Chapter 753: Message
Sage went to meet with the messenger immediately after having heard where they were from. The person waiting for him was someone that he felt like he hadnt met with in a lifetime. She was wearing a hanfu, which was a long robe that overlapped in the front like a kimono might, except it was usually belted very simply with a rope or sash rather than a thick belly band. Additionally, the hanfu usually had a different style and color from the waist down so it looked like two pieces. Usually this bottom half was wide and voluminous, like a skirt or dress and there were even styles that were pleated on the lower half or that consisted of many layers of diaphanous silks or satins that gave off a very fairy-like feeling.
For this woman in particular, her hanfu had more of a refined and business-like feel to it. The lower half was a deep crimson color of silk without any pleats and embroidered with a few trios black roses on the sides and back near the lower hem. Upon her upper half, she wore a long black coat with a narrow high collar edged with lace. The coat itself was in the style of a certain uniform. The Chong Clan.
This humble one greets Chong Xiezi. It has been a long time. Are you here as a punishment or is this my chance to repair our friendship?The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
Sage bowed his head and saluted her with a clasped fist. Then he gave her no time to leave things cordial, rudely jumping straight to the point. She bowed and saluted in turn and he could see a slight flash of violence in her eyes that quickly faded away.
When we first met, you saved my life. Then your enemy murdered my uncle. That makes us even.
She stopped there, pausing for long enough that Sage chose to speak up, Does that mean we were never friends? You only treated me kindly because of a debt?
A few hours later, the council had finally assembled and Sage brought the message from the Chong Clan to them. Xiezi was brought into the council meeting only to repeat her reading of the main portion of the message. Then one of the more enthusiastic members of the council, one of Sages great grandchildren, took up the message and read out the rest of it in detail. They collectively came up with questions to ask Xiezi and then she was respectfully escorted out of the room and sent on her way by Sage. On the way out, she seemed to have a lot of questions of her own, but Sage gave her clipped answers and sent her on her way. There weren't any rules on who he could invite into his Clan, or even appoint as a new head. At the most, the Chong Clan could summon the new head for a meeting as theyd summoned him in the past. How could the Chong Clan ever imagine that these thousands of people were all his descendants? It had only been seven or eight years since he saw them last.
He returned to the council meeting and they started hammering out the details of this first action as a clan in the outside world.
Father, how should we handle this? Weve been gathering intelligence for the last few years, but this is still a whole new world to us.
As Ive said before, we need to keep the Clans origin secret. Before establishing yourselves here, everyone must only mention it as their homeland and never give any specific details. As for this matter, we will let the Chong Clan take the lead. The Lang Clan that was massacred was their subordinate family, and it is their duty to seek revenge for their own people. As for our own forces, dont send more than half to the field, and only act when necessary. Let the Chong Clan suffer a little for their arrogance, but we cant let any ineptitude or unwillingness on their part lead to failure.
Sage looked around at all the nodding faces and continued to speak, Even if none of you knew them, and most of them werent very kind, they were still your ancestors. The Lang Clan brought about its own downfall by making too many enemies for no reason, but the Fu Clan kicked us when we were down. When they heard of the Lang Clan being destroyed they found and killed every last one of the Lang Clan members that were operating around the kingdom to try and wipe out our line to the last. Theyve come after me to finish the job several times, and I narrowly avoided death on more than one occasion.
Everyone had a solemn look on their faces, for most of them on the council were his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Yating nodded to his father and then smiled to the council members, We will do to them what they tried to do to us. Soon, the Fu Clan will no longer exist in this world.