382 I Have Two, High and Low, Strategies

After slightly hiding within the Yunyang Palace for half a day, Wang Lu has largely ascertained the ins and outs of the matter.

To put it simply, around three months ago, the apple in King Yunyang's eyes, his beloved daughter, Princess Yunyue1 suddenly suffered from an odd disease. She fell into a coma and turned gaunt and weak as the days went by. King Yunyang gathered around famous doctors from all over the place, however, all of them were powerless. Finally, they even resorted to trying anyone or anything that even some itinerant healers were also invited to the palace for the diagnosis of the princess.

Itinerant healers were naturally unreliable. However, one day, a wandering Taoist Priest came and used a dose of medicine to let the unconscious princess open her eyes. King Yunyang was overjoyed, but the wandering Taoist Priest said that his medicine was merely treating the symptoms, not the root of the illness. The princess was suffering from a strange disease, so only by consuming strange medicine refined from ten thousand spirit blood could cure her. However, the ten thousand spirit blood was an incomparably mysterious refinement. One must collect the blood from thousands of exotic animals, which could only be done, even in a hurry, in years or even decades. During which, some of the rare species might even become extinct, while the Princess' illness was only delayed for at most three months.

This three months time, let alone the ten thousand spirit blood, even it's second grade, a thousand spirit blood could not possibly be refined. Thus, the wandering Taoist also put forward an alternative scheme, which was the refinement of human blood. Although this was an evil method, it was the only effective way that could be done in a short amount of time. Moreover, the refinement of human blood did not need the slaughtering of all the people. The blood from several thousand people should suffice for the refinement.

After leaving behind the method of blood refinement as well as the prescription to save the Princess, the wandering Taoist Priest floated away. King Yunyang was in torment for three days and three nights. On the fourth day, with bloodshot eyes, he made his decision.

He dispatched his most trusted team of soldiers who were ready to die for him to a remote mountain village and asked them to quietly start collecting the Ten Thousand Spirit Blood within a month at all cost.

As a king who has always been benevolent and generous, King Yunyang willingly massacred his own subjects to satisfy his selfish desire was a shock to these ready-to-die soldiers. However, since they were his ready-to-die soldiers, they did not even hesitate to go through water and tread on fire, not to mention just to deal with some mountain village people? Moreover, Princess Yunyue was the successor of King Yunyang, thus, for the sake of the continuation of this independent country, they would do their best.

After dispatching his ready-to-die soldiers, a weight finally off of King Yunyang's mind, but he also aged a lot. However, when he went to his daughter's room to visit her, he found out that his daughter angrily asked him why would he make such a cruel act.

Although he didn't know who exactly leaked the news, King Yunyang braced himself and frankly explained his thoughts to his daughter.

Although King Yunyang was the king of a country, the bloodline of the royalty seemed to be cursed that in his generation, everything nearly withered. His beloved wife died of an acute illness, leaving behind only the young Yunyue and him. The continuation of royal blood has so far encountered great difficulties, however, at this time, it was Yunyue herself who fell down.

As a sovereign king, King Yunyang could not just sit idly by and watch the only heir die. Therefore, he has no other alternative. Let alone he also has his own reason for slaying his own subjects. Though he could not tell it to outsiders, when his daughter questioned him, he could no longer conceal it.

"Do you know why you and your mother both contracted an acute illness in succession?"

Princess Yunyue bowed her head and whispered, "Perhaps, my mother and I are not (karmic) blessed enough, so…"

"Are not blessed enough?" King Yunyang angrily said, "In my entire life, I strive for the prosperity of my country, the common people live and work in peace. If there are gods to decide the (karmic) blessing of a person, then my Yunyang family ought to have the biggest (karmic) blessing!"

With that, King Yunyang suppressed his anger and explained, "The immortal who helped you awoke, has identified the cause of the disease of you and your mother, it's all… it's all because of that cloud mist tea!"

"Cloud mist tea?"

Princess Yunyue gently repeated, it seemed like she was not surprised by this.

Gnashing his teeth, King Yunyang said, "It's the so-called immortal tea annually offered from the Fog Root Mountain! They said that their tea is not only fragrant, but also has special nourishing effect, longevity, and beauty for women. But they never mentioned that the cloud mist tea is like a poison to the women of royal blood! The illness of you and your mother is also because of this! Not only they killed your mother, they now also want to kill you, so how can I spare them?"

Princess Yunyue smiled. "Father, you are just looking for excuses. They are just ordinary villagers, how can they understand that their cloud mist tea is harmful to royal blood? They have lived for generations in the mountain village, where drinking the tea only gives them advantages and none of its negative effect. They are merely ignorant about this so their sincere enthusiasm should not be misjudged. If we must blame something, we should blame our royal bloodline."

"What a load of nonsense!" King Yunyang wanted to get angry, but in front of his daughter, no matter what, he could not muster it out, and could only storm out of the room. He thought that he would just wait for the ten thousand spirit blood to be refined and his daughter healed, then he would not need to care other things any longer.

However, Princess Yunyue was extremely stubborn. After her dispute with her father, she resolutely did not eat nor drink anything, determining to die. When King Yunyang became flustered upon finding it out, that was when Wang Lu stumbled on their ensuing dialogue.

—

"Well, so far the background for this court story has been clearly explained. Then the palace operation officially begins."

When Wang Lu has seen enough of the palace drama, and seriously deduced the problem, he finally decided to solve the problem openly.

Thereupon, he straightforwardly departed from the palace with his flying sword and then arrived at the main entrance, ready to knock on the door.

Naturally, he was stopped by the guards. When asked for his identity, Wang Lu assumed the speech style and air of an immortal and said, "I see that there's an inauspicious influence condensed in this place, which contains blood light in a concealed form. I am afraid in the last few days, there is a disaster here. I came here with the specific purpose of becoming intermediary to avoid calamities and to clear up the confusions."

If he were just an ordinary people, perhaps the loyal guard would immediately cut his head off. However, when Wang Lu said those words while standing on the floating sword, even the fiercely loyal guard did not dare to question him again but just passed the words hurriedly to the King of Yunyang.

After that wandering Taoist Priest, King Yunyang attached great importance to highly skilled people who clearly have the immortal method.

"May I ask immortal is…"

Wang Lu thought for a moment, and then decided just to tell the truth, "I am the lead disciple of Spirit Sword Sect, Wang Lu. Right now, I'm traveling outside under the name of my sect. When I passed this place, I see that there's a condensation of inauspicious influence. I am afraid there is an impending great danger, so I came here to help you."

King Yunyang frowned. "I wonder what is the impending great danger referred to by immortal…"

Wang Lu smiled and said, "At present, properly speaking, it is still far from being a great danger. It is just a small trouble lurking in the palace. This manifest in certain people or person in the palace suddenly contracted an acute illness, or a sudden distressed situation. But, if ignored and refused to acknowledge, it would cause no end of trouble. I see that once there are signs of a breakout of hidden fiend's air here, which should've happened many years ago, but was suppressed by the popularity of this place, causing it to not lead to a great disaster. However, the root of the problem is still here, so sooner or later, the danger would still explode."

Upon hearing Wang Lu's words, King Yunyang's whole body shivered, thinking that this immortal could actually predict so accurately, truly omniscient.

"Then, what should I do about it?"

Wang Lu said, "Let me know the details before I decide. For this kind of danger caused by man-made and natural disaster, rashly intervening would only backfire. The cobwebs must be unraveled first, stripping off the danger one by one, in order to ensure the safety… Mm, looks like you're tired and your eyes concealed a worried look. Is this eruption of danger befallen on someone close to your highness? Why not take me directly to see that person?"

Upon hearing this, King Yunyang could wait no longer. He hurriedly invited Wang Lu to the Palace, to see the sleeping Princess Yunyue.

Seeing Princess Yunyue, Wang Lu was taken aback. Previously, when he lurked in the palace to observe, in order to avoid being seen, he only heard her voice and didn't see her face. He thought that since the princess was of a royal blood, and has a sweet sounding voice, she should be a first class beauty. However, when he actually met her...

"Is… is this your daughter? Not a visitor from another planet?"

Princess Yunyue who lied on the bed did not even have half of the allure of beautiful woman! The young girl was haggard looking, with more than half of her hair had already fallen from her head, revealing much of her scalp. Her face was pale, withered, and skinny. Her cheekbones were raised high and her eyes protruding outward. Her lips were purple-black and inverted backward. Let alone beautiful, she didn't even look like a human.

King Yunyang was extremely pained, "Yunyue, she, she's not like this at first. But after she suffered that strange illness, in just half a month, she became like this."

The girl that he hoped to be beautiful turned out to be an alien beauty, Wang Lu's heart seemed to sink a bit. However, upon observing Yunyue's appearance, he became even more serious. "King Yunyang, this is not a strange disease at all. Her body is clearly poisoned, how could an illness cause a bone deformation?"

King Yunyang said, "Immortal is really omniscient. Yunyue is indeed suffering under some kind of poison."

With that, King Yunyang told his men to bring the cloud mist tea over to Wang Lu. Seeing that tea, Wang Lu was once again taken aback. "Are you sick? You dare to even drink this stuff? This is a f*cking rotten corpse grass!"

Upon hearing the name alone, King Yunyang immediately felt pain in his heart: Rotten corpse grass, how vicious is this actually?

"Well, this kind of spirit grass that grows on rotten bodies is harmless to the ordinary mortal, but it's poisonous to cultivators. You are born of royal blood, and enjoy the worship from the common people. Your spirit vein is deep so you have an extraordinary outstanding aptitude. However, your daughter's innate talent is even better than you. If she walks in the path of immortal cultivation, in the future, she would more or less succeed. However, here, it's equal to being deeply poisoned… fate indeed dictates the life of people."

When it came to this, Wang Lu sighed. "This rotten corpse grass is not that toxic to a cultivator, but Princess Yunyue is not a real cultivator and her body hasn't been refined. Moreover, the poison has entered into her vital parts, so if you want her to stay alive, it is indeed troublesome."

"Immortal, may I ask if there's a way to save her?"

Wang Lu said, "I have two, high and low, strategies. The low strategy is to collect the blood from ten thousand spirits to refine into a strange elixir and dissolve the strange poison. It's just that this spirit blood is extremely difficult to obtain. If you want to refine the elixir before the princess dies, you have to walk in a crooked path, but that move is dishonorable and would only cause endless troubles in the future."

The whole body of King Yunyang shivered, unable to say a single word.

"The high strategy, which is also the best in my opinion, is for me to let her consume an elixir to extend her life for a year, during which, you should find some male who could give her a child, so that the royal blood of Yunyang could continue."

"What?"

"It's to find the king's son-in-law for her. Look for someone who lives well, superb physique, and excellent talent. Let him have intercourse with the princess and produce excellent offspring. By then, even if the princess died, your royal blood would still continue, wouldn't that be good?"

…Cloud Moon