In the morning.
Fan Lin woke up from his sleep at 4 in the morning and looked at Leng Yaozhu sitting in the grass, looking at him.
"Your gaze scares me. Do you have nothing else to do instead of staring at me sleeping."
"I wasn't staring at you when you were sleeping. I just looked over because you woke."
"Although heavily doubtful, I will take your words."
"There's nothing to be doubtful upon."
"If you say so."
He spoke while laying down and looking at the sky.
"Why do you have to make everyday so chaotic?"
Leng Yaozhu asked, setting her tea set and table.
"I told him what to do. He refused. He has no right to do so though. He is just someone on borrowed time, why does he need to make things difficult then? I gave him reasons... explanations and even some rewards and yet what does he provide? Nothing."
"As broody as usual. What do you even gain from all this? You say that you don't want anything to do with the Starduo Forest then why so fixated on it."
"I am not fixated upon it. I am just seeking attention."
"Why? Am I not enough for you?"
"That's a weird way of putting it. You are not a threat. I am just getting tired of myself. I need some rest. All of this that will set things in play, I need to place it right where they need to be."
"Can you elaborate?"
"Of course. By tomorrow, Qiangu Dongfeng will listen to everything I say. Then we can proceed with our lessons on spirit souls and such and then the replantation will end in 4 months and the next two months will be when I will reconsider what to do again and finally leave everything behind on the 6th month. This is subjective to change by the way. I might just change it midway or not follow along at all. "
"What do you mean "we" will begin the lessons on spirit souls. I never agreed."
"You will. I am a great student."
"No, I won't. And I don't think you can do the replantation in the next four months. Forget four, you may even able to do so in four years."
"Why? Is it because of those human settlements that I have been avoiding? No worries to that then. I will bury them along with their settlements if they were to become a delay to me."
"You!"
"Or you can do your job and get them to safety. I am supposed to be replanting the land that is barren, owned by the Federation and has nothing to do with the pests that infest it. If you are so worried, just provide them a place to stay in the Pagoda owned lands."
"You were an orphan. I expected some empathy from you."
"I am an orphan. I hate humans. These are separate things–"
Elder Dou and Elder Huazhi contacted Fan Lin in the middle of his sentence.
He looked at Leng Yaozhu. She refused to meet his gaze. He picked Elder Dou's call.
"Need something for me?" [Fan Lin]
{Well~ how sure are you of your chances to safely thwart the problem?} [Elder Dou]
"100%. I thought you were going to keep it to yourself. I left it to your judgement. I thought you would understand the severity of the situation and not tell anyone." [Fan Lin]
{You never told me that you are going to Elder Huazhi for more assistance—}
"Confirmation, not assistance."
{... More confirmation then. I didn't know that you have gone and talked with Huazhi as well. I had kept my silence and never have I shared this with anyone. It was Huazhi himself that called me. I really didn't.} [Elder Dou]
"I see." [Fan Lin]
{It's not my fault as well. You suddenly came, gave me a neae haeart attack and left after getting an answer to something that isn't related to this. At that, you didn't even tell me about your meeting with Elder Dou.}
"You are not getting to the point. I already told you, the world would be safe. I would be safe as well. Nothing would go wrong."
{Yes~ but you didn't give me anything to anchor my faith in you. You are barely in your teens... there's bound to be some doubts in me.} [Elder Huazhi]
"I have no responsibility to bear your doubts or clear it. This is the reason why I wasn't going to ask the Pagoda about this. You guys are too fussy and would have made a huge deal about it when in reality it is just a simple tale of precaution and patience."
{And we just want to know that.}
"...who knows about this?"
{None except us. You didn't let us examine you further and neither did we gain any kind of understanding of what's actually going inside your body. It was no more than just a glimpse.} [Elder Huazhi]
{And we can't report this to anyone. Half baked information will just cause more chaos at this happy occasion that Spirit Pagoda had finally gained after years.} [Elder Dou]
"So no one except you knows this. Not even the Vice President? How did you get my dial address from her then?"
{Elder Dou said that he wanted to provide some medicinal pills for your weakening constitution and to ease the Four Word Battle Armour Creation process and she relented after agreeing to it.} [Elder Huazhi]
"I see."
He glanced at Leng Yaozhu and she further refused to meet his gaze.
"What do you want from me then? Also, pills are an extremely bad idea for me."
{Can we examine your condition?} [Elder Dou]
"Why?"
{You may die single.} [Elder Huazhi]
*Chuckle* [Leng Yaozhu]
"What are you saying now?"
{I mean, you can be wrong.} [Elder Dou]
"About what?"
{About yourself. Or maybe have a bad plan.}
"There's no one who knows about my body better than me. None at all."
{...} [Elder Dou]
{...} [Elder Huazhi]
Faced with the unprecedented confidence that was held within a voice without anything, both of the Elders experienced the speechlessness that Gu Yue was really familiar with.
{Enough of this kid, you are leaving me with no choice.} [Elder Huazhi]
"Is that a threat?"
{No. We do not want to do this as well but if you didn't comply, we will have no choice but to tell everyone about this.} [Elder Huazhi]
{This is no joking matter. Even if you were to reassure as again, we need proof for it. Concrete proof that nothing bad is going to happen to the world.} [Elder Dou]
"Do you really have to do this?"
{We have no choice. You shouldn't have come to us if privacy is what you desired.} [Elder Huazhi]
"Okay. Where are you? Let me pick you up."
{Heaven Dou City. We are not going anywhere, you come here.}
"Why?"
{Our things are here, moving them will take time.}
"Okay."
Fan Lin cut the call and looked at Leng Yaozhu.
"Everyone knows?" [Fan Lin]
"Everyone knows." [Leng Yaozhu]
"Good." [Fan Lin]
Fan Lin said and flew to the skies and to the Heaven Dou City's Spirit Pagoda.
"Thank the Heavens we didn't let him in the Inner Court. That's one cunning devil that child is."
Now even a moment after his departure, a voice was heard before a person appeared in the spot beside where Fan Lin was sitting.
"Indeed."
Leng Yaozhu turned towards Long Yeyue and filled her tea cup with tea again.
"Yun Ming was right to have let him leave. I don't even want to think of what he may have done in the Inner Court."
Long Yeyue complained while sipping her tea. She had been present beside Fan Lin for the entire night as her and Leng Yaozhu were catching up with all the things that they had wanted to discuss between them.
Then Fan Lin woke up, Long Yeyue pressed Leng Yaozhu to open Fan Lin's mouth and Fan Lin began to speak and the more he spoke, the more of his hidden side was revealed to Long Yeyue until the two Elders called and Fan Lin left.
"Such a liar." [Long Yeyue]
"He is." [Leng Yaozhu]
"Dou Dou is the one who has called for him." [Long Yeyue]
"Yes. I don't know what Dongfeng is thinking though." [Leng Yaozhu]
"What about the kid? Are you going to let him do whatever he wants? That kid needs a good spanking and an earful of ethics. Fatherless behaviour!" [Long Yeyue]
Long Yeyue, clearly upset and infuriated at Fan Lin's complete apathy towards the people, muttered with gritted teeth.
She had gotten to know of Fan Lin through the previous Outer Court and it was all the bad things that he had been hiding in his heart.
Now with Fan Lin's live performance, Long Yeyue felt like the previous Outer Court Headmaster may have been right about him.
Long Yeyue was also dissatisfied with how easy Leng Yaozhu was being on him. Considering her age and position, she should have stopped Fan Lin long ago but she had done nothing but watching from the sidelines.
That's irresponsible.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Ms Long Yeyue didn't know of the things that Leng Yaozhu knew about Fan Lin and had thus formed a misconception that Leng Yaozhu was allowing Fan Lin to thrive when in reality, Leng Yaozhu was forced to do nothing but stay in the Southern Lands which have been changed to stay at the Southern Lands to oversee Fan Lin's plans to the end and then kill him and return to the Pagoda.
This was also in line with, and after, Fan Lin's plan of getting rid of Qiangu Dongfeng.
So by the time Fan Lin's plan was finished, Leng Yaozhu will be returning to the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters with two heads and an empty throne of the Pagoda all at her footsteps.
Hence without his knowledge, Fan Lin had created another enemy and Leng Yaozhu was internally rejoicing at this.
Now she had one more ally that will be happy to help when she was ready to slaughter Fan Lin.
Two chapters till nightmare.