“My biggest problem?” Song Qingshu was really gripped by this question for a moment. Reflecting on the current situation, it seemed that there were problems everywhere.
“Maybe it’s because I work for the Qing court, so I can’t be unfettered.” Song Qingshu sighed.
In the past, his meridians were all severed, and he had lost all his martial arts. What was even more ironic was that Zhang Wuji, who was a world-class master of martial arts and had hundreds of thousands of disciples under his command, had a deep enmity towards him. Back then, Song Qingshu had killed his martial-uncle Mo Shenggu by mistake, and even killed two elders of the Beggar Sect at the Lion-slaying Assembly.
He had to bear the burnt for those two blunders. Adding to that, when Zhou Zhiruo of the Emei Sect wanted to chase and kill him, Song Qingshu finally discovered the reality of the martial arts world. Actually, there was no ground for him to stand on in this world. He was all alone.
If he was willing to be a simple commoner and found a place to hide his name for the rest of his life, that would’ve been the end of it all. Unfortunately, Song Qingshu’s chest was filled with endless resentment and anger that day, and he decided to seek revenge on Zhang Wuji no matter the means, so he later joined the Qing court.
However, as Song Qingshu’s strength became higher and higher, his goal in life was no longer limited to just revenge. He had more and bigger ambitions. Therefore, at the current situation, he found that his identity in the Qing Empire was really a shackle.
Although the Qing Empire didn’t have a deep hatred with the Song Empire like Mongolia and the Jin Empire, they had, after all, destroyed the Ming Dynasty, and their image in the hearts of the Han people in the Central Plains was not that much better. If Song Qingshu wanted to stay as a loyal minister of the Qing Empire, all of that wouldn’t matter, but he had greater ambitions!
He really wouldn’t be able to justify himself if he became known as a traitor for his actions in the future. Although Song Qingshu had already set up a strategy for washing everything clean, the process was too dangerous…
“You can’t be unfettered because you think too much.” Ouyang Feng directly gave his own evaluation, “I have lived for so long, and I have come into contact with a lot of princes and nobles, who enjoyed using people as pawns. I haven’t been in contact with the world for a long time, but I can roughly grasp your personality based on the rumors I heard about you before.”
“Although you are humble on the surface, you are extremely arrogant in your heart.” Ouyang Feng continued without giving Song Qingshu a chance to defend himself, “Whether you admit it or not, in your heart, you surely think that you have the ability to fully measure the value of a person and then you proceed to build a strong connection with them. So you always make the choices that is most in line with the interests of both parties. Those people could either be not smart enough, or not rational enough, in short, they could make all kinds of unfavorable choices. So you always strive to consider the behavior of the other party while you guide them to act as you want…”
Su Quan, who was at the side was confused by what she was hearing, and raised her head to glance at Song Qingshu. Seeing that he was silent, she was secretly startled, ‘Could it be true!’
Ouyang Feng sneered, “But that is not something easy to do. If you want to achieve that perfect situation, you must make the corresponding sacrifices yourself. For example, you were worried that I would fight you in spite of everything, so there was some weakness in your speech, and you made yourself humble.”
Song Qingshu smiled awkwardly, and was about to speak when Ouyang Feng raised his hand to stop him, “You are very similar to someone I knew before.”
Song Qingshu’s heart moved, “Who is it?”
“The Emperor of the Jin Dynasty, Wanyan Honglie.”
‘Except for stealing flowers, how am I similar to him?’ Song Qingshu cursed, of course, he was embarrassed to say this out loud.
“Wanyan Honglie was also a clever man.” Ouyang Feng’s eyes became a little dazed, he was obviously lost in his past memory, “Although he didn’t say anything, I know that everyone was just a pawn in his eyes. He always wanted to gain the most benefits. When Wanyan Honglie invited me to join his side, I didn’t flatter him similar to those other bas*tards like Master Lingzhi. Even so, he used to act so humble in front of me that he seemed like my slave, do you know why?” Ouyang Feng glanced at Song Qingshu.
“Why?” Song Qingshu was intrigued.
Although Ouyang Feng was one of the Five Great Masters of the Central Plains, Wanyan Honglie was a majestic prince of an Empire. There was really no need for him to treat Ouyang Feng that way. In the original book, Wanyan Honglie’s overly servile attitude once made Song Qingshu extremely doubtful about the comparison of power in the Wulin.
“Because he, like you, thought too much. He thought that he was the only one who could discern the advantages and disadvantages of the entire situation. In his heart, I was reckless, arrogant by nature, and did not know etiquette. If he used his status as a prince to oppress me, I would definitely not care about the general situation, then turn my face and leave. And, he needed to use an expert of my level in some places, so even if he cursed me in his heart, he had to respect me more on the surface. Just like you, as long as the overall situation developed according to his own wishes, he didn’t care even if he had to suffer a little bit.”
Ouyang Feng chuckled, “I had a firm grasp of his mentality. So, even if I wasn’t that difficult to convince, I still had to show that I was extremely difficult to convince. The status of any two people is like this. If you are strong, he will be weak, and if you are weak, he will be strong. Wanyan Honglie thought himself to be a clever man, and I saw through the thoughts of this clever man, so I naturally took advantage of it.”
Thinking of his relationship with Kangxi, Song Qingshu’s expression couldn’t help but turn dark.
Ouyang Feng seemed to have expected this too, and said with a sneer, “I have heard about your situation in the Qing court. Although Kangxi treats you well, it’s only for show. How does the title of the number one master in the Qing Dynasty benefit you? You still have to obey him like a dog. Kangxi probably ‘ordered’ you to come to the Mystic Dragon Island this time as well.”
Seeing Song Qingshu nodding with a dark face, Ouyang Feng spoke with a grimm expression, “If I was in your place, Kangxi would have to treat me like his father. At the very least, if he wanted me to do something, he would have to respectfully use the word ‘please’. As for whether I would be willing to help him or not, it would’ve depended on my mood at the time.”
Song Qingshu was starting to sweat profusely, “You mean Kangxi is the same as you, he saw through my thoughts?” He even forgot to use the term ‘Master Ouyang’ due to his anxiousness.
“As the saying goes, cleverness is countered by cleverness, so this isn’t be entirely your fault.” Ouyang Feng nodded, “As the saying goes, ‘no desires, no restrictions’, when I cooperated with Wanyan Honglie in the past, his desire was greater than mine, so I naturally had the initiative. Between you and Kangxi, I’m afraid your desire is bigger. Even if Kangxi didn’t realize this at first, when he noticed your usual respectful and cautious behavior, he must have had realized how big your hidden desire was. Then, he concluded that since you have some ambitions, you will naturally not be upset because of some of his treatments towards you. That’s why he formed the current relationship where he is strong and you are weak. Believe it or not, if you had behaved arrogantly at the beginning, this situation would’ve been quite different. The more arrogant and domineering you are, the more respectful Kangxi would have to be.”
“Listening to your words is better than reading books for ten years!” Song Qingshu bowed respectfully, and his heart raced. Since his every movement was under Kangxi’s control before, maybe Kangxi had already noticed his secret plan. If he had proceeded according to the original plan, he might’ve completely fallen into Kangxi’s trap!
‘Since he knows that I will patiently develop my strength in secret, then I will do the opposite and give him a surprise…’
“It’s good that your are willing to learn.” Ouyang Feng nodded with relief. Although he didn’t know what Song Qingshu was planning, hin decades of experience made him keenly aware that Song Qingshu was under Kangxi’s control and was falling into a potential crisis.
“I did it to repay the favor of helping this old man with the detoxification.” Ouyang Feng stood up, as his bones creaked.
Looking at his figure, Song Qingshu again realized that he was no longer that crazy old man, and the Western Poison who had been rampant in the past had returned.
“This old man has recovered my sanity, and no matter how you say it, is also due to your help. Originally, this old man was not the kind of person who would repay the favor, but today I am very happy. If you need help with anything, this old man will do my best.”
Ouyang Feng was rescued by Hong Qigong in the past, but he had immediately plotted against him. Naturally, he was not the kind of person who would repay any favors, but today he felt like he had just woken up from a dream. When he saw Ouyang Ke’s shadow in Song Qingshu’s body, he made a promise on a whim.
“Anything is okay?” Song Qingshu asked immediately with a thought in his heart.
Ouyang Feng’s gave a faux-smile, “Boy… I, the Western Poison, have never been someone who promises to do anything. It’ll depend on what you ask me to do. If I feel like it, I will do it. If I don’t feel like it, this promise will naturally cease to be valid.” Ouyang Feng was never a chivalrous man, so naturally he couldn’t be bound by a promise.
“This is the demeanor of Western Poison from the past.” Song Qingshu sneered. He was very clear about this in his heart, if he took Ouyang Feng out of this cave and asked to join hands with him to kill the leader of the Ming Cult, the other party would probably slap him on the face.
‘It seems that I can only make him take action if we encounter something that serves the same interests in the future…’
After some time, the group arrived at the entrance of the cave. While looking at the heavy stone gate, Ouyang Feng frowned, “You want us to join forces to push open this stone gate?”
At the moment, Ouyang Feng was at his weakest. So on the surface, although it seemed like he was kindly helping out Song Qingshu just now, but in fact, he was also taking the opportunity to buy time to recover his strength, so that he could guard against any surprise attack from Song Qingshu.
“This stone gate weighs ten thousand catties. It can’t be pushed open with brute force. We can only use our ingenuity.” Song Qingshu deliberately paused, and when he saw the two people looking at him nervously, he felt a little amused, then continued, “Now, there are two ways for us to escape, one of them is to dig a tunnel under the wall. Since this place is the entrance of the cave, I think we will be able to see the sun again after digging a few meters.”
In the past, the elders of the Sun Moon Holy Cult were trapped in the Cogitation Cave. So one of the elders used a huge ax to dig the mountain wall which was quite far from of the cave entrance, and he died of exhaustion in the end. However, Song Qingshu and the others were already near the entrance of the cave, so that problem naturally didn’t exist.
The Spirit Serpent Cave wasn’t really designed to rely on the stone gates to imprison foreign enemies, so the walls of the cave entrance were just ordinary mountain soil, not solid earth or rocks, otherwise it would’ve been impossible to dig a tunnel through it.
“What about the second method?” With Ouyang Feng’s prideful nature, it would be a bit embarrassing for him to bend over like a pangolin and dig a hole.
Goblin: Chapter 281 and 282 is very important for this novel, because the protagonist gets one of the biggest character developments in the entire story. It will have a direct impact on the plot.
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