"Young Miss Yin, I have not offended you. Why don't you let me join in?"
From the darkness, a middle-aged man in standard Ye Sect white robes stepped out with a helpless expression on his face. He had a small friendly smile on, but the look in his eyes told Yin he came here with ulterior motives.
Yes, she felt that this smiling man was up to no good.
Yin was one who never doubted her instincts. At her level, she need not to. It was the confidence of one who had experienced being an existence at the apex of the cultivation world.
Bushy brows, a thin nose, eyes that seemed to squint in laughter...
Yin felt like she had seen this face before, but she had no idea who he was.
With her powerful divine sense, it would be impossible for her to forget someone she had met, even if it was only a brief half-a-second meeting.
She dared say that she could even remember the faces of all the tanghulu vendors from her first city excursion with Ye Mo. She could recount the faces of the hungry little girls and little boys queuing behind her as well, their parents included. Therefore, she was sure that she had never been introduced to this smiling lurker.
Wanna take advantage of this Boss, ah? She had just gained a lackey and was in an extremely good mood. This lurker dare ruin it?
Oh wait, this lurker looked a bit like the man arguing with Old Fogey Mo yesterday, that monkey that threatened to cut off her limb.
Could this be someone related to that Li Xiao Hou(1)?
"This old man is the Second Elder of the Ye Sect, Li Yun Tian," the lurker warmly said with fists cupped in front of him as a salutation. "Young Miss Yin can call me Second Elder, but I would prefer that you not be distant and simply call me Old Tian."
Li? She knew it. Definitely connected to that monkey man!
And Old Tian? Yin only raised a questioning brow.
They barely talked and this lurker felt they ought to act chummy already? Shameless!
Men who are overly polite and warm to a little girl like her could only be a pedo with bad intentions or a user with bad intentions.
The first did not know her background and was simply acting on his baser nature, while the second was the more troublesome problem as it meant they needed to control her and wanted to milk her for benefits.
Either way, she had no patience for this lurker. It just annoyed her that someone had the gall to spy on her when the aura she released was clearly shooing these bugs away.
Yin turned her head towards the ruddy-faced boy she just healed. "Hao'er, pack up and come with me. You'll be staying in the courtyard next to mine."
Startled, the boy dumbly blinked. It seemed that he had recognized who Li Yun Tian was, but there was something inside him that repulsed giving a salutation to this elder.
When Yin spoke to him, these shackles relaxed, allowing him to respond. However, when he tried to open his mouth, for several times, only sob-like gasps escaped from his mouth.
"I-I'm going to have my own... my own courtyard?"
He was feeling a bit dazed right now.
Him changing names to become a "Ye", the extraordinary healing ability of his little boss, the white-hot pain that he had to deal with earlier, the terrifying power that this yin qi left behind inside his body...
Everything was like a dream. No, it wasn't even something he dared to dream.
From now on, he was no longer a common Zhang Wei.
He is Ye Zhihao!
Though he did not fully understand what his little boss said at the beginning, he got that feeling that he could become someone great(2) as long as he followed her!
On the other hand, Li Yun Tian had a darkened expression for a split-second before his face turned genial once again.
He was the Second Elder of Ye Sect, one of the top brass of the main controller of Leaf City!
Not only that, he was the Patriarch of the prestigious Li Clan! His clan had enough resources and talents to actually pull down the declining Ye Clan from its superior position.
Even those representatives from the Imperial Capital had to give him face!
How dare this little girl ignore her?!
So what if she has a Spiritual Body? A dead genius would still be dead, with no value whatsoever!
So what if she has a more powerful cultivation? How smart could a four-, five-year-old be? Could this little girl be not controlled like what the Tenth Elder had done to her?
Li Yun Tian knew how to spoil his several grandchildren. He had experience in the area of dealing with kids. He would not have trouble subduing a little brat.
If Li Yun Tian played it right, this girl could be integrated into his Li Clan and his clan would benefit from her background. If not, then he could let this girl die under the guise of the Ye Clan pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Once the great family or powerful sect backing her came for revenge, could he not wash hands and push all the blame to the Ye Clan?
After all, if she were to be killed, a Spiritual Body talent never seen for a thousand years, would her seniors not righteously demand justice?! (3)
Li Yun Tian inwardly sneered. In his lifetime, he would make sure that the Li Clan would get rid of the tag 'servants of the Ye Clan' and rise up like a dragon soaring to the sky!
A plan that had brewed for hundreds of years, from his grandfather, his father, and then to him. Everything was to wipe out that disgrace of a history.
Was this not also the reason why he had to clean up the Second Lineage of the Ye Clan, the once strongest lineage of the sect?
Kill off all male descendants, then secretly send away the slightly more powerful females to be slave cauldrons!
After that, he planted his own clansmen and relatives to the positions left behind by these people.
Ten years had passed, yet Li Yun Tian was still scot-free, blissfully enjoying what he had earned through hard work, while that annoying, cockroach-of-an-existence Tenth Elder was a lone pillar carrying his entire household on his shoulders.
So close... just a bit more...
The plans set in motion by his ancestors should not be ruined!
This Young Miss Yin would either have to switch sides... or die!
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(1) Hou, 猴 character for 'monkey'
(2) As was said in Ch49, the 豪 (háo) in his Zhihao means "brave, heroic, chivalrous", but the kid thought that his (hao) was 浩, meaning "grand, vast, great"
(3) "打了小的,老的自然要站出来讨还个公道", If you beat up the younger ones, then the older seniors/elders naturally have to stand out and 'ask back/recover' some justice