Book 3: Clear River in Turmoil – Chapter 158: Being Brave
Su Chen had finally eaten and drunk his fill.
He patted his stomach. “I finally feel a bit more alive. Right, how’s the situation over there going?”
“Where are you talking about?” Jiang Xishui asked with a chuckle.
“Everywhere.”
“Wang Zhanyu tried to make a move once, but he was fought off by City Lord An. The Shen Clan hasn’t moved, while the Wei Clan tried to support the Lin Clan but was stopped by our men.”
“Old Wei has quite a bit of foresight,” Su Chen sighed. “Then what about the Lu Clan?”
Jiang Xishui said, “You’re asking about Lu Qingguang, right?”
Su Chen said exasperatedly, “That bastard has already screwed me over twice. If he doesn’t think I’m an idiot, he should know that I won’t let him get away with it. He can’t possibly pass up such a big opportunity, can he?”
“He might not want to pass it up, but City Lord An sent Lu Yiyang over to personally keep an eye on him so that he doesn’t get an opportunity to harm you.”
Bang! Su Chen smacked the table. “Is he saving me? Or saving Lu Qingguang?”
Jiang Xishui sighed. “Using saving you as an excuse to save him. Unfortunately, Cloud Leopard and the others wasted their time setting up a plot against him.”
The plot that he had prepared against Lu Qingguang had been thwarted by An Siyuan. Su Chen was in a very bad mood.
His feelings revealed themselves on his face, and his expression carried a few traces of ugliness and anger.
He stood up. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” Jiang Xishui asked.
Su Chen replied in a raspy voice, “I’ve eaten and drank my fill, but my mood doesn’t seem to have gotten better. I want to go out and kill some people to get rid of this gross feeling!”
“You’re going to kill Lu Qingguang?” Jiang Xishui immediately realized what Su Chen was thinking and was stunned. “You’ve thought things through?”
“Thought? Thought about what? Didn’t you say earlier that walking the path of a hero means having courage in your chest and guts in your heart? If I want to fight, I’ll fight; what need is there to think so much?”
“But that’s not who you are.”
“That’s why I’m only doing it after drinking some wine. I’ll borrow the influence of the alcohol to go a little crazy and throw my strength around a bit. It’s not often I get to enjoy myself and let loose a bit. Doesn’t that sound like fun? If I’m not even willing to make some mistakes under the influence of alcohol, how could I claim to have a heroic spirit?”
As he spoke, he stood up and walked down the stairs.
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Lu Qingguang sat atop a tall horse at the intersection between 13th Street and Ganba Avenue.
He seemed quite pleased with himself.
Opposite him was a square-faced, large-eared old man.
His name was Yu Huaien.
He was the Yu Clan’s current Patriarch, and his bloodline was the Gigantic Frost Scorpion bloodline, yet he was bowing down to the person in front of him.
The Yu Clan had surrendered.
The Yu Clan, one of the Ten Bloodline Nobility Clans, had officially surrendered at this moment.
If there was anything that made Lu Qingguang unhappy, it was that the person who was largely responsible for this surrender wasn’t himself but the young man that he was deeply jealous of.
Lu Qingguang already couldn’t remember when his feelings of jealousy for Su Chen had sprouted.
Too much time had passed. He couldn’t remember such things clearly anymore, and he didn’t want to either.
He only needed to know that ever since Su Chen had appeared, he was no longer the second most powerful individual in Clear River City. His enemies would no longer tremble in fear before him, and he was no longer the person that An Siyuan relied on the most. That was enough to set him off.
Even Wang Zhanyu’s pursuit hadn’t been aimed at him.
Though this was a good thing, being overlooked only infuriated him and filled him with hatred.
He detested Su Chen, detested him for stealing away his prestige, detested him for stealing away his status.
Wasn’t this an incredibly normal situation?
Most people would feel hatred under these circumstances.
He wasn’t worried that Su Chen would find out about his actions.
So what if Su Chen knew about it?
Su Chen had no evidence, and with An Siyuan protecting his head, there was nothing that Su Chen could do to him.
Of course, he hadn’t forgotten to deal with these nobility clans either.
According to his original plan, he was going to allow the Yu Clan to go and deal Su Chen a blow from behind. If necessary, he would even make the move himself.
This would be his third time plotting against Su Chen. He believed that he would succeed this time.
However, everything had been ruined by that damned Confucian scholar.
Lu Yiyang’s presence made it impossible for Lu Qingguang to let anyone through.
His persuasion and warning represented An Siyuan’s intentions; An Siyuan didn’t want any issues to occur between his own people at this critical juncture of them dealing with the Bloodline Nobility Clans.
As such, he could only endure.
At this point, the Yu Clan had officially surrendered.
Yu Huaien had surrendered because someone had notified him that Su Chen had charged into the Lian Residence and single-handedly cleanly massacred the Lian Clan.
Thus, he had surrendered.
This was also another reason why Lu Qingguang was unhappy.
To convince Yu Huaien to surrender, he had coaxed Yu Huaien with many promises and pleasant words, but they couldn’t compare to a single action of Su Chen’s.
He felt that someone had dealt him a heavy blow to the back of his head.
He felt like even Lu Yiyang’s gaze towards thim was filled with disdain, as if he were saying, “See, didn’t I tell you? You can’t afford to provoke Su Chen. If you provoke him, you will be the one to die. The City Lord didn’t let you go in order to save you.”
“In order to save you.”
“To save you.”
“Save you.”
These words echoed in Lu Qingguang’s brain incessantly, making him incredibly irritated.
His gaze towards Yu Huaien was extremely icy. “What point is there in surrendering now? The way I see it, I should just kill you and be done with it.”
Yu Huaien was stunned. “General Lu, you weren’t saying that earlier!”
“Earlier was earlier, and now is now. I gave you an opportunity before but you didn’t take it. Now that you’ve received the news and are afraid, you want to surrender. But do we need you to surrender now?” Lu Qingguang asked as he squinted his eyes. “The Lian Clan is wiped out, and the Lai Clan has surrendered. Only four of the ten major noble clans remain. Keeping you here has no real merit; you’ll only be taking away our supplies. By killing you, we’ll have one less mouth to feed and will actually obtain more resources. Isn’t that better!”
Yu Huaien yelled, “City Head Su sent someone to say that as long as I am willing to surrender, we can let bygones be bygones!”
The person who had sent him the notice was from the Origin Bureau. He was Su Chen’s subordinate and the person responsible for soliciting the surrender.
Lu Qingguang said indifferently, “Su Chen’s words are not my words. He agreed to the surrender, but I haven’t yet.”
He was in quite a bad mood and wanted to vent.
If he couldn’t vent onto Su Chen, he would heap all of it onto Yu Huaien’s head.
When Lu Yiyang saw this situation, he frowned slightly.
However, he said nothing in the end.
He knew that Lu Qingguang was in a bad temper and needed to blow off some steam. Of course, this would ruin Su Chen’s plans and make some trouble for him.
But what did this have to do with him?
Stopping Lu Qingguang wouldn’t be useful and might result in him getting burned instead.
Sorry, Yu Clan. The misfortune will fall upon your head this time.
Lu Qingguang grabbed Yu Huaien’s head and pulled it up.
The soldiers around them raised their blades.
Yu Huaien felt terrified. His expression paled as his heart quivered.
At that moment of despair, he heard Su Chen’s voice.
“If you don’t agree to the surrender, step aside and don’t get in my way. If you dare touch even a hair on their bodies, I’ll cut off one of your fingers. If you touch more than that, I will cut you into pieces and turn you into meat buns to feed the dogs.”