Volume 3, Chapter 2 – Maozhou

A few hours later, Han Yuanfeng and the students were riding in a military truck with a canvas-covered bed, being escorted—more like held under guard—by this cultivator squad as they headed southwest.

As expected, they ran into blood mist along the way. The convoy was forced to turn and detour, cutting diagonally into the forest along a narrow side road.

They were probably going to circle around from the north.

Han Yuanfeng did the math in his head.

They should still be within the bounds of the Chilong Circuit. The Chilong Circuit was ringed on three sides by mountains, wrapped by two segments of ranges called the “Southern” and “Falling” Mountains. He suspected that the “mountain in between” the old man had mentioned earlier referred to the combined Nanluo Mountain Range.

So where was their camp?

Surely they didn’t actually plan to go straight over the range?

As he calculated, Han Yuanfeng peered out through a gap in the truck’s canvas to observe the road.

He found that although this side road was remote and winding, it was very well maintained.

The shrubs and undergrowth on both sides had been cleared away, and every so often you could see crosswise marks on the ground.

That showed that the earliest work crews that had opened up the road hadn’t been mechanized units, but well-trained cultivator troops.

But the mud and loose topsoil spread over the road’s surface couldn’t have been laid down by cultivators. Han Yuanfeng guessed that the cultivator troops had first violently cleared the land, then the army had spread the soil to keep new vegetation from growing back.

That was no small project. Combined with the intel he’d picked up, did this mean land reclamation had already gone into full swing?

When dusk drew near, the six-truck convoy chose a spot to pull over and rest.

The moment his truck stopped, Han Yuanfeng hopped down, just in time to see the teenage swordsman who’d called himself Lian Feng approaching with a sword on his back and several documents in hand.

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“We’ve looked into it.” Lian Feng’s face carried a trace of delight. “They’re all genuine. Sorry for the misunderstanding. In a bit, you’re free to go on your own.”

Han Yuanfeng tilted his head to study the sky.

It was already fully dark, and they were out in the middle of nowhere… this kid really didn’t know how to talk.

“Could we trouble you to let us stay the night?” he asked Lian Feng, then, as if realizing something, corrected himself, “Oh! Could we go straight to the new province for a look? You’ve probably guessed we’re here for this kind of survey work.”

“No problem!” Lian Feng agreed offhand. “But let me say this upfront: they’re building everywhere over there. Conditions might not be very good for hosting guests.”

“That’s perfectly understandable.” Han Yuanfeng nodded quickly. Seeing how obvious the joy on the boy’s face was, he couldn’t help asking, “Brother Lian, did something good happen?”

“That man you were protecting earlier.” Lian Feng nodded. “Oh… I should say the one who tricked you—that old man. He and I had a blood feud as deep as the sky.”

As he spoke, his teeth ground together. His lips twisted up in a vicious curve, and his eyes stared straight ahead.

After he had other people go with Han Yuanfeng to locate the student group, Lian Feng’s gaze had fallen on the old man’s corpse at once—the layer of bandage wrapped around the man’s ear.

He’d lifted it with his sword and revealed a mutilated ear underneath.

His spirits had risen instantly. He’d carefully pulled on gloves and groped around the old man’s neck, soon peeling away a damaged human-skin mask to expose the face of his mother’s killer, “Deng Fu.”

When he saw that face, Lian Feng had gone dumb on the spot.

Ever since he’d received word that another suspected Zhengwo Dao team was disguising themselves as refugees to sneak into the new province, he’d wondered if Deng Fu might be hiding among them.

But operations like this weren’t new anymore. The first time, the second time—it had all been disappointment. Lian Feng hadn’t dared hope too much this time, either. He’d just treated it as another routine mission to wrap up quickly so he could get back to cultivating.

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He’d never expected that this time, he’d actually killed Deng Fu.

In an instant, a flood of emotions had surged through his chest. There was the bright, clean rush of finally avenging a great hatred—yet also a bitter regret that he hadn’t been able to expose that true face first, then carve his enemy apart, slice by slice, while he still lived.

“Sorry.” Han Yuanfeng immediately tried to change the subject. “Er, well… demon-cultivators of sects like Zhengwo Dao and the Demon-Immortal Dao still haven’t been completely wiped out?”

“Demon-cultivators are slippery.” Lian Feng nodded hard. “Those who’ve entered the Stain-the-Body Stage can be tracked by their demonic aura, but the peripheral members are hard to find.”

“In fact, I should be thanking you all.” He fixed Han Yuanfeng with a serious look. “That refugee column only followed after they saw you opening the road. They must have investigated your identities already, learned that you were a survey team from Liangzhou University, and wanted to use your hides as cover for their movements.”

He noticed that too.

Han Yuanfeng couldn’t help looking at Lian Feng in a new light.

Anyone with some experience could figure it out with a bit of thought.

But this kid was, what, fifteen or sixteen at most? How had his mindset been tempered like this?

Silently repeating the name “Lian Feng” a few times, Han Yuanfeng committed it to memory.

Lian Feng wasn’t just steady in temperament—his swordsmanship and cultivation were both far beyond what someone his age should have.

For example, he was actually using a refined steel longsword, which meant he’d at least reached the Forge the Sword realm.

And some of his moves struck Han Yuanfeng as deeply odd—when he struck, Han couldn’t sense any fluctuations of demonic aura at all.

He had a feeling this boy wouldn’t remain unknown for long.

Having finally avenged his great hatred, Lian Feng was in excellent spirits. He invited Han Yuanfeng and the student team to dine with them and did his best to answer their questions.

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Bai Chenyu and the others hadn’t walked much that day and weren’t too tired, but Han Yuanfeng wanted to talk with Lian Feng about some matters. He signaled for Bai Chenyu to take the others back and turn in early.

Sure enough, once no outsiders were present, Lian Feng grew noticeably more talkative, dropping bits of hidden intel into the conversation here and there.

“The new province has already received a name from Yujing. It’s been named ‘Mao’—as in a prefecture of lush, flourishing vegetation,” Lian Feng said. “It’s just that the edict hasn’t been formally promulgated yet, so many people don’t know that the new province has, in fact, already been settled.”

“Settled” here meant procedurally settled. It meant Great Yu’s tenth province—Mao Prefecture, Maozhou—not only had an official name and a place in the government registers, but its rough borders had been studied and delineated as well.

Once the new batch of maps was printed, they could summon envoys from the other nations, notify them, and fix the new borders of the realm.

“Then let me offer your Dao my congratulations in advance.” Han Yuanfeng cupped his hands.

He watched Lian Feng’s expression closely and found that the boy only dipped his head slightly, without any attempt at modesty.

As expected, the newly risen Dao Master of Shenming had already taken the tenth slot as her private fief.

Thinking for a moment, Han Yuanfeng decided to remind him. “Brother Lian, you’re well-informed. Have you heard whether your Dao has received its ‘classification edict’ yet?”

“Classification edict?” Lian Feng blinked. “What’s that?”

At last, something he doesn’t know!

Delighted, Han Yuanfeng said at once, “Naturally it’s the official document that recognizes your Dao as a Mountain-and-River–grade dojo…!”

“As long as that edict hasn’t been issued, none of this can truly be called settled.”

“That traitor Yao Qingyuan was able to entice so many people to throw their lives away for him not only because he had demon sects backing him, but also because he used this kind of slot as bait to recruit many swordsmen from various dojos.”

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“Plenty of people are eyeing that slot.” Han Yuanfeng reminded Lian Feng again and again. “You should warn your Dao Master—if the night drags on, it’s easy to dream up trouble!”

“You’re worried about that?”

To his surprise, Lian Feng gave him a very odd look, the sort you’d use on a country bumpkin from out in the sticks.

“There’s really no need to worry…” He smiled at Han Yuanfeng and raised his cup.

“That’s the one thing you don’t need to worry about.”

At the same time, on the far side of the mountain range, countless laborers were working by lamplight, toiling through the night.

Hauling earth.

Surveying.

Planks of wood were dragged over one after another, while truckloads of cement were piled up to the side.

The reclaimed land already stretched for dozens of kilometers. A layer of cement had been poured over the roads, and with the wooden houses rising on both sides and the lamplight between them, at a glance it already had a hint of a small town.

Every now and then, the sounds of gunfire and explosions drifted in from the town’s edge, but the laborers here didn’t even flinch, all of them wearing utterly unconcerned looks.

They knew it was the attached troops of the land-reclamation corps fighting off demon beasts.

In a tall tower in the middle of town, Bai Xiang opened her eyes in the dark.

Two faint streaks of golden light flashed through the gloomy attic. She rose, sword at her waist, and walked with unhurried grace out onto the observation deck, quietly gazing down at the nightscape below.