Chapter 637: Invitation
The next afternoon, Bai Yunfei was relaxing in the courtyard of his home. Basking in the sunlight, he was thinking about a few crafting related things when he heard Zheng Kai come rushing into his courtyard.
“Yunfei! I heard you debilitated Cheng Xin, Li Chen, and several others yesterday, is it true?”
Zheng Kai asked as soon as he was within close proximity of Bai Yunfei.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know? Almost everyone in our ‘circle’ knows about it. Cheng Xin went ‘hunting’ in the Training Forest and was beaten badly by an instructor from Tianhun Academy….isn’t that you?”
“Yeah, it is. I broke both his arms, he’ll probably need a hundred days to heal from that.”
“Really?!” Zheng Kai’s eyes lit up, “Haha, how should I even describe you, Yunfei? You’re….like a kite!”
He flashed Bai Yunfei a big thumbs up.
“What kind of ‘kite’ would I be? I was just teaching him a lesson.” Bai Yunfei frowned, “Xiao Lan wanted to eat them, so I had to stop that.”
“.....”
Zheng Kai couldn’t help but shake his head after he heard the story of what really transpired, “Tsk tsk, Zheng Kai and Li Chen deserved it. They would’ve gotten away with it if it was anyone else, but since it was you, they really bit off more than they could chew, haha….it sucks that I wasn’t there, I missed a great show!”
He laughed, but his face grew slightly somber afterwards. “But I have to warn you, Yunfei. You’ve managed to anger the houses of five ministers in the Capital. They most likely won’t take the fact that you’ve mistreated their younglings without an argument. I’ve heard that aside from the Cheng, the other four have already joined together in their anger for you. They’ll most likely try to start something soon, so be prepared.”
“Oh?” Bai Yunfei uttered, so Zheng Kai was here to ‘report’ to him? “How do you think they’ll ‘start’ something?”
“I’m not sure, but there’s a possibility that they’ll simply just have people come over and kidnap you.”
“Kidnap me?” Bai Yunfei asked, “Do they have Soul Kings, how many do you think?”
“Soul Kings?! And how many?!” Zheng Kai’s eyes grew wide, “You’re taking this rather easily, do you think Soul Kings are like carrots waiting to be pulled from the ground? There’s almost a million soul cultivators in the Capital alone, and no more than five hundred of those will be Soul Kings. Do you really think a Soul King will do something because of something this minor?”
Bai Yunfei sighed in relief, “That’s good then, no one strong will come then.”
“......”
The absolute calmness of Bai Yunfei was nearly praiseworthy. But when Zheng Kai thought about just how strong Bai Yunfei was and how strong his two class seven soulbeasts were, he had to admit, there wasn’t really much of a need to be scared.
……
At that moment, another person came to the outside of the courtyard.
“Lord Bai, your underling has a report to give.”
This man didn’t walk inside the courtyard, he merely stopped in front of the gates to the place. It was an old man in his fifties. As regular as he seemed, he looked quite hale and hearty for his age. This was the housekeeper Bai Yunfei hired to take care of his home.
With how large his home was, Bai Yunfei knew he himself wouldn’t be able to clean it. In order to avoid it becoming a haunted house with dust and such, Bai Yunfei had a few people hired to take care of the place. They cleaned up the entirety of his home aside from this isolated courtyard where Bai Yunfei would be by himself without any servants or maids. Aside from housekeeping, protecting, his servants had also the responsibility of passing on messages to him.
The entirety of the cleaning staff had been hired by Zheng Kai on behalf of Bai Yunfei.
“Uncle Xu, come in.” Bai Yunfei nodded, “What is it?”
The old man came into the courtyard to respectfully hand Bai Yunfei a red letter. “This just came in from a guest. They said it is an invitation for lord Bai to attend.”
“An invitation?” Bai Yunfei took the letter in confused surprise, “Did they say who it was from?”
The old man shook his head. “They left after handing the invitation. They said that lord Bai would understand as soon as you see the letter.”
“Ah, very well then.” Bai Yunfei nodded, “You may leave then, uncle Xu.”
……
“What does it say? Who’s inviting you?”
Zheng Kai asked rather strangely as soon as the letter-bearer left.
“Haha, just as we were talking about it, this invitation came….” Bai Yunfei laughed and handed the letter to Zheng Kai to see.
Zheng Kai took the letter, flipping it open to look. “The houses of Li, Zeng, Zhu, and Peng?! They sure do move quickly, but….an invitation to a ‘banquet’?? What kind of banquet is this?”
“What kind?” Bai Yunfei smiled, “One like the Hongmen Feast. How unexpected that they’d try this kind of tactic instead.”
TL Note: The Feast of Hongmen. Liu Bang was nearly killed under the pretense of a feast by rival Xiang Yu.
“The Hongmen Feast? What’s that?”
“Er….it was a malicious one, nevermind. Basically, they’re inviting me to a banquet and then while I’m there, they’re going to teach me a lesson, doesn’t that sound about right?”
This letter of invitation was from the houses of the four people Bai Yunfei punished yesterday.
It was however short one name, the house of Cheng. And that in itself made Bai Yunfei quite suspicious. Of the five people he angered due to yesterday, the Cheng should’ve been the most furious. Why weren’t they a part of this banquet, were they planning something else?
“It says the banquet will be held in a villa outside the Capital, that doesn’t bode well….” Zheng Kai narrowed his eyes. “If they’re going to host this banquet together, are they afraid of you then? There’s no way they’d forget about what you did yesterday, but to join together like this….Yunfei, what are you going to do? Do you want me to come with you?”
“Come with me? Who says I’m going to go?” Bai Yunfei frowned.
“Ah?” Zheng Kai whipped his head to look at him, “You’re not going?!”
Bai Yunfei shrugged, “Why should I go when they ask? Aren’t they just going to try and mistreat me if I do go?”
So….a situation like this could be answered in such a way like that?!
Then again, Bai Yunfei’s answer wasn’t a wrong one. He didn’t have to go at all.
“But, you not going will be clearly sending a message that you don’t care for them. How do you think they’ll react to that? Won’t they really try and ‘kidnap’ you then?”
“Who cares then. Fight fire with water and water with earth. I’m far too lazy to go of my own accord. If they really want to take revenge, they’ll have to come and start it themselves.”
……
The next day, Bai Yunfei really did just ignore the feast as he said he would in favor of living his life as he did normally.
As for however the people at the banquet reacted his no-show, Bai Yunfei didn’t know, and however angry they got, Bai Yunfei didn’t care.
Strangely enough, another day went by without any sign of movement from the four houses.
On the evening of the fifth day since Bai Yunfei broke Cheng Xin’s arms, Bai Yunfei came back home from the Soothing Heart to yet another invitational letter.
But this letter was a little different than expected…..