Free Web NovelThe shimmering privacy barrier surrounding the courtyard dissolved into ambient earth Qi as Borum sensed someone approaching the wooden doors. The locks clicked open a moment later and Sera Astor stepped into the lush garden. The silver robed heir carried a thick scroll of parchment and moved with a practiced aristocratic grace. A stern looking elder wearing polished armor followed closely behind her. The older man’s sharp eyes immediately swept over the six guests to assess their threat level.
Li Yu remained seated at the stone table while the three Zhan disciples stood up to offer a standard greeting. He poured himself another cup of bitter tea and watched the elder try to probe his foundation. Li Yu could feel the invisible threads of spiritual sense brushing against his inner world but they slid off his defenses like water falling over polished glass. The elder frowned slightly as his invisible scan yielded no useful information.
"I apologize for the delay," Sera began while unrolling her parchment. "We needed to secure the perimeter and organize the statements from the city guards. I need to take a detailed account of what you witnessed during the crash."
She asked several pointed questions regarding the speed of the carriage, the initial actions of the Thorne guards and the exact words spoken by the arrogant noble son. She maintained a polite and professional tone but Li Yu could clearly hear the underlying intent. She was actively probing them. She wanted to figure out if these wandering cultivators held any hidden grudges against the Thorne Clan or if they were truly random victims caught in a political crossfire.
Zhan Feng provided clear and concise answers while downplaying their own martial abilities. He framed the encounter as a tragic misunderstanding escalated by an unreasonable young master. Once the formal questioning concluded, Sera rolled the parchment back up and offered a stiff nod. She prepared to leave the courtyard to cross reference their statements with the others but she already knew they would never match.
"When exactly can we leave this place?" Li Yu asked while resting his elbows on the stone table. "We are innocent in all this. My companions and I were mere bystanders walking down a public street yet we are being held here like criminals under armed guard."
Sera paused near the doorway and turned back to face him.
"I ask for your patience," Sera replied smoothly. "The political climate of Silverguard City requires us to handle these disputes with extreme care. We cannot simply release you until the Thorne Clan formally drops their grievances."
"We have been sitting in this courtyard for a long time and we were not even offered any food or drinks," Li Yu complained with a heavy sigh. "Is this how the ruling Astor Clan treats their guests? We are guests after right? We have not committed any crimes."
The female heir looked visibly taken aback by the casual complaint and even received any complaint at all in such a situation. Most cultivators trapped in a hostile clan compound possessing an uncertain fate would not have the stomach to eat or drink anything. They would be meditating to preserve their Qi or planning an escape route. Asking for a meal seemed absurd under the current circumstances.
She quickly recovered her composure and offered a slight bow of apology.
"You are correct. It was rude of me to overlook basic hospitality," Sera conceded with a genuine tone. "We have been dealing with the fallout of the street fight but I will ensure proper food and drinks are brought to you immediately."
"Forget it," Li Yu dismissed with a sudden wave of his hand. His tone shifted from aggrieved to entirely dismissive in the blink of an eye. "I have plenty of food and premium drinks stored on me. I will just prepare my own meal and eat that instead. Your cooks probably cannot handle my refined palate anyway."
Sera blinked in confusion. She did not know how to respond to the rapid shift in his attitude. She exchanged a baffled look with her armored elder and turned toward the heavy wooden doors once again. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
Just as her hand reached for the iron handle, Li Yu slammed his palm against the stone table. The loud crack echoed through the quiet garden and startled the fish swimming in the decorative pond.
"Actually, no," Li Yu demanded while standing up from the bench. His eyes narrowed and his voice grew dangerously loud. "I demand that we be released this instant. Open those gates right now or we will simply fight our way out of this compound."
The three Zhan disciples stood frozen in place and stared at Li Yu in sheer bewilderment. They knew he was erratic but this level of unpredictable behavior was jarring even to them. They suddenly remembered the infamous moniker he had earned and had spread throughout the clan. He was not called the ‘Poor Spinning Calamity of Madness’ without good reason and they can understand a bit of how he got such a moniker. He was acting like a true lunatic.
Sera Astor was the most confused person in the courtyard though. In the span of a single conversation, this mysterious young expert had gone from polite to aggrieved, then to dismissive and now he was threatening open warfare. She struggled to find a logical pattern in his actions.
Despite the sudden threat of violence, she still held onto her strict political decorum.
"Please wait just a bit longer," Sera requested. "We are actively sorting these things out with the Thorne elders. A violent breakout will only cause you more trouble."
The armored elder standing beside her did not share her diplomatic restraint. He was visibly angry at the arrogant words spoken by the foreign youth. If the elder could read Li Yu's true cultivation depth and confirm he was weaker, he would have probably attacked already to teach the boy a bloody lesson in respect. However, the fear of the unknown kept his blade sheathed.
Li Yu let the heavy tension hang in the air for three long seconds before his face broke into a bright and cheerful smile. freewebnøvel.coɱ
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"I apologize for losing my temper," Li Yu said with a warm and friendly tone. He sat back down on the stone bench and adjusted his black robes. "We will wait patiently then. Take your time sorting things out."
Sera simply stared at him and she could not understand him at all. She offered a final stiff nod and quickly exited the courtyard with her elder following closely behind her. The wooden doors slammed shut and the defensive arrays hummed back to life.
Zhan Lei let out a long breath and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He looked at Li Yu as if the young man had grown a second head.
"What in the heavens was that?" Zhan Lei asked while gesturing toward the locked doors. "Why did you threaten to break out and then apologize a second later?"
"I was probing her," Li Yu explained while pulling a heavy iron grill from his spatial ring. "I was trying to see what their actual plans or thoughts are based on her reaction to extreme pressure."
"And what did you discover through that madness?" Zhan Ren asked while crossing his arms.
"The fact that she remained nice and polite even when I threatened her guards is very telling," Li Yu noted while setting up a small stone fire pit. "It is highly likely they do not have bad intentions toward us. A clan preparing to execute prisoners would not tolerate such blatant disrespect from a captive."
"That is good news then," Zhan Feng said with a relieved sigh.
"However," Li Yu continued while raising a single finger. "It could also mean she is simply bearing with my insults because they already have a lethal trap prepared for us and she does not want to spring it early."
The three disciples stared at him in dead silence.
"So you found out nothing at all then," Zhan Lei concluded with a deadpan expression.
"Yeah, pretty much," Li Yu agreed while laughing softly. "Since it could be either of those two extremes, I still do not know their true motives. But it was fun to test the waters."
The Zhan disciples could only shake their heads at their terrible luck. To be caught in a volatile political situation was bad enough but to be trapped in a sealed courtyard with this guy of all people felt like a cruel joke played by the heavens.
Li Yu ignored their exhausted sighs and took out his culinary supplies. He summoned a wisp of his orange natal flame and ignited the wood resting beneath the iron grill. He procured a thick cut of spiritual boar meat and several skewers of fresh vegetables from his storage ring. Li Yu then applied the Radiant Crust method he had learned from the Culinary Sovereign and carefully seared the exterior of the meat to lock the spiritual juices inside.
He then spent the next twenty minutes cooking a masterful meal for them. The intoxicating aromas of roasted spices and caramelized fat drifted through the courtyard. The three disciples could not resist the scent, the Zhan Clan members loved to eat. It was partially how they obtained their strong bodies. Their stomachs growled loudly and they eventually abandoned their worries to gather around the grill.
Once the meat had properly rested, Li Yu sliced it into generous portions and handed them out on wooden plates. Everyone sat around the stone table eating and drinking good wine, ale, mead and other drinks that Li Yu took out. The stress of the street fight melted away as the rich flavors washed over their palates.
Just as they were finishing their first plates, the locks on the heavy doors clicked open once again. Sera Astor returned to the courtyard but this time she brought three high ranking elders in tow carrying simple wooden trays holding bowls of plain rice and boiled vegetables.
She had returned with the promised food and drinks but she froze in her tracks when she noticed Li Yu was already eating and actively cooking more meat on his grill.
The aroma filling the courtyard was absolutely intoxicating. It smelled infinitely better than the bare prison food they were serving. Since the captives were just random wandering cultivators, the Astor kitchens did not bother to bring out the good stuff reserved for honored guests.
Li Yu glanced at the bland wooden trays and offered a polite smile.
"I thank you for fulfilling my request from earlier," Li Yu said while turning a skewer over the orange flame. "But you can tell your people to take those trays back to the kitchen. My taste buds would cry tears of genuine sorrow if I ate such things."
The three elders frowned at the casual insult directed at their hospitality but they could not deny the mouth watering scent drifting from the iron grill. Sera looked at the sizzling meat and felt her own stomach rumble slightly. She had spent the entire afternoon arguing with the Thorne Clan and she had missed her meal as well even though she took some pills.
"That smells incredible," Sera admitted while stepping closer to the fire pit. "May I have some of what you are making?"
"Young Miss," the elder standing closest to her hissed quietly. "That is highly inappropriate. We are in the middle of a serious political dispute. We cannot share a meal with the priso-, I mean guests."
Li Yu ignored the strict elder and pulled four hot skewers off the grill. He offered the food up with a welcoming gesture.
"Everyone should sit down," Li Yu told them while pointing toward the empty stone benches. "We are all stuck in this tense situation together right now. We might as well enjoy a good meal while we figure out our next moves."
He walked over and practically stuffed the hot skewers directly into the hands of the surprised elders. The older men tried to maintain their dignified postures but the skewers were so close to their faces that the rich aroma overwhelmed their discipline. The meat was perfectly seared and dripped with savory juices.
One of the elders gave in to the temptation and took a small hesitant bite. His eyes widened slightly as the tender meat melted on his tongue and a burst of refined Qi warmed his meridians. He quickly took a second much larger bite. Seeing their peer indulge, the other two elders abandoned their protests and began eating as well.
With the political tensions temporarily broken by the quality of the food, Li Yu continued cooking for the expanded group. Everyone sat around the tranquil garden while eating the roasted bear and drinking from the ceramic cups. The atmosphere shifted from relatively hostile into a strange and casual picnic.
One of the elders even reached into his own spatial ring and pulled out a sealed jug of premium aged wine from his personal stash. He poured generous cups for everyone at the table to share since the food was so exceptionally good. The elder didn’t know why but he felt comfortable to be in the presence of this young man.
Not much talking was happening during the feast though. The elders were too busy chewing and Sera seemed perfectly content to enjoy the rare culinary treat. Everyone was simply enjoying a fantastic meal together in the middle of a very strange and unexpected encounter.
The three Zhan disciples watched the surreal scene unfold before their eyes. They watched the elders of the ruling clan happily drinking wine and eating skewers handed to them by their captive.
They noted in their own minds that Li Yu truly was mad. Who else in the entire Myriad Realms would act like this during a tense political imprisonment? Perhaps only Li Yu could navigate a hostage situation by forcing his captors to attend a barbecue in the middle of the day.
