Chapter 409
Chapter 409: Conspiring with Each Other
Translated by Rachel of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
No one expected the man to suddenly run away. Everyone else did not respond in time and only managed to come to their senses when he left the ruins. In the eyes of everyone, his behavior was one of guilty conscience. The ones who were originally skeptical about You QingShan’s words all started to eagerly give chase.
SheQiu and the other four, who were hiding in a dark corner, did not leave the Underground Palace as per Ling Xiao’s instructions. They exchanged looks with one another and pretended to be like everybody else who wanted to hunt down Ling Xiao and they blended into the crowd. The five of them, excluding the little chick, were all Imperial level or above, so they weren’t to worried about being discovered.
“Why did boss have to leave? Won’t that just prove what the man said?” MaoQiu asked in a puzzled voice. In her opinion, other than a handful here who were harder to deceive, the rest didn’t have a firm stance. If they were to shift the blame of taking the Metal Elemental Essence and the Metal Swallowing Beast to someone else, these people’s hearts would definitely waver.
“I don’t understand either.” With an expressionless face, XiaoHei said coolly with an air of royalty.
“Chirp?” The little chick peeked out from the top of LanQiu’s head and made a sound of confusion, though no one paid attention to it.
“What’s there to not understand? Whether the other people know or don’t know, there’s no difference to the boss. What do you think, LanQiu?” SheQiu said simply.
“I agree with SheQiu. If there was really a reason, I think it might be because the area of the ruins is too small and makes it hard to fight. So Boss Ling Xiao wanted to find a larger, empty space. Furthermore, this is the Underground Palace. Who knows if it will collapse.” Lan Qiu reasoned.
“Please don’t call me SheQiu, thank you!”
“Then I would also ask of you to not call me LanQiu in future.” Lan Qiu calmly replied.
“I understand, LanQiu.” XiaoHei said expressionlessly.
“…”
Meanwhile, the chasing battle had ensued. The only ones who could keep up with Ling Xiao’s speed were the Divine level powerhouses and they were hot on his heels. The rest were already a long distance behind him.
“Ling Mo, you have nowhere left to run. You know what situation you’re in, so hand over the two Elemental Essences and the Metal Swallowing Beast. I can let you live.” You Ming glared at Ling Xiao’s back with murderous intent.
As if he hadn’t heard anything, Ling Xiao continued to fly towards the way he came from. Although the entrance changed with changes in the TaiChi YinYang formation, as long as he followed the original path he had taken, he could definitely find the exit.
You Ming knew exactly that. That’s why he was worried that if Ling Xiao escaped, then there would really be no way of capturing him. Furthermore, he seemed to be purposely keeping a distance between them. Every time he sped up, Ling Xiao would immediately pull away.
In less than half an hour, the exit appeared right before Ling Xiao’s eyes.
Seeing this scene, You Ming suddenly thought of a plan in desperation and raised his head. A beam of green flew out from his sleeves at high speed and just when Ling Xiao was about to charge out, the beam of green caught up with him and bit the back of his hand.
He was supposed to stop, but Ling Xiao didn’t care. He just rushed towards the exit.
The locations of the entrance and exit of the Underground Palace had changed. It was a barren place with rocky mountains made up of oddly shaped jagged rocks. It looked like they were still in the June Mountain range.
After he exited, Ling Xiao did not leave immediately. Instead, he stood on top of a large boulder.
He raised his hand to look at the place he was bitten. There were two tiny holes tinged with green on his hand and when he looked at the thing that flew back to You Ming’s shoulder, he saw the true form of the beam of green—a small dark green snake.
The small snake had dark green scales all over its body and when it slightly opened its mouth, a pair of fangs coated with some green fluid could be seen. One look and it was obvious this snake was highly venomous.
“Hahaha!” Seeing as his snake really bit his hand, You Ming let out an extremely smug laugh.
“I’ll see where you can run! With my poison, it won’t be long until you slowly lose all your spiritual power. Even if you beg me now I won’t let you off.” When You Ming spoke, the others finally caught up and emerged from the ground, including SheQiu and the rest. When they heard what he said, the four of them all frowned except for the little chick.
Boss Ling Xiao was poisoned? That’s rubbish!
The QiLin’s sacred fire and the flame of the Demon Phoenix were known as the world’s two greatest divine fires that could incinerate anything. No matter how potent the snake venom was, how could that even bother Boss Ling Xiao.
Ling Xiao was indeed unmoved. Instead, he pondered as he stared at the overly smug You Ming. The small snake on his shoulder was a demon beast called the Green Demon Snake. Said snake was an ordinary high level demon beast. While its attack power was a lot worse compared to a beast of the same kind, the Nine Headed Emperor Snake, it had an ability that it could be extremely proud of.
And that was its venom. If people were to rank it, it would definitely be in the top three. With just a little bit of it, it could kill an Emperor level powerhouse and greatly hurt the Divine level ones. Most people were of the same level as You Ming and this was the reason why many feared him.
However, there weren’t many Green Demon Snakes around. You Ming only found it by chance and ever since he realised the potency of its venom, he tied his fate together with the Green Demon Snake.
The venom of the Green Demon Snake might be troublesome and fatal to the average powerhouse, but for Ling Xiao, it was a different story. It was as SheQiu and the rest of the ball team expected. For Ling Xiao, who had the divine fire, the snake venom was automatically burned by it as soon as the green demon snake bit his hand. It was also for that reason that Ling Xiao paid no mind to the Green Demon Snake.
You QingShan heard what You Ming said as soon as he exited the Underground Palace. At first he was delighted by what he heard but soon, he calmed down. That was because he saw Ling Xiao’s unusual response.
At this moment he only had two choices. One: he could immediately run for his life. Or two: he could hand over the three things and run. But Ling Xiao did neither of these and his expression was really odd.
“Old Ming, something isn’t right.” You QingShan walked to You Ming’s side and spoke in a lowered voice.
You Ming’s laughter came to an abrupt stop. His line of sight shifted towards Ling Xiao only to find that he showed no signs of being poisoned. He was standing on the boulder without a care, even shooting him a condescending look.
When he was still in shock, Ling Xiao opened his mouth to speak, “You Ming, I think you can stop pretending now. The truth, I’m sure you know it better than me. Why bother to act like you didn’t do it when you did?”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Hearing his nonsensical, You Ming fumed. He somewhat guessed what he was trying to say. Ling Xiao was trying to imply that the Vermillion Blood Clan stole the Metal Swallowing Beast and the Metal Elemental Essence!
“Whether I’m speaking nonsense, only you would know. Or else why would you need to rush to silence people by killing them? If I wasn’t lucky, I’m afraid I would really be killed by you.” Ling Xiao chuckled.
While he didn’t state it upfront, the implications in his words were enough to set the crowd thinking. Furthermore, compared to Ling Xiao who came across as a stranger, You Ming’s cunning ways were not unfamiliar to the crowd. So even though most still held a skeptical attitude, their opinions had already changed.
You Qing Shan walked out from behind You Ming and spoke darkly, “I think you are treating the people here as fools. If we were in cahoots, how do you explain the conflict in June City? You just want to redirect the blame and drag the Vermillion Blood Clan down.”
Not only was Ling Xiao not fazed, he smiled and nodded instead.
“You’re right, everybody here knows that it’s impossible for us to be conspiring with each other.”
You Qing Shan’s face quickly fell.
Another insinuation again.
Humans all had a bad habit. When a person was suspicious of another, no matter what the other party said, that person would always tend to think in the way he wanted to and he wouldn’t require the other party to spell it out for him.
So even though Ling Xiao appeared to be replying him, he was actually leading the rest to think of him in a certain way. Since it was impossible for them to collude, they normally wouldn’t think of him in that light. In other words, they could also make use of this point.
“The people of the Vermillion Blood Clan really can never be satisfied. I’ve said this before, you will be punished by your insatiable greed. What you shouldn’t have done was to try to silence me after you’ve accomplished what you wanted. Since that’s the case, I don’t mind going down with all of you.” Ling Xiao continued to pull wool over their eyes.
“I’ll kill you!” You Ming roared. Ling Xiao said it so matter-of-factly that even if they didn’t do it, they couldn’t rid themselves of suspicion anymore. Since many people already believed what he said, even Qiao WuShuang was looking at them suspiciously.
You Ming really wanted to vomit blood. He never thought that the situation could end up like this. Not only did he not get his hands on the Metal Swallowing Beast and the Elemental Essence, he was slandered instead. It was really, really terrible!
They got their true retribution!
You Ming had also previously accused the Beast Transfiguration Guild and the Cang Alliance of using the same move. Who would have thought their retribution would come so soon.
Some people had already believed what Ling Xiao said.
SheQiu and the rest were already speechless. They knew Ling Xiao could talk well, as seen from him regularly convincing and bluffing their master, but that wasn’t some great achievement since their master had limited IQ. But to see him manipulating these people who had lived for god knows how many years up close, it was indeed something amazing and shocking to watch.