Unfortunate Transmigrator

12

Further Planning

I

“I think,” Hao Zhen said, starting the conversation, “that it would be better if we first properly understood what’s going on between you and Du Qing.”

Tian Jin gave him a nod. His feud with Du Qing wasn’t common knowledge, and it’d indeed be a good idea if Hao Zhen and Duo Lan better understood what was going on before they started trying to come up with solutions.

“All right,” Tian Jin said, taking a moment to consider where to start. Hao Zhen and Duo Lan leaned forward. “I’m sure you two are aware of this, but Du Qing’s master, Elder Bao, wants to make me his apprentice.”

It was common knowledge that immediately after the entrance examinations, Elder Bao, in front of everyone, had offered to make him his third full apprentice, and even though he had politely refused the offer, Elder Bao had claimed that if Tian Jin ever changed his mind, he’d accept him as his disciple any time.

“A couple of days after the entrance examinations, some outer disciples started going out of their way to find trouble with me,” Tian Jin continued. “At the time, I didn’t know what was going on, but later I found out that Du Qing was behind it, though I didn’t really believe it at first. Apparently, Du Qing had ordered them to do their best to drive me off the sect.”

At that, Duo Lan scowled, whereas Hao Zhen simply nodded again as if what he had said was perfectly acceptable. Tian Jin had already given up on understanding the other boy’s thoughts and reactions and simply carried on with his recounting.

“A while after that, a month after we joined the sect, there was a competition for outer court disciples.” Duo Lan had participated in it, but Hao Zhen, as far as he could remember, hadn’t. In fact, Tian Jin reckoned that out of all the new outer disciples, only he and Duo Lan had entered it. “Anyway, one of the outer disciples there tried to maim me, but I managed to defeat him. Later, I confronted him, and I found out that Du Qing had paid him to cripple me and make it look like an accident.”

Again, Duo Lan scowled, though this time he reckoned that it was for a different reason, as he had won that competition, with Duo Lan taking second place, just like in the entrance examinations. At the time, she had refused to accept her defeat and had spent the next few days challenging him to a duel. Knowing her, she hadn’t given up that grudge yet. Hao Zhen, just like before, only nodded his head, not a hint of surprise on his face, as if he had already been expecting something like this.

“A week after that, the outer disciple who tried to cripple me during the competition was killed, and I was considered the prime suspect at first. I’m fairly certain Du Qing was behind that, too. I didn’t have a way to prove I hadn’t done it, so I was in a bit of trouble. Thankfully, Bao Yun, Elder Bao’s daughter, vouched for me.”

Bao Yun was Elder Bao’s daughter and his other full apprentice. Right as he had been about to be judged guilty by the Outer Justice Hall elders, she had barged into the Justice Hall and revealed that she happened to have seen him in his residence during the time the murder had supposedly taken place, so he couldn’t possibly be the murderer. As Bao Yun was not only a prime disciple, but also Elder Bao’s full apprentice and daughter, the charges were dropped on the spot, and only two days after that, another outer disciple was found guilty of the murder.

“And then there was the mission?” Hao Zhen asked, and Tian Jin nodded.

“After trying to frame me, Du Qing didn’t do anything for about two weeks. I thought that he was still trying to come up with some way to deal with me, and while it did occur to me he might try something during the mission, I changed my mind when I saw that the inner disciple leading us was Ke Li. I had already met Ke Li a few times before, and we were on pretty good terms, or at least I had thought we were, so I didn’t think he’d be willing to kill me.”

At that, Hao Zhen shrugged. “Given what I’ve seen of Ke Li, I believe he was a fairly opportunistic person,” he said. “He thought you had potential and that you’d become someone important in the future, so he tried to befriend you. But then Du Qing approached him, and Ke Li decided that ingratiating himself to a prime disciple was even better. They probably even had other dealings in the past.”

“That… makes sense,” Tian Jin said, thinking back to all of his interactions with Ke Li so far.

“There’s still one thing I don’t get,” Duo Lan suddenly said, speaking for the first time since the start of the conversation. They turned to look at her. “Why exactly does Du Qing want to kill you?”

That was something he really wanted to know too. “I have no idea, to be honest,” he said. “The few times we met in person, Elder Bao was nearby, and Du Qing always acted perfectly cordial, and I didn’t have any proof of what he had done, so I had no choice but to play along.”

“I think I know why,” Hao Zhen said, drawing their attention.

“What is it, then?” Duo Lan prompted.

“He feels threatened by you,” Hao Zhen said, turning to look at him. “His master favors you. He’s a full apprentice, right? Well, he probably wants to become Elder Bao’s legacy apprentice, and he thinks there’s a chance that Elder Bao might make you his legacy apprentice instead if you decide to accept his offer of apprenticeship. Most likely, Elder Bao has been constantly talking about you ever since the entrance examinations, praising you.”

There were four kinds of apprentices: servant apprentices, partial apprentices, full apprentices, and legacy apprentices. While full apprentices were dutifully taught by their master and provided with ample help, a cultivator would only pass down their entire legacy to their legacy apprentice, holding nothing back.

“That’s…” Once again, Tian Jin was taken aback by Hao Zhen’s insight. Thinking back to what he knew of Du Qing and Elder Bao, that made complete sense. He just hadn’t put the two things together before. To think that all this time, Du Qing had been feeling threatened… “But I don’t get it. I mean, I already rejected Elder Bao’s offer.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Hao Zhen said, shaking his head. “Elder Bao’s offer was permanent. You can accept it at any time. Du Qing probably thinks you don’t know yet what it means to be apprenticed to a prime elder, and that once you do, you’ll change your mind. He doesn’t want to take any chances.”

Duo Lan gave Hao Zhen a long look. “Huh. You are pretty smart, aren’t you?” There was something odd in the way she looked at him, as if she were re-evaluating him but also confused about something. Tian Jin guessed that she had also noticed how much Hao Zhen had changed and found it strange. She then nodded her head. “And yes, that sounds about right. Du Qing’s definitely the kind of guy to do something like that.”

There was a pause. Then, Hao Zhen narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you know him?”

Startled, Duo Lan blinked at Hao Zhen owlishly. “What?”

Tian Jin similarly looked at him in confusion. What was going on now?

“Do you know Du Qing?” Hao Zhen asked again, looking at her intently. “What you said about him just now—it was as if you knew him.”

Tian Jin’s eyes widened. Duo Lan had, indeed, given that impression. He also turned to look at her. As far as he knew, she had never met Du Qing before.

“I… I mean,” Duo Lan said, stuttering, before abruptly shaking her head and collecting herself. Her voice firm, she said, “I was just saying that based on what Tian Jin has told us about him so far. It’s pretty clear that Du Qing is a two-faced bastard, isn’t it?”

Her explanation didn’t sound all that convincing, and judging by the look on Hao Zhen’s face, the other boy didn’t believe her, either. To Tian Jin’s surprise, however, instead of pushing the issue, Hao Zhen shrugged.

“Ah, I see,” he said, simply, as if that was it, no longer looking suspicious. Tian Jin frowned at him. What in the world just happened? Just as he was about to voice his question, Hao Zhen gave him a pointed look, and he stopped himself. Right, Hao Zhen probably had a reason for doing this. He could just ask him about it later.

“Anyway,” Hao Zhen continued, “I think the situation is pretty clear. Du Qing wants to get rid of you, but he’s afraid of being too overt about it and getting caught, as he has his reputation to maintain.”

“That seems to be the case, yes,” Tian Jin said. Duo Lan nodded her head, and although Tian Jin couldn’t tell for certain, she looked a little relieved.

“All right. In this case, we can assume that Du Qing will try something pretty soon. So far, his attempts to get rid of you have been gradually escalating, from simply trying to drive you off the sect, to trying to have you crippled, to framing you for murder, to outright having someone assassinate you. Next time, he’ll probably go for your life again, and I’m afraid that Duo Lan and I might also be targeted. Now, we have a couple of different options.” Hao Zhen focused on him. “Tian Jin, you said you had no intention of accepting Elder Bao’s offer of apprenticeship. Would you be willing to accept another prime elder as your master? That’d make things a lot easier for us in many ways.”

“No,” Tian Jin said firmly. “I’m not taking a master.” If he were willing to take one, he’d have accepted Elder Bao’s offer already. His one and only master was Tian Qi.

Hao Zhen didn’t look particularly surprised by that. “What about you, Duo Lan?” he asked, turning to her. “If you can apprentice under a prime elder, you’ll directly become a prime disciple, and you’ll be able to directly go against Du Qing.”

“I’m not apprenticing under anyone,” Duo Lan, just as firmly.

Hao Zhen gave her a blank look, then sighed. “All right. I’ve got nothing, then. Do you two have any ideas?”

“I’m about a month away from reaching the third level,” Tian Jin said. “I’ll then be able to take the promotion examination and become an inner disciple. After that, Du Qing will have a harder time touching me, and I’ll be able to cultivate faster.” There was a problem with that plan, however. He frowned. “That still won’t be enough to stop Du Qing from doing something to you two, though.”

Even if Du Qing tried something in the next month, Tian Jin was confident he’d be able to deal with it somehow, regardless of what exactly Du Qing tried. The same couldn’t be said about Hao Zhen and Duo Lan. And he was the one who had gotten them involved in this, so if they got hurt…

“I don’t need you to worry about me.” Duo Lan scoffed, giving him a glare of indignation. “I’m not some damsel in distress. I’ll probably even become an inner disciple before you.”

Tian Jin considered that for a moment, then nodded his head. Duo Lan’s antics aside, she was right. She should be able to protect herself. Although he had beaten her in both the entrance examinations and the competition a month ago, his victories had been very close. She had the ability to back her words.

Hao Zhen, on the other hand…

The other boy was looking down, frowning. As far as Tian Jin could tell, Hao Zhen’s talent was average—if not below average—and he didn’t appear to have any aptitude for combat. He did seem particularly intelligent, but Tian Jin didn’t believe that would be enough.

“Well,” Hao Zhen said, after a moment of hesitation, “that seems to be about it, then. We keep an eye out for Du Qing’s next move, and in the meanwhile, we do our best to grow strong enough to handle whatever he throws at us.”

It was clear that Hao Zhen had wanted to come up with something better—this plan was almost identical to the supposedly provisional plan they had thought of back in the valley—but the truth of the matter was that there wasn’t really anything they could do besides biding their time and trying to get stronger as soon as possible. The problem with the plan was that it wasn’t one Hao Zhen was capable of following.

Unfortunately, Tian Jin didn’t know how he could help him with that.

“Sounds about right to me,” Duo Lan said, shrugging.

“Wait,” Tian Jin said, remembering something. “Since we don’t know what Du Qing’s next move will be or when he’ll do it, I think we should have a way of quickly contacting each other if something happens. I think we should exchange sound-transmission imprints.” At least this way, if Du Qing targeted Hao Zhen, he’d hopefully be able to make it in time.

Duo Lan furrowed her brow, considering the suggestion. Hao Zhen, on the other hand, gave him a blank look. “What’s that?”

Tian Jin looked at him in surprise. “You don’t—” Right. Mundane-raised. “All right,” he backtracked. “I think it’ll be better if I show you.” He then sent some spiritual power into his spatial ring and brought out his sound-transmission token, which was in the form of a small red medallion, and held it up for Hao Zhen to see. “This is a magical artifact called a sound-transmission token. Each sound-transmission token has an imprint that is unique to it. You can then use your token to send sound transmissions to another token whose imprint you’ve recorded in yours, and the owner of the other token will receive the sound transmission directly into their ear.”

Hao Zhen glanced at the sound-transmission token, his eyes widening. “Wait. If something like that existed this whole time, then why in the world didn’t we use it during the mission?”

Tian Jin shook his head. “Because this is only a red-grade sound-transmission token,” he said, “and a token of this grade can only record ten sound-transmission imprints. And once you record an imprint, you can’t erase it. So you really only record the sound-transmission imprint of someone you’ll be planning on contacting often, and since your team is different every mission… Well, what you’re thinking of wouldn’t be viable.”

As Tian Jin explained, Hao Zhen’s expression turned thoughtful. Once he was done with the explanation, Hao Zhen said, “I take it you can’t have multiple sound-transmission tokens?”

Tian Jin shook his head. “You can, but there’s a bonding ritual you need to perform if you want to receive sound transmissions from a token, and you can only be bonded to one token at a time. They’re also pretty expensive, so they’re not something you can just use once and throw away.”

“I see,” Hao Zhen said. He then frowned again. “Well, as you probably guessed, I don’t have one.”

That had been clear the moment Hao Zhen asked what it was. Still, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. Tian Jin had plenty of contribution points, so he could easily buy another token and give it to Hao Zhen. They could even go to the Exchange Pavilion today.

“Don’t worry,” he started explaining. “We can—”

“Here,” Duo Lan cut in, tossing Hao Zhen something. Tian Jin caught a flash of something red and circular. Could that be…?

Hao Zhen caught it instinctively, then looked down at his hand, before looking up at her in surprise.

“I happened to have a spare one,” Duo Lan said, completely nonchalant.

Tian Jin wondered if he looked as surprised as Hao Zhen did. He hadn’t been lying when he said that sound-transmission tokens were expensive. He could afford one, but that was only because he had accumulated quite a lot of contribution points over the last two months, and even to him, a sound-transmission token wasn’t something he could just buy and then give away on a whim. The same probably went for Duo Lan. The fact that she not only had another one but had also so easily given it away to someone she didn’t even appear to like was nothing short of baffling.

Once again, instead of pointing out Duo Lan’s odd behavior, Hao Zhen simply nodded his head, seemingly taking it in stride. “Thank you.” Something else he’d have to ask Hao Zhen about later, Tian Jin decided.

Duo Lan shrugged it off. “It’s just a sound-transmission token.”

With that, Tian Jin showed Hao Zhen how to bond to the token. They then exchanged sound-transmission imprints, making Hao Zhen’s and Duo Lan’s the fourth and fifth imprints recorded in his token.

Shortly afterward, since there was nothing left to discuss, Duo Lan promptly shooed them off the house, claiming that she needed to get her beauty sleep.