Chapter 529

Ma tribe’s army crosses a muddy swamp in high spirits after annexing Dou tribe army, and Ma Ying Jie reads the latest battle reports. Hei tribe and Liu tribe have fought a first battle to a draw. The seven army alliance ambushed Ye Lui army at night, and Ye Lui Sang, very powerful, beat six rank five experts in succession but could not save the situation alone. Ye Lui tribe’s remnants now flee toward Qing An region. Rat King Jiang Bao Ya has entered Yang tribe’s alliance, while Nu Er Tu’s army rests and captures huge numbers of leopard groups. ^{ch. 529}

Ma Ying Jie is glad that Hei Lou Lan and Liu Wen Wu, popular candidates to win, have clashed this early. He suspects Snowy Mountain stands behind the attack on Ye Lui tribe. Ye Lui tribe’s supreme elder placed a bet by entrusting Ye Lui Sang with an Immortal Gu, and Gu Immortals cannot take back an Immortal Gu that mortals snatch in the struggle for Imperial Court. That huge bet carried a risk, since Gu Immortals made Ye Lui Sang a target and incited the seven armies. To become a super tribe, Ma tribe has secretly joined demonic path Gu Immortals who covet Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. Huang Jin tribes also join demonic path Gu Immortals, whose blessed lands often shelter the losers from the blizzard. ^{ch. 529}

Ma Ying Jie rates Yang tribe, lifted by Rat King’s alliance with Eagle King Yang Po Ying, as no great threat, since its foundations are far inferior to Ma tribe. He also judges Rat King already crippled. Nu Er Tu captures wild leopard groups without asking help from the Gu Immortal behind him, which Ma Ying Jie finds a bit strange. ^{ch. 529}

In a carriage within the army, Fei Cai clumsily comforts a weeping little girl he calls Lady Xiao Yun. She is Zhao Lian Yun, and her father, Zhao tribe’s leader, sacrificed his life in the previous large battle. On the very night he died, her stepmother remarried the new tribe leader, and Zhao Lian Yun’s standing fell sharply. Her grief is real. ^{ch. 529}

The old caretaker lifts the curtain and tries to drag Zhao Lian Yun to the stepmother, now tribe lady, relishing revenge for the girl’s past pranks on her. Zhao Lian Yun refuses, and Fei Cai punches the caretaker out of the carriage. The bruised caretaker screams that a slave hit a civilian and threatens to report him. Zhao Lian Yun answers that the rules require informing his master first, and that Fei Cai is Ma Ying Jie’s slave leader. Struck with extreme terror, the caretaker fears being sacrificed by Zhao tribe if she reports recklessly. Gloomy, she announces that the tribe lady has arranged Zhao Lian Yun’s marriage to Wei tribe’s eldest young master. ^{ch. 529}

Zhao Lian Yun collapses, and for three days she sits silent in a corner while Fei Cai helplessly feeds her. The shock shatters her foolish pride as a transmigrator. She sees that a rule of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable makes northern plains treat women as goods for political marriage. No wonder, she thinks, Su Xian’s night elopement moved so many women to imitate it. She knows Wei tribe’s eldest young master as a famous trash, fat and pockmarked, extremely lecherous and very fickle-hearted. She would die before marrying him, but she is a mortal who cannot awaken her aperture before thirteen. Her father’s killer is Dou E, a rank five Gu Master now siding with Ma tribe as a higher-up of the alliance. ^{ch. 529}

On the fourth morning she devours the food Fei Cai brings and resolves to rely on herself, since the betrothal takes effect only when she is sixteen. She tells the startled Fei Cai that she absolutely won’t compromise and will stay for now, relying on him. He agrees and says his father died a glorious death in battle. ^{ch. 529}

Sun Shi Han brings Fang Yuan a letter openly sent by the enemy and written by Chang Biao. It invites Wolf King to talk before the battle, when Chang Ji You could meet his father. Fang Yuan scoffs that it is a great ploy. Sun Shi Han adds that a mutated wolf group and rank five lurking soul coat Gu have arrived, but the alliance higher-ups hesitate because of the letter. They hope Wolf King will battle his kin in the name of righteousness to prove his innocence. Otherwise, Sun Shi Han hints, the mutated wolf group may be withheld. ^{ch. 529}