Chapter 568: About to Take Action

Seeing Yang Shun’s expression, Lin Dong felt a chill in his heart—he already guessed what was coming. With a calm face, Lin Dong quickly left the corridor.
Yang Shun casually closed the door and turned to Emperor Qianwei, feigning confusion. “Your Majesty, this man is really overreaching. After being given the chance to inscribe something, he now wants You Majesty to help him attract customers. Doesn’t he realize who You Majesty is? You’re overwhelmed with countless matters every day—how could you possibly waste time on his little inn?”
As soon as Lin Dong entered, the kind and amiable smile Emperor Qianwei had maintained all along vanished abruptly.
“Pass an imperial decree tomorrow to summon Jiang Qianchi, the magistrate of Huangfu, to the capital secretly,” the emperor said calmly.
Yang Shun shuddered and quickly nodded. “As you command!”
“I’m tired,” the emperor said, raising his arms.
Yang Shun rushed over and helped the emperor change into nightwear for bed.
Meanwhile, Lin Dong returned to the back yard and headed straight to the alchemy room.
Inside the alchemy room, Yun Lan slowly raised her palms, causing the large alchemy furnace to float in midair. Below, fierce flames burned several meters high, turning the bottom of the furnace a greenish-blue.
“Has the alchemy begun?” Lin Dong exclaimed happily.
Yun Lan nodded slowly.
With one palm controlling the flames and the other slowly opening, the Green Rainbow Sword appeared abruptly. Then, various spiritual materials and inner cores of spiritual beasts kept appearing in her palms, being swiftly sent into the furnace by the spinning Green Rainbow Sword.
“If everything goes well, it will be completed in two hours,” Yun Lan said.
Lin Dong nodded repeatedly. After a day of preparation, just two more hours would be enough to produce a batch of pills—top-tier ninth-grade spiritual pills. Even among ninth-grade alchemists, this speed was truly remarkable.
Staring intently at the changes in the spiritual materials and inner cores inside the furnace, Lin Dong suddenly had an idea after half an hour.
“Yang Shun is coming. I need to go out for a moment!”
Yun Lan said nothing, focusing entirely on the alchemy. Even with her skills as a ninth-grade alchemist, creating ninth-grade spiritual pills required extreme caution. One mistake could ruin everything, wasting all those high-quality materials and inner cores.
Lin Dong slowly left the alchemy room and gently closed the door behind him.
About a hundred meters away, Yang Shun was walking fast, clearly heading toward Lin Dong’s room.
“I’m here!” Lin Dong called out when Yang Shun got closer.
Yang Shun froze for a moment before speeding up and changing direction to head straight for Lin Dong.

“Master Lin, Emperor Qianwei intends to take action against you.”
The biggest impression Lin Dong had when meeting Emperor Qianwei this time was that the emperor seemed much older. Precisely because of this, Yang Shun’s gaze at the door made him sense a sense of crisis right away.
Yang Shun’s opening words undoubtedly confirmed his suspicions.
“How does he plan to do it?” Lin Dong asked.
“Tianwei Pavilion!” Yang Shun said through gritted teeth. “Emperor Qianwei plans to use Tianwei Pavilion to deal with Master Lin. This time, he’s determined to settle it once and for all.”
“He can’t possibly have the authority to mobilize Tianwei Pavilion’s true strength, right?” Lin Dong asked in confusion.
“I don’t know the detailed plan yet. But based on my guess, he probably wants to frame Linji Inn.” Yang Shun said coldly. “When I saw his attitude toward Master Lin today, I sensed something was off. As expected, it turns out to be true.”
“What’s his plan to frame them?” Lin Dong pressed further.
“After Master Lin left, I casually mentioned something, and he immediately ordered me to send guards tomorrow to secretly bring Jiang Qianchi, the prefect of Lihuang Prefecture, to the capital.” Yang Shun explained. “Someone recently submitted evidence accusing Jiang Qianchi of corruption, and the evidence is solid. Emperor Qianwei has been suppressing it, but now he suddenly summons him secretly to the capital—definitely to send Jiang Qianchi to his death at Linji Inn.”
“Death?” Lin Dong’s mind stirred as he began to understand how Emperor Qianwei planned to frame them.
“That’s right!” Yang Shun nodded, fearing Lin Dong might not have understood. “He’ll have Jiang Qianchi cause trouble at Linji Inn, then create a conflict to force Master Lin to attack him—probably by giving him some poison, so that, weakened, Jiang Qianchi is killed by Master Lin’s punch. By then, even if Tianwei Pavilion discovers that the poison was the main cause of Jiang Qianchi’s death, the fact remains that he died at Master Lin’s hands. Killing an official is something Tianwei Pavilion will never allow.”
Lin Dong nodded slowly.
“At that time, Tianwei Pavilion will surely take action against Master Lin,” Yang Shun continued. “After forcing Master Lin’s master to come out, Emperor Qianwei will have the authority to let Tianwei Pavilion investigate Master Lin. Once they know when Tianwei Pavilion will act again, they can bring guards straight to Tianwei Pavilion. With Tianwei Pavilion’s strength as the main force, along with two peak-level warriors among Emperor Qianwei’s guards, they’ll surely be able to wipe out Linji Inn in one fell swoop.”
“Not bad idea!” Lin Dong snorted coldly.

Yang Shun suggested, “Manager Lin, in my opinion, you must leave for a while. If you don’t want your business to be greatly affected, you can also find a loyal fighter. As long as Jiang Qianchi doesn’t die at your hands, Tianwei Pavilion won’t hold you accountable. In that way, as long as you have a proper reason to leave Lin’s Inn, Emperor Qianwei won’t suspect that you’ve noticed his attitude.”
“I’ll think about it further,” Lin Dong nodded. Seeing Yang Shun hesitating, he smiled and said, “Don’t worry. Even if Tianwei Pavilion takes action, I have the strength to resist. However, right now, my strength isn’t enough to overcome them in a conflict. Fighting would only result in mutual damage.”
“Just around Emperor Qianwei, there are already two peak-level warriors. If he comes in person, those two can easily find sufficient reasons to have those warriors take action,” Yang Shun urged. “No matter how powerful Manager Lin’s master is, two fists can’t fight four hands. Besides, no one knows exactly how many peak-level warriors Tianwei Pavilion has. At the very least, there are two guarding Emperor Qianwei, and the number is definitely not less than that.”
“I also have quite a few peak-level warriors,” Lin Dong said with a smile, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I don’t plan to clash with Tianwei Pavilion so soon. What I want to do now is buy time.”
“Buying time probably won’t last very long,” Yang Shun said with a wry smile.
“Emperor Qianwei’s health?” Lin Dong asked.
Yang Shun nodded slowly. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s about a year and a half. No matter how much time we buy, I believe that in a year, even if Tianwei Pavilion doesn’t take action against Manager Lin, he will.”
“Are you sure it’s about a year and a half?” Lin Dong couldn’t help but press further. If that were true, this information would be extremely important to him. It would allow him to know Emperor Qianwei’s limits. In a year, if Yun Lan could successfully refine the Breakthrough Pill, it would be enough time for Lin’s Inn to raise some naturally talented and hardworking guards to the level of peak-level warriors.
With a dozen or twenty peak-level warriors, plus a large number of high-level warriors, Lin Dong believed that even Tianwei Pavilion would be unable to resist such strength.
“On the condition that he stays at the Seven-Colored Bed every night, and the bed still maintains its effectiveness,” Yang Shun nodded. “I’ve studied the tonic prescriptions given to him by the imperial physicians over the past two years. In a year and a half, unless something unexpected happens, it won’t exceed a month.”
Lin Dong snapped his fingers and couldn’t help but praise, “This information is absolutely worth tens of thousands of gold.”

“It’s good if I can help Manager Lin. Yang Shun’s parents and brothers…” Yang Shun hesitated. He trusted Lin Dong’s character, but he still couldn’t help hoping for another promise from him. Ever since he entered the palace as a child and was bullied by other eunuchs, he had endured hardships all his life just for his family.

“They’ve already been taken care of. They are now disciples of a sect,” Lin Dong said. “Once they leave here, they will belong to that sect. As long as there’s no evidence of them doing anything wrong, even if the next emperor discovers their identities, he’ll have to be careful not to anger the various sects.”

“Thank you, Manager Lin. Yang Shun is willing to sacrifice everything without hesitation.” Yang Shun was overjoyed, clearly not expecting Lin Dong to have already arranged everything for his family so early.

“No need to be polite. Besides…” Lin Dong hesitated for a moment before swallowing his words. Yang Shun had done him so much good that he had to ignore how many evil deeds Yang Shun had committed.

But now wasn’t the time to tell Yang Shun that he wanted to save him. Whether Yang Shun could escape his fate depended on his luck. Lin Dong didn’t want him to prepare in advance. He wanted to act only when Emperor Qianwei was about to strike at Yang Shun, to see if he could intervene.

If he could, he would save him; if not, even trying would be futile. He left the decision to fate.

“What else?” Yang Shun thought Lin Dong wanted him to do something else but didn’t know how to ask, so he patted his thin chest and said, “Just tell me, Manager Lin. Even if you want to cut me to pieces right now, if I’m dissatisfied with you, I’m actually willing to see how painful it is—without even flinching.”

“Nothing much. Just be careful so Emperor Qianwei doesn’t notice anything suspicious,” Lin Dong shook his head. He really wanted to ask to what extent Yang Shun desired to be with his family, but he refrained from doing so so as not to let Yang Shun sense his thoughts.

“I understand!” Yang Shun nodded firmly.

“Alright, go back. Let me know if anything happens,” Lin Dong said.

Yang Shun nodded and turned to leave at a quick pace.

Lin Dong pondered for a while, sorted out his thoughts, then turned back to the alchemy room.

Inside the furnace, the spiritual materials and inner cores of spiritual beasts thrown in by Yun Lan were melting in the fierce flames, gradually mixing together. Various colors also blended slowly, forming a hue that appeared between blue and green.

A few beads of sweat had already appeared on Yun Lan’s forehead. Lin Dong felt immense pain for her, but he couldn’t do anything to help; he could only stand by, offering her emotional support.