Chapter 1147: Kill With A Borrowed Knife
Zhang Yuelu could not help but feel a bit emotional at how greatly Qi Xuansu had changed.
This wandering Daoist was no longer roaming Jianghu and was now studying military strategy.
Last time, Qi Xuansu used his own assassination attempt as a pretext to force Xie Jiaofeng and Qin Hengjun into compliance. Not only did they cease to be obstacles, but they even became his allies. He successfully leveraged the power of the Nanting Protectorate and used them to quell the riots in Lion City and suppress the Holy Court’s forces.
Eventually, Xie Jiaofeng and Qin Hengjun were on the same boat as him. It was far too late for them to disembark, so they could only follow the path to its bitter end.
This time, Qi Xuansu was killing with a borrowed knife.
Qi Xuansu despised Li Tianzhen, yet he could not kill him outright. After all, Qi Xuansu was not yet powerful enough to openly go against the Li family. But releasing Li Tianzhen was intolerable, and keeping the arrogant young master around him was a ticking bomb.
Qi Xuansu might not truly seek Li Tianzhen’s death, but he certainly wanted that arrogant man to suffer. So Qi Xuansu chose to use someone else to deal with Li Tianzhen, and that “someone else” was Sage Qingwei.
More precisely, it was the faction led by Sage Qingwei. The Li family had its own internal conflicts. The friction between Sage Qingwei and the Li family elders was no secret. Unlike the Zhang family, whose disputes were mostly about bloodline, the Li family’s conflicts stemmed from ideological differences and grudges formed in Sage Qingwei’s youth.
Li Tianzhen belonged to the elder faction of the Li family. Naturally, Sage Qingwei would not let such an opportunity slip by.
Qi Xuansu had considered whether Sage Qingwei might spare Li Tianzhen to win the elders’ support. But he ultimately believed that would not happen.
If Sage Qingwei had wished to do so, he would have done it long ago, not now. As the next leader of the Li family, Sage Qingwei’s position was unshakable. It was the elders who picked battles out of idle dissatisfaction because the future head of the family refused to back down.
In truth, Sage Qingwei intended to emulate the Holy Xuan in subduing the Li family, making them follow his will.