Chapter 664 - Breaking Under Stress
About five days had passed since the day when the Fen clan agreed to join the alliance.
The overall progress had been steady, and everything had been going well. Even the other members of the merchant council seemed to have stabilized by now and the initial panic after the massacre of the three clans was now mostly gone.
Though Shantung still seemed to be at a loss for what to do next. He had exhausted every means of contacting his backer but had gotten no response. At this point, he was close to believing that it might be his own backer that had massacred the three clans and was now refusing to answer him.
Shantung sat in his clan’s mansion while nervously drinking some wine.
"Patriarch, you need to mediate. So much worrying is not good for you." A man spoke to Shantung.
~tap~
Shantung put the cup of wine on the table with a clack before rubbing his forehead.
"Even if I want to, I can’t... if it really is as everyone is expecting, then our troubles would increase many folds. With the backer changing the stance, we are left between a cliff and a ravine.
If we still decide to stick with them, while we might have a chance to survive, we would also be excommunicated from the merchant council. Not to mention the final intentions of the backer are still unknown to us." Shantung said to the man.
"Then what are we supposed to do, patriarch? As you said, the backer is very powerful, so what does he even want with a place like the Jiao Long city? Even if the merchant council members are based here, that is only because of the safety.
Our actual businesses are all spread across the empire. We don’t even keep our wealth here." The man asked, feeling confused.
Shantung had cold sweat appear on his forehead after hearing the words of the man. For about five minutes, Shantung went silent before letting out a sigh.
~Sigh~
"My son... you might be right. When I was asked to support him, I wasn’t ’asked’ exactly... more like threatened." Shantung answered.
"THREATENED? Why didn’t you tell us so patriarch?" The man, who was evidently the son of Shantung questioned.
Shantung pondered over his words for a few seconds and found them to be reasonable. While they may have to pay some penalties to overcome the initial problems of mistrust with the council members, it will still be better in the long term.
"Good, we shall do that then." Shantung agreed.
~clap~clap~clap~
Just as Shantung said that he was shocked by the sound of someone clapping. He and his son became alert and turned to the source of the sound.
"Who’s there!?" they said in unison.
~shua~
Shantung then saw a handsome man descending from the sky in a nonchalant manner. Seeing this, his eyes went wide as he understood what this meant.
"This... Nascent Soul realm..." Shantung muttered.
"Could it be the backer? Have they come to kill us?" the son of Shantung wondered in shock.
"I have to say Shantung, you son is way smarter than you are... Smart enough that he has saved your clan from being exterminated." Said Lin Mu, who just descend from the sky.
"W-Who are you?" Shantung questioned, feeling unsure.
"Me? I’m here to offer you help... your clan help." Lin Mu answered.
"You’ll help us? But how?" The Son of Shantung questioned.
Lin Mu smiled upon seeing this and gestured to the table, "why don’t we all take a seat? This will take a while..."
***
Lin Mu’s choice of waiting and watching had gone well, and the Shantung had broken under stress. The added pressure from the loss of their spies and no replies from Gu Yao had also made it more problematic for Shantung.
Eventually taking advantage of this, Lin Mu managed to add them to the alliance as well.