章 115: Calm times end in a breeze
"Hmm, is it already morning...?" Chen Wei murmurs, exhausted after eight nights of sleeping with his nerves on edge, ready to react to any commotion that might signal a surprise attack.
'The sun is coming in through a damn gap in the curtain...' he thought, trying to raise his right hand to rub his eyes but was unable to because of Wang Mei, who was hugging his right arm tightly. 'She's becoming more possessive...'
He looked at the girl, dressed in a light white nightgown, lying on her side due to her large pregnant belly, with an innocent and gentle expression on her delicate and beautiful face, the kind that could make anyone's heart flutter and blush at the reality of having such a cute girl sleeping soundly by their side.
But Chen Wei remained calm as he gently stroked her head with his left hand, as by now he was more accustomed to sleeping next to Wang Mei than he had ever been sleeping alone, which was how he'd spent most of his life.
"We need to get up; it's already morning..." Chen Wei said softly, as with some difficulty, he freed his arm from Wang Mei's grip and got out of bed.
"Hmm? I... think I need to lie down a little longer..." Wang Mei, opening her eyes with difficulty due to the light streaming in through the window, said as she buried her head in the pillows. "I feel nauseous..."
"I understand. You need to rest more because of the pregnancy," Chen Wei gently stroked her face while resisting her attempts to pull him back into bed. "Unfortunately, I have a lot to do..."
Chen Wei, who had stood up again, sighed, knowing that part of the reason Wang Mei had been feeling more nauseous lately was due to the stress of their situation.
Two of those he is looking at now leaving he felt somewhat guilty as he stopped looking at the two other girls on her right, who were slowly waking up.
'Am I lucky or not realy?' Chen Wei thought, shaking his head as he watched the two beauties slowly getting out of bed. 'Well, many would do anything to be in my position.'
'Maybe I should even thank the previous owner of this house for having such a large bed?' Chen Wei joked with himself, remembering how he had thought he'd have to sleep on the floor before seeing the size of the bed. 'Or maybe I should have wished for a smaller bed to squeeze in with three beauties, haha...'
But even as he thought this, he didn't give a second glance at the girls, who were dressed in light nightgowns and shyly glanced at him from the corners of their eyes as they tried to shake off their grogginess.
'Maybe if I were someone more lustful?' This thought was normal, considering that the reason he had the two girls sleeping in the same room with him wasn't driven by lust but by a precaution against one of them trying to escape.
Or a more likely concern that they might be suddenly attacked, and one or both could be captured by an enemy, which would be a huge loss due to the immortal inheritances that Kuang Luo To claimed to have left with them. Besides, he wouldn't want that to happen to them, as they were supposedly fated to be his wives according to Kuang Luo To.
This intention was so clear, that Wang Mei agreed to the arrangement with only a little jealousy after seeing that he wouldn't change his mind despite her objections.
Of course, she still insisted on lying in the middle to prevent him from getting closer to the other girls, and she had been holding his arm tightly while they slept for the past eight days, as if wanting to establish that he belonged to her, both for him and for the other two girls.
He found this action cute, especially since that she seems to forgethe that he had already slept side by side with Feng Hua in the same tent when they were in the forest, or even before that, when he had seen both of them naked—a sight he didn't intend to forget, though he chose not to recall it to them to avoid their embarrassment.
"Well, have a good day... I'll get up in a bit!" Wang Mei said with emphasis before falling back into a deep sleep.
"She seems to be getting worse... don't you think we should find a midwife in a nearby mortal village?" Yu Lian asked with a concerned look as she searched for a dress to change into from her nightgown.
"It's not safe to leave you three alone here while I search for one," Chen Wei said as he opened the door to leave the room, giving the girls privacy to change before he could returned to do the same. "And taking her with me in this condition would only make her worse..."
"Besides, since I have healing Gu, she's not in any great danger, hopefully..." he said before finally leaving the room.
As soon as he stepped out, he saw the rustic but clean living room, where three hairy women were slowly waking up. They greeted him as he passed by, to which he only responded with a wave before continuing toward the front door to step outside.
Chen Wei took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air as his eyes fixed on the sun just beginning to rise on the horizon. "Ahh, the fresh mountain air in the morning is truly incredible..."
"...it even makes me imagine a quiet life as a farmer in the countryside."
Chen Wei continued walking out of the house and looked at the hunting line, where many more wild animal pelts were drying than before, a clear representation of how much game he had caught in recent days using the unbalanced advantage of being a Gu Master to easily hunt common animals.
"Hmm, it would be nice if there was a bigger garden since eating just meat isn't very good..." he sighed a bit, thinking about the small garden to the right of the house. "Or at least if those Gu Masters had brought vegetables, but the mission supplies were almost all dried meat of different kinds."
Saying this, he turned his gaze to an old, yet still sturdy, pigsty that was falling apart while being diligently guarded by a large red lizard, which kept its squinty eyes fixed on the pigsty, while it was eating a rather fat boar given to it by Chen Wei.
"I still need to interrogate them more today..." Chen Wei said with conviction, as one thing he had learned in this world was that for war and combat, information was just as important, if not more, than Gu. "...I believe I can discover even more now that they've spent another day in this state."
This was because, for days, he had intentionally left them dehydrating in the sweltering heat of the pigsty, not feeding them even after they had vomited the contents of their stomachs on the way.
"When a man is in this state of extreme hunger and thirst, he is willing to betray any loyalty or moral he once had..." Chen Wei repeated the words his grandfather had drilled into him as a mantra. "Whether for a cup of water or a bit of bread, it doesn't matter—those with weak wills will do it with a smile on their face!"
Not only that, but he had heightened the effect by using putrid black blood to rob them of their ability to see, hear, or speak, which was torture in itself. It also prevented them from coordinating with each other to deceive him with lies and stopped those with strong wills from coercing the weaker ones into keeping silent, which was a huge gain for him.
As a result, the information he had obtained ranged from basic details like the names of elders, average prices of Gu in the clan, the Gu Masters' opinions on cultivation, the neighboring mountain clans, caravan routes and the times they passed through this mountain, and other common knowledge that painted a picture allowing him to understand the Huo Clan significantly.
And that was just the basics—the amount of potentially secret information he had gathered was quite impressive, though unfortunately, there was nothing substantially related to the elder of the Huo Clan.
Still, it gave him at least a solid understanding of the clan's internal politics and a glimpse of its surrounding diplomatic situation, forming the foundation for him to extract the maximum benefit from the Huo Clan.
"Well, you've done a good job, boy," he said, stroking Little Green's head with a light smile on his face. "Now, I'll begin another session of productive conversations!"
-----
*Hou Xin POV*
'Truly, Leader Yan knows how to give inspiring speeches...' Huo Xin thought sarcastically, while putting on a determined smile with a confident expression on his face.
He was now standing to the left of the clan leader, who was surrounded by all the elders of the clan at the clan's front gate and enthusiastically delivering a speech to the elite Gu Masters who had accompanied them to directly confront the demonic Gu Master, now that his location had been fully confirmed by the clan's investigators.
'Ah, what a shame that I am an old man, incapable of taking action, for this speech truly makes my heart tremble with the youthful desire to fight!' Huo Xin heard the ironic voice of Huo You Hua echoing in his mind. 'Ah, how unfortunate I am, carrying the burden of remaining in the clan...'
'Even in your youth, what would a refinement-path Gu Master do in combat?' Huo Xin thought as he raised his fist in response to the roar of the Gu Masters because Huo Mei Yan's speech. 'You can proudly claim to follow the path that never produces demonic Gu Masters who plague this world, right?'
He glanced sideways at Elder Hua, who wore a smile so fake it was easy for Huo Xin to recognize after decades of friendship and understanding between them.
'Every now and then one does appear, but due to their lack of combat skills, they end up dying at the hands of the enemies they make...' Huo You Hua thought as a slight frown appeared on his forehead.
'In any case, I wish you good luck... the risks in a mission rushed like this are greater than what an elder should have to bear,' Huo Xin, hearing the melancholic voice of Huo You Hua in his head, nodded with complex emotions.
'There's not much Leader Yan can do in this situation...' Huo Xin thought, adding a false sense of melancholy and resentment. 'The leak of the clan's special situation was truly unfortunate, and it has forced her hand to act and unprepared but quickly!'
'Before the situation deteriorates even further, which no one would want...' He quickly continued his words to Huo You Hua as Leader Yan is finishing her speech. 'That is much worse than the risk we will be taking!'
Huo You Hua responded with understanding and agreement, never imagining that his longtime friend, the person with whom he had been calmly discussing his opinions, was the one who had leaked information about the demonic Gu Master to the neighboring clans, putting the Huo Clan in this precarious situation.
Not only that, but he had done so with a cold smile in his heart and a gentle, calm expression on his face, without a shred of regret.
And he had easily chosen the perfect moment to do it—just when he had gathered enough information about the demonic Gu Master to put his plan into action, but also before the clan leader had fully implemented all her preparations.
This had led them to this point, where she was forced into hasty and reckless action, exactly as he had planned, to the extent that he even questioned whether this big, confident smile on his face was truly fake.
'I am in even more danger than you imagine, my friend...' Huo Xin thought, but this time, he didn't share the thought with Huo You Hua, to whom he gave one last sideways glance.
"...advance for the glory and dignity of our majestic and sovereign clan! Forward!!!" Huo Mei Yan roared with fiery passion, raising her fist into the air with eyes burning with fury and determination.
"For the clan, forward!!" Huo Xin responded in unison with all the elders and the nearly a hundred elite Gu Masters.
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