PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

A couple of people probably affiliated with the force in some way behind Bai Zifeng discreetly approached and helped the three individuals injured by Miao Xiauyue up from the ground before supporting them by helping them leave the scene.

As for the poor bastard whose torso Mei Fei Long almost destroyed, that person was directly taken by the medical personnel present and rushed for emergency treatment; God only knows how long that person would spend in bed.

One last person seemed to hesitate for a couple of moments but finally gathered enough courage to approach the place where Desmond, Mei, and Xiauyue were standing; But instead of talking to them or making some kind of eye contact, this person only picked up Bai Zifeng’s severed fingers before running after him.

That person could have considered themselves lucky that the trio was too lazy to bother with a little fry like him or maybe they just had more important things on their minds.

And as if to emphasize how complicated the power struggle was within the sect, only now the deacon in charge of supervising the duel dared to approach to declare the result, of course with the daughter of the sect master in place, the deacon quickly handed Desmond an Inner Disciple Emblem.

That’s right, as an internal disciple and not an external disciple, seeing her enemies run with their tail between their legs, Miao Xiauyue didn′t hesitate to take advantage of the situation configured by her enemies in her favor, she argued that since Desmond had defeated an internal disciple it was only fair that such was the status that was granted to him; and the deacon without daring to argue with her immediately accepted such arrangements.

Even Desmond had to admit that Miao Xiauyue had quite the ability to handle things, that is clear if his assumptions were correct; in any case, Desmond was more than happy to accept his new status as an internal disciple as it would help him to fulfill his mission.

The problem was Mei Fei Long who was now looking at Desmond with a dangerous combination of doubt, jealousy, and mistrust as her eyes wandered between Desmond and Xiauyue.

.....

It was obvious that Mei noticed long ago that Xiauyue and Desmond had agreed behind her back to handle today’s events. Clearly, that did not make Mei Fei Long very happy who was left behind by her friend and the girl she liked.

Nor is it that Xiauyue and Desmond had any hidden reason to keep Mei in the dark regarding the plans they had today, on the contrary, their motive was quite simple and obvious; Mei Fei Long was a lousy liar.

And it’s not that that was a bad thing, in fact in many cases it would be considered a positive trait, but the entire previous plan was based on acting and deception so involving Mei in it was not only unnecessary but also made it possible that she ended up giving them away by accident.

In the end, Desmond had to spend the way back home apologizing to Mei, the irony was that the more Desmond managed to make Mei smile again, the more intense Xiauyue’s jealousy grew; at some point, Desmond got tired of dealing with these two jealous women who couldn’t even establish a relationship with each other.

Recognizing an opportunity for a strategic retreat Desmond immediately took over the kitchen and turned a deaf ear while he cooked, of course, he also did not miss the opportunity to serve the two ladies a relaxing cup of tea in the hope that they would leave him alone.

It was at times like this that Desmond wanted to curse all those idiots who said it was easy to have a harem, sometimes it was hard to have women around him even when they were just friends; so Desmond could not imagine what torture it must be to have a house full of women with whom he has a romantic relationship.

As for the enormous hypocrisy in his thoughts, Desmond was too lazy to think about it, not that he was an idiot, he knew that his love life was already quite complex and frankly satisfying but he refused to talk about it.

Leaving his love situation in the back of his mind, Desmond began to elaborate some plans to make Mei Fei Long and Miao Xiauyue become a couple, thus managing to live in peace.

Lost in his machinations Desmond focused his efforts on the kitchen as Miao Xiauyue proceeded to explain to Mei about the events that occurred behind the scenes regarding today.

Soon the food arrived and Xiauyue had to admit that he did not expect an intriguing man like Desmond to have any skills in the kitchen but she came to accept that life brings all kinds of surprises.

Having finished the meal, Desmond wasted no time with detours and asked Xiauyue directly: “It should be time for you ladies to explain to me what kind of trouble you are in”

It might be a bit cynical for Desmond to question others about what they were keeping from him but since he had signed up to help both girls deal with people who conspire against them in the dark; Desmond believed that he at least had a right to know why the hell they conspired against them in the first place.

Miao Xiauyue was certainly smart enough to think so far, so she proceeded to explain the source of the problem without any protest on her part.

In the end, it turned out that the reason for all this was as common as it could get, all this was nothing more than a small conflict derived from the power struggle within the sect.

From what Xiauyue told, the sect accepted disciples from all sides but its main forces were made up of the three founding families.

The Miao family possessed the strongest fighters and with their three flagship martial arts, they had stood at the peak of power for a long time.

The Zhu family was the one that possessed the best craftsmen, they were well equipped and possessed great wealth.

The Bai family was the one that had a monopoly on all the medicines collected, refined, consumed, or sold by the sect; his wealth could only be imagined.

These three families had always been the central pillars of the sect, but in addition to cooperating with each other these families also constantly competed with each other.

And although they usually tried to keep the competition as controlled as possible, there were always people who did not want to play by the rules.

Recently those impatient people mounted an assassination attempt against the sect master’s daughter, in other words, they tried to assassinate Miao Xiauyue.

This happened a couple of months ago while some of the core disciples were on a mission outside the sect, they found an opportunity where Xiauyue broke away from the group and tried to use a squad of assassins to get rid of her.

The problem was that they miscalculated two things, the first was Miao Xiauyue’s strength that turned out to be much greater than they expected and the second was the intervention of Mei Fei Long who appeared at the last moment helping Xiauyue to exterminate his attackers.

Having survived Xiauyue was clear that such an attack had to be orchestrated by one of the other families that led the sect but she found no clue that pointed to a culprit much less speak of any kind of evidence.

In fact, Miao Xiauyue already had her own suspicions, mainly directed towards the Bai family whose greedy and dishonest attitude was no secret to anyone; not to mention that the Miao and Zhu families had quite a lot of family and business ties that so the Zhu were the least likely suspect.

After the event, Xiauyue and Mei became closer, establishing a pretty cute friendship since then, of course, Desmond refused to comment on the subject with these women who spoke of friendship when they could not wait to start a romance between them but they were too shy and insecure to do so.

Putting aside his opinion of the pair of beautiful hollow heads, Desmond continued to listen to Xiauyue’s explanation.

Apparently, there were no other attacks or incidents since then but the atmosphere in the sect directed towards Mei Fei Long changed little by little, Xiauyue of course had noticed such a thing but had failed in her efforts to identify the source.

After all these people had stayed in the shadows while gradually exerting their influence by alienating Mei Fei Long who had no background to back her up.

It was there that with the arrival of Desmond came an opportunity, from the point of view of his enemies Desmond was a weakness, a pawn that could be used to teach a lesson to the little brat who had been involved in what she should not.

Little did they know that both Desmond and Xiauyue saw their intentions and planned to use them against them to force them to reveal themselves.

The plan was not perfect but it was worth taking the risk, in the end, Desmond’s unexpected performance in both combat and theatrical skills had managed to successfully provoke the idiot of the Bai family into revealing himself.

“And there begins the second part of the plan” Xiaoyue added at the end of her explanation.