Chapter 605: Magical Great Ming (1)
Prefect's residence, Tiandu.
"Ninth prince, Su Yu has entered the city."
"Eighth princess, Su Yu has entered the city."
Outside the main hall, the guards and palace maids were running all over the place, spreading the news of Su Yu's arrival to the princes and princesses in the palace. The psychopath had arrived.
Inside the main hall.
Zhu Tiandao smiled and said, "Everyone, Su Yu has entered the city."
An old man calmly said, "Yeah, yeah. So what? Why did you gather all of us here? Don't tell me you want all of us to greet and welcome him."
That would be a tad bit too excessive, right? No matter how much of a genius Su Yu was, he was still at the Mental Tempering Stage. These people couldn't be bothered to pay that much attention to him. They would be more than happy to leave him alone as long as he left them alone as well. Why did the prefect gather all of them there?
"No. I already sent someone to summon him over. You can all get to know each other since in the future, all of you will be colleagues."
"..."
The others were left speechless. Colleague? Wasn't it too early to say that? Su Yu was still a student.
"Prefect, this isn't appropriate, right?" A burly man frowned and said, "Do you intend to have Su Yu hold an office in Great Ming?"
"There's nothing inappropriate about that." Zhu Tiandao smiled, "He had applied for a promotion to a researcher at Great Xia. I already talked to the people from the Talent Fostering Bureau. Su Yu will be promoted to a researcher soon. Maybe he will be willing to become a member of the Zhu Research Center after the promotion..."
An old man yawned and said, "Sure. Make him a member. After all, he is the creator of the Acupoint Fusion Art. It doesn't matter if it's really his creation since everyone already sees him as its creator. It won't matter to us if he's going to be a member of the Zhu Family's research center either. But Prefect, our research centers are not recruiting at the moment."
They didn't care if Zhu Tiandao wanted to take Su Yu into the Zhu Family's research center. Everything would be fine as long as they were left alone. They did not have the time to entertain that kid.
Zhu Tiandao was feeling somewhat helpless. He said, "Are you aware that for the sake of that kid, the Xia Family nearly fought me? That wasn't because he had defected from Great Xia. Instead, that was because Great Xia regretted letting him go. Don't forget that Great Ming's cultural researchers might be incredible, but they aren't too good in terms of combat."
At that, someone exclaimed in astonishment, "Cultural researchers aren't supposed to be involved in combat anyway! There is a profession for everything. Combat is something warriors should worry about, not cultural researchers."
"Bullshit!"
Zhu Tiandao scolded, "Absolute nonsense! I can forgive you for being lazy, but look at what you did! Look at what you taught our youngsters. Are you not aware of what you did? I want to see if Su Yu's arrival can change some things. I'm warning you, old bastards! If you don't want to fight and work, fine But you're not allowed to meddle with Su Yu's affairs!"
The old men in the room shut their eyes and pretended to hear nothing. Whatever. They honestly didn't care. As for the youngsters, they were free to get involved with Su Yu if they wanted to. These geezers certainly had no intention of involving themselves with Su Yu.
"Su Yu intends to reopen his Source Soul Research Center here." Zhu Tiandao said, "The Talent Fostering Bureau will fund him partially. As for the remaining materials, resources, and manpower, all of you need to help with that..."
"Cough." An old man said, "Prefect, this is inappropriate. It's fine if we fund a part of the costs, but we shouldn't pay for the entire thing. I can't think of a single research center that has been fully funded by outsiders. If you're feeling rich, you're free to fund his research center yourself, Prefect."
Paying for Su Yu's research center with their money? That was not acceptable. The Zhu Family was rich. The prefect should just fund everything himself.
Zhu Tiandao said, "I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about the unique and rare resources that he might need. Everyone, don't think that I'm making a big fuss over nothing. All of you are professionals. You should understand just how useful the Acupoint Fusion Art is. Su Yu told me that he will be working on an aperture fusion art and the source soul acupoint as well. And I believe he might actually succeed in that..."
The people in the hall looked at each other in silence. After a while, someone said, "That...might be acceptable. In truth, a lot of people in Great Ming are also researching similar topics. If he only needs some information, materials, and even some manpower, we can provide him with that. Some of the geezers are going to reach the end of their lifespan soon, right? Just send these dying geezers his way."
"..."
Zhu Tiandao was tired of talking to these people.
The same person coughed awkwardly and added, "They are all knowledgeable professionals. They are simply weak in terms of cultivation. But there's nothing we can do about that. There are a few old fellows who are nearly three hundred years old yet they're still stuck at the Skysoar Realm. They're reaching the end of their lifespan. There's nothing we can do about that. We might as well send them to Su Yu. Who knows? They might receive a burst of enlightenment and enter the Cloudbreach or even the Mountainsea Realm after working with him."
Zhu Tiandao was left speechless. But this was actually quite similar to what he had promised Su Yu. He nodded and said, "Fine. All three cultural research academies shall give me a list of names. I'll see if Su Yu wants those people."
At that moment, his eyes flickered as he noticed something. The old men in the hall also noticed something and looked in a certain direction with amusement. A show was about to unfold. This was what they loved the most!
After all, life had been rather boring as of late. Thus, watching as a drama unfolded would inject some excitement into their boring lives.
***
At the same time.
Outside the prefect's residence.
Su Yu was walking behind a Skysoar guard speechlessly. The guard had been constantly stealing curious glances at him. He felt rather uncomfortable about that as the guard was looking at him like he was an exotic animal.
Finally, he arrived before the massive palace gate. Guards of the Zhu Family could be seen standing on the two sides of the opened gate. There were quite a lot of experts around. Su Yu could even sense some Cloudbreaches among them. But he wasn't too bothered as he was also someone who had experienced a lot. After all, he had seen even dead Sunmoons before.
The Skysoar guard was about to lead Su Yu through the gate when he suddenly exclaimed, "Lord Su, trouble is coming!"
Su Yu blanked out slightly. Trouble? Wasn't this the front door of the Zhu Family? Why would there be trouble here? But next, he noticed about a dozen youngsters walking out of the palace. The oldest among them looked to be around twenty or thirty, while the youngest of them looked to be around four or five years old.
Were these the descendants of Old Zhu? They all looked at Su Yu, each with a different expression. Some looked amazed, some looked curious, some looked gloomy, some looked surprised, and some looked disappointed.
"Eighth Sister, is this the so-called Great Devil King Su? He looks quite fierce."
"Ninth Brother, that's Bai Junsheng's nephew. Is this the person Bai Junsheng used to scare you off?"
"Ninth Brother, can you defeat him?"
"..."
They talked freely among themselves, as though Su Yu was an animal in a zoo instead of a living person standing in front of them. Among the fourth generation of the Zhu Family, only three were from the main branch of the family.
The fourth generation was the generation of Zhu Tiandao's grandchildren, the same generation Xia Huyou was in.
The so-called ninth brother was the ninth child of the fourth generation including those from the branch families. The members of the branch families were those who had descended from the daughters of the Zhu Family. Only those whose fathers were from the Zhu Family were considered the descendants of the main branch.
The members of the branch families did not even share Zhu Tiandao's surname, but they all resided within the palace as well.
Su Yu had done some research on the Zhu Family prior to this, but he still didn't know that much about them.
He gazed at the group of youngsters. Leading the group was a young man and a young woman. Both were quite young. The young man was clearly a descendant of Zhu Tiandao. After all, he had an appearance that was...rather hard to explain with words. Xia Huyou could be considered a little fatty, but this young man was truly huge compared to Xia Huyou.
He was basically obese. He had a large face, an appearance that was known as a robust and prosperous face in the ancient past. As for the young woman, Su Yu suspected that she wasn't actually a member of the Zhu Family. After all, the big fatty was more than twice her size.
These two were the eighth sister and the ninth brother the other children were speaking to earlier. After thinking about it, Su Yu guessed that they were probably the grandson and the granddaughter of Zhu Tiandao.
After staring at each other in silence for a short moment, the fatty who was already gasping for breath after a short walk smiled and said, "Su Yu of Great Xia?"
Su Yu smiled and corrected, "Su Yu of Great Ming."
"Hehe. If you want to put it that way, sure." The fatty smiled and said, "Bai Junsheng said that you're very strong. He claimed that you would beat me to death if I touched him. Su Yu, my grandpa is the prefect. Are you going to beat me to death?"
"..."
Su Yu resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He didn't even know Bai Junsheng. Was he so dumb that he would beat the grandson of the prefect to death right after joining Great Ming?
He remembered that Zhu Tiandao had two grandsons and one granddaughter. The eldest of them was already a Cloudbreach. There was no Cloudbreach in this group so the person speaking to him was probably the younger grandson. This was most likely the person the storyteller had spoken about, Zhu Hongliang.
Zhu Tiandao had a lot of maternal grandchildren as well, but Su Yu had not bothered doing any research about them.
"You misunderstand me, Prince."
Su Yu calmly said, "Bai Junsheng...is he my teacher's cousin?"
"Yes." Zhu Hongliang gnashed his teeth and said, "That shameless scum challenged me to a spar before ambushing me while I wasn't paying attention!"
Su Yu wanted to say that an ambush was probably unnecessary to defeat the person standing before him. He could sense that Zhu Hongliang wasn't too strong. This was only a Mental Tempering Stage cultivator. Meanwhile, Bai Junsheng was supposedly a Skysoar, right?
And Su Yu wasn't too surprised that Zhu Hongliang would be stuck at the Mental Tempering Stage. The Zhu Family had their own foundation cultural art as well. They needed to open 24 apertures to cultivate this art. And most people would opt to open all 24 apertures at the Mental Tempering Stage as it would be much harder to open apertures with a higher cultivation level. Thus, they would generally take a few years before they could finish opening all these apertures.
Thus, it honestly wasn't surprising that a third-stage Bai Junsheng could defeat Zhu Hongliang.
But Su Yu was also quite surprised. He had heard that the father of his teacher was only a Cloudbreach. The patriarch of the family was Bai Feng's uncle. And this Bai Junsheng was probably the son of Bai Feng's uncle. The son of a patriarch actually had the guts to beat up Zhu Hongliang, the grandson of the prefect? What was up with that? Had the Bai patriarch reached the Mountainsea Realm?
Su Yu had not asked about that before, but that was unlikely to be the case.