Volume 4, Chapter 17 – Demands

Flying through the air, Bai Xiang arrived above Longchuan Circuit and first looked down at the streets below.

Longchuan Circuit’s development was not on par with Zhennan, but that was only relative. It actually had a geographical advantage: it sat closer to the border, making it far more convenient for many imported cross-border goods to pass through here.

Because of that, Longchuan Circuit’s planning had two main directions. The first was its proper duty, to serve as a fortress city that relied on Longchuan’s natural barrier to defend against foreign enemies. The second was to develop heavy industry, building all kinds of factories locally and, in the process, becoming a hub for transnational logistics.

This role meant Longchuan Circuit’s population was extremely mixed. At present, only sixty percent of the residents were Yu people who had circulated in from the interior; the other forty percent were made up of southern tribesmen from various countries, people from the Federations, and even demonfolk.

With such a plan in place, the sky over Longchuan Circuit was destined to be gray.

Not far away, a steel mill was still belching black smoke. Under the drifting soot, countless workers hurried about in the workshops; their burly arms and their cheeks alike were long since covered in sweat, and their bronzed skin gleamed as if oiled.

From this cursory glance alone, the order in Longchuan Circuit was still far from the brink of collapse.

A major disaster affecting thousands of people?

If Yu He had not lied, then she really did owe that distinguished guest from Tianfu Mountain her thanks.

After calling Yu He again, Bai Xiang picked an international hotel, descended straight onto the top of the building, twisted the lock off the rooftop door, and then took the elevator down.

There was someone inside when she stepped into the elevator, a young-faced cleaning girl. When she saw Bai Xiang, she was momentarily stunned, then timidly shuffled to the side, watching her come in and then watching her leave.

Room 1025… should be on this floor.

Entering the corresponding corridor, Bai Xiang saw Yu He standing at the hallway entrance waiting.

The guy still did things very meticulously. He knew Bai Xiang did not have a room card and could not even swipe open the corridor door. Forcing the door would definitely trigger the alarm and bring trouble, so he had simply come over in advance to wait.

Yu He was dressed in a full suit, and even that cane-sword of his had been polished until it shone. He no longer looked like a beggar at all, more like a middle-aged gentleman.

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Bai Xiang only gave him a brief once-over before asking, “Where is he?”

“This way.” Yu He curled his lip. “Just follow me.”

He was still as talkative as ever, making full use of the less-than-one-minute walk to complain to Bai Xiang that the funds and authority she had given him were both too limited, to the point that many investigations were hard to carry out.

Bai Xiang understood him. She knew that since he had been willing to play a beggar for so long, he was definitely not the sort to embezzle funds for his own pleasure. If he wanted money, it had to be for something useful, and that usefulness mostly lay in investigating demon pools.

She understood all that, and she did indeed plan to loosen Yu He’s authority before she left. But still, that same old line applied: this little old man really was asking for a beating.

So she did not tell him in advance.

She had to let him complain a bit more, or he would think she had endless resources on hand now and come asking for the moon again next time.

“Here we are.” Yu He swiped the card to open the door and made a “please” gesture toward the room. “Dao Lord Bai, the person is inside.”

In fact, there was no need for his little show. The person inside had already heard the noise and come to the door.

It was a man also dressed in a suit, the difference being that his was a dark blue one. Not only did he have the full set of shirt and tie, with every button neatly fastened, he even wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his face. It was a very standard overseas returnee look.

The problem was that his hair was far too long.

In the society of Great Yu, the notion that men had to keep long hair and long beards had long since been discarded; only a few noble clans still clung to it. Yet this man wore his hair in a waist-length mane. That made his getup and his hairstyle feel mismatched in temperament, and no matter how one looked at it, there was something off about him.

“Venerable Bai!” The newcomer spoke in somewhat imperfect Yu language and dropped straight to his knees before Bai Xiang. “This humble one, Sun Yaoming, has finally… finally been able to meet you!”

From that grand salute alone, she could tell he was not cut from the same cloth as Li Guangyuan, and Bai Xiang felt a little more at ease. She moved him up with her qi, left Yu He outside, closed the door, and planned to have a detailed talk with this man.

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There was a small interlude in the middle, when Yu He received a call from a subordinate saying that the Head Shop was once again causing trouble in the western part of Longchuan Circuit.

Yu He then turned wide, pleading eyes on Sun Yaoming. Sun Yaoming said unhurriedly, “Do not worry.”

“I previously set up formations in several other directions, leaving only a gap to the west. I already anticipated they would run wild over there.”

“Mr. Yu only needs to have someone take the talismans I left, go to the east gate of the Westwind Hotel, find a spot with good airflow, and stick one on the wall. They will immediately suffer for it.”

Talismans?

And formations?

At those words, Bai Xiang could not help but look at him in a new light.

She had previously slain Li Guangyuan and absorbed the shattered remnants of his memories. As he had indeed been a subordinate of Immortal Venerables, he knew quite a lot about the Upper Realm, filling many gaps in Bai Xiang’s understanding. She had also learned that in the Illusory Realms of the Upper Realm there was likewise a path of formations.

Unlike the arrays in most novels, it was not so mystical. Strictly speaking, it was just an extended arrangement of talismanic implements.

Even so, judging by Sun Yaoming’s twenty-something appearance, for him to have worked out talisman formations at such an age already counted as very gifted, to the point of being something of a curiosity even in the Upper Realm.

With that live demonstration, with Sun Yaoming showing how he could help Maozhou fend off foreign covetous forces, the atmosphere in the room immediately eased a good deal.

What they had to discuss next was not something Yu He needed to know right now. Bai Xiang sent him back out to stand guard and continued to confer with Sun Yaoming.

“You say you come from Tianfu Mountain.” Bai Xiang decided to get straight to the point. “What kind of power is that, and which Illusory Realm does it belong to?”

“If I may inform Venerable Bai, Tianfu Mountain does not belong to any Illusory Realm.” Sun Yaoming’s spirits lifted, and when he spoke of his own affiliation there was a hint of pride in his tone. “We are different from all of the Illusory Realms, because we are one of the few human forces.”

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After a long and detailed conversation, Bai Xiang finally learned this man’s specific origin and background.

The things that came down from the Upper Realm might basically all look human, some even wrapped in Daoist robes with immortal-bone airs, but in truth Bai Xiang knew very well that they were all demons.

The stronger ones were demonic creatures that had crossed the Body Tribulation to take human form, or humans who had crossed the Body Tribulation to become demons and, after cultivating to great heights, could cut back to a human body once more.

The weaker ones, like the soldiers dispatched by the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty, were rife with people who still bore numerous demonic traits. None of them counted as human.

All those Immortal Venerables of the Upper Realm, all those powers, were in fact forces of the demon race.

That included the Demon Court Li Guangyuan had used to threaten Bai Xiang, a great power that gathered many demon Immortal Venerables and was even faintly the mightiest of the Upper Realm’s many factions.

Against that backdrop, Tianfu Mountain was extremely out of the ordinary.

In the Upper Realm, there was actually very little space for pure humans to live.

Aside from legendary great clans such as the Giant-Spirit Human Clan and the Long River Human Clan, most humans were strangled by various forces as soon as they showed their faces.

This was not because those demon forces had formally issued orders to that effect. It was not that at all.

Those powers simply did not take the remaining human forces seriously and barely cared about their development.

That strangling was, in fact, a spontaneous pattern of behavior born from a demon-ruled world.

You could see it clearly from the composition of the populace of the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty: most of those people were demon-human mixed bloods, with almost no pure humans among them.

So Bai Xiang roughly understood why Sun Yaoming had been so enthusiastic toward her from the moment they met.

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It was not only because he believed she was human as well.

Mainly, it was because the power behind him, Tianfu Mountain, probably knew that the true ruling force behind the Yu Emperor’s Sacred Dynasty was also the demon race.

The Maozhou that Bai Xiang governed was already the main-world power closest to humans that they could find, and in that regard they had no room for choice.

“I came to seek out Venerable Bai actually to convey Tianfu Mountain’s goodwill toward Maozhou.”

After saying the main part, Sun Yaoming’s tone grew slower and heavier.

Bai Xiang, sensitive to such things, could clearly see that Sun Yaoming was hesitating, as if afraid that what he was about to say would anger her.

“Envoy Sun, feel free to speak your mind,” she said. “I am not so bloodthirsty as the rumors claim.”

“In fact, Tianfu Mountain sent another envoy besides me.”

Sun Yaoming finally admitted it.

“As for why I came to see Venerable Bai alone… it is because my master was afraid… afraid that those people’s proposal would make Venerable Bai harbor resentment… so he sent me… um…”

“What sort of proposal is that outrageous?”

Bai Xiang was curious.

“They plan…” Sun Yaoming was still hemming and hawing.

“They plan to ask Venerable Bai… to give up the Path of Qi.”