Martial Cultivator

Feng Liu thought for a moment and said, “Among the cultivators who came with me this time, there are two at the Nepenthe Realm. One is called Yu Jinqing, the other is called Weng Yuan. These two will serve as elder level retainers.”

Chen Chao clicked his tongue and said, “Weng Yuan, a rare sword immortal. I’ve heard he even has a title, something like the Mountains and Rivers Sword Immortal.”

“The Lord Warden Commander is truly all-powerful. You know everything.”

Feng Liu said with a smile, “There’s also a female cultivator called Huang Ni. I’m preparing to write her a letter to invite her to serve as the Morning Dew Sect’s chief enforcer. There’s an eighty percent chance she’ll agree.”

“Two at the end of Nepenthe, three at Nepenthe Realm.”

Chen Chao nodded and said, “It looks like once your Morning Dew Sect is established, it will immediately rank among the top-tier sects of the present age. Even if other sects appear in Ying Prefecture afterward, you’ll certainly be the ones holding the reins.”

Feng Liu chuckled. He had long since made thorough preparations.

Chen Chao thought for a moment and suddenly said, “I know an itinerant cultivator. He’s a sword immortal. If I speak up, I might be able to get him to join the Morning Dew Sect.”

The person Chen Chao was referring to was naturally Xu Bai, currently the foremost sword cultivator among the itinerant cultivators of Yellow Dragon Prefecture. It wasn’t that Chen Chao had never thought of luring him to the Divine Capital, but after weighing it again and again, he ultimately gave up the idea.

Feng Liu frowned slightly and said, “Could it be Xu Bai?”

Chen Chao nodded. “Precisely.”

That Feng Liu could guess it was Xu Bai did not surprise Chen Chao. After all, among itinerant cultivators in this world who were also sword immortals, there were only a handful.

“If this man joins, then my Morning Dew Sect will truly have much more confidence.”

Feng Liu glanced at Chen Chao. He had not wanted to speak up originally, but once the other party mentioned a sword immortal, he could not help himself. Other cultivators could be ignored, but sword immortals were different. No matter how many came, it was never too many.

Whether it was daoist sects or other cultivation sects, which one did not treat sword immortals like treasures to be enshrined?

Chen Chao smiled and said, “I can only inform him that such a matter exists. Whether he joins the Morning Dew Sect or not, and how you, Sect Master Feng, choose to arrange him, that’s your affair. This official will not interfere.”

“Of course, of course.”

Feng Liu poured himself a bowl of wine, raised it, and said with a smile, “As for Fellow Daoist Xu Bai’s matter, I’ll trouble the Lord Warden Commander to keep it in mind.”

With that, he drained the bowl in one go.

Watching this friend who had only just said he couldn’t drink now down another bowl, Xu Fuchen shook his head, his head aching.

“As for what comes next, I’ll have the local warden coordinate with Sect Master Feng. Fellow Daoist Feng, don’t look down on that warden just because his realm isn’t high and end up disregarding him.”

Chen Chao chuckled, finished the wine in his bowl, and with that, today’s matters were considered settled.

Feng Liu laughed and said, “How could that be? Since he’s an official of the imperial court, I naturally wouldn’t dare to be negligent.”

Chen Chao laughed it off.

“By the way, when the sect is established, we must ask Lord Warden Commander to attend the ceremony.”

......

......

Inside the pavilion, Chen Chao watched Feng Liu and Xu Fuchen leave. He then glanced at the empty wine bowl and rubbed his forehead.

The black-robed monk smiled and asked, “How much of what that Feng Liu said do you think is credible, Lord Warden Commander?”

Previously, Feng Liu had actually been unwilling to agree to what Chen Chao wanted him to do. His final concession had come rather abruptly.

A cultivator at the end of Nepenthe should not have such an undecided state of mind.

Chen Chao said, “He was simply going along with the flow, because he understood where my bottom line lay, unless he was unwilling to do this in the first place.”

The black-robed monk said, “And since he has already made so many preparations, this is something he is definitely going to do. So in the end, all he could do was try as hard as possible not to agree to your demands. When he realized there was no way around it, he could only accept.”

Chen Chao smiled and nodded. That was precisely the case.

The black-robed monk said, “If it is not done with genuine sincerity, then later there is the possibility of going through the motions without putting in real effort. How does Lord Warden Commander intend to handle that?”

Chen Chao smiled and said, “Concretely speaking, if one day the Morning Dew Sect sends cultivators to the Northern Frontier, as long as Great Liang still stands, they will not be able to avoid shedding blood. If it is truly because they delayed matters and caused failure, I will indeed settle accounts afterward.”

The black-robed monk frowned. “And besides that?”

“If, in the end, they do not honor what was agreed upon today, then before Great Liang is destroyed, I will personally settle the accounts. It could be that I truly lead the Northern Frontier great army south and trample the Morning Dew Sect, or it could be that I go alone and wipe out the Morning Dew Sect myself.”

Chen Chao said, “I have wiped out sects many times before. It is not a difficult matter.”

The black-robed monk said in surprise, “You truly intend to do that thing of repaying grievance with direct retaliation?”

“It is repaying tooth for tooth, blood for blood.”

“There is no reason for us to be the ones always giving. There is no reason that just because we have suffered injustice, we must endure again and again. The so-called greater picture and other considerations are important, but they should not mean ignoring everything else. If there is anger in one’s heart, it must be vented.”

Chen Chao smiled and said, “Cultivators have a saying, called letting bygones be bygones, after which nothing matters anymore, that one should be magnanimous, that one should start anew with others. In my view, that is bullshit. If someone provokes you, they ought to feel guilt and come make amends. If they do not come to make amends, it is actually very simple, you give it back.” ”If they slap you once, you slap them once in return. If they sever one of my hands, I sever one of theirs. If they kill someone I care about, then I might very well kill their entire family. A life for a life. A debt repaid in full. These ten words were made perfectly clear by the ancestors long ago.”

The black-robed monk said, “Easy to say, but not easy to do. When the time comes, who knows how many people will try to stop you.”

Chen Chao nodded and said, “That is true. But it does not matter, because they are destined not to be able to stop me.”

The black-robed monk examined the young man before him, thought for a moment, and said, “Not afraid of leaving a notorious name in the historical records?”

“Things after death aren’t worth worrying about. If they’re willing, they can smear shit on my gravestone, or grind my bones to dust - it all makes no difference.”

Chen Chao spoke with a grin, utterly unconcerned.

”His Majesty?”

The black-robed monk opened his mouth.

Chen Chao laughed. “When His Majesty was still a vassal prince, he was probably like this. After becoming emperor, he reined it in a bit, but he’s still the same at heart. As for me, I’ve never been emperor to begin with.”

“As for the bigger picture, there’s the Crown Prince in the Divine Capital, and at the Northern Frontier there’s the Great General above and Xie Nandu below. Me? I’m just responsible for telling everyone else one thing - don’t fucking think you can provoke us and pay no price.”

The black-robed monk said, “If in the end they still deceive you, and you go looking for trouble with them, you should still produce evidence. Otherwise, the people of the world will probably find it unbelievable.”

Having no evidence is always the most troublesome thing.

Chen Chao nodded and said with a smile, “Evidence? How could there not be any.”

The black-robed monk looked at Chen Chao, not noticing that Chen Chao was idly rolling a demon pearl between the fingers of one hand.

......

......

Feng Liu and Xu Fuchen returned to the ferry. Xu Fuchen glanced at his old friend and lamented with vicissitudes of emotion. “That wasn’t easy.”

Feng Liu did not turn his head and said to himself, “Of course it wasn’t easy. A full exchange of verbal thrusts and parries. That Lord Warden Commander is terrifying.”

Xu Fuchen said, “Fortunately, it worked out in the end. But you’re really something, you didn’t even settle on any kind of contract. That means everything can still be argued later.”

Feng Liu raised an eyebrow. “No, Old Xu, do you really think those fucking contracts are useful?”

Xu Fuchen looked somewhat bewildered.

“Even if you really signed some so-called contract, would it truly be useful? If Great Liang declines later on, that contract naturally becomes nothing more than a piece of waste paper. But if Great Liang remains strong the whole time?” ”Without a contract, today’s words don’t count, yet Great Liang has already handed everything over. I, for one, do not doubt in the slightest that in the end there would truly be horses trampling the Morning Dew Sect.”

Feng Liu rubbed his forehead, wiping away the sweat there as well.

Xu Fuchen said, “Since there’s no contract, I think it’s also possible that Great Liang ends up swallowing a silent loss later. Would he really dare commit such acts that defy the whole world? After all, there’s no evidence.”

Feng Liu’s smile did not reach his eyes. “If it were someone else, Old Xu, I’d think you were right. But if he’s still alive, I don’t see it that way. That young martial artist, if you’ve truly taken the time to understand him, you’ll know. Boiled down to one sentence: this man reasons with others only on the premise that they haven’t provoked him. Once he’s provoked, there is no reasoning to be had.”

“In this world, what is there that this young martial artist doesn’t dare do? He even fucking killed his own elder brother without hesitation. When dealing with someone like this, you only need to understand one thing - from start to finish, it’s best to always deal with him fairly, one matter at a time, and never be the first to wrong him.”

Feng Liu took a deep breath and softly concluded, “He’s a straight man.”