Chapter : 43 : Engagement Promise Cancellation: ( Part : 2 ) :
Location : Feather City : The Zhau Clan House :
" Hurry up ! Don't you dare slack off . The guest from the Xiao clan could be arriving at any time now . "
" You there ! Do you think this is how a decoration looks like . I have seen better decoration done by a child . "
" Yes ! Clan head we will do as you say immediately . "
" Then stop running your mouth and use your hands more . "
At this moment the entire Zhau clan was in a frency of movement as members going from one place to another , doing last minute preparations before the arrival of the people of the Xiao clan .
And the clan head of the Zhau clan - Zhau Bo who was at the middle of the entire thing was at this moment very frustrated .
" That sneaky little Mayor ! how dare he not inform us about Xiao Clan's arrival earlier but inform the Su clan about it . " - Zhau Bo cursed loudly as he clenched his teeth furiously .
At this moment he was very much furious at the mayor for his actions .
The fact that he was not informed about the arrival of the people from the Xiao clan the moment they arrived at the gates of the city was already unfair .
After all the real conversation was between the Xiao clan and the Zhau clan so by all logic they should have been the first one to be informed of the matter .
And yet they weren't .
It was only after the news about the Xiao clan people under the leadership of the first elder herself had entered the city spread that they were informed of the matter .
And that was also because some of their clan members were happened to be on the marketplace at the time when they saw the Xiao clan members entering the city.
Normally even without the mayor's information they should have known about such a big matter happening in the city right away .
But the fact that they didn't get any information till so late meant that something was wrong .
And Zhau Xuan was sure that the mayor and the Su clan must have used their influence and power to make sure to work against them .
After all if the engagement promise between the two clans are broken of thess two would be themost happy about it .
' Just you wait ! Once the engagement promise holds I will show you what it means to mess with the Zhau clan . '
Zhau Bo thought to himself as he quickly went to the front doors along with a few elders to see the situation and greet the incoming guests .
At this moment if anyone were to hear his inner thoughts they would be surprised to hear that he still had the delusional idea that the engagement promise was still possible .
Some may even start calling him crazy !
But to be honest even Zhau Bo knew that the situation was not good for him or his son .
After all he wasn't a total fool .
While he may not be a good leader and was somewhat blinded by his love for his son but still he was after all the leader of the Zhau clan .
So even he understood that the grounds on which the engagement promise was based had already shaked a lot .
Especially with his son losing his cultivation talents all of a sudden the very core condition that kept the engagement promise together had been broken .
So one might think why was he still so confident in his situation ?
Well there are some factors that he had considered using to his advantage .
The first one of course would be to use the fact that his father or Zhau Xuan's grandfather saving Xiao Fang's father all those years ago .
This was the reason why the promise was even made .
And even if his son had lost his cultivation talents the fact remains that they had done a great favour to the Xiao clan .
And the Xiao clan must honour their words and pay the favour back to them .
After all this was a matter of an ancestral dept and breaking or not honoring it would be respectful .
Moreover while his son had suddenly lost his cultivation talents but who is to say that is a permanent case .
So with the help of the Xiao clan he believed that he could bring his son's cultivation talents back .
After all the Xiao clan was the strongest clan in the kingdom with a Alchemy King among them .
Certainly they can create a lot of high quality alchemist pill to help his son.
Infact he always believed that his son losing his cultivation talent all of a sudden was certainly not a natural happening .
And he even suspected that the Su clan and the mayor had something to do with it .
So if he could just play this card effectively he can turn the attention of the Xiao clan towards the mayor and the Su clan .
This way if he is lucky he have the Xiao clan teach them a lesson .
But for all that he needed to convince the first elder Xiao Lin properly and he had planned a grand reception for the same purpose the moment he got the notice about there future arrival .
' However it seem that I have underestimated the cunningness of the mayor and that Su Yuze . ' - Zhau Bo thought to himself as he reached the clan's main gate .
It was quite obvious that he did not expect that the mayor would go to the point where he would intentionally sabotage him like this .
This only made his anger towards them grow even more .
Totally for getting the fact that it was his and his clan's actions that led to this point .
Originally the mayor never had any preferences between the Zhau clan and the Su clan because it was his duty as the administrative authority of the city to maintain neutrality to perform administration .
In fact in a manner it was the Zhau clan who contributed more in terms of resources to the city and the mayor had in past properly awarded them for that .
But after the reveal of Zhau Xuan's talents and his supposed engagement promise with Xiao Yun the situation started to turn .
The Zhau clan started openly break his authority taking fights with the Su Clan for market share control on broad daylights .
While such fights happened a lot in previous years but still they never excalated to a certain point .
And when the mayor intervened the matter always stopped for the time .
But now after the reputation boost the Zhau clan got so bold that they even sidelined and injured the forces from the mayor who tried to interfere .
And when the angry mayor asked for an explanation of the matter Zhau Bo simply gave an apology that was far from anything sincere .
Infact Zhao Bo even brought his young son Zhau Xuan with him to indirectly show him that his son's talent was now for beyond his authority .
It was a warning to him that that soon in the future the status of the Zhau clan would rise to the point where his authority would not even matter .
Obviously any normal man would be furious at this behaviour .
As the mayor of the city who was a qualified and well educated administrative officer appointed by the royal family himself was no different .
He did not take payments from Zhau Bo and had no reasons to be treated and humiliated like this .
But the situation of the time forced him to acknowledge his weakness and stopped interfereing .
This was an indirect form of submission .
And now when finally the time to strike back came obviously the mayor wasn't going to let this chance escape from his hands .
Hence he used his resources and connections along with the help from the Su clan to make sure that the news of Xiao Clan's first elder's arrival comes late to the Zhau clan .
" Clan head we have prepared everything but are you confident at your decision . "
When Zhau Bo came to the front he was confronted by an older cultivator from the Zhau clan who looked at him with worry written all over his face .
He was the first elder of the Zhau clan - Zhau Haoran .
Unlike the plan head Zhau Bo the first elder who was actually more worried about the situation .
He often argued with Zhau Bo about the clan's situation especially it's growing tensions with the mayor and the Su clan .
Zhau Haoran was a man of caution and warned that Zhau Bo's actions were damaging the clans reputation and its relationships .
At the same time Zhau Haoran was also quite strongly opposed the decision to spend so much of the clan's treasury on one person while neglecting the other member's of the clan .
Make no mistake that Zhau Haoran also recognised and admired Zhau Xuan's talents and wanted to cultivate him to be the future pillar of the clan .
But at the same time he also cared a lot about the other younger members of the clan who were being deprived of their share of resources .
To him both Zhau Xuan and the others of his generations were members of the Zhau clan.
And while treating a genius with more attention was a good thing but neglecting the others for it was not right .
But even so there was so little he could do about this situation especially considering Zhau Bo's obsession with the matter .
In the first place Zhau Haoran was just a 2 star Dou Disciple and compared to Zhau Bo who was a 4 star Dou Disciple he was quite week .
This meant that he did not have this strength required to openly challenge Zhau Bo .
Moreover every time he and the other elder's tried to speak anything related to Zhau Xuan, Zhau Bo would quickly shut them up with the excuse of the engagement promise with the Xiao clan .
Zhau Bo would say that the engagement promise was kept on the condition that his son's cultivation talents must remain good .
And as such the clan must provide for that because according to him the clans future was tied to Zhau Xuan's engagement promise with Xiao Yun .
And hearing he and the other elder's had nothing else to say because after all it was the truth .
However the situation grastically changed with Zhau Xuan's talents disappearance .
Now even their own clan members who had been deprived of necessary resources felt angry .
And with the situation today it was quite clear that they had lost any remaining sympathy and goodwill they had with the mayor because of Zhau Bo's previous actions.
" Don't worry first elder . So , everything will be fine just believe in me . " - Zhau Bo uneffected by anything else looked in front where the group of people led by the first elder Xiao Lin was arriving .
To him it did not matter what the first elder said because he had already decided on his path .
' Believe in you ? that's exactly what has brought us to this point you fool . ' - Zhau Haoran thought betterly to himself .
' If only I had stopped you from becoming the clan head back then . Perhaps the situation would not have escalated to this point . ' - he now blamed his indecisiveness in the past .
To be honest if he had a single moment of realisation as to what kind of a leader Zhau Bo would
turn out to be in the future .
Then he would have stood against the previous clan head to the end to prevent this succession .
But alas what had happened had happened and he has no way of changing the past .
Now he could just try to fix the present and preserve whatever future the Zhau clan might have .
With that Zhau Haoran looked up and prepared himself beside Zhau Bo to welcome the first elder Xiao Lin .
' I just hope everything ends well today . '
To Be Continued .