Chapter 13:
Ill Winds
“AHHHHHHH—!”
Wang Lingjiao screamed as she sat bolt upright in bed. Wen Chao, who had been in the middle of reading a letter, slapped the tabletop furiously.
“What are you howling about again in the middle of the night?!”
Still badly shaken, Wang Lingjiao gasped for breath. “I…I dreamed of that Wei guy. I dreamed of him again!”
“It’s been over three months since I threw him into the Burial Mounds,” Wen Chao said. “Why do you still dream about him? It’s been so many times!”
“I…I don’t know why either. I just keep dreaming about him lately,” Wang Lingjiao replied.
The letter had already left Wen Chao upset. He didn’t have time to pay attention to her, and wasn’t in the mood to hold and comfort her as he had in the past. “Then don’t sleep!” he snapped impatiently.
She got out of bed and threw herself at the table where Wen Chao sat. “Wen-gongzi, I… The more I think about it, the more scared I am. I wonder…did we make a huge mistake? …Could he have survived being thrown into the Burial Mounds? Would he…”
Wen Chao’s temples throbbed incessantly. “How is that possible? How many cultivators has our clan sent to their death in the Burial Mounds? Have any of them ever returned? After being tossed in there, he’s probably already a stinking, rotten corpse.”
“It’s scary even if he’s dead!” Wang Lingjiao exclaimed. “If he turned into a malicious ghost like he said he would and came back for us…”
As she spoke, they both remembered Wei Ying’s face and expression when he plummeted that day. Simultaneously, they shuddered.
Wen Chao immediately refuted her concerns. “It’s not possible even if he’s dead! The souls of those who die in the Burial Mounds are imprisoned there. Don’t scare yourself. Can’t you see I’m stressed right now?!” He crumpled the intelligence report in his hand into a ball and flung it away. “What Sunshot Campaign?” he said rancorously. “Sunshot, my ass. They wanna shoot the sun down? Keep dreaming!”
Wang Lingjiao stood up and cautiously poured him a cup of tea. After deliberating over some ingratiating words, she began to fawn over him. “Wen-gongzi, those other clans can only run rampant for so long. Sect Leader Wen will immediately…”
“Shut up!” Wen Chao cursed. “What the hell do you know?! Get out! Don’t bother me!”
Aggrieved and a little bitter, Wang Lingjiao set down the teacup, fixed her hair and gauze robe, and walked out with a smile on her lips.
As soon as she stepped out, the smile fell away, and she peeled open the wad of paper in her hands. She’d secretly picked up the letter Wen Chao had tossed away, wanting to see exactly what news had put him in such a temper. She couldn’t recognize many words, but after flipping the paper back and forth for a bit, finally fumbled through the gist of it: Wen Xu, the eldest son of Sect Leader Wen and eldest brother of Wen Chao, had been beheaded by one of the clan heads leading the revolt. His head was then mounted on the battlefield as a display of might!
Wang Lingjiao was stunned.
The Lan Clan of Gusu had been burned down, the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng had been annihilated, and countless other families big and small were being persecuted in various ways. It wasn’t that voices of resistance didn’t exist—just that they had always been quickly quelled by the Wen Clan of Qishan. That was why they hadn’t taken it seriously, three months ago, when the four clans of Jin, Nie, Lan, and Jiang formed an alliance and revolted under the banner of—whatever they called it, the “Sunshot Campaign” or something.
Sect Leader Wen had spoken, then. Of the four clans, the Jin Clan of Lanling was the fence-sitter, only deciding to join the alliance when they saw other clans taking the initiative to march against the Wens. If they suffered repeated defeats, the head of the Jin Clan would quickly decide they were just bringing trouble on themselves and double back to cling to the Wen Sect’s leg and cry for mercy.
The head of the Nie Clan of Qinghe, on the other hand, was too rigid and therefore easy to break. He couldn’t possibly last for long. Sooner or later, he would die at the hands of one of his own, without needing anyone else to take action.
The Lan Clan of Gusu had been burned to the ground. Lan Xichen, having saved the contents of the Library Pavilion, had returned to become the head of the family. But he was merely a junior, unable to shoulder any significant responsibility.
The most laughable of all was the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng—with the entire sect slaughtered or dispersed, only Jiang Cheng remained, and he was even younger than Lan Xichen. He was a stinking brat, still wet behind the ears, with no one under him. And he still dared call himself a family head! He’d raised the Jiang Sect banner on a crusade against the Wens and recruited new sect disciples while he was at it.
In short, these clans’ ambitions were unpromising and over-confident!
Everyone on the Wens’ side considered the Sunshot Campaign a joke. But three months later, the situation had not developed the way they had anticipated!
It was one thing for strategic spots in Hejian, Yunmeng, and the like to be wrested from their control. But to think that even the eldest son of Sect Leader Wen had been beheaded…
Wang Lingjiao stewed with uneasiness in the corridor for a while before returning to her own room, still unsettled. Her eye kept twitching madly. She rubbed it while pressing a hand over her chest, contemplating her own exit route.