In the Imperial Palace's grand hall, Emperor Liu Zhengyuan, General Wu Zhenglong, and a host of trusted ministers were already waiting.
But they waited for a long time.
It was already past the scheduled meeting time, yet no one had arrived.
"This is outrageous!"
Wu Zhenglong frowned, "I heard that brat surnamed Li caused trouble at the Royal Academy this morning, and now he's not showing up. He's clearly trying to provoke us. If I had been there, I would have taught him a good lesson!"
Liu Zhengyuan glanced sideways, teasing, "Oh? It seems General Wu is quite confident against General Du Wei as well?"
"Uh..."
Wu Zhenglong shivered, unable to speak.
"But Your Majesty, is this meeting really necessary?"
At this moment, a minister couldn't help but ask, "Are you truly considering their proposal?"
"No, it's just a formality!"
Liu Zhengyuan said, "But I want to use this to gauge their attitude, to see if anything worse might happen later!"
"Anything worse..."
The ministers' expressions changed drastically.
Wu Zhenglong's expression also became solemn as he realized, "Your Majesty means Beiwei Country will send troops?"
"If they do nothing, I'd truly be worried."
Liu Zhengyuan nodded, but then added, "However, it seems for now they won't. Li Yun going to the Royal Academy is a signal, probably to show that we can choose not to cooperate with them, but we also cannot have any contact with West Shu or East Wu!"
"It seems the war between them is imminent!"
Liu Zhengyuan said with a sigh of emotion, "I just didn't expect that Li Yun alone could challenge most of the academy's students!"
A minister quickly consoled him, "Your Majesty, there's no need to worry. A portion of the powerful Heavenly Rank students from the academy are out on practical training with their mentors. Even those who remained mostly weren't present. If they had been there, the outcome might have been different!"
"I hope so!"
Liu Zhengyuan nodded slightly.
"Your Majesty, I have an urgent report!"
"Speak!"
"That envoy from Beiwei Country, Li Yun, was...".
At this moment, someone suddenly came to report, explaining how Li Yun had been injured. General Du Wei and Li Yun had no intention of coming for the audience now and had already left.
"This..."
Upon hearing this, everyone present was stunned, then their expressions turned strange.
Liu Zhengyuan couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure the one who injured Li Yun was just the owner of a small shop in the city called an Internet Cafe?"
"Yes!"
Liu Zhengyuan immediately fell into deep thought.
"Marvelous, simply marvelous!"
Wu Zhenglong, on the side, laughed heartily, "Your Majesty, this also lets those two from Beiwei Country know that our Feiyun Country is full of talented individuals and hidden masters, not to be trifled with. You see, now they know it's not good to come here and lose face, so they slinked away themselves, haha!"
Liu Zhengyuan's brows also relaxed slightly, but at this moment, he noticed that the messenger hadn't left yet, seemingly having something more to say but hesitating.
Liu Zhengyuan asked, "Is there anything else?"
The messenger hesitated for a moment before saying, "Your Majesty, I heard that when the incident occurred, His Highness was also in that shop!"
"Chengfeng?"
Liu Zhengyuan was startled and asked, "Is today his day off from the academy?"
"No, but after investigation, it was found that His Highness seems to go to that small shop called the Internet Cafe every day recently, and he hasn't even attended his classes..."
"Hmm?"
Liu Zhengyuan's recently relaxed expression tightened, a hint of anger mixed in his brows, but he quickly regained his composure and nodded.
"Good, I understand. You may leave!"
With so many people still present, and him not knowing the exact situation, he didn't want to cause any embarrassment, so he remained expressionless, simply making a mental note of the matter.
...
Approaching dusk.
The sky gradually darkened.
A young servant in green entered the Internet Cafe and approached Su Ran at the counter, but he wasn't a customer looking to use a computer.
"You're saying Li Yun asked you to give this to me?"
"Yes, Young Master Li said that during the Martial Arts duel, only the wager if he won was discussed, not if he lost. So he asked me to deliver this item and also to tell the boss that he would visit again when he had the chance!"
After speaking, the servant left.
Su Ran then examined the white jade porcelain bottle in his hand.
As he pulled out the stopper, a sweet medicinal aroma instantly surged out, accompanied by a large amount of dense Martial Qi. Inside the bottle were ten brownish-red pills.
"Oh!"
"What a strong medicinal aroma!"
At this moment, Ouyang Qing, Dugu Mu, and Oriental Bright, who had come over to find Su Ran, were all attracted by the scent of the pills and looked over, instantly dumbfounded.
"Holy moly, Boss, what you're holding there is... a cultivation pill?"
Su Ran, however, countered, "Are these pills very precious?"
Ouyang Qing's eyes widened, "Precious? They're practically priceless!"
Dugu Mu also nodded, "It's well known that besides innate talent and arduous training, martial artists can only rely on pills refined from rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures to accelerate their cultivation."
Dugu Mu paused here, then suddenly realized that such common knowledge was only relevant before coming to the Internet Cafe, so he added, "Of course, now you can also come to your place, Boss, to play games and improve your cultivation!"
After saying that, he continued his previous topic, "But how easy is it to obtain heavenly materials and earthly treasures? Looking at the quality, scent, and the density of Martial Qi of the pills in your hand, Boss, they are absolutely extraordinary. One pill alone would probably sell for millions of gold!"
"One pill for a million gold?"
Upon hearing this, Su Ran was somewhat interested and expectant about the pills in his hand, but after communicating with the system, his expression instantly turned to disappointment, and he casually handed them over.
"They're for you guys!"
"Ah?"
Ouyang Qing and the other two were stunned, not daring to take them, feeling a bit bewildered.
Such a bottle of rare pills, worth tens of millions of gold, just given away so casually?
Boss, even if you're squandering money, you're not supposed to squander it like this, right?
Even they, the three of them, wouldn't dare to play like this!
But they didn't know that these pills were indeed useless to Su Ran.
Su Ran himself didn't need to cultivate, and after hearing how precious these pills were, his first thought was whether he could sell them for money and exchange them for contribution points.
Unfortunately, the reply he received was: [Profit-making projects unrelated to the Internet Cafe's operation and development cannot be exchanged for contribution points].
So he lost all interest in these pills.
At this point, seeing that the three of them didn't dare to take them, he could only put them away casually.
However, thinking of Li Yun's action, Su Ran did remember this 'player' who wasn't quite a player yet.