Original- Blue Silver Grass

A day ago, as the hidden meeting was supposedly been happening in the Southern Lands.

Qiangu Dongfeng had contacted the Spirit Pagoda to inform them about the land that was transferred to Fan Lin in the past months due to his accomplishments in the replantations done by him in the Bright City and Southern Lands.

Additionally, he had also openly released the news of him providing Fan Lin with the materials for the Four Word Battle Armour and some other incentives on his own and had urged the Spirit Pagoda to do the same since Fan Lin could be in need of them soon since he was gathering the materials.

The abruptness of the news took the Elders by surprise but once they realised the hidden inotation behind his words, chaos has surged in all its vanity.

The acquired prodigy of the Spirit Pagoda was now planning to advance to the Four Word Battle Armourer!

He wasn't even fifteen!

A fifteen year old Soul Saint with the strength of a Titled Douluo was something that even Shrek would be salivating to possess much less any of the organisations of the planet.

And he wasn't even fifteen!

As the news travelled, one of the Elders raised the topic that The Four Word Battle Armour required a higher cultivation base than what Fan Lin had at the moment. If he was planning to don the Four Word Battle Armour, he would most likely have to advance his cultivation even with the aid his acceptance constitution that made it easier for him to absorb the Battle Armours.

The Four Word Battle Armour was in a whole different scale and didn't just required the needed physique but also the spiritual power, Martial Soul resonance and a heavy amount of Soul power, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to equip it before dying.

So in context of all this, have you heard of a Soul Douluo under 15 who was also a Three Word Battle Armourer and had three hundred thousand year old Spirit Souls with one of them being a mutation that was never heard off?

Hmph!

You haven't.

They haven't either.

Now that person is going to have the Four Word Battle Armour!

As they internally cheered and started pestering Leng Yaozhu for more news on the matter, they didn't forget to berate Qiangu Dongfeng for trying to curry favour and get closer to Fan Lin behind their backs because this was the guy that was going to turn Fan Lin into a life support for his grandson.

The Elders were never going to forget this.

That was something extremely distasteful to them as they had no idea that Fan Lin was this close to being destroyed and they could do nothing if it had happened.

Some of them had even used profanities to show their disapproval on his actions while warning him multiple times that Fan Lin was not something that he could hoggle for himself and his family, even if he was the President and all.

Qiangu Dongfeng had apologized many times off screen for he was getting ambitious and had even countered that they would have likely done the same if they were in his shoes quoting that Fan Lin was just that defenseless and easy to obtain for the gains that he was passively providing.

This event had incited another round of profanities, disapproval, and various meetings on the topic of what are the boundaries of the President supposed to be and how he should drop the heirloom propaganda of his, causing Qiangu Dongfeng troubles from all sides as he tried to mend his relationships with everyone one by one as his position as the President seemed to be in grave danger as there were many who wouldn't mind kicking a drowning woman just so that they could get her belongings.

This was also why Qiangu Dongfeng was still in the Bright City for. He wanted to stir hold of his position by using the achievements of the 'Conservation Parks' project which was going to become the new base for their research after the massive devastation that the Mysterious Death had caused.

The new research facilities would be in plain sight yet hidden, having ample access to transportation, resources and personnel.

Qiangu Dongfeng had thus indeed succeeded in keeping his position safe for the time being as the Spirit Pagoda was too into shambles to launch a full assault on him. For the time being that is.

Although it wasn't the first time that Qiangu Dongfeng had disregarded their suggestions or played them down in all the years that he had been the President, becoming the reason why many had termed him to be too ambitious and impatient for his own good, Qiangu Dongfeng had managed to hide his actual goals for all this while and without arousing any suspicions from anyone.

He was going to do so till he achieved his plans but for this particular matter, things were extremely different. Gu Yue had suddenly appeared and showed talent that was unimaginably overwhelming.

A talent that was born once in a thousand years, or even ten thousand years. Incomparable to those of the same generations, a Blue Eyed Pheonix among the earthworms.

The sheer potential of hers, along with her family, was something that could potentially be used to change the entire era and that's why Leng Yaozhu had poached her at lightning speed.

Then things calmed down and they thought that they might not encounter something like this again.

Then they were proven wrong. A weird child with a weird mutation causing a skill to just break their understanding of leapfrog killing. Someone whose presence began to cause riots in the Spirit Ascension platform due to the massacres he was doing.

That talent then came to them, on his own accord but without the skill that made him worthy but with a skill that him profitable.

Strength was gone but usage had increased. Massive amounts of profit followed by Prestige and a page in the history of the world. It was going good.

Then Qiangu Dongfeng had suddenly appeared in his life, guiding him in skills that was unnecessary for a money maker but also using that time and realising the threat that he possessed to him later on and thus decided to cripple the profit machine for his own selfish motives.

Well, that was safely thwarted, the profit machine was given good compensation and everything has once again returned to normal.

But no matter what happens, Qiangu Dongfeng shall never be allowed to have Fan Lin join him and neither will the Elders(many of them), Vice President(both of them) and the Spiriters(two of them) will allow something like this.

Fan Lin was one of the two jewels of the Spirit Pagoda now and his excellence in what the Spirit Pagoda wanted was something that was hard to put in contributions, or words.

Although Fan Lin may have stepped down from the Presidential candidacy, which was quite in line with what he would do, but that doesn't mean that he can't/won't change his mind in the future.

That's what the Elders are there for: to show the correct path to the young ones and guide them through it.

They will definitely convince him one way or another and even if they didn't, it was fine. They had Gu Yue, the first jewel of the Spirit Pagoda.

Even when she was an excellent student of Shrek and would likely enter the inner court, she was still a part of the Spirit Pagoda and her loyalty definitely lies with it.

Addibg to the fact that Fan Lin was in support of her as well. She can be the lead. There was nothing wrong with that. She was the first candidate to begin with and still was the candidate for the Presidency even when Fan Lin was vied for.

Gu Yue would be an even better President than Fan Lin could ever be since unlike him who was too anti-social, emotionless and a workaholic and would likely avoid human interaction, Gu Yue was more mature, cold and possessed an Aura of Nobility in her.

She was also fine with meeting and such.

All in all, upntil the power was not in the hands of Qiangu Dongfeng or someone from his family or cohorts, everything was great!

Hence, of the many reasons, why Fan Lin was being protected from the hands of Qiangu Dongfeng. Also because he was quite defenceless and easy to manipulate.

But does all this have any relevance to the situation at hand? What if there was?

Qiangu Dongfeng had kept his silence on why he was suddenly revealing that he had given Fan Lin land on behalf of the Spirit Pagoda and from the finances of the Spirit Pagoda but without informing the Spirit Pagoda and so many times at that all the while claiming that he was the one giving the land and taking the credit for it.

Then him dropping the substantial news of Fan Lin, the one whose movement patterns were so hectic that Spirit Pagoda had to stop their spying since they lost track of his movements in just mere minutes of him starting because of just how much he goddamn moved from one spot to another and without rest and without sleep and without any break and also without stopping to talk or listen with anyone until he was finished.

He is like a bulldozer on a straight path, such that everywhere he went, the replantation would happen regardless if the people have evacuated, there were some problems in machinery/trash/landscape removal or an ongoing earthquake. He didn't care. Sometimes.

He was swift, extremely decisive. If there were people, he would move them away since taking them out would likely cause more problems later on. The apathy that he sometimes showed did scare a few but was completely in line with him if you add the Spirit Ascension platform stuff in mind since he seem to hate the wastage of time.

He was efficient. He was too fast. Any failure in the clearance of the land would be rapidly taken care off, be it garbage, rocks, machinery and such, all stored in his storage rings. He had a lot of storage rings.

But this all was just the thoughts of overseers that the Spirit Pagoda had sent for his safety and information gathering. This was one sided because ninety-eight percent of the times, the overseers couldn't oversee anything.

They don't actually know much or anything after he had started his second replantation, leaving a complete blank of assumptions on his data since he had been gone. And he seems to have grown tremendously in the short time at that.

Adding to his usual tendency of not sharing anything before he was sure of it, they were definitely not going to get any answers until he wants to speak about it. It's all assumptions on him and they have always been wrong on their assumptions. That's why it was left blank.

The Elders were starving for his information. So did the other researchers, dress designers, Mecha associations and etc.

Now at this thrifty time and on this particular day, Qiangu Dongfeng had released the vital information. Something was definitely weird about it.

That's why they began contacting Leng Yaozhu to gain more clarity on the matter.

That's good. Or is it?

From the situation, it was apparent that Qiangu Dongfeng was purposefully trying to rattle the upper echelons of Spirit Pagoda to stir something up with such a specific information that they would be filled with questions so that they would just simply cross-examine from the source but the source was definitely not available at the moment so they will target the person that was quitely flaunting her good relations with Fan Lin in the past days aka Leng Yaozhu.

But wasn't there something that was happening today?

It was like the person in question wasn't attending some important and secret meeting that pretty much no one knew about except for her and Fan Lin and some outsiders. Obviously it would not be a problem if she was to be suddenly called by most the Elders on such an important occasion, thus interrupting the meeting.

Or maybe she had put her soul communicator in silence.

Regardless.

No one knew about the meeting.

It was such a secret that if Qiangu Dongfeng had no access to Fan Lin, he wouldn't have known about it as well.

Qiangu Dongfeng knew that if Leng Yaozhu had wanted to keep it hidden for so long, she would continue to do so.

That leaves her two options for the situation that was in turmoil now. Either she attends the call of the Elders who were too enthusiastic for information on Fan Lin and would definitely want the answers to their questions like:

Was this the reason for the sudden schedule change of Fan Lin after her arrival?

Did she knew about it?

Was the Ice Jade Scorpion a way to get him to her side all along?

Was she helping him in the procurement of the materials as well?

What are his future plans? Anything that she would like to share?

What about his future spirit rings? Is he planning on getting a new one or using the ones that he had? Was there a need for a new one? Any further or new mutation or variations in his Martial Soul?

What about his current cultivation? How much has he advanced? Did his cultivation speed decrease? Increased? His soul power showed any changes? What about his Spiritual Power?

Any changes in his martial soul aptitude? Did his martial soul show any kinds of visible altercation after his Soul Saint advancement? There should be some, right?

Did his condition improve? What kinds of Soul bones has he been using? Has he added new ones? Did he plan too? Which ones would he like too? What about external soul bones? Any interest? Four Word Battle Armour implantation would be extremely risky with his current strength. Would he like some physique strengthening or healing type soul bones for the occasion? Medicines, pills or panacea can also be arranged to his needs.

What are his current skills? No further records had been registered on his spirit soul skills and his current level of strength and cultivation. If the Vice President could help to provide the desirable data, it would be a huge help to them. ESPECIALLY his new skills! Ice Jade Scorpion doesn't have wings! He has wings. How does his skill operates?

Did he get the appointment?

What about his clothes? Is he planning to keep wearing the 'special costume' that he had been doning all this while? If he likes that type of clothing, they could easily provide that as well. Would he be interested in it?

Was he currently in contact with Qiangu Dongfeng? Did Qiangu Dongfeng tried to contact him in any way, be it physical, dial-in or through letters.

Did she know about Fan Lin's thoughts regarding Qiangu Dongfeng and his offers? Was he, in any case, showing any signs of interest in Qiangu Dongfeng.

Is he going to keep the same rate of replantation after getting his Four Word Battle Armour? Would there be change? Does she knew anything about it?

What about the bouts of ruthlessness that he shows every now and then during the hiccups in the replantations that he had encountered? Is it related to tension and stress or...?

What about his mental and physical health? Is he taking good care of it? Did he find the solution to his body's damage? He should have, or he wouldn't be planning for the Four Word Battle Armour. Right?

Is he... into crossdressing?

What about his interests in the opposite sex? He had given the newest model of the flying car to some woman as a gift during his replantation at the Bright City. Is he into older ones?

There were questions. So many questions. This was definitely going to be a headache to Leng Yaozhu if she decided to attend to the Elders curiosity.

Would she though?

To the Elders, Leng Yaozhu was currently free and with Fan Lin. She could obviously answer a few of their questions. It won't take much of her time, barely 10 to 30 mins, maybe an hour at most. That's it. She could even easily answer them while doing her work. This won't impede in her activities.

But was she obliged to do so?

But if a situation occurred where she kept quiet for too long, or made too many excuses, they were bound to get suspicious on why she was doing it instead of just giving them what she knew or rejecting them altogether.

She could just say "no".

It wasn't that hard or troublesome. She can just make a statement that she is busy and will talk later. There were like hundreds of valid reasons that she can give and the Elders won't pester her much because unlike Qiangu Dongfeng, Leng Yaozhu was well liked by all.

Then what was the point of Qiangu Dongfeng in doing all this.

Disturbing her on this day and without hiding himself as the perpetrator, it was like he was backstabbing Fan Lin.

No one outside knew of the meeting. Leng Yaozhu wouldn't tell Qiangu Dongfeng. The Seagod Pavilion wouldn't tell either.

Then why did Qiangu Dongfeng especially create a fuss on this exact day when he could have done this long ago or anytime later.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was a mole (Fan Lin).

It was like a hint that Fan Lin had been in cahoots with him and he wanted the Seagod Pavilion and Leng Yaozhu to know about this.

Why though?

Did he just wanted to send the message to the Fan Lin that was attending the meeting with Leng Yaozhu that he still had his presence in the Spirit Pagoda and if Fan Lin had any double thoughts, he should better keep them in check?

Or,

Did he wanted to send a message to Fan Lin to keep his mouth shut?

If so, then that's stupid. What did Qiangu Dongfeng want then?

Did he want to flaunt to that he had his ways on the information? That they couldn't hide things from him? That Fan Lin wasn't to be trusted?

No, none of them actually.

Qiangu Dongfeng just wanted to sow confusion and discord among Leng Yaozhu, Fan Lin and the Seagod Pavilion (Yun Ming).

The meeting was supposedly secretive for a reason. If the information about the meeting had gone out, that's not good.

And since they know who the perpetrator is, the internal conflict might be swift and steady.

But was it all? No, there was a reason and it would envelope itself soon.

No it won't.

This was a stupid move on his part. Actually everything he did, do or was going to do is in vain becase he was just dancing in the palms of a God.

For there was no meeting.

Leng Yaozhu was free. So was Yun Ming. And they did talk with Long Yeyue and the lot about some certain things but that wasn't relevant to the plot at the moment.

She did get some trouble from the Elders persistent questions but it wasn't because it was being a problem in her important meeting but because Fan Lin hadn't told her about the things that the Elders were asking and if she were to answer it accordingly to her and then he were to not follow through, which he will, things would get awkward.

That's why, she chose to avoid as many questions as she could while answering whatever helped her as Yun Ming, Long Yeyue and two more people on the line quietly laughed at some of the questions that the Elders were asking and then at the rumour spreading task that Leng Yaozhu was asked by Fan Lin.

It was quite funny for them to hear Leng Yaozhu repeat the same words to everyone as an end message on what Fan Lin desired but the person in question was missing and the context behind the desire was equally missing as well.

In all sense of words, nothing happened.

As for the confusion and discord that Qiangu Dongfeng wanted to sow and his hidden attack. There was no meeting. There was no Fan Lin and everyone was aware of Fan Lin entrapping Qiangu Dongfeng in this ploy.

They were a part of this plan although they don't know what was the purpose of all this.

As for our dear Lin, he was sleeping. Resting. Lost.

It could be said that the only thing that Qiangu Dongfeng did was being helpful to Leng Yaozhu on her task of spreading the rumours.

And truthfully, he was rewarded for it as well. Leng Yaozhu had called him in the evening, asking for his intentions for giving the land to Fan Lin as many of the Elders had urged her to inquire him about it since Fan Lin was off the grid. They know where he was but he was off the grid.

Having the information from the both the sides would make it easier for them to accept/know whatever was the deal between them since Fan Lin wouldn't lie and Qiangu Dongfeng's statement can be easily cross-reference through him.

Qiangu Dongfeng simply said that it was just a gift that he had wanted to give to Fan Lin due to his work for all this time and Fan Lin himself had chosen the land as his gift stating that he had everything else planned.

When she asked why didn't he mention anything sooner, he put to blame to Fan Lin wanting to keep it a secret. Something that he would actually do until he wasn't sure of it.

Leng Yaozhu talked about a few more things and ended the conversation after congratulating him on his recent success in the conservation parks and the ongoing retrieval of the project data that was lost to the Mysterious death. This was going to another huge achievement for him in this year and itwas indeed praiseworthy since would help the Pagoda get back on the tracks.

As for her true thoughts on the matter, she kept it to herself.

Before she can cut the call though, Qiangu Dongfeng had inquired about her success on the eradication of the Mysterious death to which Leng Yaozhu attributed it to her sudden findings in the other continent that made her question the patterns of the death and link it to the virus or bacteria related disease and then it was easy to find the cure since it was just orange juice.

She also informed him that she was going to release the briefing on her findings and about the nature of the Mysterious Death that made it so untraceable to all them and also the answer as to why it seem to be targeting them specially.

She ended the call, Yun Ming and Long Yeyue gave her a nod and then they continued on their discussion along with the Headmaster of the Tang Sect(Shrek Branch) and her favourite person in the Shrek city, Elder Cai.

(Elder Cai was a part of the Seagod Pavilion as well.)

After Qiangu Dongfeng's conversation with Leng Yaozhu, he tried to call Fan Lin a few more times but failed again. His soul communicator was off.

Later that night, as if fortune was on his side, the final piece of research data from the Mysterious death incident had been finally recovered and the remaining Elders on the work would be returning to the Pagoda soon meaning that they could restart their precious research without wasting any more time

That night, Spirit Pagoda was on the sky high.

Unbeknownst to them though, their nightmare had awakened the next morning when Qiangu Dongfeng was talking to the nightmare in question when the supposed nightmare just had a flashback.

"Change of plans."

And he was in a bad mood. Fan Lin stored the soul communicator and changed his route to the Northern Douluo Continent.

.....

Here, I broke it down. Next chapter soon.

Update on my toe.

Nothing major had happened, I just kind of sprained the ligament of my toe. You know that white-white stuff between the joints. Yeah that.

So I don't like the sound of the gas cylinder scrapping.

As I was asked for my help in changing the cylinder, I had accepted it with grace.

So I removed the empty cylinder, put it aside, went to fetch the full cylinder and carried it to the kitchen.

Why carry?

The cylinder is too short for me and I had to bend a lot for me to roll it and that's a problem because due to my writing habits, my back isn't great at at bending. Additionally my height is another problem.

Now how the accident happened?

Well, I picked the cylinder and took it to the corner when the L shaped slab is situated.

Let me give you some more details on the kitchen.

The kitchen has a slab in the shape of an L and goes from one wall to another. The ground beneath the slab is elevated like half a centimetre to one centimetre, I don't know but it was elevated.

Now the slab was designed with the ladies height in mind since they are the only ones who cook in this house.

Conclusion, the underneath of the slab was just two to three fingers more than the height of the gas cylinder.

Now I have to put the cylinder inside the space of the slab and the elevated platform and in the corner.

So I picked the cylinder, took it to the corner and then I had to put it down slowly and slid it into the elevated platform while keeping the cylinder lifted enough that it would neither too low that it would touch the non elevated ground and neither too high that it would touch the slab and can't go in.

This is where it kinda of slipped through one of my hands when I was trying to find the gap to slid the cylinder in.

It was kind of like a sudden accident and I did to try to keep the grip of my remaining hand but it was too late and the cylinder dropped with a low grunt.

It wasn't that high, like barely a few inches and I didn't actually feel any pain. I picked the cylinder up, slid it on my second try, then connected the connection, checked the flame and leakage and then slid it completely to the wall.

The lady who was present all during me doing this asked if I was fine and I said I was fine.

I should have stopped at that. Then I showed that my leg was fine by jumping, messing with my toe and trying to balance my all on my toe, it began to hurt.

It was visible as well. She asked me to get it checked just in case and I obliged. The sudden jolt of pain that I felt was enough for me to internally know that profession advice was necessary.

So she called her son and he dropped me to the nearest clinic 6 kilometres away.

Yes, there was a male in the house, there were 4 of them and no, they didn't help with the cylinder, as if they never or seldom helped.

Moving on, the cycle, or should I say 'Saikil' as one of the villagers called it, always makes me wish that I should have some flesh in my back.

The floods had passed, the thin road had been swept away, the current pathway was basically the craters of the moon.

Conclusion - It was an unbearable ride.

I reached the doctor. He wasn't there. The clinic was closed. So we went to another place but this was just 2 kilometres away and it was open.

So this old man looked at my toe, touched around for a bit and said that I had strained my ligament by over exertion and would be fine with rest. It wasn't serious yet.

I just needed to rest my toe and not put strain on it. Easy for him to say when his town's raods were good.

Another conclusion - If I didn't 'show' that I was fine to the dear lady, I would have been okay in like a day or two.

After my toe thumping assurance though, it would take five to six days to get relief from the pain and around another week more to get my toe completely healthy.

So seven days have passed already and the pain has gone, my toes are good and I will still be resting for a bit more.

Why?

Well, first of all, the pain was not constant, it was like electric shocks that come and go whenever it pleased.

Secondly I need my legs for getting stuff, going to the market, walking, jumping, and most of all, writing. I have the habit of sitting down to type, I can't do it while standing or sleeping.

.

So yeah, that should end it.

Now I need you guys help. Currently I am still using a smartphone to type and let's not tlak about lappy since I broke the previous two in my bout of anger.

I am not fit for lappy.

But I want to write faster. The phones not cutting it. I am currently not able to search it in details but I need a way(mechanical) of typing that is convenient to carry.

Find it for me. You guys can use the net, search it. It could be a keyboard that I can connect to the smartphone or some better systematic keyboard that increases typing speed, it could be a pad or any type of device that will help me in typing. There has to be some right.

I will thank you in advance. Till then, I will gather the money through my alts.

Bye, I think.

Next Chapter would be the last of this and then we can finish up and go to the next canonical chapter - Nightmare.

Peace out.