Chapter 331. Confrontation at Guizhou (2)

Shen Daoyun hassled his subordinates with an eager tone.

"Where are they? Hurry up and bring them over!"

"Yes, sir. They’re currently waiting in the drawing room..."

"You could’ve just brought them straight here, why—no, never mind. I’ll go myself."

He brushed past the subordinate, opened the door, and quickly made his way to the drawing room. A smile tugged at his lips at the thought of finally escaping this tiresome place.

When he opened the door and stepped inside, he saw a young man sitting calmly, sipping tea.

Huh? He's quite young, isn't he?

Shen Daoyun was surprised to see the young man's face.

No matter how he looked at him, the man barely seemed past his teenage years.

He wondered if the boy had come in through his connections or background, but soon shook his head.

What sort of crazy bastard would come to the Guizhou Branch through their connections?

Guizhou had a terrible reputation. Common sense told one that it wasn't a place where they could come through their connections or background. Brushing the thought aside, Shen Daoyun put on a cheerful tone and greeted the young man.

"You're from the Martial Alliance headquarters? Welcome! I'm the Kaiyang Branch Manager, or rather, the Guizhou Branch Manager, Shen Daoyun."

There was no other Martial Alliance Branch Manager within Guizhou with as much experience and accomplishments as Shen Daoyun.

Just recently, he had been entrusted with the overall command of Guizhou's Martial Alliance stations.

Of course, Shen Daoyun himself wasn't happy with it.

After all, if he were to be entrusted with Guizhou, that meant that he would have to rot here for a long time.

"It's nice to meet you."

The young man stood up and politely greeted him with a cupped fist.

Shen Daoyun was worried that the young man might run away after seeing the situation in Guizhou, so he quickly put his arm around his shoulder.

"Now, now, you must have had a hard time, having traveled all the way to Guizhou. Come, come. Let me take you to my seat, the seat of the

Guizhou Branch Manager

. No, isn't this your seat now, Mr. New Guizhou Branch Manager?!"

Shen Daoyun deliberately tried to appeal to the young man's lust for power and tempt him.

"I think you're misunderstanding something... I'm not here as your successor."

"Haha! What a jokester!"

Shen Daoyun patted the young man on the shoulder and led him forward.

Haven't you already seen what this area is like? I refuse to just let you go like this!

It was the resentment of a manager who hadn't left his post for over ten years.

"More importantly, what's your name?"

"Zhou Xuchuan."

Thud!

"...Zhou Xuchuan?"

Shen Daoyun stopped walking.

"Hmm... Your name is the same as the Sword God."

"That's me."

The hand on the young man’s shoulder slowly dropped. Shen turned his head and looked at him more carefully.

I-it looks like I've seen him somewhere...

Shen Daoyun had seen the Sword God Zhou Xuchuan once before. It was when he was young, when he first came out of the Jianghu River.

At that time, the Fourteen Swordsmen Qiu Feng had brought the disciples from the Lotus Pavilion of the Mount Hua Sect to gain practical experience.

So sometimes, when he was bored, he would brag about knowing the Sword God for ten years.

"It's been a while, Kaiyang Branch Manager. No, Guizhou Branch Manager."

"AAAGH!!"

Shen Daoyun let out a dramatic scream and collapsed to the floor.

"S-s-s-sword God!"

The Guizhou Branch Manager's face turned pale.

He remembered how he had just spoken down to the Sword God and patted him on the shoulder without permission, even leading him forward by force.

"Branch Manager! This is serious!"

He saw his subordinates running towards him from the end of the hallway.

"I know! Why didn't you tell me that the Sword God was coming?" the Guizhou Branch Manager replied as if he was about to shed tears.

"Huh? You left without even hearing everything, so I thought you knew... No, that's not the problem!"

"What bigger problem is there than my current situation?"

"What else could there be in Guizhou besides conflict?" the subordinate answered in an urgent voice.

"What?"

Shen Daoyun's face hardened.

"So I was late."

Zhou Xuchuan frowned.

***

The first thing that the Martial Alliance's strategists predicted was the rift in the alliance caused by the chaos in Guizhou.

As mentioned earlier, the Martial Alliance and the Evil Valley had formed an alliance over the common enemy known as the Dark Heavens Alliance and had forbidden each other from fighting.

However, within Guizhuou, which had deep-rooted ill feelings, it was, in fact, an impossible order.

It was impossible for the Dark Heavens Association to leave this place, which was no different from a powder keg that could explode at any moment, alone.

"A chain of resentment is beyond reason. Guizhou might be the spark that ignites everything. Our enemies could use this opportunity to manufacture conflict or misunderstandings and collapse the fragile peace. If things spiral, the ban on infighting will be meaningless. And with that, the cooperation holding the Righteous and Evil Alliance together will fall through."

While the supplies themselves were important, they also had to make sure they kept their alliance stable.

With the Dark Heavens Association's spies planted within their ranks, making trouble wouldn't be difficult. It would be even easier since the entire

murim

was making a fuss, let alone Guizhou, the center of chaos.

In order to prevent this situation, the Martial Alliance's leadership had sent a special task force after their meeting.

"That was why I came. I was to try to persuade you, Branch Manager, to gather all of the Righteous Faction martial artists belonging to Guizhou."

Guizhou was far from Anhui, so the influence of the Martial Alliance headquarters wasn’t very strong. Moreover, because personal grudges in the region ran deep, it was uncertain whether the martial artists here would abide by the non-aggression clause.

That’s why the first person who came to mind in this situation was Zhou Xuchuan—one of the Six Empyrean Overlords and a Hero of the Righteous Path.

In short, he had come to suppress the conflict.

Moreover, if there's a problem on the Evil Valley side, I can just use my identity as the Domination God Monarch.

He also had the identity of Domination God Monarch, the hero of the Evil Path.

Although he had recently left matters to the Evil Valley Master and stayed out of the public eye, it hadn’t been that long. His other identity still held weight.

Besides, he also had to stop by the Guizhou Branch of the Gold Will Merchants to inspect the mechanisms Zhuge Shengji had set up.

While the base of the Gold Will Merchants was in Shandong, as a merchant company that had started as a war profiteer, the Gold Will Merchants' Guizhou Branch was also quite large.

To be clear, Zhuge Shengji hadn't actually come to Guizhou in person, but had entrusted the installation to the Guizhou Branch of the Valley of Phantoms through blueprints and instructions.

"I came here first to check the situation, but it seems like it's already started."

While he had sent a messenger just in case, it seemed the messenger had gotten intercepted, likely due to sabotage, which delayed their arrival.

Even though Zhou Xuchuan had run nonstop from Hefei, he was too late.

"I-I apologize for not even realizing such a thing and causing you so much trouble."

Shen Daoyun looked flustered.

Inwardly, he was glad that he hadn't treated the young man carelessly, even though the boy had been a part of the Lotus Pavilion just ten years ago.

"It's okay. These things happen. More importantly, I think it would be better for us to verify what's going on outside right now."

Although a ceasefire was technically in place in Guizhou, the atmosphere was so unstable that a battle could happen at any moment.

Zhou Xuchuan could only say that his luck was bad for the battle to begin once again almost at the same time he had arrived.

It's been a long time since I've been here.

They had just arrived in Weng'an, which was about a two day's walk from Kaiyang to the east. About ten years ago, it was also the place where Zhou Xuchuan had first had to survive with Zhuge Shengji.

"As the branch manager of Guizhou, I'd like to be able to give you some advice... but to be honest, I don't know how to stop them."

Weng'an was a fierce battleground where the Martial Alliance and the Evil Valley's flags would change every two or three months.[1]

As a result, the lingering feelings between them were quite strong, which was also the cause of Shen Daoyun's wrinkles.

They must be thinking of using the chaos in Guizhou to weaken the peace treaty and use the gap to attack with the Dark Heavens Association's power.

Zhou Xuchuan's forehead furrowed deeply.

Guizhou is the starting point.

He had anticipated that the unrest would begin in Guizhou—and from there, spread to the rest of the regions. The alliance they’d barely managed to form had to be protected.

"Last night, it was reported that Evil Valley warriors scaled the walls of Weng’an and launched a surprise attack. And although I never gave the order... Weng’an Martial Alliance warriors also struck Evil Valley’s temporary barracks around the same time. I went to confirm it myself, but for some reason, none of the people involved were familiar to me."

Shen Daoyun was capable. It wasn't for nothing that he had been the person in charge in Guizhou for over ten years.

He had always kept a wary eye out for spies among his subordinates and kept a close watch.

The attacks occurred at the same time as if they had been planned, and the perpetrators weren't caught. It's a trap, no doubt.

Even if he just looked at it rationally, it was still suspicious.

However, the Guizhou warriors who fought with blood splattering even at the slightest glance, with grudges deeper than the deepest trenches, couldn't have realized that.

It was obvious that they thought that someone with a grudge had attacked again.

It wasn't for nothing that this had happened in Guizhou where conflicts occurred even during a ceasefire or the end of war for no reason. That was how dangerous a place like Guizhou was.

"What should we do now? If we continue like this, won't we get into trouble like you said, Sword God?"

"I have an idea."

Zhou Xuchuan tapped his temple with his index finger.

While they had said that the Righteous and Evil Paths should reconcile their grudges with one another, that wasn't as easy as it sounded.

That was especially difficult for Guizhou.

"You cowardly bastards! You dared to surprise attack your allied forces in the middle of the night?" Martial Alliance Weng'an Branch Peak Warrior, Meng Chuhe, gritting his teeth, shouted at the Evil Valley crowd that had gathered on the plains outside Weng'an.

"Coward? Damn it!"

A Peak Realm warrior of the Evil Valley's Weng'an Branch, Zhu Meng spat.

"You bastards attacked us first! What? You're saying that we surprised you in the middle of the night? Damn it, you bastards have no shame!"

Neither man backed down. Their faces were twisted in rage, veins bulging on their flushed skin.

"I knew this would happen, it was the worst decision not to fight you cowardly and dirty bastards of the Evil Valley from the very beginning!"

"Hmph! As if you are the ones with the right to say that! This is why we can't trust you hypocrites who only pretend to be righteous on the outside!"

Shing! Shing!

Meng Chuhe drew his sword, and Zhu Meng drew his saber. Starting with those two, both camps drew their weapons.

Kehehe...

The Seven Star soldiers in the camps of both sides barely held back their laughter as their eyes lit up.

As expected, the Righteous and Evil Factions can never stand together.

Those of the murim are bound to hate and kill each other just because their martial philosophies are different.

You Righteous and Evil Faction members, stab your blades in each others' backs. You'll fight each other and perish, and eventually, the Dark Heavens will rule over everything.

The two sides were about to clash.

"Stop!"

At that moment, a thunderous voice rang out across the plains.

"...!"

Both the Martial Alliance and Evil Valley flinched and were surprised. Their bodies were overwhelmed by the voice alone, and for a moment, they couldn't move.

What the hell is this...

Just how much qi was imbued in that voice?

How is this possible...

Tension filled Meng Chuhe and Zhu Meng's expressions.

They were both worried that the other had brought over an expert they wouldn't possibly handle.

Then, after a while, Meng Chuhe's face brightened while Zhu Meng's twisted with frustration.

"Martial Alliance and Evil Valley, listen up! I am Zhou Xuchuan of the Mount Hua Sect!"

Sword God!

All eyes turned at once.

Standing tall was Shen Daoyun, the Guizhou Branch Manager, and beside him, a young man in Daoist robes with a plum blossom embroidered on the inside of his sleeve.

There was no mistaking him.

Zhou Xuchuan!

Six Empyrean Overlords, Zhou Xuchuan.

A hero of the Righteous Path, Zhou Xuchuan.

For the Righteous Faction, he was hope, but for the Evil Faction, he was despair.

Meng Chuhe laughed and shouted.

"Hahaha! It really is quite unfortunate, Zhu Meng! I wanted to show you a bitter taste, but, oh well!"

"Ugh... you bastard..."

Zhu Meng clenched his fists, seething with rage.

"Now you bastards are finished..."

"Enough! Everyone, put away your weapons!"

Just as Meng Chuhe was about to continue speaking, he looked dumbfounded at Zhou Xuchuan's next words.

Zhou Xuchuan continued speaking with everyone's attention focused on him.

"I'll say this now, I'm not here to fight! Listen to me!"

1. They would gain and lose control of the area. Thus, the flags showing who held territory would change often. ☜