Book 15: Chapter 26
Catkins Dancing to the Wind’s Concert
“Blue Prince is the only Prince worthy of being labelled as being an excellent achiever,” I answered after Boss asked me what I knew about Blue Prince. “Well, at least that’s the rumours claim. I’ve never met him, so I only know this much.”
I summed up my headaches, including His Majesty’s request for me to mentor a Prince, Mount Daluo supporting a faction, and Feng Qizhi trying to assassinate me. Have you any clue how rare it was for me to sit down and talk with Boss? Why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to complain about His Majesty?
“Rumours among the people are even less credible than rumours in the pugilistic world, though. In short, he’s the only actual competent Prince.”
Considering Green prince and Orange Prince’s records, it didn’t mean much to be the “only”. As far as I knew, only Red Prince was a failure, falling for Chu Yinghua and still not having had a single bowl of huntun with her.
“We, as officials, are in no position to critique the imperial family.” Boss cleared her throat, then lowered her voice. “Seeing as Uncle wants you to mentor a Prince, it would seem he wants Mount Daluo to support the imperial court, but I don’t think that’s his only goal. Rather, I suspect it’s not even his primary goal.”
“Where did that come from?”
The comment was tantamount to raining on the efforts Shifu and I had spent building Mount Daluo’s great reputation up.
“Do you realise how disastrous it would be for all women in the world if Shifu decided to come out of seclusion to show what he was made of?”
“I can’t help.” Boss smiled. “The best I can do is allow you to personally apprehend him.”
“Hell no! He may be shameless, but I’m not.”
Boss whacked me over the head. “Uncle has yearned for Mount Daluo’s support for a long time. He has faith in Mount Daluo; I would go as far as saying he respects Mount Daluo. You can tell from the way he speaks of Mount Daluo. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had Mount Daluo as his principal guest when he invited the three patriarchs to the capital years ago. Of course, there is also Hero Shenzhou’s reputation in the equation.
“As opposed to saying that Uncle wants to win Mount Daluo’s support while the opportunity is here, it’d be more correct to say that he never gave up trying to win Mount Daluo’s support. Bringing you on board is just one step in the process. I’ve never seen Uncle stop trying; you just weren’t aware of his attempts. Mount Daluo has always been dancing to its own beat and often kept to itself. You might think he only started trying to recruit Mount Daluo after speaking to your sixth brother. Think about it, though. He had tried to recognise you before that without being too obvious, correct?”
I never thought about any of that. If the imperial court had the backing of the three biggest sects, then it was a force to be reckoned with. Anyone who participated in the battle at Lawless Cliff could’ve attested. Even the Seven Champion White Princes wouldn’t be as much of a threat anymore. It wasn’t easy to recruit three sects that carried on as they saw fit, having said that. Mount Daluo didn’t like to stand out. When it was inevitable, we avoided letting it be known that it was us. Even if our involvement was known, that was a result of someone else mentioning it. Shaolin had kept to themselves for years; it had reached a point where it was impossible to tell if Mount Daluo was the recluse or if Shaolin was. Wudang, which was closest to the imperial court, had a fortress around themselves. Lai Jingzhen was sane for, what, half of the time? It’d take a special kind of stupid to assume they could control Wudang through him. Control was impossible, so the next compromise was an alliance. The next compromise after that was to just have the support of the three sects.
From the looks of things, His Majesty had secured Shaolin and Wudang’s support for Red Prince and Cyan Prince. Although the imperial court had yet to face a crisis that required reinforcements from the two sects, there was no issue publicising the two sects supported the imperial court. At the very least, the two sects had tacitly consented. From Shifu’s perspective, it was possible for Mount Daluo to receive the same treatment. Thing was, Shifu… never showed any signs of support or even sending a messenger.
As Boss mentioned, His Majesty never mentioned supporting a Prince prior to his conversation with Sixth. Perhaps he had been planning it long beforehand, except he withheld because he expected to be rejected. Maybe he didn’t get the hint from me but from experience? For all I knew, Shifu might’ve rejected him once already, prompting His Majesty to tread carefully around me.
I folded my arms to deliberate why Sixth was allowed to make contact and reintroduce Mount Daluo but not before. Shifu never mentioned getting involved in any manner. It was my brothers who delivered hints. I trusted them, but it was uncharacteristic of Shifu. I didn’t want Mount Daluo to become a supporter solely due to the fact that I’d be the one who passed the policy. As a consequence, I’d be the patriarch even if I wasn’t the legitimate patriarch. More importantly, it was foolish to connect Mount Daluo to the imperial family too tightly.
Mount Daluo watched over the most desired thing in the world, and the entity with the greatest potential to misuse it weren’t the violent people in the pugilistic world but he imperial family. Emperor Yuansheng wasn’t the sort of scum to try using Six Evils, but that didn’t mean others in the family weren’t. It only took one, whether they were born yet or not. That was not someone who Mount Daluo should’ve welcomed in.
If I could think of reasons to refuse supporting the imperial family, Shifu had to have had thought of them, too. That aside, he hated collusions more than anything. If someone wanted to form an alliance with him, they needed to walk themselves over and kowtow first before he rejected them with any vigour. Otherwise, they could’ve just stopped while they were ahead. Therefore, it made no sense to me why he made an exception this time.𝐛𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝐯𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝐦
I didn’t have free time to talk with Sixth in Nanjiang due to Pangu waking, and then Fiends’ Genesis kept me busy afterwards. Most importantly, I couldn’t access my internal energy to do any digging. Now that I thought about it, the reason my shiniangs urged me to support a Prince was rather far-fetched. There was a common denominator in all the recommendations to support a Prince – it was never Shifu who told me to. It had been years since I had seen Shifu, and it had been years since I had been back to the mountain. The only way I’d know if his mindset had changed or not was if I personally visited him.
By the time I shook my head, I realised I had been ignoring Boss for a while, but she didn’t mind.
“Sorry, my mind wandered off,” I expressed with an apologetic smile. “Where were we?“
Boss cracked a smile. “I was about to answer your question on Blue Prince when you looked possessed. Something come to mind?”
“Haven’t sorted it out yet. How about you go first. Is Blue Prince as the rumours claim?”
“Okay. My conclusion may not agree with yours.” Boss wiped away her smile. “He is as the rumours say. In fact, he’s more talented than the rumours claim. Blue Prince isn’t interested in the contest for power because, if he wanted to be Crown Prince, he’d already be Crown Prince.”