At that point, most of the Youjin clan members had finished reading and signing the contract. Even the fool Youjin Ze acquiesced, though he didn’t stop grumbling. Maque knew it was only for show. No way one could be an elder of the Youjin clan and not know what such a contract entailed.

Youjin Liu ordered one of his subordinates to summon the three other houtian 2nd realm elders present in the city, along with all other essential personnel of the clan. Ziyou Yung required a full guarantee, and the Youjin clan needed to show they stood unified, including Youjin Chun and all other branch line heirs, like Youjin Hong. Although the people who were current members of the various sects weren’t present, Youjin Liu guaranteed on his honour it would not be an issue, since the clans-people part of sects had given up their right to inherit actual clan leadership positions. Maque would trust such a promise, knowing the good patriarch.

In the meantime,

“This might be sudden, Uncle Maque, but sign here.” Ziyou Yung handed him the blood-red scroll.

Maque looked at him with eyebrows raised.

“Read it.”

He took the scroll like it was a hot potato made out of molten gold, and read it letter by letter.

It wasn’t a contract addressed only to the Youjin Clan. Maque released a sigh of relief. His trust in Yung was not betrayed.

“You want me to be an observer?” Maque asked. “That’ll give me equal authority to Youjin Liu in all this, lad; you must understand this.”

“Yeah, after all,” Ziyou Yung said, “who would trust guys like Youjin Ze to keep their promise. I’ll bet all my shoes that he’s scheming how to abuse the contract in his favour. There’s a limit to how specific I can make the terms. I need someone to check and balance the Youjin clan. The only one I can rely on here is you.”

“I knew my instincts weren’t wrong.” Maque grinned. He noted that Ziyou Yung used rely on and not trust.

“I’m a madlander.” Ziyou Yung said, “I can’t accept my people being treated like trash just because of our skin colour.”

Maque would have cried if he had believed that. Because the existing prejudice against their people had so much more to it than just skin colour. Madlanders weren’t all saints after all.

But no doubt Ziyou Yung’s words were partially true, a noble dream. But one had to be realistic. His instincts screamed that there was something more Ziyou Yung was hiding. That they’d be used like rag dolls. He touched his scar.

Then I’ll see this through! Maybe I can reach the spark formation realm yet with Young Yung’s golden thigh. Ha, Ha-ha!

The houtian 3rd realm of body cultivation had always been an unreal dream to Maque. But with the resources he would get as the observer of the blood spirit contract, his deeply hidden ambition blazed into being.

***

After all the relevant participants had blood signed the scroll, Yung took out a lesser spirit stone. The lowest quality and denomination of this world's most basic unit of both currency and energy. Ten of these made a coppercast spirit stone, and a hundred made bronzecast. Floofy had exchanged the ironcast spirit stone with Ziyou Maque for the squid flower, which was worth a thousand. On the other hand, the steelcast unit that she had bartered with Youjin Liu for the houtian 2nd order fiend skull was valued at ten thousand. Yung's brows twitched.

Is a lesser spirit stone really enough for this? Miss Yafeng did say that the scroll has its own qi source, and the lesser spirit stone would only act as a jump-start. Still, feels weird for something that’s supposed to write stuff on your spirit root…

Yung held the spirit stone to the scroll’s centre. There was a circle of golden ink, an array of unknown sorts.

The qi from the spirit stone drained like water gushing out. The scroll glowed red, and Yung felt a strange warmth settling into his spirit root.

What’s this?

Yung activated link sight. He noticed several null threads connecting the scroll to all those who had signed, turning blood red, then violet, finally settling into a neon crimson of low opacity. Like threads of crystal rubies.

This wasn’t the case for the null threads connected to those who did not sign, like the servants.

The scroll in Yung’s hand flickered, then broke into pieces of paper formed by a mysterious qi. The pieces solidified, numbering the same as each signer. One copy for each.

Quite modern. Not what I expected of a medieval oriental culture….

Yung shook the thought away.

“That’s that, then,” Yung said.

Youjin Liu nodded. The man was quite tired. He had to convince his fellow clan elders that the clause where ‘Yung or the Su fox clan could unilaterally void the contract if they felt the Youjin clan did not live up to their promise’ was totally reasonable.

Yung would never let go of that freedom, as it would be the Damocles’ Sword hanging over the Youjin clan’s right to be scammed by the Su fox clan.

He liked that explanation. If Yung or some record keeper on the Su fox clan’s side decided the Youjin clan did not do the blood spirit contract justice, they would dissolve their copy and thus would vanish the others too.

This was not the same as any contracting party choosing to actively go against the terms, which would have tangible backlashes to their spirit root and cultivation base. Though for a houtian 1st grade contract, it was something a good month of rest could heal even for the weakest.

Yung also worried about over-fitting the terms to be too specific. Su Yafeng dispelled that worry, saying the blood spirit contract wasn't some omnipotent, immortal emperor that could judge each person's intentionality in real-time, along with the consequences of each action.

The Su fox clan blood spirit contract worked in mysterious ways. Take it or leave it.

Yung raised his arms above his head and stretched. Waiting for the rest of the signers on the Youjin clan’s side to arrive had been a bore. He let Silky out, immediately attracting murmurs from the Youjin.

“It’s really Lord Yaoguai….”

“I cannot believe this. To actually choose a madlander.”

“Does this mean we can get the foxmoths back?”

“Ziyou Yung, shall we talk about our next move?” Youjin Liu eyed Silky thoughtfully.

“We recover the foxmoths from the Warring twilight forest,” Yung said matter of factly.

“The Youjin clan has earned far more than we could have imagined in this deal. Let me ask this.” Youjin Liu brought out his copy of the contract from his spatial artefact, “With this scroll, we can eventually become independent of the Dim gold foxmoths and the silk trade. Frankly speaking, we don’t need them any more.”

“You are wrong. Every last person in Dim gold city needs them. It’s simple, really.” Yung said, “Recovering the foxmoths is integral to the continued existence of the blood spirit contract.”

“It is not written in the clause.” Youjin Chun asked.

“Hence, why I can unilaterally dissolve the contract in case you people get any funny ideas.” Yung smiled. “The scroll also has a space limit, Youjin Chun. Some things must be implied.”

“Such as how we must implement all the terms, with this… this… Fortune fox totem as the insignia?” Youjin Chun pointed at Yung’s drawing with a sour expression.

Why even ask? She was fishing for information, but Yung didn’t want to play. He huffed and turned towards Youjin Liu.

The good patriarch took over the conversation, “Lord Yaoguai does not look keen to return, however. It is spitting silk on me quite angrily.” Youjin Liu brushed off the thin strands Silky shot his way.

“Silky! Stop that. Don’t do it in public!” Yung did not even know Silky could use string shot. He brought the unruly foxmoth under control and put it in Su Xiya’s paws.

“Silky will do what I say.” I have to bribe him quite heavily though. “Can you guess why I am even going through such trouble, taking such a roundabout way to save the foxmoths, Patriarch Liu, when I will probably leave the city not too far in the future? I even handed the Youjin clan the key to the kingdom to that end! So why do you think getting the foxmoths back is an absolute must to not only your clan’s interests and future survival, but even Uncle Maque’s gang's, and myself too?”

It was a question Yung had wanted to ask long before. He did not want to be unrealistic in judging the ethics of the native inhabitants, but he did not want to mindlessly distrust them either. But Yung wanted to know which mode these influential people's psyches operated in default. Selfish or compassionate. Though he could hazard a guess, he needed confirmation.

There was a bustle about how rude Yung was for such aggressive questioning. Youjin Ze was positively sizzling, but Patriarch Liu could only show a hapless expression.

“I doubt it is some manner of strange revenge because someone had the gall to appropriate your grandfather’s inheritance. Lift us up to the sky, make us completely dependent on your whims, then let us fall rock bottom at a later date by suddenly dissolving the contract.” Youjin Liu shrugged as he said that. It was meant for the Youjin clan to hear, not Yung. “In which case, we would have to go back to our reliance on the foxmoths. Yet the foxmoths will obey Lord Yaoguai, not the Youjin clan. And he has a grudge. Were you so unreserved, this leverage would be excellent as a contingency against, say, unruly clan members who would seek to harm you in the future.”

He’s testing me in the guise of offering help. Heh. Yung mused. He didn’t like how Youjin Liu answered with a non-answer. It was a probing statement. They don’t know that the foxmoth tribe stopped worshipping Silky and now worshipped Nyanya’s foxball. They don’t need to know that.

“How crude. Do I look like such a cruel person?” Yung said. He did not hesitate to show Youjin Ze an evil smile while sticking out his tongue. The elder had gone awfully quiet, voicing no insults. But that red face told no lies.

“Then is it to earn ye more faith qi than you can swallow from both the uptowners and the madlanders?” Ziyou Maque answered from the side. If he was unhappy about the notion, he did not show it. “I didn’t expect you to kill two snakes with one stone.”

“That may be a factor, Uncle Maque. But there are better ways to do it if I wanted solely that. I am not short-sighted enough to kill the golden goose after it lays one egg, and I believe neither are you.” Yung said. Oh, there are so many more snakes that are gonna die.

More guesses came after that, but they all were a variation of Yung wanting this or that for xinqi, money, or authority.

So at the end of the day, they all think I am doing this for utter selfishness. Man, I kinda knew it, but still, a bummer that not even one person considered me setting this up for humanitarian reasons. It was even written in the scroll…

These people did not even consider that helping the madlanders and the mundanes of Dim gold city could be Yung’s number one priority. He then remembered a quote he had read. Judge people not by the common sense of the future but by the common sense of their time.

Yung would change that common sense, one way or another, little by little. He actually hated to pose leading questions as he was doing now. But better to not outright lie. Let the audience reach their own conclusion. That would hurt his highly individualistic and subjective moral code less.

Yung frowned but let go of the discomfort. He must do what was necessary for his own survival above all… And above all, he hated seeing young children eating roadside scraps. Seeing people treated like untouchables based on caste, colour, and cultivation. Seeing the masters remain so unrepentant after screwing up the lives of their slaves.

“Finding Fairy Su’s foxball, then. Wait. Do the foxmoths have anything to do with the missing artefact? Did they steal it from the fox clan? No, of course not. Then do you perhaps want to command the foxmoths to scour the forest with Lord Yaoguai’s help? To search for it as your eyes and ears.” Youjin Chun was the final one to speak up.

Yung did not like Youjin Chun. Because of her haughtiness? Her history with Youjin Chao? It was strange really, for one person to get under his skin like that. But then this annoying girl had gone and guessed by complete coincidence, that the foxmoths had the foxball!

Yung needed to stir the conversation away.

“The foxmoths did not steal anything,” he said. “Fairy Nanya ordered me to use my own strength to find the foxball, and using the foxmoths could help with that. But do you think these weak creatures can survive long in the forest by themselves? I am doing all this to save them from where they are trapped now. Why would I want to push them to their deaths again after doing that?”

Youjin Chun mumbled something about madlander tendencies, which Yung ignored with a tut. Again, this annoying heiress had guessed a lot of things.

Keeping Su Nanya satisfied was probably a good idea for all sides. But that was the proximal goal, not the ultimate one.

Yung decided to stop the theatricals and explain. He had confirmed everyone’s reaction. Now he needed to let them come to their own conclusion.

“The foxmoths returning will help your clan sort out the mess your last patriarch caused. It will bring stability, if not the promise of stability in the near future for the thousands of workless uptowners and suffering madlanders. And when I leave with the fox clan after recovering the foxmoths, the silk trade will ensure their livelihood, even if for some reason the fox clan dissolves the contract. Isn’t that a good reason as any?”

“Surely you jest?” Youjin Chun asked with bewilderment.

Ziyou Maque, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly spoke up. “This is all a big set-up for you to successfully pass the second phase of the sect recruitments.”