Ye Tian Yun was interested in the banquet for quite a few reasons.
One, he was here for the Arcane Path manual which was in Yuan Shuchun's possession.
And two, he was here to stop an assassination.
And these two tasks were very interrelated. Because the only way of getting close to Yuan Shuchun and give her a lasting impression was to save her from the assassination attempt.
And thwarting the assassination should have completed his main objective of getting close to Yuan Shuchun for the manual.
However, what really happened was something that made the future even more variable. And the reason why things didn't go as he had expected was he himself.
As per the reports, this banquet was going to be a major turning point in the future of the Gracious Sword Sect.
Yuan Shuchun was going to be almost assassinated, however, due to Xiao Ming's higher spirit sense, the assassination would have failed, giving only minor injuries to Yuan Shuchun.
And it was this encounter that would have started a love-hate relationship between these two hormone-filled teenagers which would have lasted for about a year until Yuan Shuchun's untimely demise by an unknown enemy.
Xiao Ming, years in the future, would one day reveal the existence of the manual which he got on the night of the banquet as a gift from Yuan Shuchun for saving her life.
And it was also that day he revealed that he never got to know about this unknown enemy.
When Ye Tian Yun had heard of this report back in the day, in his life before rebirth, he was intrigued.
Not by the fate of these two, but it was the organization behind the murder of Yuan Shuchun which intrigued him.
He sent his followers to the lower heavens to try to find a weakness against Xiao Ming, however, all attempts were fruitless.
There were no signs of any organization which could take out Yuan Shuchun and was offended by her.
Yuan Shuchun liked to play safe, however, for her enemy to be so brutal that they didn't even leave her limbs intact, pointing at the sign that there was a hidden enmity.
But since his informants couldn't find any clues about this, the search came up with no result.
But while investigating, his informants found something weird: The new Sect Leader of the Gracious Sword Sect, Fang Chen, had removed all records of Yuan Shuchun from the history of the Sect and warned everyone from ever mentioning her name.
The girl who had once fought for the sect had become a taboo existence.
But all this was 'supposed' to happen and tonight, this future is now officially averted.
One, Fang Chen has been dead for months now.
Two, it wasn't Xiao Ming who had saved her.
Now there was no reason for her to give the manual to Xiao Ming and her name wasn't going to be removed from the sect records.
It was Jun Xie who had saved her life.
Ye Tian Yun's focus moved to Jun Xie.
Why did he come to the banquet?
Of Course to recruit the disciple with the sword intent.
However, what confused Ye Tian Yun was that he came for the disciple within a few minutes after Ye Tian Yun lost control over his Sword Domain when he saw Xiao Ming.
And also the fact that he knew about the disciple being a part of the Seventh Peak was quite surprising.
'So the Nine Supremes also have informants?'
If they had informants within the sect, that meant this league was also stained from the sect politics.
Ye Tian Yun wasn't sure about this.
Because the Nine Supremes didn't remain in existence for more than two months in the Gracious Sword Sect after the Grand Spirit Hunt.
And since this wasn't related to his motives nor were the details of this league important to him, hence he didn't let his informants waste their time in digging sect records.
Not only would they waste their time, but the information might also be false.
As someone has said, 'History is written by the winners,' and here, the winners were Fang Chen and Xiao Ming, so the sect records were mostly manipulated in their favor.
However, not only Jun Xie knew about the Sword Domain, even Jiang Yun knew about this and came here running.
In his previous timeline, Jiang Yun did crash the banquet, but it was just to intimidate new disciples against joining the Heavenly League.
He didn't come to recruit any of the disciples, unlike this time.
And a few minutes after he had left, Yuan Shuchun was almost assassinated and Xiao Ming was heavily poisoned while trying to uncover the identity of the assassin.
This incident had led to some serious consequences like the disqualification of Yuan Shuchun from the Grand Spirit Hunt and instability in the Heavenly League.
It also unknowingly paved a path for Fang Chen's rise.
Six months later, to everyone's surprise, the assassins were finally traced back after a similar assassination attempt on Fang Chen, at the Grand Spirit Hunt.
And the follow-up investigation revealed the preparator behind the assassination - Jiang Yun.
But it was too late by then and Jiang Yun had already become an untouchable existence. Not only for Yuan Shuchun and Fang Chen but for the whole Gracious Sword Sect.
…
Ye Tian Yun took a deep breath before continuing to assess his situation.
Now that Jiang Yun was also ambushed and is now heavily injured, meant that the truth was much more warped than it seemed.
Just then, Ye Tian Yun felt that his palms were sweaty.
He frowned and moved his hand, only to find out the elixir bottle in his hand.
He held the bottle cap with his other hand, while still frowning as he stared at the bottle.
Then as he put the bottle in his spatial ring, a thought struck him once again, 'Yuan Shuchun didn't put these things as prizes in the precious timeline… So why did she do it now?'