Playing The Victims [BL]

Chapter Fifteen | First World

[ 15 ]

Whilst ShuNing was gathering his belongings, only choosing things that were necessary for his travels, Mianmian entered the room with a letter in his fingertips.

He had been expecting a letter, and the sender was of course Kang Guiren; XeLeader's chief advisor. A man that had been successfully working behind the scenes ever since ShuNing relayed the information of this abnormal virus that had spread to the children. His letter, when opened, was written in perfect calligraphy and had a lot to say. All of which ShuNing knew, as he was the one who planted the seed of doubt in the wise man's mind.

Kang Guiren expressed that, to his dismay, this was no simple ailment. That this was in fact some form of poison, which when ShuNing read it, made his eyes roll. For such an intelligent fellow he was many steps behind.

The Chief Advisor did believe that this malicious intent was orchestrated by someone with the clan, and he warned ShuNing to be careful whilst he further investigates. This perfectly coincided with ShuNing's abrupt desire to leave the clan in order to find the antidote's for the Xythumane poison.

Dropping what he was doing, ShuNing left his room and scurried to his office where a plain piece of parchment lay waiting. The ink had already been ground and set-up by one of his helpful assistants, so he was able to get right to work.

With a slow hand, ShuNing tried his very best to make his writing attractive and easy-to-read. In his lengthy response to Kang Guiren, he expressed that he had also just found out that this was in fact poisonous and not an idle virus as the wise-man suspected. He skirted around the issue of knowing for quite a period of time, by praising the other man's skill-set and studious attitude.

ShuNing was easily able to predict what the man would ask, so he wrote his answers dutifully. He mentioned that the healer he confided in was a man that lived in XeTown, who wished to remain apart from XeClan, which he understood. ShuNing expressed that this man could be trusted, to put Kang Guiren's likely sceptical mind, at ease.

As ShuNing had implicated XeClan's primary healer, he doubted the Chief Advisor would question why he didn't go immediately to the other man. Although ShuNing himself wasn't entirely sure what the connection between the clan's healer and XeWife was, or if there was any at all, he couldn't risk drawing attention to this issue by going to the highly-valued individual.

He lifted the brush, dark eyes scanning over his last few words. When he went to start writing again, he paused. His next words had to be just as implicating yet subtle as they were when he went to visit the Chief Advisor. He didn't doubt that the elder man wouldn't be able to see through his intentions if he didn't move slowly, carefully. For some reason Kang Guiren had set his sights on him, and for now that would be beneficial.

As the ink touched the page, the words flowed easily. He confessed that he had been searching in the jade-library for texts on viruses, in hopes of finding herbal remedies that could benefit the children's conditions, but whilst searching he came across a book on poisons. He mentioned how he initially didn't believe it to be poisonous, but flicked through the book nonetheless.

ShuNing scrunched his mouth in thought before continuing. Writing the name of the book, knowing full-well that this was the gold-libraries possession, he suggested that this book was in fact found and perhaps hidden in the jade-level. Add to that the knowledge that pages had been ripped out.

He worded it meticulously, utilising all skills he learnt from his creative-writing lessons and experience as an amateur writer to portray his obliviousness and sheer curiosity. He completely brushed over the mention of ZhangFeng entirely; seeing as ShuNing himself didn't know his exact identity, and didn't want to risk Kang Guiren knowing it either.