Volume 3, Chapter 36 – Prelude

At the same time, in the residence of the Roads Directorate in Chilong Circuit, a refined man in ancient-style robes was practicing calligraphy.

The current Sacred Emperor was fond of calligraphy and painting, so practicing the brush arts was a plus in officialdom. All the more so since this man’s calligraphy was truly excellent—even the sitting Prime Minister had praised his hand highly.

“My lord.” A sword-bearing guard darted in from outside, bowed with cupped hands to the man, and said, “That Pei Jian and the others really have gone to seek out Shenming Dao.”

“Have Lord Li and the others come see me,” the man ordered.

The guard lowered his head. “At once.”

After a while, two officials in dark-red robes walked in and gave the man a polite bow. “Lord Zhang.”

“Lord Li, Lord Zhao.” The man—none other than Zhang Xianzhi, the new Watchman of Chilong Circuit—also cupped his hands to them. “No need to stand on ceremony, my lords. Please, come sit over here. Let’s discuss the next step in the edict-conferral process.”

“Li Yong” and “Zhao Guanyu” were precisely the two imperial envoys Yujing had dispatched this time to confer the “rank-confirming imperial edict” upon Shenming Dao. Hearing that the topic was exactly the matter they cared about most today, they immediately followed him over and sat down, their eyes fixed on the man, bright with intent.

“Lord Zhang.” Li Yong sighed, unable to stop himself from once again voicing his complaints. “To speak frankly, my lord, this time we really must thank you for taking charge and temporarily sheltering us here.”

“Indeed.” Zhao Guanyu hurried to chime in. “Otherwise, if we’d gone straight to face that shrew a few days earlier, I truly wouldn’t have known how to deliver His Majesty’s edict to her!”

Under normal circumstances, transmitting an imperial edict was considered an enviable posting. If it was an edict of reward, the recipient would never skimp on compensating the bearer. If it was an edict of punishment, no one dared show a sour face to the imperial envoys.

After all, if you’d come under imperial edict for conviction, that family was basically finished. No one so blind would dare mount a desperate resistance—and even if they did, they couldn’t possibly stand against the prepared troops and horses of the imperial army.

The problem was that Shenming Sword Dao was far too unusual.

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Even if its foundations were shallow for now and still far from comparable to those long-established great sects, at the moment it had not one but two Divine Fetus cultivators sitting in its midst. It simply couldn’t be treated according to common sense.

Imperial envoys were people too, and envoys feared death as much as anyone. When they’d first set out from Yujing, the orders they’d received were to “do their utmost to use imperial favor to induce that Bai Xiang to take the Saint-Transition Pill.” But on the road, when they suddenly heard the string of incidents stirred up by Xiang Xian, doubt had immediately started to creep into their hearts.

Could this Shenming Dao… be about to rebel under Xiang Xian’s leadership as well?

Even if they hadn’t torn their faces with the court yet, they’d already forced His Majesty out of the palace. And with their emperor being such a vindictive man, how could there possibly be any good outcome for them in the future?

Against a confrontation on that scale, two measly imperial envoys were nothing. So the pair backed down, ran here to seek help from this Zhang Xianzhi, hoping to lodge themselves under Chilong’s jurisdiction and have this Watchman Zhang “work something out.”

After all, this was Chilong Circuit—Bai Xiang of Shenming Dao’s hometown, where she’d risen to prominence.

Transferring her here to negotiate clearly felt far safer than going straight into Maozhou to discuss things.

During their discussions, Zhang Xianzhi had quietly studied the two of them. Once he’d confirmed that they were the type with no opinions of their own, drifting with the wind and seizing opportunities where they could, he gradually settled on a plan in his heart and soothed them back to rest.

“My lords, there’s no need to worry.” When he saw them out, he especially reminded them, “With Zhang here, I will certainly be able to smooth over Bai Xiang’s attitude and have her accept the rank-confirming imperial edict peacefully.”

“With those words from Lord Zhang, we can finally set our hearts at ease!”

The two of them bowed again, thanking him profusely before they left.

When Zhang Xianzhi returned to the hall, he saw the sword-bearing guard from earlier still standing there and, finding this somewhat puzzling, asked him, “So we’re simply going to let Bai Xiang take in Pei Jian and the others?”

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“What.” Zhang Xianzhi raised a brow. “It’s not as if I intend to exterminate them to the last. The Jingyi Gang has already stirred up quite a lot of trouble lately. If I were to storm in and kill people in front of that many witnesses, would I even still be a Watchman?”

“Forgive me, my lord! That wasn’t what I meant!”

“You lot are just too used to your own freedom.” Zhang Xianzhi shook his head and picked up his brush again, continuing his calligraphy as he spoke. “Bai Xiang is a true heaven’s favored child. Since her debut she’s never suffered any setback. I judge her to be a proud, high-spirited person who won’t accept constraint. That’s precisely why I drove those people to seek refuge with her. Think about it—if the people she takes in stir up trouble in Maozhou, who will the responsibility fall on?”

So that was it?

The guard suddenly understood, bowing his head to Zhang Xianzhi with barely concealed excitement. “What a splendid stratagem, my lord! I really did underestimate you!”

“Stratagems like this are nothing fit to put on display,” Zhang Xianzhi said coolly. “A Divine Fetus cultivator… will care even less about a bit of hollow reputation.”

The guard was puzzled. “Then my lord, you…?”

“Slowly,” Zhang Xianzhi said, glancing up at him with a faint smile. “Cultivators are always like this—too trusting in their own strength.

“Especially someone young like her. Until she tastes the first true defeat of her life, she’ll never learn to rein herself in.”

“Erasing her influence, making her lose trust and moral standing in Maozhou—this is a long process. Don’t think you can do it all in one breath. There’s no such good thing under heaven.”

The guard left first, his face full of reverence. After he was gone, however, Zhang Xianzhi’s expression suddenly darkened, his slender long brows knitting tightly together.

He had indeed arranged a few small tricks for Bai Xiang, but her reaction made her increasingly hard for him to read.

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Especially that final warning, as reported by the eyes and ears on the scene—did that mean she had already seen through his arrangements?

Then why did she still dare to take people in?

She had connections on Zhang Daoming’s side. Once suspicion was raised, it wouldn’t be hard for her to follow those ties and find out exactly who had a problem. Why bother putting on that magnanimous act, making herself look like she was so concerned with the bigger picture?

Rationally, Zhang Xianzhi judged this to be due to the limits of Bai Xiang’s experience.

A seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl—so what if she’d become a Sword Lord? The things she didn’t understand were still things she didn’t understand. Making this kind of mistake wasn’t uncommon.

But he kept having a certain intuition—that Bai Xiang’s concern for the bigger picture meant there was a real “bigger picture” there.

In times of peace, she had no pretext to help Zhang Daoming and Huang Qian kill people.

Unless she no longer wanted the rank-confirming imperial edict—then she wouldn’t be the Dao Lord of a mountain-and-river–grade dojo anymore.

Without that identity, she’d have no standing to interfere in any personnel arrangements in Maozhou… She couldn’t possibly be that foolish, could she?

Bzz, bzz…

Lost in thought, he was interrupted by the phone on the side table buzzing.

Zhang Xianzhi picked it up casually. “Hello?”

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“My lord… news from Lian Di’s side. The team they sent toward the Bai family’s Ancestral Ground was wiped out.”

Zhang Xianzhi froze. “Why? Did the Bai family send people to intercept them?”

“No. From the traces left at the scene, it was demon beasts.”

“Demon beasts?”

“They put up very fierce resistance…” The voice on the other end sounded strained. “From the bullet craters, it looks like they practically emptied their magazines, but they still couldn’t hold the demon beasts back.”

“How could this be?” Zhang Xianzhi found it hard to make sense of.

The Shenming Ancestral Ground—hadn’t that just been designated a ‘safe zone’?

Even if there were demon beasts, they should all be soft persimmons. How could they possibly inflict that kind of damage on a fully armed recon squad, even annihilating them?

“Send more people!”

After a moment’s thought, he gave the order.

“If they can’t even handle a few demon beasts… have Lian Di go in person! I want this settled before dark!”