Chapter 156: The Troubles of a Sect (Patreon)

Liu Wei had it with feasts.

He’d had several hosted for him while visiting his allies throughout the Lunar Peaks Sect’s territory, another one at the School of Blooming Dawn and the next one at the Burning Thorns Sect was in full swing.

Ordinarily, he was by no means averse to festive activities. He found much of the etiquette expected of him at gatherings like these to be unnecessary, but the instincts he had built up over centuries guided him through them as easily as taking a leisurely walk, so he wasn’t bothered by them. He’d also grown accustomed to being the reason for a feast to be held, though he felt little satisfaction from it and would rather see people celebrate each other or exceptional deeds and accomplishments.

This, however, was simply one too many feasts in too short a period of time for someone like him, who was used to the quiet and temperate day-to-day lifestyle of a sect.

What’s more was that this time, he was having to play the part of a power-hungry, self-important elder that would visit a struggling sect just to interfere with its succession to his own selfish ends, with all the self-aggrandizing gestures and behavior that came with that sort of role.

Back when he had been after nothing but power and wealth, he hadn’t even found this part of the “game” distasteful; now, he abhorred it. Not to mention that he had to deliberately play it badly. If he was truly after those things, he would handle it in an entirely different way that he was rather certain none of the Burning Thorns Sect’s elders would catch on to.

As he sat at the massive head of the massive table filled with lavish and exotic delicacies and ample rice wine, enriched with costly spirit herbs, chatting over banal topics with the elders of the sect, he wished for nothing more than sharing a cup of tea with Ma Rong as they both pursued their own thoughts in silence.

Still, playing along with this sort of thing was necessary for his purposes and it wasn’t as if it did nothing to advance his investigation. Between all the inconsequential prattle he was subjected to, Liu Wei did pick up on quite a bit of information that was of interest to him, both from the elders he was talking to and from simultaneously listening to the chatter of the ordinary sect members all around them.

For one, Patriarch Sha’s death had occurred about ten days before the assassination at his sect, eliminating the man as a possible suspect. While his head had been found near the sect grounds, impaled on a spear, his body hadn’t been recovered, making it impossible to ascertain the cause of his death.

Liu Wei still wondered about that himself. He just couldn’t picture how a group of demonic cultivators could kill a Dao Contemplation Realm cultivator. He’d find out eventually, of course, since, though it wasn’t his main goal here, he wasn’t about to let a demonic cult run rampant like this when he was in the area.

Since Zang Sha’s death, the sect had entered a partial shutdown, with members only allowed to leave with the explicit permission of the elders. That, however, hadn’t prevented a string of further assassinations from being carried out by the cult, targeting the sect’s elders one by one.

In fact, most of those Liu Wei had been introduced to as elders hadn’t actually been elders before this whole ordeal had begun. Just like the Lunar Peaks Sect, the Burning Thorns Sect usually selected its elders by cultivation. In their case, all who made it to the peak of the Dao Attunement Realm got to carry the title.

At some point, however, the assassinations had left them in a situation where there weren’t enough elders left in the sect to fulfill the leadership duties they should have had. It was then that they decided to promote several of the sects’ members below the peak of the Dao Attunement Realm to the rank of honorary elder.

By now, Lead Elder Tang Luli and the masked woman who Liu Wei had gotten to know as Lixian Shen were the ‘proper’ elders the sect had left, a situation even more dire than Liu Wei had heard of before visiting the sect himself.

In all of this mess, the succession to the position of patriarch was still up in the air. The title would go to whoever managed to reach the Dao Contemplation Realm first, but the elders handled as the top candidates had all been among the assassinated. Between the two remaining, Luli had mostly unified the other elder’s support behind him, being the head of the sect’s most prominent clan. Meanwhile, Lixian Shen was a relatively new elder and her clan wasn’t from the sect itself but from a nearby city.

It was late in the evening, drink had turned the mood of most members jolly and carefree, when Lead Elder Tang Luli recused himself for a while. When he returned, it was at the head of a small procession of members headed right for Liu Wei. Each was carrying wooden boxes of varying sizes, decorated with extensive engravings. As they made their way through the crowd, several more members everywhere in the crowd began to quiet people down. Liu Wei didn’t need to see the man’s self-important gestures or hear what he was about to say to know where this was headed.

Tang Luli, of course, gestured and spoke anyway.

“Our honored guest, Elder Wei of the Lunar Peaks Sect, it is with the greatest pleasure that we welcome you here in our humble sect. To commemorate our gratitude, please let the Burning Thorns Sect present you with some gifts directly from our treasury!”

Bribery, of course. The standard outcome of a visit like this.

“To begin with, we present to you some of the best products of our alchemists, humble as they may be compared to those of your own sect: A Flame Origin Pill, a Burning Essence Pill, two tier five Qi Kindling Pills and several more of the same value.”

The first member of the procession stepped forward and put down the stack of pill containers he was holding before Liu Wei.

“Next, we have some of the exotic findings or our traders: The essence of a half-step phoenix, the core of a volcanic flame-eater snake, the salivary glands of an awakened salamander and the horns of a desert drake.”

Two members carrying the mentioned items stepped forward and put them down.

“From our craftsmen we have an excellent set of armor, its pieces carved whole out of the trunk of one of our most impressive pine trees in generations. It survived ten instances of our blazing forest festival, each fortifying and refining its wood, before we harvested it! Accompanying it is a sword that was…”

Liu Wei only listened with one ear as the man continued to rattle down the long list of gifts. Some of these were genuinely impressive for a sect of this size; he certainly couldn’t accuse Tang Luli of stinginess, though it hadn’t escaped his attention that the lead elder had pulled these treasures from the sect treasury, not from his own family’s wealth.

Regardless, he was not exactly short on resources right now anyway. Cultivating without using any of them left his political pursuits and his engagement with the Training Hall his only significant expenditures and he had managed to turn the latter self-sufficient before it had consumed more than an insignificant chunk of the wealth he had built up over his long life of pursuing wealth before everything else. Combined with the massive spoils he had received from the war against the Roaring Thunder Sect, his personal wealth was now likely almost approaching that of some of the less affluent pillar families, even before counting the value of the zither, which was difficult to estimate but undoubtedly enormous.

All of that was to say: Whatever the Burning Thorns Sect could offer him was little more than a drop in the bucket to him. He was much more interested in what Tang Luli intended to ask of him for such a massive bribe.

Luckily, that question would be answered soon, as the aforementioned was finally done going through the gifts and, under cheers of his sect members, stepped closer to him. Liu Wei had no intention in drawing this out, so he spoke up immediately.

“Elder Luli, allow me to express my gratitude to your sect. If there is a way I can repay your generosity, please do tell me about it.”

“Honored Elder Wei, your presence alone is already gift enough to us! Our gifts are meant to honor you, please think not of repaying them.”

He paused, as if to think about his next sentence, before continuing.

“Ah, but if there is something I could ask of you: Please do not waste your valuable time on the pursuit of the demonic cult. I can assure you that my people are already handling it as we speak.”

Liu Wei furrowed his brows. Now this was an unexpected request.