knife

Chapter 274 My whole body was exposed

Inside the private room, Zhu Chi faced Li Kaixin and bowed deeply to the ground. When he stood up, he presented a gift list with both hands.

"What does this mean?" Li Kaixin asked with a forced smile.

Zhu Chi said, "Steward Li, Elder Lin has offended you, and he is also a friend of mine. I know that Steward Li has always regarded money as dirt. This small gift is my congratulatory gift to the soon-to-be-established Beiting Protectorate!"

Li Kaixin took the gift list, glanced at it, and was still somewhat moved, even though he had seen many grand occasions.

Li Kaixin tucked the gift list into his pocket and said, "To be honest, Brother Zhu, I used to treat money like dirt, but now I'm a complete money-grubber. I'll accept your gift, but I can only guarantee that you won't be implicated in this matter. As for your friend from the Demonic Sect? That depends on how his negotiations with the young master go!"

"Elder Lin is actually a very pragmatic person!" Zhu Chi said.

Li Kaixin smiled slightly: "When he sees our young master, he can't be ungrateful. Brother Zhu, there's something I forgot to tell you. My young master recently advanced to the Innate Realm!"

"Congratulations... What? Protector Li has advanced to the Innate Realm?" Zhu Chi was dumbfounded.

"What's so special about that? My young master is already twenty-seven!" Li Kaixin poured Zhu Chi a cup of tea, placed it in Zhu Chi's hand, and said with a smile, "Back then, when the Crown Princess He Qingqiu of the Great Qin was twenty-five years old, she had already traveled in spirit."

Zhu Chi blinked at Li Kaixin, looking somewhat bewildered.

Li Kaixin laughed heartily: "Have some tea, have some tea! Our young master is always hospitable. Elder Lin has come all this way, so our young master will definitely treat him well. I'm afraid we'll have to wait a while!"

"No rush, no rush!" Zhu Chi swallowed hard. "I'll take this opportunity to talk to Steward Li about our business in Xuanwu. Although the first round went smoothly, we encountered quite a few problems during the process. If we don't resolve them, it will definitely affect our future operations. Steward, that's all hard-earned money!"

"Okay!" Li Kaixin nodded.

Zhu Chi hadn't expected that Li Kaixin's promise of Li Dachui would be so good to Lin Yunqi, and that this hospitality would last for a whole half day.

He had changed his tea several times and had nothing left to say to Li Kaixin. In the end, Zhu Chi had no desire to be polite with Li Kaixin anymore and just kept glancing at the door of the main room.

The door remained tightly shut, and there was no sound whatsoever.

They're having such a great conversation?

So we feel like we met too late?

Zhu Chi disagrees.

Especially when Li Kaixin said that Li Dachui had advanced to the Innate Realm.

While I was feeling restless and uneasy,
The door to the main room suddenly opened.

Zhu Chi jumped up suddenly, but then realized he had been too out of line. He smiled apologetically at Li Kaixin, but when he turned back, the smile on his face vanished without a trace.

The one who came out was the master, Li Dachui, but Lin Yunqi was nowhere to be seen.

Anxious, Zhu Chi quickly stepped out of the room, bowed to Li Dachui, and asked, "Protector Li, may I ask about Lin..."

"He's too tired, he's asleep!" Li Dachui smiled and pointed into the room: "If you're worried, go check on him yourself, he's sleeping soundly!"

Ignoring etiquette, Zhu Chi strode into the main room and saw Lin Yunqi lying on the large table, sleeping soundly and even snoring. His face was rosy and he showed no signs of discomfort.

There's definitely something wrong here.

Who is Lin Yunqi?
Regardless of whether he was injured or poisoned before, how could he possibly fall asleep while talking to Li Dachui?
"Brother Lin, Brother Lin!"

Zhu Chi walked over and roughly patted Lin Yunqi's shoulder several times before Lin Yunqi slowly woke up. He yawned and seemed a little surprised to see Zhu Chi, but the next moment, he seemed to come to his senses and remember something. However, he immediately frowned, pressed his temples with both hands, and kept rubbing them. There was also a slight look of pain on his face.

"Let's go, we'll talk about it when we get back!" Zhu Chi grabbed Lin Yunqi and turned to leave.

At the entrance of the side room, Li Dachui and Li Kaixin stood side by side, nodding to Zhu Chi who was bowing, and watching Zhu Chi drag Lin Yunqi away quickly.

"Young master, have you found anything?"

"What a huge harvest!" Li Dachui took a deep breath: "It really exceeded my expectations."

"Who is this person?"

“He’s not Lin Quan. His name is Lin Yunqi. He’s a high-ranking official in the Great Chu, holding the rank of Third-Rank Vice Minister of the Ministry of War. He’s the head of the Great Chu Tianluo Sect and a trusted confidant of Empress Dowager Jiang Qian!” Li Dachui said.

This result stunned Li Kaixin, who remained silent for a long time before saying, "But he's clearly a member of the Demonic Sect, and his cultivation of the Moon Essence Weak Water technique is undeniable. How could a Demonic Sect expert enter such a core department of Southern Chu?" Li Dachui looked at Li Kaixin and said, "Fatty, my mother was a Holy Maiden of the Demonic Sect. The Demonic Sect spent so much time sending my mother to my father's side, successfully making her the Crown Princess. However, my mother's ideas were a bit too radical, so they ultimately failed. Do you think the Demonic Sect would only do something like this once?"

"Young Master, do you think someone as exceptionally talented as the Crown Princess can be cultivated so easily?" Li Kaixin asked. "Wait a minute, Young Master, why do you ask that?"

Li Kaixin leaned forward and whispered in Li Kaixin's ear, "Because Empress Dowager Jiang Qian of Southern Chu is also a Holy Maiden of the Demonic Sect, she also cultivates the Phoenix Flame, and she has already advanced to the Innate Realm."

Li Kaixin opened his mouth wide, just like Zhu Chi's expression when he told him that Li Dachui had advanced to the Innate Realm.

Li Dachui looked up at the snowflakes falling from the sky, pondered for a moment, and suddenly chuckled, "The Demonic Sect is really interesting. Do they perhaps have a department that specifically trains outstanding women to marry into royal or wealthy families, and then use marriage to control their power? If that's the case, how many such people are there?"

Li Kaixin blinked, still not fully recovered from the shock.

"I have to admit, there are just as many geniuses as fish crossing a river in this world!" Li Dachui exclaimed. "Fatty, this Jiang Qian is even younger than me, but she's already been at the Innate Realm for several years. Ironically, there's a persistent rumor that this Empress Dowager Jiang is a pitiful and weak woman! Now I really wonder how that emperor of Southern Chu died!"

“This Jiang Qian is also the daughter of an important minister of the Chu Kingdom!” Li Kaixin shook his head and said.

"My mother was the daughter of the prefect of Huazhou back then!" Li Dachui laughed. "I really do need to go to the south to see this demonic sect. I'm becoming more and more interested in it. Fatty, do you know what else I asked Lin Yunqi?"

Li Kaixin shook her head.

"I also asked about the Qi of Heaven and Earth," Li Dachui said. "I asked him if it was true that anyone in the Demonic Sect who mastered the Qi of Heaven and Earth could automatically become the sect leader?"

"How did he say?"

“He said it was true, and there really is a group of people in the Demonic Sect who insist on this. Of course, people like them look down on it!” Li Dachui laughed.

"The Demonic Sect is not a monolithic entity!"

"What iron plate?" Li Dachui scoffed. "It's utterly shoddy. Factions are everywhere. They share the same doctrine, but the people in each faction interpret it in completely different ways, going in opposite directions. Some are even diametrically opposed, fighting to the death the moment they meet. Jiang Qian, Lin Yunqi, and their group, because they've achieved great success, are going all out to suppress the different factions within the sect, causing rivers of blood to flow!"

"Is there a lot of potential in this?" Li Kaixin asked with great interest.

Li Dachui smiled and nodded: "Of course it's very promising! Before, I couldn't break through to the Innate Realm, so I was worried about my safety and didn't dare to go out. But now it's different. The Northern Yuan is embroiled in internal strife, and the Great Qin is also embroiled in internal strife. The area outside the pass has ushered in its best period. There's Xiao Changche in military affairs and Mao Daxian and Zhang Ruo in literature. I'll just take a trip to the Southern Chu."

"Among the major powers, the one that still manages to maintain a unified world and appears to be the strongest is Southern Chu. Does the young master intend to stir up chaos among them as well?"

"Let's go and see!" Li Dachui laughed. "If Jiang Qian really has the ability to quickly quell the internal strife in Chu and thus unify power, then Qin will be in big trouble. I don't want to have just finished building up the area outside the pass and dealt with the Northern Yuan, only to find that the Central Plains have already been taken over by this woman Jiang Qian. If a decree is sent to the area outside the pass, I'll have no choice but to listen obediently. It's unrealistic to think that the area outside the pass can fight against the vast Central Plains. So, we must also make things chaotic for her!"

Zhu Chi helped Lin Yunqi all the way back to the calligraphy and painting shop, closed the door, and, disregarding the vast difference in their current status, shoved Lin Yunqi into a chair and immediately asked, "Minister Lin, what exactly happened? What did you and Li Dachui talk about that took so long?"

Lin Yunqi felt a terrible headache coming on. He tried desperately to recall what the two people in that room had said, but he couldn't remember anything. It was as if an invisible hand had completely erased his memories of that period of time.

"Zhu Chi, Li Dachui is a master of the Innate Realm!"

Lin Yunqi recalled the familiar aura and pressure he felt when he first entered the room, and felt goosebumps rise all over his body again.

But that's all he can recall.

He couldn't remember anything that happened next.

In his memory, after discovering that Li Dachui was a master of innate skill, he immediately jumped to the scene where Zhu Chi came into the room to wake him up.

"What exactly happened?" he asked Zhu Chi, bewildered.

Zhu Chi remained silent.

All I could do was tell Lin Yunqi everything that had happened that day in detail.

Lin Yunqi's forehead was covered in beads of sweat.

He fell into their trap.

He himself didn't even know what he had leaked.

"Zhu Chi, can we not tell anyone about this?" Looking at Zhu Chi, Lin Yunqi's tone was somewhat hesitant: "After returning to Danyang, I will take good care of your Zhu family."

“Minister Lin, we are friends. How could I betray my own friends?” Zhu Chi said earnestly. “Don’t worry, I will not reveal a single word about what happened today.”

(End of this chapter)