Volume 4, Chapter 106 – Plotting Change

At the same time, in the eastern corner of Qiyun Circuit City, inside a newly erected manor-fortress, a grand banquet was in full swing.

If Fang Wenya were standing at the entrance to the hall and looking inside, she would immediately have been able to call out the names and offices of more than half the people there. That was because those people had all once served around Fang Xiaochun, until Fang Wenyuan rose not long ago and those dogs all defected to him.

The hall was vast, clearly modeled in part after foreign banquet halls. Countless officials in splendid dress gathered in twos and threes, conversing and socializing. From time to time, beautiful maidservants could be seen bringing food and drink, dressed in gauzy, half-transparent veils.

Such luxurious and debauched extravagance, not to mention under the rule of those Sacred Emperors. Even a few decades ago, the former king would certainly have rebuked it on sight.

But that age, in the end, had also died.

Standing in this hall now were not only treacherous ministers and rebels, but also all manner of strange-looking Void Realm demon-men, some of them deliberately leaving grotesque organs exposed.

Add to that the federation envoys drawn here at the same time, and the various blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners. Xu Changze truly had an intense premonition that rites had collapsed, music had decayed, and a chaotic age was nearing its end.

I am a high minister, a Sili Colonel under Lord Fang! How can I willingly keep company with these traitors?

Fueled by drink, Xu Changze suddenly picked up a wine cup and started walking toward the small circle of people that clearly occupied the center of the hall.

“Lord Xu! Ah! Lord Xu!”

At once, a withered hand shot out from the side, grabbed his sleeve, and pulled him back.

It belonged to an old man with a weathered face, roughly in his seventies. The robe he wore was clearly a rank below that of most of the officials present, and even less comparable to Xu Changze’s splendid attire.

“Old Dong, I know what you want to say to me.” Xu Changze kept his eyes fixed on that group, his lips trembling. “But if neither you nor I do it, then who are we supposed to count on?”

“No reform has ever come without bloodshed! What is wrong with beginning from me?”

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“Lord Xu, please!” Old Dong looked deeply troubled. He hurriedly covered Xu Changze’s mouth and nose with his sleeve, muffling those words, while continuing to smile apologetically at those around them, putting on the air of a loyal retainer protecting his master.

Only after no one was paying attention anymore did he steady Xu Changze and lean close to whisper in his ear, “I know your heart burns to serve the state, Lord Xu, but all things must be done with method. If the goal can be achieved without bloodshed, why must we insist on charging into the dead end?”

Something like this… can it really be done without bloodshed?

Xu Changze glared at him, his eyes full of contempt.

“Lord Xu, since you already followed my first warning, namely to feign betrayal of Lord Fang and insinuate yourself into this circle, you must already have guessed what mission rests on your shoulders.”

Old Dong’s tone grew grave.

“It is easy enough for Lord Xu to die. If order is restored in the future, the Ceremonials Office will certainly see that your name is polished into glory.”

“But has Lord Xu considered this? If you die now, what becomes of Lord Fang? What becomes of the people of the Qi lands who are being preyed upon?”

The warning was clearly taking effect. Xu Changze’s hot blood gradually cooled, and clarity slowly returned to his gaze.

“You should be grateful those ‘Daoists’ aren’t here,” Old Dong said at last with a sigh of relief, though his tone now carried a trace of complaint.

Each of those ‘Daoists’ possessed heaven-reaching power, with cultivation even stronger than Earthly Masters. There was no way whispers like these could escape their hearing. If they had been present, then the moment Xu Changze first went mad with impulse, there would already have been no turning back.

“I understand the reasoning,” Xu Changze said in a low voice with a frown. “But from the look of things, you should be able to tell that Fang Wenyuan has no intention of making serious use of me.”

If he were not valued, then how could he serve as the wedge he was meant to be?

Was he really expected to learn from the others and ‘take powders,’ to put on an act of drunken madness and idiocy?

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Or to indulge with those beauties and serving girls, to stain his own name in that way and offer it up as a token of allegiance before he could achieve his purpose?

Xu Changze’s face was stern. He felt that if Old Dong answered that it truly had to be so, then he might as well just die.

“There is no need to hurry, my lord.”

Old Dong shook his head and leaned in to murmur a few words into his ear.

“…Is that true?” A faint purple-gold gleam flashed in Xu Changze’s eyes, and his attitude seemed to waver.

“It was a letter delivered personally by Miss Fang! Do you still not believe it?” Old Dong was getting anxious now.

“The State Chancery is sealed shut. Information cannot easily get out. Lord Fang refuses to cast aside his dignity and ask Zhennan for help, so this matter can only fall on Miss Fang and on you!”

“Then I…” Xu Changze frowned, looking as though heaven and man were battling within him. Only after a long while did he murmur to himself, “Then this counts as saving Lord Fang. It is also for restoring order here as soon as possible, for consolidating the Yu Emperor Sacred Dynasty…”

His voice dropped too low after that for Old Dong to hear clearly. The old man merely nodded and said, “The people to carry the letter have already been arranged. It is only that, to avoid inspection at the passes, we still need your official seal.”

“I understand.” Xu Changze nodded.

“I’ll handle it once I return from here.”

Meanwhile, ahead of them, in the small circle he had been staring at, an ugly demon-man with a hideous face and eight eyes growing from his head was awkwardly dressed in official robes, drinking and chatting merrily with the powerful men of the Qi lands.

“Lord Fang.”

Seizing on a relatively quiet opening, the creature leaned close to Fang Wenyuan and asked in a somewhat shrill voice, “My master sent me to ask you whether there has been any progress, in these recent days in the Qi lands, regarding the Shenming Qi-Refining Formula being distributed in Maozhou.”

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Do you people have no eyes of your own? Can’t you send anyone into the countryside to investigate? Did you really have to come ask me?

Fang Wenyuan was a man with a ‘peculiar appearance.’ His head was large, sitting on his shoulders like an oversized gourd that had grown crooked. And yet, whether in popular custom or among the upper scholarly elite, people tended to trust those born with unusual features.

A trace of impatience passed through his eyes, but Fang Wenyuan quickly hid it and replied with a smile, “There is no need to worry.”

“So long as the orthodoxy of the Sacred Dynasty remains for even a single day, those formulas can never pose a threat.”

Because they simply could not be learned.

They could be read, certainly, and they could be practiced as well.

But people would ‘practice them and then forget,’ and before long, the thinking of Sword Dao would overwrite everything again.

As for the commoners and slave folk only lightly constrained by Sword Dao… hmph! Even if one or two among them were gifted beyond measure and could somehow teach themselves without guidance, they still lacked the means and foundation.

If they could not even afford the various spirit medicines cultivation required, then how long would it take before they reached a level where they could actually be of use?

By then, the great trend of the world would probably already be settled.

So of course they posed no real threat.

The eight-eyed demon-man seemed to care a great deal about this matter. Only after pressing Fang Wenyuan several times for confirmation did it finally relax, and the two resumed the harmonious atmosphere they had shared before.

“Lord Fang.” Some time later, after the eight-eyed demon-man had gone off, a massively obese man came over from the side.

“Steward Zhou.” Fang Wenyuan’s brows drew tightly together the moment he saw him, and his expression became markedly more serious.

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The two withdrew from the banquet into a darker corner. In a low voice, the plump Steward Zhou said, “His Highness the Crown Prince has sent word, telling us to speed up our efforts to win over the Dao lineages of the Qi lands.”

Both men knew full well that this naturally included those Void Realm Dao lineages as well.

In the past, restrained by Yujing, His Highness the Crown Prince had had no chance to display his abilities, nor any easy way to cultivate his own power.

Now, with so many Void Realm Dao lineages invading, they were plainly the best possible source of support.

And it could not even be said that one side was suffering losses, or that one side was specifically taking advantage of the other.

Because it was the same for all of them.

Those Void Realm people needed to find some symbol through which to participate in a certain struggle, most likely because they too wanted to contend for that position. But that kind of struggle could not possibly avoid questions of legitimacy and orthodoxy.

Only by winning the hearts of the people could one be acknowledged by ‘it,’ and because of that, His Highness’s status was itself an enormously weighty bargaining chip.

“I’m already working on it,” Fang Wenyuan said with a frown. “It’s just that these demon-men are truly insatiable. They dare to make every kind of outrageous demand. This matter is likely to take no small amount of effort.”

“You need to be faster.”

Steward Zhou was clearly dissatisfied, speaking almost in the tone of an order.

“The Dao-Void Martial Tournament is about to begin. Great changes are on the verge of arriving.”

“We must make every preparation in advance. You know how important this matter is to His Highness.”