[1]

In the study, Xu Jingzhe appeared somewhat flustered. He answered quietly, “I didn’t do it myself, but I watched him go with my own eyes. His head was cut off.”

Xu Zhiyuan’s expression improved, and he nodded slowly. “If even a whisper of this gets out, both of us are going to meet a tragic end. Now, go and get some rest. When this matter is settled, we’ll have secured half the cultivation resources we need to ascend to the Avatar stage.”

“Father, you really should drink the soup while it’s hot....”

“It’s rare for you to show such filial piety,” said Xu Zhiyuan while taking a sip of the soup. He was about to take his second when suddenly, his face turned pale, and two streams of blood—bright red and vivid—flowed from his nostrils!

He wiped his hand across his face, only to find it covered in blood. The flow was growing faster and faster as well, impossible to stop.

Xu Zhiyuan blanked out for a moment before exclaiming in shock and disbelief, “There’s poison in the soup?!”

Xu Zhingzhe slowly peeled back the skin from his face to reveal Xu Jingfeng’s features. “Still don’t recognize me? I guess the disguise worked pretty well. Well, it had just been peeled off his face. It would be harder to not look like him.”

“Jingfeng? It’s you? I—I’m your father!”

“Not since the moment you handed over control of the tribute convoy to me.”

“Guards! Someone—”

Xu Jingfeng sneered and called out for him. “Guards.” 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Several guards entered the study, and Xu Zhiyuan’s heart sank. These guards were not strangers; they were the very men he had sent to escort the merchant caravans. It was at this moment his Dao Foundation collapsed, and his vision went black. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Xu Jingfeng then bowed to an unfamiliar guard and asked, “What should we do now?”

The guard’s features shifted, revealing Wei Yuan’s face. He replied, “First, you should perform a purge. Retain any elder who is willing to pledge their allegiance to you, even if their intention isn’t genuine. As for those who refuse, eliminate them all.”

Xu Jingfeng nodded and strode out of the study.

Over the next two hours, more than a dozen screams rang out from the Xu Clan’s estates in Ningxi. Then, a large cart loaded with corpses drove out of the back gate and dumped the bodies carelessly outside the town. It wasn’t until some time later that a few brave townspeople dared to investigate, only to discover several former dignitaries among the pile of corpses.

In the study, Wei Yuan was standing behind Xu Zhiyuan’s desk and admiring the scroll bearing the phrase “Virtue Bears All”. It was currently stained with a few drops of blood.

The three words possessed quite the presence. The old man’s brushwork had been truly remarkable.

It was at this moment Xu Jingfeng hurried back inside and bowed, reporting, “Everything has been taken care of!”

Wei Yuan said, “I will leave some men behind to help you stabilize the situation. For now, it’s better for you to lie low. First, win over the people’s hearts. Then, gradually consolidate your power. After that, carry out a couple major deals to make up for some of the losses. That way, you’ll be able to establish a firm foothold within the clan.”

Xu Jingfeng’s mind went blank when he heard the words “major deals”. Fortunately, he now had a clear understanding of his own capabilities. He quickly asked, “How does one go about making a major deal, Master? Please, enlighten me.”

A chuckle escaped Wei Yuan’s mouth. “You’ve actually gotten a bit smarter.”

He picked up the jade lion paperweight and toyed with it for a bit, explaining, “The Xu Clan has been trading with the Shamans, right? I’m sure you have a lot of ‘offerings’ in stock. Just round them all up, and purchase as many as you can from the market. Then, organize a trading convoy and sell it all to the Shamans.”

“Sell it all to the Shamans?” No matter how stupid Xu Jingfeng was, he could not possibly be ignorant of Wei Yuan’s standpoint. He was befuddled at the beginning, but his fortune quickly led him to a flash of inspiration. “I understand! I’m really selling them to you!”

Wei Yuan nodded. It would appear that the otherworldly fortune was working properly. The Xu Clan’s fengshui array was quite extraordinary as well.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan had asked Xu Jingfeng to re-register himself. As a result, the fengshui array acknowledged not just Xu Jingfeng, but also the otherworldly fortune he was imbued with. In the future, anyone imbued with otherworldly fortune would be further amplified by the Xu Clan’s fengshui array. Better yet, it would be a core priority amplification.

“But how could I possibly accept your money?”

Wei Yuan replied, “The shortfalls in your family accounts aren’t real losses; just draw from your father’s secret treasury. I bet your second younger brother has some savings as well.”

Xu Jingfeng quickly realized the truth after thinking it over. All this money had never been recorded in the accounts, and they were the very source of the deficit. By circulating the money via the sales of the sacrifices, he was naturally returning them to the Xu Clan’s books. It would cover up more than half the shortfalls.

Xu Zhiyuan was the one behind the deficit. Compensating for it would be his achievement. When all was said and done, he should be able to secure his footing within the main family.

And if the main family still refuses to acknowledge my contribution and insists on backing someone else... Xu Jingfeng’s eyes turned cold. He would make sure that that person would end up just like his younger brother.

Wei Yuan thought for a moment before adding, “Try contacting the Shamans. Tell them that you’re preparing to transport a large quantity of sacrifices and ask where their temporary storage camp is so you can deliver them directly. Gather as much intelligence as you can on these camps—the more, the better.”

“Are you planning to collect these sacrifices? But they’ve all been drugged beforehand, with many of them mentally impaired.”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Just then, two guards entered the study. Once inside, they regained their true appearances—they were none other than Ji Liuli and Wang Yu[2]. Wang Yu possessed a rather special Dao Foundation. It was a Yin Eye that could see through disguises, arrays, and true forms.

With Wang Yu’s support and Ji Liuli’s mastery of arrays, it took them mere moments to locate Xu Zhiyuan’s secret vault. Surprisingly, the entrance was hidden within a calligraphy scroll hanging on the wall. It bore the words, “The highest good is like water.” Admittedly, it was rather poorly written; likely one of Xu Zhiyuan’s earlier works. More importantly, the entrance was concealed within the word, “water”.

If an uninformed outsider were to enter the place, they would certainly have no interest in the shoddy calligraphy and thus would never discover the secret vault.

Ji Liuli couldn’t be bothered to unlock it the proper way. She simply dismantled the minor Xumi[3] array via brute force. With a clatter, a pile of items fell onto the floor.

The secret vault itself wasn’t large, standing around four chi tall only. Judging by the massive pile of immortal silver on the floor, over half of the vault was filled with it.

Wei Yuan counted eight hundred thousand taels of immortal silver with a sweep of his perception and couldn’t help but marvel at Xu Zhiyuan’s thievery skill. If he could scrape together this much silver from a wasteland like this, just how many millions could he have amassed if he was given a fertile land to rule?

In addition to the immortal silver, there were various materials and spirit objects amounting to two hundred thousand taels. There were also two Avatar-grade talismans in the mix. Xu Jingfeng felt a chill run down his spine upon seeing the talismans. Had he not disguised himself and poisoned Xu Zhiyuan beforehand, the old man could have obliterated his body and soul with a single talisman.

One of the more unusual objects among the pile was a water sphere containing a dozen or so finger-sized herbs resembling ginseng. They were wholly bluish-green in color.

As Wei Yuan had recently gone through the spirit plant section of the merit hall, he immediately recognized the ginsengs as Wood Spirit Ginsengs. One of the Five Phases Spirit Ginsengs, it was a Dao Foundation stage spirit plant and a specialty of the Shaman realm. He had originally planned to exchange a batch for cultivation.

This batch of Wood Spirit Ginsengs were no seeds or saplings, though. They were fully matured specimens and over three centuries old. They were likely precious elixirs Xu Zhiyuan had prepared for his own ascension to the Avatar stage.

Wei Yuan packed away the treasures from the secret vault and handed the immortal silver to Ji Liuli. Once Xu Jingfeng had prepared the sacrifice convoy, most of the immortal silver would return to the Xu Clan to stabilize the situation. As long as Xu Jingfeng remained in power, Wei Yuan would gradually infiltrate the clan and eventually regain all of the immortal silver.

The Xu estate was protected by a powerful fengshui array, so Wei Yuan could not afford to stay long. He left the place and returned to Qingming.

Upon returning to the realm, Wei Yuan produced the documents and ledgers he had seized from Xu Zhiyuan’s study and examined them closely. The more he studied, the more alarmed he became.

The Xu Clan of Ningxi had built several secret vaults specifically for storing human sacrifices. According to the ledgers, there were currently over two thousand human sacrifices in stock, including one hundred “superior sacrifices”. A superior sacrifice referred to a human sacrifice who had forged a Dao Foundation.

Some of these superior sacrifices had been captured in the Shattered Realm, some were secretly smuggled out of Inner Jin, and others were criminals purchased from various lands.

Originally, Xu Zhiyuan was planning to acquire another batch of captives from river pirates and horse bandits, which he would then sell to the Shamans.

The two thousand plus sacrifices were merely the inventory accumulated over the past three months. Everything prior to that had already been sold. According to the ledgers, ordinary sacrifices were priced at ten taels of immortal silver each, and superior sacrifices at five hundred. Even ordinary people who did not qualify as sacrifices, so long they were able-bodied men or beautiful women, were valued at one tael of immortal silver as well. The rest were sold at the price of one tael per ten people.

Most of the immortal silver earned from selling these sacrifices were used to purchase local specialties from the Shamans on the spot. The batch of Wood Spirit Ginseng was one such purchase. Not only did the Shamans possess an abundance of spirit plants and insects, they also produced poisonous creatures and rare minerals. In addition to the spirit plants and herbs, the Xu Clan had also purchased some poisonous insects and Shamans with certain special characteristics.

With these ledgers in hand, the Xu Clan of Ningxi’s guilt was effectively confirmed. However, Wei Yuan was no hothead. He had no intention of simply exposing the matter like that.

Many people, believing they held concrete evidence, rashly went to the authorities to report the crimes. However, not only did they fail to bring down the criminal, they ended up being sent to prison themselves. Such examples were a dime a dozen in the annals of history, and the saying that “officials protect one another” wasn’t just true, it was the reality they lived in.

After he was done reviewing the ledgers, Wei Yuan made his way to the herb garden at the foot of the central peak. He then personally tilled a patch of soil and planted the Wood Spirit Ginseng. Each plant required a square plot of land measuring one zhang on each side to thrive. Once they had all been planted, a faint but soothing fragrance began to waft from the garden, refreshing the spirit.

There was a problem. A Wood Spirit Ginseng thrived on water—specifically, spirit water—but there was no suitable water source nearby.

A thought struck Wei Yuan, and he recalled that he possessed a certain treasure. He selected a low-lying spot not far from the central peak and placed a jade bowl there.

The moment the jade bowl touched the soil, it immediately sank into the ground and vanished. The next moment, a stream of clear spring water gushed forth from the ground, flowing endlessly. The water carried a faint aura of spirit qi. From time to time, a multicolored stone would be sprayed out with the current, tumbling before sinking to the bottom.

In the blink of an eye, a small pond had taken form before Wei Yuan, its bottom already lined with over a dozen colorful stones. As the water level slowly rose, wispy strands of vibrant vitality continuously spread out in all directions, causing the surrounding grass and trees to sway gently in delight, and their growth to accelerate dramatically.

Wei Yuan had estimated the distance beforehand. Based on his calculations on the area of influence of the small lake he had seen at the Liao encampment back then, it should be enough to cover the entire central peak and the herb garden. Once the small lake had taken shape, neither the herb garden nor the cultivator in the central peak would have to worry about water ever again.

The water in the lake naturally contained a faint trace of spirit qi. Not even Xiao Yu or Cui Yu would be able to find fault with it.

With this, the herb garden was considered complete. The next step was to ask Big Senior Sister to step in and replace the rudimentary spirit gathering array he had set up a while ago.

By the time he had finished these tasks, night had fallen once more. As was customary, all the cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning had gathered on the central peak to discuss recent major events within the realm.

The major event that had taken place over the past few days were the arrival of the mortals. Today alone, over four thousand people had arrived, bringing the total human population in the realm to over eight thousand. The figure was expected to surpass ten thousand by tomorrow. During the day, Wei Yuan had obtained another wisp of blue qi and shortened the time he needed to reach the middle stage of the Dao Foundation stage to forty-five years.

Of course, Wei Yuan had not mentioned this timeframe to Zhang Sheng. His shifu might be tempted to purge him otherwise.

In the eyes of the high cultivators of the Palace of Absolute Beginning, the daily needs of mortals—eating, drinking, and relieving themselves—were trivial matters that were hardly worth mentioning. And indeed, this was true: although food was scarce, if the goal was merely to stave off hunger, there was, in fact, plenty to eat within the realm—the only cost being the shortening of one’s lifespan.

At the moment, Wei Yuan possessed the miraculous Wonder, Life is a Flash. These eight thousand mortals—a number that was expected to reach hundreds of thousands in the future—could be transformed into elite soldiers in an instant. That was why the high cultivators were willing to accept this arrangement. With such a vast army at their disposal, no longer would they have a repeat of the situation where Ji Liuli and Bao Yun, two powerful immortal foundation cultivators, were forced to suppress the Shamans’ cannon fodders with all their might.

That said, Life is a Flash’s effect was fleeting. Thus, their primary concern was how to properly arm these mortals.

1. You can’t know this, but I swear, these titles are so esoteric sometimes. Who even uses 按下不表 these days? ☜

2. In case you don’t remember, he’s one of the scions accompanying Cui Yu. ☜

3. Xumi is often mentioned in the saying: A world may be hidden in a Xumi seed. This suggests that the array is spatial-related. ☜