All sides couldn't help but look nervous, all with different reasons and variations of it.
Fan Cai was scared and nervous. For a while now, even though he was the instigator of today's proceedings, he didn't feel like it. It went away from him at so point and now he just felt like soone who got in way over his head.
Having experienced what he is feeling now he would still go through with it but that did not make it any easier.
He cast a pleading look at Yang Qing whilst also looking partly aggrieved.
I'm already struggling to maintain my sanity as it is, why are you throwing the lilight at ?
Screw it! Since things have already reached the point of no return I t as well ride this dragon even If it leads to the abyss. If that old man can be crazy so can I," thought Fan Cai as he looked toward ng Jiayi trying to raise his spirits.
Did that work? Judging from his sweaty palms and rapidly beating heart, it didn't, but alas he was already at the point of no return.
Left with no option, he quickly mustered all the courage he could. He didn't know what Yang Qing had in mind but he would do his best to play his part, even petrified.
"I am all ears, Judge Yang Qing," Fan Cai said, enunciating his words slowly and with so force to avoid any accident that would expose how terrified he was.
Both Yang Qing and Yu Gen nodded slightly, with smiles on their faces, comnding young Fan Cai for his bravery.
Not leaving the rest to stew in suspense, Yang Qing quickly jumped into the at of the matter.
"Fan Cai do you want your mother to make the deal?" asked Yang Qing, using the gentleness of his voice to calm and embolden Fan Cai.
"No I don't," answered Fan Cai without pause and a matter-of-fact tone and a sense of calm and poise that surprised him imdiately after he answered.
He looked around in shock then quickly recomposed himself.
"No I don't," he reiterated once more, looking his mother in her eyes as he did.
"I know you think I'm being a troublemaker but if you wanted to join them out of your own free will as difficult as it would have been for to accept it, I would not have stood in your way.
It's your life after all and you're free to live it however you see fit, but the present circumstances are not a choice but forced circumstances and that I honestly can't accept," said Fan Cai, the clarity in his mind matching his tone.
Fan Ha looked at him intently, her lips opening and closing a few tis looking like she wanted to say sothing but was hesitant about it. Eventually, only a wordless sigh was what made its way through, but even that still managed to convey sothing.
"What about you Miss Fan Ha, are you okay with the deal? If you had other feasible options, would you still go through with it?" asked Yang Qing.
"Judge Yang Qing pardon my interruption, while I appreciate and respect the Order's involvent in the matter, but isn't this you overstepping your bounds as a diator.
I'm not one to impose on how you should do it, but shouldn't one be impartial to both sides to be effective? Your questions don't sound impartial," said Yu Hui.
From the mont Yang Qing interjected, he had an ill foreboding feeling, and now with Yang Qing's questions that feeling only got stronger.
For him, the biggest worry was if the Order decided to impose itself into the matter. From the way Yang Qing was talking, he seed biased toward Fan Cai and his mother and if that was the case then he and the rest of the clan would have to swallow it no matter how unfair and arbitration may seem to be.
They would have to go with whatever the Order decided was right, even if it ant taking a huge loss. With just a single domain expert, they were far from being qualified to eat at the sa table as the Order, let alone argue with them.
Indirectly suggesting that they may not be unbiased was the best he could do.
The personal sword of the domain expert of the Starlight Lake Sect was important for the cultivation plan of their ancestor while Fan Ha would be an important strategic resource to the clan. With her around, that ant the clan had an extra late-stage palace realm expert to protect it, which in turn ant so of the clan's palace realm experts would be free to focus on their cultivation or venture outside in search of resources and treasures to grow the clan.
For Yu Hui, if he couldn't get both, at the very least he hoped he would get one, but with the way things were going, if the Order imposed itself then there was a high likelihood that he would end up with nothing and maybe it wouldn't just stop there.
What if the Order decided to support the Starlight Lake Sect in so type of way? If that happened, with the support of a behemoth like the Order, who knows how the Starlight Lake Sect would turn out in a few years?
Maybe they will have caught up with them and produced a domain expert of their own.
He knew the thought was outlandish since domain experts were not beans that anybody was guaranteed a harvest as long as they planted well enough.
Even established organizations like the Order and other top-tier organizations like the Holy Lands and other ancient rank-one organizations may have the resources to nurture domain experts but it didn't an they could successfully produce one any ti they wished.
There was an elent of luck and other factors outside their control that were involved. If that were not the case then these organizations would have long produced tens of thousands of domain experts, each instead of the numbers that they had.
From what Yu Hui had heard in the countless unsubstantiated rumors floating around the continent, it was said that the Jade Leaf Empire had the most domain experts in the continent, that comparison including even the two holy lands.
It was said that the Jade Leaf Empire had 377 domain experts.
That number could be considered large if it was compared to a paltry clan like the Yu clan that only had one, but if one examined it from the perspective of the Jade Leaf Empire, that number wasn't big.
The Jade Leaf Empire was one of the oldest organizations in the continent, its age surpassing even that of the two holy lands, its history exceeding 200,000 years.
All that ti and all the resources they have accumulated including the wonderous ten thousand lead world jade tree, praised as one of the most precious and most potent natural treasures when it ca to its impact on cultivation. They had all that going on for them, yet even with all that, they only had 377 domain experts.
Whether that rumor was true or not, didn't matter. It served to highlight how difficult it was to produce domain experts.
Yu Hui, especially because he was an eighth-stage palace realm expert, knew how difficult it was to reach the domain realm. It was because just at the palace realm it took considerable effort and ti just to improve once one reached the late stages of the palace realm.
This was his 430th year stuck in the confines of the eighth stage and that number would likely continue growing as he couldn't yet even sense the path that led to the ninth stage and that difficulty would only continue to rise the higher up he moved.
With how wide the gap was between him and the peak of the palace realm, suffocating and despairing even, he could only imagine how big that chasm was leading to the domain realm.
To him, the chances of Starlight Lake Sect producing a domain expert in his lifeti even with the assistance of the Order were slim bordering on impossible, however, as a seasoned expert and high-ranking figure of a clan, he couldn't discount that possibility. Nothing was absolute, the world always had a way of surprising soone.
A leader's job was to always assu the worst and plan for It, while those below them operated in the best-case scenario.
The instant Yang Qing spoke, Yu Hui's mind instantly jumped to the worst-case scenario for his clan and that was the Starlight Lake Sect producing another domain expert and finding an open secret ally in the Order.
Hopefully, such a scenario would not play out.... Hopefully.
...
Fan Ha having already regained her calm after her little interlude with Fan Ha, answered,
"Judge Yang Qing, you as well as I know that the world isn't such a kind and accommodating place where it gives us the choice of always doing what we want. Not without a certain standard of strength it doesn't.
How many have that strength?"
Her eyes flickered slightly with a dimming light, that appeared and disappeared just as fast.
"For those who are not fortunate to acquire that level of strength that they can weave the world around them however, they see fit, where they completely leave the board, the rest of us have no choice but to accept our roles as pawns and play them diligently to the tune of the world's strings.
So would I still take the deal if I had other options? I can't think like that. That is the luxury of the strong.
If a weak person like starts to entertain such thoughts, that's a quick way of accelerating my end.
I can only think and make judgnts as the weak, and that is by looking at the unfiltered realities In front of and choosing the best option out of that. At this mont the only option infront of is to either accept the prior agreent and its conclusion which will in no doubt an the destruction of a place I grew to hold dear... And it's people," Fan Ha said as her eyes fell on Xie Yuan, before going back to Yang Qing, where it covertly fell on ng Jiayi in the process.
"Or the other option, is I and the contract and maybe prevent that end but in the process disappoint my child.
This is the grace of the weak, trying to make the best out of bad situations. Trying to find which pile of dung is easier to sleep in," Fan Ha said with a pitiful smile as so mories flashed in her mind.
Ever since she left the Deer Mountain Range it has been one humble serving after another. At first, she couldn't handle the taste nor did she want to but over ti, she grew used to it and even learned to appreciate it sowhat.
Just as she was lost in her lancholic thoughts and musings, Yang Qing's next words ripped through those thoughts like lightning descending from the dark clouds.
"How many do indeed have the strength? Would you count your sister among that number?
I think Lady Tian could be deserving of it.."
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