Another long silence followed.
At last.
Wu Yuan spoke.
"It had to be you, Fellow Daoist Zhao. We saw only what lay before us, while you saw what lay ahead."
He sighed.
"Indeed, fence-sitters die the most miserable deaths."
"The north and south will fight this war sooner or later."
"Once it is over, the whole world will be reshuffled."
"When that time comes, no one will remember that we once behaved ourselves."
"They will remember only that we were fence-sitters."
"Since ancient times, how many fence-sitters have ever met a good end?"
"So..."
He swallowed.
A look of resolve flashed through his aged eyes.
"I agree with Fellow Daoist Zhao's proposal."
Seeing Wu Yuan take a stand.
Yu Bufan and Ximen Xue hesitated for a while.
Then they nodded as well.
"We agree too."
With all three in favor.
Zhao Qingyun finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Fellow Daoist Zhao, since you proposed this, tell us—what should we do next?"
Wu Yuan asked.
Zhao Qingyun stroked his beard.
After a brief moment of thought.
He said slowly, "First, send someone to Shenjing to seek an audience with the emperor of Great Zhou. No... with Prime Minister Wen, one of the leaders of the Northern Aristocratic Coalition. I believe that at a time like this, Prime Minister Wen would never turn us away."
"Prime Minister Wen?"
"Why not the emperor of Great Zhou?"
The three were utterly puzzled.
A shadow flickered through Zhao Qingyun's eyes.
"At the end of the day, the emperor of Great Zhou is no different from the Li Family."
"But Prime Minister Wen is different. Do not forget: though we are in Great Zhou and the Qi Kingdom respectively, we ultimately belong to the same camp—the aristocratic clans."
Zhao Qingyun placed heavy emphasis on those last