Chapter 268: Plans and Counterplans…
*Bing-Bong*
Please note that some of the following scenes will be said in either Tide Tongue or Hoof Speech, but will not be marked this time due to the lack of other characters in the area that would be affected by such things…also the writer got lazy with marking these things.
…
This laziness will be corrected.
*Bing-Bong*
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“Hmmm. How long has he been in there?”
“About an hour and a half…maybe he works there?”
“Possibly…or he finally picked up on our tail.”
“Also true.”
Zhen Wang and his disciple watched through their aether tool mirror, through the eyes on of their subordinates, as they tried to figure out what was that middle-aged man’s purpose into visiting this particular set of stables under the command of the “Zhen Clan”.
“Maybe he’s telling his superior here in order to tell Zhen Shi?,” the disciple suggested.
Zhen Wang scratched his chin in thought, mulling over the possibility.
“Perhaps…forget it for now, but have our associate keep an eye on him,” Zhen Wang ordered, “how goes our other targets of interests?”
“Well…,” the disciple trailed off as he used his aether to manipulate the mirror before him.
The image in the mirror begin to swirl and change as it no longer focused on the stable where the middle-aged enter, but instead, several different images at once, focused on most of the “elders” and “scions” of the Zhen Clan.
Empahsis on the word “most”.
“Didn’t the information say Zhen Shi had seven sons, each with several children of their own? I’m only counting six on the mirror and presumably not all of the children?”
“The eldest son, Zhen Long, is known to be in charge of the internal affairs of the clan, as such, he spends most of his day inside of the clan compound.”
“Ah.”
“As for the younger generation, it would take too much manpower to have people tail all of the ‘scions’, so we had them follow the more…notable ones.”
With another manipulation of aether, Zhen Wang’s disciple changed the mirror to display the images of several young scions, namely four.
The first scion showed looked to be a heroic young man accompanied by a young woman that had a poisonous intensity to her. They looked like a couple that couldn’t be, that did not stop them from sharing some type of frozen dessert and look adorable about it. Their files on the man listed him as Zhen Hai while preliminary review on the girl listed her as Gianna Corrada.
The second was a young woman that had this air of mysterious coldness to her…well, to her features at least. Right now she was locking arms with a dude with curly hair and noble bearing. The two had dopey looks on their faces, but their information listed them as Zhen Yue and Carlos Ecaredies, a prince from a nearby kingdom.
“Are…are they all in the middle of some manner of flirting? What’s with all this?,” Zhen Wang asked, “also, why do those last two scions look nothing like the rest of the Zhen Clan?”
“The scions of the ‘Zhen Clan’ have apparently been busy getting engaged left and right. The last two are of interest because they’re supposedly trying to set up an engagement arrangement with the Fourth Young Master of the Zhen Clan, apparently he’s quite the charmer. Ah, and I should probably mention that one of them is related to that Prince Carlos character.”
The last two images on display showed two wildly different looking young ladies, but both beautiful in their own right.
One depicted a red headed young lady with light freckles on her face and carried a friendly demeanor. By her side was a professional looking maid, that Zhen Wang noticed had the bearing of an assassin, one that could only be picked up by other professionals in the field.
As for the other, it was a noble looking girl with short curly white hair that did in fact looked remarkably similar to the young man known as Carlos Ecaredies.
Zhen Wang couldn’t help but notice how yet another royal family got entangled with Zhen Shi and his ilk…and the potential this represented…
“Where’s the display for this Fourth Young Master?”
“Ah, we couldn’t find him. No matter, we’ll get him eventually.”
“Hmmm.”
As Zhen Wang looked over these scions, the gears in his head began to turn as a plan developed in his head.
“Sometimes…the best way to get to a man’s weakness is through his heart…get me more information on all of these scions, and their little…love interests.”
“Of course, master.”
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“Fucking hell…what do I do now?”
“Grunt.”
“Yes I know laying here won’t help, but you are surprisingly comfortable spot to lie upon. I get why Xiao Liu likes to do this every now and then.”
“Grunt.”
“I get that, but Mini seems cool with it.”
“Kuu!”
“Thank you, Mini.”
“Grrr…”
Zhen Shi might have been an old hand by now, but he was still sharp enough to know when he was being tailed, well…it also helped that an encounter with a certain mammoth man earned him some unusual benefits.
A little after he left that tavern, Zhen Shi soon noticed that trailing behind him was an unfamiliar man trying to suppress his presence with an aether art.
If he was still a Grandmaster, it would have worked, but he was now an Aether Lord…with a sentient spirit with much sharper senses than his own inside him.
By Zhen Shi’s estimations, Zhen Wang had probably assumed he was some grunt working for the Zhen Clan and as such wanted to send someone to make sure he alerted the higher ups about such activity…oh if he only knew the truth.
So in order to throw them off, Zhen Shi decided to duck into one of the family stables…which serendipitously was hosting the Raijin Hippo mother-daughter duo.
“Alright, so that asshole knows that I know the guy they’re trying to capture/kill, but they don’t know that I’m actually their target anyways…and have probably told me that particular set of plans as a means to get me to panic and play into their hands to something stupid like, that fucking hate this incognito spy shit,” Zhen Shi griped into the heavens.
In this exact moment, Tiny felt a distinct sense of deja Vu.
“Patriarch? What are you doing here?”
“Huh? Oh, hello Ricardo.”
As Zhen Shi layed there, Ricardo the stablemaster, came in to initially check in on Tiny and Mini, but was surprised to see Zhen Shi laying on top of Tiny like Zhen Liu does. In the back of his mind, he wanted to see if Tiny would let him lay there too.
“Patriarch, what are you doing here?”
“Well…”
Could he tell his subordinates about the matter? Logically he should, but…
‘Less people who know, the better to counter…but I also have outside factors to consider…shit…’
After a few more moments of deliberation, he decided a plan of action.
“Carlos.”
“Yes, patriarch?”
“Do we have any stealth beasts sitting around?”
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
Okay, with that out of the way, using the fact that I have an audience to help artist friend become financially stable.
https://twitter.com/HauntFrost/status/1535727825436786688?t=0tkZuZWAq06rej3r3i4L6Q&s=09
this is for completely selfish reasons, I want my kaijin art, can’t do that if she’s freaking out.
