Wang Chen thought for a moment and decided to circle around near the Hongchen Family in the afternoon, just to brush off the task and then return.
After returning, he would simply tell Wang Yan that the Hongchen Family refused to let him see Meng Hongchen.
After all, Wang Yan would never go ask Jing Hongchen to verify whether it was true or not. In the end, it would all depend on what he said.
As for meeting Meng Hongchen, that could wait until after the struggle for the throne was settled.
Now that the three princes were resorting to every means to compete for the throne, and the Wang Clan was aligned with the Second Prince, his identity was far too sensitive. If he met Meng Hongchen at this time, it would not be good for her.
So, it was best to keep his distance and not meet for now.
Wang Chen sighed, his gaze passing through the window to the vast blue sky. He couldn't help but long even more for strength.
If his power were strong enough, he wouldn't have to hold back like this—he could see whomever he wanted without restraint.
Power…
———————————
One o'clock in the afternoon.
On the road leading from the Wang Clan to the Hongchen Family.
Seeing the guards by the roadside, their clothes embroidered with the toad crest of the Hongchen Family, staring coldly at him, Wang Chen couldn't help but twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He had originally planned to just circle around the Hongchen Family's area and then leave, brushing off Wang Yan's task.
But now, he didn't even need to bother. Jing Hongchen had clearly already put him on the blacklist.
At this point, let alone meeting Meng Hongchen, it would be difficult for him to even get close to the Hongchen Family.
Wang Chen suddenly recalled Wang Yan's uninterested look when assigning him this task.
He couldn't help but think—had Wang Yan already anticipated this outcome? Perhaps he never believed Wang Chen could actually meet Meng Hongchen to deepen ties, which was why he looked so indifferent and uninterested.
But if Wang Yan didn't think he could meet Meng Hongchen, why give him the task at all?
Was it just a shot in the dark? Or…
Was someone else behind this? Could it be the Second Prince, Xu Tianyu?
While Wang Chen was thinking, the Hongchen Family guards looked at him and whispered among themselves:
"It's him, right?"
"With that face, you won't find a second like him in all of Mingdu. It must be Wang Chen."
"The steward conveyed the patriarch's orders: regarding gifts from the princes and their factions, none are to be accepted, and none of the people are to be seen."
"This Wang Chen belongs to the Wang Clan, backed by the Second Prince. In the past, he was close to Miss Meng Hongchen, and the patriarch specifically named him as one to watch."
"If he keeps moving forward and tries to enter the Hongchen Family, then according to the patriarch's orders, we'll break his legs."
"…"
Seeing the Hongchen Family guards eager to make a move, Wang Chen immediately turned around and left.
The Second Prince wanted to use Wang Chen's ties with Meng Hongchen to create the illusion that Jing Hongchen was supporting him, dragging Jing Hongchen into the mess.
But to think such a low-level scheme could trap Jing Hongchen was utterly delusional.
Would an old fox like Jing Hongchen leave such an obvious flaw?
Right now, the Hongchen Family had shut its doors to all visitors. They would see no princes and support none, fully displaying a stance of not interfering in the princes' struggle.
Unless Jing Hongchen changed his mind, all those little schemes of the princes would seem laughably childish to him, no more than children's games.
Wang Chen shook his head, becoming even more cautious toward Jing Hongchen.
He couldn't underestimate these old foxes just because he knew the storyline. Otherwise, one day he would surely suffer a huge setback.
As he was about to head home, a thought struck him—if he went back now, wouldn't this trip have been for nothing?
The distance between the Wang Clan and the Hongchen Family was not small. Though both were in Mingdu, the Wang Clan was on the outskirts, while the Hongchen Family was in the central district. The distance between them was dozens of kilometers.
It wasn't that the Wang Clan was too poor to buy land in the center. But with so many clansmen, building their estate in the central district would have been far too costly and wasteful.
By contrast, the Hongchen Family had few members. Apart from Meng Hongchen and Xiao Hongchen, Jing Hongchen's direct descendants, the others were all distant relatives.
Thus, at Wang Chen's speed, a round trip took nearly an hour.
Thinking of the many core arrays he had inscribed during practice stored in his soul tool, Wang Chen decided to head to the busiest commercial street in Mingdu.
He planned to sell off the items useless to him at the Treasure Pavilion, buy some materials he needed for cultivation, and incidentally check the latest news there.
Only two minutes later, after a simple disguise, Wang Chen arrived at Mingdu's busiest commercial district.
Towering buildings stood everywhere, many over ten stories high. Between the buildings spread broad stone streets in a dense network, with some main roads over thirty meters wide.
The prosperity here was no less than that of an international metropolis from Wang Chen's deepest memories.
Wang Chen didn't wander around aimlessly but went directly toward the Treasure Pavilion with a clear purpose.
He was well aware of the Treasure Pavilion's background. Behind it stood several Rank Nine Soul Engineers of the Mingde Hall.
The purpose of creating the Treasure Pavilion was simple: on the one hand, to collect resources, and on the other, to dispose of failed products.
Every time a Rank Nine Soul Engineer refined a Rank Nine Soul Tool, they needed vast quantities of rare materials.
If they succeeded, it was fine. But once they failed, the loss was enormous.
After all, top-grade rare metals couldn't even be measured in money—many were unobtainable even if you had the wealth.
Thus, any failed refinements represented a tremendous loss for a Rank Nine Soul Engineer.
To mitigate this, they would recycle the failed materials. Even broken down, the materials used for Rank Nine Soul Tools still held immense value.
Reforged, such materials could no longer reach the level of a Rank Nine Soul Tool, but achieving Rank Eight was not difficult—especially since the materials came from leftovers meant for Rank Nine.
As a result, these reforged soul tools were even stronger than ordinary ones of the same level.
Once auctioned, they would spark fierce competition among Soul Engineers, recovering part of the loss.
After entering the Treasure Pavilion in disguise, Wang Chen spent a few minutes selling off the core arrays he had accumulated, then bought some medicinal pills he needed for daily use. Then, with practiced ease, he took the soul tool elevator up to the sixth floor.
The sixth floor was the VIP area, where each room belonged to an exclusive guest.
Wang Chen pulled out the token given to him by the little rich girl Meng Hongchen and swiped it to open the door of Room 607…