Realms In The Firmament

The steward sneered and said, “I can fully imagine that our king is very anxious to tear that Feng guy, who instigated this auction, into bits and pieces…”

“Why? What relates him to to the royal feud?” Ye Xiao asked with confusion.

“Because… There are certain relations between the eight noble clans and the sects. Both of them dislike each other, and since the noble clans have already entered into the core of the royal power, the sects naturally wouldn’t feel reconciled… By a lucky coincidence, there were precious items on sale in the auction, so the sects seized the chance and sent their important members to come and settle in the capital in a legitimate way...”

“Otherwise… Even though it was the supreme dan, how could it possibly make those men like Xiao Mo-Yan, Meng Wu-Fei and Li Chang-Qing come here? The machinations behind this event were really profound.”

Ye Xiao nodded and answered with a ‘hmm’.

Steward Song’s analysis was incisive and it taught Ye Xiao a lot. However, what he cared about the most was something else.

His steward was truly not an ordinary man, as he really didn’t seem respectful to the king. How could such a man be ordinary!

“If that was all that happened, it was fine… But the Mu Clan, who the crown prince depends on as if they are the Great Wall to him, actually messed with the unfathomable force, House of the Chaotic Storm, at this important moment… and their people got killed. They suffered a crushing defeat and a major decrease in their power. I believe that the Mu Clan wouldn’t dare to take any reckless actions within the near future. They also have to worry about how to apologize to the House of the Chaotic Storm at the same time…”

“Therefore, the crown prince’s power was doomed to be reduced badly. The other two princes definitely wouldn’t let go of this opportunity, so they took advantage of the situation… The sects entered and settled in the capital. The royal court had just turned peaceful and then it once again returned into a chaotic situation… The king’s worry is really no surprise!”

“I see…” Ye Xiao nodded with indifference, but in his mind he couldn’t help feeling dumbfounded.

[Shit! I casually took out some garbage dan beads and it actually influenced the affairs of the kingdom like that?

That… That is a bit too inconceivable…]

“That is the current situation in the capital, an extremely delicate and horrible balance.” When Steward Song said this, he had already drunk about fifteen or sixteen cups, but his face was still not too red or too pale, as it still looked rather normal. He was a really good drinker.

“Now, the situation is like this. But because of the king’s intentional interference, both the court officials and the military officers, especially the first class officials and the main officials in the military are all holding a watch-and-see attitude. However, since the king’s health is getting worse, the watch-and-see attitude will change gradually. Once the king’s health deteriorates too much, heh heh…”

Steward Song sneered and said, “Well, these are just the inner factors… The Kingdom of Chen… Heh heh. It is bound to be unsafe.”

Ye Xiao asked, “Other than the inner factors, are there really other factors?”

“Of course.”

The Steward drank another cup of liquor, “Now, the other two kingdoms are ready to do something big. They recently made frequent military strength reassignments, and conducted many military rehearsals… Heh heh, there is something you don’t know. To conduct one military rehearsal, it will need a huge amount of money. If they are not truly ready to start a war, they must be very stupid to do that so often. A war is basically a money game.”

“In fact, there are lots of signs proving my hypothesis. Basically, the price of all the goods in the market are rising. The increase isn’t big, in fact, it’s rising rather slowly. However, they are still rising. This upward price trend started ten days ago. Food, salt, meat, metal, steel, wood and plants… Everything is becoming more expensive.”

The steward’s eyes thoughtfully lit up, “About ten days ago, we went to purchase food. It was 8 wen [1] for 500 grams of rice. Nine days ago, it was 8 wen and 5 li [2]. Six days ago, it reached 9 wen. Today, the price has reached 11 wen… Within ten days, it rose by 3 wen! It is only rice yet the price has already risen by more than 30 percent of the base price.”

“At first, I thought it was just a single case, but then I went out and looked around. I discovered that it was not only rice. All the other items in the market are also rising in price. Among them, steel was the most insane. Generally, for 1 kilogram of steel it only costs 1 wen, but now it is 3 wen per 500 grams… Moreover, if you want to buy bulks of steel, you can’t get that much... It seems like restrictions have been put in place…”

“All these items are necessary for human survival. To bring this in the big picture… Unless somebody is suddenly stockpiling goods, the price would never rise like this… All the kingdoms have been in peace for the past several years. The citizens have been living affluently. Natural and manmade disasters have seldom happened. Yet now the stockpile has suddenly happened. Why? It is obviously nothing else but…”

The steward drank another one and sighed, “War is coming…”

“Erh.” Ye Xiao didn’t say a word.

“Another important reason is that… The House of the Chaotic Storm showed up again!” The steward tittered, “In three thousand years, the House of the Chaotic Storm has shown up nine times… Every time it showed up, it led to a change. A change in the situation of the whole land!”

“During the change, the whole land will be unified, and then the House of the Chaotic Storm will disappear… Yet no more than a hundred years later, the situation of unification will break down again. At this time, rivaling warlords will battle over the land, which will lead to a situation of fragmentation. And then after some battles, it will turn into several kingdoms… They will be too fearful to mess with each other so they will be in peace. That is just like the current situation...”

“After that balanced situation appears, in no more than a 100 years, the House of the Chaotic Storm will show up again. After that… Everything will start to rise in price… And then… War will break out. Until, eventually, one of the kingdoms will rule all the land…”

“It is the ninth time the House of the Chaotic Storm has shown up.” Steward Song finally showed signs of getting drunk on his face, but his eyes were getting clearer, “The ninth time within the last three thousand years.”

“So that is what it is.” Ye Xiao was enlightened.

“And the extremely mysterious person, Master Bai, who is nearly someone from a myth, has shown up nine times. Every time, it was Master Bai!” The steward finally cursed, “Other than a legend, I’d rather say he is an immortal monster!”

Ye Xiao was stunned.

“So that Wan Of The Clouds and Xiu Of The Heavens have also lived for thousands years. Are they not monsters too?”

“They are also monsters! They should all be monsters!” The steward nodded heavily.

Ye Xiao felt shocked after hearing that.

The steward didn’t know, but Ye Xiao knew that those men in black, who came to the house of Ye the other night, were actually from the House of the Chaotic Storm!

Was he going to fight against some monsters this time?

If he was the previous Xiao Monarch, they weren’t worth even a second of his time. However, now the roles were reversed. For the House of the Chaotic Storm, Ye Xiao should be equal to an ant!

He wasn’t even worthy to be compared with an ant.

“So if the war comes, it must involve the whole world… As my dad is the Northern General… Isn’t he going to be the first to be affected?” Ye Xiao asked.

When he spoke out ‘my dad’, he didn’t feel conflicted.

A few days earlier, the steward said something to him, “When you were born, you had inadequate natural endowment. You were also badly injured because of an accident, and your Jing and Mai were blocked. Your father spent everything to save your life and tried to make you healthy like normal people, but he failed. At the end, the king said that he had a medical material that could save you, but he had a request. He wanted your father to become his sworn brother and guard the northern territory for twenty years!”

At that time, Ye Xiao was only sixteen.

That was to say, after spending all his properties, his father had sold the best twenty years of his youth for his son!

For such a gesture, even though the one who made it wasn’t his real father, Ye Xiao still felt touched. This was the same kind of feeling that a real son would’ve felt for his father!

Speaking of that, Ye Xiao had been an orphan in his previous life. He had been longing for this kind of affection, this parental love, for a long time.

This time, he was lucky to have a second life and gain the love he longed for, so he naturally cherished it even more.

“That is not quite so.” The pride showed up in the steward’s eyes, “I believe that in the Land of Han-Yang, there is absolutely no one that could threaten my brother’s life! Even if everyone in this world dies, you father will live well unharmed!”

Ye Xiao was shocked when he heard that.

‘There is absolutely no one that could threaten my brother’s life’!

‘My brother’!

He finally knew what had caused his concern: [This Steward Song who has been working as a servant in my house is actually my father’s sworn brother!]

However, a sworn brother like Steward Song and a sworn brother like the king were incomparable, as they represented two completely different things to his father.

Steward Song must be drunk, so he leaked out something.

Ye Xiao didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt like the family he was staying at was filled with mysteries.

Besides, why did the steward trust his father so much? Even if he was a top-class superior cultivator in the Grandmaster levels of Tianyuan, dying in a battle of million-men armies wouldn’t be a strange thing, right?

Where did such confidence come from?

Could his ‘adopted’ father be much stronger than that? If so, he must be over the cultivation limit of this realm, right? That simply couldn’t be right!

The steward was drunk. He laughed with self-mockery, “Ahee… I am drunk. I am actually drunk. I haven’t been drunk in a long time… You father, my brother strictly forbids me from drinking, but I am so happy today… So I really want to drink some. Xiao boy, don’t tell your father that I drank. Don’t even think about telling him I am drunk. Do you understand!”

Ye Xiao was stunned when he heard him.

[What the hell. You really can’t reason with a drunk man. He was acting as a servant at the beginning, but now he is admonishing me with the tone of an elder. And he even called me ‘Xiao boy’, what the hell is that…]

Steward Song’s face suddenly turned unusually red and his breath became heavier. After a few slight coughs, he suddenly coughed heavily!

After a long time, he lowered his head and turned it around. He spat out something on a handkerchief.

Apparently, he didn’t want Ye Xiao to see this.

However, although Ye Xiao was not at a high cultivation level, his eyes were as sharp as they used to be in his previous life. He had already seen some of it.

His pupils suddenly shrank.

Golden purple!

The blood that the steward spat out was actually golden purple blood!

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[1] wen: A unit in the ancient Chinese money system. 1 wen equals 10 li.

[2] li: 1 li equals 0.1 wen.