"Baishi, if you've had a change of heart, our Medicine Master Hall will always welcome you with open doors. Is there even anything left to discuss? I can give you my word right now — come back, and you'll still be Third Hall Master!" Song Tianxing said with great delight.
Qiao Baishi let out an amused laugh. He hadn't expected his words to be so thoroughly misunderstood by Song Tianxing.
"Me? Third Hall Master?" Qiao Baishi shook his head with a bitter smile.
Elder Lan, standing off to the side, couldn't help herself: "Third Hall Master isn't enough? Do you plan to jump straight to replacing the Grand Hall Master's position?"
"Shut your mouth!" Song Tianxing and Ying Wuyou snapped almost in unison.
Qiao Baishi had long since developed an immunity to this woman. He chuckled lightly: "I lost interest in the Hall Master position a long time ago. If the Grand Hall Master wants to hear conditions, then I'll speak plainly."
"Go ahead." Song Tianxing's mood brightened considerably upon hearing there were conditions to negotiate. So what if the demands were outrageous? As long as Medicine Master Hall could survive, he'd endure even the most extravagant demands.
"The so-called conditions aren't really conditions at all. They're all for the future of Medicine Master Hall. First, Ying Wuyou returns to Medicine Master Hall as Third Hall Master and designated successor. Those three types of Spiritual Medicine — I'll hand over full agency rights to him. No one else in the hall is to interfere."
This was the most basic condition.
Song Tianxing nodded eagerly: "That's absolutely no problem. When Wuyou wanted to leave, this hall tried desperately to keep him."
Qiao Baishi nodded. "The second condition — Medicine Master Hall's senior leadership must be reshuffled. Those who need to go should go, and those who need to be removed should be removed. For instance, this Elder Lan — I'm quite curious, what exactly are her qualifications that allow her to sit on equal footing with the other elders? And Wang Li — his temperament is far too aggressive for Medicine Master Hall. Remove him as well. And there's also—"
Qiao Baishi rattled off six or seven names of senior leaders in one breath.
With each name he called, the faces of those individuals grew darker and darker.
The scope of this purge was truly sweeping. With this kind of restructuring, nearly half of Medicine Master Hall's senior leadership would be gone.
And the people installed in their stead would naturally all be Qiao Baishi's old associates — Ying Wuyou's people.
Song Tianxing listened the entire time, his expression betraying no change. In reality, a storm was raging within him, but as Grand Hall Master, he had long grown accustomed to maintaining composure even as mountains crumbled before him.
In truth, he wasn't shocked or enraged — he was secretly delighted.
Qiao Baishi's proposal had struck right at the heart of what he'd been thinking. He had been considering a leadership reshuffle for some time.
The problem was deciding who to strike first — that had been the thorny question.
Now, with Qiao Baishi putting it forward, it effectively made Qiao Baishi the bad guy. All Song Tianxing had to do was go along with it, and with the two of them working in tacit coordination, they might just pull off this leadership purge.
Yue Qun's aged face darkened: "Qiao Baishi, have you lost your mind? You call these conditions? This is interference in Medicine Master Hall's internal affairs!"
"Exactly! You left the hall — what right do you have to meddle in our affairs?" Fourth Hall Master Wang Li flew into a rage as well, unable to contain himself.
Qiao Baishi smiled calmly: "I said earlier, we can negotiate. I can make decisions for the Young Marquis, but I can't make decisions for your Medicine Master Hall. If you don't want to negotiate, you're free to walk away."
Wang Li slammed his wine cup down hard: "How can we negotiate like this? This is a slap in the face! Remove me, Wang Li? Qiao Baishi, you've really got some nerve saying that."
"Grand Hall Master, you asked me to swallow my pride and apologize — I could do all of that. But do you see? They want to remove me! How am I supposed to swallow that?" Elder Lan also began to complain.
"This is absurd! This negotiation is pointless!" Yue Qun said with a grim face.
Song Tianxing's gaze turned cold as he regarded the three of them, nodding slightly: "Very good, very good. For a long time now, I've suspected that Medicine Master Hall had a shadow organization — people forming cliques for personal gain. Before, I only suspected it. But now it seems the three of you have been in cahoots all along?"
"You... Boss, what exactly do you mean?" Yue Qun, the most senior among them, couldn't help but push back.
"Don't play dumb with me. Elder Lan — you slept with her for three months, and then she became an elder. That's the truth, isn't it?"
"Wang Li — nominally he was promoted by you, but in reality he's your illegitimate son. Did you think no one in the world knew this secret?"
Song Tianxing swept his gaze over the other named leaders one by one: "Every single one of these people was put in place by you, Yue Qun. Step by step, you've been eroding Medicine Master Hall from within. Did you really think I, Song, knew nothing at all?"
Song Tianxing seized this momentum and finally erupted.
He knew this was his only chance — the opportunity to ride the wave. The last window to purge Yue Qun's faction.
Qiao Baishi clapped his hands and burst out laughing: "So the Grand Hall Master has been seeing through everything all along! Yue Qun, you sanctimonious hypocrite — you planted your own illegitimate son and your mistress into the senior leadership, stirring up trouble. Look at what you've turned Medicine Master Hall into over the years — and you still haven't had a single moment of self-awareness?"
Yue Qun's aged face suddenly seemed to have aged another ten years!
Crash!
Wang Li violently flipped the table, sending the entire banquet crashing to the floor with a deafening clatter.
"What's there to discuss? We're done talking! We're going back to the Royal Capital!"
"Right! This isn't a negotiation — it's a trap! Our own Grand Hall Master, instead of protecting his own people, sides with outsiders! Who exactly runs this Medicine Master Hall? We'll go back and settle that properly!"
"Think you can leave?" Qiao Baishi let out a cold laugh.