A Word To Heaven

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When you don’t understand something, ask—this was Xu Yan’s good habit.

So under Xu Yan’s inquiries, the steamed bun shop owner explained why horses were pastured on the western mountains.

Nothing complicated—there was a snake demon causing trouble in the east.

The snake demon ate horses and people too. A month ago, a group of horse herders went out and never returned. Then came a continuous stream of disappearances—both horses and herders. Horse King Town’s garrison organized several expeditions, but after discovering it was a snake demon causing trouble, the soldiers didn’t dare go anymore. Without innate martial artists taking action, ordinary soldiers or martial artists were helpless against demons.

In less than a month, the snake demon had devoured dozens of horse-herding children from Horse King Town, leaving every household unable to eat or sleep peacefully. Those families who lost children were in even more tragic states—mourning tents were erected daily, white banners fluttered constantly on the streets, and petitions from ten thousand citizens were sent to Qi Nation’s imperial capital, requesting the emperor dispatch a great army to eliminate the troublesome demon snake.

The information from the steamed bun shop owner might not be comprehensive, but it was sufficient. At least Xu Yan could roughly analyze the true situation.

A snake demon was causing trouble, Horse King Town’s people couldn’t live in peace, petitions were sent to the imperial capital, then Qi Nation’s great army would come to aid and eliminate the snake demon, finally achieving happiness for all—after all, even snake demons couldn’t withstand military conquest.

This should have been the natural course of events, or at least what ordinary citizens believed. But the underlying political maneuvering wasn’t something common people could see clearly.

In Xu Yan’s view, a snake demon that had devoured dozens of people still couldn’t alarm Qi Nation’s true emperor. If the emperor had to worry and exert effort over the life and death of dozens of people, imperial authority would be too cheap.

The citizens’ petition should have been sent to Fengshan City, or perhaps intercepted by Fengshan City while being transmitted to the imperial capital.

As a major stronghold of Qi Nation, Fengdu had tens of thousands of garrison troops. If a regional lord couldn’t even handle one snake demon, then General Yan of Fengshan City would truly be eating idle rice.

Horse King Town originally fell under Fengshan City’s jurisdiction.

Recalling Ghost King Gate’s Grand Guardian hosting General Yan, Xu Yan now saw the true purpose of that meeting. Ghost King Gate must have learned of the snake demon incident and volunteered to eliminate the demon to reduce General Yan’s burden. In the process of demon elimination, they could conveniently wipe out all the righteous sects drawn by the snake demon.

No wonder he’d heard the Grand Guardian and General Yan discussing Horse King Town and the snake demon before. The Grand Guardian’s banquet for General Yan was to take on this demon elimination task. If Ghost King Gate hadn’t intervened, Fengdu’s garrison would probably have been dispatched by General Yan to exterminate the snake demon.

After filling their stomachs, they naturally needed to settle their digestion. Xu Yan and Eight Fingers Wang left the steamed bun shop and came to a teahouse. They requested a street-side seat, ordered two pots of clear tea, and while resting, watched the coming and going crowds while listening to the various discussions among tea patrons.

Teahouses and wine shops were the main places for jianghu people to gather information. Xu Yan had chosen correctly, but seeing those distinguished martial artists with righteous expressions made him feel nauseous.

The so-called righteous sects—Xu Yan had once thought they were jianghu heroes who acted for heaven’s justice and drew swords to help when encountering injustice. But after seeing Supreme Clarity Sect’s true nature, righteous and evil no longer held any distinction in Xu Yan’s heart.

Master was right—all under heaven bustle for profit. With profit as the priority, if worldly people couldn’t escape it, how could righteous and evil escape either? Not to mention righteousness or evil, just regarding that snake demon, Xu Yan could almost certainly determine that the snake demon possessed some treasure—otherwise so many people wouldn’t need to compete for it.

They were merely martial artists pursuing their own or their sect’s interests. Righteous and evil designations? All bullshit.

Xu Yan held no favorable impression of righteous sects, and likewise no favorable impression of evil sects. He only wanted to be an outsider, watch some excitement, then buy two fast horses. Ultimately, his purpose in coming to Horse King Town was simply to buy horses.

The teahouse had many people, even more martial artists, gathering in groups of three to five, constantly whispering. Occasionally he could hear imposing names like Azure Cloud Pavilion and Jade Sword Gate mentioned.

“Eight Fingers Wang, are Azure Cloud Pavilion and Jade Sword Gate righteous or evil sects?” Xu Yan asked while drinking tea.

This question didn’t matter much, but Eight Fingers Wang, who had been constantly nervous, nearly spat out his tea. With a panicked expression, he lowered his voice: “They’re all righteous sects. Brother Yan, let’s leave—this teahouse has probably been taken over by righteous sects.”

Qi Nation was indeed dominated by evil sects, but this teahouse was currently filled with righteous sects. Eight Fingers Wang, a small lackey from an evil sect mixed among righteous sect people, no wonder he was afraid.

“Your face doesn’t have your sect written on it—what are you afraid of?” Xu Yan said quietly, then ignored Eight Fingers Wang and watched with interest a group of martial artists descending from upstairs.

Xu Yan wasn’t worried about small lackeys like Eight Fingers Wang being recognized by righteous sects. At most, people who had been to Plum Fragrance Tower might recognize this guard captain. With Eight Fingers Wang’s reputation, the probability of being recognized among righteous sects was basically zero.

The group descending from upstairs were obviously all martial artists, each carrying long swords on their backs, dressed luxuriously—incomparable to ordinary jianghu martial artists.

Walking at the front was a youth wearing a light veil over their face, small in stature with light steps, carrying no blade or sword, and their appearance couldn’t be seen clearly. Beside the youth accompanied a middle-aged man. From a distance, they could hear people cupping their hands and addressing the middle-aged man as Pavilion Master Yu. From Pavilion Master Yu’s respectful attitude, they could tell the youth’s identity was extraordinary.

Xu Yan had originally wanted to watch the excitement, but when he saw the youth’s figure, his expression suddenly changed slightly. He casually picked up the teacup on the table and tilted his head back to drink. As he drank tea, a pair of eyes looked over through the veil, then quickly looked away.

The teacup was already empty—Xu Yan wasn’t thirsty, but was using the tilted head position to avoid trouble.

Although the youth wore a veil that concealed their appearance, from their figure and walking posture, it should be a girl—and moreover, a girl Xu Yan had seen before.

With Xu Yan’s eyesight, he had already recognized her as the girl who had argued with him at Plum Fragrance Tower, the one who carried the fragrance of thousand-section flowers.

Being able to appear in this kind of place and be treated as an honored guest by a group of righteous sect martial artists showed the girl’s status wasn’t low. Xu Yan didn’t want to find trouble on someone else’s territory. Both of them had argued with real anger at the time—who knew if she might rely on having many people and beat him up. That would be a small matter, but if they discovered the Ghost King Gate waist token on him, wouldn’t that be like a sheep entering a tiger’s den?

The quick-witted Xu Yan ultimately used the method of tilting his head back to drink tea to avoid the other party’s gaze. When he put down the teacup and breathed a sigh of relief, that group had already walked far away.

What was she doing in Horse King Town?

That young lady who wanted to send him to become a eunuch might actually be from the righteous sects—Xu Yan felt somewhat curious and helpless.

About to fall into an evil sect ambush, yet still in the mood to drink tea—it seemed there were big-hearted people everywhere.

After listening to various strange tales and anecdotes in the teahouse for a long time, under Eight Fingers Wang’s urging, Xu Yan finally left the teahouse. He didn’t travel the same route as Eight Fingers Wang, and the two parted ways.

Eight Fingers Wang rushed to the eastern bamboo forest to meet up with Green Wood Hall’s people, while Xu Yan leisurely selected horses.

Watching excitement wasn’t urgent—buying horses was the real business.