Chapter 342: Issues at the start.
“Ku!”
“I know Mini, I know. But she’ll only be gone for a few months” Ricardo comforted the baby Raijin Hippo, “and I promised to keep you safe in the mean time.”
“Ku…”
Due to the nature of this trip back to Roaring Tide, Patriarch Zhen Shi determined it was probably a good idea to put their best feet forward via a showing of their skills.
As such, they had coaxed Tiny the Raijin Hippo to act as both guard and carriage beast, while also bringing with them several treasured aether beast goods ranging from 1st grade beast eggs to 4th grade cores.
However, it was due to this nature that Mini was left behind as a consequence. Partially out of fear that they might confuse her as being one of the gifts, and partially out of worry for her safety because this a long ass trip.
This was also why several of the youngest children were left behind to be in the care of Aranea and Lucille, despite the rest of the family going to Roaring Tide.
“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t I grab you one of the melons from the kitchen. I know you’ve developed a liking for them.”
“Kuu!”
“Attagirl. I’ll be right back.”
“Kuu!”
Mini sat in her pen, awaiting her promised treat and feeling better now that she was getting it, until something tickled her nose.
“Kuu?”
Mini wasn’t sure what she was smelling, but it was incredibly tasty and it smelled close by.
Surely she could eat that and the melon, right?
“Kuu!”
Thinking with her heart and gut, Mini left the pen to go find the tasty smelling thing….
‘Thats right little paycheck…come to papa…’
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*Bing-Bong*
For the sake of clarity the Zhen Clan that Zhen Liu hails from will now be referred to as the branch clan, while the other group will be referred to as the main clan.
When both are the subject, “Zhen Clan” will be used.
This isn’t because the writer didn’t want to write “main Zhen” and “branch Zhen” a dozen or so times, he swears.
|Stop undermining me!|
Never!
*Bing-Bong*
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The itinerary for the Zhen Clan was fairly straightforward.
The clan would go all the way to Pearl Tusk harbor, board a ship for about two weeks and then go through the Blossoming Scales Kingdom until finally reaching Golden Blossom Castle, which is where the main clan was located.
Granted, this was all under the assumption that the caravan didn’t get delayed by natural disasters, attacked by assassins, bandits or angry aether beasts and that the people participating in this caravan got along with one another enough to not do anything backstabby.
But with that said, the branch clan wasn’t actually worried about the activities of their main clan counterparts, because the latter were unusually discordant for some reason.
They weren’t exactly fighting with one another, but they didn’t appear to be friendly with each other either.
They just had this air of perpetual awkwardness to them.
This did not escape the notice of some of the branch clan members.
“What’s up with them? I thought they were like an elite force or something like that, so why are they acting so frosty towards one another?”
“You didn’t hear? A few days back, those guys had an absolutely absurd orgy/party at an oasis about ten miles away from here.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. Apparently they did some things that were super embarrassing to one another, some things got said, some people discovered something new about themselves, the whole shebang.”
“Damn…”
“Yeah, apparently some people even broke off engagements or got engaged that same evening.”
“How do you know any of this?”
“Got drunk with one of them about two days ago.”
“Bruh.”
On the flip side,the main clan people were actually worried about the branch members, because it turned out their information was woefully inaccurate by a very very large margin.
“One, two, three…yeesh, they have a lot of 3rd grade aether beasts under their command.”
“Well, the branch clan did specialize in aether beasts. Kinda makes sense that they have a whole bunch as contracted beasts. Weird that the patriarch doesn’t have one though.”
“Wait…that’s the branch clan patriarch?! I thought y’all said he was an old goat.”
“That’s what we thought…but apparently he had some sort of miracle encounter and got his age dialed back a whole bunch…alongside some other stuff, namely the breakthrough.”
“Is that some miracle the reason why these branch guys suddenly have five more Grandmasters added to their ranks and a Raijin Hippo?”
“Maybe on that first part, but the hippo is actually related to that crippled kid who somehow became uncrippled…huh”
“You just realized that the branch clan probably has some super powerful backer that is giving them a leg up for some unknown reason.”
“Yup…”
“Yeah…did you remember to send those letters about cancelling those ambushes?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Good.”
Regardless about how the members felt about each other, what really mattered was whether or not the leaders got along.
The answer to that question: sorta.
While Zhen Tian wasn’t hostile towards Zhen Shi, the latter was weary of the former.
Kinda hard to forget about multiple decades worth of several different factions gunning for your head for the crime of falling in love…and tainting multiple families honors but who hasn’t done that.
Regardless of how everyone felt about each other though, all of it would be kinda pointless unless they actually got a move on.
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Despite being a blur of activity, the carvan did have several spots where nobody was present due to the carts in those areas already being packed and ready to go.
It was at one of these quiet spots, that a cactus that happened to be growing nearby opened up like a door, allowing a certain insect shell wearing amazon to poke her head out.
“Coast is clear. We can go,” Rianna told her compatriots.
“Good.”
Rianna was the first to exit the strange door, followed by Jin Fang and finally Zhen Liu. None of the kaijin were present, because they were all in carry-mode on his person.
‘New mental note: vertical doors work like push doors, floor doors work like rotating ones..for some reason,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he exited the door he had made earlier, making sure to close it behind him.
“Xiao Liu! There you are!”
A rather timely closure on his part too, because that’s when his mother, Daria, showed up.
“Madam Zhen.”
“Miss Zhen.”
“Jin Fang, Rianna,” Daria nodded in greeting before turning back to her son, “where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Oh, I was just wandering about until we finally left,” Zhen Liu defended himself, “did something happen?”
“That’s why I’ve been looking for you. Come with me,” Daria motioned for her son to follow, “it involves your friend, Tiny.”
“Eh?”
Curious about his mother’s words, Zhen Liu followed along with Rianna and Jin Fang following closely behind them.
It didn’t take long for the group to see why the carvan’s start was being delayed.
Tiny was sitting on top of someone and not getting up.
“Will you get your damn hippo off of me?!”
“Grunt!”
“We’re trying!.”
“Fucking hell!”
“What the fuck?”
Zhen Liu didn’t exactly know what to process from this scene but it was rather comical from a certain point of view.
As of this moment, Tiny was currently sitting on top of some guy with messed up teeth as a crowd composed of branch and main clan members watched on.
Zhen Liu’s father,Zhen Yan, and several of Zhen Liu’s uncles were busy trying to coax Tiny off of the poor man, but to no avail.
Granted, he didn’t know why Tiny was sitting on the man, so he walked over to his uncle’s and father to find out.
“Uhh…what’s going on?”
“Huh? Ah! Xiao Liu, you’re here!,” Zhen Yan said in relief, “we don’t know why, but Tiny just suddenly attacked and proceeded to sit on this guy out of nowhere. We’ve been trying to figure out why, but none of us know the hippo tongue all that well and grandfather is busy handling another affair at the moment. Do you think you can get her to get off him?”
“Uhh…I can try.”
“Good, good.”
Zhen Liu switched his attention over to Tiny and the guy she was sitting on and proceeded to walk closer to them to see if he can figure out what this guy did exactly.
As he got closer however, Logos and Pathos decided to pipe up.
<=Strong desire detected. Condensing desire core now...condensation complete. [Core of Unscrupulous Greed] has been created.=>
The moment Zhen Liu heard their voices, he made sure to pocket his left hand as quickly as possible. An action that proved smart as the core condensed way faster than normal.
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‘Well that was fast.’
‘Sweet. So why is this guy releasing this much [Greed]?’
=Hmmmm. Mind doing me a favor and checking the back of his teeth?=
‘What?’
=Just trust me.=
