Chapter 12 – Conspiracy

After Qian Mu’s father had left on a trip to visit the royal palace of the Dark Emerald Nation Qian Mu began to walk up and about.

Her first goal, was to procure all of the herbs she had previously given to Hai Yun on their meeting over one and a half years ago. If it had been a normal human, they would certainly have difficulty remembering all of the strange herbs they had gathered, but for some reason, Qian Mu never forgot a single word Hai Yun stated in her presence.

Thus, she clearly remembered all of the discussions they had on each herb. After sifting through the mountain she managed to collect just enough of each of the herbs. Usually, when her father and she would find strange herbs, they would first replicate their environment and build a habitat for them on this mountain.

Today, she looted these gardens of each and every one of those herbs, so that there would not be a single trace of them left on this mountain.

It was only after she had repeatedly checked and found all of her father’s hidden stashes of Nirvana Root, did she finally begin refining.

After nearly a month of work, she had still not progressed anywhere, so she hid all of her materials and experiments and went straight back to her room when she was expecting her father to return.

…

While Qian Mu was attempting to recreate the Efficacious Nirvana, Hai Yun was finishing up the trial on the Isle of Wailing Souls.

“Brat, you really had a great harvest here didn’t you.” Xue Yi snorted.

“Indeed I did, in just these 5 days, the strength of my soul has already reached the level of the strongest Divine Ranked alchemists in my sect,” Hai Yun smiled proudly. Previously, his soul strength was only at the initial levels of a Divine Ranked alchemist, and compared to the others, he was fairly weak as he did not even have many attainments in cultivation and only wasted his time developing pills. However, in the course of these 5 days, his soul strength had already reached the peak of this world!

“Well, you had best hurry up. The day for the Hai Clan main branch to arrive is approaching. Although they can’t kill you if you are stuck here, they can still proclaim you dead by creating a fake corpse or something of the like. That would be the same thing as proclaiming your death,” Xue Yi warned.

Si Wang calmly listened to the dialogue between the two with a pondering look. However no one was clear on what she was contemplating.

…

On the top floor of Old Ling’s shop, Hai Yun’s uncle Yun Duo is sitting together with the Qing clan’s Qing Li sitting opposite him as they stared at each other while taking sips of tea.

“Qing Li, mind explaining to me why Qin Cheng did not die on the day of her awakening ceremony?” Yun Duo glowered.

“Obviously, she would have been dead had a Hai Yun not been there,” Qing Li firmly grasped his cup as annoyance flashed through his eyes before continuing, “However, all of this is beside the point. What we need to do now is instigate a war between the Qin and Hai clans before that brat Hai Yun gets back”.

“Don’t worry about that. No one in the Hai Clan has received his letter. To them he has most likely been kidnapped thus a fight will break out sooner or later,” Yun Duo sipped his tea.

“For your sake I hope you are right. But, on the day he reappears here, you must make sure to kill him. Although the fools of his clan don’t believe he will awaken to strength similar to Qin Cheng, I can not determine any other reason for an expert who was just passing by, to suddenly become willing to take him away for the days till his awakening ceremony,” Qing Li sighed. This child was truly a problematic one.

This duo was responsible for administering the poisons to both Hai Yun and Qin Cheng. The goal had been for Qin Cheng to die, Hai Yun to awaken with incredibly low talent and then die shortly after. Thus both people who could inherit the legacy of 2 of the four clans would be dead and the system would return itself to the 4 clan system. Obviously, if Qin Wentian and Hai Cang Qiong did not have any heirs, they would never be chosen by the Qing and Yun clans respectively to lead the two families. Thus, Yun Duo, being the son of the Yun clan’s grand elder and Qing Li son of the Qing clans grand elder would then get to lord over their respective families.

However, they had not expected that Hai Yun would be so weak that he died from the Bone Sheering Poison ahead of time allowing for the new Hai Yun to take his place. Nor could they have possibly predicted that the forbidden section in the Hai Clan’s library which held the Devil’s Portrait was actually holding the spirit body of a god from the Great Antiquity.

Naturally, they did not know any of this, to them the biggest hindrance was the expert who had supposedly taken Hai Yun for a training expedition. The letter they were referring to was something Hai Yun had written and put on the doorstep of his parents’ room before disappearing. Thankfully, one of Yun Duo’s spies was the only one to see the scene and so stole the letter.

In the letter Hai Yun explained that he would be gone for some time on an expedition with the mysterious senior who had helped him previously. That the mysterious senior had taken a liking to him and wanted to accept him as his apprentice after his awakening so he was going to be a trial apprentice for him till the day he awakens.

Thankfully, they had intercepted this letter, otherwise the present incredibly tense situation between the Hai and Qin clans may never had happened.

At present, their only goals were to cause this war to break out before Hai Yun could return. They were stuck on this path the moment Yun Duo’s spy had stolen the letter, now there would be no possibility for recourse.

“Tell your spies in the Qin household to kill off Qin Cheng’s mother. I will work on framing someone from the Hai Clan for it,” Yun Duo said after pondering for a great deal of time.

Qing Li nodded before motioning with his hands to one of the people behind him, who bowed and walked out. “If this whole plan fails, then do not expect me to keep my mouth shut, Elder brother Yun,” Qing Li’s gaze sharpened as he met Yun Duo’s eyes for a moment, before both looked away.

Yun Duo, set down his cup of tea gently before standing up and walking out, leaving Qing Li to sit alone with only his subordinates.

“Make sure that Yun Duo does not try to frame us to save his own skin,” Qing Li whispered thoughtfully. It was only then, that a dark shadow from under his seat unnoticeably shot towards the departed Yun Duo’s direction. Any passerby might only have seen a brief shadowy line, but to a certain spy who had merged into the ceiling, the creature which was released had glowing yellow eyes and shadowy black scales with the physique similar to a snake…