The Captain’s words made Xu Qing think back to seeing his Master back at Forbidden by the Zombie. He had been located in a spell formation that indicated his cultivation level was similar to Sir Bloodsmelter’s. Fully convinced of the Captain’s wisdom, he nodded.

Seeing Xu Qing agree to his suggestion, the Captain’s eyebrows danced up and down. “So, we need to go talk to Master. Of course, we can’t send a voice message, nor can we ask the Swordsage Court to relay a message for us….” The Captain blinked a few times. “We need to trick Master into coming to us! Then we can explain in person.”

“So…?” Xu Qing asked hesitantly. Something about the look in the Captain’s eyes seemed concerning.

“So… we’re going to need to come up with a foolproof plan to make sure Master eagerly comes charging over here at top speed!” The Captain cleared his throat. “Consider everything, little Junior Brother. You might think that telling him one of us is about to die would be the perfect scam. But we need something realistic. If we told him that I was about to die, he would probably drop everything and speed over here immediately. All in all, Master cherishes me the most. But… I can survive with my head alone and no body. So all Master has to do is put some thought into it and he’d probably realize it was a trick.”

Face completely expressionless, Xu Qing calmly said, “Couldn’t we send him a message in code?”

“Code? Of course not! What, you think we have some secret system of code words or something? We don’t!” The Captain sighed, glanced at Xu Qing out of the corner of his eye, then continued, “Sadly, you’re going to have to take one for the team, little Junior Brother. To make things seem very realistic, you have to agree to not fight back. Don’t worry, I won’t hit too hard. You’ll probably recover within a week.

“The worst I’ll do is break your legs in a few places, stab you a few times, shatter eighty or ninety of your other bones, and splatter some of your brains out. That sort of thing. Given how many times we’ve done this, I’m pretty good at it.

“The most important thing is that, when Master sees you, he doesn’t get any indication it’s a scam. Afterward, we’ll explain the whole situation in a very logical manner. Things will definitely go very smoothly. Relax. I’ve handled this sort of thing many times in the past.”

The Captain chuckled darkly, and was virtually dancing back and forth. Whenever he opened seals, he felt it was necessary to reinforce to Xu Qing his authority as the Eldest Brother. That was especially true considering that he had been lagging behind Xu Qing a bit in cultivation. That alone was enough to make him want to make a very big point of establishing his dominance.

In response to the Captain, Xu Qing nodded and took out his command sword. After paying the requisite fee, he sent a voice message to the grand elder at the Swordsage Court in Emperor-Receiving Prefecture.

“Sorry to bother you, Grand Elder, but I’m hoping you can pass a message to my Master.”

Looking the Captain in the eye, he continued to send the message with the command sword. However, this was the type of message that someone couldn’t overhear even if they were standing there.

“Tell my Master that my Eldest Brother is dead set on marrying a cloud troll he met here in the county capital. I’ve tried to persuade him against it, but he won’t listen to me. The wedding is in three days. My Eldest Brother doesn’t dare to say anything to our Master, so I’m officially extending Master the invitation to the wedding.”

“….” The grand elder listened to the message, then suddenly laughed. He could obviously read between the lines. “Your Master is definitely going to be very happy to hear the news.”

“Many thanks, Grand Elder!” Xu Qing replied solemnly. He put away his command sword and looked at his suspicious Eldest Brother.

“Why do I get the feeling something fishy is going on, little Junior Brother? Did you send the message exactly according to the plan we agreed on?”

Looking back at him solemnly, Xu Qing said, “You ought to trust me a bit more than that, Eldest Brother.”

The Captain still wasn’t completely convinced, but he rubbed his hands together nonetheless. Eyes glittering, he said, “Alright, fine. I’m going to go easy on you, little Junior Brother. Remember, I just broke through, so I’m particularly formidable right now. This is a perfect opportunity to get in some practice.” The Captain prepared to make a move.

But then Xu Qing shook his head. “Eldest Brother, the message I sent indicated that I was poisoned, and that I don’t know how to dispel the poison.”

Xu Qing produced a poisonous plant from his bag of holding and put it in his mouth. The Captain gaped at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing looked back at him innocently. “There’s no way Master would believe I was injured. That’s too… commonplace. So I said I was poisoned. As you know, I’m skilled in the dao of poison. So if I can’t dispel it, then it’s obviously a very dangerous poison.”

Next, Xu Qing took out some poison powders and consumed them.

The Captain watched. He was still convinced Xu Qing was pulling a fast one on him, but at the same time, had to admit that what Xu Qing said was logical. Besides, Xu Qing had clearly eaten a lot of the poison already.

But then the Captain thought back to previous situations, and he blinked a few times. An enigmatic smile played out on his face. “Nice try, little Junior Brother. Did you really think I would fall for that?” He chuckled sarcastically, then stretched dramatically. “Even using teleportation portals, it’s impossible to make the journey from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture to here faster than three days. Fine. I won’t beat you up. Keep eating that poison. Eat your fill. I’ll be leaving now. I need to gather some intelligence reports about Forbidden by the Immortal.”

With that, the Captain clasped his hands behind his back. Looking very pleased and extremely confident, he turned to leave.

Xu Qing watched him go, all while shaking his head and continuing to eat poison.

The Captain calmly strutted out of the sword pavilion and back to the city. Eventually, he found an alleyway. Ducking inside, he looked down at his right hand. In the palm of that hand was an eyeball which projected an image of Xu Qing eating poison.

He’s still eating? Don’t tell me he realized I put an eyeball in place there. No, that’s not possible. After releasing the most recent seal, there’s no way little Ah Qing could sense me do something like that. Then the Captain hesitated. I’ll just keep watching for a bit.

Two days passed. It was now the eve of the day someone could arrive at the county capital if they rushed at top speed from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture. The Captain strolled into Xu Qing’s sword pavilion, rubbing his belly contentedly. He sat down in front of Xu Qing.

Xu Qing’s face was completely expressionless. He had greenish-black blotches all over his body, and looked like he had been seriously poisoned.

The Captain still felt suspicious. Yet for the past two days he had observed Xu Qing and noted him continuously eating poison. “Err… come on, little Junior Brother, there’s no need for that!”

“When Master shows up and finds out we scammed him,” Xu Qing said loudly, “he’s definitely going to be pissed off.” Xu Qing took out another poisonous plant and started chewing it. “Therefore, the worse I look, the less angry he’ll be.”

The Captain was starting to feel quite nervous, and was starting to wonder if Xu Qing’s analysis was correct. If so, then the fact that Xu Qing was working so earnestly to sell the act would actually show that he respected Master.

As it turned out, there really was a dao of scamming, and apparently, Xu Qing knew all about it. Long story short, Xu Qing’s way of doing things was going to ensure the Master was less pissed off. If that happened, and the Captain was perfectly hale and healthy… then Master would take that as a sign of disrespect. After all, regardless of the reason for scamming one’s Master, one had to do it in the proper way. If it was a single person involved, thus providing no way to compare with someone else, then it wouldn’t matter. But that wasn’t the case here.

Having reached this point in his train of thought, the Captain bitterly looked at Xu Qing. Outside, the sky was already starting to turn bright. Gritting his teeth, the Captain extended his hand in Xu Qing’s direction.

“Give me some poison!”

Xu Qing looked back at him quizzically. “You want some too?”

Full of grief and indignation, the Captain continued, “Give it to me!”

Xu Qing silently took out some poison and handed it to the Captain.

The Captain took it, closed his eyes, and ate. Almost instantly, his face turned greenish-black. Seeing that Xu Qing was still eating poison, he howled inwardly and did the same.

And thus, time passed. Two hours later, it was bright outside when Xu Qing’s transmission jade slip vibrated. Xu Qing picked up, and Master Seventh’s voice echoed out.

“Where are the two of you?”

Upon hearing Master Seventh’s voice, the Captain started stuffing more poison into his mouth until he was trembling from head to toe and gasping for breath.

Eyeing the Captain, Xu Qing sent a reply indicating they were in his sword pavilion. Then he waved his hand to open the door.

Shortly thereafter, Master Seventh materialized without a sound outside the sword pavilion. It almost looked like he had been painted there by a giant, invisible paintbrush. Face completely expressionless, he entered.

Xu Qing tried to stand, but only managed to cough up a mouthful of poisoned blood. Bowing his head, he said, “Master….”

“Nice acting. You know scamming your Master is wrong, right? However, it looks like you’ve been consuming poison for days to sell the act.” Master Seventh’s gaze softened as he looked at Xu Qing. “Hm. Yes, that’s the right attitude.”

When the Captain saw that, he struggled to rise, only to vomit.

Master Seventh smiled grimly, walked over, and kicked the Captain. A thump rang out as the Captain flew up into the air and then landed on his butt in a sitting position.

“Your acting skills aren’t as good. Just look at you! You hardly ate any poison at all. Why didn’t you learn a thing or two from your Junior Brother?”

“Master, I miss you so much!” the Captain said, ignoring his smarting butt to look plaintively at Master Seventh.

Off to the side, Xu Qing just looked on with a pained expression, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t dare.

Master Seventh snorted coldly. After one more glare at the Captain, he turned to look at Xu Qing, and yet again, his gaze softened. “Fourth Sib, you’ve never been the kind of kid who makes a practice of lying. Given that, it’s obvious your Eldest Brother forced you into this whole thing. It makes sense, considering your Eldest Brother is a habitual criminal.”

Xu Qing bowed his head. “Master, Eldest Brother and I came up with the idea together.”

“Even now you’re still trying to speak up for your Eldest Brother?” Master Seventh’s eyes overflowed with praise. He quickly pulled out some very expensive antidote pills and handed them to Xu Qing. “Hurry up and eat those. Poor child. You’re just too honest.”

With that, Master Seventh turned and glared at the Captain again. “Look at you! What kind of an Eldest Brother are you? I can’t believe you went so far as to force your Junior Brother to do all this. If you want me to come over here, you could just send a message in code! Your Junior Brother became an apprentice much later than you, so he doesn’t know all the code words. But you know them, don’t you? Wasn’t I the one who personally taught them to you when I took you out on all those missions years ago? What, you released another seal so you’re all smug now? Or are you just hoping to get a good thrashing again?”

The Captain shivered and shook his head. Then he noticed Xu Qing looked at him silently, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Xu Qing betrayed no facial expression as he put the antidote pills in his mouth and swallowed them. He also took out a few medicinal plants and ate them. Moments later, the poison within him was dispelled. During the two days in which he constantly ate poisonous plants, he had used the principles of mutual augmentation and suppression to carefully make the right mix of poisons. As a result, all he had to do was consume the right medicinal plants, and the poison would instantly be neutralized.

But the Captain had only eaten one portion of poison, which had instantly turned his face greenish-black. When the Captain saw that Xu Qing was already back to normal, his eyes went wide, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“Enough!” Master Seventh said, cutting off the Captain. “Spit it out. Why did the two of you go to this much trouble to scam your Master over here?”

The Captain looked like he was about to launch into an explanation, but Master Seventh shot him a glare. “You can just shut up. Simply hearing your voice is going to piss me off!”

Looking hurt, and somewhat depressed, the Captain thought, All I did was open a seal! I was just trying to establish some authority with little Ah Qing. How did things end up like this…?

“You explain, Fourth Sib.”

Looking very respectful, Xu Qing explained everything in detail. He even told his Master about the god’s finger, and how īt had transformed him.

It was the Captain’s first time hearing such details, and his eyes went wide.

Master Seventh glared at the Captain again. Though Master Seventh didn’t seem surprised by what Xu Qing was telling him, if you looked at him very closely, you would notice that his eyelids had twitched a few times. When Xu Qing finished, Master Seventh gave a cold harrumph.

“The two of you have really done some daring things in Gold Core. And you’re even plotting against gods! Thankfully, Fourth Sib, you cleverly thought to tell your Master about all this. I understand the situation now. Going forward, don’t put any more thought into it. Just go into Forbidden by the Immortal and act normal.”

With that, Master Seventh turned to walk out. After giving the Captain one more glare on the way, he faded into nothing.

***

When Master Seventh materialized in the county capital, his aura was masked, and he was struggling to control his breathing. Massive waves of shock battered at his mind and heart.

I recruited a real monster as my apprentice….

Then, he started laughing complacently. A proud expression filled his face.

But I’m his Master! 𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮

***

Back in the sword pavilion, the Captain looked at Xu Qing, his eyes bleary. “Little Junior Brother, what message did you send to Master? He seemed pissed off the moment he saw me.”

“So, Eldest Brother, as it turns out there are code words,” Xu Qing said calmly.

“Heyyy, it’s all good,” the Captain said, getting to his feet. Giving Xu Qing a hug, he produced a very familiar-looking crystal. He pressed it into Xu Qing’s hand. Flashing a very sincere smile full of familial love, he said, “Little Junior Brother, I was just joking around with you! Don’t you feel the bitterness and pain of the battlefield easing away? Ever since we got back, I’ve been worried about you!”

Xu Qing looked at the Captain, stunned.

The Captain smiled back, his eyes full of warmth and kindness. “Oh, you! You take everything so seriously! Your face is always so expressionless! And that’s especially the case when you’re hurting inside. That’s really not the way to do things.

“You’re not alone, little Ah Qing. You have the patriarch. You have Master. You have me. You have Second Elder Sister and Third Sib! We all care about you. We’re a family! Therefore, you don’t need to keep everything inside all the time. You can talk to us!

“I said before that we should travel the world together. I was serious about that. And not just you and me. All of us, as a family! Together, traveling the world!”

In that moment, the Captain truly seemed like a big brother. Xu Qing’s heart swelled with warmth. He was truly moved.

Then the Captain cleared his throat. “And that’s why I was wondering if you could get rid of this poison for me!”

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