Chapter 132: A Fated Transaction of Guaranteed Spoils, Gongsun Huaiyu’s Blissful Days
Chapter 132 – A Fated Transaction of Guaranteed Spoils, Gongsun Huaiyu’s Blissful Days
Hearing the Great Elder’s words, the gathered Elders nodded, acknowledging the immense worth Chen Changsheng represented.
If Chen Changsheng truly orchestrated this slaughter, his methods were nothing short of heaven-defying.
Shielding such a heaven-blessed prodigy was well worth courting calamity.
Yet, if his hands were clean of the deed, the path forward became utterly straightforward.
Measuring him solely by the monstrous talent and raw power he had laid bare, granting him the seat of a Saint Son cost the Purple Mansion Holy Land nothing.
Thus, no matter how the fated paths were weighed, the Purple Mansion Holy Land stood only to reap a bountiful harvest.
Piercing the veil of this logic, the Second Elder nodded slowly and said, “Your words hold truth. To bind such an apex talent to our sect, a price in blood and treasure must be paid.”
“But what of the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes? How shall we treat with them?”
“It was not long ago that the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes ravaged one of our Holy Land’s strongholds.”
“The spiritual wealth lost was negligible. If we grant them leniency for Chen Changsheng’s sake, forging a truce should pose no obstacle.”
Meeting the Second Elder’s gaze, the Great Elder smiled with an enigmatic, razor-sharp edge, and said,
“For the foreseeable future, the Purple Mansion Holy Land shall forge no truce with the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes. Furthermore, the Holy Master will personally march to war against them.”
The hall descended into baffled silence.
The weathered faces of the gathered Elders twisted in profound confusion regarding the Great Elder’s words.
The bond shared by Chen Changsheng and the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes was, by any measure, profoundly deep.
With Chen Changsheng ascending as a Saint Son, claiming the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes and the Purple Mansion Holy Land were bound by blood and kin was no exaggeration at all.
If their fates were now intertwined, why sound the drums of war?
Bathing in their collective bewilderment, the Great Elder smugly stroked his wispy beard and said,
“When the Holy Master first decreed we draw Chen Changsheng into our fold, I voiced this exact misgiving. Do you know how the Holy Master answered?”
Watching the Great Elder deliberately shroud his words in mystery, the others instantly flared with irritation.
“Old Dog Six, we grant you face when weighing the sect’s grand fate, but if you dare play games with us, we might just have to test your bones in a spar.”
“Speak that cursed name again, if you have the gall!”
“Then let us cross fists! Do you think I fear an old ghost like you?”
Provoked by the taboo moniker, the Great Elder’s spiritual aura erupted, and he vaulted from his seat, ready to exchange lethal blows with one of the Elders.
Seeing the spiritual pressure surge, the surrounding Elders hastily intervened to smother the brewing storm.
Only after a fierce barrage of placations did the Great Elder huff and sink back into his grand chair.
“Old Six, speak plainly. Our generation of withered bones has little lifespan left to squander anyway.”
“To weave riddles now is to drain the last drops of everyone’s fleeting vitality.”
Mollified by the Second Elder’s practical tone, the Great Elder let out a cold, indignant snort and said,
“The Holy Master replied to my counsel with these very words. She decreed, ‘The Middle Heavens have descended into turbulent chaos lately, and the Purple Mansion Holy Land is destined to weather a siege.’”
“‘Should the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes darken our borders, I shall personally cross blades with Wu Li, and command that none of you interfere.’”
Hearing this absolute decree, the murky eyes of the ancient patriarchs flashed with predatory brilliance.
“The Holy Master truly swore this?”
“Without a shadow of a doubt.”
“Does she possess the absolute certainty to seize victory in this matter?”
“I do not know!” the Great Elder sneered, his visage hardening into a mask of ice. “The flow of this destiny rests in the Holy Master’s grasp, in Wu Li’s feral might, and perhaps, even within Chen Changsheng’s own designs.”
“But it most certainly does not rest in our withered hands.”
“The Holy Master is the sovereign ruler of the Purple Mansion Holy Land. Every step she takes upon the Dao is carved for her own ascension, and for the immortal foundation of our sect.”
“Vying for Heaven’s Mandate is a bloody path every peerless prodigy must walk. If we invite apocalyptic karma solely for a single Chen Changsheng, this transaction for the Purple Mansion Holy Land yields a minor loss.”
“Yet, if we drag the brutal might of the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes and Wu Li into our fold, this gamble transforms into a sovereign’s feast.”
“Many among you have tasted Wu Li’s martial prowess. You should know, in your very marrow, the terrifying depths of his monstrous strength.”
As his words settled into the hall, the avaricious glow in the Elders’ eyes burned like starved wolves smelling fresh blood.
When Wu Li and the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes stood as their mortal foes, everyone had cursed the heavens, begging for that feral bastard Wu Li’s swift death.
But now, with the grand scheme weaving Wu Li and the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes into their own lineage,
everyone’s calculations underwent a terrifying, pragmatic inversion.
The newly-minted son-in-law of our Purple Mansion Holy Land is an earth-shattering monster, but why couldn’t he be even more terrifying?
Was it because our border outposts lacked enough spiritual wealth, thereby starving his speed in seizing greater power?
Spurred by this ruthless logic, myriad treacherous and generous “schemes” instantly sprouted within the dark hearts of the numerous Elders.
“Great Elder, I propose we flood one of our eastern fortress cities with a deluge of primal resources. Shall we bait the waters with two million lbs of God Source?”
“A viciously brilliant stratagem. We could even beseech the Holy Master to anchor the citadel personally.”
“Though the region lies in the desolate fringes where the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes prowl, with the Holy Master’s peerless might, ensuring our grand foundation remains unshakeable shouldn’t be a vast ordeal.”
Listening to this chorus of bloodthirsty “counsel,” although the Great Elder felt his own avarice stir, he refrained from enacting them immediately.
“We shall scheme on these matters when the time is ripe. The paramount decree today is to firmly anchor Chen Changsheng within our walls.”
“Ye Hensheng and Su Tian are both apex heaven-chosen in their own right. Any other orthodox sect would enshrine such talents as irreplacable pearls.”
“More importantly, those two hold the inheritance rites to sovereign empires within the Eastern Wasteland.”
“At the same time, they kneel to Chen Changsheng, obeying his slightest breath without hesitation.”
“Thus, by ensnaring Chen Changsheng, we forge an imperishable blood-pact with both the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes and the mortal empires of the Eastern Wasteland.”
“This singular endeavor dictates the fate of the Purple Mansion Holy Land for the next millennia. If anyone shatters this grand design, do not blame my blade for forgetting our centuries of brotherhood.”
Chilled by the primordial killing intent bleeding from the Great Elder’s voice, the gathered patriarchs suppressed their smiles, their auras settling into cold solemnity.
After all, brotherhood was a sentiment of the past, but the Dao’s laws of survival were absolute.
Should the ascendant path of the Purple Mansion Holy Land be fractured, a thousand years of shared cups and spilled blood would mean absolutely nothing.
……
“Are all these worldly treasures truly ours to take?”
Gongsun Huaiyu stared wide-eyed at the jade slip detailing the sect’s armory, literal drool pooling at the corner of her lips.
Observing Gongsun Huaiyu’s unpolished, mortal greed, Zi Ning smiled with an air of aristocratic superiority and said,
“These treasures do not simply belong to you. Rather, the vault is open for you to freely plunder, provided you have the means.”
“The absolute decree of the Purple Mansion Holy Land is brutally simple; everything is governed by merit tallies.”
“Every disciple treading our grounds, myself included, must undertake blood-trials and sect edicts to accumulate these merits.”
“After all, the heavenly treasures hoarded by the Holy Land were not birthed from thin air.”
“Naturally, those who cultivate at higher echelons reap far heavier bounties.”
“The lowest rabble, the mere registered initiates, are granted nothing; they forge their path entirely through their own blood and sweat.”
“Outer Sect disciples are graced with one thousand merit tallies per lunar cycle. Novice disciples reap ten thousand per month. Inner Sect disciples gorge upon a guaranteed one hundred thousand merits a month.”
“Ah, right, Inner Sect disciples are what you revere as Quasi-Saint Sons.”
Digesting Zi Ning’s revelation, Gongsun Huaiyu ruthlessly wiped the spit from the corner of her mouth and said excitedly,
“The spoils in your Purple Mansion Holy Land are this obscenely rich?”
“One hundred thousand merit tallies equates to one hundred thousand lbs of God Source. Does that mean, if I stagnate here doing absolutely nothing and just laze around for a year, I can siphon over a million lbs of God Source?”
Hearing this, Zi Ning rolled her eyes disdainfully and said, “A fool’s dream. From the Novice disciple rank upwards, everyone is bound by heaven’s oath to complete a mandatory quota of sect edicts annually.”
“Fail, and your celestial standing will be brutally stripped away.”
“Furthermore, the vault enforces rigid boundaries on what you may claim. The higher your authority, the looser the chains. At your current cultivation rank, most common spiritual artifacts can be seized with mere merits.”
“As for True Disciples, meaning the supreme Saint Sons and Saintesses, they are unshackled from such mortal constraints.”
“They are bound to no forced trials. If their merit tallies are vast enough, they may devour anything within the sect’s armory. In fact, any spiritual resource valued beneath five hundred thousand lbs of God Source can be drawn from the vaults on a mere whim.”
Gongsun Huaiyu: (͡°͜ʖ͡°)✧
If the Dao operates by these rules, then I will carve out a mountain of merits with utmost seriousness.
Out in the lawless wastes with the Seventy-Two Wolf Smokes, plundering a single drop of cultivation essence meant dancing on the edge of a bloody grave.
Yet here, executing trivial edicts rains spiritual wealth upon you. This life of cultivation is almost terrifyingly decadent.
……