"d.a.m.n it!" Those Jia Clan battle kings cursed out together angrily, even though they were all soaked in the bone-piercing cold water. Their looks changed weirdly. At first, they seemed to be relieved, and soon, a faint redness appeared on their deathly pale faces. But then, all of them lowered their heads in shame.
"It seems that you all know what Di Luolang came for." JI Hao smilingly nodded towards these Jia Clan warriors and said, "Hm, powerful Jia Clan elites, battle kings, the top-grade military force under the command of Yu Clan. A whole hundred warriors like this are captured alive by weak barbarians. Because of this, an elder of your family has to come visit your enemy himself to ransom you back with huge piles of true gold and silver."
Clapping his hands loudly, Ji Hao then grinned and continued, "You should be so ashamed, you should even cut your own throats and kill yourselves. But please, do kill yourselves after you got back home… Because you are worth a lot right now."
Hearing this, the group of Jia Clan battle kings was getting angrier. They gasped loudly in both rage and shame while staring at Ji Hao.
In the main hall of Earl Yao’s mansion, Ji Hao met Di Luolang. From a great distance away, Ji Hao laughed out loud, spread his harms then friendly gave a huge hug to Di Luolang, whose face was twisted badly. Ji Hao had even put his mouth near Di Luolang’s ear and chuckled, "It’s so nice to see you again, my dear Elder Di Luolang."
Di Luolang gave a bitter smile, then shook his head. He freed himself from Ji Hao’s arms and took a few steps backward. He solemnly bowed to Ji Hao and said, "I a.s.sume you have already known my purpose for coming. Somehow, I sensed a wave of cold wind blowing across the empty treasure-house of my family…But what can I do? They came to attack Yao Mountain City, but not with an order given by our elder council. "
"This doesn’t sound interesting at all." said Ji Hao while knitting his eyebrows, intentionally showing an angry face while looking at Di Luolang. "Jia Clan Divine Magi, a whole hundred of them, sneakily attacked my city while I was in the life-and-death game! Can any family member of your Di Family freely use such a strong force?"
Ji Hao glared at Di Luolang and shouted, "Do not think that I am stupid, Elder Di Luolang. Do not humiliate my intelligence with any finely decorated language. Do not break the friends.h.i.+p between you and me, this is not a wise choice."
Di Luolang felt that his heart was even bleeding.
Friends.h.i.+p? Did he have any friends.h.i.+p with Ji Hao at all? If the fact that Ji Hao had extorted the Di Family as hard as possible and nearly made the family broke was a symbol of friends.h.i.+p, then, indeed, there was a deep friends.h.i.+p between them.
Smiling bitterly, Di Luolang spread his hands and said, "Even our family leader can’t freely use a hundred top-grade battle kings to recklessly intrude the central region the humankind’ territory without any plan."
Ji Hao remained silent while walking to the large armchair in the middle of the hall that belonged to him, and sat down slowly.
A group of maids walked over and silently served Ji Hao and Di Luolang with fine wines, fresh fruits and snacks. Ji Hao picked up an exquisitely crafted white jade wine cup and smilingly said to Di Luolang, "Please, come take a seat. Try this fruit wine produced by our Yao Mountain territory. We have plenty of wild fruits in the woods, and we have raised a group of monkeys to make wines for us."
Di Luolang let out a long and heavy breath. He sat down on a guest seat, picked up a wine cup and raised it to before his eyes. He then politely nodded to Ji Hao, then poured three cups of wine into his mouth in a row.
Grabbing two pieces of nice smelling fruits and eating them up, Di Luolang wiped the fruit juice on his beard and praised, "Good wine, good fruit. The wine-making technique is slightly unsatisfactory, but the materials are truly great. This wine is great, indeed made from wonderful materials."
Politely, Ji Hao drank up three cups of wine as well, then put the cup on the long table in front of him. He pressed his pair of hands on the table, looking down at Di Luolang. "Good, you have accepted my courtesy to a guest, now let’s do some calculations." said Ji Hao, "A hundred Jia Clan Divine Magi attacked my Yao Mountain City, were you attempting to wipe us out? How much is your Di Family willing to pay to appease my anger?"
Di Luolang’s face twitched. He frowned, pondered for a while then asked carefully, "The price we paid the last time?"
Ji Hao instantly laughed out loud. Laughing for a while, his look changed immediately as he growled, "The last time? Last time we only captured two people alive. But this time, a whole hundred of them!"
"But last time, you captured two direct descendants of our Di Family. This time, you have only captured…only captured some dependent warriors of our family." said Di Luolang hurriedly, "You have to understand, there’s a huge difference between the values of Yu Clan n.o.ble people and Jia Clan warriors."
While speaking, Di Luolang had been turning his eyes around instead of looking directly at Ji Hao, as if he wasn’t that confident to say so.
Ji Hao narrowed his eyes, silently looking at Di Luolang.
Unsettlingly, Di Luolang twisted his body, then grabbed the wine cup. He took another gulp of wine, then ate another few pieces of fruit, but at last, helplessly sighed and said, "This wasn’t intened by our family. We can’t bear to lose a hundred top-grade Jia Clan battle kings, especially losing a hundred battle kings for such a stupid order… is way, way too stupid."
"Well, it sounds like you are forcing me to charge you more." said Ji Hao while looking at Di Luolang smilingly.
Di Luolang looked at Ji Hao with an especially sulky face. A while later, he lowered his eyelids and said in a bland tone, "Except for money, I a.s.sume you are also interested in some information. To be honest, the ransom we paid back in Chi Ban Mountain had dissatisfied many of our family members. Therefore, this time we can’t afford to pay too much. But I think, you must be interested in some military intelligence."
"Such as?" Ji Hao looked at Di Luolang curiously.
"Dish Cha?" Di Luolang raised his head, calmly said to Ji Hao, "Di Sha and Di Luo’s father. Once, we all thought that he was dead. He took a great risk to take the trial of sun and moon, but smoothly pa.s.sed it and attained the t.i.tle of ‘Great Master’, being conferred with a special right. By now, he is an emissary of inspection, who can threaten the rights of all the twelve emperors in power."
"He has some personal enmity with you." Di Luolang picked up a fruit while staring at Ji Hao right in the eyes and continued, "You might have already heard that he made a bet with Gong Gong with an extremely precious sun and moon blood pill…and Gong Gong made a bet with the lives of all your clansmen."
Ji Hao remained silent for a long while, after which he said, "I want to know all about Dis.h.i.+ Cha."
Also remaining silent for a while, Di Luolang lowered his voice and responded, "I will tell you more, even more than you can imagine. If you want, maybe we can…cooperate more!"
Gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, Di Luolang continued before Ji Hao said anything, "For example, if we can take out Dis.h.i.+ Yanluo and let our Di Family take control of Blood Moon…What do you think?"
Ji Hao looked at Di Luolang in shock.
Countless thoughts popped out in Ji Hao’s head as he happily accepted this offer and said, "You do have some imagination, but I like it."