Six
“— then he took the headless corpse and used it like a weapon,” explained Na, staring at the Fu family with wide eyes and a breathless tone. “Spraying down everyone and unleashing it as an impromptu relic.”
“Lord Sheng is an ideal Lord,” whispered Hui, lifting her head up and closing her eyes. She was smiling as if she could picture the scene in her head.
“He is the ideal,” agreed Na fervently, even as the rest of the room, Jia, Mei, Siu, the Fu family, and Ash stared at teh two of them as if they were off their rocker.
“Then he went to the prison realm?” asked Jia’s mother who was seated beside, Jia, Shuang. Her husband stood behind her.
Shuang had already been converted from ‘family-servant’ to ‘Jia’s sister’ without Ash even having reconstructed her Dantian yet.
“Yes,” Na stated and smiled from ear to ear. “Went to the prison, knocked low the Qi Lords, and took the entirety of the realm for himself. He even battled Magical Beasts, a deity, and a plague. Your son-in-law is a great man. You should feel blessed to be related to the Sheng family.”
“Blessed,” confirmed Hui, who then laughed, opened her eyes and looked to Ash. “If we can form a pact with another family outside of the Fu, the sect will have the breathing room to grow that it needs.”
“The sect,” interjected the Patriarch. “I wanted to ask more about that. The lands you described are all hotly contested. The City Lord didn’t really solve the situation at all.”
“No he did not,” Jia confirmed. “We will likely need to reach out to the Luo and see if they can be friendly. If not, we should see if the Nie or Huzhi will be. With any one of the three as a friendly pact holder, we can force the other two to a stand still. So long as we have a ‘rear’ that we can position ourselves against.”
“That would be best,” confirmed the Great-Elder, looking thoughtful.
Apparently having been forced into the situation that had happened, the Fu family had quickly re-aligned their motivations, thoughts, and beliefs. It reminded him a lot of Jia.
Glancing at the beautiful woman, who was sitting there with her mother’s hand in her own, he could see she was delighted to be home. Even if they were the reason she’d left to begin with.
“Patriarch, Xan Nie has arrived,” called a servant through the door. “He… has brought many Elders and… his Patriarch.”
The eyebrows of every Fu family member went upward.
For Ash it was a comical display of a singular family reaction but he limited his response to a small smile.
“I take it you were expecting just the fiance. It seems that this is a bone of contention for them, or they wish to make it one,” Hui offered even as her eyes opened and she took on a thoughtful approach. “To send so many people just to retrieve a fiance means they already know Jia is unsuitable as a bride.
“That would only happen if they had spies in your household or were paying desperate attention to your comings and goins.
“Have they been hostile for a while? Was this nothing more than an excuse? Why did you select Jia as his bride?”
“I… we have never been on friendly terms. It was worse before the plans to become a fiance, but it was never quite better though,” the Patriarch answered, his eyes scrunching up around the eyes and his mouth pursing in thought. “We chose Jia simply because she was the right age and had not yet learned martial arts. We put forward the marriage proposal and they accepted.”
“Interesting. They accepted a proposal on a girl they didn’t know, had no understanding of, and without fuss, unless you’re leaving something out,” Hui continued. “Especially that they were hostile before hand. This is all quite strange. Is this a long standing siege of your family that you’re completely unaware of?
“Do you take losses that you shouldn’t, when you shouldn’t? Sometimes in ways you can’t even determine the reason? Or has it all been so mundane, so steady, so long term, that you just wrote it down as normal costs of doing business?”
The Patriarch and the Great-Elder both looked shocked and confused.
Then the Patriarch pointed at the servant who had brought the news about the Nie family.
“Welcome them in, bring them to the back courtyard. Then round up every single servant who was in the house today and yesterday,” ordered the Patriarch. “Also get a list of anyone who visited yesterday or today as well.”
Not waiting for a response, the Patriarch stood up and gently brushed his hands over his robes.
“It would seem it is time for us to end this marriage arrangement,” he said and looked to Ash. “Lord Sheng, would you please ask those in your household to depart? At this time, we would prefer this to appear as a Fu and Nie matter.”
Ah, that makes sense.
No sense in showing cards if you don’t have to and having the Brides around would speak to having an entire sect or a paramilitary association in your background.
“Everyone? Please?” asked Ash.
“Oh me, oh my, however could we refuse our husband,” Siu remarked, idly fanning herself. Then she reached over and touched Ash’s forearm. “Let’s go, everyone. We have a job to do anyways. The sect needs a great deal of work still. It still resembles a drafty old fort rather than a home for students.”
In the next moment, everyone left, other than Jia, Mei, and Na. He was back to what was nearly his starting point.
Jia stood up and then pressed a Bridal ring into Shuang’s hands. Who looked down at the ring and vanished before she could ask a question.
“Got her. I’ll set her up in your lab for now. She can be comfortable until you have time to experiment,” Locke told him.
“Ah? But—” started her mother.
“I’ll pay her for Shuang’s purchase as if she were a servant. She will be safe until she can survive in this realm on her own two feet,” Jia stated and then moved to Ash and held a hand out to him. “Come, we will go to the back courtyard. I played there often.”
Not waiting, Ash took her arm and let her guide him away.
Mei and Na were already casually chatting as the four of them left. It sounded like the two women were comparing their own life as clan children to what Jia had gone through.
Upon arrival at the courtyard, Ash noted that there was indeed a group of people here. All of them were in the Enlightened Mortal or Awakened Mortal stage. All of them had full Qi-Seas and seemed ready for a fight.
Jia more or less ignored them and took Ash and the others to a section a bit further back. One with several trees, bushes, and what looked a lot like long forgotten wooden toys that’d been worn away at by the elements over years.
“I would hide here and watch the martial artists,” Jia remarked as she pulled the bushes to the side. “I would… I would play with toys right here. Many of those toys are in fact still here as you can see. I left everything here when I fled that I could not sell.
“I would make believe that I would become a powerful martial artist, or find someone who could shelter me. To protect me from what my family wanted to do.”
Ash grinned, looked at the spot, and could envision a young Jia watching intently. She always seemed far too logical and goal oriented than he had expected from a beautiful young woman.
Even when she’d been pretending to be a man.
The Nie family seemed shocked, confused, and entirely unsure of how to handle Ash’s group more or less ignoring them.
“No wonder you laughed when I told you about my granny,” Na muttered with a chuckle. “You did the same thing, just in a different way.”
“I did tell you that you, Mei, and I, are all very similar, Na. It is why I am so grateful for my family,” stated Jia and looked to the side. The Fu family had arrived and were even now going through a brief greeting.
Jia hesitated for several seconds, before guiding everyone over to stand beside her mother.
“—must neutralize the wedding. She is unfit as a bride,” stated the Patriarch. Then he held out a storage card. “Here is the bride price plus interest. The interest is at an acceptable level as if it were invested. Please consider it an apology for this situation.”
“You dare think this is enough?” asked a man in his later middle years. He had black hair, light brown eyes, as well as a beard. Those with him mostly had the same features and variables.
There wasn’t that much distinction in hair and eye color in this realm so far as far as Ash could tell.
“This is an insult! We’ll take the fiance as a servant as well as the bride price,” demanded the man at the front. As if he were used to being in charge and being obeyed. “She can serve to earn her place while working at scrubbing floors.”
“That will not be possible. She has technically left our family and is a married woman. That is not our place to offer her as such,” answered the Patriarch of the Fu. He sounded annoyed and curious. As if Hui’s words earlier had provoked his thoughts. “Nor would we offer her to that position if she were still part of the Fu. That is asking for too much, Nie Patriarch.”
“This is a great insult to us, this has a great value to us because it is you insulting us,” stated the Nie Patriarch, his voice raising in volume and heat. He was also pointing at the Fu patriarch as he spoke. “How will you pay us, if not giving us the source of our discontent?”
“Take it as an insult then. I do not care,” the Fu Patriarch said with a shake of his head. “We are offering what you paid back, with interest. That is the extent of what we will do for you. We are not beholden to you.”
“Yes, you are beholden to us. Damnit all, treacherous Fu, you’ve broken our contract and tell me to eat an insult when I say it’s an insult,” the Nie man shouted. “This is an expensive insult. Truly expensive.”
Ash noted that the Fu Patriarch looked bothered.
Then Ash tried to feel out the power of the Patriarch on both sides.
He found that the Nie leader was stronger than the Fu, though they seemed similar in age. As if the Nie Patriarch had been in his position longer, though the Fu was more recently given it.
The Elder’s who came with the Nie, were also stronger than the Great-Elder, and the other Elders who had come with them.
While the Nie weren’t on their own territory, it was obvious now to Ash that they were just stronger as a whole than the Fu. The forces they brought were more than strong enough to cause an issue.
This wasn’t something the Fu could handle without taking blowback.
Given that this was the Nie family, and Ash was involved, he was fairly certain that they wouldn’t be playing nice-nice with him about the land he’d purchased.
“How much?” Ash asked suddenly, jumping right into the argument. “How much is the insult? Monetary value wise.”
“I… what?” asked one of the Elder’s from the Nie family, looking surprised that Ash had asked a question.
“You demanded something. Then you said it’s a grave insult,” began Ash with an explanation. He wanted to tie them down on a set figure. “You wanted the fiance in question to become a house-servant and work off the insult. How much is a maid worth? How much is this ‘grave insult’ that it would be alleviated with a foot servants worth?
“So… what’s the insult worth in a monetary value? Assume it’s in Awakened Stones. How much does it cost to have a maid-servant clean a clan home?”
The entirety of the Nie family stared at him.
“The value isn’t important,” the patriarch finally said.
“But it is. You said it’s a grave insult. That you aren’t being ‘paid’ for the insult. So what’s the value of a maid-servant worth to clean one’s home? Should I go ask the City Lord for a value if you’re unable to answer? I can go over and ask him right now. I don’t mind,” Ash said and smiled. “I’ll let him know that the Nie family has no idea how much a maid-servant is worth and that their honor is only worth as much as one maid-servant girl cleaning their home.”
“That is what you said,” the Fu Patriarch added. “That a maid-servant cleaning your home would ameliorate your wounds. Even if it was a maid-servant from a clan, the price would not differ much. Perhaps twelve-thousand stones for the life of a maid-servant? The Bride price by itself was only twenty-thousand stones.”
I could buy a Jia for twenty-thousand stones?
Dear wife, may I borrow about a hundred-thousand stones?
“I’m going to use my teeth next time.”
Nevermind.
“Then you should be satisfied by an additional twelve-thousand stones, if that is all it will cost, so be it,” the Fu Patriarch agreed. “You may now leave that the score is settled.”
“No! This is not just a monetary value. It is our honor, our name!” countered the Nie Patriarch. “This is not something that can just be settled like that!”
“But you said it’d be settled by a maid-servant,” Ash argued. “That’s… a monetary value. Unless you just wanted to demand that because you wanted to humiliate a Fu child? Is that your goal? Or are you trying to demand something you know you can’t have to provoke a duel or something?”
The Nie Patriarch stared at Ash without speaking.
Ash couldn’t get a read on the man. Whether he’d guessed accurately or not he had no idea.
What he did know, was it was clearly giving the man pause before he simply started shouting again.
“My name is Lord Sheng,” started Ash again since the man was silent. “I bought the Foothills of Xi Cao from the City Lord and have established a sect there. I plan on having a commencement ceremony along with inviting the Realm Lord’s representative in Anyi. It’s planned for exactly three days from now.
“We also plan on holding an auction on our sect grounds since there doesn’t seem to be an auction house here.”
Everything he’d just said was true and part of their plan after all.
“Now,” Ash began anew. “I’d be happy to challenge you to a duel over this situation at the ceremony. Especially since Jia Fu is now Jia Sheng, my wife. You’ve been speaking quite glibly about taking my wife as a servant. I wouldn’t mind kicking one of your Elder’s teeth in and turning them into a set of dice.
“Would you dare repeat what you said about my wife to my face? Demanding her as a servant? Or would you prefer to come to my commencement ceremony for my Sect and take a duel with me? I’d welcome anyone to fight me up to the Awakened Mortal level by the way.
“If you do not have someone at that strength, I’m sure I can find someone in my sect who can handle the duel. That’d be fairly sad though if you didn’t have someone who could meet me at my level.
“Oh, and before you agree… I think we should have a wager. I’ll bet the Foothills of Xi Cao or sixty-thousand Awakened Stones. Whichever you prefer.
“You will bet… a daughter of your clan. Who will serve as a maid-servant to my sect if I win. You’ll also forfeit any claim to the Foothills you have.
“You see? An equal and fair wager. Or… is your honor not worth that much after all. Is it all bluster and you looking to gain a debt on the Fu with nothing but words?”
Ash had tried to calculate a perfect bet for them that would expose them in multiple ways if they declined.
Tying the Foothills and a daughter as a maid-servant would lay bare their designs. They were both worded and poisonous traps that would cause the Nie to admit wrongdoing in their claims.
The Nie family stared at him with a clear lack of response between them. It made Ash feel like everything up to this point had been discussed and rehearsed in some way.
“You would’ve received the invitation yesterday,” Ash added after a very long pause that actually started to bother him. “For the ceremony. Everyone received it yesterday. Or is that the problem? This was all a bluster? All words to attack the Fu, and now that you’ve been asked to stand up and prove your words, it’s nothing but hot-air coming out of an asshole.
“Are your words nothing but shit and gas? No response at all? Do I need to sign a formal declaration and nail it to someone’s forehead?”
“How dare you,” hissed one of the women in the Nie family.
“How dare I? How dare you. You demanded my wife be a maid-servant,” countered Ash immediately. “Now… duel or not? Or is this settled and you relinquish your claim on the Fu family and my wife, Jia Sheng?”
“We accept your terms,” growled what was likely their Great-Elder. A man who was likely in his seventies and deep into the Awakened Mortal stage. Clearly bottlenecked and stuck there without the ability to move on.
“Great, glad to hear it. I look forward to beating someone black and blue,” Ash muttered then looked to the Fu Patriarch. They were one and all staring at Ash.
He wouldn’t act further as this was their home. He’d stepped in as it had involved Jia, but beyond that, this dispute had nothing to do with them.
If the Fu family wanted the Nie clan to remain for a meal, or to fuck off, that was entirely up to them.
The Fu Patriarch seemed to realize what Ash was doing and turned to look at the Nie family.
“Please leave,” he said with a flat smile and nothing else offered. “Thank you for coming, we have nothing further to discuss. Goodbye.”
Shocked, the Nie family stood there, then began to slowly file out.
No sooner than they were all gone than the Patriarch turned to the Great-Elder.
“We must go through our family and find the truth of the matter. They did act as if they knew,” the man said.
“Indeed,” agreed the Great-Elder, then sighed, looking to Ash and Jia. “Would… you stay for a meal?”
“I kinda wanna go get working on Shuang. There’s also a lot of other things I’m planning for the sector commencement ceremony,” Ash admitted and shrugged. “Jia will want to stay. Probably tell you about her brother. Also to hand out the gifts we brought.”
Not waiting, Ash vanished into the Hall.
He really did want to work on Shuang.
That and plan more for the Sect ceremony.
Ash had some dumb ideas he wanted to do.
Like getting food from the modern world as well as items.
Just to show off a bit.