Cohabitation with Sword Spirit-Chapter 329 - 66: Keeping You Guessing

February 12, 2018, noon

In the office of Deputy City Lord Shen Jinghai within Shen City Inner City, his young and talented secretary B reported his work situation to Shen Jinghai with a dejected and guilty expression.

"Lord Jinghai, this is the whole course of events... It was my incompetence and confusion that caused such a severe financial loss, wasting a hundred thousand spirit stones on a matter that could have been resolved with only a few thousand. I am willing to take full responsibility for this."

Shen Jinghai sat behind his desk, saying nothing as he looked at his secretary B, which soon caused the young man to break out in a cold sweat, even beginning to regret why he confessed everything so clearly to his leader.

If he hadn’t spoken, who would have thought there were such underhanded methods as hiring an idol group for a commercial performance? Who would have known that the hundred thousand spirit stone expenditure could have been avoided?

If he hadn’t spoken, he could still be considered a hero tasked with a critical mission, assisting the Deputy City Lord to solve problems, rather than a fool who caused unnecessary losses for the family.

However, being a young talent who graduated with outstanding grades from the Shen Family Outer Courtyard, Secretary B knew very well that poor performance was merely a matter of ability or luck, but concealing the truth from the leader was a matter of principle. Especially in the secretary work directly facing the leadership, concealing important situations was an absolute taboo.

So even if it was tough to face, Secretary B honestly explained the situation.

Shen Jinghai was not angry upon hearing this and pondered for a moment before asking, "Do you think, without this hundred thousand spirit stones paving the way, Shen Qingming would have accepted the commercial performance invitation? Given her attitude towards the Shen Family at the time, with her status as the champion of the Cyan Cloud contest and the Li Family’s little princess, would she care about one or two thousand spirit stones in performance fees?"

Secretary B was momentarily taken aback upon hearing this.

"Moreover, the likelihood of someone attending if given two thousand spirit stones is completely different from offering a hundred thousand spirit stones, and we cannot allow any error in this matter. You did nothing wrong; for critical matters, cleverness cannot be permitted."

After speaking, Shen Jinghai waved his hand, indicating that Secretary B could leave.

Once Secretary B left, Shen Jinghai slightly furrowed his brows, exhaling deeply.

Things were, of course, not as simple as they appeared, but some words were not necessary for the secretary to know.

The check for a hundred thousand spirit stones was not covered by public funds; it was paid out of his own pocket, almost depleting his investment returns of the past two years.

However, it was a necessary expense.

The development of the situation to this point was fundamentally because he misinterpreted the intentions of his superior, mistakenly believing that the City Lord genuinely wanted to keep the Li Family out. Thus, he arranged a series of cold receptions to continually wear down the patience of the Li Family. It was only after their patience was completely eroded that he realized he had been utterly misaligned from the beginning.

This was also the harmful effect of habitual thinking. Over the past twenty years, in Shen Jinghai’s eyes, the City Lord was just as his name suggested—a typical Shen Family member who was as steadfast as a rock. What he decided was difficult to retract even by the Sect Leader of the Saint Sect. After Li Fengyun abducted his beloved daughter Shen Yue’e twenty years ago, further severing father-daughter relations, the Li Family was permanently blacklisted by Shen Ruoshi.

In Shen Jinghai’s view, this was an irreconcilable conflict, only possibly alleviated once the City Lord retired and a new generation took over the position. At this time, the conditions were far from ripe; the Li Family was truly impatient. The most they could do was gradually change the ingrained impressions among the younger generation of the Shen Family and then break the ice after decades or a century—in this light, Shen Jinghai directly placed them in the Shen Family Outer Courtyard.

Shen Jinghai always thought his approach was error-free, perfectly aligning with the City Lord’s needs. However... it was only later that he realized that, as a member of the Shen Family, what one says, displays, and thinks are often completely different.

Just like himself, after ten years of blind dates, rejecting one slightly flawed woman after another, he thought he would spend his life alone as the City Lord’s right-hand man, eventually, he fell into a tenderness he had never imagined... Therefore, by analogy, perhaps the City Lord’s insistence also concealed different thoughts behind it?

Understanding this point made Shen Jinghai realize how absurdly wrong he was before.

And at this moment, what Shen Jinghai had to do was to spare no effort to remedy his mistakes to restore his position in the City Lord’s mind.

Being the right-hand man of the City Lord of Shen City is not an easy position to hold; it is a position where one cannot afford to slack off. Doing a hundred things right may not advance further, but making one mistake could result in losing the position. There is absolutely no excuse for complacency due to the high status and power. On the contrary, being in the position of the right-hand man requires continuous attention to the City Lord’s needs, without any slack. Oftentimes, work attitude is more important than capability.

Therefore, Shen Jinghai wanted to use his personal wealth of a hundred thousand spirit stones to demonstrate his remedial attitude, believing that such an attitude could somewhat appease the City Lord’s dissatisfaction.

Next, he must ensure that the hundred thousand spirit stones are well-spent, not wasted. The Outer Courtyard’s contest in two days needs meticulous planning.

On the one hand, he must ensure that all five spots fall into the hands of the Li Family, or at least one is secured for Shen Qingming. On the other hand, the face of the Outer Courtyard cannot be disregarded, as it bears the future of the Shen Family, so how to specifically arrange this work requires considerable thought.

——

At the same time, in the Shen Family Outer Courtyard, over a hundred members of the Shen Family were already gearing up, eager to give it a try.

The opportunity to avenge their past humiliation had finally arrived!

A month ago, the Li Family, with great fanfare, entered the Shen Family Outer Courtyard, sweeping aside the elite cultivators of the Shen Family, and then swaggered off, leaving behind a mess.

Since then, the Shen Family felt both genuine admiration for the skills of the Li Family and an impatience for revenge. Now that the opportunity was in front of them, they would naturally do their utmost to seize it.

On this day, during a short lunch break, the cultivators of the Shen Family gathered under the shade of trees next to the training ground to discuss strategies for two days later.

"So, have you figured out the competition rules?" a tall and skinny young man impatiently asked.

The asked young man shook his head helplessly, "Not yet. I’ve bothered the instructor several times, but he keeps saying he doesn’t know and we have to wait for the notification."

The tall, skinny young man stroked his chin, "If even Brother Feihu couldn’t get an answer, it seems the scar-faced man truly doesn’t know. I wonder how the higher-ups are planning to design the rules to select 5 out of over a hundred people this time."

A young girl said, "It should be like the Shen City competition—group eliminations, gradually advancing to select the top five. In the past, our Outer Courtyard has used this method to rank contestants several times."

Shen Feihu smiled and said, "This time, it probably won’t be arranged like that. It would be too unfair to the Li Family."

This kind of format, where over a hundred people are divided into dozens of groups for head-to-head battles, progressively advancing, would clearly be very disadvantageous to a minority like the Li Family. The cultivators of the Shen Family Outer Courtyard could work together to target each member of the Li Family effectively.

The girl retorted, "How else would it be fair? Shouldn’t it be fair only if their 5 people have the same weight as our over a hundred people?"

Shen Feihu chuckled and said, "Not exactly. It would be fair if their five people were more important than our over a hundred people."

These words left everyone present somewhat puzzled.

Shen Feihu said, "It’s just my opinion, you can take it or leave it, don’t take it too seriously."

Before he finished speaking, he felt the gaze of over a hundred pairs of eyes focused more intently on him.

For this, Shen Feihu could only give a wry smile, secretly blaming himself for not being able to resist the urge to show off unnecessarily... But since he had already started, he couldn’t stop abruptly, so he had to continue.

"The invitation to this birthday banquet has been strange from the beginning. Saying that the centennial birthday banquet is different from usual and us juniors have no right to attend—that’s understandable, I think it’s normal. But the arrangement was too abrupt, as if it were a last-minute decision, which is strange. Currently, the one in charge of preparing for the birthday banquet is Deputy City Lord Shen Jinghai, and looking at his usual style, anything related to Lord City Lord is always arranged in an orderly manner, planning ahead. When has there ever been such a hasty and sudden arrangement?"

This analysis made sense. The centennial birthday banquet for Lord City Lord had started preparing a year in advance. At that time, Shen Jinghai had already considered many things thoroughly. Now, suddenly saying that the number of attendees is limited is indeed odd.

"Then there are 5 slots for attending the banquet. And how many people are in the Li Family delegation? Also 5 people! This kind of custom-made number of slots doesn’t seem to be a complete coincidence. Finally, an outer courtyard competition where the Li Family participates—while it makes sense since they trained in the outer courtyard, it still feels a bit forced."

After these three points of analysis, a brief silence fell under the tree.

Because following Shen Feihu’s line of thinking, the conclusion was indeed evident.

"The higher-ups intend to... take this opportunity to deliberately give the banquet slots to the Li Family?!"

"Why?!"

"What’s the purpose of this?!"

Shen Feihu shrugged, "I’m not Shen Jinghai; I can’t say for sure what the purpose is. But if we are just speculating, I think we might as well think positively: this obvious provocation is intended to inspire us to show the spirit of the Shen Family and avenge past humiliations."

"I see, the family’s intention was for us to demonstrate the spirit of the Shen Family, to face strong opponents head-on..."

Shen Feihu quickly interrupted before enthusiasm could build, "What I’m trying to say is, if we follow this line of reasoning, the competition rules will certainly favor the Li Family. Only then can we find ourselves in a disadvantageous position, requiring the courage to fight with our backs against the wall. And to make 5 people relatively favorable against 100 people, the most likely method should be..."