Chapter 921: Fugong Arrives
While Xiahou Qi and Chao Haisheng were fighting, Ye Qing already noticed the presence of the Jixia Academy disciples. Not long after that, he detected Fang Muyun’s energies lurking in the dark.
He had seen the Jixia Academy disciples’ names from the information collected by Withered Sword, so he knew that they were part of the Chu embassy. That was also how he knew that they all possessed prestigious backgrounds. If danger were to befall the disciples, he was sure that Fang Muyun would step in and save them. That was why he decided to take action.
He used his demonic thought to influence Xia Gongyang and the rest of the Jixia Academy disciples to become arrogant, self-conceited idiots who spoke before they thought. He made them taunt Xiahou Qi because he knew that the warrior would never let the insult slide without repaying it tenfold. This way, Fang Muyun would be forced to step up and intervene.
Xiahou Qi was a prideful warrior who was absolutely obsessed with martial arts. No matter how silver-tongued Fang Muyun was, Ye Qing believed that it was exceedingly unlikely that they would be able to arrive at a peaceful resolution.
He was right. It wasn’t long before Xiahou Qi challenged Fang Muyun into a battle of three attacks.
There were two reasons he chose to do this. One, it was to make Fang Muyun’s life miserable, of course. The bastard had nearly killed him with his schemes back at Tian Yong. He was perfectly in his right to collect some interest before the actual debt. Two, it was to probe Fang Muyun’s strength.
Although Withered Sword’s information was quite comprehensive, and he came to know about Fang Muyun’s background, personality traits, martial arts, preferred methods and more like the back of his hand, seeing was believing, and as the saying went, winning a game in a war game was ultimately different from winning a battle in real war, not to mention that Fang Muyun was the sly, deceitful type. He did not believe for a second that the scholar did not possess a trump card or ten that wasn’t mentioned in the information he received. If he could find out about them now, then his plan would go so much smoother.
As expected, Xiahou Qi did not disappoint. Despite unleashing only three attacks, he went all out and forced Fang Muyun to go all out to defend himself as well. Although Xiahou Qi ultimately did not succeed in forcing out all of Fang Muyun’s skills and trump cards—it was only three strikes after all—the scholar still revealed far more than he was willing to reveal. It was to the point that he had more or less a firm grasp of Fang Muyun’s true strength.
He did not try to influence either party to fight each other to the death using his demonic thought. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to, but because it was both impossible and unnecessary.