Chapter 685 - Turbulent Undercurrents
Wang Lu’s injuries completely recovered three days later.
However, when he came out of his room, he felt that the whole world had turned upside down.
The first thing that he noticed was the work.
During the three days of convalescence, Wang Lu boldly enabled Hai Yunfan to temporarily substitute him in his work. However, pushing a disciple of Ten Thousand Arts Sect who had always been relatively low-key to the top position with the greatest pressure undoubtedly threw him into confusion.
Because of Wang Lu’s excellent performance as the chief planner, more and more work had been handed over to him boldly and confidently by Supreme He Tu. That kind of workload, for any other Elder in Heavenly Sage Hall, they would’ve long cried out complaints. However, Wang Lu handled it easily—mainly because he was too bold and extremely daring and that he could use the cutting the Gordian knot tactic frequently. Unfortunately, there was only one Wang Lu in Nine Regions. And now, because he was bedridden due to injury recuperation, a shortage of his presence was immediately exposed.
Hai Yunfan was undoubtedly a qualified bureaucrat, unfortunately, compared to Wang Lu, there was still a big difference.
This gap was not necessarily a gap in ability and wisdom—dealing with routine affairs did not require much talent and unique ideas, but more of an accumulation of experience. As Wang Lu’s longtime secretary, Hai Yunfan had enough intelligence and experience. What was hard to cope was his courage.
Wang Lu’s courage was so formidable that ever so often, he communicated with the high-level Elders of Heavenly Sage Hall, and even so much as directly refuted the reputation of the other party—in any case, he had the backing of the biggest character in Heavenly Sage Hall, Daoist He Tu, so he didn’t have to defer to anyone else’s status.
However, for Hai Yunfan, even if he multiplied his courage for a hundred times, he would still not dare to do as what Wang Lu did. He Tu favored Wang Lu, but never Hai Yunfan. Those Elders might not dare to do anything to Wang Lu, but they would easily get angry with Hai Yunfan.
Therefore, when handling official duties, Hai Yunfan felt that his hands were tied. Many things could not be decided at all and had to be pushed by him onto Wang Lu who would later recover from injuries in a few days. Even so, there were still a lot of work that could not be pushed for later, which made Hai Yunfan incessantly complain, and during which, he inevitably made mistakes.
Standing in Wang Lu’s position, any mistakes that Hai Yunfan might make could lead to catastrophic consequences. But fortunately, the time was right for him, so in the end, he passed through the crisis without any mishap.
The so-called ‘time was right’ referred to the excellent achievements of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals in these past three days.
After the one-on-one Jindan Stage level Challenge, seven more competitions were held one after another in the next three days. There were cultural competitions and martial competitions, of which, the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals won six of them. One of them was Yuanying Stage level one-on-one fight. In that fight, the Fourth Elder of Spirit Sword Sect Zhou Ming came on stage. With one sword strike, he inflicted a serious injury toward the Yuanying Stage level Flesh Massacre and split his already damaged human-skin-apron into two halves.
This fight almost made the people of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals burst out. Previously, the victory in Jindan Stage level Challenge depended upon Wang Lu’s frequent clever tricks, but the victory of this Yuanying Stage level fight was clearly based on Zhou Ming’s strength! That dazzling sword light easily tore the defense of Flesh Massacre. No matter how much the sea of corpses that he put out, he could not prevent his defeat.
Although Zhou Ming showed very obvious symptoms of exhaustion after the fight, during the fight that lasted for around thirty minutes, Zhou Ming was on a roll, which mesmerized everyone.
The Union of Ten Thousand Immortals actually had people who could rely on their strength to defeat the Earth Immortal in the fight! This was truly incredible!
Of course, by this time, people seemed to unanimously exclude the Number One Jindan in Nine Regions, who obviously always crushed everything thrown at her, from the category of human beings.
The revelry caused by this victory was enough to cover up some slight mistakes in Hai Yunfan’s work. Thus, when Wang Lu recovered from his injuries, Hai Yunfan could finally wipe out his cold sweat and hand over the seal that symbolized the position.
After taking over the seal, Wang Lu saw a lot of urgent and even outdated official duties, and the many troubles caused by Hai Yunfan’s improper handling of affairs.
In regard to this, Hai Yunfan naturally felt quite sorry—although he was somewhat dissatisfied with Wang Lu’s forced arrangement of this work. Nevertheless, the mistakes were accumulated under his hands, so he did not want to shirk away from the responsibilities.
However, Wang Lu had already anticipated this early on, so he just patted Hai Yunfan on the shoulder and comforted him, “Being alive is good.”
Hai Yunfan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, thinking that, “Did you expect me to make terrible mistakes in these three days and then sacrifice myself heroically? Knock it off, if something truly bad happened, I would just push the blame on you, roll up my sleeves, and leave. You’re single, so you have no responsibility, while here I have a wife.”
However, on the other hand, to be alive was indeed good. Although he had only been in power for three days, Hai Yunfan had given a deep impression to many Elders, but through the good and the bad, nevertheless, they remembered him. This was undoubtedly a new door for Hai Yunfan, who had gradually felt his cultivation life tedious.
After taking back the authority, Wang Lu quickly began to clean up the accumulated mess left by Hai Yunfan. However, when he really began to look carefully at the files of the past three days, he could not help but frown.
“Little Hai, what’s all this about?”
Hai Yunfan, who resumed his secretarial post, looked at the file referred to by Wang Lu and said, “As you can see, in the three days that you were absent, the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals won consecutive victories.”
Seeing that, Wang Lu’s eyes gradually sharpened, Hai Yunfan knew the problem was vague. Thus, he paused and then said, “Two of them came from the wonderful play by Luo Xiao.”
Wang Lu and Luo Xiao did not see eye to eye—this was known to many people in the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals. And as Wang Lu’s secretary, Hai Yunfan was, of course, aware of this. According to Wang Lu’s opinion, it was better to not let this little baldy appear at all, so that little baldy could never show the result of his special training in Royal Soldier Sect.
Many people were curious as to why Wang Lu would target Luo Xiao so much. Although Wang Lu was certainly not a magnanimous saint, with his current prestigious status, it was obviously beneath him to pick on Luo Xiao who was obviously not on the same level. Of course, as the disciple of Non-Phase’s Wang Wu, some things like dignity and status were just as ephemeral as floating clouds.
Hai Yunfan once seriously asked him, and after thinking seriously, Wang Lu told him, “Because he is too ugly.”
This answer obviously saddened Hai Yunfan. However, later on, Wang Lu also earnestly said, “There’s no clear reason. His performances in all aspects are good, but I just don’t like seeing him, or more accurately, he is not pleasing to my eyes. However, judging from my aesthetics appreciation level, someone not pleasing to my eyes could only mean that he is simply too ugly, that’s it.”
Although Wang Lu’s explanation was not very convincing, his meaning was very clear, and it was actually accordingly carried out. Luo Xiao was not allowed to go on stage, and even if he was scheduled, Wang Lu would still stop him anyway. Thus, when he saw Luo Xiao scoring two victories in a row, he had to question Hai Yunfan’s work.
The most important contestants in this Grand Competition were personally arranged by Wang Lu, while the rest still needed his approval. In Wang Lu’s absence, Hai Yunfan was responsible for contestant approval. But then, Hai Yunfan actually let Luo Xiao enter the arena and win twice.
Wang Lu didn’t think that this was due to negligence. He knew that Hai Yunfan was careful and considerate, that was why he chose him as his secretary. And since Hai Yunfan did something unexpected, Wang Lu obviously needed an explanation.
“I couldn’t stand the pressure, he has too many reasons to come out to fight, I could not refute them.” Hai Yunfan said, “The person who recommended him was an Elder of Heavenly Sage Hall. I tried to block him from the competitions on the grounds that there are more suitable contestants, but the first choice of the two matches coincidentally dropped out for various reasons, so the second choice Luo Xiao naturally replaced them.”
Wang Lu immediately interrupted, “You could immediately set up a special task force to investigate the reasons for the dropped out of the two preferred contestants, there must certainly be an injustice done to them. If you don’t find out the truth, then the faces of all the cultivators who participated in the Grand Competition would be lost. In light of this, you could immediately name Luo Xiao who is the direct beneficiary of this situation to be the main suspect and take him for detention and interrogation. And then take this opportunity to let the third choice to participate in the fight… Do I still need to teach you about this?”
Hai Yunfan sighed. “This trick could only be done by you, so don’t embarrass me about it. What’s more, Luo Xiao’s backing is really hard. I was forced to throw the burden completely on you, claiming that you have explicitly said Luo Xiao has other uses and don’t want him to come out so early…”
Wang Lu interrupted again, “You should’ve been tougher when you told them my words, saying that I strongly believe that Luo Xiao is a spy from the Earth Immortal camp that should be immediately crushed into the dark room and tortured severely. And never put him on the stage to let bad things happen to us!”
Hai Yunfan was silent for a while and decided not to argue with Wang Lu about this. “In short, after Luo Xiao’s two victories, his prestige gradually grew. Plus, some people deliberately fanned the flame, which praised him as the glory of Jindan. Although his fame is still far less than you, it is about to catch up to that of Liu Li and Zhu Shiyao. I suggest that you don’t put any more pressure on him in the future.”
Wang Lu also sighed. “That’s why I told you to crush him to death before he could make a solid record.”
In the end, this Grand Competition was not something that followed Wang Lu’s every whim. Even Daoist He Tu couldn’t act recklessly. The world was big, but it was based on the word reason. If the other party had obtained the reason, even Wang Lu would inevitably find that his hands and feet were tied.
“Right now, I could only ask Miss A Wu to secretly give him her insect… There are endless variations in the insect technique from the Age of Desolation. When the time comes, we could forge the circumstances and situation and push the blame on the Earth Immortal camp. I’ll come up with how to arrange his murder scene.” With that, Wang Lu began to be lost in thoughts.
Hai Yunfan was amazed. How much hate did Wang Lu have on Luo Xiao? He never heard a single disrespectful thing caused by Luo Xiao to Wang Lu.
“It’s not just for Luo Xiao… Although I don’t like that baldy, since he could bring victories to the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals, I certainly won’t embarrass him. The problem is, the backing behind him is really unsightly. After the event of the Heavenly Book Building, there are still people who want to show their sense of existence. This kind of thing is absolutely intolerable for me.”
Such an explanation was easier to accept for Hai Yunfan. Wang Lu’s point of view had always been the same, which was: in this Grand Competition, the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals was the weaker side. Thus, if the weak wanted to defeat the strong, they had to exert their limited strength to the limit. And during this process, any waste caused by inconsistencies of opinions and voices must absolutely not be allowed.
Therefore, even if the means were somewhat disgraceful, Wang Lu still pursued this one-word one-way thing.
Hai Yunfan understood Wang Lu’s ideas very well and thus supported his approach. The problem was…
Could this one-word one-way thing be achieved?
During these three days, the undercurrents were turbulent.