Chapter 172: Qiang Clan, Ma Clan, and Liu Clan

The giant hopea odorata tree became the center of Cao Mao's new village. Jia Shan lived in the tree trunk cave. Jia Wenhe and Ju Shoufen skillfully created brick buildings to be their private abodes, and they helped the yin slaves making a 2-story brick mansion.

Cao Mao could only gaze at his yin slaves and the two alchemist elders in envy. He requested a brick house, too, but Jia Wenhe and Ju Shoufen refused. Instead, they offered to make a house for Jia Shan, who frugally lived in a tree cave. Yet, Jia Shan declined their offer and continued to live in seclusion, saving his strength.

After moving here, Jia Shan had an inspiration. He planned to recultivate from the beginning while keeping his nascent soul. The elder started refining his muscle the same way when he was a 1st stage newbie.

A week later, while Ju Shoufen and Jia Wenhe were having fun designing the city wall, a group of 10 horsemen from the north visited them.

The leading horseman was carrying a banner with a large Chinese character [Qiang]. He barged to Cao Mao's small village and bellowed.

"WE'RE THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE QIANG HOUSE FROM THE XUAN CITY! IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE, PROSTRATE YOURSELF AND FOLLOW US TO THE XUAN CITY!! ALL YOUR PROPERTIES AND ASSETS ARE NOW OUR PROPERTIES! ALSO, YOU WILL HELP US CUT DOWN THAT BIGASS TREE AND BRING IT WITH US!!"

Ju Shoufen and Jia Wenhe, who were busy in one of the workshop buildings, walked out of their houses in bemusement. They looked at the horsemen and scanned them from head to toes.

These horsemen were merely late 4th-stage cultivators with high-grade plate armors and spears. In Ju Shoufen and Jia Wenhe's eyes, they were insolent trashes.

"You morons have guts. Say that again to my face if you want to live!" Ju Shoufen sneered as she approached the leading horseman.

The horseman leader was taken aback when he realized that they had offended two 6th-stage powerhouses. They jumped off their horses and kowtowed in a panic.

"W-We're sorry! We didn't know that seniors are protecting this place!"

Ju Shoufen clicked her tongue. She cracked her fingers and her neck, preparing to give these horsemen a good beating, "So, hadn't we been here, you would have enslaved everybody here?"

"N-N-No! No, no way! That wasn't our intention!"

Without waiting for their excuse, Ju Shoufen unleashed her fire element power. Ten pillars of fire emerged from the ground and roasted the 10 horsemen on the spot. The raiders turned into charcoal corpses before they could even fight back.

Jia Wenhe hummed as he scavenged for these men's spatial rings. He got 20 rings from the group. Also, the horses that these men had used were still alive, so he kept them as well.

Unfortunately, Ju Shoufen's hellfire was too potent. It melted the armors and weapons of these silly soldiers, so they couldn't recycle them.

"I guess we'll have to build one more stable before we build the city walls," Jia Wenhe was admiring the horses.

Ju Shoufen glanced at the warhorses. She shrugged, "No need. We already have enough horses. Well, we replace our weak horses with them. Kill our weak horses for meat, and keep the new ones."

"Eh, what a waste. Fine, whatever."

Jia Wenhe tossed the rings to Ju Shoufen. She caught all 20 rings with her telekinesis and scanned through the content.

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The rings didn't have valuable items other than refined yang stones. Still, Ju Shoufen managed to find identity tokens and a message scroll, which revealed who their boss was.

These men were a part of the Qiang Clan, and they were following the order of Qiang Sui, the overlord of the Northwest area of the Aves Continent.

Unlike other clan leaders, Qiang Sui refused to yield to the Liu Dynasty of the Liu Clan. He established his own forces and formed allies with other major clans to rule a quarter of the Aves Continent. The Qiang Clan frequently raided the central territories and enslaved commoners and weak cultivators to increase their workforces.

From Ju Shoufen's perspective, these people were no different than bandits. She didn't have a shred of regret for killing these people.

"I guess we're too close to the border. That bastard Dong Zhongying didn't do his job properly!"

Ju Shoufen grumbled and blamed everything on Dong Zhongying, who was supposed to keep the Qiang Clan in check. Now, the Liu Dynasty had lost so many cities to the Qiang, and Cao Mao's group encountered the infamous raiders.

.

That day, Ju Shoufen summoned Cao Mao and his wives to brief them about their current predicament. She warned everyone that raiders from the Qiang Clan might reappear again soon.

Hearing the news, Cao Mao's eyes sparkled in delight.

"Elder Ju, do you know if the Ma Clan is serving the Qiang Clan?"

"Why do you ask? Do you know about the Ma Clan?"

"Just curious. I've heard a rumor that there's a fallen clan somewhere, but I haven't heard about this clan in the Yeet City."

Cao Mao did his homework before he departed from Yeet City and chose the campaign mission. He investigated the Ma Clan's background to search for their whereabouts.

The result was disappointing. Cao Mao couldn't find this family in Yeet City or nearby provinces. Yet, he heard a certain tale from White Album, who inherited a bit of Xu Xiuying's memory.

The Ma Clan was related to the Qiang Clan!

Thus, Cao Mao was excited when the Qiang Clan's name was brought up.

Ju Shoufen paused to think. She couldn't recall where she heard the name of Ma Clan. However, Jia Wenhe remembered, "Ah, come to think of it, there was once a domineering family a hundred years ago in the northwest. I think it's this clan."

"Wenhe, you know?" Ju Shoufen was surprised.

"This clan was quite famous back then. When an army of 10,000 5th-stage and 6th-stage demons counterattacked against human cultivators by surprise, their clan leader, Ma Ping, fought against that army alone and won. He was a peak 7th-stage back then, and he considered second strongest after Immortal Fengxian during that time."

"Wait a minute. He was a peak 7th-stage? What happened? Is he an 8th-stage Dao Soul now?"

"No," Jia Wenhe paused and sighed in regret, "The Poison Pavilion got him. After the war, Liu Hong, the current emperor of the Liu Dynasty, got jealous of Ma Ping's achievement and fame. He commissioned the Poison Pavilion to assassinate Ma Ping. Not only poisoners crippled Ma Ping's cultivation permanently, but they also killed 3 of his valiant sons. Fortunately, Ma Ping had 4 sons, so the bloodline of this family continued."

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Listening to the tale, Cao Mao's jaw dropped. He felt like he had read this kind of story somewhere, but he was sure that it was similar to a background story of a certain protagonist.

Judging by the protagonist's name and the backstory, Cao Mao could think of one person.

'Aha! I've found you, Ma Moxi! It's a pity that I didn't take the quest to hunt you, but you'll be useful for me!'

When Cao Mao was deciding which protagonist he would hunt, he remembered the details of both Ma Moxi and Liu Bian.

Liu Bian was easy to remember as he was the crown prince with necromancy skill and a kingdom-building system. As for Ma Moxi, he resembled a transmigrator protagonist from a webnovel.

'A trashy young master in a declining family getting possessed by a hitman's soul from a modern world – that's definitely a template of a protagonist. This Ma Family is definitely Ma Moxi's family.'

Liu Bian Campaign Quest #1 – Gather Allies

Quest Description

Killing the crown prince is impossible without an ally since there are too many 7th-stage and 6th-stage experts protecting him. To overcome this plot armor, you will have to reduce the number of their protectors. First off, you need an allied force to square against Liu Bian's protectors.

Complete Conditions - You have five approaches to the first steps. You can choose from one of these choices.

One – Form an alliance with a 7th-stage expert and his/her clan.

Two – Form an alliance with at least five 6th-stage experts and their clans.

Three – Form an alliance with a protagonist.

Four – Form an alliance with an antagonist clan.

Five – Form an alliance with a neutral character's clan.

Each choice has a different outcome, and they will affect the next Campaign Quest. Please choose your approach carefully.

Failure Conditions – Liu Bian either becomes the next emperor or reaches 18 years of age.

Quest Rewards

1. Your System Sponsor will monitor your next Hell Tribulation. You won't be bullied by the Will of Heaven.

2. 10,000 Liters of Life Essence will be added to your first life essence core.

Failure Penalty

1. Liu Bian will receive a system quest to hunt you.

2. The Will of Heaven will influence Ma Moxi's decision to become your nemesis.

Different from the tutorial quests, the campaign quest gave out a clear guideline of what Cao Mao should do or prepare for the hunt. However, it gave a few options to approach, so Cao Mao could decide which path he should take.

The answer was obvious at glance. It had to be the choice number three.

When Cao Mao fixated his look at the third choice, his right eyebrow repeatedly twitched like a rock song. The otherworldly hunch of Cao Mao was never wrong ever since he came to this world.

'Pitting a protagonist against a protagonist should be the correct answer, but I still have a bad feeling about this approach. Can both protagonists kill each other?'

The system and his System Sponsor were always manipulative. Last year, they rigged him with Jiang Lan, so he could be Xie Tian's enemy. Now, Cao Mao suspected that they laid another trap for him again.

'Should I trust the system and pick the choice number three? Or should I take a safety approach?'

Cao Mao glanced at the other choices. Other than getting a villain clan to his side, the first, second, and the last option seemed more plausible.

Antagonist clans would end up being the protagonist's EXP if they were to fight. After all, plot armor power would make these villains temporarily stupid in front of Liu Bian or Ma Moxi. Cao Mao immediately crossed out the fourth option.

After a careful analysis of the objectives, the real task was to decrease the number of Liu Bian's protectors. Therefore, the correct choice should be something else other than a protagonist since he shouldn't be able to fight against a 7th-stage monster or armies of 6th-stage experts at this stage.

For now, Cao Mao had chosen not to complete the quest by being Ma Moxi's ally since the objective hinted that he had to use this ally forces against Liu Bian's protectors, and Ma Moxi would not fit the role. Thus, he had enough reason to cross out the third option from the list.

'If I use the process of elimination, I can skip the second choice since five 6th-stage experts might be no match against one proper Nascent Soul Realm expert. Therefore, I only have two choices left – the first one or the last one.'

Cao Mao sighed and put this matter at the back of his head. It was not the right time to make the choice since he hadn't talked with any major force yet.

Ju Shoufen and Jia Wenhe continued to exchange intel about the Qiang Clan and the Ma Clan. Cao Mao only sat there as a listener, taking all the information he could get.

Unfortunately, Cao Mao's bad luck struck once more. Ju Shoufen suddenly had a weird idea, "Let's send this brat to Xuan City as a spy. Since he has been doing nothing but having sex all day, he should be put to work. We need more information about the Qiang and the declining Ma Clan. Maybe we can get them to fight each other and weaken them while we're fortifying our home."

Jia Wenhe nodded, "That's a good idea. Brat, pack your belongings. I want you to infiltrate the Xuan City tomorrow!"

Cao Mao's face became a pokerface meme, "Ah, shit. Here we go again."

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