Jaw-Dropping Son-in-Law

Chapter 2018

Ye Fan merely waved off Huangniu's reminders and signaled that he knew what he ought to do.

At the sight of his nonchalant front, Huangniu rolled its eyes. “As if it'd kill him to not act cool for once.”

After rambling on for a bit, it, too, took its leave.

Before it made its exit, though, Huangniu took one last glance at Ye Fan and muttered under its breath, “You're on your own, man.”

King Folo and the others caught up with Ye Fan as soon as Huangniu was gone.

“Mr. Chu, Huangniu has uncanny skills, so why didn't you try to keep it here? Wouldn't it bolster our strength by doing that?” King Folo asked puzzledly.

Ye Fan shook his head and laughed. “This stupid calf is even less dependable than you guys. It's wishful thinking on your side to hope it would put its life on the line to help me. In fact, it's a miracle that it even agreed to help me protect Jiangdong.”

Knowing Huangniu's personality well and considering the nature of their relationship, Ye Fan was aware that Huangniu might not give him its all even when promised rewards in return.

He reckoned that it might only demonstrate a token amount of effort, so he might be better off relying on himself.

Notably, through his meeting with Huangniu, Ye Fan did learn some intel of value.

Owing to the attack that the Chu Sect had launched against China, he had no doubt that the bulk of Mount Chumen's forces would be away on deployment.

It meant that the Chu Sect itself would be doubtlessly vulnerable as of then.

Thus, he could seize the opportunity to strike at the heart of their stronghold.

Before doing so, however, Ye Fan still had some other preparations to make.

The thought of that made him turn to regard King Folo and the others. “Having ventured around the martial arts world for many years, the three of you must be considerably connected. I suppose you must know some people here.”

King Folo reacted in surprise as he did not understand what Ye Fan was hinting at.

Could it be that he wants us to go out and recruit others to lend him their strength in the upcoming battle?

“Though that may be true, the strongest among them are Grandmasters at most. As such, I doubt their addition would be very impactful,” he replied.

To his surprise, Ye Fan responded smilingly, “A Grandmaster would be more than enough. In any case, reach out to them first, the three of you. Look for those who are distinguished and influential, for there are some things I need to learn from them.”

Concurrently, Mount Chumen was in a festive mood.

In the hall, the head of elders, Tang Xian, was sharing a hearty drink with a couple of elders of the Chu Sect who had also stayed behind to guard the place.

“Hahaha... Ever since Old Master issued his dictate, leaders from the martial arts world of one hundred and twenty countries have sent us letters expressing their willingness to swear allegiance to us! So long as we are able to subdue those few nations from East Aploth, it would become difficult for the remaining martial arts worlds from Western Epea to keep up their resistance. It would thus only be a matter of time before we accomplish our goals!”

The elders inside the hall drank merrily until their faces turned red.

That year, Ye Fan killed a significant number of elders when he stormed the Chu Sect, but by then, the vacancies had already been filled by others.

Apart from the Fifth Elder, who had recently perished in China, the Chu Sect, at present, still had eight elders that worked together to oversee the day-to-day operations within the sect.

Certainly, in terms of esteem, ability, and experience, the head of elders, Tang Xian, held absolute authority among the lot of them.

With the fires of the war raging for several months already and everything progressing steadily according to plan, a tremendous sense of accomplishment surfaced on Tang Xian's wrinkled face.

“Old Master and the others are campaigning out there, so we can't afford to slack off either! According to our plans, we must have the martial arts world from the vassal countries send all their talents who are below the age of thirty to Mount Chumen! Tell them that we'd be checking against a name list here as well, so they can expect their cities to get destroyed if any single one of them fails to show up! Also, send ten exploration teams to these new vassal countries to track down the remnants of Dragon Gate!”

With an authoritative look about him, Tang Xian gave out instructions in an orderly fashion, and the other elders variously went off to make the arrangements upon receiving them.

Shortly after, there were only a few of the confidantes of the head of elders left inside the room.

“What do you think our Old Master wants with so many youthful prodigies from the martial arts world, Mr. Tang? The ones we have here at the Chu Sect itself aren't any worse off compared to those from all these small countries, surely? And what's the deal with the remnants of Dragon Gate? What about it got the Old Master so obsessed that he had to lead a campaign to China personally?”

All along, the members of the Chu Sect assumed that the organization's ambitions to unify the martial arts world were borne of their head's own lust for power.

By ruling the whole world, the Chu Sect would be the one making the final call for every decision.

All the martial arts worlds would have to be at the sect's beck and call.

However, from the looks of it, there might be much more beyond those motivations behind the Chu Sect's bid for world domination.

It seemed as though there were other reasons for it.

It would be understandable if it were for the purpose of depriving the rest of the countries of talent.

Yet, nobody, not even the elders of the Chu Sect themselves, was in the know about the matter concerning the remnants of Dragon Gate.

In the face of his subordinates' puzzlement, Tang Xian furrowed his brows immediately. “Don't ask so many unnecessary questions; just do as you're told.”

That single utterance from him did much to shut the rest of them up.

“That reminds me. What comes of the investigations into the Fifth Elder? Have we found any leads?”

During that period, the Chu Sect's forces were actively engaged in their military conquests. With every single victory that they notched up, it appeared as though they were untouchable.

There had been, however, one particular incident that got the head of elders himself perturbed, and that was the death of the Fifth Elder and those mysterious last words the latter had left behind.

“We're still looking into it, Mr. Tang, but I'm afraid that it may ultimately prove inconclusive. According to whatever information that we have gathered so far, those who were influential in the Meng family are

dead. Any survivors would likely be nobodies in the Meng family and thus would not be able to tell us anything useful,” one of his subordinates replied.

The head of elders appeared to be even more perplexed when he heard that.

“Do we really have nothing to work with at all? It appears that the leads had been wiped clean. That couldn't have been the work of any average person,” Tang Xian analyzed calmly.

Some things, when done too thoroughly, would conversely rouse suspicions, such as it was in that case.

In spite of the deaths of the prominent members of the Meng family, they were unable to find out anything about their killer.

That suggested that the other party possessed immense power in Jiangbei for them to be able to act as they pleased.

“In that case, send a few fighters over and seize the head of Jiangbei's greatest family. He must surely know something about this.”

Once more, Tang Xian saw to making further arrangements.

Nevertheless, he remained tense.

Again, he started to recall the day the Fifth Elder died and the message the latter gave his life to return and pass along.

He's back. That man is back...

At first, the members of the Chu Sect guessed that the man in question was Chu Zhenghong.

After all, he had gone missing without news for several years.

It seemed probable for Chu Zhenghong to be the only suspect since he was capable of killing the Fifth Elder and also had an association with the Chu Sect.

However, upon careful deliberation, those of the Chu Sect deemed it impossible for Chu Zhenghong to be the murderer as he had been part of the sect and had once been the head of the Chu family.

At most, he only had some differences with the leadership of the Chu family, and they did not reach the extent where blood needed to be spilled.

As far as the Chu Sect was concerned, Chu Zhenghong bore no grudges toward them and thus had no reason to kill one of their elders.

Even if the Fifth Elder did anger Chu Zhenghong, the latter would likely refrain from killing the former on Tang Yun's account.

Tang Xian, being part of the Tang family himself, knew fully well that Chu Zhenghong had significant entanglements with the Tang family.

Back in the day, the life of the older sister of Tang Yun, who was also the eldest daughter of the Tang family, was ruined at the hands of Chu Zhenghong.

As such, Chu Zhenghong had always felt sorry toward the Tang family.

When the time came to decide who would be head of the Chu Sect, everyone's ideal candidate of choice was Chu Zhenghong, but he turned down the appointment and nominated Tang Yun for the hot seat instead. NôvelDrama.Org: text © owner.

Perhaps, that could be considered a form of reparations of sorts.

All of those considerations ultimately led Tang Xian to the conclusion that the person could not have been Chu Zhenghong.

If it wasn't him, then who? Who could have killed the Fifth Elder? Someone who could have made him risk his own life to bring us such a warning must be at least a supreme grandmaster! That person is also a man... He said he was back, which also meant that he had been to the Chu Sect... A man who has been to the Chu Sect, and not only is he of the Supreme rank, but he also happens to be our enemy...

Going by those parameters, Tang Xian swiftly narrowed down the possibilities inside his head until a silhouette finally manifested in his mind.

It's him!

Amidst his astonishment, Tang Xian's pupils constricted.