Chapter 865: Monkey Temple: Pre-Game Plan
“Why…why does that monkey look like it’s been through six different wars?,” Zhen Xing asked aloud.
“A bit of an exaggeration, but not wrong,” Zhen Guo agreed.
“Oook….”
In one of the inner courtyards of the Zhen Clan’s estate, several of the clan’s scions were surrounding an aether beast cage holding a languishing aether beast ape that the Zhen Clan assumed was going to be one of their biggest headaches. Instead, it had become one of their biggest sources of information.
“Oooh…”
The ape in question was none other than the Three Eyed Nightmare Beast Ape, who had been originally attempting to break out of his cage and take over the minds of the Zhen Clan from the moment of its capture. In essence, the beast was the embodiment of mischief and mayhem
However, for reasons unknown, the Three Eyed Nightmare Beast Ape had become significantly more morose and looked a bit like it had witnessed the darkest pits of hell. It was noticeable change, but not necessarily unwelcome…as fuck as that sounded.
As for the reason why this moment was occurring in the first place, the Zhen Clan patriarch had decided to call together a meeting to discuss their plans on how to deal with the [Monkey’s Temple] wandering ruins that had appeared in their territory.
To put it bluntly, they were going to discuss how they were going to raid this and take whatever that wasn’t nailed to the ground with them, and the depressed three-eyed monkey languishing in a cage was their ticket on how to do so with the least amount of casualties.
As hard as it was to believe.
“Seriously, what happened to this guy?,” Zhen Feng reiterated. “He was a massive nuisance no more than ten hours ago. Why does he look so…defeated?”
“I don’t know,” Zhen Tai answered. “But word among the staff is that someone dangled the poor guy over the wolf pits until it broke.”
“Really?”
“It was either that or the bear cages.”
“Ah.”
Of course with all this said, there were actually three or so people, a maid and two high profile secretaries, that actually knew the reason why the the Three Eyed Nightmare beast ape was so morose, but they weren’t going to share that shit with anybody.
…
[Seriously Screamira, what the fuck did you do to this poor monkey?]
[I warned him not to do something stupid, and he did something stupid. So I made sure to give him a piece of mind.]
[Literally or figuratively?]
[Yes.]
…
As the Zhen Clan scions and elders continued to converse and spend time with one another while waiting for the clan meeting to begin, Zhen Liu and his father, Zhen Yan, finally arrived at the courtyard as well.
Evidently, they were the last of the elders and scions to show up.
“Huh…father should’ve been here by now to discuss what the divisions were going to be for the expedition,” Zhen Yan said to Zhen Liu as he scratched his chin. “I guess he is still planning things…I’m going to ask my brothers what’s going on. You go and talk with your cousins.”
“Kay.”
‘Not like I don’t do that everyday anyways…,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he went over to where his cousins were congregating.
“Hey guys.”
“Xiao Liu! You made it.”
“You have any idea what this meeting is about.”
“Nah.”
“Hey, we need your opinion. Do you know why this monkey is languishing in a cage like this? He’s been like this for four hours at this point.”
“That…”
Zhen Liu knew exactly the reason,and the person responsible, for the Three Eyed Nightmare Beast Ape looking like it had just witnessed the death of three different families, but he wasn’t exactly at liberty to say why he knew.
Which is why he opted to simply answer, “No clue, to be honest. Yesterday was kind of a blur.”
“Fair.”
It didn’t take too long after this moment for the number of topics that they could think of discussing were quickly discussed. Thankfully though, while in the midst of small talk that didn’t really matter, Patriarch Zhen Shi finally arrived.
However, he didn’t arrive alone.
“Wait a minute…why is that bearded hermit joining in on this meeting?”
“Better question, why does it look like he’s about to lead this meeting?”
<
When Hermit Zhong Wei made this announcement, there were two reactions that could be traced back to each generation.
The first was simply amusement. The Zhen Clan elders came from a time when authority and leadership in their lives were vague, to the point that there was a stint in time when they all had worked as mercenaries. Hence, they didn’t really think too much about it when their father stepped down to let Hermit Zhong Wei take the lead.
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The second reaction was confusion. The younger generation weren’t used to having to listen to authority figures that they weren’t related to in some capacity, so seeing a guy most of them marked as being an”outsider tutor”, being in charge of what should’ve been an internal family affair was…weird.
“Oh shit, he is actually in charge of this meeting.”
“Why?”
“Wait, did he just do a pun in Tide Tongue?”
Regardless, once everyone had quieted down, Hermit Zhong Wei began to explain as to why he was in charge of their wandering ruins expedition.
Granted, this explanation was more for the scions than for the elders, as evident by the former having that distinctive uninterested look that people get when they know they’re about to hear something they heard before.
<
“Oh.”
“Oh shit.”
“That’s…bad.”
Grimacing faces appeared on the Zhen Clan’s scions faces the moment they fully processed this announcement, as they were aware of the implications of this statement.
Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian was a bit of a walking natural disaster in the eyes of the Zhen Clan, both main and branch, so the fact that a set of wandering ruins appeared that necessitated her appearance made them understandably nervous.
Well, the news made most of the Zhen Clan scions nervous.
Zhen Liu had a relatively calm expression on his face, as his father had already told him what was going on ahead of time. Which was also the reason why he didn’t have that strong reaction when Hermit Zhong Wei mentioned that she wouldn’t be making an appearance until after the branch clan did their own cursory expedition, to secure materials that were overlooked due to some clerical errors.
Needless to say, this announcement got the scions understandably freaking out.
“Are you crazy?! We’re nowhere near qualified to enter such a crazy place!”
“I’m not saying I’m scared of entering such a place, I just know that there is no way in hell any of us can take on a place that requires the main clan’s matriarch…”
“Here we go again…”
Hermit Zhong Wei, even the elders, simply stayed quiet as the scions voiced their concerns. They were once in their position, a long time ago, so they understood why they were freaked.
Eventually though, Zhong Wei brought them all back to the present, in order to explain this decision.
<
Hermit Zhong Wei paused for a moment as he proceeded to use a bit of anima power to bring the aether beast cage containing the Three Eyed Nightmare Beast Ape over to him.
“Oook…”
Unsurprisingly, not even floating in midair was enough to get a big reaction out of the morose ape.
<
“Oh?”
At the sound of this news, the scions proceeded to go from nervous to intrigued.
…
[Screamira, have we reiterated that you are a scary ass kaijin?]
[No, but I do love to hear it.]
[So…when do we get called up there?]
[I think the director is the one who has to go up there and talk…if that’s the case.]
[We’re just supposed to pretend to be puppets. Remember?]
[Oh yeah…]
[Been…awhile…since…we…fought…for…real…gonna be…fun.]
[Agreed.]
