Backlash Part 1

Chapter 173: Pulling Apart the Pieces

Nie Huaisang considered it a good sign that Luo Qingyang did not return to report before they reached Dafan. If she returned it meant there was something she needed to report about. It would mean that Dafan had not been a safe place for her to remain. Nie Huaisang reminded himself of this as his anxiety continued to climb.

Luo Qingyang was easily the best scout they had. She was strong, skilled, observant, and she knew how to allow others to make assumptions about her. It was absurdly common for people to see Luo Qingyang as a girl, and immediately dismiss her as someone they didn't need to be concerned about. Nie Huaisang wasn't certain she would be good as a spy. He wasn't sure she could handle the prolonged durations of dishonesty, but he also found her preference for honesty and bluntness to be comfortably familiar.

If it wouldn't have caused political upheaval with the smaller sects, Nie Huaisang would have long since suggested that Nie Mingjue invite her to join the QingheNie sect. Her skills were wasted in her own sect, and her temperament would do well in the QingheNie sect. Da-ge was not the only one with a fierce temper, blunt tongue, and a rigid sense of justice. Luo Qingyang really would fit right in.

Ever since she came to Nie Mingjue in Langya Luo Qingyang had been reassigned. The WuzhaoLi sect continued to operate out of Langya to support the LanglingJin sect. Luo Qingyang had been assigned to work under the QingheNie contingent in order to make better use of her skills. This was unusual, but acceptable. There was a war going on and they all needed to work together if they wanted to win.

If they went that extra step of inviting her to the QingheNie sect things could quickly spiral out of control. The minor sects could take it as the major sects taking advantage of the war to poach disciples from them. It could create additional tension and mistrust between the smaller and larger sects. Which really was the last thing they needed when they were already engaged in a long drawn out war.

Nie Huaisang allowed his mind to pull apart the potential ramifications of such a decision. He was learning that it was better to give his mind something to focus on. Otherwise he would be thinking through the many possibilities of what could have happened to Nie Mingjue since his capture.

Nie Huaisang felt his mind zero in on a familiar bothersome feeling that emerged whenever he thought about his brother's capture. It was kind of like an itch. Something bothersome that wouldn't go away and seemed to take affront to being ignored. It would demand Nie Huaisang look closer into something until it was satisfied. Nie Huaisang used to enjoy indulging in the urge to pick apart a situation to figure out what was going on.

Then a war happened, and all he really wanted was for the war to end, and his friends and family to be alive. Nie Huaisang hadn't felt any particular urge to pick a situation apart in a while. Instead his brain was perfectly happy to busy itself with thinking up a thousand horrible scenarios that could result in the people he cared about dying. It was not an improvement in the least.

The familiar itch was back, pulling his thoughts towards Yangquan. The attack had been planned with information that Lan Xichen had received from one of his spies. Lan Xichen had never confirmed he had more than one, but Nie Huaisang had already determined there were two early on in the war. Back when Nie Huaisang still had the energy to regularly pull things apart just to satisfy the itch of his curiosity.

One of the spies had been spying from the very beginning of the war. They were able to pass information extremely quickly, and they had very detailed information about Yiling. At this point Nie Huaisang was confident that this first spy was either Wen Qionglin or Wen Qing. They had provided extremely detailed information about Dafan, with focuses similar to the information given regarding Yiling.