Wind Clan! The Northern Li calvary!
Those two names startled Han Yunxi from her thoughts and nearly made her leap out of her chair. She was so shocked, she couldn’t hide her expression of alarm. Ning Cheng and Ning Jing mistakenly a.s.sumed that she had been frightened by the news after realizing their serious manpower against Long Feiye.
But in truth, Han Yunxi was both shocked and happy. In fact, she wanted to laugh out loud at the skies.
The Wind Clan!!
Who knew that the Wind Clan would show up at a time like this and ally themselves with Ning Cheng! It really was gaining everything without going to the effort to hunt! The Wind Clan were familiar with astronomy and geomancy as well as the Qimen Dunjia arts. Moreover, they had the power to move the wind. Long Feiye had once told her this. The first time she ran into their Driving Wind Arts was at Fishery Island. Back then, Long Feiye had ordered in his rage for the Baili Navy to surround the island and trap Jun Yixie there until he died. However, a sudden poison fog had attacked them instead, sending the naval forces into chaos as someone rescued their prisoner. She and Long Feiye had been too late when they reached the scene.
Fishery Island was often buffeted by winds so it was rare for fog to settle, much less overnight. It was impossible for any ordinary person to hope to poison the fog. That was why they’d trapped Jun Yixie there despite knowing of his poison skills. She couldn’t figure out what had happened then until Long Feiye mentioned the Driving Wind Arts. Then she began to suspect that Jun Yixie’s savior was a Wind Clan member. Furthermore, there was another critical clue. To release poison into such a wide area of fog was a challenge even for herself. Thus, she and Long Feiye inferred that the man must have superior poison skills to her and Jun Yixie. To put things in perspective, the only possible culprit was the ex-leader of the Hundred Poisons Sect, Jun Yixie’s master.
Before this event, Jun Yixie had been targeted by Medical City because he implanted poison gu into Long Tianmo. Medical City began to investigate the Hundred Poisons Sect but found no clues. Meanwhile, Long Feiye and Old w.a.n.g had tried to plant secret agents into the sect too, but found nothing. Han Yunxi still didn’t know what kind of person originally poisoned Long Tianmo with poison gu[1] to make his stomach swell up, but Gu Qishao had recognized the symptoms at once and told Luo Zuishan to make a fuss. When she asked Gu Qishao about it, he said that he had learned the art of poison gu from Gu Yuntian’s secret poison manuals archives. In other words, this technique belonged to the Poison Sect! If one couldn’t learn it from Gu Yuntian’s poison manuals, then it was probably pa.s.sed down between generations of descendants with the Poison Sect bloodline.
Where did Jun Yixie learn his skills?[2] It was very possible that his master taught him! In other words, his master was on close terms with the Poison Sect’s descendants. To sum things up, Jun Yixie’s master might very well be related to the Wind Clan and the Poison Sect bloodline.
Moreover, Han Yunxi had fought against poisons in the maze pathway during Grand Concubine Yi’s kidnapping incident. The mysterious poisons masters who opposed her was extremely skilled and seemed to cure all of her toxins instantaneously. Even her newly created poisons were useless against them. Han Yunxi couldn’t figure it out at first, but later on she understood. Her poisons weren’t actually cured--but absorbed! The second level of the poison storage s.p.a.ce allowed absorption of all poisons harmful to one’s self into one’s dimension. One could then use the poisons for oneself. Anyone who had a poison storage system had to be a blood relation to the Poison Sect! No matter what the relations.h.i.+p between this mysterious poisons masters or the City of Daughter’s Lady Lengyue might be, one thing was certain: they had been targeting Grand Concubine Yi.
As well as Long Feiye’s birth origins.
More recently, the dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin that had attacked Gu Beiyue had immediately cured the poison applied to his shoulder. That was a toxin cultivated from her poison pond! Even those with heavenly skills would find it impossible to cure it at a glance. Thus, Han Yunxi was certain that the a.s.sa.s.sin had a poison storage s.p.a.ce, which made him a certain relation of the Poison Sect. The dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin had intentionally shown off Celestial Mountain swordplay while masquerading as Long Feiye. His true target wasn’t Gu Beiyue, but to make her misunderstand Long Feiye and keep her distance from him.
Jun Yixie’s master was related to the Wind Clan and a relation of the Poison Sect; the dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin also had a poison storage s.p.a.ce, which made him a relation of the Poison Sect, too.
With Lil Thing’s personality, it would bite someone to the death if he or she harmed Gu Beiyue. But Lil Thing hadn’t attacked the a.s.sa.s.sin twice. If Han Yunxi hadn’t seen wrongly, then Lil Thing was actually afraid of that man.
Who else could scare Lil Thing except for descendants of the Poison Sect?
Judging from these three incidents, Jun Yixie’s master, the mysterious poisons expert at the maze, and the dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin were most likely the same man! Not only was he related to the Poison Sect and a member of the Wind Clan, but also...possibly part of her own family.
Han Yunxi’s ident.i.ty as Poison Sect heir was already known to all. Why didn’t the dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin recognize her outright? Why did he hurt Gu Beiyue?
The Wind Clan had always been loyal to West Qin and sworn allies with the Shadow Clan. But the dark-robed man hadn’t stopping his attacks after Gu Beiyue revealed his shadow arts. If anything, his attacks grew more p.r.o.nounced as if determined to see him dead!
Why?
There was only one reason, and that was that the Wind Clan had followed in the Nether Clan’s footsteps to betray the West Qin imperial clan. They looked into Long Feiye’s origins but didn’t acknowledge her, then betrayed West Qin while colluding with the Di Clan. Just what were that man’s intentions?
Han Yunxi had been considering more than just this over her past few days of brooding. She was thinking back to a question she’d been entertaining a long, long time ago: the ident.i.ty of her father.
Lady Tianxin was a descendant of West Qin royalty, which mean her father had to be the Poison Sect scion! Did her mother die in labor due to an accident, or premeditated murder?
Daughters of the West Qin imperial clan always had a phoenix birthmark. Her father and Lady Tianxin had intimate relations, so he must have noticed the mark on Lady Tianxin’s own back. If he knew the origins of the mark, then he would have known Lady Tianxin’s ident.i.ty---and by extension, her own. Whoever exposed her origins a few days ago not only knew about the phoenix birthmark, but also that Lady Tianxin was Mu Xin of the Mu Clan.
It was very possible that the only person who knew this much was her own father.
After all that thinking, Han Yunxi reached a terrifying conclusion. Her father wasn’t just a descendant of the Poison Sect, but heir to the Wind Clan as well. He investigated Long Feiye’s origins, tried to kill the Shadow Clan’s sole survivor, refused to acknowledge her existence, publicized her ident.i.ty, and faked loyalty to West Qin by allying with the genuinely loyal Di Clan. It was all too obvious that he was trying to drive her and Long Feiye apart until they were on opposing sides, then play out some sort of bitter suffering father-daughter show with her.
She was the West Qin princess and her father, as the Wind Clan leader, would be even more justified to control the West Qin imperial clan. Although all of these were just conjectures and guesswork, Han Yunxi trusted her intuition.
It was rare to find such a rational woman like herself. She used 90 percent logical reasoning and 10 percent instinct to draw her conclusions. She had never doubted either, so she was certain this was the truth! Behind the scenes of everything lurked a large and sinister force who was sitting by to reap the largest rewards!
That dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin must have never expected his shoulder wound to betray him! Under such pressing circ.u.mstances, he must have had no time to tell the difference before Blood Upon Dawn versus Sealed Throat Upon Dawn and simply absorbed the toxin into his poison storage s.p.a.ce as always. Without help from the detox system, Han Yunxi wouldn’t have noticed the sudden disappearance of poison from his shoulder, either! How could the dark-robed a.s.sa.s.sin have ever realized that she was a transmigrator who had both the poison storage s.p.a.ce and the a.n.a.lytical detox system in her possession?
Now Han Yunxi was regarding the Ning siblings with a complicated expression. How was she supposed to tell them this in a way they’d believe her? Whether it was for revenge or rebuilding the country, the old grievances and resentment between East and West Qin had to be dealt with in the open in the end.
Unless...unless she could hold up the enmity temporarily to expose that old fox from the Wind Clan?
“Han Yunxi, think it over carefully. It doesn’t matter if you agree or not, you don’t have the right to choose!” Ning Jing said coldly.
“Fine, I’ll consider it!” Han Yunxi finally came to a compromise. She really did need time to figure out how to convince the Di Clan while meeting a plot with a plot. Ning Jing silently exhaled at her words. She glanced at Ning Cheng one more time before withdrawing resentfully. She knew she’d gone beyond her boundaries this time. Even after she left, Ning Cheng was still left staring faintly at Han Yunxi.
Han Yunxi was quite capable at staying calm even when things like Mt. Tai collapsing were right before her eyes, but her heart grew restless at Ning Cheng’s staring. She took out the antidote from her medical pouch.
“Here. Your crime of affronting me can be owed for a later date. This w.a.n.gfei will add interest to the cost!”
Ning Cheng accepted the bottle expressionless before turning to leave without a word. But at the door, he paused to look back coldly. Han Yunxi a.s.sumed that he would speak, but he only gave her a deep, piercing look before walking away.
If not for Ning Jing revealing her feelings, Han Yunxi would never believe in the Di Clan’s loyalty so simply, much less in that fellow’s faith. After all, she already had a terrible impression of him when they...first met!
Ning Cheng strode off step by step with both hands behind his back. n.o.body noticed the single acupuncture needle he was playing with in his hands--the same one that Han Yunxi had stabbed into his foot.
--
The appearance of the Wind Clan had finally calmed Han Yunxi down. She didn’t need to worry about the troublesome enmity between East and West Qin for the moment, at least. She told herself not to worry about anything. First, she’d get revenge for Gu Beiyue by exposing the Wind Clan’s sinister plots!
What would Long Feiye think about Gu Beiyue’s a.s.sa.s.sination? Can he discover the plot within it, too?
What is he doing right now?
Currently, Long Feiye had just arrived at Medical City. He made a beeline for the medical academy and the door to Han Yunxi’s rooms. Xu Donglin’s letter had reached him long ago, so he knew that Han Yunxi had been kidnapped.
Chu Xifeng, Xu Donglin, and the rest of the shadow guards were all kneeling by the entrance. Xu Donglin was clutching a purple muslin robe in his hands, afraid to step forward…
1. Helpful reminder: the culprit was actually Xi Yubo, who was working under Gu Beiyue’s orders. Old lies run deep...
2. Another reminder: Long Tianmo was poisoned twice; first by Xi Yubo, then by Jun Yixie after his kidnapping. They’re talking about the second time now.