Volume 3, Chapter 61 – Seclusion

In the third month of spring, a day later, news that Qizhou had suffered a “large-scale demon disaster and demon chaos” finally swept across the Nine Provinces.

There was no way to cover something like this up. For a time, everyone was focused on Qizhou—especially on the state of the defenses in the Chilong Circuit.

And those with sharper minds, the ones who knew about the existence of the “sea of blood,” were even more deeply worried.

Compared to ordinary people, they had one more thing to fret over—whether the south would from now on form a stable “blood-sea estuary,” endlessly resurrecting and creating Aberrations.

“Dad!”

Fang Xiaochun was waiting for news in the main hall when he saw his daughter Fang Wenya trot over, phone in hand.

“It’s Aunt Tao calling!”

“She says your phone hasn’t been going through at all! So she just called me directly!”

Fang Xiaochun really had been on calls nonstop just now. At her words, he put his own phone down and held out his hand. “Hurry, give it here!”

As soon as he picked up, the first thing he heard was a gentle voice. “Is this the Lord?”

“It’s me.”

“The matter the Lord asked me to verify, I’ve basically gotten it clear.” Tao Shuohua herself was in a military jeep, sitting in the driver’s seat with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone. “As for the situation in the Chilong Circuit… how should I put it? It’s basically finished…”

Finished?

Fang Xiaochun’s heart abruptly tightened.

“A lot of people didn’t follow the orders to evacuate from there.” Tao Shuohua also let out a quiet sigh. “Not only did many people stay, those who were out of the loop, who didn’t know Maozhou was the main evacuation direction, actually converged on Chilong from all directions.”

Fang Xiaochun asked in a rather stiff voice, “Are there any survivors?”

“None so far.” Tao Shuohua lowered her voice. “Their target was far too obvious…”

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They still didn’t know why the main force of the demon tide had suddenly vanished, nor why a huge “blood abyss” had suddenly burst up from the plains south of the Jing River. But even just the scattered demon beasts nearby, once they gathered into small demon tides, were extremely dangerous.

Unless it was a well-trained cultivator unit paired with a heavy-fire unit of nearly a hundred people, ordinary refugees only had one outcome if they ran into them.

And after a day of brewing, these small demon tides had already slipped into the city through gaps at its outskirts. Not only would the people hiding in the city be found and eaten by them, they had even taken over several main roads from the urban area out to the wilderness, lying in ambush at the sides and waiting for refugees to come through.

“Weren’t they saying that batch of polluted things had no rationality…” Fang Xiaochun’s voice was hoarse.

“This doesn’t count as rationality.” Tao Shuohua shook her head. “They’re just lingering there and waiting… because there will always be someone coming.”

Fang Xiaochun could well imagine how bloody that scene must be. Those main roads and highways had to be piled high with human remains and bones, while packs of devil-like beasts roamed recklessly around them. Maybe they no longer had intellect, but their instincts still told them this was the best hunting ground.

“There is still good news.” Tao Shuohua suddenly shifted the topic. “At least Maozhou is holding well.”

“How is Maozhou?” Fang Xiaochun’s spirits lifted.

With the Zhen’nan Circuit as the main base, Maozhou had taken in over eighty percent of the refugees from the surrounding map, including the Chilong Circuit. By his own estimate, the number of refugees there had already exceeded two million, and he was deeply worried about what state those people were in.

“Maozhou is very secure,” Tao Shuohua repeated. “They finished their fortress walls early. Small demon tides can’t do anything about those.”

“What about the Demon Pools?”

“With Grandmaster Kong An and Xiang Xian helping, newborn Demon Pools usually don’t live long.”

That was something, at least.

Fang Xiaochun finally let out a breath.

It hadn’t been in vain that he’d mustered almost all available airlift capacity to rush aid to Maozhou. That was also the only thing he could do.

“What about supplies?”

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“Thanks to airlift support from the surrounding area, and the fact they’ve additionally taken in a large number of villagers from nearby towns, they’re still holding out.”

“Then they’ve at least withstood the first wave…” Fang Xiaochun said. “But we can’t get careless! The main force of the demon tide hasn’t arrived yet! That’s nearly a million beasts! We still need to keep reinforcing our defenses!”

“……”

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“In truth, my Lord, Bai Xiang just called me.” Tao Shuohua’s tone turned a little strange.

“Bai Xiang? What did she say?”

“She said the main force of the demon tide didn’t disappear. It was wiped out.”

?

For a moment, Fang Xiaochun thought he was hearing things.

“She said the good news is… that ‘blood abyss’ ate most of the demon beasts… that we don’t need to worry too much about the threat from the beasts…”

Fang Xiaochun narrowed his eyes. “And the bad news?”

“The bad news is, that ‘blood abyss’ is very likely to evolve into a new ‘blood-sea estuary.’”

As she said this, Tao Shuohua swallowed. “Which means it’s not something as simple as a ‘spring eye’ anymore… We might have to open up a new defensive line.”

……

On the other side, in Zhen’nan territory.

Bai Xiang was settled in the Listening-to-Rain Tower, and had finally finished her preliminary arrangements and summary of the deployments in Maozhou.

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“You won’t blame me for merging the Dao without consulting you first, will you?”

Xiang Xian, dressed in a purple palace gown, walked in.

“How could I?” Bai Xiang looked up at her. “If it weren’t to merge the Dao, Master wouldn’t have brought people over.”

“Your two senior brothers have had their tempers polished down. You don’t need to worry about them bullying their fellow disciples.” Xiang Xian helped tidy Bai Xiang’s hair at her temples. “From now on, as your teacher, I’ll be your Yuming Peak Lord. All that’s left is for you to truly amaze the world in one stroke.”

Bai Xiang knew she was talking about the Nine Prefectures Sword Meet.

After Xiang Xian left, the place finally grew truly quiet.

Coming and going in a single day, with such a short interval, there actually wasn’t much that needed handling. The greatest help here had instead come from the deposed Watchman, Zhang Xianzhi.

From the report Bai Xiang heard, after arriving in the Zhen’nan Circuit, he had been roaming the refugee camps asking questions and observing. Whether some screw had come loose in his head or he had genuinely figured things out, no one knew, but he had actually gone and requested a job ladling porridge, personally working at it himself.

And just ladling porridge wasn’t enough. Because there were too many refugees and Zhen’nan was seriously short on administrators, he had then volunteered to take charge of the registries. In the end, as he worked, the responsibilities piled higher and higher on his shoulders, until it was almost no different from when he had still been a Watchman.

After confirming that he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her, Bai Xiang guessed that Zhang Xianzhi might have truly come around.

That really was an unexpected gain.

Bai Xiang hadn’t killed him originally because she wanted him to die a bit later, at least to genuinely repent before he died.

But with the way he was acting now, she was starting to really want to keep him around to straighten out the administration.

In this way, another week passed, and the situation in Qizhou gradually became clear.

The chaos of the demon tide was slowly dying down, but that “blood abyss” had polluted a good number of small demon tides that passed through it, so that after they smashed themselves bloody against Maozhou’s defenses and then scattered into Chilong, they actually brought the purple-red mist coiling around their bodies over there as well.

This mist was clearly even worse than the blood mist from before. Once it spread out, a single touch with the hand would corrode away flesh and blood, making the polluted zones completely unfit to return and live in. Large numbers of refugees still had no choice but to remain in Maozhou for the time being.

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The Fengchang Directorate issued another announcement, granting Bai Xiang a great merit for “disaster relief and calming the people,” praising her as having the ability to “prop up a collapsing great edifice and turn back a raging tide.” She’d probably gained quite a bit more positive reputation throughout the various Circuits of the Nine Provinces.

The Fengchang Directorate also put forward a proposal, saying that since the Chilong Circuit was basically abolished in its present state, they might as well fold Chilong’s establishment into Xinzhou.

The court didn’t show much reaction to this, but according to Fang Xiaochun’s back-channel news, someone in the Imperial House had suddenly fallen ill recently.

Bai Xiang, however, appeared utterly unconcerned.

She had spoken with Zhang Xianzhi once before. This newly appointed Maozhou Governor, who had just received his imperial edict and taken office, had already promised her that as long as it was for the benefit of the common people, he would cooperate with any arrangements she made.

Thus, for administration there were Zhang Xianzhi, Zhang Daoming, and the others.

For personnel matters there were Bai Shengju, Xiang Xian, Guo Rongzhi, and the others.

Bai Xiang had finally carved out some free time and, at the first opportunity, began a closed-door cultivation.

Only…

Before going into seclusion, she called her younger sister over.

“Zhuqing.” She got straight to the point. “I’m going into seclusion. If you’re not busy, you should come with me.”

“Mm?” Bai Zhuqing froze, a little unsure what was going on.

The reason for this was something only Bai Xiang knew.

She felt that cutting down Bai Zhuqing’s shadow in the illusion had been a bit too ruthless, and she wanted to make up for it as much as she could.