“Tang Chong!” a voice called out to Tang Jie.
He turned and saw Su Hongmei gazing admiringly at him.
This girl had always been wanting to learn how to grow stronger and reach higher realms, but there had been some things that she had never even considered before.
Tang Jie’s words today had been a wake-up call.
Tang Jie hadn’t been blabbering nonsense. Humans had always had a tough path to survive. Not every world was dominated by humans as the Rosecloud Domain was, and there were actually many ruled by other races, like the Blood River Domain and the Verdant Cloud Domain. In the vast cosmos, there were many other races fighting with humanity for the right to survive. While all of them shared a common enemy in the Primordial Fog, they also had their own grudges with each other.
This was why there were cultivator wars.
One could say that the first cultivator wars were racial wars. Only later did they develop into a game where the strong devoured the weak.
Even so, Tang Jie was not completely willing to subscribe to the principle of the strong eating the weak. He had found his own source of righteousness in this war, not just for this war, but for the other wars in the future. The Rosecloud Domain would not conquer the worlds controlled by humans, only the worlds where humans found it difficult to survive, and it would do so only to coexist and not exterminate the native humans of those worlds.
This was a righteous cause!
It was because Tang Jie believed in and persisted in this conviction that he was able to influence the others. This wasn’t a spell art, but it was more effective and direct than any kind of spell art.
Liu Nanshan and the others turned pensive. It was clear that Tang Jie’s words had triggered something inside them.
From their expressions, Tang Jie knew that his words had worked, and his expression relaxed a little.
As expected, Liu Nanshan said, “Young friend, you are right. We humans are able to hold on to this one region of the Blood River Domain thanks to the fearless sacrifice of countless predecessors. Thousand Autumns City is named as such because it is the wall of humanity, intended to stand against its foes for all of time. The one who protects the city must be a brave hero who does not back down in the face of battle. Over the years, my Red Leaf Alliance, for the sake of humanity’s so-called great plan, has fallen back again and again, which has only served to make the Hemos more arrogant. Fools that we were, we failed to realize that peace is not won through yielding, but through fighting! What this old man said before was wrong!”
Liu Nanshan bowed to Tang Jie.
An actual Heart Demon junior would have been alarmed to see a Deification True Lord bowing to them, but Tang Jie took it in stride, nodding and saying, “So long as you understand.”
His arrogant demeanor instantly vaporized the goodwill that everyone had just developed for him.
Liu Nanshan brushed it off and said, “If that’s the case, then there’s no need for you to leave in such a hurry. Stay for a few days at my Red Leaf Alliance. And if the Hemos hunting squad comes asking questions, why don’t we fight alongside each other against them?”
Tang Jie smiled. “How could I dare to not accept Sect Master’s kindness?”
Liu Nanshan ordered, “Hongmei, take this young man with you and arrange a residence for him.”
“Yes, Master!” Su Hongmei rushed off with Tang Jie.
Leaving the hall, they wound through the complex and soon arrived at a secluded courtyard with a small grove of bamboo growing in front of it and a garden with variously colored flowers to the side. There was also a long corridor that led to a fountain that had lotuses flowering in the pool.
Su Hongmei said, “Big Brother Tang, this is where you will be staying. It is where the alliance hosts honored guests. I hope Big Brother Tang will enjoy its elegant seclusion.”
Tang Jie replied, “A cultivator has few requirements beyond a place with plenty of spiritual energy.”
Su Hongmei chuckled. “As expected, Big Brother Tang is an ascetic.”
There happened to be a few stone stools in the courtyard, so rather than leave, she sat down and conversed with Tang Jie. This wasn’t to say that she had taken a liking to him. Given how long she had cultivated, she was no inexperienced young lass. Rather, she was a rather famous cultivator among her peers known as the Red Maple Fairy. It was just that she was rather taken by Tang Jie’s unique way of speaking and bold spirit, so she wanted to be friends. Tang Jie didn’t mind, and the two began to casually chat, even occasionally sharing a hearty laugh. It was an avid conversation that had the two wishing that they had met earlier, like they were old friends despite having just met. Senior Brother Tao, who was watching from the shadows, was overcome by jealousy, but he knew that he wasn’t strong enough to do anything but curse.
What he didn’t know was that most of Tang Jie’s attention wasn’t here, but on the great hall.
A sliver of his Divine Will stretched from here all the way to that hall.
While a wall of Divine Will was protecting the hall, this couldn’t stop the infiltration of an Earth Immortal. He easily got in to listen in on the conversation between the alliance leaders.
“Alliance Lord, do you really plan to go along with that Tang Chong and fight it out with the Hemos?” Mo Wuxin asked.
Liu Nanshan replied, “What do you three think?”
“Tang Chong’s argument wasn’t unreasonable, but it focused a little too much on courage. In the end, the reality is that humanity is barely holding on,” Incense Weave Sect Master Luo Xiangran said. “If we start a war with the Hemos, there can only be two outcomes. The first is that we’re defeated, upon which the Red Leaf Alliance will be annihilated and Thousand Autumns City will be conquered by the enemy. The second is that we defeat them, but the Hemos will then start a new offensive, which will repeat until we are defeated. Either outcome results in the end of my Red Leaf Alliance.”
“Most importantly, we might incite a war between the two races,” the Heavenly Saber Gate Master added. Despite the fact that Tang Jie had saved Wang An, his disciple, even he wasn’t taking Tang Jie’s side.
Liu Nanshan sighed. “Indeed. Wars are easy to start but difficult to pacify. The young have courage and spirit, but they never consider how a war is settled once it is started. Dying is easy. It’s living that’s hard. At times, being willing to die doesn’t make one courageous.”
To be honest, Liu Nanshan wasn’t being unreasonable.
A true man had courage but also understood when to endure. The only problem was how to balance the two.
Liu Nanshan and Tang Jie clearly had different opinions on where this balance should be. Tang Jie was an Earth Immortal, and he had Rosecloud behind him, so in his view, fighting was correct and enduring was wrong. But Liu Nanshan was only a Deification True Lord, so enduring was the more farsighted plan. As for war, he might go his entire life without seeing a good opportunity for one.
One could say that neither of them was wrong. The differences in position meant that they considered different things.
Thus, Tang Jie didn’t blame them for having such thoughts.
What Liu Nanshan said next, however, enraged Tang Jie.
Liu Nanshan said, “That’s why I had that Tang Chong stay.”
Everyone’s eyes flashed. “Senior Brother, you mean…”
“If we don’t keep Tang Chong, how are we going to explain ourselves to the Hemos hunting squad?” Liu Nanshan casually answered.
As expected, Tang Jie mentally snorted.
This old thing felt like he was being clever and was keeping Tang Jie simply to hand him over to the Hemos.
“But there’s a method to handing him over,” Liu Nanshan added. “I must admit that Tang Chong was right about one thing. Peace is gained through fighting, not through enduring. The Hemos have only gotten more and more arrogant, even a small hunting squad daring to act so unbridled around us. Thus, we need to fight when we should fight.”
“Then Alliance Lord intends to…”
“Fight. There’ll be a fight, but not anything too serious. We just have to let them know that they can’t do anything they want to us, and if they push us too far, we can at least kill them first.”
Mo Wuxin slapped his knee. “Alliance Lord, this is a wonderful plan. Once we give them a small lesson and then hand Tang Chong over to give them some face, they should be able to restrain themselves.”
“Give them a slap with one hand and a candy with the other—a good plan.” The Heavenly Saber Gate Master nodded.
Tang Jie inwardly laughed.
He listened as they planned out the details, but finding it uninteresting, he withdrew his Divine Will. Meanwhile, Su Hongmei was saying, “…so, I beat that guy up. From then on, that brat didn’t dare to provoke me… Hey, are you listening?”
She pushed Tang Jie.
She was so at ease that they almost seemed like siblings.
Tang Jie nodded. “I heard, I heard. It seems like you treat all your suitors this way. It’s no wonder you’re still not married.”
Su Hongmei blushed and glared at him. “Is that any of your business? As a cultivator, I’ve set my ambitions on the Great Dao. If I spent all my time on romance, things would be hopeless. Moreover, at the time, my cultivation was still very low. If I had agreed then, wouldn’t I now be watching my husband turn old? If I marry someone, they have to at least be at Celestial Heart and have overcome their Heart Demon. A husband that can live a thousand years and be young and handsome.”
She looked at Tang Jie and added, “Someone like you would be pretty good.”
She was actually making a simple comparison, but in the ears of Senior Brother Tao, this was a frank confession, and he was so enraged that he wanted to kill Tang Jie on the spot.
Tang Jie chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t go joking about things like that.”
“Tsk, boring,” Su Hongmei said in disdain.
The two continued chatting for a while longer, but Su Hongmei saw that it was getting late and left.
Tang Jie retired to his room to meditate.
Late in the night, Tang Jie suddenly sensed something and cracked open his eyes. Gazing into the distant darkness, he grunted, “Interesting.”
Then he closed his eyes again.
A few moments later, Senior Brother Tao appeared outside the courtyard.
He didn’t get close to the courtyard, knowing that a Heart Demon cultivator had a formidable Spirit Will that would sense him the moment he got close. But as the Divine Will had not yet been cultivated, it could only be a little better than a Spirit Ring, with fifty meters normally being the limit. Given that he was using a secret treasure of his master to approach, he was sure that Tang Chong wouldn’t notice him, but any closer would expose him. Thus, standing outside the courtyard, he glared at Tang Jie’s residence and placed down a gold-patterned centipede, which began to crawl toward Tang Jie’s room.
Tang Jie could tell that this was an extremely venomous centipede known as the Goldwing Fireback. It had a powerful fire venom that even a Heart Demon cultivator would find hard to resist if it got a bite in. Worth noting was that the poison mimicked the effects of energy deviation, so an unaware Heart Demon cultivator would think that their cultivation was lacking and that their Heart Demon was affecting them, which would lead them to be burned to death.
Tang Jie chuckled at the other party’s methods.
The centipede quickly crawled into Tang Jie’s room and onto his body.
Tang Jie let the centipede crawl onto him and bite, letting its mandibles pierce through his skin and pump venom into his blood. A moment later, he used his Immortal energy to gather all the venom into a ball and expel it, tossing it into a bottle. The venom of a Goldwing Fireback centipede was a rare material that would be a shame to throw away.
The centipede was rather tired after biting, and it retreated once Senior Brother Tao called it back.
Senior Brother Tao saw that his centipede had completed its mission, so he left in satisfaction.
