Chapter 318: The Argent Surfer
Zou Tian faced a bit of a conundrum. Or more of a moral quandary, really. What he should do and what he wanted to do were at odds.
His sect was scheduled to arrive that day, exactly one month prior to the start of the tournament. More importantly, his girlfriend was scheduled to arrive that day, and he hadn’t seen her in more than two and a half months. He desperately, desperately, desperately wanted to at least see her. Which should be fine. Viewing from a distance. Not breaking cover. All fine.
But he knew himself. If he actually was close enough to see her with his own two eyes, could he really resist getting closer and actually interacting with her?
And what about how she felt? It would tear him apart if he saw her looking around as if frantically seeking even a glimpse of him. But maybe it would be even worse if she weren’t. What if she looked happy as if him not being with her wasn’t affecting her at all?
He sighed.
His best bet was to simply stay far, far away. That would guarantee that no one could link him to his sect. Safer for them. Safer for him. Most of all, safer for her.
Zou Tian wasn’t normally what any sane person would call fidgety. His techniques required him to stay completely still, sometimes barely even breathing, for hours. And he was completely okay with that.
The prospect of Wan Ai being so close made him fidgety, though. He couldn’t just lie in the bed in the room he’d rented for the week under his current cover identity. Instead, he got up, dressed, and went for a walk.
Not one to waste time, he reviewed what he’d learned the last couple of weeks. Which didn’t take long. He hadn’t discovered much of anything.
There was one interesting tidbit he got from the cameras he’d placed in the tournament steering committee meeting, though. Qiu ZhenKang, representing the City Lord, had put forth two proposals that gave a slight advantage to his faction in terms of money gained from sales of admittance tickets and concessions. Kang Ya-Ting had opposed both, but Teng Wuying and Mao Biya had voted for them with only pro forma protestations.
Later, Qiu ZhenKang presented another proposal—the inclusion of a small clan in the tournament. Kang Ya-Ting objected strenuously, namely due to the late date. The City Lord’s representative apologized and stated it was a political matter, regarding a favor the Emperor owed to the clan’s patriarch. “The Emperor would be most grateful if the committee could give him face.”
Again, Teng Wuying and Mao Biya offered token resistance before voting for the measure.