Daily life of a cultivation judge

Before Yang Qing gave his response to her request, he asked another question.

"The Lai Hou you mentioned… is it the Zhu Fa, with the quasi palace stage cultivation base?" he asked, even though he was almost certain. However, in matters like this, it was best to double-check, even if it felt redundant.

"Mmh," Xia Fang hummed with a slight nod of her head, her eyes still desperately trained on Yang Qing, waiting for his reply. Her heart may as well have leapt out of her chest and floated to the back of her throat with how nervous she felt.

"I agree to your first request," Yang Qing gently said, bringing much-needed relief to Xia Fang. She sighed slightly, a small smile beginning to bloom—only for it to tense again just as quickly. Yang Qing had only agreed to the first request. The second was still in limbo, and her nerves instantly came roaring back to the surface.

"As for the second request..." Yang Qing began. "While I can't make any promises, if Lai Hou is with Bai Chen and the rest, I promise to do everything I can to find them—if they're there to be found."

"And in case I do find them, I don't need your life as a trade," he added.

"But what if that's what is required?" Xia Fang asked apprehensively.

Even though Yang Qing's response was everything she had hoped for, she couldn't help the worry pressing down on her chest. If Lai Hou and the others were taken by the three traitorous clans, then knowing their treachery and insidiousness, the price they would demand was likely her. And she wasn't sure whether they'd be willing to budge on that.

Yang Qing couldn't help but sigh when he saw Xia Fang's frantic look. She seemed so used to being tense that she no longer looked like she knew how to be anything else. Given all she had been through, it wasn't entirely surprising.

"While I do appreciate your sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice, I'm afraid I'll have to decline," Yang Qing continued, as he moved to address the second part of her request.

"B-but…" Just as Xia Fang was about to speak again, trying to make her case for being used as a bargaining chip, Yang Qing raised his hand, signaling that he wasn't finished. She paused, swallowing her words.

"Think of this as my selfish request," Yang Qing said gently. "I can't, in good conscience, go into this thinking I have to sacrifice someone to get what I want. Otherwise, doing all this would be a moot point."

"Besides," he added, his demeanor suddenly shifting from polite and soft to something restrained and domineering. "I think your perspective is a little skewed in certain areas."

Xia Fang blinked, slightly startled by the change. A curious look crept across her face as she waited for him to elaborate.

Not leaving her to wonder, Yang Qing continued immediately. "Let's assume you're right that maybe your life is needed to guarantee the lives of the rest. That's only true in the context of you dealing with them. But that's not the case, is it?"

A silent pressure settled into the office as Yang Qing posed that question, his words sinking deep. Xia Fang's eyes flickered with a faint glimmer as she understood where he was going with that line of thought.

"As bold as they are, do you think they'd dare make that request if I'm the one they're dealing with?" Yang Qing asked lightly.

"No, they wouldn't," Xia Fang replied, a wry smile tugging at her lips. "It seems even after making it out, I'm still locked up in that 'prison' they had me in for the past three hundred years," she silently added.

After living a life where all she ever saw was the Xia clan making hard concessions just to gain scraps in return, it seemed that the habit had been so deeply ingrained in her that her mind reflexively subjected Yang Qing to the same limitations. She had forgotten one simple truth—the Order was not the Xia clan.

Her clan had been forced to bend and make concession after concession just to survive a single day. In the end, they had even traded the lives of her grandfather, the formation diagram, and countless other clan members… all so a few of them could escape.

Why did they have to do that?

The answer was simple—it was because they were the weaker party.

That's why she knew: if it was one or all of the three clans behind the disappearance, and if she were to negotiate with them, she would do so as the weaker party, and as such, she would be subject to the terms afforded to her as the weaker party in the negotiation.

But that wasn't the case with the Order. If the Order was involved, the roles would instantly reverse, and now it would be the three traitorous clans who would become the weaker side; as such, they would be the ones forced to make concessions. Even if the Song Kingdom and the Azure Crescent Kingdom joined hands on that table, that fact wouldn't change. They would still be the weaker party when facing the Order.

And once that truth settled in, the tension in Xia Fang's body began to ease. Her heart returned to its rightful place, freeing her airway from the tightness that had gripped it.

"Thank you," Xia Fang said once more, her voice calmer.

Yang Qing nodded. "No problem. Besides, it isn't completely written in stone that the three clans were responsible for the ferry's disappearance."

Xia Fang nodded, but the look in her eyes made it clear she didn't believe that.

Yang Qing couldn't fault her. Given all she had lost because of them, it was only natural they'd be the first suspects in her mind the moment something else went wrong.

As for him, as an outsider, he had to keep an open mind about the list of potential suspects behind the disappearance. That said, he couldn't deny that the three clans were strong contenders. They had both the means and more than enough motive.

The one thing that gave him pause, that kept him from fully settling on them, was the manner in which Bai Chen and his disciple, Jiang Hao, had disappeared.