Pavilion's eyes."

Niu Youdao's brows lifted slightly, but he said nothing.

Sha Rulai continued, "If you want to resist, you first need to understand what you're resisting. People outside know nothing about the situation inside Sacred Realm. This tempering was your chance to enter Sacred Realm, and your chance to understand it."

"During the Tiandu Secret Realm trial, I drove you toward death, yet you survived. Afterward I investigated everything you'd done inside the Secret Realm in detail. I discovered you truly were audacious beyond measure. You even dared steal Misty Pavilion uniforms and impersonate Misty Pavilion personnel."

"From what I verified, I could determine that you stole Misty Pavilion clothing almost as soon as you entered the Tiandu Secret Realm. You showed no fear, no hesitation. You went in and acted immediately."

"I have to admit, I admired that decisiveness and nerve."

"Combined with everything else you did inside the Secret Realm, you truly accomplished things ordinary people couldn't. I saw hope in you—or rather, I saw the kind of useful value I had been hoping to find. That was when I finally decided to choose you."

"Afterward I began considering how I could support you. Then the Nine Saints happened to launch this Sacred Realm tempering. This was precisely your chance to understand Sacred Realm. Naturally, I wanted you to obtain that opportunity, so I maneuvered you inside."

"Everything you've dared do since entering Sacred Realm only proves that I didn't misjudge you."

Niu Youdao's eyes suddenly narrowed. "You said there are Misty Pavilion spies around me. Who?"

He was probing.

"Before, I didn't tell you because I was afraid you'd act rashly and alert certain people. Unless things reached a point where I had no other choice, there was no reason to warn you."

"But since we've spoken this openly now, there's no need to conceal it any longer. The man in charge of the entire intelligence hub of your Maolu Villa is a Misty Pavilion spy. I doubt even in your dreams you ever imagined that."

A provocative note entered Niu Youdao's voice. "Gongsun Bu? I've known that for years. He was recruited by Baili Jie of your Misty Pavilion. I want to know who else there is."

[End of Chapter 1071]