Volume 3, Chapter 71 – The Grand Ceremony (I)

As the fourth month drew near, Shenming Sword Dao held its Dao-Establishment Ceremony in Zhennan Circuit of Mao State, drawing in quite a few guests.

Given that Great Yu enforced strict traffic controls and ordinary people were generally not allowed to travel overland between circuit cities, anyone who could fly in on a plane had at least some wealth, which in turn gave the local economy a boost.

Zhang Xianzhi absorbed and reassigned a batch of officials, and personally oversaw the matter himself, ordering every directorate to carry out prevention and control work, and especially to cooperate with Zhang Daoming’s Inspectorate in handling the Demon Pools.

But if you asked Zhang Daoming, what gave him the biggest headache actually wasn’t the Demon Pools at all—it was the “Hunter System” that operated across the Nine Provinces.

Of course, that was just a nickname. What it really referred to was the Jobs Directorate’s bounty system.

At first glance, it sounded strange, since Mao State obviously had no spare resources to hire mercenaries and similar professions to help. Yet in reality, there were plenty of mercenaries and wanderers drifting around here.

This was because, with the demon disaster and demon tide breaking out in Qi lands, the pollution and disorder from Qiyun Circuit to Chilong Circuit and on to Zhennan Circuit, the final destination for resettlement, had all skyrocketed.

Ordinary people certainly did not see that as a good thing, but for those companies—especially the ones researching life sciences—this place was a treasure trove.

Naturally, they put forward a number of goals and requirements, such as bringing back tissue samples from polluted demonic beasts, discovering previously unrecorded new species of demonic beasts, and even some under-the-table bounties that asked people to bring back the true form of a Demon Pool.

And the Jobs Directorate wasn’t the only professional network. Great Yu’s controls in this area weren’t all that strict. As long as you cut the network connection, there were plenty of ways to hide things in the dark.

So of course mercenaries would come. Every day, Zhang Daoming received dozens of reports about these people using force in violation of the law, and lately he’d been frantic trying to deal with it.

Bai Xiang, meanwhile, was handling various miscellaneous matters and only in her occasional free moments did she sit with Xiang Xian to review and study the progress of the path of qi.

Those miscellaneous matters were truly miscellaneous, including some “civil engineering” that normally shouldn’t have needed her attention.

Because the grand ceremony was about to be held, Tingyu Tower, as the core of the dojo, looked far too shabby. The new site they had been planning all along needed to be secured early.

The land had long since been purchased: a stretch of connected mountains north of Zhennan, among which one “Qingwu Peak” had been reserved by Bai Shengju from the start, the adjacent peaks just right to be used as the main line of construction.

Work had already begun on this back before Bai Xiang went into seclusion. After she came out, she personally inspected it and supervised a few changes. The finished result was, on the whole, satisfactory.

Reaԁ оn ΚatRеαdіnɡCafe

The dojo now had three peaks: Shenming Main Peak, Yuming Peak, and Qingwu Peak.

Guo Rongzhi commanded the craftsmen to blast flat the front peak, then led a batch of disciples to join in personally, hacking and chiseling out a large open space with great bold strokes. It really did have a bit of the flair of Yujing White Mountain’s “Welcoming-Guests Peak.” This would serve as the front gate of the dojo—you had to climb a thousand steps to reach it.

At the top of the stairs was the first large platform, with a paifang gate. The plaque above read “Shenming Dojo.” It looked far grander than the one that had once hung at the Bai family’s old gate.

Further in was a cluster of newly built pseudo-ancient buildings. Because the schedule had been rushed, their exteriors looked rather simple, but the interiors already had running water and electricity. They would certainly do for people to live in.

This whole area was the front-court guest quarters, and beyond that lay the Main Peak’s audience hall.

This was the only building Bai Shengju had personally supervised from start to finish. The footprint was enormous, the interior spacious. The exterior was clad in dark ebony, and it was the first thing you saw when you came up the steps, imposing and magnificent.

Inside the hall, as usual, were ancestral tablets for successive Dao Lords and the Bai clan patriarchs. Rows of incense burners stood beneath the tablets, and deep purple draperies hung down through the hall. Besides the main seat and the secondary seat, two more rows of chairs lined either side.

And that was… all there was.

Time really had been too short, and most of their effort had gone into these projects. The craftsmen had been in a tough spot too.

One day, Bai Xiang climbed the mountain to look for Xiang Xian.

Shenming Main Peak wasn’t actually very far from Tingyu Tower. After all, don’t forget—Zhennan Circuit itself had only recently been carved out of wild forest. The nearby mountains weren’t sparse at all, which meant Zhennan was destined not to be the sort of “plain-type” city; wherever you lived, all you had to do was lift your head and you could see mountains.

If things prospered here in the future, a second city center might well form around Shenming Dojo.

“You’re just in time.” Xiang Xian was studying the layout map of the buildings. She pointed to a spot at the back and asked Bai Xiang, “I’m planning to have them dismantle Tingyu Tower and move it here. What do you think? Should we rebuild it a bit more grandly?”

Bai Xiang shook her head. She had no particular requirements on that front.

“Make it grander,” Xiang Xian said with a smile. “In the long run, you’re the Dao Lord. You personally may not have this need, but things like this are meant for outsiders to see.”

Rеαⅾ οո ΚαtRеαⅾіnɡСαfe

Bai Xiang neither agreed nor disagreed. In truth, she felt Xiang Xian cared too much about these affairs—even more than Grandfather Bai Shengju did.

“I’ve already met with Bolu.” This was the main thing she’d come to say. “We’ve come to an agreement. Once the ceremony is over, I’ll set out. I’ll bring Bolu along then.”

She was referring to the trip to Luohou.

“And what about Senior Brother Guo’s gift?” Xiang Xian asked curiously. “I asked him but he refused to tell me. What exactly did he give you?”

Bai Xiang actually smiled for once. “He gave me a plane.”

Xiang Xian stared. “Huh?”

When she pressed for details, she learned that Guo Rongzhi had a little secret stash in Luohou—he ran a privately owned airline there.

Luohou was a mess, far messier than Great Yu and the federation countries. You could even describe it as warlord fragmentation, with the power of capital and corporations overriding everything.

Compared to the giants there, Guo Rongzhi’s quietly managed airline was nothing much. There were far more powerful airlines around, which was why no one had ever really paid attention to his.

Just when Bai Xiang had mentioned wanting to go to Luohou, Guo Rongzhi had said he was worried about her safety and simply handed her some of his shares, on top of gifting her a private jet, saying it would make her future travels more convenient.

When Bai Xiang received those things, even she had struggled to keep a straight face. She’d expected Xiang Xian to laugh at her when she told her, but to her surprise, Xiang Xian greatly approved.

“He’s right,” Xiang Xian nodded. “How could a major figure not have her own exclusive ride when she travels?”

Bai Xiang said nothing; she simply fixed those golden eyes on her.

Xiang Xian grew annoyed. “Don’t look at me. What’s there to compare? We’re not in the same situation at all!”

They really weren’t.

Back when she was Dao Lord of Yuming, she had been under constant surveillance by the Court.

Rеаԁ оn КаtRеαԁingCаfе

In those circumstances, if she’d dared to play around with something like a private jet, Qianyu Palace would never have let her live to this day.

“Master, have you considered going into seclusion too?” Bai Xiang asked.

She herself had just made gains and needed to quiet her mind to digest them, which was why she was willing to spare time to deal with miscellaneous matters.

Xiang Xian was different.

In her view, rather than worrying about all these affairs, her “discounted master” ought to be withdrawing her heart and going into seclusion for cultivation.

“You’ve told me about picking medicine,” Xiang Xian shook her head, “but I can’t get any clear thread out of it.”

“You don’t have to think of it in overly mystical terms,” Bai Xiang tried to give her a nudge.

“Entering the Dao, Refining Qi, forming the Core on the path of qi.”

“In the earlier stages, you excavate the inner body-scape, and in the process of Transforming Qi, you’re gathering the great medicine.”

She felt that in the past she’d merely had the method but not the reasoning behind it, which made it hard to gain insight. Now she could look back and re-summarize the process, and when she looked at Transforming Qi cultivation again, she already had that feeling of “seeing the mountains as not mountains,” and felt she might be able to offer Xiang Xian some help.

“No,” Xiang Xian still shook her head. “It’s not that simple. I’ll wait until after the ceremony to study it.”

She actually understood everything Bai Xiang was saying.

But understanding the theory didn’t mean you could grasp it. That night she’d held her breath for ages and still come away empty-handed.

Innate was hard…

Even on the path of qi, such enlightenment was extremely precious. Talent and fortune were probably both indispensable, and for now Xiang Xian wasn’t holding out much hope.

Rеaⅾ oո КαtReаԁіոɡСafе

Since she’d put it that way, Bai Xiang let the matter drop.

She went down the mountain and back to Tingyu Tower, and was stunned the moment she stepped into the main hall.

Bai Shengju was temporarily seated in the main chair. Below him, Bai Guanshan, Bai Lianzhou, Guo Rongzhi, Song Ruhua, and the others were seated in sequence. On the two sides sat two rows of disciples—Bai Zhuqing, Xu Shu, Ma Yue, Chen Shi, Hu Hu, Chen Jing, Lian Feng, and many more. At a glance, there were quite a few people.

“The Dao Lord is here.”

All eyes turned to Bai Xiang. Bai Shengju rose with a smile, then suddenly barked, “Why aren’t you standing?”

Everyone stood up at once and, in reasonably neat unison, bowed to Bai Xiang, chanting, “We respectfully welcome the Dao Lord!”

Is that so.

Bai Xiang’s eyes narrowed slightly as she walked forward through everyone to the main seat and sat down, once again looking down over the hall.

It wasn’t an illusion.

It wasn’t that she could see this view because she was sitting high.

It was that she could see this view—and could even lead these people to see it with her—so she sat in this seat.

The Tenth Dao…

The corners of her lips lifted ever so slightly.

Some things really were no longer the same.