[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 72 - Role on the Playing Board

Zhong Da flicked the coin toward the cultivator that had come to bother them. “I expect my change at the end of this journey.”

He knew well enough in the world of the Neutral Bloc, presentation and wealth were more important than anything else except pure power. Even then, a vastly rich merchant slightly weaker than another slightly less rich cultivator would be favored in most situations in their societal dynamics. 

That meant his actions had to be tailored in certain ways that fit the image of power. 

Zhong Da could have just handed him the coin like any regular person would, but he needed to make a statement of wealth. A silver coin was nearly worthless to them. Their negotiations had not been born of lacking funds, rather fueled by principles that even the fat Jin Bao would appreciate. Penny pinching and getting the better of someone else were things they aspired to no matter how vastly affluent a person they may be.

It helped explain the unadulterated greed by which the fat man had tried to push upon them with an offer so ridiculous, even an idiot would have laughed.

Yet, that made this very situation even more confusing. 

Zhong Da knew that the breakdown of negotiations meant a crippling end to communication that neither party would attempt to reconcile. 

To attempt to renegotiate as they did smelled of either desperation, showing their lack of wealth to desire a single transaction, or someone else had intervened with more power than Jin Bao to force this insult to stand. Bringing them back at the cost of the fat cultivators prestige before his prostitutes and men. Even if said peoples had no clue what had happened or what it meant. 

Whoever this Shan Yue is, he’s the real leader of these operations. I better pinpoint who he is before they vanish again. 

“Of course, honored guest,” their guide caught the coin and spun around. 

Zhong Da nodded to the group behind him before he hurried to follow the fast pace the cultivator set. He could feel Da Ruis’s presence zipping around the area in the perfect areas that only they could see and notice. No one else would be able to detect him, not even Jin Bao and Shan Yue. He understood that the old ghost could have hidden himself from his presence as well, but had chosen to let himself be felt in order to appease Yin Hu, their Patriarch. 

The danger of such a powerful being thinking he made any attempt at escaping would have been catastrophic for his survival chances. 

He looked back at said source of cataclysm. 

Yin Hu floated over the land as everything worked to move out of his way just perfectly that it would have been difficult to notice had he not traveled with him for so long. Wu Xui had been the first to pinpoint why it made him feel a skin crawling anxiety whenever they traveled together, watching him lead from ahead. It was much less eerie to look at now that he could tell what he was looking at. 

Just need to make sure not to fuck anything up. I don’t know what he is planning and plotting. Just need to play my role to perfection and let him set the playing board as he wishes. 

Zhong Da remembered huddling with his wife as realization dawned upon them. 

Everything they had gone through until that moment, how perfectly they were as a match for one another, and even the struggles they had gone through all lined up into the plan the Ancient Being had been working from the very second he had met him on that fateful day. 

Yin Hu’s handprints were in everything. 

It wouldn’t surprise Zhong Da that their meeting and even the change in negotiations had been pre-planned without either party knowing. 

They continued to follow Shan Yue’s messenger until they broke into the main road. The same one his own Zhong Clan had built to facilitate better logistics for the war in these areas. Other warfronts did not have such well maintained and smooth ground to pass entire trains of food and supplies across massive stretches of lands quicker than anyone else could. 

Maybe they could have used spacial pouches, but that tended to lean toward less people moving faster. Making them much easier to trap, spring a surprise attack against, or even manipulate to defect against the Righteous Bloc for false promises of power and cultivation resources. 

Jin Bao stood there with a wide smile that did not reach his eyes. 

Instead of being surrounded by women, he had five cultivators stationed behind him with their arms crossed and stoic expressions on their faces. 

Zhong Da felt his senses activate as he quickly figured out who he thought could have been Shan Yue. An older man with white hair, yet only crow’s feet were the only wrinkles on his face. He stood without a single bend in his back as he hid behind the rest of the cultivators and Jin Bao’s prodigious size. He would have been a significant threat to Zhong Da back during his Silver Mountain Gang days.

Not anymore though. 

The prosthetic alone was a significant boost to his power and the purity of his Dao. The aching desire to destroy and cause bloodshed had vanished when the White Flames of the new arm cleansed him of all obvious contamination. 

Whatever he had been given to heal him had done even more than he could figure out. 

Zhong Da’s own Dao looked strange to him. It would be a while until he would come to understand the nuances that make it so vibrant. 

That wasn’t even mentioning the boost in body and soul, cultivation speed, strength of Qi, and Spiritual Root potential. 

It felt like the longer he searched for new things that he had been blessed with ever since nearly dying trying to sacrifice himself for Wu Xui’s escape, the more he found. All of which had been a blessing he received in a single moment when his Hu Patriarch made him drink half of a whole bottle of a miraculous elixir. The other half to the love of his life to make sure they would live long enough as husband and wife. 

“It is good to see you’ve returned!” Jin Bao and the cultivators bowed ever so slightly to show respect but no deference in their actions at all. “I had feared you'd taken insult to our previous attempts at negotiations. It was nothing but passion for the art of trade that had taken me, I assure you.”

Zhong Da returned the same exact bow, noticing how Shan Yue’s eye twitched in reaction. His sharp eagle eyes kept roaming and surveying everything about them trying to figure out who they were and what they were about. Zhong Da had no doubt that Yin Hu had taken this into account already and was leading him to the perfect realization just as he had him do not too long ago. 

No one could stand before the manipulative might that was his Patriarch. 

Not Cai Xuefang, Zi Zhen, or even the flower Su Qui.

“Thank you for having us. We hope that our travels are light and boring” Zhong Da said as he rose from the light bow. 

“We have a few carriages that we can afford you during our journey,” Jin Bao waved at the pre-prepared horse led wagons with covers over the top. Nothing special but it would provide them with privacy. “We can also have guards stationed for your protection if that is what you want.”

Strange… Why is he offering free stuff? What are they trying to get at here?

Zhong Da turned sideways ever so slightly to see Yin Hu’s expression. It had not shifted at all. Whatever this was, it remained within his overall plan. “Thank you. Forgive us for taking advantage of your hospitality.”

Jin Bao’s lips twitched trying his best to prevent himself from sneering or showing his true emotions. 

Shan Yue must have had an overbearing amount of power if he could make the fat man, a cultivator that seemed equally as powerful as the white haired senior, to do what he was told. Zhong Da would need to investigate their power dynamics and what that meant for them and Yin Hu. Or at least gather said information as he had been commanded. 

Figuring out prosperity levels around the area would not be difficult. 

Asking about political and in depth war situations might end up leading to a fight or suspicions that would get them kicked out. 

He would need to tread carefully. 

Especially with no one else in their party that was privy to these ways and obscure Neutral Bloc traditions to support his efforts. As much as he loved his wife, she didn’t have a single manipulative bone in her body. 

The things she could have stolen from him…

The things she could have convinced him to do for her sake alone…

Zhong Da was just grateful that the first true love of his life had been someone like her.