(A/N: Join the discord, to have intellectual conversations with your fellow cultivators! We have graphs and stats on the cultivation worlds there! Plus you can actually cultivate and go to closed-door cultivation.

Link: discord.gg/SC9HNKVj5e

)

——(POV third person)——

“What is the plan, senior brother?” A silver-haired boy asked his senior brother. Only a part of his hair was visible as they were wearing hoods.

“We will get in and we will burn everything.” The senior brother said.

The younger boy was clearly conflicted by this as this was his first time participating in a sabotage mission.

“…Shouldn’t we at least—” the boy tried to say something but his senior brother stopped him with a raised hand. Other team members let them have this talk as they too understood that this talk is important and can not be delayed.

“ShanNeng, this is war.” The elder brother said and looked at his younger brother’s eyes to see if he could understand what he meant but his younger brother didn’t get what he was saying.

“We are here to make the war easier for our side. Do you think if we don’t fight them now, we don’t have to face them if we walk away tonight?” he gave ShanNeng a moment to respond but when he saw that his brother wanted to argue back, he continued.

“This is a matter of us or them. Don’t you see how our family members are using themselves as baits to give us the upper hand in the war?” he said in one breath, “The only crime in war is losing and I will do anything that I can to increase our chance in winning this war.” This time he wasn’t only talking to ShanNeng, he was addressing everyone on their team.

“Burning these warehouses is nothing, if it would help you survive, I would let my body be burned without hesitation.” He said and looked at every team member that was with him. He waited a bit for his words to sink in and then changed his tone.

“Burning these warehouses would decrease the Xu family’s supplies and in turn, we would have higher chances in the war so if anyone is unwilling, you could as well forget about being a Li family member.” He said and stared into their eyes to see if they had even the smallest amount of hesitation.

“”…”” Everyone cupped their fists to show that they have no problem with this. Even ShanNeng who had some questions at first now could see the bigger picture.

“Thank you, ShanCai.” ShanNeng said and thanked his elder brother.

ShanCai nodded to him while he put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. He then covered his face completely and signaled the others to do the same and start the attack.

…

They didn’t need much to finish this assignment without an issue. There were a couple of teams like this working around the continent and their main goal was to decrease the power that the Xu family held.

They were all direct members of the Li family and they were trained enough that these tasks were a piece of cake for them. They had targeted different warehouses that the Xu family had and emptied their reserves and burned the buildings.

To avoid suspicion, some teams attacked some bandit groups that were active and gave the impression that there was a bandit war going on in the continent. This way it wouldn’t be weird that they had attacked the ‘seemingly unknown’ warehouses that belonged to the Xu family.

To make it even more believable they attacked some empty warehouses that the floating mask owned. This made it look like these attacks were done without much of a pattern and you could not find a relation between the Li family and the assailants.

These attacks started two days before Li Huang and others went to the five river city and it was still going on. As they were hidden warehouses, the Xu family couldn’t put many guards there, or else it would seem obvious but they did try to stop the attacks after the first day.

Unfortunately for them, the teams were strong enough that these new guards were not doing much other than making the teams use a few more seconds to take care of them before pocketing the supplies.

The Xu family knew that they couldn’t let their supplies be taken indefinitely, so they started sending high-level family members to retrieve those items from their not-so-hidden warehouses.

This was something that made it harder for the sabotage teams to do their work but they had achieved what they were looking for.

They made the Xu family act hastily and that was worth the effort even without the war supplies that they had gained.

…

“What should we do, family head?” one of the elders in the room asked. They were pretty agitated that their warehouses were getting attacked and burned one after another. A group of 50 elders were in this room and they all knew about the coming war with the Li family.

The family head just kept on stroking his beard as he was thinking on the matter deeply. Seeing this, the elders started giving their opinions on the matter.

“I think we should send some elders to finish these bandit groups.” One elder said. He thought that they could pay some money and the floating mask would give them the location of these lowly bandits and after that, it would be easy to get rid of them even with their eyes shut.

Some of the elders thought this solution to be reasonable as they should not let their war supplies be used in another place and under a different banner. They didn’t know that not only they were being used under a different banner, but that banner was also the same one they were going to war with.

The discussion continued and each elder had a point to add on. This continued to a point that everyone had spoken other than the family head of the Xu family, Xu Xue. He was still stroking his beard and his eyes were closed.

The moment he opened his eyes, every elder in the room stopped talking and they were waiting for him to speak.

“These attacks can not be from the bandits alone.” Xu Xue said. He wasn’t naive enough to think that bandit could do something like this alone and he wasn’t impulsive enough to think that their enemies had a hand in it.

“Assign someone to investigate this matter in depth.” Xu Xue said and moved from this matter.

“In any case, we have to start the war sooner as we don’t have enough time to be playing with bandits or whoever else is behind them.” He said.

Hearing this the elders knew that the time for war was closer than they thought.

“Hasten the abduction plan.” Xu Xue said and every elder in the room cupped their fists.

“Also, give the youngsters freedom when it comes to what they want to do to them…” He said and started walking out of the meeting room.

…

“100 high-grade spirit stones.”

“110 high-grade spirit stones.” Li Huang raised his hand and said.

“200 high-grade spirit stones.” The first person said again.

“510 high-grade spirit stones.” Li Huang raised the price.

He was betting on one of the items that he had put a ‘white bet’ on in these past days. For the past two and a half days, he has been using his own knowledge plus the peeping eye of heaven to find the best items in all shops and this one that he is betting on right now, is one of the top items that he found.

Li Huang could clearly see that the person that was competing with him wasn’t interested in the item and only wanted to bet to stop him from getting it. He tried to remember where he has seen him but he couldn’t find anything in his memories.

The person competing with him was the same one who was called Huizheng. He put a bet on this item as one of his friends liked it but when he saw Li Huang betting on it it was no longer a matter of buying it, he had to have it.

He and his group were on the top floor of the five river flavor restaurant that night and one of the employees offered them money if they were to change their table with a guest on the first floor. He wanted to beat the employee for looking down at him but then another employee came and apologized to him for the inconvenience and took the other employee with him.

He then found out that Li Huang and others were that group on the first floor, so he wanted to give him a lesson on humility right now that the heavens have given him the perfect opportunity.