My Core is the Boss

Qi Yuan seemed not to notice the mockery lurking in the two men's eyes. He said, "Lead the way. I need to study how a proper wedding is done with real flair."

Upon hearing this, the dark-skinned man took Qi Yuan for nothing more than a country bumpkin who'd stumbled in from some backwater town with more money than sense. He boasted, "Who could possibly put on a grander wedding than our Sea God? Our Sea God is a god from heaven!"

The dark-skinned man puffed up his chest with pride at the mention of the Sea God's greatness.

Qi Yuan asked casually. "How many wives has the Sea God taken? I'm here to learn from the master."

The dark-skinned man frowned and replied, "I don't remember exactly. The Sea God has been here for three years. Every two months, he takes a new young woman as his bride. Lately though, something's off, he just married one last month, and now he wants another this month. It's a bit much."

He looked somewhat pained as he said it. He was thirty years old now and still hadn't managed to find himself a wife. He'd even coaxed his old sweetheart from the pleasure house to come here and she'd ended up married off to the Sea God.

Qi Yuan mused. "Three years... Is there any connection between the Sea God and the water clan from the county? Which one is stronger?"

The top demon in the county town was Elder Kun, the water clan boss. And here there was a Sea God. The two might well be related somehow.

"No connection." The dark-skinned man shook his head, then straightened with pride again. "Six months ago, Elder Kun from the county town came to our Haishi Village and requested an audience with our Sea God."

The implication was clear: the Sea God's standing was no lower than the Elder Kun. If anything, higher.

"I see."

Qi Yuan pondered. If that is the case, this Sea God has to be a great demon at the Jade Blood tier.

Currently, all the monsters in Yunyan County had gathered at three known strongholds. Elder Huang and the Snake Lady ran two of them on the outside, drawing various monsters to their locations, which meant those strongholds had already been exposed to Qi Yuan. He had dealt with all of them.

But Elder Kun's stronghold remained a complete mystery. By rights, every named monster in Yunyan County should have made for one of the three main strongholds. A great demon of the Jade Blood realm like the Sea God should logically have been with Elder Kun, discussing the matter of the Spiritual Blood Child.

Yet here the Sea God was, still taking wives as if nothing had changed. Interesting.

What if Elder Kun was the Sea God's wife? She'd disappeared without telling the Sea God where she'd gone, and the Sea God, in a fit of jealousy, was taking two wives a month out of spite.

It made perfect sense, and frankly, it was more believable than half the unofficial historical records he'd ever read.

Qi Yuan's interest sharpened as his gaze drifted toward the depths of Haishi Village. He followed the dark-skinned man inside.

Haishi Village was filled mostly with able-bodied men in rough hemp clothing, They were all bare-chested and weathered. Young women were a rare sight. As soon as he entered, Qi Yuan was hit with a dense, fishy smell. Bamboo trays of drying fish lay spread across the rooftops of the low rise cottages, and salted fish hung in strips on ropes. In the corners, scraps of red paper had been washed against the walls by rain.

The little fishing village had an atmosphere of subdued festivity.

Just then, the sound of an argument carried from not far away.

"You're the yamen's people, sure but in our Haishi Village, the Sea God comes first, and the yamen comes a distant second. DOnt bother trying to see the Sea God!"

"Hmph! What kind of law is it, anyway? The law is just a leash the yamen puts around our necks!"

"Can the county magistrate put food in our bellies? Can the emperor keep us safe when we fish?"

"Since neither can, the Sea God is supreme."

The village chief faced the officials and shouted fiercely. He refused to budge even in front of men from the government. Over the past three years, Haishi Village had grown formidable. They had over a thousand able-bodied men, hundreds of fishing vessels. Before, the village had needed official backing to win disputes with neighboring settlements, now they didn't spare a thought for the authorities. These fishermen could turn pirate if the mood struck them, and with the Sea God behind them, they feared no one.

An Qiao stood holding the tracker dog's leash, listening to the village chief's words with a tight frown. "The women married off to the Sea God were innocent"

She was a person of the modern world, after all. She had seen many such things, but she could neither accept nor condone them.

The old village chief looked at her with contempt and replied, "Trading a few women for a full season's harvest is a profitable deal. People are either livestock for officials or servants for the Sea God. Either way you're serving someone, so why not choose the option that comes with visible benefit?"

In the village chief's eyes, people were simply resources. And resources existed to be bought, sold, and traded.

The other villagers looked at An Qiao and her fellow officials with hostility, clearly in agreement with their chief.

In the old days, they had risen before dawn and fished until dark, then handed over more than seventy percent of the catch to the government and still been squeezed by petty officials. They'd had to bow and scrape before anyone in an official robe. That kind of life had no future nor dignity but now, they were eating well, living well, and pointing fingers in officials' faces without a second thought.

An Qiao's temper flared, partly because she had the feeling the village chief was not entirely wrong. "If you were one of those women being married off to the Sea God, would you be willing?"

The village chief looked at her and smirked. "Young one, you must have come from a comfortable background. Asking such a naive question at your age. The ones being married off to the Sea God are those women, not me. If I were them, of course I wouldn't be willing. But I'm not them. By the same measure, why don't you go ask the emperor whether he'd be willing to be a peasant? Bow down to the earth and pay taxes himself?"

"You!" An Qiao's hand moved toward her blade, but the black-clad man beside her held her back.

"If you're here as genuine guests for the ceremony, you're welcome to stay. But if you're here to cause trouble, heh, don't think you'll walk out of Haishi Village alive. In this village, the Sea God is the emperor, and I'm the crown prince!"

The village chief, nearly seventy years old, declared this with unyielding bravado.

Just then, a voice of mild astonishment cut through the air. "There's a seventy-year-old crown prince in this world?"

Qi Yuan walked over, staring at the village chief with amazement.

"Are you really willing to sit aside all these years waiting for the throne? Maybe like in the dramas, you must be seething inside and secretly praying for the emperor to die. These sturdy young men around you must be the private army you've been quietly cultivating."

Qi Yuan's eyes went wide with shock.

"Heavens above, I can feel the blood qi surging here. Conflict is imminent, and the Emperor Star grows dim. Don't tell me you, the crown prince, have been nursing your grievances and hiding your soldiers! You are planning to assassinate the Sea God at today's very wedding!"

The words came rapid-fire, like a machine gun. Combined with his exaggerated performance, the whole atmosphere changed in an instant.

The village chief's expression immediately stiffened as he defend himself, "I am not! Don't talk nonsense, I am loyal to the Sea God!"

"Ah, no wonder I had a dream last night. A white snake appeared and spoke in a human voice. It said: 'When Haishi rises, the village chief becomes king.' I didn't understand the meaning until now. Village Chief, you truly are a ruthless man!"

As Qi Yuan spoke, the young men around the village chief instinctively stepped back a little.

The village chief's head was buzzing. Truthfully, he couldn't explain why, but hearing Qi Yuan's voice stirred something in him. A spark of emotions rose and for a fleeting moment, he wanted to make himself king.

However, he shook it off quickly. He had no son. If he became emperor, who would inherit the throne? He'd just be handing it to someone else for free.

The thought brought him back and he glared at Qi Yuan. "Who are you, spreading wild talk to mislead people?"

Qi Yuan answered in a perfectly serious manner. "I am a blood collector for all worlds."

He had come here specifically to take the Sea God's blood.

The village chief stared at him blankly. The words made no sense, and his head was still buzzing. He said curtly, "I see, you are a mad man."

At that moment, An Qiao turned to look at Qi Yuan, amusement in her eyes. "Brother Qi, what are you doing here?"

She'd called him "the newcomer" before. Now it was "Brother Qi." Qi Yuan sighed inwardly at the flexibility of women.

He answered, "My child bride is getting married today. I'm here for the wedding."

An Qiao's face went blank. The village chief's expression also turned unfriendly. Was the woman they'd captured down below this madman's child bride?