Chapter 1352: The Fruit Tree Has Blossomed!

Whose letter?

How could Shao Pingbo not know? Shao Sansheng had already made it perfectly clear. It came from Jia Wuqun.

Even a fool could tell from the words themselves that it was a warning. He did not need Lan Ming to point that out.

As for what it meant, Shao Pingbo understood at a glance as well. Jia Wuqun had suddenly sent the words "a mild punishment." What else could they refer to under the present circumstances? It could only be their secret attempt to undermine the Zhuge Chi operation and lead off a sheep while they were at it.

After a moment of silence, Shao Pingbo asked, "You just said someone warned Zhuge Chi in advance and took him away?"

Lan Ming gave a grunt of confirmation, then suddenly paused.

Shao Pingbo's answer had not matched the question. Lan Ming seemed to realize something. He shook the secret letter in his hand and tested, "You mean this has something to do with that? This letter came from the people allied with us?"

Shao Pingbo nodded slightly. "The other side isn't particularly angry and is treating the matter almost as though it doesn't hurt or itch. Meanwhile, Zhuge Chi has already escaped. That means they succeeded. Our interference did not affect their plan. Put another way, they had other people watching Zhuge Chi besides our line."

Lan Ming fell briefly silent, then said thoughtfully, "In other words, they have more than one channel for obtaining information. Because our side failed to pass the news, they obtained it through another channel and still succeeded..."

As he spoke, he seemed to understand something.

He lowered his head and looked at the writing again.

In an instant, he understood what "a mild punishment" actually meant.

This was not merely a warning to Shao Pingbo.

It was clearly a warning to Lan Ming as well.

The so-called mild punishment was the capture of the man Lan Ming had sent.

By this point, how could he fail to understand the message? Their side had not behaved honestly, the other side had seen through it, and so they had given them a small lesson by removing one of Lan Ming's men.

Precisely because he understood, Lan Ming grew angry again.

That was one of his own people. Developing reliable men was not easy.

He grabbed Shao Pingbo by the front of his robe once more. "You idiot! You didn't even understand how deep the other side's waters ran, yet you casually pushed me into doing this. What do you take me for? Are you trying to get me killed?"

Shao Pingbo found this man's composure rather lacking. "Sir, it's nothing serious. The matter is already over."

Lan Ming truly had lost some of his composure.

He had suffered setback after setback lately and increasingly felt as though he had fallen into some invisible net, as though others were moving him around however they pleased. That feeling had thrown his judgment into disorder. The cultivated bearing of a Sacred Venerable's son had vanished completely.

There was no helping it.

Every single thing he was doing could cost him his head if even one detail leaked.

"Over?" Lan Ming shoved him hard enough to make him stagger, then pointed at his nose. "I'm telling you, don't come looking for me with this kind of rotten business again!"

Shao Pingbo stared at him and nodded. "Sir can rest assured. A fall into a pit makes one wiser. Next time I'll be more careful."

"There is no next time!" Lan Ming rejected the idea outright.

Then he stepped forward again. "Tell me honestly. Who exactly are the other people on our side?"

Shao Pingbo said, "I'm not very clear on that either."

The moment he heard that answer, Shao Pingbo himself knew Jia Wuqun's side had honored their promise of cooperation and had not tried to dig away his connection.

Of course, Jia Wuqun's side obviously preferred that as few people as possible know the truth.

That being the case, how could Shao Pingbo possibly tell Lan Ming the real identity of the other group?

If Lan Ming learned Jia Wuqun's identity and discovered that Jia Wuqun's side was stronger than Shao Pingbo's, there was an overwhelming chance he would cast Shao Pingbo aside and establish direct contact with Jia Wuqun instead.

That was not the result Shao Pingbo wanted.

Lan Ming blurted, "Bullshit! You don't know who they are, yet you're cooperating with them?"

He plainly had no intention of letting the matter drop without an answer.

Shao Pingbo said calmly, "People from Qiyun Sect have arranged to meet me and will be arriving shortly. This place is also under Blackwater Terrace's surveillance. Sir has now come twice under the same identity. I'm worried the Qiyun Sect people may take an interest in you along the way. We should continue this conversation another time."

He was plainly showing Lan Ming the door.

Lan Ming flew into a rage and pointed at him. "Shao Pingbo, listen carefully. I'll say it again. If anything happens to me, don't think you'll escape!"

Shao Pingbo said, "We're people on the same boat. No one can escape. Sir can rest assured."

"Good that you understand!" Lan Ming reached out and slapped Shao Pingbo twice on the cheek.

Then he gave a cold snort, flung his sleeve, and left.

Shao Pingbo remained where he was in silence.

A while later, Shao Sansheng returned after seeing the guest out. He came closer and asked quietly, "Eldest Young Master, what did those twelve characters from Jia Wuqun mean?"

Shao Pingbo said calmly, "On the matter of Zhuge Chi, our side was not Jia Wuqun's only line. Delaying the news on our side meant nothing to him. He succeeded anyway."

Shao Sansheng was slightly startled. "If he could obtain the information in time, then doesn't that mean he knew we deliberately withheld it?"

Shao Pingbo turned, walked behind the desk, and sat. The secret letter lay on the tabletop. "That's why this warning letter came. And that's why he ruined the people Lan Ming sent. Lan Ming's man has already been captured by Misty Pavilion."

Shao Sansheng felt his scalp prickle. "Someone was captured? Could that expose anything and implicate you, Eldest Young Master?"

Shao Pingbo shook his head. "Lan Ming silenced the line above him in time. It won't reach me either. Since the other side dared do this, since they dared let Lan Ming's man fall into Misty Pavilion's hands, they must already have made arrangements for Lan Ming. Either they silence Lan Ming, or they force Lan Ming to flee. Those are the only two possibilities. They won't allow Lan Ming to fall into Misty Pavilion's hands, because if he does, they won't escape either."

Hearing there was no immediate danger, Shao Sansheng finally relaxed. Then he frowned. "If they already had their own information channel, why ask us to move at all?"

Shao Pingbo said slowly, "We know too little about Jia Wuqun's side. Jia Wuqun has always kept an extremely low profile, and we know very little about the man himself, so there is no basis for analyzing his true intentions. Perhaps he used us to ensure multiple channels of intelligence for greater reliability. Or perhaps he wanted to conceal another line of his people.

"But there is one thing we can be certain of. He knew I would lead off a sheep while I was at it, and he must have made preparations in advance. Otherwise, under those circumstances, Misty Pavilion would never have acted recklessly, much less captured Lan Ming's man with such precision.

"In other words, he calculated from the very beginning what I would do and prepared from the very beginning to knock some sense into me!"

"Ah!" Shao Sansheng sighed.

Then he suddenly leaned closer to the desk and lowered his voice. "Eldest Young Master, doesn't that mean their side now controls a Nascent Soul cultivator?"

Shao Pingbo said, "That's only natural. Wasn't that their objective from the beginning? What worries me now isn't that. What truly worries me is that I cannot see the depth of the other side at all, while they understand me inside and out. Every step I take seems to be within their grasp. They have me calculated completely. This Jia Wuqun is simply... unfathomable!

"He can stir wind and rain in the court of Jin, he has cultivated deep roots in the cultivation world, and he dares snatch people from directly beneath the Nine Saints' eyes. Yet after all these years, everyone knew only the name 'Hidden Chancellor,' and no one ever took him seriously. The depth of his concealment is appalling. This man is far more terrifying than Niu Youdao ever was!"

Shao Sansheng's face filled with worry. "What are we supposed to do? Why do I feel as though we're asking a tiger for its skin?"

Shao Pingbo slowly leaned back in his chair. "Everything has advantages and disadvantages. From another perspective, for him to possess ability this great may not be a bad thing. An ordinary man trying to play this game would only get us killed. Perhaps he truly does possess the ability to contend with the Nine Saints. If he can really succeed, there is no harm in borrowing his strength."

...

Across the Seven States, the war in the west remained deadlocked.

The longer it dragged on, the more disadvantageous the situation became for Qi and Qin. The first people to feel it were the powerful and wealthy, whose hearts had already begun turning toward self-preservation.

The atmosphere in the cultivation world also grew abruptly tense.

Misty Pavilion's movements had become too large to ignore. Most people in the cultivation world had no idea what had happened, only that Misty Pavilion was repeatedly mobilizing personnel from various sects to assist in some kind of investigation.

Inside Misty Pavilion, the pressure was even more intense.

Faced with broken trails, Huo Kong tried desperately to reconnect them. He began checking the whereabouts of internal personnel during the period surrounding the incident. Anyone under suspicion was arrested and interrogated for confirmation.

Anyone who had disappeared during that same period was investigated in turn, along with all of their connections.

Inside the secret chamber in Nanzhou, Niu Youdao held a message from Sha Rulai and read it.

The report said that the Zhuge Chi affair had exposed enormous problems inside Misty Pavilion and had truly enraged the Nine Saints. They had already placed pressure on the supervisory personnel the various sects had stationed inside Misty Pavilion. If they failed to produce results within half a year, every one of them would die.

Niu Youdao tossed the message onto the table and laughed. "Huo Kong, the man running Misty Pavilion now, probably feels like his head is about to split."

Yun Ji asked, "If every supervisory officer dies unless they produce results within half a year, could that involve people connected to you?"

"If they're my people, naturally I'll protect them. Don't worry. They'll have something they can hand over as results. Hasn't Lan Ming already prepared it for them?"

Yun Ji froze. "You're going to sell Lan Ming out?"

Niu Youdao paced back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. "Even selling someone out requires a sense of measure. Otherwise, we'd only trap ourselves. How could I possibly let him fall into Misty Pavilion's hands? Lan Ming himself isn't worth much. Without his identity and background, he's nothing. His real value lies in the covert lines he's spent all these years building. So whether he personally remains at Boundless Pavilion isn't important.

"The Zhuge Chi affair is no small matter. It touched the Nine Saints directly where it hurts. From the moment we interfered in Zhuge Chi's affair, you should have been able to imagine that what followed wouldn't be quiet. Look. It's already begun."

...

At Wuliang Garden, Ye Nian paced beneath the covered walkway, temporarily holding the post on behalf of Wuxu Sacred Land.

He was deeply worried, thinking about his disciple Ao Feng.

Ao Feng's leave had expired long ago, yet he still had not returned.

Ye Nian himself had approved the leave. Now the man had vanished. They had searched everywhere outside and found no trace of him, and no one knew what had happened.

Wuxu Sacred Land had already begun asking questions and demanding that Ye Nian explain.

How was he supposed to explain something he himself did not understand?

At that moment, a member of Wuxu Sacred Land suddenly flashed over and hurried to his side. In a grave voice, he said, "Deacon, something's happened."

Ye Nian turned. "What happened?"

"The Wuliang Fruit tree has blossomed!"

Ye Nian's eyes instantly widened, disbelief filling his face. "What did you say?"

Anyone who knew even a little about Wuliang Garden understood the significance, especially those who spent their days guarding it.

As long as the Wuliang Fruits remained on the tree, the tree would not flower.

Only after the fruits had been picked would it blossom again.

So what did it mean for the tree to suddenly bloom now?

[End of Chapter 1352]