Chapter 723: Behind the Curtains
Wei Potian didn’t respond. That shadowy figure used more force and flipped the sleeping fellow over, but the Wei clan heir kept on snoring thunderously.
At this moment, the clear moonlight shone through the windows and illuminated the intruder’s silhouette—it was Song Zining. Seeing that this thick-skinned boar was refusing to wake up even when his ears and hair were being pulled, the latter raised his hand to deliver a slap, but he gave it some thought at the last moment and broke into a cold laugh. Instead of the slap, the seventh young master picked up the teapot from the table, melted the ice with his origin power, and poured it into Wei Potian’s nose.
The snoring Wei Potian happened to suck all the water in. This time, he jumped out of his bed as though he had been pricked in the butt, coughing until his face and ears were all red.
Wei Potian suddenly realized that there was someone else in the room and was furious to find that the intruder was Song Zining. He pounced forward abruptly and went straight for the latter’s neck. “I knew it was you! You never have any good intentions!”
Song Zining made no motion to evade. A single question, “Do you want to save Qianye?” was enough to stop Wei Potian’s hands midair.
“Of course! But how are we going to do that? Who knows where he’s run off to?”
“It’s very simple, help me run a small errand.”
Wei Potian’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to trick me again, aren’t you? Last time, our Wei clan’s spies were all wiped out and I was almost removed from my heir position. If not for my supreme talents and unprecedented speed in cultivating the Thousand Mountains, I might’ve been in big trouble!”
“Didn’t I save Qianye?” Song Zining retorted.
Wei Potian was stoppered. “But Nighteye…”
“That’s inevitable and the outcome isn’t so bad now, is it?”
Wei Potian was doubtful. “What exactly do you want me to do? I’m warning you, don’t blame me for not recognizing friendship if you dare to trick me!”
Song Zining said with a disdainful expression, “This isn’t the first time you’ve said this.”
Wei Potian was just about to act up when Song Zining, with a mysterious look on his face, passed him a box and whispered, “Go to this place after a while and put the box on the ground. You’ll also gain benefits when the time comes.”
With that, Song Zining explained the exact location. Wei Potian was full of doubt as he listened—that area was the central zone where the two armies had been skirmishing and had long since been plowed through by the flames of war. There was no way there could be anything special there.
Wei Potian had his doubts, but upon seeing Song Zining so insistent, he began gathering his equipment while mumbling something about bad friends. As for this so-called benefit, he didn’t believe half a word of it. After suffering so many times, he was very skeptical to believe Song Zining’s promises.
Moments later, Wei Potian managed to slip out of the Wei clan courtyard with the help of Song Zining’s domain and ran toward the designated location.
At this moment, the night was dark and the strong chill assailed all travelers. However, the night wasn’t calm at all—one could see raging flames rushing into the distant sky and hear the occasional sound of cannon fire. Wei Potian glanced at the blazing region and broke into a frown. “They’ve already broken through to this place? Strange, that shouldn’t have happened!”
What the Wei clan heir was seeing was the military’s defensive zone. He was no idiot—as a good leader himself, Wei Potian knew at a glance that Wu Daoyu was being beaten back miserably. The former had been under house arrest in the recent period and received no news from the outside world. Naturally, he didn’t know anything about Wu Daoyu’s miserable defeats.
Very soon, Wei Potian found the place Song Zining had told him about—that lone bald tree looked exceedingly eye-catching in the empty area.
The Wei clan heir walked around it several times but found nothing strange about it. Was the place Song Zining mentioned related to this tree? He studied it from every direction for a good while but ultimately discovered nothing from it. Hence, Wei Potian tried knocking on the trunk. Just as his hand was about to land on the tree, a female face suddenly appeared on it! The pale face and its two bloodshot eyes stared intently at him!
Wei Potian was shocked out of his wits. He unleashed a loud cry and jumped backward. At this moment, he heard a breeze from behind him as a silvery shadow jumped down from the tree and stomped on his head, immediately knocking the Wei clan heir out cold.
The silhouette came into vision after the target’s collapse. It turned out to be William.
At this point, the tree began to crack and out of it came a sweet, graceful woman. The woman who had just scared Wei Potian half-dead was actually Twilight. As the woman spread her hands out, the ancient tree shattered into pieces and returned to the earth as dust. This art looked simple, but it was extremely useful and practical. Especially in Twilight’s hands, the disguise was almost real and could be considered a powerful secret art.
She had conjured an ancient tree with this art just now and hid herself and William within it. This ended up tricking Wei Potian through and through.
William shook his fur and walked around while glancing at Wei Potian. He suddenly tore open the latter’s pocket, revealing a box within. Seeing the seal on the container, William reached out to grab it, but only then did he remember that he couldn’t quite pick things up in his wolf form.
Twilight walked over and said, “What’s this? Let me see.”
Her words caused William to become anxious. He moved forward to pick up the box with his mouth but, unexpectedly, felt the skin around his neck tighten as Twilight grabbed him by the mane. He was just inches away from the box but couldn’t reach it.
William was furious after having his golden mane pulled. A deep aura of peril instantly filled the surrounding air and caused Twilight to go pale. William had just turned about when the clever Twilight let go of the prize and took a couple of steps back, raising her hands to indicate that she had no bad intentions.
William, however, wasn’t about to fall for this. He growled while revealing his white fangs, saying, “I’ll let you off out of consideration for our cooperation, but your shares will be deducted by twenty percent. Next time, I’ll tear off your arms!”
Twilight’s expression was ugly. Apparently, she hadn’t expected William to react so intensely. Yet, the other party’s strength had increased by leaps and bounds—he was clearly superior to her at the moment and also happened to restrain her strong points. As such, she had no chance of winning if they were to break into a fight. “I didn’t know that place couldn’t be touched, it wasn’t intentional.”
William shook his golden mane with a snort. “I won’t let anyone touch me there!”
But Twilight didn’t hear the mumbling in William’s heart. “There are some people I can’t do anything against even if I’m touched. In any case, that’s because I can’t win, it’s not like I didn’t try.”
At the thought of this, William’s mood calmed down quite a bit and his stare toward Twilight grew sharper. Twilight said in alarm, “What are you trying to do? I’m warning you, twenty percent is my bottom line, no more than that! Otherwise, I’d rather break up this arrangement.”
“Thirty percent!” William said without any hesitation, denying all chances of questioning him.
Twilight gritted her teeth and swallowed her anger. “Fine, thirty it is.”
“Let’s just go with twenty.” After saying that, William shook his mane in great satisfaction and turned back to the little box.
From anger and humiliation to surprise and delight—the contrast was simply too great. Twilight remained startled for a while before realizing that William was just playing with her. During that brief moment of realization, she was so angry that she wanted to say “I don’t want that ten percent!”, but ten percent wasn’t a small amount. The price of acting cool was simply too high, so she ultimately decided to swallow the anger.
But the indignance of being wronged was almost unbearable. Just as she was seething in her mind, she noticed William looking at the box without any movement. She suddenly understood what was going on. With her hands behind her back, she skipped over to where William was and said in an intentional, drawn-out tone, “No hands? Can’t open?”
William’s mane puffed up in anger, but it wilted again after a while, along with his momentum. Transforming into a giant wolf was indeed a rare talent. The only disadvantage was, as Twilight said, the inability to even open a box.
Twilight calmly picked up the container in front of William and, under the latter’s helpless gaze, blew off the dust and flicked it with her fingers, seemingly quite satisfied and leisurely throughout the entire process. Only when William let out a low growl did she begin the complicated opening procedure, chuckling all the while. Afterward, she dangled her slender fingers in front of William’s eyes.
The werewolf, of course, wasn’t about to be polite with her. He swiped at her hand, forcing Twilight to shrink back in a hurry. Having missed its target, William’s swipe struck the ground and caused the earth several dozen meters around them to tremble.
Twilight wasn’t frightened by this; she just took her sweet time opening the box. William didn’t mind it, either, and pushed his large head closer, almost butting heads as the two watched the box slowly open.
There was a single crystal within the box, in which a drop of golden blood was sealed. This was an ordinary drop of sanguineous liquid and not essence blood.
Twilight’s expression grew complicated as she watched the golden threads congealing inside the blood. This golden thread was her life’s ambition—or perhaps it could be said that every vampire’s ultimate dream. That was proof of a pure bloodline, a faint glimmer of hope for swimming up the River of Blood and following in the footsteps of the second generation primogenitor.
Twilight asked with unclear emotions, “Is this her blood?”
Williams sniffed at the crystal and said, “That is Nighteye’s blood, there’s no doubt about it.”
Twilight said with a forced laugh, “Since the item is right, it’s time to execute the next phase of the plan.”
William began circling Wei Potian once more. Finding his actions strange, Twilight asked, “You know him? An enemy?”
“A great enmity!” William said through gritted teeth.
Twilight flipped Wei Potian over and studied him for a good while but found nothing worthy of making William hold a grudge against him. There were few opportunities to breed hostilities between people of such different levels.
Yet, no matter how she asked, William simply wouldn’t tell her how the vendetta was formed. William was determined to bury that dark phase of history in the depths of his heart.
Twilight got up and said, “This fellow is as dumb as dumb can be, and his strength is also mediocre. I have no idea how the people on the other side are thinking. They actually want to give him such a big share of contributions? Is this kind of person even worthy of cultivation?”
William replied, “Humans have always been a crafty lot, there’s no need for us to worry about what they’re thinking. It’s fine as long as we complete the transaction according to the agreement. Although the Zhao clan has sent word that they won’t field any troops as long as we stay away from their defensive zone, who knows when their promise will end? We are nowhere near as powerful as those old fellows from above. We should leave this place quickly once our business is complete.”
Twilight shrugged and made no more objections. She then kicked Wei Potian on the butt and said, “You lucky bastard.”
With that, her figure began to blur and emit a large mass of bloody mist. By the time the mist receded, there were a dozen or so corpses on the ground. These were warriors of many different races, and the most eye-catching among them was a demonkin.
Twilight produced a high-quality leather cylinder sealed with dark golden inlays and stuffed it into the demonkin’s hands.
After setting everything up, she and William left hurriedly through the night.