Chapter 186: Dangerous Meeting

"Oh?"

Boss Bai smiled. "Then how did you know I would see you, Advisor Yan?"

"Because you're feeling unsure, Boss Bai."

Yan Jing smiled.

"Is that so? I don't recall anything I should feel unsure about."

Boss Bai turned and shouted to the guard watching the stairs, "Do you know of anything I might be unsure about?"

"N-no, I don't."

The man looked completely bewildered.

"You see? Even he doesn't know!"

Boss Bai chuckled.

"Why don't you tell me, Advisor: what exactly is Bai Qiu unsure about?"

In response to the question, Yan Jing picked up his teacup and smiled.

"I can't say."

"You can't say?"

"I can't say."

Bai Qiu nodded. He picked up his own tea and was about to take a sip, but paused to look at Yan Jing again.

"Is it that you can't say, or that you don't dare to say?"

"A bit of both."

Yan Jing smiled.

"I see."

Bai Qiu nodded and downed his tea in one gulp.

Setting the cup back on the table, he said, "It seems you really do know why I'm unsure, Advisor."

"I really do."

Yan Jing nodded.

"And how did you figure that out, Advisor?"

Bai Qiu looked at him.

"Because of the ballot Boss Bai delivered."

Yan Jing replied.

"I already told you, that was my apology to Commander Wei." Bai Qiu stared at Yan Jing.

"You don't believe me, Advisor?"

"Half and half." Yan Jing smiled. "But the ballot I mean isn't that one."

"It's the one I got this morning."

"I didn't drop that one," Bai Qiu stated.

"I never said I found it."

Yan Jing smiled. "I said it was the one I got."

"Oh... I see..."

Having given himself away, Bai Qiu nodded without the slightest hint of panic. He picked up his teacup with one hand, while his other hand, wrapped in Weird Energy, delicately flicked a gui yuan.

Swoosh—

The gui yuan shot out like a streak of light, instantly piercing the head of the guard at the top of the stairs. The corpse crumpled to the floor.

"How is the tea?"

Bai Qiu looked at Yan Jing.

"Very good."

Yan Jing smiled.

"Since you guessed what I was up to, Advisor, why didn't you dare say it? Were you afraid I'd make a move against you?"

Bai Qiu continued, "There's no one here but us. You can speak freely."

"No."

Yan Jing laughed. "I was afraid you'd go complain about me to Commander Wei."

"I don't have any men planted with Commander Wei!"

Bai Qiu denied it immediately.

"And I never said you had anyone planted there, Boss Bai."

Yan Jing chuckled.

The teacup in Bai Qiu's hand paused again before he slowly set it back down.

He had lost his taste for the tea.

"I really might make a move against you, Advisor."

Bai Qiu looked at Yan Jing. "There's no one here but us."

"I know."

Yan Jing smiled and nodded. "Which is why I drank something ahead of time."

"That stuff should be very rare in human hands."

Bai Qiu's face darkened. "And it has a time limit."

"True, but that applies to others."

Yan Jing's tone was calm, as if simply stating a fact.

...

The teacup in Bai Qiu's hand trembled slightly. Finally, he burst into laughter.

"Advisor, we've gone off topic."

"Since you came looking for me, we should talk about why you're here."

Yan Jing said calmly, "I want to know who holds the other half of the ballots."

"Well, about that..."

Bai Qiu picked up his teacup and smiled. "Hard to say."

"Lin Changgui, right?"

Yan Jing also picked up his cup.

With a single sentence, Bai Qiu once again found himself unable to drink his tea.

He liked to talk in circles, but crossing paths with Yan Jing today made him realize his usual detours were child's play.

The man in front of him was the true master of talking in circles.

And just when he was ready to spin his own circles to counterattack, Yan Jing completely fucking dropped the act.

"Are you trying to kill Commander Wei? Or Lin Changgui?"

Yan Jing continued, "In your calculations, the final vote between those two should end in a thirteen-to-thirteen tie, right?"

"There are twenty-six ballots in total. If both men end up with exactly thirteen each, they will definitely fight to the death."

"Getting those twenty-six ballots split so evenly couldn't have been easy, could it?"

Listening to Yan Jing, Bai Qiu took a deep breath, staring at his face with a remarkably dark gaze.

If it weren't for the fact that this human would be leaving in a day at most, and that he currently held his secret, Bai Qiu would have made him stay permanently, no matter what.

Ultimately, he slowly exhaled.

"Not easy. Of course it wasn't easy."

"I paid a heavy price to every faction involved."

"You truly are brilliant, Advisor, to have figured it out to this extent. Hahaha."

He laughed loudly, then abruptly stopped, locking eyes with Yan Jing.

"But unfortunately, you're wrong about one thing, Advisor. The reason they agreed to hand over their ballots wasn't because of what I gave them."

"It's because they also don't want to see Wei Nantian running rampant in Bianliu County."

"No matter how much we infight... it's still between people of Bianliu County."

"If an outsider wants to meddle, well, Wei Nantian certainly isn't qualified."

Bai Qiu smiled.

"Big Landlord Lin wants to be the county head, so we'll just let him. If he's willing to pay the price to kill Wei Nantian, none of us have any objections."

"Like I said, I don't care about the county head position, but I do care about who sits in it."

Yan Jing nodded.

"Commander Wei is still unfamiliar with this place. He doesn't understand the situation in Bianliu County and just assumes everyone here is a scattered mess."

Bai Qiu tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

"So what do you plan to do, Advisor? Tell Wei Nantian about this?"

"If he retreats, your mission evaluation will definitely take a massive hit, Advisor. As for me, I'll only have wasted some money. My goal of driving him away will still be achieved."

Yan Jing said, "By saying this, are you preparing to bribe me, Boss Bai?"

"Hahaha."

Bai Qiu threw his head back and laughed, then lowered it. His expression turned serious as he spoke rapidly, "One hundred thousand Eerie Broken Silver!"

Yan Jing smiled. "You truly are generous, Boss Bai!!"

One Eerie Coin equaled five surface coins. One gui yuan equaled five Eerie Coins. One Eerie Broken Silver equaled ten gui yuan.

Calculated out, that was twenty-five million in Surface World currency.

With a price like that, one wouldn't be too far off from buying a purple-black Ritual needed to advance to the Third Tier. After all, a purple-black Ritual usable at the Second Tier was on a completely different level than one meant for the First Tier.

Shen Youran had once estimated the financial strength of the various factions in the Inner World.

The Bai Qiu sitting in front of him was indeed very wealthy, but a sum like this was definitely not a small amount, even for him.

Combined with what he had already paid the major factions, this might actually be quite a heavy burden on Bai Qiu.

Paying so much, just to kill a single Wei Nantian?

Yan Jing smiled.

"Boss Bai, I'm afraid I can't accept this money."

"Commander Wei has treated me well."

Bai Qiu nodded.

"Understood!"

"You want more money, Advisor!"

"One hundred and fifty thousand!"

Bai Qiu held out his right hand.

Yan Jing's smile grew even wider.

Because Bai Qiu raising the price highlighted the core of the problem once again.

Either Wei Nantian possessed some secret worth far more than one hundred and fifty thousand Eerie Broken Silver, enough to make a massive profit...

Or Bai Qiu never had any intention of actually paying this sum.

This was blood money.