“Such arrogance!”
The old woman took off with speed that contrasted starkly with her age. She drew her dagger and swung out with it at his throat. She struck as quickly as lightning and as viciously as a venomous snake.
The elders all vanished from their seats at the same time, appearing around Li Qingshan silently. Six deadly weapons stabbed towards six vital points, weaving into a net of death.
Just who could survive an attack like that?
Li Qingshan lifted his cup and took a sip. His clear gaze passed over the thicket of weapons. Ye Mingzhu sat exactly where she was with a slight frown.
The weapons stopped. The tip of the old woman’s dagger was only an inch away from his neck. As he took a gulp of alcohol, his Adam’s apple surged, almost running into the dagger.
“Back down. Did I tell you to attack?” Ye Mingzhu waved her hand, and the elders immediately returned to their seats, as if nothing had happened at all.
After hearing Ye Liusu’s report, the first thing Ye Mingzhu thought of was, Kill!
But subsequently, various doubts arose. He clearly knew there was great danger, so why did he still come? If they cornered him, just what losses would the clan suffer?
That was why the banquet had occurred today. As long as he showed even just a single hint of weakness, they would tear him apart.
However, he showed none of it with his behaviour. If he was not a madman, then it meant he had something he could rely on. This nonchalant attitude definitely was not an act.
In the blink of an eye, Ye Mingzhu made a decision. She stood up and made her way to his side as she swung her hips around, personally filling his cup for him. “Sir Nothmoon, just what do you want?”
“Respect.” Li Qingshan shook the cup with a smile, causing the alcohol to ripple.
His answer left everyone stunned. He had taken such great risk to join the banquet of the night roamers. Whether he demanded for territory, treasure, or women, none of it would have been strange. However, he was demanding a concept that was very foreign to regular daemons.
“Just that?” Ye Mingzhu furrowed her brows.
“Respect comes before anything else. Let me just ask you a question. Do you want to become the strongest clan of night roamers?”
“What if I answer I do?”
“Then I can assist you.”
This time, it was Ye Mingzhu’s turn to laugh. The Spider Demon clan was currently in a precarious situation and losing the territory only made matters worse. He was their greatest enemy, yet he actually said he could assist her in making them the strongest clan of night roamers.
Everyone present found this unimaginable, and their gazes towards Li Qingshan became even more hostile.
However, this only continued until Li Qingshan pulled out a stack of talismans and spread them out on the table.
“You’re going to make our clan become the strongest just with these?” Ye Mingzhu sneered, but she was secretly surprised inside. Night roamers lacked the ability to create talismans, but she understood the power of talismans very well. In battles of great danger, a single talisman was enough to turn the tides.
Fortunately, they had not fallen out, or these dozen or so supreme grade talismans would have been enough to drag a few of them down with him.
“I have a few thousand talismans like these. Of course, there are fewer at the supreme and high grades and more at the mid and low grades.” Then, Li Qingshan planted his ice blade into the table. “I have over a thousand spiritual artifacts like this too. Of course, they’re like the talismans. Oh right, I didn’t bring any of them with me.”
This time, Ye Mingzhu was unable to laugh any further. Her perky chest heaved. The elders were all shocked. They knew exactly what this sum of resources meant to the clan.
Mid and low grade talismans could not be dismissed as useless. After all, night roamers with mediocre cultivation happened to be the majority. Among the many battles outside, these talismans and spiritual artifacts could give them the upper hand and strengthen the foundations of the Spider Shadow clan.
This would completely change the situation underground!
If it were not for what Li Qingshan had added at the end, they would even be tempted to just slaughter and rob him regardless of the consequences.
Through his observations and communication with Ye Liubo, he had discovered that the night roamers were extremely behind in aspects like forging artifacts and talismans. They were nowhere close to the humans above ground, but that made sense too. They had spent thousands of years underground beneath the powerful reign of daemons. There was little to no exchange between the races. It would truly be unbelievable if their civilisation was more advanced than above ground.
Afterwards, he immediately remembered the huge piles of things he had accumulated in his hundred treasures pouch. It was pointless for him to keep them, but he was afraid of selling them too. Even if he sold them through some special avenues, the prices they would fetch for would be pitifully low. Peace had lasted for too long. These standard items for battle had fallen out of demand.
As a result, he realised that the night roamers before him just happened to be his best buyer.
“Oh right, I have over a thousand hundred treasures pouches too.”
An elder immediately crushed the cup in her hand.
“What do you want?” Ye Mingzhu truly lived up to her name as the influential matriarch. She calmed down very soon and asked the most important question.
“Spiritual herbs, as long as they’re old enough.” Li Qingshan had considered this beforehand. The underground world had plenty of spiritual herbs centuries or even millennia old. Daemons did not know alchemy, and while the night roamers did know a little, they mostly used the toxicity of certain spiritual herbs, extracting it to spike food and drinks or smearing it on their weapons. It was extremely wasteful.
But in the human world, any spiritual herb that was old enough could definitely be used in multiple pill formulas. Once they surpassed a millennium in age, their worth would skyrocket.
“If sir Northmoon had mentioned it earlier, would any of these misunderstandings have happened at all?” Ye Mingzhu smiled like a blossoming flower.
During times of war, people were willing to exchange their food for a gun so that they could kill their enemies. Moreover, these spiritual herbs were not even a crucial resource to the night roamers. Their cultivation methods were essentially all based on accumulation over time and comprehension. If they could exchange spiritual herbs for weapons, it would be for the best.
Li Qingshan thought, If I had tried to negotiate right from the start, demanding these conditions, this mirror clone probably would have been finished off already. Neither of us are honest, good people. The weak are not worthy of cooperating with the strong.
With that, the atmosphere in the room changed drastically. Ye Mingzhu saw how Li Qingshan had finished his food, so she said, “Get the kitchen to serve more. Sir Northmoon, if you’re hungry, then please make do with my serving for now! Where are the performances and shows?”
The caretaker went off in a hurry to arrange these matters. A while later, a group of male night roamers actually appeared to perform. Every single one of them was extremely handsome, and they were all bare-chested in shorts. They performed a fierce sword dance.
The elders proposed toasts to after another as they all smiled from ear to ear.
Li Qingshan felt like an international arms dealer doing business with a group of African warlords.
Ye Liuxing’s face was still frosty, but she had no choice but to toast him too. Ye Liusu seemed slightly lost. She had no idea whether meeting him was a good or a bad thing.
Master is so powerful! Ye Liubo calmed down. She was overjoyed, and her eyes became completely fixed on Li Qingshan.
After both the host and guest had all dined to their heart’s content, Ye Mingzhu smiled charmingly with a slight blush. “You’ve finished eating, haven’t you, sir Northmoon? We can talk about the details of the deal in my room later. I need to tend to some matters of the clan first.”
Her face immediately coldened. “Ye Liusu, Ye Liubo, kneel!”
