Chapter 32 – Conversation

“The situation was indeed as such. I did try my best to argue on your behalf, but ultimately, the majority voted in favor, and the Spiritbond World Assembly endorsed the Yun family’s proposal.” Li Zheng led Yun Xiguang into his office, a troubled expression on his face as he explained.

Yun Xiguang remained remarkably calm and asked, “Doesn’t the Spiritbond World care about personal consent? Aren’t they worried that I might run away if they force me to my death?”

Li Zheng sighed. “There’s no way to escape. Ever since you became a Spiritbond Master, your soul information has been registered. No matter where you go, the Spiritbond Master Association can pinpoint your location.

“As for personal consent… You know how it is with the noble families. The Yun family considers you their property, and the Spiritbond World tacitly accepts the unwritten rule that children of noble families belong to their families and must obey them. Whether you’re willing or not, as long as the Yun family can hand you over, the Spiritbond World assumes that you consent.”

How the Yun family would “hand over” Yun Xiguang was an internal matter for the Yun family; outsiders had no say in it.

Don’t expect secular laws to bind the noble families. Laws restrain ordinary people, but they cannot control spirit beasts.

Using tracking techniques, the Yun family could locate Yun Xiguang, control him with spirit beasts, and make him utter words like “voluntary sacrifice.” Under such circumstances, secular methods of evidence collection couldn’t obtain any proof. Without evidence, secular law couldn’t determine whether Yun Xiguang himself was willing.

“And for the Spiritbond Master Association, this isn’t considered a sacrifice. An ordinary person would surely die if they gave up half their blood, but in the Spiritbond World, as long as there’s a Healer protecting you, even if you donate all your blood, you can still survive,” Li Zheng lamented. “For Spiritbond Masters, just lying in an array for a while and enduring some pain and weakness doesn’t count as a sacrifice. Otherwise, so many wouldn’t have voted in favor.”

“Then why are you, Director Li, so worried?” Yun Xiguang asked, looking directly into Li Zheng’s eyes.

Under Yun Xiguang’s penetrating gaze, which seemed to see through everything, Li Zheng involuntarily looked away.

The moment he shifted his gaze, Li Zheng realized that he had lost ground in his silent confrontation with a teenager.

“If it were truly as simple as you describe, you wouldn’t have tried to argue on my behalf with such fervor,” Yun Xiguang said. “It’s clear that you’ve also noticed that the Yun family is planning to kill me during the array to find the Crimson Chi.”

Li Zheng remained silent, but his silence was tantamount to acknowledgment.

Yun Xiguang continued, “I’ve spent years in the Yun family, and I understand some of their secret techniques. Based on my current knowledge, the Yun family absolutely does not possess a method to locate blood relatives through kinship.

“A spirit beast’s contract with a Spiritbond Master connects souls, unrelated to blood ties. Souls exist independently from the body, each one unique. Apart from identical twins whose soul auras are very similar, everyone else, even close blood relatives, have souls that are unrelated.

“The Yun family couldn’t possibly have mastered such a technique because such a technique simply cannot exist.

“Since there’s no such method, the Yun family proposed it. Other than wanting my life, I can’t think of another reason.

“But what puzzles me is that I’ve been obedient and submissive in the Yun family these past few years. It was the Yun family who abandoned me, not I who betrayed them. Why does the Yun family want to kill me? And how did Director Li learn about this?”

After hesitating for a moment, Li Zheng told Yun Xiguang about Yun Xinglei’s spirit root being completely burned by the True Sun Fire.

This was the first time Yun Xiguang heard about it.

The competition had been only half a month ago. Since then, Yun Xiguang hadn’t returned to school or the Yun family. He didn’t interact much with other students, and Wu Ailang was an oddity among his classmates. Thus, no one had informed him of this incident.

After learning about it, Yun Xiguang understood the Yun family’s thinking.

Having spent years in the Yun family, he knew well the stale mindset of such ancient families. To them, individuals were less important than the family, the country less important than the family, and the safety of the world less important than the family’s well-being.

As long as the family could continue to exist, anyone could be sacrificed for its sake.

And if someone harbored ill will towards the family, even if they were just a tiny ant, the Yun family wouldn’t leave this potential threat unaddressed; they would immediately eliminate it.

Yun Xiguang had no hatred for the Yun family. He hadn’t resented the Yun family for abandoning him, nor had he ever thought of retaliating against them. All along, he had merely wanted to reclaim his rightful inheritance.

But an unexpected incident led the Yun family to mistakenly believe that he had secretly harmed Yun Xinglei.

The Yun family didn’t think he could manipulate the phenomena that day, but they suspected he had mastered some sinister techniques and used the phenomena to harm Yun Xinglei under cover of darkness.

Such actions were seen by the Yun family as an indication of hostility toward the family.

Since Yun Xiguang was nothing more than a cast-off anyway, the Yun family, adhering to the principle of “better to kill by mistake than miss a target,” decided to take action against him.

Realizing this, Yun Xiguang finally understood where he had miscalculated.

In Yun Xiguang’s scenario, this matter should have ended with Li Zheng applying for commendation on his behalf. Therefore, he hadn’t prepared any subsequent strategies.

He never imagined that the Yun family would be an unexpected factor.

Although there were issues, Yun Xiguang wasn’t worried. He had always believed that things were determined by human effort, and as long as he wasn’t dead, there was always room for a turnaround.

Yun Xiguang glanced at Li Zheng, noticed that the director harbored goodwill toward him, and asked, “Director Li called me here ahead of time, do you have something specific to tell me?”

Li Zheng, unable to thwart Elder Yun’s plot during the meeting, felt a sense of guilt toward Yun Xiguang. Before Yun Xiguang was taken away, he urgently summoned him to his office to discuss countermeasures together.

Although he couldn’t sway the outcome of the vote, Li Zheng had fought for two things on Yun Xiguang’s behalf.

Firstly, although Yun Xiguang was a member of the Yun family, he was also an intern at the Special Affairs Bureau, like a semi-government worker, similar to an auxiliary police officer. Yun Xiguang assisting the Yun family in performing secret techniques fell under the category of an auxiliary police officer from the Special Affairs Bureau aiding the Spiritbond Master Association in gathering evidence. According to regulations, three or more employees of the Special Affairs Bureau must accompany and assist each other when assisting in investigations, serving as mutual supervision.

Based on this regulation, Li Zheng could dispatch two to four people to protect Yun Xiguang, preventing the Yun family from taking action right under their noses. This time, Li Zheng intended to lead the team personally to ensure Yun Xiguang’s safety.

Secondly, since both noble families and the Special Affairs Bureau were involved, according to regulations, the two forces couldn’t collude privately. Therefore, the Spiritbond Master Association must also participate in this matter.

Li Zheng demanded that the Healer Spiritbond Masters be selected by the Spiritbond Master Association, not allowing the Yun family to provide personnel.

This was in accordance with the rules, and the Spiritbond Master Association naturally agreed. The major academies and the Spiritbond Master Association were on the same side, with most teachers and relevant staff members being members of the Spiritbond Master Association.

During the meeting, Li Zheng desperately signaled to Ji Xuan, who understood and suggested that the Healer candidates be chosen from the Zhuzhao Spiritbond Academy. Yun Xiguang was a student of Zhuzhao Academy, currently only interning and not yet graduated. His academy had the responsibility to protect the safety of its students.

This request was also quite reasonable, and no one opposed it.

In theory, with these two additional conditions, he should have been able to ensure Yun Xiguang’s survival. Li Zheng had assumed that Elder Yun would strongly oppose or propose alternative conditions, but he didn’t expect Elder Yun to fully endorse his suggestion. This made Li Zheng extremely uneasy, sensing that there was still some conspiracy lurking behind the scenes for Yun Xiguang.

Li Zheng relayed these two matters to Yun Xiguang and asked, “I don’t know much about the secret techniques the Yun family claims to have. You have more information than I do. Do you think these two safeguards will be enough to protect you?”

After a brief moment of contemplation, Yun Xiguang decisively replied, “No.”

The Yun family had anticipated that the Special Affairs Bureau and the Spiritbond Master Association would intervene. Even if it wasn’t for Yun Xiguang’s sake, for the sake of finding the Crimson Chi and the source of the spirit energy, the Spiritbond Master Association and higher authorities had to send representatives to monitor the scene to prevent the Yun family from withholding information and monopolizing the spirit energy.

They had proposed this knowing full well that the two major forces would be watching. They were confident they could carry out their plan under the surveillance of both factions.

“How will they manage to do that? I’ll supervise it myself,” Li Zheng said sternly.

Yun Xiguang responded, “This search is nothing more than a grand performance. There is no such secret technique. If we consider the failure as a premise, we can derive different answers regarding the Yun family’s plan.”

Li Zheng was also intelligent. With Yun Xiguang’s reminder, he suddenly realized, “Once the failure occurs, numerous possibilities will arise. The Yun family can prepare a bloodthirsty array in advance, and this array will prohibit outsiders from entering. After they pretend to activate the search array for a short while, they can use the excuse of the array’s failure to explain why we can’t enter it and why you’re bleeding profusely.”

“Exactly. The Yun family has researched for years, developing many new techniques. Their meticulously arranged array can withstand attacks from ten or more Earth-grade Spiritbond Masters. I dare say that once I step into the array, no one will be able to save me,” Yun Xiguang stated.

“I’ve fallen into his trap!” Li Zheng slammed the table in frustration. “I need to report this to my superiors. We must prevent this from happening.”

Yun Xiguang calmly said, “It’s too late to stop it. You have no evidence. Even if your superiors believe you, they have no grounds to halt the Yun family. Ordering the Yun family to stop without justification would disrupt the existing order in the Spiritbond World. Every Earth-grade Spiritbond Master is equivalent to a battle squad. Even if the country has the ability to subdue all Spiritbond Masters, they wouldn’t want to witness infighting within the Spiritbond World.

“In this situation, even though the higher-ups know that the Yun family intends to use this opportunity to clean house, they can only watch helplessly. After all, my single life is insignificant compared to the peace of the entire Spiritbond World.”

Li Zheng hadn’t expected Yun Xiguang, the person most affected by this, to remain more composed than he was, analyzing his own life and death so calmly, just as he had during the accident years ago, with coolness and wisdom.

Sitting down in his chair somewhat powerlessly, Li Zheng said, “You’re an outstanding young man. Losing you is a loss for the country. Your intellect and experience could save many lives in the future. You shouldn’t die in the shadowy battles between noble families.”

Yun Xiguang hadn’t expected Li Zheng, whom he’d met by chance, to treat him with such sincerity. He couldn’t help but ask, “Director Li, why are you so kind to me?”

Seeing Yun Xiguang’s reaction, Li Zheng realized that Yun Xiguang had been too young and had experienced such a great calamity back then that he hadn’t remembered his appearance. Li Zheng explained, “Ten years ago, when you dialed the emergency number, I was the one who answered the call. Back then, I was a squad leader of the field operations team. It was you who reminded us to leave the scene quickly. You saved my life.

“After that, when you were taken away by the Yun family, I’ve always wondered how you were doing. Unfortunately, the thresholds of noble families are too high, and I’ve had no opportunities to find out.”

“It’s you,” Yun Xiguang recalled the events of that day. He remembered being lifted up by strong arms, held tightly as he was carried away from the scene.

How could it be that he had saved Li Zheng? If it weren’t for Li Zheng leading the rescue team and arriving in time, Yun Xiguang would have been forever buried under the rocks, and there would be no more Yun Xiguang in this world.

“It’s I who should thank you,” Yun Xiguang said solemnly. “Director Li, thank you for saving me back then, and thank you for protecting me until now.”

Li Zheng shook his head. “I don’t deserve such gratitude. I merely wish to retain young talents like you for the country. Unfortunately, this time, I couldn’t help you.”

“It’s not true that you didn’t help. Telling me about this in advance, giving me ample time to prepare, is a form of assistance,” Yun Xiguang said. “However, there is one thing I need Director Li to help me with again.”

“Go ahead and ask,” Li Zheng replied.

Yun Xiguang said, “Forget everything I’ve said. Just assume that the Yun family really possesses such a secret technique!”

With that, he gave a cold laugh.

Didn’t the Yun family want to use their so-called secret technique to find the Crimson Chi? Well, he would let them find it!