The funny thing about disasters, natural or man made, is that they have a way of bringing people together over a shared tragedy.
The funny thing about humanity though, is that some view tragedies as comedies, especially when someone is the instigator.
-The musings of a rescue worker after having to resolve his twenty-sixth disaster.
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<>/’Why didn’t you die during the attack?’
<>/’...that they didn’t do more.’
As the Zhen Clan did their best to restore peace and order in a rioting Willow Scale City, one particular warrior among them was doing it with a bit more gusto than the rest. The best way to hide ill intent was with earnest actions.
<>/’I also don’t want to get fucking found by that brackborn brat...’
Zhen Jun Yao was, for all intents and purposes, a model Zhen Clan warrior.
He was proper, polite, appropriately courageous, and the fact that he was a young and handsome first ring Aether Grandmaster meant that he had a decent amount of influence within the Zhen Clan’s power structure.
That being said, he absolutely hated everyone in the Zhen Clan and wanted to burn them down alongside the entirety of the Blossoming Scale Kingdom in glorious retribution. After all, it was their fault in the first place as to why his true ancestors had to live in the abyssal lands.
<> Zhen Jun Yao answered while thinking to himself, ’if you felt that bad about it, die already.’
To understand as to why Zhen Jun Yao talked and thought this way, having a perfectly porcelain face as it were with an absolutely shitty internal side, one must first turn back the clock a bit to when Zhen Jun Yao was simply known as...Yao.
Once upon a time, a young boy simply going by the name of Yao, was dropped off at the door of the Zhen Clan’s estate.
While it didn’t happen too often, the Zhen Clan would occasionally take in orphan or destitute children if they happen to be a "diamond in the rough", and as luck would have it, Yao fell into this category.
For the better part of two decades, Yao had proven himself again and again to be a gift disciple, the type that could make it to elite status within the clan without much difficulty. It was actually thanks to this aforementioned talent that Yao was eventually formally adopted into the Zhen Clan and given the name, Zhen Jun Yao. Unfortunately, he was not gifted enough that they could become a member of the inner circle or warrant attention from the clan’s matriarch or the High Elders, especially since he was only able to reach the peak of Aether Master.
This was when the seed of hate got planted in Zhen Jun Yao’s heart.
Zhen Jun Yao toiled and languished for years and years to try and gain the recognition he believed was rightfully his, but it always to no avail.
There was always someone smarter than him, stronger than him, faster than him, simply put, there was always someone better than him around practically every corner in the Zhen Clan and he absolutely hated that fact.
Those fellows barely worked as hard as he did, in fact, they were just born lucky...or so he told himself.
This disdain and contempt nurtured that seed of hate in his heart, until it finally came to a head, one fateful day.
On that day, the Fallen Clan had sent out a raiding party to harass the outlying villages in the Zhen Clan’s jurisdiction, their reason being rather unknown.
Regardless, it was the Zhen Clan’s duty to protect the peace of all in their jurisdiction, especially when the aggressors in question were none other than the Fallen Clan. Therefore, they sent a party of warriors to go and handle the problem, with one of the members being none other than Zhen Jun Yao.
It didn’t take too long for the Zhen Clan group to clash with the Fallen warriors that had been the main instigators of this event, but it was during the course of this conflict that something unexpected occured.
The Fallen Clan instigators were eventually defeated by the Zhen Clan, and were sent running back into the abyssal lands with their tails between legs, but Zhen Jun Yao wasn’t done with them yet.
Whether it was due to wanting to earn some additional glory or a latent desire to beat out some catharsis from someone, anyone really, Zhen Jun Yao had made the decision to go after the Fallen Clan warriors by himself.
But it was during their pursuit that Zhen Jun Yao learned an interesting truth about himself.
That his family name was actually Pai, not Zhen...meaning he was actually a descendant of the Fallen.
Once he had learned about the truth of his origins, and the state of his true family, Pai Yao’s initial seed of hate for the Zhen Clan fully bloomed into a flower of murderous intention.
’Some day soon...I’ll destroy you all...,’ Zhen Jun Yao thought to himself as he kept a perfectly practiced smile on his face while helping to remove rubble from yet another destroyed building.
After that day of learning of his true heritage, Zhen(Pai) Jun Yao’s life changed for the "better".
Thanks to a special medicine he received from the Fallen Clan, Zhen Jun Yao had managed to breakthrough from Aether Master to Grandmaster in no time at all. This in turn, cemented his position in the upper echelons of the Zhen Clan hierarchy. Well that and one other thing that he kept around his neck.
In return for this ride into power and privilege, Zhen Jun Yao provided his relations information in regards to the movements of the Zhen Clan, supplies and funding skimmed from the coffer and warehouses, and even used his newly acquired privileges to sneak in the components necessary for the Fallen Clan’s coordinated attack to go off without a hitch.
In other words, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to attribute today’s events to the machinations and work of Zhen Jun Yao.
That said, one would be very hard pressed as to connect any of these events to Zhen Jun Yao.
The man had made sure to cover his trail whenever he did anything that would be considered unscrupulous in the eyes of his clansmen...that, or he made sure that the blame was solely on someone else.
A changed name here, a stolen steal there and a few well-placed bribes and all of a sudden, the reason for a stolen shipment of goods or missing runs was someone else’s responsibility.
And now, after this partially failed attack on the Zhen Clan’s holdings, Zhen Jun Yao had the perfect culprit in mind.
’Those exiles came at the perfect time. All I need to do is to wait for them to leave, then I can just "stumble" upon some evidence that shows that the exiled ones were the whole reason why the Fallen Clan could attack in the first place. Who cares about things like timeline discrepancy? Most people only want to hear what they want to hear anyways, and I know there are at least several people with more influence than me who wants to blame it on the "branch" clan anyways.’
As this oh so wicked thought danced across Zhen Jun Yao’s head, his perfectly practiced smile seemed to grow a little wider in a most unsettling fashion.
’And besides, the worst case scenario I could just use the False Dream-huh? Wait...where’d it go?!’
While on his train of thought on how to screw over the branch clan, Zhen Jun Yao was about to touch a jade charm that he kept around his neck, one that helped him influence others in a manner that caused them to favor him a bit more highly than themselves.
However, much to his surprise, the jade charm was no longer around his neck.
Zhen Jun Yao was just about to freak out, practically scream right there and public, until...
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[I have visual confirmation on traitor candidate number four. He is next to what appears to be a ruined pharmacy, he is assisting in distributing medical supplies.]
[Hear ya loud and clear, Spring Brawler. Will be heading over shortly.]
[Hmm. Y’all mentioned that Zhen Hai picked up a jade necklace from the guy, right?]
[No reason...maybe...]