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Xu Yuan had long suspected that Madam Moon might be a cultivator too. A woman running a place as massive as the Drunken Immortal Tower all by herself had never been a realistic idea. And now, one look confirmed it. She really was an expert.
At last, the mystery of why the Third Young Master had not been able to last even three moves against her was solved. Most likely, Madam Moon had been using some kind of dual cultivation art back then. She was absolutely shameless.
With her throat pinned in someone else's grip, Madam Moon naturally could not answer Xu Yuan's question.
Xu Yuan watched her pale little face for two seconds, then lifted a hand in a small signal.
Zhou Chen released her immediately, cast Madam Moon a long, meaningful look, then stepped back behind Xu Yuan and lowered his eyes, standing there quietly. Unlike those lofty experts who loved putting on airs, he had clawed his way up from the very bottom. Being a Grandmaster, he could do. Being a henchman, he was a professional.
The garden alley was silent, all blue tiles and green brick. On the smooth courtyard wall, Madam Moon's slender body had already punched a shallow crater.
The moment Zhou Chen let go, Madam Moon collapsed limply to the ground. Paired with that pale face of hers, she looked pitiful enough to stir anyone's heart.
Xu Yuan blinked in surprise and shot Zhou Chen a sidelong glance. You hit her that hard?
Zhou Chen answered with a helpless look and a faint shake of the head.
Madam Moon had only appeared suddenly to block the Third Young Master's path and throw her weight around a little. She had not actually attacked, so he had merely returned the favor with a warning of his own.
Xu Yuan understood. When he looked back at Madam Moon, amusement had already surfaced in his eyes. As expected of a woman who had survived the winnowing tides of the pleasure quarter. Even her acting was this convincing.
"Madam Moon, why go to all this trouble?"
Madam Moon lowered her eyes for a moment. She pressed her thin lips together lightly, and when she looked up again, there was already a trace of grievance shimmering in her gaze.
"Third Young Master, if... if the Drunken Immortal Tower belonged to me, then if you wanted it, how could I possibly refuse? But these rules were set by Mister Qin. I can only follow them."
"Mister Qin…?" The unfamiliar name made Xu Yuan murmur under his breath.
Xu Changtian might run wild wherever he pleased, but in places like this, he had always been generous. Men fighting out of jealousy was common enough, but with his status and his willingness to throw money around, things had never blown up into any real disaster. So this was the first time Xu Yuan had heard the name Mister Qin. He was probably the real owner behind the Drunken Immortal Tower.
Xu Yuan tried to match this Mister Qin to someone from the plot of Azure Point, but came up empty. The title Mister Qin did sound strangely familiar. But thinking it over, it probably was not from Azure Point at all.
In any case, anyone capable of backing a business like the Drunken Immortal Tower from the shadows had to be somebody important. After all, in the Third Young Master's memories, there was a Drunken Immortal Tower in the imperial capital as well.
After a brief pause, Xu Yuan turned to Zhou Chen, a question in his eyes.
Zhou Chen hesitated slightly, then sent his answer straight into Xu Yuan's ear through voice transmission.
Hearing that, Xu Yuan more or less understood what kind of person this Mister Qin was.
A scion of a great clan. Born with a natural sword bone. Famous throughout the Southriver region. More than ten years ago, people had even praised him as someone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the Chancellor's eldest son.
A strange look flickered through Xu Yuan's eyes. If Mister Qin really was as Zhou Chen described, then why had he never once appeared in the plot?
Madam Moon could not hear the voice transmission, but she could read their expressions. After weighing things for a second, she continued softly, "Third Young Master, this new girl of mine was personally brought here by Mister Qin himself, and he personally gave instructions regarding her as well. Surely you cannot expect this servant to go against Mister Qin's wishes?"
That snapped Xu Yuan back to the present, and his brows rose at once. He paid no attention to the second half of her sentence. That woman was sent here by Mister Qin?
After a few moments of thought, Xu Yuan asked with a smile, "Madam Moon, you are saying Jinxuan was brought here by that Mister Qin. Is that true?"
A trace of confusion flashed through Madam Moon's eyes, but she still answered honestly, "This servant would never deceive you, Third Young Master. Jinxuan truly was brought here by Mister Qin in person half a month ago."
Xu Yuan's gaze flickered with thought. If what Madam Moon said was true, and that woman had really been sent here by Mister Qin, then that made things far more interesting.
Back in Azure Point, in the several story branches where Xu Yuan had controlled the protagonist into killing the Third Young Master, it had not been easy, but there had never been any overwhelmingly invincible enemy either. The strongest boss had only been someone like Xue Yong, a guard captain at the peak of sixth rank Iron Body.
But now that the plot had become reality, the problem was enormous.
After beating a boss at Xue Yong's level, the Third Young Master had simply had his throat slit by the protagonist Xu Yuan was controlling.
At the time, Xu Yuan had not paid it much attention. After all, brainless villain young masters sending their subordinates in one by one to die was practically a genre tradition, and that peak Iron Body boss really had been hard to beat.
But thinking back on it now, Zhou Chen and Ying'er, two Grandmasters, had both been standing right there watching.
With the protagonist's strength at this point in the story, how was he supposed to kill the Third Young Master?
Someone like Madam Moon only moved a little too close and Zhou Chen put her down in one move. With the protagonist's strength at this stage, trying to kill Xu Changtian… Zhou Chen could probably knock them dead with a single glare.
Granted, perhaps Xu Yuan's possession of the Innate Dao Physique had triggered a butterfly effect, causing Xu Changge to strengthen the guards around him. But after the whole Ran Qingmo kidnapping incident, Xu Changge should at least have left one Grandmaster behind to protect him.
And yet, in the plot, there was no such person. That meant that the Grandmaster who had been guarding the Third Young Master in the story was most likely tied up by something else.
At that thought, Xu Yuan's expression turned strange, and a rather absurd idea began creeping into his mind. Or… what if this whole plotline is just a bug?
After all, no matter how detailed a fictional world might be, there would always be places where the logic did not quite hold up, especially when a game also had to worry about player experience.
The moment that thought surfaced, the weirdness in Xu Yuan's heart only deepened. By now, he was already used to the world filling in its own gaps since his transmigration. If that really was the case, then this Mister Qin who had suddenly appeared made perfect sense.
Because the plotline where the protagonist killed the Third Young Master had a bug, the world itself had filled in a person to patch that bug.
Assuming that premise was true, then following that line of thought further… what was Mister Qin's motive? And which faction in Azure Point did he belong to?
Marquis Wucheng? The Marquis might have tense relations with the Chancellor’s Manor, but he had always acted openly and aboveboard. He would not stoop to targeting the Third Young Master.
The Crown Prince's faction? Xu Changtian’s father was the Chancellor, one of the Three Excellencies, and the Crown Prince's own teacher. With the Emperor critically ill, the Chancellor's faction had consistently been backing the Crown Prince. At this point in time, the Chancellor's Manor and the Crown Prince's royalist camp were still very much in their honeymoon phase.
Those regional sects? If they had been the ones moving in the shadows, then why would Ran Qingmo, the one and only disciple of the Sword Sect's master, have needed to take the risk of kidnapping him herself?
The tangled web of forces in Azure Point flashed rapidly through Xu Yuan's mind, but in the end, he came up with nothing.
The factions with motive lacked the strength. The factions with strength lacked the motive. And the ones that had both, like the Ancient Abyss, could not extend their reach into a major capital like Stillwater.
In the end, Xu Yuan fell back on his old habit. If he could not figure it out, then he would stop thinking about it for now. Once he met this Mister Qin in person and learned more, there would be plenty of time to speculate later.
He was just about to set the matter aside when the corner of his eye suddenly twitched. A single thought surfaced in his mind.
If this world can fill in a Mister Qin out of nowhere… then can’t it also fill in an entire hidden faction lurking in the dark?
