Chapter 745: Only Owes the East Wind (3/10, please subscribe)

"Th-that's because they didn't have sufficient reason."

Dou Hongyi's voice trembled as she said softly, "The temperaments of those people up top are mostly the same—when there's no benefit, they won't lift a finger. More action means more mistakes, less action means no mistakes, protect yourself—that's how most of the higher-ups operate, with few exceptions. If Lord Ye can truly provide an opportunity to annihilate the Phoenix Organization, those people would certainly be very willing to cooperate with Lord Ye."

Fang Yue glanced at Dou Hongyi in surprise.

Although this fellow had abandoned Captain Wu and run, leaving Fang Yue somewhat displeased with him.

But Fang Yue knew clearly in his heart that even if this fellow had truly stayed put, he wouldn't have been of much use—at most he'd just be adding another corpse to the ground.

The strength of the Ox Seat was far beyond what Dou Hongyi could contend with.

Based on what Dou Hongyi said, whether they could find an opportunity to annihilate the Phoenix Organization depended on what they harvested here.

Although the Ox Seat and his people had retreated in a panic, looking at their actions before and after, it seemed they had long been prepared.

It wasn't that they had long foreseen the Ox Seat's death, but rather that they had long prepared two contingency plans, Plan A and Plan B, for how to handle a failed situation.

Under these circumstances, how much useful information could still be found at the Phoenix Organization's base remained to be verified.

That said, Fang Yue and the others still spread out to search.

Only Dou Hongyi went back to call for people to come help.

The people he had brought had all died at the hands of the Ox Seat.

To thoroughly search such a large underground base, relying solely on Fang Yue and the others, the manpower was severely insufficient.

Fortunately, not long after, Dou Hongyi brought a large batch of people.

After Fang Yue spoke, they quickly got to work.

If it had been Dou Hongyi, this batch of people might still have had some petty schemes in mind.

But seeing that Fang Yue was leading, everyone immediately got down to honest work.

Fang Yue had fought his way from the Wu Jue arena tournament, to Tian Wangchuan's flight, to the eerie retreat, to the Ox Seat's death.

Every step along the way, they had witnessed it with their own eyes.

Under these circumstances, who would dare be so blind as to provoke Fang Yue?

Although... the supplies left behind in the Phoenix Organization were truly enviable!

A group of people moved about the Phoenix Organization base, piling up the supplies they found outside, waiting for others to haul them to Chunuan City.

Chunuan City had been mostly destroyed, everything needed to be rebuilt from scratch—these resources would all become important capital for reconstruction.

And this merit would be reported up, then recorded into Fang Yue's merit log.

"Lord Ye, is this really alright? Your identity is..."

Dou Hongyi still thought Fang Yue was a Rain-level powerhouse.

No more pretending, I'm laying my cards on the table—I'm Yese Liming, a slacker in the Green Division!

With his identity exposed, Dou Hongyi was utterly shocked.

"But, but the Night Rain above your head..."

The black ring above Fang Yue's head had shrunk once again, returning to its original size, only drenching Fang Yue alone.

Only the speed and scale of the Night Rain was fixed at the level of 【Medium Rain】.

In the daytime without Night's Breath, even Fang Yue could only live a life of popping pills.

Fortunately, the pill stockpiles looted from the Phoenix Organization base were quite abundant, more than enough for Fang Yue to replenish his little treasury.

Fang Yue had come to realize that since Qingsi County, the black ring above his head—the 【Black Rain】 curse—seemed to have developed a consciousness of its own.

When Fang Yue encountered a crisis, it would begin to intensify the Night Rain's strength, kicking a man when he's down, finishing off a drowning dog.

And when Fang Yue weathered the crisis, the black ring would shrink, as if storing up strength, waiting for the next opportunity.

At the same time, no matter what, the 【Black Rain】 curse's intensity would only grow higher and higher, the 【Night Rain】 unceasing, and one day it would kill him!

In fact, any warrior who wasn't Rain-level facing this kind of curse would almost certainly find it unsolvable.

Without Night's Breath, Fang Yue simply couldn't withstand the erosion of 【Night Rain】.

Even if Night's Breath didn't have the effect of restoring drug resistance, just popping pills alone would have killed Fang Yue by now.

Fortunately, he could still endure it for now, but he was already probing the very edge of his pill-popping limit.

Once the Night Rain evolved into Heavy Rain, Downpour, or Fierce Rain, Fang Yue would have no power to resist.

"Rain-level... I must reach Rain-level as soon as possible, or find the 【Thousand Ballad Palace】 that Meiyu Xianzi mentioned to seek help and lift the curse!"

As for the Unknown Ghost Curse beside the 【Black Rain】 curse, which had never manifested, Fang Yue didn't really take it to heart.

For one, this thing hadn't even shown its status—he had no idea what it was.

For another, aside from once briefly making him lose control and become more bloodthirsty, it seemed to have done nothing else.

Perhaps that lord at 【Thousand Ballad Palace】 could help him see something? After all, that was someone who could even resolve the Black Rain curse—handling this small, unmanifested curse should be even easier, right?

On the other side, after understanding the situation, Dou Hongyi recorded all the merits from Chunuan City under Fang Yue's name.

Of course, Fang Yue didn't reveal too much to him either, just telling him not to keep misunderstanding.

The Green Division's merits were still very useful.

Besides exchanging for supplies like martial arts, eerie objects, and materials, one could also spend merits to hire people to act!

The latter was what Fang Yue currently valued most.

He was going to Qing Cheng to rescue someone—if a master lent a hand, the success rate would be greatly increased.

Of course, good steel should be used on the blade's edge—everything would wait until they reached Qing Cheng before deciding; there was no rush for now.

"Lord Ye! Lord Ye, th-there's a harvest!"

Yang Hongxia, with bandages wrapped around her head, excitedly ran over in a hurry, an envelope still in her hand.

Although she had suffered a heavy blow to the head, after treatment she had already recovered somewhat.

Hearing that Fang Yue needed help here, she came despite her injuries.

Behind her followed Mang Liuzi, ensuring her safety.

"What harvest?"

Fang Yue took the envelope without much interest.

He had already seen over a dozen letters like this; none contained anything particularly valuable. Most were related to Chunuan City, and some even recorded a certain year's financial situation and the like.

The contents were extremely scattered and incomplete; some were even incomprehensible, lacking any continuous context.

But the letter Yang Hongxia had found this time was a little different from those previous ones.

How to put it... just holding it gave off a sense of luxury; the texture was very pleasant, worlds apart from the rough feel of the previous dozen or so envelopes.

"To Brother Niu, personally opened."

On the envelope were written four characters in flamboyant, vigorous strokes — if one didn't look closely, one might mistake them for some sort of doodle.

Flashy and showy.

Opening the envelope, inside were written only eight large characters, along with a signature.

"Everything is ready, only the east wind is missing. — Qing Qianyang."

Those eight characters didn't stir much feeling in Fang Yue, but the moment he saw the signature at the bottom, his whole mind went buzz and went blank.

Qing Qianyang?!

The current Great Imperial Prince of Qing Guo??

(End of this chapter)