Chapter 680: Sudden Happenings
“Yunfei, are you awake?”
As Bai Yunfei was ruminating on the problems of yesternight, a knock on the door and a voice from behind signalled to him a visitor.
Snapping out from his thoughts, Bai Yunfei gave a small smile. Rising up to walk to the door, he opened it to see a young woman wearing a white-robe stand on the other side.
“You’re a little early, Xinyun. You must’ve been tired yesterday, a little more rest wouldn’t hurt.”
“We were only strolling yesterday, what is there to be tired about?” She smiled, “But what about you? Are….are you fine?”
She looked up and down at him, only to see how bright and energetic his soulforce was. Without any other wounds to be seen, Tang Xinyun sighed inwardly in relief and felt at ease.
A warm sensation filled Bai Yunfei from the chest up. He nodded his head, “Haha, I’ve said not to worry about me. You know about my circumstances. With all my ‘stuff’ on me, a little wound will heal quickly.”
“You say that, but weren’t you covered with bruises yesterday? You only went to investigate yesterday, so how did you get into a fight?”
“Ah….that—well, it’s a long story, but in short, I didn’t really have a choice.”
The two moved their conversation out to the courtyards where Tang Xinyun sat on a stool next to the central stone table. With a gentle wave of her hand, Tang Xinyun had bowls of congee and vegetables places onto the table. “Let’s eat first or the meal will get cold.”
A little surprised at the prospect of having a meal, Bai Yunfei acquiesced nonetheless. Sitting at the table, he took a bowl of congee into his hand and drank a bit of it. As the grains flowed down his throat, Bai Yunfei smiled warmly at the taste—the congee was quite sweet to the taste.
He kept drinking the congee, never once touching at the vegetables on the table, much to Tang Xinyun’s displeasure. She pursed her lips so that her dimples could be seen on her cheeks and deposited some vegetables into his bowl. Handing his chopsticks to him, she asked, “What….happened yesterday night? You said you were only going to look, but how did you end up like this? How did you end up fighting someone else?”
Bai Yunfei pinched at the vegetables with his chopsticks and washed the rest of the congee down in two gulps. Eating the vegetables afterwards, he wiped his mouth and looked around the area. “Yesterday was….” he spoke slowly, “is actually my fault. When I came to the Capital, I….came into a bit of trouble. I never thought they’d go after you. But it’s fine now. I’m sure they won’t be causing trouble for us again.”
The eyebrows on Tang Xinyun’s face rose in astonishment, “Did….did you kill them?”
There was only cold fury in Bai Yunfei’s eyes. “They asked for it! I was so patient with them, but this time, I’ve gotten rid of the problem. They won’t be causing any more troubles now.”
Tang Xinyun looked at Bai Yunfei. There was something off about Bai Yunfei, she could tell that much. The aura of one who was prone to killing was more palpable to him now.
“But….won’t this cause any problems?” She asked him in concern. “Who were those people? Won’t you be at risk of revealing your identity? If someone finds out it was you who did it, won’t they….”
“Haha, don’t worry. I was very careful on how I did this. There won’t be any proof, they won’t be able to find out anything.”
Bai Yunfei thought for a moment before continuing on, “But….it’s not like everything’s right in the world. I can’t guarantee that they won’t dare do anything else, so I have to pay careful attention from here on out. It’s best that you, Tingting, and Doraemon don’t go off to anywhere beyond the busy parts of the Capital just in case.”
Not quite assured by that either, Bai Yunfei said again, “How about this? I think it’d be best if you all live within Tianhun Academy for now. It’ll definitely be safe there, haha….you can experience what life will be like as students.”
“Live in the academy?” Tang Xinyun restated in surprise, “If that’s what you want,” she nodded. “I’ll talk with Tingting and little Rui, I’m sure they won’t mind much. We’ve done plenty of playing recently, staying in the academy won’t be too bad.”
“I’m sorry, Xinyun….” Bai Yunfei apologized, “You haven’t even been in the Capital for long and I’ve already brought you all into danger. I’m….”
“Don’t say it like that,” Tang Xinyun reassured him with a smile, “What ‘danger’ is there? There’ll always be things like this. Don’t worry, we can take care of ourselves. We’re Soul exalts too, don’t take us for women that needs protecting.”
“Ah, if you say so then, haha…” Bai Yunfei laughed, though he let out a sigh to himself. After fighting with a Soul King, Bai Yunfei no longer really thought a Soul Exalt to be anyone strong. There was probably no one within the Soul Exalt realm that was stronger than he was….
……
“Yunfei! Yunfei!!! I’ve big news to tell you, big news I say…!”
A hurried voice called out to Bai Yunfei from outside the courtyard. A moment later, a person came running into the courtyard—it was Zheng Kai.
He came to a screeching halt in the courtyards as soon as he saw Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun both sitting next to each other at the stone table. Embarrassed, he scratched his head. “Ah….was I...er….am I disturbing you two? Shall I wait outside then?”
Bai Yunfei’s lip twitched.
“Wait my ass, come on over, what are you so excited for? What big news have you got?”
“Hehe….” Zheng Kai walked over to the other open chair at the table and sat down. Kou Tingting and Huangfu Rui came from behind to sit next to Tang Xinyun. Huangfu Rui looked a little groggy, clearly having not yet fully wakened yet and leaned her head to rest on Kou Tingting’s shoulder to close her eyes to make for a rather laughable sight.
Bai Yunfei turned on Zheng Kai, “What is it, spit it out now.”
Looking as mysterious as possible, Zheng Kai whispered surreptitiously, “This is definitely big news. Something has happened to the sons of the Left and Right Ministers!!”
“Oh???” Bai Yunfei perked an eyebrow, “What kind of something? Should you be so excited about the happenings in the Royal Court?”
“It’s not like that, the next generation of the two families had accidents happen to them!” Zheng Kai pressed on, “The heir to the Xu, Xu Jiang, was attacked by someone yesterday afternoon!”
“Xu Jiang?” Bai Yunfei pretended to be curious, “Someone attacked him? What happened?”
“I heard he was taking care of a few things outside the Capital when he was ambushed. All of his guards were killed—even an early-stage Soul King!! Xu Jiang’s entire body was a bloody pulp, they said he would’ve been dead if not for his family getting there in time. No one saw the attacker either, and Xu Jiang’s still unconscious. No one knows when he’s going to wake up, but it looks pretty serious. I think it’s going to take a year and a half for him to even heal.”
“It’s that serious?!” Bai Yunfei exclaimed.
“It is. No one’s sure just what kind of grudge his attacker had for him. What a shame, big brother Xu Jiang wasn’t half bad a person. He gets along with my brother and was also one of his friendly rivals. He’s on par with Cheng Yao almost, though I think I heard he was on the way to becoming a Soul King sooner or later. Him getting hurt like this will definitely set him a good ways back in his training, how unlucky….”
“Does anyone know who might’ve done it?”
“Who?” Zheng Kai frowned, “The majority of people are guessing that it’s the Cheng, but those are just rumors. No evidence has been found yet, though the Cheng are the most guilty in my opinion. The Xu and Cheng have never gotten along, but they’ve never done something like this against one another. We can’t rule it in either way….”
“Of course it’s the Cheng. Their plans were supposed to be a lot worse than this….” Bai Yunfei thought to himself. He couldn’t say what was on his mind, so he changed the topics, “You said something happened to both the sons, so what happened to the family of the Minister of the Right?”
Zheng Kai’s eyes lit up brilliantly at that. Seemingly relishing at the impending news, he laughed, “Hehe, what happened to the Cheng was a lot worse actually. Do you remember the third son, Cheng Xin? That guy was killed yesterday night in his villa in the western outskirts!!”
Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun both looked shocked at this.
Bai Yunfei was of course, pretending to be shocked, while Tang Xinyun’s emotions were genuine. While Zheng Kai wasn’t looking, she gave Bai Yunfei a quick look. Putting two and two together, she had already a good feeling Bai Yunfei and this person was connected, but….the one Bai Yunfei killed was actually the son of a prime minister! That was what she was shocked most over. However, she did a nice job in masking her emotions before Zheng Kai could see it.
“Cheng Xin was killed?” Bai Yunfei replied in ‘astonishment’, “How? By whom?”
“Not sure, but I heard the killer blew himself up at the end so we don’t even have any clues. The Cheng don’t know who it might be, or who might’ve done it.” Zheng Kai shrugged, “Other than that, the killer also killed a few other influential sons. Those who were killed were Li Chen, Peng Guanghua, Zeng Fei, and Zhu Yizhu!”
“They were killed too?!” Bai Yunfei exclaimed, ‘surprised’.
“Yeah, I heard they were all gathered for something, but they were killed right afterwards.
“In any case, those idiotic hedonists annoyed you before….” Zheng Kai stared at Bai Yunfei with a bit of a smile on his face, “Yunfei, don’t tell me you’re involved in this somehow?”