This time, both players laid down stones with blinding speed. Wei Yuan struggled to keep pace. They played nearly three hundred moves, and only in the endgame did the Seventh Elder finally suffer defeat, falling short by the narrowest of margins.
"Another round!" the Seventh Elder growled through gritted teeth. With a sweep of his broad sleeve, he cleared the board and restored it to its original state.
Wei Yuan opened with a stone played on the three-three point, exactly as before.
In this match, Wei Yuan responded far more smoothly. The mortals within his domain had already mapped out several of the Seventh Elder's favorite patterns, drastically reducing the calculations needed, and only then was Wei Yuan barely able to keep pace.
Wei Yuan dropped a stone here and placed another there, seemingly devoid of any overarching strategy or method. Yet when both sides had made merely sixty or seventy moves each, the Seventh Elder's formation completely collapsed.
When the game ended, the Seventh Elder stared fixedly at the board, lost in long silence.
What he found intolerable was not losing, but having no idea how he had lost.
Wei Yuan felt uneasy. He could not tell whether he had played well or poorly; he had simply followed the moves suggested by the mortals in his vision, and before he knew it, he had won.
The Seventh Elder suddenly said, "I must review this match. You two decide the matter here amongst yourselves." With that, he snatched up the board and vanished in an instant.
Once the Seventh Elder was gone, Bao Manshan looked Wei Yuan up and down, making Wei Yuan's skin crawl.
Bao Manshan clicked his tongue in wonder. "I never would have guessed that your skill in Weiqi had reached the level of a grandmaster! I've never seen Old Seven beaten so utterly flat without a shred of temper left. Truth be told, I couldn't figure out how you won, either."
"Did I offend the Seventh Elder?" Wei Yuan asked, still apprehensive.
Wei Yuan had originally intended to put up a hard fight and narrowly lose to make the Seventh Elder happy. But his actual skill was far too limited, and he dared not bypass the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to make moves on his own, lest the Seventh Elder realize he was actually an amateur.
Yet the moment Wei Yuan threw himself into the fight, the Seventh Elder had already crumbled.
Bao Manshan burst out laughing. "His parting words meant that the matter regarding Girl Yun can be left to my decision. Heh, you brat, you've won over another elder. Now you only need one more."
Wei Yuan was pleasantly surprised. He had never expected that relying on the mortals inside his dharma idol would win him an elder's backing over a game of Weiqi. Securing the Seventh Elder's support had turned out to be the easiest of all.
Bao Manshan was in high spirits as well, though not because support had been won.
He slapped Wei Yuan heavily on the shoulder. "Well won! That fellow Old Seven always boasts about his chess skills. I've been sick of hearing it for years, yet I could never beat him. Giving him a baffling loss like that is sure to keep him from eating or sleeping properly for months!"
Bao Manshan's grin vanished, replaced by a grave expression. "Down to business. If you take Girl Yun away, what do you intend for her to do?"
Wei Yuan replied, "I want to give her a city and let her serve as its lord."
Bao Manshan grew thoughtful. "You wish to use the karmic luck of humanity to mend her damaged Dao Foundation?"
"Yes. Qingming has risen from nothing and is only now beginning to flourish. It is precisely when the karmic luck of humanity is at its peak. Such an opportunity cannot be missed."
Bao Manshan nodded. "That is indeed an approach. And what else?"
Wei Yuan hesitated, his face flushing slightly. "I feel Senior Sister is still young, and her future is long. She should not be betrothed at such an age, so I intended to derail this arrangement first."
Bao Manshan pressed, "And what else?"
"...The rest depends on Senior Sister's own wishes."
Bao Manshan chuckled and scolded him as a slippery rascal, then sighed. "Even without you, I was opposed to this from the start. Has our Bao family truly fallen so low that we must sell off our daughters? Hmph! Day in and day out they talk about breaking the deadlock, but why doesn't anyone stop to think about why we haven't broken it for hundreds of years? Isn't it because us old fogeys failed to live up to expectations?"
He fixed Wei Yuan with a stern glare. "If you take Girl Yun away this time, should you ever let her down in the future, don't blame me for showing no mercy!"
"I certainly will not!" Wei Yuan answered with absolute firmness.
After Bao Manshan departed, Wei Yuan waited, but Bao Yun did not appear. He left the courtyard and made his way toward her residence to find her.
At Bao Yun's dwelling, Zhao Fusheng stood in the courtyard, visibly agitated and impatient.
He casually plucked a platinum-colored leaf and crumpled it into a ball between his palms, exclaiming in exasperation, "Why don't you understand? That Wei Yuan has been avoiding the one crucial issue from the beginning: your recognized status!"
Bao Yun extended her hand, and a small, pale red blossom drifted into her palm before slowly dissolving away. She looked at the osmanthus tree before her and said calmly, "I do not care."
A plume of dragon fire erupted over Zhao Fusheng's head. "How can you not care about something like that? If you don't even care about that, what else is left to care about?"
Bao Yun sighed softly. "Young Master Zhao, you are a good man..."
"I am not a good man!" Zhao Fusheng cut her off unequivocally. He slammed his fists together, producing a resounding metallic clang and sending sparks flying everywhere. "But neither will I allow anyone to mistreat you like this!"
Wei Yuan walked through the courtyard gate at that very moment, his gaze instantly locking with Zhao Fusheng's. Dragon flames flared up atop Zhao Fusheng's head, and a fist came smashing straight toward Wei Yuan's face!
Wei Yuan raised an arm to block. Just as fist and palm were about to collide, Zhao Fusheng abruptly halted his strike. "My cultivation realm is higher than yours. Winning would be unchivalrous."
Wei Yuan quickly said, "A slight discrepancy in cultivation is nothing to fuss over." Presented with a chance to thrash Zhao Fusheng, he had no intention of letting it slip by.
Though he knew nothing had transpired between the two, seeing Zhao Fusheng standing in Bao Yun's courtyard had ignited an unnameable fury in his chest.
Zhao Fusheng frowned, dragon flames flickering erratically around him as he wavered over whether to strike. Deep down, he burned to pummel this frivolous profligate, but brawling within the Bao family would be unseemly, and it would only cause Bao Yun to think less of him.
Wei Yuan stood calm and collected, concealing a projection stone in his grip.
The moment a fight broke out, he would flick the stone into a corner of the courtyard and activate it at the right instant. Once Zhao Fusheng suddenly caught sight of those infamous scenes from the secret realm, his Dao heart would surely fall into turmoil. Wei Yuan would not even need to summon Maiden Yin-Yang to give him a sound beating.
In any case, they were not friends, nor did Wei Yuan intend to befriend him. Once the brawl concluded, it would simply be a matter of how much the Young Island Lord was willing to pay to buy back those stones. Given the Young Island Lord's status, the price certainly could not be cheap; anything less would fail to honor the dignity of Mount Qiong Immortal Island.
Yet after weighing his options back and forth, Zhao Fusheng actually reined in his fiery temper. "Pummeling you in front of Miss Bao would surely displease her..."
Wei Yuan was quick to interject, "She won't mind at all."
Zhao Fusheng glared at Wei Yuan. "Shameless scoundrel, do you think I'd fall for your trick? Hmph! Earlier, if you hadn't used the momentum of our fight to cause a commotion, how could you have stirred so many elders? In the end, coming to the Bao family for money and people was your real motive!"
Seeing that no fight would happen, Wei Yuan had no choice but to tuck the stone away, as holding a stone in plain view looked rather conspicuous.
Zhao Fusheng glared at Wei Yuan, killing intent surging as he snapped, "Shameless lecher! Let me ask you: what formal status do you intend to give Miss Bao?"
This question struck right at Wei Yuan's most vulnerable spot. For a moment, he had no idea how to reply.
Bao Yun suddenly looked at Wei Yuan and asked, "If one day in the future I come to care for you, will you let me down?"
"I will never let you down!"
Bao Yun offered a faint smile. "That is enough. It is far too early to speak of formal status, and I am still young. Among us cultivators, finding a Dao companion only at three or four hundred years of age is commonplace. I am not some mortal woman who must marry and bear children at fifteen or sixteen."
Zhao Fusheng spoke earnestly. "I am not merely looking for someone to bear me nine sons. I wanted to... er..." Dragon fire began spouting from his crown again, his entire body flushing crimson. With Wei Yuan watching from the side, wild horses could not have dragged the rest of the sentence from his mouth.
Bao Yun said, "I understand the Young Island Lord's intentions, but I am still young, and everything is far too early for me. Perhaps after several years have passed, I will understand my true feelings. Please return, Young Island Lord. I have matters to discuss with my junior brother."
Zhao Fusheng fell silent for a moment before saying, "Very well. I will wait ten years for you!"
Watching Zhao Fusheng's tall back retreat into the distance, a thought suddenly crossed Wei Yuan's mind, though he immediately shook his head.
Bao Yun knew him well. One glance told her that Wei Yuan had hatched another devious scheme. "What mischief are you plotting now?"
Wei Yuan said, "I was just thinking that the Young Island Lord's Floating World Dragon Chart is a peerless manual under heaven, and leaving it completely unused is rather a shame. If I find him a woman suitable for dual cultivation, would I be able to share a few of the nine sons they bear in the future? Oh, I'm not greedy—four would do. If that's too much, three is acceptable."
Bao Yun could not help bursting into laughter. "You... you truly are..."
As the topic was raised, a thought stirred in Wei Yuan's mind, and for some reason, he found himself thinking of those Xu family youths in the new city.
Bao Yun pulled Wei Yuan into the study, shut the door, and laid down an array to block spiritual senses. Only then did she sit down beside him and ask, "Out with it. What is this really about, this status?"
Wei Yuan felt a headache coming on. "Didn't you just say you were still young?"
Bao Yun replied, "Whether I accept is one matter; whether you offer it is another!"
A figure suddenly flashed through Wei Yuan's mind—the one who had pointed a finger at the heavens and fiercely rebuked an immortal. He sighed inwardly and said, "There is someone right now who holds first place in affection, and first place in grace and debt. When it comes to status, there is no way to bypass her, which is why I cannot offer anything."
As Bao Yun listened, her eyes went wide. She pressed a hand over her mouth, staring at Wei Yuan in utter shock.
Wei Yuan braced himself and remained seated.
"You... you two actually..." Bao Yun patted her chest, only managing to compose herself with great effort. "...No wonder. I always thought there was something strange between you two back then, as though you were ready to live and die together at any moment. Hmph!"
"No, it's not like that." Wei Yuan wanted to explain that their master had always possessed broad compassion, and that the care shown toward him stemmed largely from Sky Azure Hall's habitual protectiveness of its own. Yet such things were exceedingly difficult to explain, and any explanation would only make matters worse.
"Fine, next question." Seeing that Bao Yun was not pressing the point, Wei Yuan breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Bao Yun asked, "Since you cannot give me formal status, why do you want to take me away? Did you just want to play around with me?"
What kind of outrageous phrasing was that...?
Wei Yuan had not expected this question to strike even closer to the bone. Fortunately, he had pondered it for a long time, so he said, "I harbor no inappropriate thoughts. I only want to do everything in my power to pull you out of this predicament, so that you can live according to your own will. Once you attain a dharma idol in the future, you will naturally be free of such constraints."
"Then when you just said you would 'never let me down,' were you lying to me?"
"Of course not! If..." Wei Yuan choked on his own words, unable to continue. It was truly too embarrassing to say aloud.
Bao Yun pursued relentlessly, pulling her chair right up in front of Wei Yuan until their knees touched. Staring into his eyes, she asked, "If I come to care for you, will you let me down?"
"I will not!"
"Good, then. I don't truly understand my own feelings right now anyway. Let us spend a few years together first and see. Perhaps there will come a day when I don't care about status at all."
Hearing this, Wei Yuan felt an indescribable mix of emotions—both joy and trepidation. Before coming here, he truly had not thought about the future, because there was no solution for it. He had only thought of pulling Bao Yun out of the mire before her, and that would be enough.
Yet now, listening to the meaning behind her words...
While his mind was in a muddle, Bao Yun suddenly asked, "Aside from her, is there anyone else?"
"No." Wei Yuan instantly recalled his promise to Consort Yuan.
Bao Yun gasped sharply. "There's more?!"
She abruptly grabbed Wei Yuan's hand and pulled him toward the door. "We're eloping!"
Dragged out of the courtyard by her, Wei Yuan cried in surprise, "Is this really necessary? We're only short one elder now..."
Dragging him straight toward the airship docks, Bao Yun ground her teeth. "I can't control what happened in the past! But from now on, for at least the years you spend with me, you can forget about all those rotten peach blossoms! Don't you dare think about a single one!"
Chapter 434