Chapter 439: Rival Stratagems
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The moon was high in the sky, its light gleaming over her boudoir, when Zuo Yiqian suddenly awakened. She quickly walked to the hidden door. She planned on confessing her ident.i.ty to Du Huaishang holding him to a Divine Devil oath to not hurt her family. Otherwise, she would stop break it off with him and activate her protective weapon to inform her grandfather.
She threw open the door to the secret pa.s.sageway and walked down the stairs. Inside, the silence was deafening.
She felt like she was in a daze, and then she asked in an whispered loudly, “Brother Du? Brother Du?”
Her voice echoed, but n.o.body replied. Zuo Yiqian’s face turned pale, and she hurriedly searched every corner of the room but Du Huaishang was gone.
She was shaking slightly but even then, she broke into a bitter smile and muttered,
“And just like that, our relations.h.i.+p is over after a few days…”
“As promised, the fate-teller’s words were right…”
Two days later-
Several of Wen Cheng’s narks wandered around, asking peddlers about Du Huaishang and his compatriots.
“You mean, a person with a flat nose, big mouth, and bushy eyebrows? As if suffering from facioplegia?” the peddler asked back.
The nark felt a surge of excitement and perked up. “Did you see him?”
“When I was crossing the alley over there, I happened to see such a guy. He walked quickly with his head down and entered into a commercial yard.” The peddler recalled.
The nark inhaled deeply to suppress his excitement. He stood up and slowly walked toward that alley, pretending as if nothing had happened.
Within the same day, he continuously changed his outfits, disguising himself as a drunkard, vendor, and a wayward traveller. He and his colleagues took turns to enter the alley to keep a watch for any suspicious person.
At dusk, he entered the alley humming a tune. He held with a piece of pork and a flask of liquor in his hands.
Just then, he saw a beautiful miss in a plain white dress walking toward him.
“It’s her but in white, not green…” He was excited and twitched inside his skin. Then he quickly took ahold of himself and continued humming the lewd tune under his breath as he pa.s.sed her.
As he turned the corner, he looked back as if he was attracted to her. The miss entered the yard that the peddler had described to him.
“I’ve done it! I’ve found them!” He was exhilarated.
…
Zuo Hanfeng, who had hidden behind the screen, said nothing after hearing Jiang Shenghong and Wen Cheng’s report. He just looked at Yin Lenghui and his sect master, Zhou Yong.
Yin Lenghui snorted, “They expose themselves just after Du Huaishang counters my Voodoo and recovers? What a coincidence!”
“Mr. Yin, are you implying…” Wen Cheng was too shocked to finish his words. Jiang Shenghong felt a loss for words as well. He had known nothing about the Voodoo.
“It’s a trap, of course,” said Zhou Yong coldly, his eyes closed.
Yin Lenghui explained to them in detail. “Du Huaishang completely defeated my Voodoo off two days ago. As an Earth Order master, he must have recovered 70% or 80% of his strength by now. At the same time, his rescuers expose themselves. How can we not be suspicious”
“It appears that once they located him, his rescuers helped Du Huaishang get rid of Mr. Yin’s Voodoo. As he has almost fully recovered, they deliberately disclosed their whereabouts to bait us. As long as we attack them, they’ll use it as a ruse to kill Mr. Yin and Mr. Zhou. In that case, the Left Governor will lose his strong supporters and we cannot prevent them escaping.” Jiang Shenghong had not lost his shrewdness even despite his hatred for Yin Lenghui.
If their enemies were simply like the miss in green, he, Yin Lenghui, and Zhou Yong would be enough to deal with them. But in this case, their enemies might finally get a chance to kill Yin Lenghui and Zhou Yong, especially since they had found Du Huaishang.
Yin Lenghui sneered, “It’s a simple plan. A simple one works very well sometimes but unlucky for them, we’ve seen through it.”
“What should we do? We can’t just watch them leave.” Wen Cheng, who was in charge of spying, thought it wasteful to not take advantage of this rare opportunity.
Zhou Yong sighed faintly, “In one or two days later when Left Governor is done, their conspiracies won’t matter anymore. Can we buy ourselves two more days by pretending that we haven’t discovered them yet?”
What was the Left Governor doing? Both Jiang Shenghong and Wen Cheng weredismayed to have been kept outside of the loop. Their boss did not trust them like before.
“No.” Zuo Hanfeng suddenly opened his mouth to deny Zhou Yong’s proposal. “If it’s a trap, Du Huaishang must know we have already spotted them. So if we wait for two more days, they’ll definitely know something is fishy. They will directly attempt to escape from Daning and run away.”
“But you?” asked Zhou Yong, frowning.
“It’s alright. Even if I don’t consummate my realm, I’m close to it. As long as Du Huaishang is the only one at the Earth Earth Rank, I can easily kill them.” Zuo Hanfeng was confident in his strength.
Zhou Yong frowned, but it was impertinent to tell them that their enemies were Samsara travellers equipped with anti-Exterior weapons. But perhaps it did not matter, for he too possessed such a weapon.
“Alright then, let’s play along.” Yin Lenghui said with a smirk, “They underestimate us, that is their folly. They must think that we cannot link the two things together.”
“They’ll never imagine that Left Governor has improved his strength…” said Zhou Yong smiled slyly.
Jiang Shenghong felt put out hearing them talk so a.s.suredly. He said loudly, “I’ll convene all masters to collaborate with you to hunt down Du Huaishang!”
“Unnecessary.” Zuo Hanfeng waved his hand dismissively, “too many people will make them frantic and cause them to hole up again. In this operation, I and the two masters are responsible for the sneak-attack. You and Lan Die wait outside to catch the escapees.”
He wanted Ji Tao and Wen Cheng to stay here in order to keep them from attacking his mansion and holding his family as hostages. As long as they defended this place, he would not have to worry.
“Yes, My Lord!” Jiang Shenghong and Wen Cheng said.
They wouldn’t be that stupid to inform their enemies by evacuating the people living within the 250,000 square meters of the attack zone before the seige. The Left Governor and Du Huaishang would focus their strength, so that the people would have time to flee in case of any aftershock. If some died, they could only blame themselves, for that was their destiny.
…
In the commercial yard, Meng Qi had already given up pretending to be Ji Tao. He stood face-to-face with Du Huaishang, Jiang Zhiwei, and the rest.
“Does they really think it is a trap?” With his hands by his sides, Du Huaishang hid his Energy, Qi, Spirit and Will, showing no hesitation or fear.
Meng Qi said with a smile, “Yin Lenghui will notice it asa long as his head isn’t eaten by his Gu Poison Bugs.”
“We want Zuo Hanfeng, Yin Lenghui, and Zhou Yong out of Left Governor’s Mansion. We can’t fight against them in the place where they have legal backing and geographical advantage. They come here, and we can really show them the skills of our teammates.”
It’ll be even better if they don’t realise it. If Zuo Hanfeng doesn’t show up, we can easily wipe out his supporters like Yin Lenghui, Zhou Yong, and Jiang Shenghong, leaving him helpless.”
That was what Meng Qi had learned from the Ledgerkeeper of Lives and the Civil Star. In a Setups, it did not matter what his counterparts’ choices were as long as he hid his real target. The only complication was the the degree of difficulty.
“Their biggest problem is they don’t know our strength as a whole.” Zhao Heng said with a chuckle, “By then, Sister Yin and I will have locked Yin Lenghui and Zhou Yong up respectively. You four use your precious weapons to kill Zuo Hanfeng as soon as possible.”
Yin Tao was Ruan Yushu’s alias.
Du Huaishang was the Ninth Order of the Earth Rank and he was as strong as an Exterior master. Along with G.o.d-tying Rope, the joint attack involving him, Meng Qi, Jiang Zhiwei, and Qi Zhengyan would definitely kill Zuo Hanfeng, just like the battle in Demonworld Fragment World where they had worked together to remove the Exterior Blood Demon. In this case, Zhao Heng had high hopes that he and Ruan Yushu would have an easy battle.
“I have two questions.” Meng Qi said, frowning.
“What are they?” Du Huaishang raised his eyebrows.
“Zhou Yong has a mysterious background, so he likely has precious weapons. We have to take precautions against it, or we might suffer a heavy loss.” Meng Qi, Jiang Zhiwei, and the others had discussed this earlier, and they had drawn one conclusion — Both Zuo Hanfeng and Du Huaishang would temporarily leave the battle, leaving the five of them to battle with Yin Lenghui and Zhou Yong.
Equipped with the eccentric Voodoo skills, they were both at the Half-step Exterior Scenery realm as well. There was no obvious winner. If Meng Qi and the others could not defeat the two quickly, they would run into trouble if they waited till after Zuo Hanfeng had defeated Du Huaishang.
“Zuo Hanfeng has kept a low profile lately. We don’t know what he has been up to, so we have to keep vigilant.” Meng Qi spelled out all his concern.
As more days pa.s.sed, the situation for them became more dangerous. That was also why he wanted to make moves as early as he could.
“n.o.body knows what Zuo Hanfeng has been doing, except for Zhou Yong and Yin Lenghui. Sadly, there is no time to conduct a detailed survey,” Jiang Zhiwei said calmly, her long sword in her hand.
Du Huaishang paced back and off with his hands behind his back. He asked, “Any good suggestions?”
He was bad at strategy.
Meng Qi was the same, but he had models to learn from. He said, chuckling, “We can answer both questions with a single answer. Change our target from Zuo Hanfeng to Zhou Yong. Whatever Zuo Hanfeng is up to, Yin Tao and Heavenly King Du can lock him up for a little while. Zhao Heng can cooperate with our cousin to tie Yin Lenghui up. I’ll straight activate my precious weapon to work with Senior Sister to kill Zhou Yong right away, before he can use his.”
It was overkill to use the G.o.d-tying Rope against Zhou Yong, but with it, they could instantly kill him and s.n.a.t.c.h his precious weapon. Afterward, they could concentrate their attacks on Zuo Hanfeng. Even if he didn’t have such a weapon, they were probably no match him. But once they killed his helpers, they would have a chance to escape.
Grabbing Zhou Yong’s precious weapon would help them save their Karma points from being deducted. More importantly, they had rescued Du Huaishang, so their mission was half done.
All of them had thought about that so they felt relieved after hearing his words. Jiang Zhiwei said with a gentle smile, “Old w.a.n.g, you certainly deserve your name…”
She was playfully implying that Meng Qi was a bit like w.a.n.g Siyuan.
Du Huaishang thought through, found it had no glaring issues, and said with a nod, “Alright. Let’s wait for them!”
As the night was about to fall, the pedestrians lessened. It was a peaceful scene, but something disharmonious was about to happen.
Zuo Hanfeng, Yin Lenghui, and Zhou Yong quietly approached the commercial yard.