Chapter 127 - Negotiating

A blinding white light shone in the aperture and suddenly disappeared. Everything had returned to normal. Yang Zhai examined the aperture: there was nothing wrong with it. 

He looked at the three orange lines. After that, he activated the third orange line that had just appeared. There was no issue with the third orange line. 

"I want to test activating the three lines together, but I cannot do that. Sigh, only if I had a stronger body that could endure this much strength." Yang Zhai sighed after seeing the three orange lines. Even though he had a lot of strength at his disposal, he could not use it. 

"Forget it, at least I managed to reach rank 2 third stage, it's enough." Yang Zhai did not bother over it anymore and went to take a bath before changing his clothes. After that, he applied a rank 1 ointment over his wounds. 

His wounds would heal until morning. Ointments were not that effective. If he wanted to heal his wounds immediately, he would have to apply a rank 3 ointment, as he was a rank 2 cultivator. If his body got stronger, then even a rank 3 ointment would not be able to heal his wounds immediately. 

Yang Zhai sat down and began to cultivate. He had not cultivated last night because of what happened and had lost a lot of time already. He would sleep after cultivating for a few hours. 

….. 

Next day, 

Yang Zhai and his fellow disciples were sitting outside a hall. This hall was where the elders of the Ma clan sat and decided upon the matters of the Clan. 

As for elder Yu Ane and elder Yu Ene, they were inside the hall. Nothing could be heard from the outside as no voice came out of the hall. 

"Brother Feng, what do you think they are talking about?"Si Kim asked Feng Qi.

All of the disciples of the Ma clan were standing outside the hall. They had been forbidden to go inside the hall by the academy leaders.

"Who knows? It might be something important as they do not want us to know."Feng Qi replies without any care.

At the same time, inside the hall,

"How is it going these days?" a man sat at the main chair in the hall and asked.

Two rows of chairs were set on opposite sides of the hall. Elders sat on the chairs, including Yu Ane and Yu Ene. 

"Everything is going fine. I hope you are doing fine as we, Ma clan leader." Yu Ene greeted the man.

This man was the Ma clan leader, Ma Wan Liu. He had long gray hair. He had eagle-shaped eyes and brown irises. His demeanor was carefree, as if he had no worries at all. His hands could not be seen as they had black slim gloves on them. 

"I am fine, so, what have you decided?" Wan Liu asked Yu Ene.

"Well, elder Shu said that we are ready to build an alliance. We also received what we wanted —a few days ago— from the second elder Jun Nie. However, we still don't know how to open the seal. So, according to the second elder Shu, we can allow you to join us as well; but, we have a condition." Elder Yu Ene said with a calm expression.

"What is it? Let's hear it?" Wan Liu asked.

"As we were the ones to discover the place, we will be taking 70 percent of what is found inside, whilst you will only take 30 percent." Yu Ene replied.

"What?!!"

"Are you serious???"

"We gave you what you wanted, right? So, why are you being so unreasonable?"

"Do you take us for granted?"

"We will not accept it. You are not taking us lightly, right?"

A commotion broke out in the hall after Yu Ene gave the condition. All of the elders of the Ma clan were furious at the Bai clan's condition. They simply could not accept the condition put forward by Yu Ene.

"No, no, you misinterpret us, why would we underestimate you? What I am saying is that as we were the ones to discover the place, we should be allowed more share, don't you think?" Yu Ene replied with a calm tone, it could be seen that he was not at all pressured by so many voices. He stood confidently and spoke. There could not be seen any confusion on his face.

"Even if you discovered the place, you can't be this unreasonable. We gave you what you wanted and we will also be helping you find a way to unseal the seal; so, why do you say all this?" Wan Liu was also calm. He did not get angry at Yu Ene's unreasonable condition; afterall, if he also got furious, who would negotiate then? He was a clan leader and had to deal with different kinds of situations. Getting angry was not going to help at all.

"Esteemed Ma clan leader, we agreed to let you join us on the condition that you would give us what we want, but, we never even once said that we would be splitting whatever is found inside equally. So, how are we being unreasonable?" This time, Yu Ane replied with a smile. It could be seen that both the academy leaders had good coordination, they were taking turns and were continuing the other's conversation without any qualms¹.

"We were only a few minutes late, which has put us in a passive situation. Otherwise, we reached the place just a few minutes after you arrived." Jun Nie said from the side to Yu Ane and Yu Ene.

"No, elder Jun, according to the agreement that had been formed between us in the past clearly stated that whoever reaches the place first where something had appeared —outside of the two territories— would be the true owner of whatever appears; whether it is treasure, inheritance or some other thing. It doesn't matter even if you're just a second late; even though the inheritance was slightly touching your territory, we had reached the place first, so, we have the right to decide what happens to the place of the inheritance." Yu Ane looked at Jun Nie and replied.

"That earthquake a month ago was truly fated. Not just it revealed an inheritance place, but it also placed a conflict between us. We would have agreed to let you have a 70 percent share without any opposition if the inheritance place had not been touching our territory, but the inheritance place is slightly touching our territory, or it could be said that it is slightly located inside our territory. But, because of the agreement of the past, our hands are bound, and we agreed to give you what you wanted to have a share of the inheritance, but you are asking for too much." Wan Liu said to Yu Ane with his elbow resting on the handle of the chair and his face resting on the backside of his right hand.

"No, no, as we already said, the place of the inheritance is outside of your territory, and you also agreed to it before." Yu Ene shook his hands and replied to the Ma clan leader.

They were all present here talking about the inheritance place that had appeared a month ago when the earthquake had appeared. This was the same place that Yang Zhai had his eyes on. He had also asked Jun Haru to help him obtain something from this exact same place. This was also Yang Zhai's second condition put forward for saving Jun Haru's life.

And the inheritance place had appeared outside of the Ma clan's territory; however, this place was touching the Ma clan's territory slightly, and this was why a conflict between the two clans had occurred.

According to the agreement set in the past between the two clans: as the Bai clan was the first one to find the inheritance place, they were the true owners. However, the Ma clan did not want to lose this inheritance and argued that the inheritance place had appeared in their territory. 

As for whether this place was truly an inheritance place or not was not confirmed. It was because they had just assumed the place to be an inheritance place after investigating a little, they didn't truly see what was inside because of the seal that blocked their way.

And in this way, both of the clans went through a lot of negotiations and came to an agreement; the Bai clan and Ma clan would make an alliance, both of them would share the inheritance, and in return, the Bai clan asked for something particular and the Ma clan gave what Bai clan had asked for. The Ma clan took a step back and agreed to the Bai clan's conditions because they also knew that the inheritance place was not truly in their territory and they were at a disadvantage.

However, the final conditions could not be decided upon when elder Jun Nie and the others went to the Bai clan; therefore, the academy leaders Yu Ane and Yu Ene were sent by the Bai clan to negotiate the final conditions and the present situation occurred.

Ma clan was not willing to give seventy percent to the Bai clan.


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1-Qualm: a misgiving about what one is doing or going to do. qualm implies an uneasy fear that one is not following one's conscience or better judgment