Chapter 58: Stealing a Winning Hand 2
Chapter 58: Stealing a Winning Hand (2)
“There’s one thing that I don’t quite understand.”
Within the main hall of Happiness Residing Fort, Chalei respectfully waited on Su Chen.
From this moment onwards, Su Chen was the big shot supporting the fort.
“You want to ask me how I know how you resist the curse and control the Vicious Beasts?” Su Chen asked indifferently.
“Yes. However, brewing Black Kite Grass and Flying Vines into medicine to resist the curse isn’t really a secret in this village. In the numerous encounters with you, I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had revealed it to you, sir. The secret to the Beast Controlling Technique, however, isn’t known by many even in Happiness Residing Fort. I cannot fathom how you were able to discover it,” Chalei said with some confusion.
Su Chen replied calmly, “The secret behind the Beast Controlling Technique really isn’t known by that many people. However, Village Chief Chalei, this technique isn’t possessed by Happiness Residing Fort alone. You might be able to keep the people from Happiness Residing Fort from leaking the secret, but can you do that for the people in the other forts?”
Once he heard this, Chalei understood.
The Beast Controlling Technique didn’t belong to a single fort alone. More precisely, they weren’t even the ones to have discovered it; the Origin Gate Fort had disseminated it after discovering it so that the forts could ally together against the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans.
Chalei had protected the secret behind the Beast Controlling Technique, but he hadn’t kept the fact that Su Chen was wandering around West River Forest practicing medicine a secret. He definitely didn’t try to conceal Su Chen’s position as an enemy of the Bloodline Nobility Clans. As such, people very quickly discovered that a skilled medical practitioner was here, and many people who came to Su Chen weren’t from Happiness Residing Fort. With the support of the Shadow Servants, it was even easier for them to discover the secret.
Chalei had overlooked this point, allowing Su Chen to easily exploit it.
If he had explained the circumstances more clearly to Su Chen, then Su Chen definitely would’ve chosen the secret and not a monopoly over the resources.
But now that the secret had been discovered by Su Chen by himself, Chalei could only sell himself to Su Chen to keep himself safe.
However, that might not necessarily be a bad thing; if he did a good job selling himself out, he might be able to secure safe passage for himself.
It wasn’t about a loss of freedom at all; ever since ancient times, humans didn’t hate selling themselves, but they hated not being able to sell themselves for a good price.
The phrase “wolves travel thousands of kilometers to eat meat, while dogs travel thousands of kilometers to eat feces1” was pure nonsense. Dogs were just tamed wolves, and to those starving wolves prowling in the wilderness, the life of a dog was something they could only yearn for. It was the ultimate goal of their evolution!
As long as he sold himself to a good master, Chalei had no issues with it.
As such, he quickly reorganized his thoughts and said, “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you openly. This Purple Colored Glass is truly exceptionally dangerous.”
“I know. Every time you control a Vicious Beast, a person must die, right?” Su Chen replied. “To be honest, you aren’t really controlling a Vicious Beast; you’re just replacing the beast’s soul with a human soul, which is why those Guardian Beasts will listen to your commands. After all, they were your villagers in the first place. But by the same principle, you couldn’t force anyone to do this; otherwise, that person would turn around and bite you back.”
“You even know this?” Chalei was stunned. “They told you all of that?”
“No one told me that,” Su Chen replied.
No one?
Then how had he figured it out?
Every guess needed to have a basis. Any guess that wasn’t based on a foundation of scientific knowledge was just a blind guess.
Chalei didn’t believe for a second that Su Chen was someone who liked to guess blindly, so he knew that Su Chen must’ve had some kind of intuition about the situation. However, he couldn’t figure out how Su Chen had figured out the properties of the Purple Colored Glass without even seeing it.
He stared dumbly at Su Chen.
When Su Chen saw him like this, he laughed, “I killed one of your Guardian Beasts, yet you didn’t immediately make another one, from which I guessed that the production method was unique. Of course, it would be strange if I could guess this property just based on this, but it’s not convenient for me to explain the specifics to you. I just want to know one thing: do you know where the people in the Origin Gate Fort found this?”
When he heard that there were still things Su Chen didn’t know, Chalei calmed himself down and said, “It’s the Red Cliff Cave. However, all of the Purple Colored Glass has already been taken away by the Origin Gate Fort’s villagers a long time ago. Nothing is left there.”
“That’s just what you think.” Su Chen had already stood up. “I’m going to the Red Cliff Cave for a bit. Chalei, send a few people to the next fort and explain the situation, then ask them to also make a decision. No matter what the outcome is, I will accept it.”
“Yes, sir!” Chalei bowed and replied.
Su Chen walked out of the main hall.
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Su Chen’s departure lasted for three days.
Three days later, Su Chen returned, his hands empty and his expression heavy.
Chalei said with concern, “Sir, please don’t be concerned. Even though you didn’t discover anything, the Origin Gate Fort already has some Purple Colored Glass. After all, there aren’t many people who are willing to die for the sake of the fort. If Sir is willing, I can go and……”
“I never said that I didn’t discover anything,” Su Chen replied and pulled out a small, purple pearl. “This is Purple Colored Glass, right? They left one behind. You can have it.”
He tossed it over to Chalei.
Chalei hurriedly received it and stared at Su Chen in shock. “So Sir did find something. Why is your expression so poor then?”
“Sometimes, it’s better to not know about some things!” Su Chen said with deep meaning.
When he heard this, Chalei didn’t dare to ask more questions.
“Right, how did the matter of contacting the other forts go?” Su Chen asked.
Chalei replied, “I already got in contact with them, but……” Chalei glanced at Su Chen, then gently shook his head.
Evidently, they hadn’t agreed.
“Did you tell them the whole story?”
“I did, even the fact that Thousand Abundances Fort and Silver Metropolis Fort were both wiped out. Even though they expressed outrage, they weren’t willing……”
“Even five times the buying price of those Bloodline Nobility Clans wasn’t enough to get them to swear allegiance to me?”
“They believe that there won’t be any room for mediation anymore if they do that.”
“They still want to negotiate,” Su Chen coldly laughed.
“That was our original intention. It’s just that those Bloodline Nobility Clans are too tyrannical.”
“If you don’t bully someone with your strength, what is the point of even being strong?”
Chalei sighed, “Yes, that’s also what I told them. They just didn’t seem to understand.”
Su Chen said coldly, “It’s not that they don’t understand. They understand it very well.”
“What?” Chalei was shocked.
Su Chen already continued, “They just want to use me to fight back against the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans, then profit from it. They had already given up on raising the price by relying on the Vicious Beasts, but since I, an outsider, inserted myself into the situation, they now have a new opportunity.”
Chalei opened his mouth in shock.
“However, how could I let them get what they want?” Su Chen said darkly. “Since they want to wait until the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans and I begin to fight, then they can wait as long as they want. I have no interest in remaining in West River Forest any longer.
That’s right; the other villages did intend on doing this.
They didn’t view Su Chen in a favorable light, but since he was there as a competitor, the value of their own products would increase, and they could harvest the rewards.
Unfortunately for them, there was no way Su Chen would let them benefit from this dispute.
Even though he had proposed a price of five times the original asking price, he had never expected to take total control. He had just purposefully done so to make the other party hate the Bloodline Nobility Clans even more. He knew very well that now wasn’t the time to completely monopolize the resources coming from West River Forest.
The other party moves were completely within his calculations, and he had expected this kind of answer.
“What?” Chalei was stunned. “If you go, what will we do? When the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans make their way back, they definitely won’t spare Happiness Residing Fort.”
“I’ll leave you a communications device. If the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans come, you all go and hide.”
“But we can’t leave the village for too long!”
Even though the medicine brewed from Black Kite Grass and Flying Vines allowed the villagers to resist the attacks of those red microscopic organisms, it formed a toxic substance within their bodies. This kind of poison could only be suppressed by more medicine, resulting in a vicious cycle. In addition, Black Kite Grass only grew here, making it so that those who lived in West River Forest had no way of leaving this place.
Because of this, the outsiders who entered West River Forest never used the locals’ method to avoid the invasion of the poison because they would fall prey to it for the rest of their lives.
“It’s just a kind of slow-acting poison. I can help cure you of it,” Su Chen said while waving his hand nonchalantly.
To him, this was an exceptionally easy task.
What?
Chalei was completely shocked.
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Author’s note: Why Su Chen didn’t want to take over all of the forts will be discussed later.
1. Means that natural disposition is hard to change, analogous to an old dog can’t learn new tricks.