The next day, Huang Hong Lin called Mu Rong Shu and me up for a meeting. A strategy meeting, as she called it.
"I actually called my brother to join us," she grumbled sullenly when my wife and I showed up in her super luxurious manor. "But he bailed out on me at the last moment."
"That's fine," I assured her. For our part, both Mu Rong Shu and I were overawed by the luxurious mansion that the Huang family lived in. It was almost a palace, a gigantic Western-styled manor that was five stories high. The interior was lined with red silk carpet, furniture that must cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, classical portraits by famous artists, and dazzling chandeliers for lights.
Within the massive place, there were maids maintaining the place. Huang Hong Lin dismissed them before leading us to a gigantic study room that was filled with dozens of bookshelves and a massive mahogany desk next to the window. Further in front of the desk were several couches and a beautiful coffee table.
As expected of a rich young mistress. She was living in a mansion straight out of a manhua or something. Somehow I was reminded of CEO stories where the female leads were living out their princess fantasies, but Huang Hong Lin was already born into such wealth instead of needing to marry into it.
Huang Hong Lin took a seat opposite us, sipping some tea from a cup taken from a trolley that one of her maids wheeled in. The maid served Mu Rong Shu and me some tea too, and we expressed our thanks. The maid smiled before leaving, the trolley still in the room. Apparently Huang Hong Lin had ordered some cake and snacks too, but neither of us touched them.
"This is the information I have so far," Huang Hong Lin explained to us as she put down her cup of tea and began spreading out maps and documents across the coffee table. "Reported sightings of rumored summoners and their spirits."
I scanned through them, raising an eyebrow. There was a huge variety of spirits, ranging from noble warriors from legend to mythical creatures like dragons, kirin and phoenixes. I paused when I found a document detailing my brother and the divine dragon he used to summon. Huang Hong Lin caught sight of me staring at that particular piece of document, and she quickly offered a wry smile.
"Of course, the easiest information to obtain is those already available. That is to say, the well-known summoners from the big families, like the Zhao family, for example."
"You're aware of what happened to my brother, right?" I asked, noting that the information on the document was outdated. Huang Hong Lin frowned and nodded.
"Didn't I mention that to you earlier? I said I heard about what happened to your brother and cousins."
"Yeah, but the information on these documents…"
"Oh, yeah. Haven't had time to sort through them and get rid of the outdated ones. But they're still useful. Wouldn't hurt to keep the info lying around."
I couldn't argue against that, so I simply nodded.
"So what is your plan?" Mu Rong Shu asked, folding her arms. "Do you intend to hunt down these summoners one by one? Form alliances with them? Any targets in mind? Who do you want to start with?"
"Whoa, slow down. One question at a time." Huang Hong Lin raised her hands. She then smiled and picked up about three documents. "For starters, we might want to begin from these guys."
I immediately recognized the photograph of the summoner on one of them. Reaching out, I gently took the document from Huang Hong Lin's hands to read through the details.
"Oh? You seem to know this guy." Huang Hong Lin looked at me curiously. I nodded.
"Yeah, I fought him several nights ago. His summoned spirit is Yue Fei."
"Ho…" Huang Hong Lin was thoughtful for a few moments. "So you've already met Liang Cai Gui, huh?"
Apparently, that was the name of the summoner of Yue Fei. I saw as much, his name being spelled right next to his photograph, along with miscellaneous details such as birthdate, gender and even blood type. There was brief mention of his summoned spirit, Yue Fei, but surprisingly very little was written about it otherwise.
"Yeah." I nodded thoughtfully, recalling the battle. It had been a hard-fought duel, with Lu Bu and Yue Fei evenly matched. If I hadn't attacked Liang Cai Gui himself, the encounter would have ended in a stalemate.
"Who won?" Huang Hong Lin asked curiously, leaning over the table to peer at me.
"Um, in terms of spirit battle, it was a draw. But I forced Liang Cai Gui into escaping when I attacked him directly."
"Smart move." Huang Hong Lin winced when she remembered what happened last night. "The same tactic you used against me. I'll have to admit that it's very effective. Most summoners just focus on cultivating their spirits and don't train their bodies or personal close combat skills. If I hadn't brought along treasures and first-rate charms with me…"
Mu Rong Shu and I exchanged a glance. It must be so good being rich.
"And then there's the others," I murmured, reaching for the other documents. Mu Rong Shu leaned closer to me and I held them between us so that the both of us could read them at the same time. She frowned, her eyes narrowing upon a beautiful lady.
"Hu Li Jing," she murmured. "The summoner of Su Da Ji?"
"Su Da Ji is the infamous nine-tailed fox," I told my wife. She nodded thoughtfully.
"I think I've heard of her. Isn't she supposed to be very powerful?"
"Yeah." Huang Hong Lin made a face. "She's going to be one hell of a troublesome opponent. Usually these sort of summoners control spirit beasts that possess several thousand years of cultivation. They are strong."
"Legendary spirits should be able to match them, though," I assured her. Mu Rong Shu raised an eyebrow at that.
"Even though they don't possess as much cultivation?"
"No," I said. "Legendary spirits aren't actually…uh, authentic copies of the actual, historical figures. They are crystalized manifestations of legends, myths, popular folk beliefs and epics. Tales that have grandiosely exaggerated their feats and strength. They have transcended humanity altogether, surpassing normal cultivators."
"Or at least they have the potential to," Huang Hong Lin corrected. "But it's not easy to summon a spirit of such level. You'll need the corresponding relic to imitate those legends, and then years to nurture them. But not everyone can successfully groom a spirit to legend-rank. Otherwise everyone would choose to become a summoner."
"You also need an affinity for the summoning element too," I added, scratching my head.
"But you're saying that ordinary cultivators will have difficulty fighting against legendary-ranked spirits?" Mu Rong Shu asked. Both Huang Hong Lin and I glanced at each other. Then we nodded, with me adding something hastily.
"Difficult, but not impossible. High-leveled cultivators should still be able to fight on par with legendary spirits."
"I have never defeated my brother in sparring once, not even with both Gan Jiang and Mo Ye."
Both Mu Rong Shu and I stared at a sheepish Huang Hong Lin. Whoa…Lu Bu and I had our hands full dealing with those two spirits and their summoner. If Huang Hong Lin's brother, Huang Fei Hong, was able to overwhelm her, then how strong must he be?
"And then the last guy…the person from the Imperial family, Wang Ni Tian." I studied the last document. "His summoned spirit…is unknown?"
"Well, this is the imperial family we're talking about," Huang Hong Lin said dryly. "Of course they keep their cards close to their chests. All that's clear is that they invested plenty of resources into cultivating their seventh son and preparing him specifically for this Spirit War. There's no doubt he has a powerful spirit that he can summon."
"The imperial family? I didn't know they had summoners." Mu Rong Shu frowned. She glanced at Huang Hong Lin. "So similar to your case?"
"Far from it!" Huang Hong Lin sounded offended. "I'll have you know that my family didn't care what I did! They just threw money at me and let me buy whatever I wanted. I had to work on my summoning all on my own! None of them took me seriously. Only my brother was willing to help me. The imperial family, on the other hand, has invested a ton into this war. They're devoted to winning it."
She turned pale and looked away.
"They also refused allies. Any summoner they see on sight, they will eliminate with extreme prejudice. In fact, they are probably hunting them out one by one."
"You sound like you've been rejected by them," Mu Rong Shu remarked. Huang Hong Lin flinched, but she gesticulated stubbornly.
"They will reject anyone! The imperial family believes they can monopolize the Spirit Realm!"
"Why wouldn't they?" I muttered bitterly. "They are the imperial family. They don't care about us commoners."
"I barely got away with my life the last time I encountered them," Huang Hong Lin whined. "They refuse to listen to reason. I swear, they are psychopaths!"
"Just like the characters in every cultivation, CEO or son-in-law story ever?" I said sarcastically. Good lord, the amount of characters who resorted to murder over every petty, trivial matter in web fiction just drove me absolutely nuts. I had just literally read a son-in-law story where the protagonist's mother-in-law attempted to kidnap and murder her granddaughter solely because she hated her son-in-law and refused to recognize him, so as to justify his killing of her later in the story. Like, come on, it was almost as if the authors couldn't come up with believable characters and just reduced every antagonist into one-dimensional caricature villains for cheap drama and power fantasies of killing. And this was a story set in a modern period, mind you.
Mu Rong Shu smacked me in the back of my head to stop me from ranting and breaking the fourth wall. Clearing her throat, she turned back to address a stunned Huang Hong Lin.
"So why did you single out these three targets from the others?"
"I believe they are the strongest and most dangerous threats at present," Huang Hong Lin replied. "If we are to have any chance of surviving until the end of the Spirit War and emerging victorious, we'll have to deal with these threats first."
"Good point." Mu Rong Shu nodded. "So which one should we start off with?"
"All of them." Huang Hong Lin grinned. "I've received information that there's a high possibility that these three will be showing up in the City Square tonight."