The Sims: I Open the Immortal Path for All Beings - Chapter 534
Chapter 534: Chapter 482: Bai Xiaosheng’s coercion
Leveraging the divine position of the Great Ming Divine Dynasty, his strength was recovering rapidly. Although it was still far from his peak strength, it was a significant improvement from when he first returned to his ancestral land. At this point, he had enough power to protect himself. Even if the foes from the Sky Wasteland were to pursue him, he had the means to confront them, leaving him far from helpless.
Bai Xiaosheng shook his head and said, “I heard that in ancient times, the Witch Deity Teaching was originally in charge of the rites of the Divine Dynasty, weren’t they?”
He was not Pei Xuanjing. Pei Xuanjing had enough confidence to allow some people to do some things, to turn a blind eye to certain matters. But the nature of Bai Xiaosheng meant that he paid great attention to many things, he couldn’t possibly ignore them.
Mr. Wu, still smiling, said: “Superintendent, if you have something to say, just say it straight out, there’s no need to beat around the bush.”
“Since Mr. Wu is so blunt, I’ll just get straight to the point.” Bai Xiaosheng switched his self-reference to ‘I’, and directly stated: “I am quite curious about some events that happened in ancient times and would like to discuss them with you.”
He was probing. Bai Xiaosheng’s branch had a hold on a lot of information, but even Bai Xiaosheng himself couldn’t confirm whether these pieces of information were true or false.
Therefore, he wanted to take the opportunity to probe, to cross-validate and observe the other party’s attitude, while checking to see if the information he held was true.
There was a flicker of cold light in Mr. Wu’s deep eyes, which disappeared instantly, almost unnoticed by Bai Xiaosheng.
He stared intently at Bai Xiaosheng, not making a sound. The hall of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory became extremely quiet. Both of them stared at each other, neither backing down.
Had Pei Xuanjing been present, he would have instantly realized that Bai Xiaosheng was being too reckless. Bai was gambling with his own life.
The mystery of this Mr. Wu was even a cause of concern for Pei Xuanjing himself. It was due to Pei’s confidence in his own strength that he was willing to trade with the other party, despite not having much trust in him.
With Mr. Wu’s strength, if he were truly pushed too hard and was provoked to turn against them, neither party would gain much. But by provoking him, Bai was essentially gambling that Mr. Wu still needed them and wouldn’t dare to upset the situation.
The silence in the hall echoed to such an extent that you could hear a pin drop, but then Mr. Wu suddenly burst into hearty laughter: “Ha ha ha, no wonder you are the Superintendent, you really are extraordinary. I admire you, Mr. Bai. Since you are curious, I’ll certainly comply.”
After saying this, he got up and walked out of the hall without even a second glance at Bai Xiaosheng, who was left behind.
Whoosh whoosh…
Waiting for Mr. Wu’s figure to disappear at the entrance of the hall, Bai Xiaosheng collapsed onto a chair. Beads of sweat the size of soybeans dripped from his forehead, splattering onto the floor. He was panting heavily.
If someone had been behind him at that moment, they would have noticed that his entire back was soaked with sweat.
“I won the gamble.”
At that moment, that was the only thought in his mind.
But he had indeed just felt the killing intent emanating from the other party. His life had hung in the balance, and in the end it was the other party that decided to give up on upsetting the situation.
“Apparently, his goals are not small. He’s even able to tolerate such provocation.” Bai Xiaosheng pondered.
“Heh, even in the past, I only ridiculed others for having reckless courage, but I didn’t expect I’d behave like that today,” he derided himself.
In the past, he always had a plan before taking action. He never allowed himself to be in a situation where he was not in control, letting others hold his life in their hands.
But today, he couldn’t help but to voice his probe without any warning, making such a bold gamble.
No one else could understand – only because of the enormous pressure from the mysterious Mr. Wu. Even individuals from the Sky Wasteland like Xue Hanyi didn’t give Bai Xiaosheng such trouble.
But Mr. Wu was too mysterious. He knew too much, and his strength was far beyond anything Bai Xiaosheng could control. Being used to having control over everything, Bai Xiaosheng couldn’t bear this.
Fortunately, just as he had thought, Mr. Wu still needed him and his companions. The other party did not dare, or perhaps they were not able, to turn the tables.
After all, killing Bai Xiaosheng would be easy, but the death of Bai Xiaosheng would inevitably lead to a direct conflict with Pei Xuanjing and the others.
In the current Daming World, it is not an exaggeration to say that Pei Xuanjing is unrivalled. Even Mr. Wu would have to avoid the force of Pei Xuanjing, the holder of the Golden Book and Jade Scroll.
Such a scenario would undermine his plans, thoroughly disrupting them. Then his decision to return to his ancestral land ahead of schedule, at a significant cost, would be meaningless.
…
Pei Xuanjing, who was present in Tiandu, had no knowledge of the conversation between these two men, nor did he know that his plan had nearly been scuttled by Bai Xiaosheng.
Pei Xuanjing, now lacking time, was awaiting his refining of enough Taoyun and undergoing several more life simulations. Once his strength increased again, he would not need to have any concerns at all.
That’s why he was willing to maintain this situation. Even though many people from the Taoist School believed that he gave too many divine positions to the Great Ming Divine Dynasty, he didn’t care. As long as his strength improved again, he could easily take back anything he gave up now, as long as he was willing to.
The conversation between Bai Xiaosheng and Mr. Wu was not known to a third party, so of course, Pei Xuanjing was uncertain about it.
At this moment, he was studying the information collected.
It has been more than a month since he bestowed his Sword Intent on those pseudo-sect masters. During this time, about half of these individuals received Pei Xuanjing’s Sword Intent, but they were unable to refine it and eventually chose to give up.
Even though he had deliberately reduced the amount of Sword Intent given, not everyone was capable of accepting it. Many pseudo-sect masters found his domineering Sword Intent unbearable. If not for Pei Xuanjing’s watchful eye, they might have been driven mad by the Sword Intent.
“But that half of them have even persevered, is beyond my expectations. In my view, if a third of them had persisted, that would already be remarkable.” Pei Xuanjing looked over the information in his hand and thought.
Of course, Pei Xuanjing was also aware that this was just the beginning. At present, those who can hold on to it — in the end, probably fewer than ten people would be able to refine his Sword Intent.
From the original hundred participants, this success rate was about a tenth.
Letting third-grade pseudo-sect masters re-understand the true intentions of martial arts, if one in every ten was successful, that would not be considered a failure. If word got out, it would indeed shock all martial artists. After all, given that the number of pseudo-sect masters in the world is 4 million, this meant that 400,000 of them have the opportunity to grasp the true intent of martial arts and become real sect masters.
What’s more, Pei Xuanjing’s Sword Intent was extremely domineering. Those who have survived until now and are refining it were inherently the cream of the crop among the pseudo-sect masters.
According to Pei Xuanjing’s later experiments, he tried with the remaining first-grade martial artists to condense their own martial arts true intent seeds and gave them to the ones who failed at refining his Sword Intent.
And those people — although they couldn’t bear Pei Xuanjing’s Sword Intent and missed their opportunity — almost every single one of them was able to bear the true intent seeds of other first-grade martial artists once they switched.
