Chapter 490: Guests from Heavenly Wind
Translator: chuchutrain Editor: Rock, DavidT
The midday sun shone down relentlessly as Ling Chen stood at the hilltop, gazing at the roads below. Her current position was a covert one, able to cover the entire view of the road, yet not allowing anyone below to notice her presence. Unless one ascended the hill and combed the area, no one would be able to discover her surveillance. However, in order to comb this hill, one would minimally require a force of a thousand strong in order to be effective. While the Shui Family entourage was comprised of experts, their population was definitely below 1000.
In another hour at most, the Shui Family from Heavenly Wind Continent would pass by here on their way to Sky Bearing. Ling Chen wanted to know just what sort of trash would arrive this time around. Would any of them have the ability to go against the Yu Family experts present in Sky Bearing?
Once they entered the city, their first task would definitely be to hide a certain portion of their forces in preparation to be a trump card. Ling Chen was unwilling to let such a hidden card exist, and thus she had to take the chance to analyze the complete battle strength of their enemy. This was her motive for coming here.
Following by her side was a lady dressed like a servant girl. She looked ordinary in all aspects, as though she was someone who possessed no martial arts background. Compared with the elegant and outstanding peerless talent who was Ling Chen, she paled even more in comparison. However, if one gazed across the entire hilltop, there were only the two of them. Was it too careless of the overseer of the current Ling Family Courtyard to go out without guards?
To those with evil intentions, this might be the best opportunity! So long as they could kill Ling Chen right now, then the entire Ling Family Courtyard would end up in chaos, hitting hard on Ling Tian's forces. This would lead to irreparable damages.
The ground trembled a little, causing Ling Chen's brows to jump up as she indifferently spoke, "They're coming."
But the servant girl smiled instead, "But they're not here yet!"
This caused Ling Chen to crack into a smile as well as she replied, "They'll definitely come, and in fact, very soon. Such an opportune chance, even if it was us, we would do the same!"
The servant girl tittered as well, "Yep, I believe that they'll arrive soon. After all, they're more anxious than you can ever be. And besides, if they were to miss this chance, they would not know how long they would have to wait until they can catch you working on your own again. The folly of mortals; how could an obvious chance not have any sort of traps hidden within?"
A smirking expression appeared in Ling Chen's eyes, as she praised, "Sister's scheme is indeed profound. For the next step, are you planning to deploy the troops to the South?"
Ling Chen actually addressed the servant girl as 'sister'!
The servant girl lifted up her head. There was none of the gratitude on her face when faced with a superior, but instead an extraordinary penetrative gaze that shot out from her eyes. If Ling Tian was present he would have gotten a shock, for that was the great miss Li Xue! She only leisurely replied, "Not announcing before warring will lead one to fall for schemes in the end. Since we are going to attack, we have to do it openly and through the proper channels, or else it will be taken as an offense. The other influences will be able to use this offense as an excuse to attack us instead; hence not only must one have the ambition and ability, one also must have an excuse to go to war. It does not matter if the excuse is acceptable or has a basis.
Ling Chen smiled in response, "What sister is really worried about isn't the various powers, right? But rather, it is the sentiments of the people from all over the world!"
A gleam of intelligence shone out from Li Xue's eyes, as she took over, "Since we want to start a war, then we will need to consider the sentiments of the public. Merely focusing on barbarically forcing our way to hegemony will only result in many problems, big or small, even if we unify the lands in the end! What we should do is take the chance while we are conquering the lands to bring the sentiments of the public towards us. That is far more troublesome and complicated."
The crashing sounds grew closer, as a great number of troops slowly closed in towards the path beside the cliff. At the forefront, urging her horse on, was the little princess of the Shui Family, Shui QianRou. One could see that her face was split currently between fear, anxiety, and anger, as well as a tinge of resentment and frustration.
Beside her, seated on three huge horses, were handsome looking youths. All three of them had on expressions of arrogance, and following them were over ten elders, dressed in black and silently following behind, but casting their wary eyes all around their surroundings.
Behind them were actually more horses as well as four chariots! This was a little out of her expectations. One had to know that when the Shui Family wanted to invite their members over, all of the warhorses were provided by Ling Chen from the Ling Family. The report from Shui QianRou mentioned that roughly 500 members were coming over, and so Ling Chen prepared an excess of 600.
However, the facts in front of Ling Chen showed differently. How were there only five hundred men present? It was closer to a thousand men!
Going so far as to hide her family's troop strength even in their own report to their own family, what was the Shui Family trying to achieve?
Seeing the slowly passing troop of Shui Family experts, those burly men squeezing in twos or three onto a horse with a discomfited expression, a sneer appeared in the corners of Li Xue's mouth. She turned to Ling Chen, "Little sister indeed has godly calculation abilities, to actually have predicted that the people from the Shui family did not come with good intentions. It seems like that's the case right now."
"This did not come from me," Ling Chen gave a dry laugh, "But rather, young noble had long instructed that if anything untoward happened, we must be prepared to deal with more than two times the number of troops. Only then can we rest easy at night! This is because any sort of high leveled opponent would definitely have some sort of trump card, and when they go against another expert, what they're actually comparing is the trump cards of each party!"
Within Li Xue's eyes appeared a hint of suppressed laughter as she muttered, "Once bitten, twice shy."
Because of her whisper, Ling Chen could not catch her words and ended up asking, "What did sister say?"
"Nothing much." Li Xue's clear gaze refocused on the troops slowly passing by below them, scrutinizing every single expert with her divine sense. It was only after a long while that she gave a big sigh, "The capital of the Shui Family is indeed huge, to have at least ten people in the XianTian realm. There are even two or three of them whose skills are not below that of you and Ling Jian."
Ling Chen nodded her head in response, "That only makes sense. They've come so far into Sky Bearing and would definitely have some sort of preparations, or else it would not justify them coming over. However, why does sister not compare herself with them, do you disdain them as below you?"
Li Xue angrily huffed, "That fellow made me promise that if there was no emergency, I would not be allowed to take action! If it wasn't for this promise, then just based off my own strength, I could make all these promising elites all be buried right here on this cliff! I don't know what that guy is driving at, but he seems to have driven his brain nuts!"
"Just your own strength?! You can annihilate all thousand of them?!!!" Ling Chen stared open mouthed in shock at Li Xue who was beside her, fright displayed in her eyes.
Just by looking, and using the senses of a martial arts expert, Ling Chen had long found out that this bunch of people below her could not be provoked easily. Just by talking about strength, even if Ling Tian, Ling Jian, Ling Chen, and Li Xue combined hands, they might not have a great chance of success. However, Li Xue now was saying that based on her own strength, she could wipe out all of them! Even if it was Heavenly Justice himself, he probably would not have that much strength, right?"
Having interacted with her for a time, Ling Chen was clear that Li Xue was not someone who liked to brag. Just what sort of frightening methods did she have in order to secure such a frightening victory? This was Ling Chen's biggest question. Hearing her speak, it seemed like Ling Tian was unwilling for her to use such methods. Since she possessed such great strength, able to annihilate so many people in a go and yet protect herself, then why did the Young Noble not agree to her participation?"
Was there something odd about this?
From below the cliff came hearty laughter, "... oh? Seems like the young ... master is still recovering from his wounds?" The speaker dragged out the two words young master, as though hinting at something different, and one could hear the ridicule in his words.
Shui QianRou immediately turned her head back, looking at the youth dressed in black and angrily saying, "Why? You have something to say?"
"Hahaha... " The youth acted as though there was nobody else present, immediately bursting into laughter, "I remember someone bragging during the Elder's meeting that he would go over to Heavenly Star and flip the entire place upside down, beating the Yu Family black and blue, allowing our Shui Family to have a stronghold within that couldn't be taken down… hahaha… why is it that without even a year passing, he's lying on the bed just like a dying dog? So where is the unbreakable fortress he promised, where is the Yu Family being beaten black and blue that he promised?!" The youth's words were extremely acidic and cutting, his words extremely grating as it fell onto the ears of others.
Shui QianRou was so angry that her face turned green, but just as she was about to retort, another youth took the chance to jump in as he laughed, "QianHai, this part you're probably unaware. You must know that the Heavenly Star Continent is full of illustrious spirits, to the point that the number one profligate can also turn into some immense expert in front of the sister of our young ... master. Furthermore, there are so many profligates all over the place in Sky Bearing that even if our entire family came over, we probably can't even fight them! The fact that young ... master and Sister Rou can survive in this place can already be said to be not easy. You don't have to be too harsh on them as this will affect our family's unity, hahaha."
This person's words were even more loaded, with a weird tone, now high then low, as though singing a song. However, the laugh and his words all were dripping with disdain.
"So it's like that!" The final youth who was seated on horseback used a tone of realization as he replied, "If you put it that way, then young ... master and his sister have already done a great job for our Shui Family! Such a glorious achievement, who in our family could compare? Respect, respect! I'm deeply in respect! Indeed the children of our family head, living up to the name of 'Twin Pillars of Heavenly Wind'! Brothers, we all must learn from them!