Monarch of Evernight (Web Novel)

[Volume 3 - The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace]

Wei Potian immediately regained high spirits and proudly said, “Grandmother gave me a death order; that I must be within the top three. However, as a lieutenant colonel of the imperial army, how could I, Wei Potian, be satisfied with just top three? A man’s achievement is as grand as his heart!”

Qiqi scornfully responded, “With Zhao Junhong, Song Zining, and me in this competition, it would be a miracle if you could take top three! Speak more practically!”

She didn’t believe the great madam of the Wei Family would ever give such a death order. The most she could have done was encourage him to place higher. If Wei Potian hadn’t randomly broken through to rank six, the Wei Family wouldn’t even have let him participate in the spring hunt. The spring hunt and actual battle did not have much difference; many people died each year. Even though core descendants were protected, there was nothing in life that had no flaws.

Wei Potian had been exposed, so he immediately embarrassedly said, “This… doesn’t have to be discussed so thoroughly! Actually this time, I just wanted to come talk to you; can you, hehe… if I’m only fourth, can you give up a rank for me? Anyway, for you, the points within your test wouldn’t vary much from just a couple of ranks.”

Even though Qianye had been engrossed in his own thoughts and did not pay much attention to their conversation, when he heard this, he almost could not believe his ears. Tonight, he finally saw this display of absent integrity from a man who claimed he would shatter the skies with one fist.

Qiqi’s eyes flashed. She heavily slapped Wei Potian’s shoulder, saying, “What did your clan’s great madam promise you that made you so excited?”

“Uh… nothing much.”

“No matter what it is, I want half! Otherwise, there’s no need to discuss any further. If you want to make top three, it’ll only be a dream!” Qiqi spoke resolutely.

Wei Potian showed a pained expression, “...If you want half then you can have it, sigh!”

Qiqi affectionately held Wei Potian’s shoulder and said, “This is what good sisters look like!”

Wei Potian became furious, “Who wants to be sisters with you?”

“No need to say anything else! Not mentioning sisters, as long as you give me half of what you get, we’ll be best friends!” Qiqi heavily slapped Wei Potian’s shoulder, sneaking in some origin power, forcing him to the ground with one slap.

Wei Potian almost completely sunk to the ground, but he didn’t react slowly and jumped up when he struck the ground. He was about to voice his anger when Qiqi pulled him into the living room to discuss how they would split the rewards.

Originally the Profound Heaven and Northern Sea spring hunts would have many participating descendants from landowning households. It was the time for grand and aristocratic households to search for new members and for descendants of landowning households to increase their status.

Based on tradition, the Zhao and Song household came to Profound Heaven and the Zhang and Bai household went to Northern Sea. For each family, as long as their name was represented, it didn’t matter who came. That was why rumors said that the reason Song Zining of the Song household was able to come to Profound Heaven over so many of his cousins was not because he was strong, but because he was more handsome and thus received the favor of the Song household’s old patriarch.

In contrast, children sent from aristocratic families would have higher statuses. For example, Qiqi from the Yin Family had already entered the final stage for successor examination. No matter if she gained the control of the family in the future, she would at least have an important elder position. The young master from the Wei Family came this time because firstly, Wei Potian was still young, so he would place near the bottom if he went to the Imperial Garden, and secondly, he would be practicing his ability to independently take charge and begin creating his own team.

In other words, for grand households, the rewards for placing in the spring hunt were not very important. They mostly valued expanding the power of the family and the opportunity to find talents. Thus, every family would have its own goal.

The great madam of Wei Family did not actually give Wei Potian a target to place, but he was courageous, so before the spring hunt began, his ambition had already shot through the roof. He gave himself a goal to make third place and strove for first.

Making top three would be better than the estimated placing for Wei Potian who was at rank six. If he were able to achieve such ranking, then he would receive significant benefits from the love and indulgence of the Wei Family’s great madam.

Qiqi had a servant get Wei Potian a hot towel to wipe his face while she leisurely spoke, “Potian, taking half of your gains isn’t actually taking advantage of you. You know how the Profound Heaven Spring Hunt is today. Nangong Wanyun and Kong Yanian both came and none of them hold anything back. To place top three, I’ve heard that their families already paid a steep price. In addition, they’re both now at rank seven, so you probably can’t take either of them, right?”

Wei Potian laughed coldly and proudly said, “That might not be true! Even if I really can’t defeat them, I might not lose. General Bai said this before, unless it is a supreme secret art, rank sevens shouldn’t even think about breaking through my Thousand Mountains.”

Qiqi began to laugh, “Was the lesson Xiaoye gave you not enough?”

“This… how is this the same!” Wei Potian was at a loss for words, completely unable to argue.

Qiqi waved her hand and said, “You don’t know the Zhao and Song households’ goals yet, right?”

Wei Potian said, “I came a bit late, so I haven’t had the chance to find out!”

At another courtyard’s dinner party, Zhao Junhong said one sentence in an off-handed manner in front of a crowd of youths, “I am the lowest achieving of the four brothers, but since I came, then I should at least take first place.”

After the dinner party, Yu Mulan asked Song Zining what his goal was for the spring hunt. Song Zining spoke mildly, “I have not thought about taking first, taking top three would be good enough.”

From this, the Zhao and Song households virtually took two of the top three rankings. With the status of these two households, unless they had extreme confidence, how would they make such a claim?

After that, competition for third would be intense. In reality, spring hunts had always been this way. They began light and peacefully, but the further along they were, the more violent they became. The last stage usually became open rivalry fought through hidden means, with each side holding nothing back.

Wei Potian didn’t seem too stupid and wanted to ally with Qiqi, but the issue was that other families likely also had secret alliances, so the situation still seemed grim.

However, the surrounding low-level hunting grounds of the Profound Heaven Mountain Range had been split very clearly. Only after entering a certain depth in the forest would they come across each other. Each family would change from hunting to competing for power. The Wei Family was the last one scheduled, so the area where they started from was very far from the two major households and upper-rank families, and to cooperate, they would have to wait until at least the second half of the spring hunt. After concluding their negotiation, Wei Potian did not stay any longer and left right away.

After Wei Potian left, Qiqi couldn’t hold back her curiosity and immediately took the necklace from Qianye to study. Then she put it back on Qianye’s neck and clucked her tongue before she said, “Take good care of it. It is very useful. He’s the heir now, so the amount of resources he can mobilize and his scope of authority are even greater than mine. But wasn’t this guy’s solicitation a little weird?”

Qiqi evidently did not depend on Qianye who had been temperamental all night to respond to her. Then, she suddenly thought of something and asked, “Those three people, what do you plan on doing?”

Qianye exposed cold intent and said, “Cripple them, to give Song Zining a warning.”

Qiqi nodded with a smile and said, “Let’s do that!”

Even though it was already late into the night, other than the Yin Family’s camp, it was busy high in the sky. If one’s eye was good enough, one would be able to see several enormous airships slowly passing by towards the depths of the Profound Heaven Mountain Range. These airships were all holding soldiers of the dark races and many of these captive dark races would be placed into the Profound Heaven Mountain Range to be hunted by participants of the spring hunt.

Every year there would be a few dark race soldiers who successfully escaped into the depths of the Profound Heaven Mountain Range and avoided being hunted. Then they would live for years and slowly grow stronger. This was a major random factor in the spring hunt and it was there for a reason. If the youths went onto the battlefield, the dark races there would not go by their rules and only send soldiers with just the right amount of power for them to slaughter. How to escape from a higher ranked enemy was also a necessary lesson to survive.

On one of the airships, the captain was looking down from a window. His eyes had inhuman vision sharper than a hawk’s. He saw the campground below and even saw the Yin character on a flag.

He had an evil smile as he rubbed the pocket on his uniform. In it was a card with an origin array code that could open a safe in a certain imperial bank. That safe would already be filled with ten thousand imperial gold coins.

The captain stopped looking down and walked towards the bottom of the ship. The soldier from Duke Wei’s private army guarding at the door of the ship respectfully saluted.

The captain returned the salutation and said, “I need to go down and see them again and make sure there’s no problem. You have to know that these black blood bastards have never been peaceful before.”

The soldier from Duke Wei’s private army opened the path and the captain walked down the stairs. The bottom deck was completely sealed by metal alloy, separating it into independent cages that contained all kinds of dark race soldiers. These were all captive dark races from major battles. After a selection process, they were all below rank seven and did not have any extremely strong abilities, thus were very suitable for the Profound Heaven Spring Hunt.

In the dark, pairs of eyes exposed murderous gleams, staring at the captain.

A few werewolves roared deeply and grabbed at the small crystals embedded in their chests.

The captain stopped in front of them and said, “If you guys have the guts to take out those things, then you’ll die for sure! Looks like I’ll need to give you guys something more memorable or else you’ll treat my words like the wind!”

The captain forcefully slapped a button on the outside of the cell and a violent rush of Daybreak origin power sprung up inside the cell, burning many werewolves until they could not stop screaming and fell to the ground. The violent gleams in the eyes of the dark race members immediately weakened significantly and many actually revealed fear.

The captain walked to the deepest part of the bottom deck. There was a cell here with just one vampire who seemed decadent and malnourished. He was sitting peacefully with his head down. He did not move even when the captain walked over.

The captain took out a whip with spikes all over it and pointed at the vampire before shouting, “You! Stand up and let me see you!”

The vampire obediently stood up and slowly walked to the front of the cell.

The captain used his body as cover and quietly opened the hand holding the whip. The center of his palm had the three characters “Yin Qiqi” and a simple portrait of Qiqi that was well imitated and lifelike.

The vampire’s eyes flashed and he nodded almost imperceptibly.

The captain’s hands rubbed past each other and the words and picture at the center of his palm disappeared. He said in a gruff voice, “Okay, just go back to sitting! Don’t try anything or else I’ll show you what’s coming!”

The captain left the bottom deck, lashing out with his whip along the way, and then shut the door heavily and locked it from the outside.

A commander from Duke Wei’s private army was patrolling this area right then and asked, “How is it down there?”

The captain shrugged and said, “Not bad, this batch of black-bloods is pretty docile.”

The commander released a breath and said, “It’s great there’s no problem! In just another hour this goddamn mission will be finished.”

The airship flew towards the depths of the mountains in the night. Not many knew that a rank eight Blood Knight had mixed into the cells and had not been weakened at all.