Watching others put on a show and act like fools right in front of you is truly amusing.
However, the matter was in the past. Yu Qing quickly suppressed his highly amused expression and could not wait to hold that ancient manuscript to examine it closely.
Under the blazing sun, a long canopy made of cloth provided shade. Yu Qing sat on a stone slab. People not on duty gathered around him, on his left, right, and behind, all craning their necks to “share the light”, wanting to see exactly what was recorded in this ancient manuscript.
Even Tong Zaitian could not resist stretching his neck to look, wanting to know what secrets Sect Leader Duan had hidden away.
However, Yu Qing was very selfish. He directly shooed the group away and read it slowly by himself.
Acting like this, the sect members became somewhat displeased. Someone questioned him on the spot, “Sect Leader, are you trying to keep it all to yourself?”
Yu Qing originally wanted to say that he had obtained it through his own schemes and it had nothing to do with them. However, the spy was right beside him, so he could not reveal the truth temporarily. He could only forcefully assert his authority, “This concerns confidential matters. To prevent leaks, the fewer people who know, the better.”
“Sect Leader, saying that is no fun. Right now, you are the only one who knows the clues about the temple. How does us looking at this manuscript amount to a leak?” Moli directly expressed her dissatisfaction, and finally added a pointed reminder, “Gao Changtai and I captured Gong Ziting. This manuscript was exchanged for Gong Ziting. One way or another, the two of us should have a share in this.”
Gao Changtai immediately nodded in agreement, “That is right.”
Yu Qing sneered, wanting to tell her that she really thought Gong Ziting was that important. Even without Gong Ziting, Duan Yunyou would have to find another way to hand the manuscript over to him.
Yet, it was the same as before. He could not reveal the truth yet. He immediately started acting tough, “What, do you want to have an internal conflict? We have been together after all, so there is no need for mutual destruction. How about this? From now on, the Jiezi Sect is disbanded on the spot. Everyone can go wherever they want.” He stuffed the ancient book directly into his bosom, looking as if he was going to keep it all to himself and daring them to do something about it. He turned around and waved to Mu Aotie, “Old Nine, if this place does not keep me, there is another place that will. Let us go.”
As soon as these words were spoken, the Jiezi Sect members were collectively dumbfounded on the spot. What the hell? Some could not resist glancing outside the canopy. Out there under the blazing sun, in the high temperature desert, there were still four fellow sect brothers keeping watch for the Scorpion Sect. Was he really disbanding the Scorpion Sect just like that while everyone was off guard?
Tong Zaitian was even more shocked on the spot, his eyes widening. He had previously felt that the formation of this sect was too hasty, which could be seen from the sect name. As a result, an even more hasty thing happened. It was a sect, after all. How could it be disbanded at the drop of a hat just because of a disagreement? It had only been established for a few days. What was he, a spy who had painstakingly infiltrated it, supposed to do? Sect Leader Duan had just given him that ancient book, and now he was disbanding the sect and running away. What kind of nonsense was that? Later, Sect Leader Duan, who would fail to steal a chicken only to lose the rice, would definitely spit blood.
The look in his eyes as he stared at Yu Qing was full of disbelief, realising that this young man was truly too wilful.
He could not sit by and watch such a thing happen. Recovering his senses slightly, he immediately flashed in front of Yu Qing to block him, bowing repeatedly with his hands clasped, “Sect Leader, Sect Leader, calm down. Sect Leader, calm down. It is just a few words of argument. It is not enough to disband the sect. We are all our own people. What is there that cannot be discussed?” He then turned his head and winked repeatedly at the sect members, shouting, “Are you not agreeing?”
What is there to agree with? The true thought of everyone in the Scorpion Sect at this moment was that they wanted to greet this sect leader’s ancestors to his face, and they even wished they could stab him to death with a single knife. He was too damn hateful.
However, on the surface, every single one of them became submissive, instantly lowering their heads and one after another saying yes. There was no other way. They had to yield. They had dug sand like grandsons for several days. It just so happened that only this dog of a sect leader understood the clues to the treasure they had worked so hard to dig up. If they broke up like this, would it not be all for nothing? The key point was that even if they made a move, they might not necessarily be able to defeat him. Even if they joined forces, they might not be able to force him to spit it out.
Fan Jiu also hurriedly stepped forward, clasped his hands, and said, “Sect Leader, it is a misunderstanding. There is no internal conflict. Did we not all come to Tianji Mountain to gain some benefits? It is understandable to want a share when benefits are seen. Everyone just wanted to reason it out. If the Sect Leader feels that the contents of that ancient book should be kept secret, then there is nothing wrong with that. If it is not made public temporarily, then let it not be made public.”
He also turned his head to the group and said, “Are you not agreeing?” The Scorpion Sect members could indeed bend and stretch. One after another, they said yes.
Seeing them like this, Yu Qing then turned around and asked everyone, “Do you all know you were wrong?” This fellow was really pushing his luck. The group was furious, but they still held back their inner dissatisfaction and hypocritically said yes again.
Yu Qing immediately sneered, “It is not that I want to stick with you stubbornly. I actually do not want to be any sect leader. It was you who insisted on making me the sect leader. I am different from you. I am a person with skills. Even if I leave you, I can do well wherever I go. With my abilities, is it not easy to form another sect in Tianji Mountain?”
Why did these words sound a bit like asking for a beating? Mu Aotie looked at him sideways with a cold eye, feeling as if he had returned to the time of the grand position inheritance at Linglong Temple. The senior and junior brothers had fought endlessly for the position of the sect leader. Back then, the fifteenth brother had this exact same god-forsaken and annoying energy.
After praising himself, Yu Qing pointed and gestured at the group in front of him.
“And what about you? I am not trying to criticise you, but you are a motley crew. Without me, what use are you?” The Scorpion Sect members felt the humiliation of being pointed at and insulted. Many lowered their heads, holding back their resentment, trembling with cold anger.
Tong Zaitian stared blankly, shaking his head in his heart. A sect leader actually humiliating all his own subordinates so unscrupulously was simply bizarre. Everyone had already given him a way out, yet he was still so relentless. Was this not forcing his subordinates to turn against him? Where was the manner of a sect leader? How could he win the hearts of the crowd? Was he not afraid of being stabbed in the back? Compared to the demeanour of Sect Leader Duan, he was truly far behind. So young.
He was glad he was only here as an undercover agent. Otherwise, how could he persist in serving such a person? “Cough, cough.”
Fan Jiu suddenly cleared his throat, defending himself with an awkward face, “Sect Leader, we are not as useless as you say. During the great battle that night, we encountered an encirclement several times our size. Every single one of us survived an encirclement several times our size.”
Yu Qing did not deny this point. Surviving the encirclement one by one indeed meant they had gone through elimination. However, he immediately sprayed back at him, “Do not flatter yourselves. If it were not for me, you would have all died that night!”
Fan Jiu was instantly rendered speechless by his rebuke. If you are going to say it like that, what else can I say? He could only stare blankly.
“Do you know what a life-saving grace is? Do you know what it means to be grateful and repay kindness? I do not expect you to repay kindness, but you cannot bite the hand that feeds you, can you? We have only just started, and it is just a broken book, yet you want to turn against me. How can we continue to work together? A bunch of villains…”
Once Yu Qing switched on this scolding mode, he had quite the style of a chatterbox like Nanzhu. He was so talkative, simply scolding the sect members as if they were his grandsons. To outsiders, it might seem hateful, but to him, it was intentional. It was not his first time being a sect leader. He was already the head of a sect and had experience in this area.
He had experienced internal sect disputes and knew very well the importance of establishing the right to speak. According to his experience at Linglong Temple, there was nothing to negotiate in a struggle for the right to speak. Reasoning was useless. One had to be unreasonable. Just do it. Either you overwhelm me, or I overwhelm you. Otherwise, there would be endless future troubles.
By the time others want to reason with you, you have already won. The few brothers at Linglong Temple had experienced such turmoil, let alone these dozen or so people with ulterior motives.
Today, he wanted to make the group understand that he was not to be trifled with. In the future, if everyone wanted to discuss anything with him, they first had to learn to keep their tails between their legs in front of him. As for whether they would resent him, he did not care. They would only resent him if he lacked ability. Otherwise, what was there to resent? He was not targeting any single person for humiliation. He was humiliating a group of people. To put it plainly, since the establishment of this Scorpion Sect, this was the first time he, as the sect leader, was setting the rules.
At first, when the Scorpion Sect members were scolded, everyone felt quite wronged and angry. Later, as time went on, there was only sighing in their hearts. Some wanted to look around, and some even wanted to yawn.
It was not easy to wait until the time for changing the guard for sentry duty arrived. Four people quickly took the opportunity to run away. When the four who were relieved returned, they saw the sect leader scolding everyone like grandsons, and scolding them into silence. They were a bit confused and did not know what was going on, so they all listened honestly on the side.
When the sect leader’s first lecture finally ended, the group quickly dispersed, eager to get as far away from the sect leader as possible. If it were not for the blazing sun outside, they would have run outside the canopy.
Walking to the corner of the canopy, Moli could not resist whispering to Fan Jiu, “So young, yet acting like a shrew.”
Fan Jiu smiled slightly, but raised an index finger to his lips, quietly signalling for silence. He secretly pointed backwards, hinting not to let a certain person hear, otherwise he would be nagged again.
Moli quietly stuck out the tip of her tongue and stopped making a sound, twisting her neck left and right. She had kept her head down for too long just now.
When Yu Qing took out that ancient manuscript to read again, no one was surrounding him anymore. He could finally read it carefully and peacefully. After reading the entire manuscript, he frowned, turned his head back, looked at Mu Aotie, and shook his head slightly at him.
After Mu Aotie noticed this, he understood his meaning. This meant he had not found any clues about the Three-Legged Crow in the manuscript. Looking around at the sand dunes, he also frowned, not knowing where to search.
Their biggest problem was that they could not search conspicuously.
Yu Qing flipped the manuscript forward again, turning to several recorded places to check again. Since there were no clues about the Three-Legged Crow for now, he had to look for clues about the Qilin Ginseng first.
According to the Qilin bionic diagram in the temple, he extracted the two most likely places from several records. It was impossible to go to both places at the same time. He inevitably had to choose one out of two. After pondering repeatedly, he still felt that “eating” was the top priority.
After deciding to start with the place related to eating, he turned his head and shouted, “Mr Tong.” Tong Zaitian, who was chatting with the sect members, turned his head at the sound, then hurriedly ran over and asked, “What are your orders, Sect Leader?”
Yu Qing pointed at the open manuscript and said without concealment, “This records a lake. It is said to be one of the few places in the Tianji Mountain area where a large number of fish and shrimp live. Moreover, there is a huge metal pillar inserted in the lake, and the top of the pillar is carved with a bird with a broken wing. Have you heard of this place?”
Hearing this, everyone looked over one after another and also stepped closer.
Tong Zaitian paused for a moment, “Are you talking about Bronze Sparrow Lake?”
Yu Qing said, “How would I know? This manuscript does not record place names. Perhaps when this was recorded, the various places in Tianji Mountain had not yet been named.”
Tong Zaitian hesitated and said, “For a place with such an obvious landmark, besides Bronze Sparrow Lake, there should not be a second one. It is also the largest lake in the Tianji Mountain area.”
Yu Qing said, “Do you know where it is located?”
Tong Zaitian said, “I know.” Yu Qing immediately stood up and said to those around him, “Alright, pack up. Let us go to Bronze Sparrow Lake to have a look.”
Tong Zaitian hurriedly reached out to block him.
“Sect Leader, that place has recently been under the control of Kulei City. We cannot go there to visit casually. I am afraid it will take some time before it reopens.” Yu Qing worried that this guy was fooling him, so he asked, “Why?”
Tong Zaitian said, “The Bronze Sparrow Martial Affairs.”