“I’ll be reserving this entire airship!!”
At the entrance of the airship, a group of men were escorting a richly-dressed youth in his twenties. The youth didn’t have any distinctive features to his face, but he could at the very least be considered somewhat handsome if push came to shove. There was a prideful smile on his face as he spoke down to the Tianhun School students managing the airship.
“Excuse me…” The student looked quite troubled. “Lord Qin, this airship will be leaving in half an hour and has already several dozen people onboard. To suddenly book the entire airship now is a little…”
“A little what? Is the house of Qin not even able to book a single airship?!” The young man sneered derisively, “I know the rules, isn’t that why I’m paying double the price? I’ll send people to do the work, so you don’t need to poke your nose into it.”
He motioned his head at the few guards with him. In response to his glare, the guards immediately went past the students to head for the rooms with people inside.
The student gave up. He was no stranger to the antics of wealthy males like this one, and if he wanted to pay two times the regular price for booking an airship, then so be it. The only thing the student hoped was that there would be no conflict after all this.
The people currently within the airship weren’t any regular people, after all. But the one doing the asking, the second son of the head of the Qin—a house inferior only to the Five Houses—was also somebody that people wouldn’t normally cross.
Airships wasn’t so much a popular item to use for transportation, but it allowed for a variety of options. A large amount of the more influential soul cultivators would ride these airships, but most weren’t fond of traveling with others or wanted to go on routes that would generally deviate from the set path. If either of these two things wanted to be changed, then the soul cultivator wanting the change would have to reserve the airship.
The act of reserving an airship wasn’t disallowed. The Tianhun School—the ones responsible for overseeing the management of the airships had their own unwritten rules in regards to reserving an airship. Firstly, the people already riding the airship had to ‘agree’ to giving up their spot. And secondly, the Tianhun School would not kick anyone off. If someone wanted to reserve the airship, then they’d be responsible for seeing to everyone being rightfully compensated. Compensation came in the form of double the primal stones the soul cultivator used for their entry ticket.
For the most part, only the wealthiest and the most powerful of groups would be able to reserve an airship. In these cases, the soul cultivators already on the airship would agree to the compensation to avoid any trouble.
“Notify the pilots, the destination will be changed to Swallow City in the Swallow Province.”
The young man ordered to the Tianhun School student standing nearby. They were in the halls of the airship now, and he had only just found a nice soulbeast-rug chair to sit on and be with the beautiful ladies in his arms.
The Swallow Province was the neighboring province to the Forest Pass Province. It was a relatively large province but had no airship routes allocated there. The only change of an airship going there would be if someone were to have the route of another airship altered, hence why this one person was reserving the entire airship.
“Well…please rest assured, lord Qin. We will naturally notify our pilots as soon as your side of things is done.”
As respectful as the student sounded, he wasn’t at all being subservient. His eyes swept towards the few guards that were negotiating with the soul cultivators. Very clearly, the student was saying that only when all the other soul cultivators were successfully negotiated with would the airship alter its scheduled route.
“Pah!” Came the sneer. Sparing not even a single word more with the student, the young man turned his attention to the stunning woman with him.
On the other side of the hall—and the only other person there besides the two—an elderly figure sat there with a slight frown on his eyebrows. But he said nothing and continued to sit there.
……
“Knock knock knock…”
A series of rough knocking on the door saw to Bai Yunfei frowning. He had thought about going out to see what was going on earlier, but it seemed that someone had decided to come see him instead. It’d be best for him to go open the door in that case then.
He opened the door. A burly middle-aged man stood on the other side.
Bai Yunfei glanced at him for a brief moment. “Is there a problem?”
“My apologies, but the Qin is reserving this entire airship. If sire would accept compensation of twice the primal stones you paid, then please leave the airship.”
Emotionlessly, the man handed Bai Yunfei a bag filled with primal stones. His tone of voice had been polite, but there wasn’t a single tone of negotiation in there. It was like he was merely ‘telling’ Bai Yunfei what it was and that there was no room in the matter for elsewise.
“Reserving the airship?” Bai Yunfei raised an eyebrow.
“My apologies, but I can’t allow that.” He responded a tad bit colder than before.
Then without any further ado, he started to close the door on the surprised man.
About an inch before the door could fully close, the man pressed his foot in between it. Staring deeply at Bai Yunfei from between the crack, the man spoke, “I’m not sure if you heard me, sire. I am here on behalf of the house of Qin from the Swallow Province. Please take note of that.”
“The Qin from the Swallow Province?” Bai Yunfei didn’t even twitch a muscle. “I don’t quite care just who you are. I wish to sit on this airship, so you’d best do the same if you want to go anywhere on it.”
“You!!”
The nerve of this one! He hadn’t thought that a childish brat like Bai Yunfei would have the gall to talk back to him like this. As a Late-stage Soul Exalt, there was no way for him to even sense Bai Yunfei’s strength now that he had hidden it. With that strength hidden, Bai Yunfei looked like just a mere Early-stage Soul Exalt that didn’t know his bounds.
It also seemed like he was alone. The man didn’t see anyone else with the person. Curious and more curious.
“Who might you be, sire?” Asked the man. He wanted to ascertain who Bai Yunfei was in case he was someone important.
“You don’t need to know, stop bothering me.” Bai Yunfei replied icily. Now fed up with the conversation, he moved to closed the door again.
Again, the man was stunned by Bai Yunfei’s actions. But even more surprising was the fact that his right hand—the hand holding onto the door—was slowly being pushed away from it!
“Hey, what’s with your tone? Are you trying to ignore my house of Qin? Are you tired of living?”
A sinisterly-cold voice spoke out to Bai Yunfei from the side, causing him to narrow his eyes with just the slightest bit of anger.
“Second young master.”
The guard immediately let go of the door and bowed to the man when he saw him coming. Retreating two steps away, he gave way for the newcomer so he could stare at Bai Yunfei incredulously.
The young man walked up to Bai Yunfei to stare haughtily at him. ‘Seeing’ how strong Bai Yunfei was, the man snorted. “I am Qin Shoufeng of the house of Qin from the Swallow Province. Who are you, you brat?”
Bai Yunfei felt a little disgusted with how the man was trying to intimidate him, but he was still loathed to listen to such a man. He instead swept his eyes over to the elderly man sitting a little farther away in the main halls.
A disagreeable light entered Qin Shoufeng’s eyes when he realized Bai Yunfei wasn’t even paying attention to him.
“What? Was my compensation too little for you? Fine, I’ll give you three or even four times the compensation. That should be enough for you to train for several dozen days at your level of strength, satisfied?”
“I’m not going to waste my breath talking to you. Give up on whatever thoughts you have.” Bai Yunfei finally spat out in annoyance.
“I’m in a bad mood, don’t annoy me any further.”
Then in front of the amazed eyes of Qin Shoufeng, Bai Yunfei slammed the door shut.
Qin Shoufeng stood there for two whole seconds. Mute and still like a statue, he stared at the door that had just slammed shut in front of him.
He stared daggers at the door, the anger within him reaching a boiling point that left him so infuriated that he slammed his palm onto the door!
“You refused my kindness when I offered it and even talked back to me…you’ll die for that!!”
