Chapter 696: Back Then
Translator: AL_Squad Editor: Chrissy
Xuan Mo was indeed a person with integrity.
Her words were simple, but the context behind those she spoke of was quite the contrary.
She did not know much about the origin of the man in black. She only knew that the man appeared in front of her with her former leader. He stood behind the leader, looking subtle and humble, and even a bit self-deprecating.
However, although he had a humble frame of mind, once he placed his focus on a certain thing, his spirit would burst forth into a fiery and vigorous state. In the fight against the Fallen Immortals, he had made great contributions with his unparalleled cruelty. However, he refused any form of recognition given to him for his actions, hiding behind the scenes while showing his best performance.
Black’s character was so solitary that although people admired him, they didn’t consider the prospect of placing him in a leaders.h.i.+p position. Black had always followed their Eldest Brother; their Eldest Brother also never appointed him to a leaders.h.i.+p position too. What’s even more important was that the situation against the Fallen Immortals at that time was terrible, so people did their best in that situation. None of them cared about any power struggles among their ranks.
Then they suffered a great defeat in their struggle. Their leader died, the number of casualties piled up, and one after another, they started removing their strongholds. Their impregnable fortress fell under the siege of the Fallen Immortals like dominoes. The banners of defiance raised by the Earth Immortals drifted away.
At that time, their situation had placed all of them in a rather desperate predicament. Even the murderous Ravenous Wolf, Flesh Ma.s.sacre, and the others laughed bitterly to express how they wanted to at least give each other a bit of color. If they were to die, they all wished to share their final moments together. Only Black, who remained indifferent from beginning till the end, did what he had to do under their leader’s instructions before he died.
Their leader asked him to save as many people as he could.
Back then, Black saved more than a hundred people.
At that time, it was an almost unimaginable number since people never thought Black would be so strong. For many years, he had been standing behind their leader as if he was merely a part of his shadow. When their Eldest Brother perished, people found that their Eldest Brother’s shadow was nothing more than a shadow and Black was not at all a part of it. After all, they share the same level of strength.
Similarly, they had never thought the man in black could be so hard-hearted. To save more than a hundred people, he chose to sacrifice the same number of people, including several of his close friends. At that point, they finally realized why, even though Black had such immense capabilities, he had only been following their leader for many years, willing to stay in his shadow.
Such a person would be difficult to place on the pedestal of being a leader… However, after all that b.l.o.o.d.y scene, there’s no way they could blame him.
Blaming anyone was meaningless, and Black didn’t care. He accepted his fate as a sinner. On the one hand, he admitted that he was guilty. On the other hand… he had long been accustomed to a life of sin.
“That’s all the story I could tell. Please go back.”
At this point, Xuan Mo had suddenly realized that she had talked a bit too much. Suddenly, she felt tired; thus, she ordered both of them to leave.
However, when did w.a.n.g Lu ever cared about other people’s polite dismissal? He smiled and said, “Let me drink some tea before I go.” While saying that he raised the teacup he was holding and gulped half of its content, leaving behind a half-filled cup.
Xuan Mo looked at w.a.n.g Lu, finally acknowledging just how brazen the man before him truly was. She had told the story for about an hour, and he couldn’t even finish a cup of tea?
“I want to ask something.” w.a.n.g Lu said as he sipped his tea. “Who was in charge after your leader died?”
Xuan Mo said, “No one was in charge… In the beginning, there were three deputies under our leader. Two of whom we had already sacrificed and Bai Ze was not fit to be a leader. Sure, Black is a suitable candidate for the position, but as I have mentioned, his situation is not at all favorable.”
w.a.n.g Lu asked, “What about you?”
Xuan Mo smiled bitterly. “Me? I’m just being pushed forward for the time being. I don’t have the power of a leader, so it makes little sense for you to come to me this time; what I said doesn’t count.”
w.a.n.g Lu nodded. “I understand. It’s a shame to be just a beautiful mascot. That’s why I came to you not to talk about work this time but simply to chat.”
Xuan Mo’s smile turned even more helpless. “Do you think it’s appropriate to chat with me at this time?”
w.a.n.g Lu laughed and said, “There’s nothing inappropriate with it, friends.h.i.+p precedes compet.i.tion. Since our two sides are in a cooperative relations.h.i.+p, it’s not a bad idea to establish a revolutionary friends.h.i.+p in advance now.”
When Xuan Mo was about to reply, she saw w.a.n.g Wu speaking from the side.
“Good, I think it’s necessary for you two to establish a deep and thorough friends.h.i.+p,” she said while having another cup of tea—unlike w.a.n.g Lu, who only finished half a cup of tea, by this time, w.a.n.g Wu had already drunk full five cups, all of them without reservation and hesitation poured on by herself.
Hearing w.a.n.g Wu’s words, Xuan Mo thought that the meaning behind them seemed quite vulgar, but frankly, she didn’t quite understand, so she simply ignored her and focused on talking to w.a.n.g Lu.
“What do you want to know?”
w.a.n.g Lu said, “Several questions. First, you originally joined the Nine Regions elite to establish the Earth Immortals organization and chose the against-the-sky opponent, so arguably, the organizational structure here should be quite perfect.”
Xuan Mo replied, “Yes, although individually, our strength is weak, but together, we still have a fighting chance. This is thanks to our organizational strength.”
w.a.n.g Lu asked again, “Then the problem is that, in any organization, stability is fundamental. The leader can’t die without a successor. When your leader is still alive, he should have a successor, right? It’s not Black, right?”
Xuan Mo sighed. “Our leader built our Earth Immortals organization almost single-handedly, so only his prestige could prevail over everyone else. The rest was too far behind; even if our leader decided on an heir, it’s useless… Of course, our leader appointed a few people who would have taken over his job in the event that an accident would take place, but…”
w.a.n.g Lu asked, “Those successors are dead, right? That’s very convenient.”
Hearing w.a.n.g Lu spoke as if a conspiracy existed, Xuan Mo explained, “Amid the upheaval, the organization was almost completely dismantled. The attacks from the Fallen Immortals targeted us persistently. The first group of victims was almost all the backbone of the organization, so it was difficult for us to survive. At present, Black is the strongest and the highest in prestige, but he’s not willing to come forward, and there are a lot of other people wary of him.”
w.a.n.g Lu asked, “If there are concerns, why would someone listen to him?”
Knowing that this was again a question referring to earlier killings, Xuan Mo explained, “It’s because before he died, our leader told us to trust Black.”
w.a.n.g Lu asked, “But he didn’t pa.s.s the mantle to him?”
“There’s no way to pa.s.s it, and Black will not accept it. He will only do it when it’s necessary… Only in this way can we really trust him.”
w.a.n.g Lu murmured, “This internal disagreement is so convoluted that your Earth Immortals organization now has become so loose, huh?”
“We originally intended to sleep forever. This awakening was an accident, so no one knows what to do,” Xuan Mo said, “To be honest, I have been thinking for a long time. If we don’t wake up, what will it look like for the Nine Regions? I wondered if it would be better. After all, we are the people of the past.”
This somewhat surprised w.a.n.g Lu. “Your position is very strange. It’s somewhat inconsistent with the position of most of the other Earth Immortals.”
Hearing this, w.a.n.g Wu almost choked on her tea. She quickly reached behind w.a.n.g Lu and whispered, “Seems like there’s a play here. Go, bring honor to the country.”
Xuan Mo looked at w.a.n.g Lu and reluctantly smiled. “Don’t go out and spread this okay. I only spoke these words in chats like this.”
w.a.n.g Lu said, “Don’t worry. If we spread it, would we not lose an ally deep into the enemy territory?”
Xuan Mo grinned bitterly. Had she become an ally of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals? No wonder her peers had been looking at her more strangely recently.
“In any case, you have heard the story you want to hear, there’s nothing else…”
w.a.n.g Lu quickly waved his hand. “Hey, why? Last question.”
Xuan Mo stirred up her spirit. “Go on.”
After a moment of silent, w.a.n.g Lu asked with a smile, “I see that there’s no future for you guys Earth Immortals. How about you join us? We’ll surely give you a preferential treatment.”
——
An hour later, in one of the courtyards in the Immortal Five Area, w.a.n.g Lu returned to his office, but he sighed instead of concentrating on his work.
Since his secretary, Hai Yunfan was still outside, filling the formalities for w.a.n.g Lu. There were only two people in the room, him and w.a.n.g Wu. w.a.n.g Wu, carrying the cup from Xuan Mo, drank the immortal tea she had refilled for over ten times and still had the same fragrance. She then leisurely said, “What a r.e.t.a.r.d.”
w.a.n.g Lu sneered twice and poised himself to strike back at him. However, in the end, he felt bored and simply did not talk to w.a.n.g Lu at all.
“Don’t get mad at me if you’re a r.e.t.a.r.d. I’ve never seen you asking for a date so aggressively like that. You’re too blunt for her. It seems like there’s no play in the end.”
w.a.n.g Lu retorted, “It is clear that you had lowered the value of Union of Ten Thousand Immortals, you, b.i.t.c.h. That’s why she’s so worried!”
w.a.n.g Wu snorted and sipped her tea, and then said, “I think there’s an affair on the Earth Immortals side.”
w.a.n.g Lu was in agreement this time as he nodded and said, “There’s something wrong with those Earth Immortals. The situation differs greatly from what we previously identified. This trip is not in vain.”
“The preferred problem person is that man in black.”
w.a.n.g Lu acknowledged her, saying with a frown, “Except there’s no one else besides him. I think this person hides his intention deep in his heart, and he’s not a good person. Unfortunately, Xuan Mo refused to say more about the details, like what happened to the battle that caused the heavy casualties.”
w.a.n.g Wu said, “There’s no need to ask about that. There must be a traitor among them. I think Black and Bai Ze are the biggest suspects. I think it’s better to find a way to arrest them and put both of them on trial, and then the representative of Earth Immortals and Nine Regions will execute them.”
This inference was of course purely subjective and unreasonable. In the process of confronting the crisis of the Fallen Immortals, the Earth Immortals were completely walking on the edge of the cliff. It was not strange for them to fall at any time. The Earth Immortals might be rich in talents, but the Fallen Immortals were stronger. They probably filled the organizational structure they were proud of with flaws in the eyes of the other party.
Of course, w.a.n.g Lu and w.a.n.g Wu also knew this truth. The problem was that either of those two had several reasons to be the traitor. Before any conclusive evidence came to light, it was not wrong to suspect either of them.
“It’s settled then. It’s an unforgivable crime for Black and Bai Ze to communicate with the enemy. Our next step is to find ways to make them stink in the Earth Immortals camp to reduce the difficulty of the Grand Compet.i.tion.” w.a.n.g Lu finally put forward their fundamental purpose succinctly.
w.a.n.g Wu nodded. “Good idea. I support you.”
With that, she got up and was about to leave.
w.a.n.g Lu curiously asked, “Where are you going?”
“Of course to slack again. In any case, I’ve been working with you for so long, Big Brother won’t have anything to use to criticize me hahaha!”