What If...I Remember?

Chapter 56

"Your Highness...they have successfully...acquired...the...fungal grass..."

Bai Qian had gasped in shock when Zi Lan had appeared from out of nowhere, appearing in their room in a heap of exhaustion, and Ye Hua had walked in on Bai Qian attempting to shake her Sixteenth Senior Brother awake. "They have gotten the grass?" Bai Qian was more focused on confirming Xuan Nü's whereabouts now that Zi Lan was being attended to by the Medicine King, and Zi Lan gave a slight wheeze of pain as he nodded, "They didn't just get one, Seventeenth...Xuan Nü took two..."

"I guessed that much." Ye Hua sighed, and Bai Qian lifted her head to glance at her husband, "Oh? Why so?" "Because of her son, Qian Qian. Remember? She took Da Ge's body in the hopes of making it into a pill for her son to take in order to recover. She must have taken the second one in the hopes that she can save her son after everything is done." Ye Hua pointed out, recalling how Xuan Nü had been willing to commit crimes in order to resurrect what was left of her son, and Bai Qian's hand crept to her abdomen as she nodded, "That is all that is left to the humane side of her - her motherly instinct. All mothers would do anything for the well-being of their children."

"I have Li Jing's promise of all his men, but there will be a mutiny. There have been murmurs spread, that Qing Cang will return, and I suspect a great half of Li Jing's men will turn against us. That is the least amount of people that will turn against us. We must also factor in the possibility that Qing Cang could manipulate all of the men to join his side, and if that happens, we will be vastly outnumbered."

"No wonder you asked for all of Li Jing''s men..." Bai Qian murmured, "You want to borrow the guise of arresting Xuan Nü to see who is truly loyal to Li Jing and to the Celestials, don't you, Ye Hua? You suspect a rebellion?" "There has always been a rebellion, else Li Yuan would not have had men to support him back then when he hid away in the North Sea. But not all of the rebellion was fished out: Li Yuan only picked a handful of his father's loyal subjects when he fled." Ye Hua paused when Zi Lan gave a slight yowl of pain, and the Kun Lun disciple shook his head, "Nevermind, your Highness. Do continue."

"Things have not been easy for the Ghost Realm. They lost people, power and trust back then, and as a result, many clans and tribes have ended their relationship with the Ghost Tribe. This has caused many of the people - who might not have been strong Qing Cang supporters back then, or might not even have supported Qing Cang back then - have been driven to rebellion by the resentment of no longer being as revered as the Ghost Tribe had been back when Qing Cang ruled over the Ghost Tribe."

"Li Jing is aware of this. He has attempted to extract the traitors once before, when the two of us were in discussion, but the numbers were too great; greater than the amount of people who would be left after we extracted these traitors. We had no choice but to leave them be." Ye Hua took a sip of tea, his throat dry from speaking without a pause, "And so the war will be like its predecessor: Qing Cang, versus the Celestials, versus those that will not allow his atrocity to spread."

"Do not speak ill of it, Ye Hua," Bai Qian spoked in a hushed tone, "It will be a war of terrible loss, if you curse it to be the same as the first war of Ruo Shui Riverbank." "How long do we have, your Highness? To gather men and ready them by Ruo Shui?" Zi Lan interjected before Ye Hua could get carried away by Bai Qian's words, "Xuan Nü will transfer half her cultivation and power to Yan Zhi in no more than two days' time, given that Yan Zhi might need recovery time. If Yan Zhi receives Xuan Nü's cultivation, they will head to Ruo Shui at once, where Xuan Nü will most certainly find out that Yan Zhi is a spy if Yan Zhi refuses to break the seal."

"There is no time to train new soldiers." Ye Hua stated, and both Bai Qian and Zi Lan turned to him in confusion as to where he was headed. "I barely have access to soldiers, for I am only the Crown Prince, not the Heavenly Lord, and although Qing Qiu has promised us men, their style of aiding is to send limited warriors, not soldiers." Ye Hua took a deep breath as he did the maths, calculating the odds of the situation, before he gave a heavy sigh, "I was hoping that there would be another way, but by the looks of it, even if we add Kun Lun disciples into this, the score will not be balanced..."