Chapter 138: You’re Playing Chaste with Me?

Blue Demon sat in a chair. Her eyes slowly opened, fixing on Lin Xiaosu lying on the bed.

Yes, Lin Xiaosu was being rather ungentlemanly tonight. He had taken the bed and left a woman sitting beside it.

In truth, this had been Blue Demon’s insistence. She had said herself that she never slept in a bed. She did not even need sleep. Sleep was merely a form of recuperation, and whenever she was not fighting, she was recuperating already.

Even walking could produce an effect akin to sleep. Sitting in a chair was even more restful.

“What is it? Can the lovemaking next door really excite you to this extent?” Blue Demon’s languid voice drifted over.

There was nothing strange about being unable to bear it. That was perfectly normal. But discussing the subject so openly seemed rather less normal.

So he pretended to be asleep.

Blue Demon had no intention of letting the matter drop. “I find it somewhat difficult to believe that, amid the mortal world, you could remain faithful to Changye.”

Lin Xiaosu opened his eyes. “Didn’t you accept only Changye’s commission, and agree to look after me within reason? Yet you’ve shifted your attention toward this particular aspect. Don’t you think that makes your concern no longer reasonable, but somewhat… excessive?”

Blue Demon’s brows shot up. “This isn’t about whether it’s excessive. It’s about whether a good-for-nothing like you is worth her making any sacrifice for. I must look beyond appearances and see your true character!”

Lin Xiaosu’s gaze shifted slightly. “I’ve suddenly thought of a wonderful idea.”

Blue Demon’s attention was immediately diverted. “What is it?”

“There’s a good way to set Kunsha and Du Tiange against each other.”

“Tell me!” Blue Demon’s heart began to race.

This touched upon another of Lin Xiaosu’s talents: planning missions.

The last time he had gone to Fusang with Changye, three things had left the deepest impression. The first was his disguise technique, the second was the special method he had used to bring back the Purple Demon Stone, and the third was his planning.

For a plan to succeed, it required perfect preparation.

Especially under complicated circumstances.

Lin Xiaosu’s plan in Fusang had been textbook-perfect. Not one step had been superfluous, and not half a step had gone wrong.

Even Whitewater, the most skilled planner in Hidden Dragon, had applauded it with admiration.

The marvelous idea that now emerged from Lin Xiaosu’s mouth filled Blue Demon with boundless anticipation.

Lin Xiaosu said, “If we take on Du Tiange’s appearance and rape Kunsha’s favorite concubine, do you think Kunsha will be enraged?”

Blue Demon froze. “We take Du Tiange’s form? And play a rape game?”

“This isn’t a game. It’s strategy. Didn’t you just say that, as a demon, you take the objective as your foundation and ignore all other incidental matters?”

Blue Demon’s brows furrowed tightly. “I’m a woman. I can’t carry out this strategy. So the one who actually has to do it is you!”

“…That does seem to be true.” Lin Xiaosu frowned as well. “Then we have a problem. If I do this, would that mean I have failed to remain faithful amid the mortal world? Wouldn’t looking beyond appearances reveal that I have a problem with my character?”

Blue Demon’s eyes changed. Layer upon layer of strange light rippled within them, as though any number of little bubbles might rise to the surface.

Lin Xiaosu studied her expression. “What is it? You seem to have rather complicated feelings. Is there something you want to say?”

“Go to sleep!”

Lin Xiaosu was very amenable to advice. He lay down and promptly fell asleep.

Blue Demon stared at him with eyes of infinite brilliance. If the light within them had been ropes, she would probably have used them to hang him up and teach him a lesson.

That little bastard had used her own spear to attack her own shield.

She had just said that the mission was the foundation.

Yet now she had brought up another principle: looking beyond the phenomena of the mortal world to see the truth beneath.

The two ideas were contradictory.

At least according to Hidden Dragon’s dictionary, appearances could never reveal the essence.

The essence of Hidden Dragon was that the mission came first. Even one’s body did not belong to oneself; it existed only as an aid to the mission.

How many Hidden Dragon warriors had endured humiliations beyond what ordinary people could bear in order to complete a mission? Some had even killed their own children with their own hands. Compared with that, what did a little trouble between the sheets amount to?

In the latter half of the night, the two rested normally.

At dawn the next day, they went their separate ways. Using transformation and disguise techniques, they gathered information throughout Shan State by their own methods.

At sunset, they reunited in their room.

Lin Xiaosu brewed a pot of tea and poured Blue Demon a cup.

He lifted another cup for himself.

This was the moment to compile the intelligence and analyze their next strategic move.

“Your brilliant plan from last night is probably unworkable,” Blue Demon said. “As far as I know, Kunsha does love women, but he loves power even more. If Du Tiange suddenly jumped out and raped one of his women, Kunsha probably wouldn’t become enraged. He would simply give the woman to Du Tiange and let him play with her to his heart’s content.”

“Yes. That is probably the quality of a warlord of his generation. Women are like clothes: if he wants to wear one, he puts it on; once he is finished, he discards it. As long as he retains his power, he will never lack new clothes,” Lin Xiaosu said.

“So, to truly set him against Du Tiange, we must strike at what he genuinely cares about.” Blue Demon took a sip of tea. “Killing the genetic elites under his command might be more suitable.”

That was the opening Blue Demon had found:

kill the genetic elites under Kunsha’s command.

Kunsha was a warlord.

His power consisted of two parts. The first was his ordinary army. A hundred thousand soldiers were enough to establish any warlord as a regional power. The second was the dozen or so genetic elites under his command. These experts enabled him to suppress the lesser commanders beneath his hundred-thousand-man army. If any of those commanders or generals dared disobey, the genetic elites would be sent out to kill them.

Thus, the genetic elites were the root of his power.

He would rather see a hundred of his women die than lose a single one of those genetic elites.

“No,” Lin Xiaosu said, gently shaking his head.

“No?” Blue Demon frowned. “Everyone, including Du Tiange himself, knows how important the genetic elites are to Kunsha. That is why he stood by and watched Ghost Shadow die, using your hand to kill one of Kunsha’s genetic elites. Given that psychological factor, it would be entirely logical for Du Tiange to hunt down the genetic elites under Kunsha. I don’t see any problem with the plan…”

Kunsha and Saito were rivals.

Their conflict had existed for a long time, and there were signs that it would only intensify in the future.

Under such circumstances, Du Tiange, as Saito’s foremost enforcer, naturally wanted Kunsha’s forces to keep losing their experts.

That aligned with Du Tiange’s strategic judgment: he could have saved Ghost Shadow, but deliberately chose not to.

He wanted the genetic elites beside Kunsha to die.

The more experts Kunsha lost, the weaker his control over and deterrence of his hundred-thousand-man army would become.

Only then would Saito have a chance to suppress him.

They could see this clearly, and Kunsha could naturally see it as well.

Under these circumstances, disguising themselves as Du Tiange and launching a destructive assault on the genetic elites under Kunsha’s command would be entirely believable. Only then could they truly inflame the conflict between the two sides and force Kunsha to devise a lethal countermeasure against Du Tiange.

Blue Demon considered the plan flawless.

But Lin Xiaosu said no.

“Your plan has two problems,” Lin Xiaosu said. “First, you’ve overlooked one person.”

“Who?”

“Kunsha.” Lin Xiaosu said, “Are you certain Kunsha himself isn’t an expert? If he is an Awakened, then going near him to kill his people would be fraught with danger.”

Blue Demon’s heart jolted. “The Hidden Dragon files record nearly every Awakened, yet he isn’t among them. What information have you obtained?”

Lin Xiaosu gently shook his head. “I’ve gathered a few records of Kunsha personally taking action. They aren’t enough to prove anything. But the special circumstances of the Qingface Kingdom make one thing certain: a man without genuine ability could never rise above the chaos, with monsters and warlords all vying for dominance, and become the absolute ruler of an entire region. So we may as well assume that he is an Awakened.”

Blue Demon pondered for a long while. “Tell me your second point.”

“The second point concerns Saito and Du Tiange.” Lin Xiaosu said, “Du Tiange clearly wants all the genetic elites around Kunsha dead. But why doesn’t he reduce their numbers himself? Why does he even need to use my hand to kill them? Clearly, he is wary of Kunsha as well. If Du Tiange himself dares not do it, we have no reason to do it in his place.”

Blue Demon let out a long breath. “You’ve convinced me. Tell me your idea. Where do you think we should begin?”

“Tano.”

Lin Xiaosu uttered the two words.

Tano…

A strange light flashed through Blue Demon’s eyes. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

Lin Xiaosu began explaining everything in detail.

Tano was one of Kunsha’s subordinates.

He had only two thousand soldiers—not a particularly large force—but he controlled the entire northern reaches of the Shan region, providing Kunsha with enormous support.

Money from scams poured endlessly out of the north, while the drug-smuggling routes branched out in every direction.

The drug lords had established close ties with Kunsha precisely because they had seen that, through him, they could cross the border defenses and transport narcotics into Daxia.

If Tano were killed, the benefits would be considerable.

First, more than half of Kunsha’s business empire would be severed, striking him where it truly hurt.

Second, his fury would be impossible to restrain. He would certainly seek out the killer and take revenge.

Third, Du Tiange would have no way to clear his name. Do you know why? Saito had always wanted to extend his reach into northern Shan State. He had secretly supported three factions, but under Tano’s control, he had been unable to gain a foothold. Once Tano and the people at his headquarters were dead, those three factions would have their opportunity. As soon as they established themselves in northern Shan State, Saito would possess that strategic prize.

Therefore, if anything happened to Tano, Du Tiange would be Kunsha’s prime suspect even without any deliberate framing.

Blue Demon slowly rose to her feet. “When do we act?”

There was no further discussion. Only one question remained: when would they act?

That was Blue Demon. She would not stubbornly cling to a field in which she was not skilled. Lin Xiaosu excelled at planning, and she had finally witnessed it, understood it, and accepted it without hesitation.

“Tonight.”

Lin Xiaosu raised his eyes, seeming to see the Gongchun Mountain outpost through the window.

The primary enemy of the Gongchun Mountain outpost was Tano’s faction.

More than a dozen soldiers from the outpost died each year on the frontier. The blood feud all led back to Tano.

Lin Xiaosu had listed many advantages, but he had left out two.

The first was revenge.

The second was the opportunity for development.

There was no need to explain revenge. If you dared kill soldiers guarding our border, we would wipe out your lair.

What did he mean by providing an opportunity for development?

Once Tano died, northern Shan State would inevitably fall into the struggle among various warlords. They would have no energy left to organize further cross-border attacks, and the outpost would enjoy a period of peace.

During that peaceful interval, all seventeen soldiers at the outpost could enter the realm of ancient martial arts.

By the time the situation here had stabilized, the defensive forces there would already have reached a higher level.

He had not mentioned these two points because Blue Demon was a Heavenly King of Hidden Dragon.

In the dictionary of Hidden Dragon, revenge had never been a concept.

And in the dictionary of a Hidden Dragon Heavenly King, an outpost clearly carried little weight.

But Lin Xiaosu?

He was just an ordinary man.

That bastard had nearly killed his brother. If Lin Xiaosu did not beat him into the ground, how could he call himself a son of the Lin family?

He was sorry, but in his dictionary, personal vengeance mattered a great deal.