Chapter 80: Gift
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: AntiGod
The streets in Ji City were moistened with cold dew, as white mist strayed and shrouded every part within the awakening city.
Riding on a single-horned Deer, Wu Qi and a group of attendants made their return to Duke Yan Le Mansion. Early in the morning, he had brought the official authorization document of Lu Chengfeng and visited seven government offices in Ji City that related to his fief. After some restless hours, he finally helped Yu Xuan obtained the province that was rewarded by Chief General, Jing Ke.
As it was a reward promised by Chief General, it was set in stone and no mistake could happen. A province was a reward coveted by many. If it were not given to Yu Xuan, a senior, prestige and influential official in Great Yan, but to Lu Chengfeng in the past, it would be a calamity instead of a fortune. Perhaps, the day after Lu Chengfeng received the fief, he would have drowned in a river for no apparent reason, just like what happened to his birth father.
Even for the current Lu Chengfeng, who had inherited the title of Duke Yan Le, if he suddenly owned an extra piece land, he would be envied by those influential people from other clans. This was not good for Lu Chengfeng's future development in Great Yan Dynasty. Thus, it was wise to just let Yu Xuan, the man of prestige, and high-power, to undertake those problems. In addition to that, without giving Yu Xuan this piece of land as the bribe, it might still be doubtful whether Lu Chengfeng could inherit the title of Duke Yan Le or not.
Everything was in proper order now. Using many reasons and excuses, the province of fief had finally transferred under the name of Yu Xuan. The problem was gone now. Lu Chengfeng was able to sit comfortably and firmly in the position of Duke Yan Le, and he also obtained the friendship from all the Imperial Elders who represented by Yu Xuan. With that, Lu Chengfeng's foundation had become stronger.
The sound of clopping came to a stop. Wu Qi unmounted himself from the deer, stepping up the stairs while surrounded by a few attentive doorkeepers.
He unclad the cape stained with dew and gave it to a guard who followed him. When he was about to enter the door, a luxurious coach suddenly drove out from an alley not far away. "Mister Wu Qi!" A serving lady who served Princess Zhang Le brought her head out from the coach, letting out a crystal clear call toward Wu Qi's direction.
Wu Qi was surprised by the call, and quickly greeted upon the coach. He bowed elegantly toward the serving lady and said, "Miss Bai Zhu, is there any important matter that brings you here?"
Princess Zhang Le had two serving ladies. The one in front of Wu Qi was named Bai Zhu'er. She had a witty mind and a slim figure, and was a beautiful young lady as well. The other one named Bai Miao'er; she was slightly plump, young and rather ignorant, and sometimes goofy. Between both of them, this witty Bai Zhu'er was the one who usually helped Princess Zhang Le in handling all kind of matters.
She covered her mouth and giggled, lowered her voice and said, "Yes, I do have an important matter."
She scanned the surrounding with her watery eyes, ordering a few Palace Guards who followed the coach closely to stand back. Then, she continued smilingly, "This morning, when Princess woke up, she immediately ordered someone to plant lotus flowers in all the lakes and rivers found in Zhang Le Palace. Mister Wu Qi, you've brought some troubles for the stewards in the palace. Hehe, you might not know this, there are many lakes and rivers in Zhang Le Palace!"
Wu Qi laughed dryly. What he did yesterday was compelled against his will. As a matter of fact, it was not a proper conduct for a true man to use that kind of tactics to bluffed Princess Zhang Le, who was just a young girl. However, he never expected that Princess Zhang Le had remembered the lotus flower Wu Qi gave her, and even wanted the same flower to be planted in all the lakes and rivers in Zhang Le Palace. Wu Qi was dumbstruck, and wasn't able to speak anything for some while.
Bai Zhu'er blinked her beautiful eyes at Wu Qi, then she took out an exquisitely made ring of dark gold from her sleeve and gave to him. It was an ingeniously made ring. It took the main hue of dark gold, and nine sesame-sized, azure blue gemstones were socketed on top of it. As Bai Zhu'er brought it out and swung across the air, a light gleam shone and rippled out from the ring. It looked sumptuous, prestigious and extremely mystical.
"By Princess words: Mister Wu Qi is still using a lower tier storage bag. It happens that Princess had one extra storage ring, and the quality was not too inferior. If Mister doesn't mind its quality, Mister can use it temporarily. The items found in the ring are given by Emperor and Crown Prince himself. Princess said she has no use for them, and wants Mister to keep them and have fun with them."'
She grabbed Wu Qi's hand and placed the ring into his palm. After that, Bai Zhu'er continued and said, "Princess has reached a critical moment in her cultivation. Every two weeks, she has to enter secluded cultivation. Sometimes, she will finish the cultivation within two or three days, and sometimes, it might take her two to three months. Princess has no idea how long would the current secluded cultivation take. In brief, when Princess finishes her cultivation, she will come to Mister. She hopes Mister won't miss her too much."
Bai Zhu'er tilted her head and looked at the absentminded Wu Qi. She suddenly slapped her forehead, giggled and said, "I almost forgot this."
She stretched her hand into another sleeve of hers and pulled out a palm-sized, dark green token. Not allowing Wu Qi to respond, she shoved it into his palm. "This is the highest authority token that Princess can get in Ji City, the Token of Seven Swallow. With this token, Mister can enter inner city freely even at night, and be able to freely enter Palace during the daytime. Except for a few prohibited areas and palaces, Mister can travel unrestricted at any place Mister wishes."
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Bai Zhu'er continued, "This Token of Seven Swallow possesses a very high authority, and Princess only filled the record with Mister's name. So, no matter what, please don't let this token fall into the hand of others." Bai Zhu's kept thinking about Princess Zhang Le who had once again entered her secluded cultivation. Thus, after hastily informing Wu Qi the importance of the token, she quickly ordered the attendants to bring her back to the palace. With one hand holding a storage ring and another hand holding the token, Wu Qi was dumbfounded, and couldn't say a word for a long while.
The Token of Swallow was a unique token of privilege for Great Yan Dynasty. It took dark green as its main color, which was the favorite color of the prestigious members of Great Yan Dynasty, as well as the color of Great Yan Dynasty's Imperial Court Dress. Patterns of rolling winds and flowing clouds were engraved on it. Amidst the winds and winds were flying swallows. The lowest token had one swallow, and the highest had nine.
There was the only one Token of Nine Swallows, and it belonged to the Emperor of Great Yan Dynasty, Yan Dan. Allegedly, the Token of Eight Swallows was only possessed by those core ministers of the dynasty, such as Jing Ke, Gao Jianli, and few others. The Eight Princes of Governor were only given the Token of Seven Swallows. With this token, basically one could walk freely in the entire Ji City. Yet, Princess Zhang Le had given Wu Qi the Token of Seven Swallows.
Judging from this alone, one could tell how much of power Princess Zhang Le held in Ji City, and could also tell the strange relationship she had with Wu Qi.
Wu Qi twitched his lips, tossing the token over and over in his hands. Then, he placed it into the storage ring. With a wry smile, he murmured, "Since when have I become someone who deceives a little girl with goldfish? With just a few words I copied from someone, and a little bit of scheming, I was able to seduce a celestial descendant. Is it because I'm too fortunate? Or has my luck run out?"
After a few wry laughs, Wu Qi cut his finger and dripped a drop of his blood onto the storage ring, sending out a thread of his divine sense and branding it onto the ring. With that being done, he had smoothly taken over the control of the ring. Then, he sent his divine sense into the ring. In an instant, he was shocked by the enormous space found inside it.
The magical storage bags he stole from Lord Flame and Old Devil only had the space of about three rooms. The standard size of a room was fifteen feet in length and width, and the height was ten feet. Currently, in his storage bag, it was fully filled with all the golds, silvers, jewelry and all kind of energy stones he obtained from Little Meng City.
Yet, the storage ring give by Princess Zhang Le had the space of nearly one thousand feet in both length and width, and the height was also about one thousand feet. It had the storage capacity of nearly a skyscraper. The enormous space seemed empty, and there were only a few large bronze boxes floating midair, emanating a vague ripple of energy.
Wu Qi had his divine sense scan those bronze boxes. The result simply made his jaw drop. These boxes were six feet in length and width, and the height was about three feet. On their lids, the characters of 'Inner Coffer of Great Yan' could be found, and from the symbol engraved below the characters, he knew these boxes were from the warehouse that stored strategic reserves of Great Yan Dynasty. But, they were being taken out by Princess Zhang Le as a gift.
There were a total of eight boxes. Inside them were all upper tier water elemental energy stones. They were well cut with a uniform shape, and each had the size of an adult's fist. All the energy stones were azure blue in color, glimmering like the color of the deepest ocean water, and storing an extremely powerful water elemental energy.
There were eight boxes of upper tier water elemental energy stones, and the total number of them was around one hundred pieces.
This was the strategic reserve energy stones that came from the inner coffer of Great Yan Dynasty. Wu Qi had no idea how Princess Zhang Le was able to take them out from the inner coffer and how she wiped them off from the books of account. Anyways, Wu Qi could only feel his scalp go numb, as his mind was filled with admiration toward Princess Zhang Le's bold and daring action.
"Why do I have a feeling that I've become someone who lives off a girl, just like that Le Xiaobai?"
Shaking his head in a self-mocking manner, Wu Qi brought his divine sense to a couple dozen medicine bottles made from Freezing Jade that were placed beside the bronze boxes. There was a label on all these medicine bottles- 'Innate Water Pill'. A total of thirty-six medicine bottles, each containing twelve pigeon-egg-sized, greenish blue and half transparent pills that emanated with water elemental power ripples.
Princess Zhang Le's cultivation was stronger than Wu Qi. After all, when she was born, she had already possessed the cultivation of Respiration tier. She had spent a dozen years of cultivating, although she was lacking in perseverance it and preferred playing and fooling around. Yet, with the endless support of miraculous pills and energy stones from Great Yan Dynasty, she currently stood firmly in the tier of Embryonic Breath. It was because of the supplementation of miraculous pills that she was able to maintain the beautiful appearance and vitality of a teenage girl, and didn't become wizened and ugly like those cultivators of Embryonic Breath who had cultivated for more than one hundred years.
With Princess Zhang Le's cultivation, she could tell Wu Qi was cultivating the water elemental skill. In addition to that, the pearl of Innate Water Serpent he gave to Princess Zhang Le was also the inner core of a water elemental spirit beast.
All the teenage girls were the same during puberty. They were clueless and impulsive. As she was well disposed toward Wu Qi, she just wished she could give all the good things under the heaven to him. Wu Qi had given her the pearl of Innate Water Serpent that aided his cultivation as a gift, and she immediately returned his favor by giving him eight boxes of upper tier water elemental energy stones and a few hundred pills that could strengthen the water elemental cultivation.
Wu Qi sighed softly and shook his head again. These were all upper tier water elemental energy stones, and although he had extorted in Little Meng City for so long, he never saw what a real upper tier energy stone looked like. If not for it to be recorded in the Scroll of Stealing, he would not be able to recognize that these boxes were filled with upper tier water elemental energy stones.
As for the Innate Water Pills, with the keen eyes Wu Qi inherited from Scroll of Stealing, he found that they were lower tier spirit pills of excellent quality. Each pill contained the energy that equaled one year of arduous cultivation from a Respiration cultivator. With these thirty-six bottles of pills, it was more than enough for Wu Qi to boost his cultivation to Embryonic Breath at the quickest speed possible, and his foundation would be extremely sturdy, without any risk of having it shaken.
If it was not the most beloved Princess of Great Yan Dynasty but some other girl, who would have the ability to come out with so many things easily, and just serve as a gift of returning a favor?
"The hardest thing to bear is the favor of a beauty! Is she my romantic, or my calamity?"
Quietly, Wu Qi moved all the things in his storage bag into the storage ring.
He swore an oath in his mind, "Well, Princess Zhang Le, Zi Xuan, no matter you're my romantic or calamity, I, Wu Qi, will endure it!"
Couldn't he, Wu Qi, have the courage to accept the little goodwill from a young beauty?
He laughed out loud, then casually tossed the emptied storage bag to Meng Xiaobai, who was standing near the entrance.
"Xiaobai, this treasure is yours now!"