Chapter 232: Chapter 137: Profiting from Chaos
Wang Xiongzhang was cheerful, easygoing, and magnanimous. He lacked the arrogance common among the other scions of the Four Great Clans of the Inner City, treating people with great sincerity and possessing a powerful charisma. Even Chen Cheng couldn’t find a single fault with him.
Even at their first meeting, he held nothing back, sharing with Chen Cheng a great deal of information that was typically only accessible to the scions of the Four Great Clans of the Inner City.
In his words, it was about broadening one’s horizons and taking a long-term view. They shouldn’t be limited to the small Linji Prefecture City, or even just Su State. Instead, they should set their sights on the entire Northern Territory, and even the whole of the Great Yu.
From that perspective, Linji City was a single entity. The Four Great Clans could have common interests, working together to govern Linji City and maintain its peace.
The scions of the Four Great Clans could certainly help one another and form genuine friendships, rather than endlessly competing and fighting.
Shen Qingxuan and the other scions of the Four Great Clans of the Inner City present were clearly won over by Wang Xiongzhang. They believed in his philosophy and looked to him as their leader, setting aside the barriers between their clans to form what appeared to be a united clique.
As far as their little group was concerned, if they wanted to advance their cultivation and obtain Martial Arts Resources, all they had to do was work together. They could complete missions for the Demon Suppression Department and use the Merit they earned to redeem rewards.
An individual’s strength was limited, but if they all banded together and cooperated, they could complete even more difficult missions, slay more powerful Demon Beasts, and earn more Merit from the Demon Suppression Department. What was not to like?
This group was filled with passion, optimism, and lofty ambitions. On the surface, there seemed to be nothing wrong with them.
But Chen Cheng could sense that things were not as simple as they appeared. The way these people acted just didn’t add up.
First, Shen Qingxuan’s motives for interacting with Chen Cheng were impure. Her heart clearly belonged to someone else, yet she had still agreed to meet him. It was no different from deliberately toying with him.
For her to introduce Chen Cheng to this clique at their very first meeting... she probably didn’t have the best of intentions.
And Wang Xiongzhang must have known the Shen Family’s purpose for introducing Chen Cheng to Shen Qingxuan. Yet he was still so intimate with Shen Qingxuan and never openly acknowledged their relationship. It was clear he was a very calculating person himself.
If he were truly open and aboveboard, he could have just made things clear.
Judging by the character of Shen Qingxuan and Wang Xiongzhang, it wasn’t hard to guess that the others were likely no saints either.
These people had another thing in common: they had all reached Small Success in the Muscle Strengthening Realm by around the age of twenty. Their talent in the Martial Dao was quite high, but it clearly fell short when compared to the Celestial Prides in their respective clans, so they didn’t receive their clans’ full support and resources.
Not good enough to be the best, but better than the rest. Perhaps it was this shared predicament that brought them together.
’Perhaps I’m overthinking it. These scions of the great clans are nothing more than arrogant youths who don’t know how high the heavens are.
I hope they’re just naive. If they dare to scheme against me, I won’t hesitate to teach them just how harsh the world can be!’
Shaking his head slightly, Chen Cheng reined in his thoughts, no longer wanting to waste time thinking about Shen Qingxuan.
These scions of the great clans had their elders to protect them, allowing them to act as recklessly as they pleased. He, on the other hand, had to be cautious.
There were far too many hidden dangers in Linji City. The bizarre disappearances of Yan Jian and Zhou Hongjun remained baffling, unsolved cases. He didn’t know who was pulling the strings behind the scenes, so he had to be on his guard.
After all, he and Yan Jian were in similar positions—both were young prodigies cultivated by the Shen Family. Furthermore, the Zhou Family now held a grudge against him.
The past few days had seemed peaceful, but he feared he had already drawn the attention of certain people. Otherwise, someone like Wang Xiongzhang and his group wouldn’t have tried to befriend him for no reason.
Furthermore, danger seemed to be lurking outside Linji City as well: the conflicts between the powers in the State City. For someone like him, a struggle on that level was an overwhelming tide, and it would be difficult to stay out of it.
The Great Yu was vast, comprising the Northern Territory, Western Regions, Southern Wilderness, East Sea, and Central State.
Although the Great Yu Court was in decline, its edicts no longer reaching the provinces, it still occupied the most fertile Central State and wielded considerable influence. Superficially, the various regions still flew the Great Yu banner, but this situation clearly could not last for long.
The realm was about to descend into chaos, and the signs of this turmoil were already appearing in various places.
For now, Su State, where Linji Prefecture City was located, was relatively stable. This was because the Great Dao Sect had no intention of expanding its territory, choosing to remain content in its own corner of the world.
But in the other states, the various powers were already locked in fierce struggles.
In the Northern Territory, the strongest power was the Pan Family of Marquis Zhenbei’s Mansion. They occupied Shuo and Jin State, two of the Five Northern States, and seemed poised to unify the entire Northern Territory.
Meanwhile, the Taiyi Sect of Yun State also produced a continuous stream of powerful experts. They were extremely formidable, even daring to confront Marquis Zhenbei’s Mansion head-on.
In the most chaotic state of all, Lin State, the two major Sects—the Blood Moon Sect and the Sutra of Ultimate Sect—had reached an accord after years of stalemate and had also begun expanding in all directions.
In a world where the Martial Dao reigned supreme, the armies of each state could form Battle Arrays and manifest a Military Array Realm to face their foes. However, the most decisive conflicts were still the clashes between powerful experts.
It was no exaggeration to say that a Martial Artist who had cultivated to the Internal Refining Realm and mastered the Second Layer Realm could come and go as they pleased from within a Battle Array formed by over ten thousand elite soldiers.
As for experts beyond the Internal Refining Realm, they could contend with a Battle Array formed by a hundred thousand, or even a million, soldiers.
Back then, the Great Yu Founding Saint Emperor had unified the realm by virtue of his strength as a Martial Saint.
Now, to end this chaotic state of affairs, a supreme Martial Dao expert on par with a Martial Saint would have to emerge.
