In the past, the Duke of Wei's illegitimate son had possessed a truly terrible temper. His assignment to Liang certainly hadn't happened without reason.
Past grievances aside, the simplest truth was that words rarely taught a person anything, whereas reality taught lessons instantaneously. Adversity forced a man to grow.
By now, his self-assessment was fairly accurate. He knew he wasn't remarkably intelligent—certainly nowhere near a genius.
His guiding principle had thus become that controlling his temper was essential. If he couldn't figure something out immediately, he could take his time, or at worst gather a few people to think it through together.
Rather than flying into a rage, he seized upon a single point. "I have this information, and you don't. Can we work together?"
Wu Youren was caught off guard by the response. *Is this really the Duke of Wei's illegitimate son I knew?*
After pondering for a moment, Wu Youren slowly nodded. "I can consider it. But this alone isn't enough!"
He truly needed a great deal of information. He didn't need a head of blond hair to declare: *Nobody understands the value of an information gap better than me!*
Moreover, there was information Chen Quanxu might not know. As for Hong Da... he wasn't even a Jin native to begin with!
The Guard Captain smiled. "Then it's settled. Trust me, you won't regret this!"
The boy hadn't even grasped the concept of legacy weapons, whereas he possessed vast resources on his side!
As for physical supplies? The captain didn't even bother asking. As long as the kid didn't bring up marching stones again, everything else was negotiable!
Facing this monstrously talented youth, the captain felt with absolute clarity for the first time just how important one's background was.
In the past, he had always felt that heaven had screwed him over. If not for his status, why would he ever have been sent away as a hostage?
If only heaven hadn't been so biased and had made him a legitimate son—he didn't even ask to be the eldest legitimate son, just legitimate—how happily could he have lived?
Yet now, seeing this terrifyingly gifted prodigy suffer from such an information void, he finally had an epiphany.
Perhaps heaven had been unfair to him, but it hadn't treated him all that poorly either!
The youth nodded. "Don't come see me again. It isn't good for either of us... Leave me a way to contact you in Tianjing."
The Guard Captain nodded, then produced a wristwatch. "Take this. It'll prevent monitoring to the greatest extent possible."
Wu Youren didn't take it, eyeing him suspiciously. If it couldn't prevent monitoring absolutely, what was the point?
The Duke of Wei's illegitimate son grew slightly annoyed. "I don't have many devices like this myself, and you're turning your nose up at it?"
The youth accepted the watch, making his stance clear. "I'll only use it occasionally at most."
"I won't contact you!" The Guard Captain turned to leave in frustration. "I'll only wait for you to reach out. Satisfied?"
To think that as the proud son of the Duke of Wei, with both pedigree and cultivation, he was now waiting on someone else to summon him!
Yet the moment he stepped out of the greenhouse, his mood inexplicably lightened by quite a bit.
He saw his entourage standing not far off, along with Liu Jingming beside them.
The son of the matrilocal son-in-law had gone pale, his body shivering faintly.
The Guard Captain recalled that he hadn't paid this lackey any mind earlier, but now he felt somewhat up to it.
He cast a sidelong glance at Liu Jingming and said nonchalantly, "Xiao Wu treats you pretty well!"
Pausing, he waved a dismissive hand. "Forget it. I won't be taking you into the mountains this time either!"
These words were not meant only for Liu Jingming, but for anyone within earshot.
At the very least, it would give the kid inside the greenhouse an easy excuse to offer the Red Pine instructors as to why the Guard Captain had come a second time!
Once they had left, Liu Jingming faced the youth emerging from the greenhouse and offered an exaggerated bow with clasped hands.
"Many thanks. You saved my life."
He truly understood the gravity of the situation, yet he couldn't resist trying to be clever right after. "Good thing I wore two fewer layers of clothes!"
Everyone had their own way of surviving. Wu Youren smiled faintly. "That's about it. I need to head out soon as well."
Hearing this, Liu Jingming couldn't help but ask, "He just visited and you're leaving right away... Won't that raise suspicions?"
"I'm not worried about that," Wu Youren answered casually. "What I'm worried about is him coming a third time!"
Early the next morning, carrying three bulging packs on his back, Wu Youren set off once more.
Before he even reached the gates of the Martial Academy, Manna sped over on a motorcycle. "Daiqisi asked me to check if you could take the two of us along."
"Thank you both for your concern, Instructors," the youth answered earnestly. "I can handle it on my own."
"Now you're starting to talk in circles too," Manna said, slightly displeased.
"I mean the Guard Captain didn't assign me any mission," Wu Youren explained. "I'm going out to take risks... It's very dangerous!"
"Who knows about that?" Manna remained somewhat annoyed.
After a brief pause, she stated her real motive. "Next time you hunt down some resentment crystals, remember to sell them to me!"
The youth paid all his "taxes" in crystals, so he definitely had a steady harvest, and she had her own social circles to maintain.
The youth blinked, asking in confusion, "Only crystals? Guizu relics won't do?"
Manna glared at him. "Are you messing with me?"
"I wouldn't dare." Wu Youren shook his head vigorously. Before reaching foundation establishment, he wouldn't entertain any such thoughts anyway.
"I meant that I have another Guizu relic and was thinking of selling it when I got a chance."
It was rather ironic: his cash flow was somewhat tight at the moment, yet the only things he could liquidate were Guizu relics and crystals.
Ever since he began focusing exclusively on farming the Guizu, he had deliberately avoided fighting humans, which meant he almost never obtained weapons or standard spoils of war.
Yet Guizu relics were the hardest to cash in. He couldn't just sell them openly on the market; even if his capabilities could no longer be completely concealed, he still needed to keep a low profile.
He had given most of the crystals to Chen Quanxu since they were consumables the man could actually use.
Chen Quanxu had advised against selling Guizu relics, pointing out that such items were difficult to buy even with money, and that accumulating more of them would prove useful later on.
Wu Youren understood the logic, but circumstances gave him no choice... He was broke!
"Take it out," Manna demanded, holding out a hand. "I'll buy it!"
The youth rummaged inside his robes for quite a while before pulling out a cloth bundle. Unwrapping it, he revealed a golden-yellow Guizu relic.
This kind of treasure was relatively common, and since he had two of them, parting with one wouldn't hurt.
"All right, don't let anyone see it." Manna snatched it up. "How much?"
"Ask Hong Da." Wu Youren waved a hand and turned to walk out. "Just remember to pay me when I get back."
*Acting generous when poor, acting generous when poor... The poorer you are, the more generous you have to be!* the youth mused inwardly as he walked.
Still, he had no other choice. With the Guard Captain's appearance, Xiao Ha's unique appeal had inevitably taken a hit, its luster dimming somewhat.
He needed a new incentive to bind the instructors with whom he had already built some rapport.
Who cared about hostage status and Jin politics? What mattered was that this kid could genuinely hunt down Guizu relics, and was generous and uncalculating when dealing them out!
There were no eternal friends, only eternal interests!
Only by being willing to throw money around could he avoid turning into a total fool.
This was precisely why he found the Guard Captain so irritating. That man's appearance had introduced far too many unpredictable variables into every aspect of his life!
Leaving Red Pine, he chose to head toward the wilderness. He still drew plenty of covetous glances along the way and ran into minor trouble.
However, he was already well versed in dealing with such situations.
He would assume a combat stance and toss a grenade or two at most. As long as you demonstrated that you were willing to go all out, few people were stubborn enough to push their luck.
Near dusk, an errant blast injured a barbarian, but it amounted to nothing serious.
Once night fell, the wilderness became his stage.
Under cover of darkness, he rushed toward the Rust Belt, meeting the horned owl at the agreed location.
To his surprise, the owl had actually prepared a... motorcycle for him?
The horned owl stated placidly, "You said you know how to ride, right? You can't rely on your two legs forever."
"I do know how." Wu Youren inspected the machine and found it had plenty of fuel—more importantly, two large, fully loaded fuel cans were mounted to the frame.
He looked at the owl's talons, then at its wings. "How did you drive it here?"
The horned owl tilted its head toward the inner room of the structure. "Go dispose of that corpse."
Wu Youren walked inside to look. Lying lifeless on the floor was a scrawny figure.
He hesitated. "Is this the guy who picked up your dead rat body last time?"
Chen Quanxu was formidable indeed. Not only could he control animals, but he could truly manipulate humans as well.
"Does it matter?" the owl replied casually, then added after a pause, "Still, I can be petty on occasion."
The youth cast a wary glance at it. "What about when I accidentally... injured that black cat last time?"
"That was when I went looking for you," the owl said, making it clear it distinguished between friend and foe. "Besides, you didn't end up eating the cat, did you?"
"I'll burn the body at daybreak," Wu Youren decided, then said, "The Guard Captain came looking for me."
The horned owl's round eyes went noticeably blank for a moment. "Hao Wei?"
"Is his name Hao Wei?" Wu Youren truly hadn't known; his predecessor's life had amounted to nothing, knowing the man only as the Guard Captain.
"His coming to find you is unlikely to mean anything good!" Chen Quanxu offered his conclusion right away.
"Yeah, definitely." The youth agreed completely.
Compared to the Guard Captain, he was much more inclined to trust the figure before him, so consulting him was necessary for peace of mind.
However, he also made sure to add a caveat so Chen Quanxu wouldn't be overly swayed by personal bias. "He spoke quite highly of you."
"Nonsense. It's not like I ever screwed him over," the horned owl grumbled.
Pausing, a hint of curiosity surfaced. "How did he evaluate me?"
"He said... I'm like you," the youth replied after a slight hesitation. "I didn't dare pursue the topic, so I just claimed I didn't know you."
"You're like me?" The owl's eyes widened further. After three or four seconds, it muttered, "How fucking ironic!"
A few seconds later, it asked, "How did he notice you?"
"I couldn't help it," the youth sighed in frustration. "I couldn't hide it anymore!"
"It's no big deal," Chen Quanxu remarked calmly. "It's difficult for people like you and me to stay hidden. Give me the details."
He was a good listener, rarely interrupting, though he probed into specific points.
When the youth finished, Chen Quanxu finally said, "Generally speaking, he wasn't lying."
Right after, he added with a dose of schadenfreude, "You really put him through the wringer, didn't you?"
Clearly, only someone who understood the Guard Captain deeply could have reached such a conclusion.
Wu Youren felt a flicker of curiosity. "What kind of grudge is there... between the two of you?"
Chapter 197