Chapter 63: Preparation (2)
After leaving the City Lord’s palace, Su Chen began to head back to his own residence.
He didn’t take a carriage. All he did was have the Blood-Robed Guards follow him.
As they walked, three youths appeared, and they walked in the opposite direction.
Even though they were still a ways off, Su Chen had a feeling as soon as he saw them that they were coming for him.
In addition, the other party gave off a kind of aura that was oddly familiar to him.
He squinted his eyes and stopped moving.
The three youths continued to head in their direction.
They stopped about ten feet in front of Su Chen.
The youth in the middle had long hair that reached past his shoulders, and he had even brushed his hair through a golden hoop. He smiled, revealing his teeth, and said, “Su Chen?”
“How bold!” Upon hearing someone call Su Chen directly by his name, the Blood-Robed Guard Commander barked angrily and put his hand on the hilt of his blade.
Su Chen stopped him. “You are?”
The youth with the golden hoop replied, “I am called Ke Mingshou. These two are my comrades, Zhou Bai and Wu Xiaoliang. They are both from the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute as well. I believe you should be calling us your seniors.”
“So you three are my seniors,” Su Chen said with a slight smile. He bowed slightly to the three of them and said, “Su Chen greets the three seniors.”
“No need to be polite,” the person standing to the side called Zhou Bai said. “It seems like you understand social etiquette. That’s good. I heard that you don’t have the best relations.h.i.+p with the Bloodline n.o.bility Clans here in Clear River City.”
“So?”
“Nothing much. I just wanted to tell you that the Bloodline n.o.bility Clans are the cornerstones of the human race in resisting the various tribes. They’re absolutely essential. It’s best if you have a certain measure of respect for them.”
Su Chen’s eyebrows knit together. “So you three seniors came to me because of the Bloodline n.o.bility Clans? I believe that you have misunderstood me. I am just doing my duty as it pertains to my position. I don’t want to overstep my authority. If there are any issues, you should go to the Bloodline n.o.bility Clans and ask them, not me.”
Wu Xiaoliang’s expression sank. “Su Chen, if you make excuses like that, does that mean you don’t want to make peace?”
Su Chen didn’t even look at him. Instead, he spoke to Ke Mingshou, the one with a gold hoop in his hair. “You guys aren’t genuinely trying to persuade me, are you? If you did, you wouldn’t stop me in the middle of the road like this, then try and force me to lower my head with just a few sentences. You should have paid me a visit first and tried to gain my friends.h.i.+p, establis.h.i.+ng camaraderie before gently making an attempt. Instead, you guys appear here and spout such nonsense? Your true intentions are just to let me know that you are here now so that I’m aware of you, and it is as if you are making a declaration of war…… You act modest, but that is actually incredibly arrogant of you. In terms of acting pretentiously, I must admit that you have done quite a good job.”
The three of them changed expressions immediately.
Su Chen was immediately able to pinpoint their true intentions. Their pretentious act had been called out, making them feel like their faces had been slapped a bit.
“Alright, now that you’ve demonstrated your existence and said all you wanted to say, I’m going to leave if there’s nothing else.”
As Su Chen spoke, he walked past the three of them, completely ignoring them.
Ke Mingshou’s gaze was icy. “Regardless, we are still you seniors, yet you treat us so rudely……”
Su Chen interrupted him. “Thousands of people graduate from the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute every year. There are tens of thousands of people in Long Sang Country who can be considered my seniors. There’s no need for you three to try and establish a rapport with me.
After he said that, he left.
The three of them were about to explode from anger as they watched Su Chen’s departing figure.
“Good! Very good!” Zhou Bai said harshly. “Who could have known that such a stubborn junior would come out from the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute? Looks like he needs someone to teach him a lesson.”
“Of course!” Ke Mingshou and Wu Xiaoliang replied.
————————————————
Ke Mingshou and the others hadn’t expected their pretentious appearance to not have given Su Chen any additional pressure. In fact, they weren’t even able to leave a lasting impression on him.
Su Chen was still currently racking his brains, trying to figure out how to clean up those pirates.
After returning to the Su Palace, Su Chen immediately summoned the Shadow Servants and commanded them to inform w.a.n.g Wenxin to bring fifty Long Clear Gang members who he trusted with him.
After w.a.n.g Wenxin took control of the Long Clear Gang, it had undergone a period of restructuring. Now, he had complete control. On the surface, he still listened to the Lai Clan, but he had been on Su Chen’s side for a long time. Su Chen had intentionally planted a thorn amongst the ten Bloodline n.o.bility Clans and hadn’t allowed w.a.n.g Wenxin to publicly reveal himself. To w.a.n.g Wenxin, this was a good thing; after all, this mitigated the pressure that would be on him for fighting the Bloodline n.o.bility Clans.
Today, however, Su Chen was finally going to get the Long Clear Gang to do something for him.
Fifty people. This number was neither large nor small, but the critical point was that they had to be people w.a.n.g Wenxin could trust. This would immediately take away many backbone members of the Long Clear Gang, and it could be considered the first test for w.a.n.g Wenxin.
w.a.n.g Wenxin didn’t know what Su Chen wanted these people for. After receiving his message, he hesitated and deliberated for a substantial period of time before agreeing in the end.
Two days later, the fifty Long Clear Gang members appeared in the Su Palace’s main courtyard. They combined with the bandits under Su Chen’s command to form a platoon of around a hundred fifty individuals.
No one knew what Su Chen wanted these people for. In the following days, however, extremely piercing howls would come out from Su Chen’s research lab every so often.
These howls seemed filled with despair and torment. If it weren’t for the fact that everyone who entered would return alive and healthy, their expressions filled with joy, these cries would have been enough to cause everyone to collapse.
When they saw the strength that the people who emerged from the research lab now possessed, however, they were all filled with expectations.
Power filled them with expectations, while the price they would need to pay for that power filled them with fear.
The days pa.s.sed by steadily as they were tormented one after another.
Time pa.s.sed extremely quickly. In the blink of an eye, half a month had gone by.
On that day, Su Chen finally finished improving the final bandit.
Working on ten of them a day was extremely taxing even to Su Chen. During this period of time, he had basically used all of his energy and focus on this. Now that he was finally finished, he couldn’t help but feel as if he had been released.
Just as he was still admiring his creation, someone said from outside his door, “Young Master, someone would like to see you.”
It was Mingshu.
“Who is it?”
“The visitor called himself Jiang Hanfeng.”
“Hanfeng?” Su Chen’s mind was jolted. “Quick, invite them in…… No, I’ll go out and greet them myself.”
Ignoring his exhaustion, Su Chen went to the main entrance and found a few youths standing outside. It was Jiang Hanfeng, Zhou Juanjia, Ma Xuan, Wei Yang, Tang Ming, Wu Shao, Zhao Xin, Yan Ling, and Gan Haoli, nine in total.
When they saw Su Chen, the group of youths all began to yell.
“Su Chen!”
“Third Senior Brother Su!”
“Knowledge Executor Su!”
“Senior Su!”
A commotion broke out.
Su Chen laughed and greeted them all. “You guys are finally here.”
Yes, they were the reinforcements Su Chen had received from the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute.
All of the students in the same year as Su Chen had already graduated. If Su Chen wanted to find some helpers, he could only ask for those younger than him.
Jiang Hanfeng and the others were already tenth-year students. In just a few more months, they would officially graduate from the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute. Before then, they had been entrusted with helping Su Chen. Not only could they earn contribution points for this, but they would also be helping out a good friend.
To them, being able to fight alongside Su Chen was something that made them very happy.
“That’s right,” Jiang Hanfeng, who loved to speak, said with excitement. “Unfortunately, Han Linxia and Little Forty had business to take care of and weren’t able to make it. Otherwise, we would all be here.”
“No worries, your arrival is perfectly timed. It just so happens that I’m in need of people. You guys will be a great help.”
“Third Senior Brother, just give the word! Who are we fighting? We’ll fight wherever you point,” the group said animatedly. Only Tang Ming, like always, crossed his arms proudly and remained silent, but the desire to do battle was evident in his eyes.
“What if I point at the water?” Su Chen asked, laughing.