Chapter 59 - The Situation Surges
Beiming family, Ice Pavilion
The Ice Pavilion was made of Snow Ice Stones which were naturally gelid stones, even on a hot summer day, it would still be radiating freezing cold energy.
The Ice Pavilion was made up of nine levels, each as tall as ten zhang. Overflowing with freezing air, it looked like a frigid ice mountain.
[TL note: one zhang 丈 is approximately ten feet]
This was where Beiming Shang usually trained at.
The Beiming family’s Polar Ice Flame Martial Spirit, was cold in nature. Cultivating in an Ice Pavilion made of Snow Ice Stones was incredibly beneficial to the Beiming family’s Polar Ice Flame Martial Spirit.
Usually, unless tempering himself with a secret treasure, Beiming Shang would never leave the Ice Pavilion.
Everyone who wished to meet the Beiming family head had to endure the cold energy of the Ice Pavilion in order to see him.
Beiming Shang would never take into account the feelings of others, he would only make others accommodate him.
As you go up levels in the Ice Pavilion, the cold energy gets worse, even when the ordinary sons of the Beiming family come to visit, they would only wait at the third or fourth level. If they kept going up, it would be too much for their body to handle.
Level six of the Ice Pavilion.
In the middle of the erect ice pillars, sat the hulking Beiming Shang, his body was shrouded by lingering cold energy. On the ice pillars of the sixth level, strange ice flames were burning bright, making the freezing energy even more chilling to the bones.
Mo Tuo furrowed his eyebrows, and stood across from Beiming Shang. Next to him was the handsome Beiming Ce.
Yin Kui and Jiu San were like two ghastly shadows, sitting behind two ice pillars. They lowered their heads, as if already asleep.
Lead by one of the warriors in the Ice Pavilion, Mu Yu Die and Di Yalan entered the sixth level of the Ice Pavilion.
The cold energy of this level had twice the strength of the fifth level!
The two girls took one step into the sixth level, and their delicate bodies shook, as if stepping into an ice pit, while their limbs began to slowly stiffen.
“You’re here.” Beiming Ce stepped forward, and shot a meaningful glance at Mu Yu Die, “This is my grandpa, and this… is the head of the Mo family,”
Mu Yu Die and Di Yalan’s faces simultaneously changed, the two of them looked at Mo Tuo, as their expressions became stiff as stone.
The death of Luo Hao and Hu Long was described very clearly. Aside from the intervention of Bernard and the Crescent Emissaries of the Dark World, there were also strikes of lightning from the sky.
Afterwards the two girls had seen Mo Chaoge, they knew that Mo Chaoge definitely had something to do with Luo Hao’s death.
Unfortunately the Mo family held a great amount of power in the Merchant Union, and they also had connections with the Beiming family. When Beiming Ce simply shouted at Mo Chaoge to go away, he clearly didn’t want to get into a difficult situation with the Mo family, and he had no intention of speaking out for the girls.
Now they suddenly encountered the head of the Mo family with the Beiming family, Mu Yu Die and Di Yalan felt displeased. However, in front of Beiming Shang, there was nothing they could really do, so they only sulked in secrecy.
“Nice to see you Grandpa Shang.” Together Mu Yu Die and Di Yalan bowed to Beiming Shang, purposely ignoring Mo Tuo.
Mo Tuo looked as usual, with a slight smile on his lips, as if he didn’t mind the disregard at all.
“I heard the two of you were in the Dark Forest, you stayed with some boy for a while? I want to discuss certain things about this boy, would you happen to know his background?” Beiming Shang lightly nodded, his long thin eyes expressionless, and asked straight to the point.
Mu Yu Die’s heart shuddered, she hesitated, then said, “Only an insignificant little warrior, how did Grandpa Shang come to know about such a person?”
“He has something I want.” Beiming Shang furrowed his eyebrows, and said: “Do you know where he comes from?”
Shaking her head, Mu Yu Die responded, “I don’t know, we met him along the road. We only travelled together because we were afraid of the beasts killing people. As for this person’s background, I have no idea. All I know is that his name is Ding Yan, I think he’s some ordinary warrior from the merchant union.”
“Ding Yan…” Beiming Shang nodded, then paused for a moment and said, “Do you know which city he is from, or which region he goes around?”
“I don’t know.” Mu Yu Die shook her head again.
Beiming Shang suddenly became silent, after a moment, he spoke faintly, “Okay, there’s nothing else. In some time, the Martial Competition is going to be held. You two and Ce should go and watch. If you stay here all the time, I think you all will get bored. Your grandpa and I had some friendship back in the day, and now that he’s gone, of course I will take care of you. Don’t worry, the people of the Dark World can’t touch you here in the Merchant Union.”
“Thank you, Grandpa Shang.” Mu Yu Die’s eyes moistened, her voice sobbing lightly, “Whenever I think of what happened to our family, I want to burn those people alive! Hundreds of people in the Mu family, all slaughtered in one night, Grandpa Shang, you have to help me!”
“You can’t rush such things, we’ll talk about it later.” Beiming Shang nodded, waving his hand as he said, “You can go rest, this level is too cold, with your capability it will be too hard to bear.”
“Yes.” Without further ado, Mu Yu Die bowed and lightly pulled on Di Yalan’s clothes. The two exited together.
“Could that girl have hidden the truth?” After the girls left, Mo Tuo spoke with furrowed brows: “With only a name, it would be very difficult to search.”
“Ce, what do you think?” Beiming Shang looked at Beiming Ce.
“Doesn’t look like she’s lying, I can keep asking her some other time. Since the other fragment is still at Misty Pavilion, we don’t need to rush” Beiming Ce responded.
Beiming Shang nodded, and said, “Okay, you keep an eye on those two girls, remember don’t get manipulated, I don’t want you to become someone else’s weapon. Do you understand?”
“I know, Grandpa.” Beiming Ce smiled.
“Brother Mo, you don’t need to be so anxious, I’ll notify the Shi and Zuo families, and let them both look for Ding Yan. Don’t worry, I’ll use my name to search for him, you won’t get involved.” Beiming Shang said unyieldingly, “Together with the five great families of the Merchant Union, I do not believe that we can’t find a mere commoner! Humph. Remember, send someone to bring that brat’s portrait. As long as he still lives, there’s no way he can hide.”
“Okay, then I will leave now.” Mo Tuo nodded, and left without any further ado.
“Ce, keep an eye on Zuo Shi from the Zuo family. Now that she has connections with Chi Xiao, if you can take Zuo Shi as your wife, it will be much less troublesome for us.” After Mo Tuo left, Beiming Shang glanced over at Beiming Ce, and said, “That girl’s natural gifts are quite extraordinary, and she’s also Zuo Xu’s little sweetheart, quite a capricious one. If you can rein her in, that old man Zuo Xu won’t be able to do a thing, they’ll be bound to the Beiming family.”
“No need to worry, one at a time.” Beiming Ce said with confidence.
Nodding, Beiming Ce continued, “That Mu Yu Die girl is also quite talented, but although her Musical Martial Spirit is strong, it’s not of much assistance to the Polar Ice Flame Martial Spirit of our Beiming family. However, that Di Yalan has the Blue Martial Flame Martial Spirit, it could be complementary to our family’s Martial Spirit, so you have to keep a close watch on that girl, and if you can, bond with her. She might be able to give birth to an outstanding offspring of our Beiming family.”
“Don’t worry Grandpa, the things I have my eye on can never escape from me.”
“Alright, since they entered into our Beiming family, they can’t even think about leaving.”
…
The Zuo family.
Zuo Xu was in his room, leisurely drinking tea. Behind him, a dark shadow suddenly knelt down and reported, “Beiming Shang sent a messenger, he requested us to find a boy named ‘Ding Yan’, saying that he stole something from the Beiming family, and they will give us five Mystery Level weapons for the boy.”
“Five Mystery Level weapons.” Zuo Xu took a sip of tea, and smiled, “Beiming Shang is as stingy as usual, using five Mystery Level weapons he wants to get the other half of the map to the ‘Gate of Heaven’, he’s sure playing it well.”
“Master, what should we do?”
“Search for him, of course. Let our people spread the word in some cities, but don’t put too much effort into it, just finding some random dude named ‘Ding Yan’ will do, just so that guy doesn’t get suspicious.”
“Understood.”
…
The Shi family.
Shi Jian received the same message, he held the envelope and sneered: “So Mo Tuo has found Beiming Shang. Hmph! Luckily that little brat Shi Yan told me the truth, or else I’d be in the dark about this too. Beiming Shang oh Beiming Shang, you would never believe that Ding Yan is Shi Yan. Asking me to search him out, hehe, then I’ll sure help him look!”
“How?” Han Feng said faintly.
“Find a few people connected to the Mo family, make them mute, just say that they’re all called Ding Yan and send them to the Beiming family.”
“Yes.”
…
The Beiming, Zuo, Mo, Shi, and Ling families, as the Merchant Union’s five great families, started to both openly and secretly search for a guy named ‘Ding Yan’ in the nearby cities.
In a short time, the name ‘Ding Yan’ quickly became widespread.
Many of those named ‘Ding Yan’ were doomed, all taken by the five families. And many who were not named ‘Ding Yan’ but were related to the Mo family, also encountered unexpected calamities, they were beaten and crippled, forcibly muted, and escorted to the Beiming family.
Since the Martial Competition was about to start, the warriors in the Merchant Union had been grinding their fists, and those warriors from far away, were traveling thousands of miles to come to the Martial Competition.
What was funny was that a lot of these warriors who came, because their name was ‘Ding Yan’, were immediately taken by the five families.
After one night, ‘Ding Yan’ became the street villain, and everyone wanted to beat him up.
And the person who started all of this, Shi Yan, had been staying in the Shi family’s heavy weight room, jabbing his hand into a metal sand bag tens of thousands of times a day.
“Puchi!”
Shi Yan jabbed his five fingers straight in, arm deep, into the centre of the metal sand bag. He pulled out his arm, and those five fingers actually glinted with strange chilly light, as if they were blades made of steel, which was very frightening.
“Hmm, the Martial Competition is about to start, and the storm from the Misty Pavilion is coming. My [Finger Gun], is finally having some success.”