Volume 2, Chapter 88 – Coming to Light

On the other side, in the central-western part of the Chilong Circuit, at the Qingya Dojo on Xiping Avenue, Zhou Ji was pacing back and forth inside the villa on the hillside out back.

The Qingya Sword Dao was the only “Seventy-Two Paths”-level dojo in the Chilong Circuit. The local authorities had piled up a little hill for it at the end of Xiping Avenue, with a layout similar to Wuqiu Mountain: the training hall in front, the residential buildings in back.

The scale was definitely much smaller, of course. Wuqiu Mountain hadn’t been that big to begin with, and this “Qingya Hill” was only about a hundred meters tall, with a long flight of steps leading up in front.

“The net’s down and the signal’s still there. Under normal circumstances there should be a notice. So why is there still no message?”

Zhou Ji muttered under his breath.

He had a guilty conscience and had been scared out of his wits by Bai Xiang’s rate of progress. The longer he went without news, the more uneasy he became. There were several single-player games open on his computer screen, but he had absolutely no mood to look at them.

He had to hear confirmation of Bai Xiang’s death before he could relax.

Knock, knock.

The sound of knocking on the door.

Zhou Ji’s expression lit up. He hurried over and opened the bedroom door, only to see “Fu Bo” standing there.

“Uncle Fu.” His brows pinched slightly. “What are you doing looking for me this late?”

“Nothing much.” Fu Bo smiled at him, eyes narrowed. “The madam got up in the night and happened to see your light still on from quite a distance. She asked me to tell you to go to bed early.”

“She’s really nosy.” Zhou Ji’s face showed his impatience. “Got it, I heard you… Uncle Fu, you should rest early too. And while you’re at it, keep an eye on her and make sure she sleeps early.”

Rumble…

After Fu Bo left, Zhou Ji dimmed the lights a little and heard a muffled roll of thunder outside.

This damned weather.

He exhaled, changed his posture a few times as he lay on the desk, clicking the mouse randomly on the game screen while replaying Zhou Jing’an’s final instructions in his head.

“While it’s basically foolproof, the destruction of the Shenming Sword Dao also means that the hidden struggle will be dragged out into the open.”

“Once the news spreads tomorrow, there’s no guarantee some people won’t start making noise. You have to pretend we never came back. Be careful not to show a single crack.”

“Grandpa.” Back then, Zhou Ji really hadn’t understood. “What about that Xiang Xian? How are we supposed to defend against her?”

He didn’t really know how powerful a Divine Fetus cultivator was, but he figured she had to be stronger than Grandpa. It was true they’d taken advantage of her absence to kill Bai Xiang, but this was already the second time her beloved disciple had been killed. Wouldn’t that woman go mad when she found out?

He was worried Xiang Xian would come straight to kill people without a care for anything else.

“Don’t worry about her.” Zhou Jing’an had answered with absolute certainty. “Since she chose to stay in Qiyun Circuit of her own accord, she’s never coming back.”

“The Prince has arrangements on his side?” Zhou Ji had been overjoyed. “Are they planning to settle accounts with the State Chancery along with everyone else?”

The biggest gain from this trip to Qizhou University for the ceremony, if he had to name one, was that Grandpa had started to take him seriously.

There were a lot of secrets he figured even his older brother didn’t know, but Grandpa had actually been willing to tell him. He’d even specifically revealed that they were working for the Prince’s Manor here, “doing the dog-and-horse work for the Prince’s plan.”

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Of course, Zhou Jing’an hadn’t said what the plan actually was. Zhou Ji could only guess that the Prince of Nanling’s ambitions were not small.

Because Grandpa had said it himself: it was “a plan that’s been in the works for over ten years.” With such a long preparation time, and a scope covering two states and eight circuits, Zhou Ji thought it was quite possible that the Prince of Nanling meant to use this land-reclamation campaign as a pretext to raise troops and set up his own power.

As for the concrete steps, Zhou Ji figured it was nothing more than riding the momentum of the Luohou people and the Sami Union. If the Ze and Qi regions really could declare independence, the State Chancery would definitely not escape being purged.

That bastard Fang Xiaochun—could they take the chance to kill him too?

“Don’t be so hasty.” Zhou Jing’an had told him not to get worked up.

“Remember the ‘Marrow-Washing Pills’ that Dr. Huang produced and released?”

“We have to wait for the drug’s effects to settle in. Only then will we have enough leverage.”

Grandpa clearly wasn’t afraid of Xiang Xian coming back, yet he still had to pretend he wasn’t around. That had to be about buying time for the final plan to be set in motion, right?

Zhou Ji tried to guess at the inner workings, going over which people in the Chilong Circuit would make moves after the Bai family was wiped out. He decided that only the Chilong Army and the Roads Directorate posed any real threat.

Zhang Daoming might come to join the fun, but he wasn’t strong enough, and he didn’t have enough men under him.

No matter how you looked at it, the Roads Directorate, where a Purple Core sat in command, and the Chilong Army, with its heavy firepower, were more troublesome. He really didn’t know how they intended to smooth those people over.

The Zhengwo Dao people had indeed started gathering, but could they really be trusted?

Knock, knock.

Another round of knocking on the door.

Zhou Ji’s brows twitched.

You had to know, in order to keep things secret tonight, he’d already sent away all the servants in this villa.

Uncle Fu, who had a key and could come and go freely, had already been here. He wouldn’t be coming back again so soon. That meant the only person who could be knocking now was—

Grandpa, right?

With that hopeful thought, Zhou Ji flashed forward, opened the door, and poked his head out to take a look.

No one.

The hallway was pitch black. When he opened the door, a swath of light from behind him cut into the darkness, revealing nothing but carpet and walls—there wasn’t half a human shadow in sight.

What the hell?

A chill crawled up Zhou Ji’s spine. In the next second, his vision blurred as a hand clamped around his throat and slammed him to the ground with a thud.

“You—Bai Xiang?”

He ground out the name between his teeth. Zhou Ji really felt like he’d seen a ghost; his whole face twisted.

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The intruder was wearing an anti-stab jacket, white hair tied back in a ponytail. Who else could it be but Bai Xiang?

His soul practically flew out of his body—how could Bai Xiang possibly have made it here?

She’d anticipated Grandpa going to kill her? So she’d skipped the ambush and come straight for him?

Could it be she meant to use his life to threaten Grandpa, hoping to use that to preserve the Bai family?

“Zhou Jing’an is already dead.”

With that one sentence, Bai Xiang shattered his fantasy, and he stared with eyes that couldn’t possibly open any wider.

“I’m here to confirm a few things with you… Do you want to die, or do you want to keep living?”

“…I want to live!”

In just a few breaths, Zhou Ji’s expression changed drastically. He struggled to squeeze those words out of his throat.

Bai Xiang released him and raised a hand to gesture behind her.

Only then did Bai Zhuqing slip in, her gaze falling on Zhou Ji’s face, her eyes turning dark.

So it was this bastard who’d wanted to harm Sis back then…

“You two are asking to die…” Zhou Ji clutched his throat and scooted back. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with… Even Fang Xiaochun can’t keep himself safe in this storm. You’d better let me go immediately! Otherwise—!”

His threat cut off abruptly, because he saw Bai Xiang taking out a silver-inlaid jade token and a phone with a spiderweb of cracks across its screen.

Those are Grandpa’s things…

How could that be…

“I don’t have the patience to lie to you.” Bai Xiang set the items casually on the desk. “I’ve already cleared out all sixteen hidden posts outside. Whatever happens after tomorrow, at least for now, no one’s coming to save you.”

Zhou Ji collapsed against the leg of the chair like his faith had been shattered.

Bai Xiang waited a full five or six minutes before he finally recovered a little from the blow.

She crushed the front-facing camera and tossed his phone to Bai Zhuqing to check. Then Bai Xiang began interrogating Zhou Ji.

“You’re working for the Prince of Nanling’s Manor?”

“…Yes.”

“What does the Prince of Nanling’s Manor want to do?”

“I’m not sure… but it definitely isn’t something small.” Zhou Ji paused. “I suspect they want to raise troops and set up their own power.”

“They’ve got that much guts?” Bai Zhuqing almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

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This isn’t a few hundred years ago, is it?

Had she heard that right?

In Great Yu, where imperial power was this centralized… in Great Yu, where all Nine Daos bowed their heads! And someone actually wanted to raise troops and stand on their own?

Are they insane?

How could something like that even work?

Even if you backed up ten thousand steps and assumed the Prince of Nanling’s Manor actually pulled it off—let’s say they sparked a civil war and took both Ze and Qi. Once Yujing heard about it, it would definitely send troops to put them down. How were they supposed to hold then?

There was no way it was that simple.

Bai Xiang was thinking further than that.

She thought of the series of experiments the New Affairs Faction had been running in Qizhou, of the foreign pharma companies… the collaboration between the Sami Union and Qingyun Pharmaceuticals, of the “Marrow-Washing Pills” they were producing and pushing in the Qi region.

The Prince of Nanling’s Manor alone certainly couldn’t stand against Yujing. But if you added in the land-reclamation campaign, the Sami Union, and the Luohou people as well, then this plan was no longer just empty talk.

She’d already had her suspicions earlier: what if the government of the Luohou State itself had been overthrown? That would explain why that weak and decadent country had suddenly started acting tough abroad—why it had actually dared to go head-to-head, not long ago, with Great Yu’s Southern Frontier Protectorate and force them to change the title’s prefix.

The Prince of Nanling, Yao Qingyuan.

Was he planning to flee overseas even if the plan failed?

Did he think that with the Sami Union’s modernized army backing him, he could stand against Yujing?

Doesn’t sound like it.

Bai Xiang questioned Zhou Ji at length, even going so far as to cut off both his hands, making him pass out from the pain, and basically wrung every answer she could out of him. The more she learned, the more she felt the truth wouldn’t be that simple.

Suddenly, something occurred to her. She turned to Bai Zhuqing. “How old is Yao Qingyuan this year?”

“How old?” Bai Zhuqing blanked for a moment, then stammered, “I… I think seventy-five? Or ninety-five… In any case, definitely somewhere around eighty. There isn’t much news about that kind of thing!”

So is he thinking that since half his body’s already in the grave, he might as well gamble one last time before he dies?

Or should this be viewed together with those remnant souls the people from Fuhu Temple were carrying? Has the Prince of Nanling’s Manor been researching Demon Pools and Yaosui all along, trying to extend Prince Yao Qingyuan’s life…?

Bai Xiang’s eyelid twitched. She immediately took out her phone and dialed Huang Qian.

No matter what, she had to tell Commandant Huang first, at least so the Chilong Army could prepare for war.

But very strangely, just like on the way here, the call still wouldn’t go through.

At least the local signal in Chilong wasn’t completely cut off… Did he just turn his phone off and go to sleep?

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes, the unease in her heart growing stronger.

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“Auntie.”

Bai Zhuqing edged closer in a soft little voice. “I have a guess… I don’t know if you…”

“Just say it.”

Bai Xiang kept dialing as she answered.

“I just think that cutting the network and the signal like this… that’s not something ordinary people can pull off, right?”

Bai Zhuqing spoke frankly.

“Even if the Qingya Sword Dao is one of the Seventy-Two Paths, their people wouldn’t have that kind of clout with the relevant agencies. It shouldn’t be possible to shut things down this widely all at once.”

“You mean,” Bai Xiang stopped moving, “this was done by the Roads Directorate.”

“No… I don’t think it was Lord Watchman…” Bai Zhuqing shook her head in a panic.

She’d only wanted to remind Bai Xiang that some of the upper echelons of the Chilong Circuit might have been bought off by the enemy, and that she should be careful when calling in favors not to give their side’s intel away.

Instead, good grief, Bai Xiang went straight to suspecting the Roads Directorate itself was compromised!

That was one hell of an accusation! The Roads Directorate was the highest administrative body in the Chilong Circuit—saying that was basically the same as saying the entire official side of the Chilong Circuit had betrayed them!

Bai Zhuqing thought that was way too over the top. It didn’t sound likely.

“It’s not impossible.”

But Bai Xiang fell briefly into thought.

Because as far as she remembered, that Xu Zhe, Watchman Xu, was also very old.

…

At the same time, in the southern military camp, Huang Qian hurried over, raising his voice as soon as he came through the door. “Watchman, what did you call me here for? Have you worked out a plan to crack down on those extremists?”

He focused his gaze and saw an old man with a stooped back standing by the window, quietly watching the thunderstorm outside.

“Extremists?”

The old man let out a soft chuckle.

“Commandant, Commandant, haven’t I already told you long ago?”

“Once you’ve wiped out the extremists, the ones branded extremists will be you and me…”