Volume 4, Chapter 125 – Governance (Two-in-One)

According to the information already available, Returning-to-Origin Purple Qi was a fragment of the primary order.

It was the favor of the primary order, the vessel of fortune. Anyone who possessed Returning-to-Origin Purple Qi could be said to have fortune. The power of that fortune could also be extracted from the abstract concept of the primary order itself.

For example, there was the method Blood Soul Heaven had taught Wang Xiu, the so-called “drawing dragon veins.”

What this drew was not just the power of the primary order in one region. More of it came from the fortune of the current dynasty. It could be put this way: the scheme Crown Prince Yao Quan and Blood Soul Heaven had undertaken together was nothing less than undermining Great Yu at the root.

Bai Xiang appeared at Zhu Canghai’s side without warning, but he still had not noticed her and was still shouting at the cowering crowd.

“You there, gather them all together. Don’t let them just stand around here.”

“Of course gathering them means sending them away. Do I really have to teach you how to do that too?”

Treating ordinary mortals who knew nothing of cultivation this well was a first in Zhu Canghai’s life. Still, even if he had never eaten pork, he had at least seen pigs run. He had seen with his own eyes what the atmosphere was like under Zhennan’s rule.

So he knew very well how these people ought to be treated. He only looked vicious on the surface, barking orders without mercy, but inwardly he did not dare slaughter the common people below at all, afraid Bai Xiang would be angry if she came and saw it.

It was only when he noticed a slight stir in the crowd, and saw many people’s gazes suddenly shift toward him, that he seemed to realize something. Turning around, he found Bai Xiang standing behind him.

“Venerable Lord!”

Zhu Canghai’s eyelid twitched, and he bowed deeply to Bai Xiang. Inwardly, he cried out that her cultivation seemed even deeper again.

No matter what, he had entered the Venerable ranks. Sensing the movement of the air around him would count as basic skill even among sword cultivators in the Core Realm. So what kind of person could approach him without his noticing?

There was only one possibility. The other party had almost completely merged into the surrounding environment. Every movement, even every breath, had secretly harmonized with the Heavenly Dao, achieving in action the legendary state of following nature through the Dao.

Grateful that he had chosen the right side, Zhu Canghai took the initiative to report the situation to Bai Xiang.

“He Xian and I killed all the evil cultivators in this manor earlier. He’s gone with Peak Lord Li to Lord Fang’s residence now. I’m the only one left here to stand guard.”

“You did well.” Bai Xiang nodded.

Naturally, she was not going to blame the blood already flowing in the trenches on Zhu Canghai for arriving late. Seeing that the trouble in this manor had already been handled, she praised him simply, then took out a small booklet from her storage jade token and handed it to this loose Venerable.

“It records some orifices and meridians you haven’t manifested and tempered yet.”

“It should be of some help to you.”

“I would not dare disappoint you, Venerable Lord!” Zhu Canghai bowed again, taking the booklet with both hands. His voice was already trembling slightly.

At the beginning, he and He Xian had submitted to Bai Xiang purely to stay alive and protect themselves. He had never expected that performing well would also earn him a cultivation method. That far exceeded his expectations.

And after the excitement passed, he immediately noticed that his Venerable Lord also enjoyed no small amount of popularity here in Qiyun Circuit.

Even though he had already killed the evil cultivators who had restrained and enslaved them, the eyes those ordinary people turned on him were still full of fear and distrust.

But the moment Bai Xiang arrived, their expressions lit up with happiness. Many of the elderly visibly relaxed for the first time, and even more people murmured her title and tried to edge closer for another look at her.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve formed karma with this place.

Bai Xiang sighed inwardly.

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The first should have been when she crossed through the spring eye and came to Qiyun to punish Yao Qingyuan.

The second had been when she purged the demonic disaster all the way through and killed the resurrected ancient demon, Shiling.

The third had been when she intercepted Crown Prince Wu Qing of the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty and his party, unleashing a massacre on the great plain outside Qiyun Circuit.

This rescue today truly counted as the fourth time.

Thinking that the Qi lands had, after all, raised and nurtured her, and that if she meant to save them she could not keep running back and forth like this forever, Bai Xiang simply gave the crowd her guarantee. From this day forward, the four circuits of Qizhou, including Chilong Circuit, which was still in the process of being recovered, would all be brought under the protection of Shenming Sword Dao. Outside Great Yu’s system of formal laws, any demon cultivator or evil cultivator who committed wrongdoing could report it to Zhennan through the Jobs Directorate or through Dao sect outposts.

Needless to say, that statement ignited the crowd.

Because the people of Qi regarded her as one of their own children.

Shenming Dao Lord, Bai Xiang, Bai Zhixing. Before she took charge of Maozhou’s Tenth Prefecture, she had been from Chilong Circuit. She was one of the Qi people.

She was a child of our Qi lands. She was a peerless prodigy raised and lifted up by our own people.

And with Bai Xiang having rescued the Qi lands so many times, the crowd’s enthusiasm for her nearly overflowed.

Many young people immediately begged to be accepted into Shenming Sword Dao.

The elderly, the women, and the children also knelt down, hoping to win blessings for their descendants.

Bai Xiang had already been considering expanding recruitment in the Qi lands, because with Shenming Sword Dao’s current manpower, at most it could guard Maozhou alone. If she wanted to fold the Qi lands into her sphere of influence as well, doing so without the people to station there was impossible.

So she agreed on the spot, simply mentioning that once the disturbance here subsided, recruitment would begin.

That immediately sparked another burst of joyous cheers, and only then did the crowd gradually disperse.

Zhu Canghai watched all this in a daze.

He had always been used to seeing ordinary mortals as resources. Never before had he seen such people display this degree of ardent love and respect for the lord of a region.

Shouldn’t it have been awe instead?

The majesty of an Immortal Venerable should be as crushing as a prison and as vast as the sea.

In every scene like this he had seen before, mortals should have been obediently prostrating themselves on the ground, sticking their backsides high in the air, not even daring to raise their heads and look.

How could this happen… How could they truly like and admire her from the bottom of their hearts?

Though he had already glimpsed some of Zhennan’s atmosphere, he still had never imagined seeing something like this. The sight left him genuinely shaken.

“So easy, isn’t it.”

“Huh?”

Bai Xiang’s voice came from beside him. Zhu Canghai answered blankly, then looked at her in alarm, afraid his disrespect might offend her.

“I didn’t even do anything concrete. I only said a few words, made a few verbal promises. Calling them empty promises wouldn’t be unfair.”

“And yet these people are already this satisfied. They can ignore the blood that was spilled and the sacrifices that were made, and just go home happily like this.”

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Bai Xiang withdrew her gaze from the departing crowd and turned to look at Zhu Canghai.

“It is that easy to fool ordinary people.”

“That’s why some people are so fearless.”

The deeper meaning of those words was something Zhu Canghai, who had grown up in the environment of the Illusory Realms, could not grasp for the moment.

Bai Xiang did not trouble him over it. She only asked him for the surviving captives, because she wanted to ask them some questions herself.

Some time later, the hall where that banquet had once been held received a group of bound officials, led by Fang Wenyuan, all with their hands tied behind them.

By now, most of them already understood the situation and obediently knelt before Bai Xiang.

Only a dozen or so officials, Fang Wenyuan included, remained standing and refused to kneel. They even looked at Bai Xiang with righteous confidence.

“Impudence!”

The recording clerk at the side rolled his eyes, cast a glance at Bai Xiang seated in the place of honor, and cried out in a shrill voice.

“There was once a jade-register imperial edict: the lords of the Nine Prefectures receive the Son of Heaven’s mandate, rank above counts, and stand beside the Three Excellencies. Now that Shenming Dao Lord is here in person, on what grounds do you refuse to bow?”

“There was also an edict,” Fang Wenyuan replied calmly, “that those in attendance upon the Crown Prince share his dignity. Before the Three Excellencies, they need not bow. Before a Dao Venerable, they need not kneel. We are merely observing the sacred command. How could we be so fickle and inconstant?”

So now you’ve found your breath?

The recording clerk’s face flushed red. Fang Wenyuan’s words had been aimed directly at him, mocking the fact that he had earlier defected from Fang Xiaochun’s side, and now had defected right back again.

But he no longer dared raise his voice, because those words were not mocking only him.

By bringing up the title of “attendant to the Crown Prince” and adding the charge of being “fickle and inconstant,” Fang Wenyuan was directly accusing Shenming Dao Lord’s actions tonight of treason.

That topic was far too heavy. Many of the officials in the hall, and even the prefectural troops and armored guards who had already submitted to Bai Xiang and stood on both sides, frowned and lowered their eyes to the ground.

Without a clear expectation of what lay ahead, most people still did not dare involve themselves in a subject like that.

Fang Wenyuan swept his gaze over everyone’s faces and was very satisfied with their reactions.

Had Bai Zhixing also been frightened?

With that smug thought, he raised his eyes toward Bai Xiang on the high seat.

Yet before his gaze had even fully lifted, he caught sight of the person above casually shifting the leg she had crossed.

He did not even get a full look at Bai Xiang’s upper body. The wave of air stirred up by that single motion sliced through his body like a blade. His whole body stiffened at once, and his eyes bulged in utter shock.

“Y-you… you…!”

He barely managed to raise a hand and point at Bai Xiang before his body suddenly collapsed, splitting into two halves that fell to the ground as red and white matter splashed in every direction.

“Aah!”

Such a bloody and horrifying scene instantly turned many officials deathly pale and drenched them in cold sweat.

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The officials who had earlier stood with Fang Wenyuan and refused to kneel immediately prostrated themselves as well, kowtowing frantically toward the seat of honor while babbling words of submission.

“Greetings, Dao Lord Bai!”

“Dao Venerable, please judge wisely. This was not my doing. Fang Wenyuan threatened my wife and daughters, and I had no choice but to yield!”

Some went even further, turning on one another, accusing and denouncing each other in an attempt to dump every crime committed in this period onto someone else.

Bai Xiang could not be bothered wasting words on them.

It was true that she had things to ask these people, but that did not mean she intended to question the living.

“Kill all those who refused to kneel earlier.”

Seeing a translucent soul-shadow fly out of Fang Wenyuan’s remains and get sucked over by Feixiang Heaven to be devoured, Bai Xiang lowered her crossed leg, sat upright, and spoke the next sentence that made every face in the hall change color.

“Behead them here.”

“Anyone who resists, exterminate the clan.”

Those few simple words sent a chill straight from spine to marrow in many hearts. They all looked up at Bai Xiang in horror. She actually dared kill court officials?

And exterminate the clan… those words were not to be used lightly.

If she merely killed people, then no matter how big this became, at most it would amount to treason and rebellion.

But exterminating the clan was a sentence that only the emperor could pronounce.

Only the imperial house, the Son of Heaven, beings born sacred, could bear the decree of heaven and earth and wield such a brutal punishment in its name.

No one else was permitted to kill under that pretext.

“What kind of court can’t protect its own subjects?”

Bai Xiang looked at them with open mockery.

“How many times have the Qi lands been abandoned? Shouldn’t discarded pieces like you understand that better than anyone?”

“And as for all this talk of being born sacred…”

“Think back to the Pact of Jing River. Wasn’t it the Yao clan who broke that rule first?”

Mad. She’s gone mad.

This time everyone was truly dumbstruck.

Every word Bai Zhixing had just spoken was enough to get someone beheaded and their clan exterminated. How could she dare? How could she so casually rip open the wound the current court most feared to touch?

But Bai Xiang had no intention of dragging things out with them.

She had discovered long ago that this world could be considered a parallel counterpart to Earth. Though there were many differences, even in geography, the historical allusions and events could still often be matched to references from the other world once transformed a little.

And the so-called Pact of Jing River naturally corresponded to the Luoshui Pact of the Sima clan on Earth.

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A broken promise. Betrayal of one’s lord. Usurpation of the throne. The murder of a sovereign in the street.

Exactly.

The current court had done things very similar to Sima Yi and Sima Shi as well. It simply had not spread so widely because supernatural power had helped conceal it.

Why did the Yu Emperor Sacred Dynasty rule the world through filial piety?

Wasn’t it precisely because they had no face left to speak too much of any other virtue?

Today, she meant to tear this deepest scar completely open and make it the righteous cause by which she would thoroughly take control of Qizhou.

Ignoring some people’s pleading, and ignoring even more officials’ painstaking attempts to dissuade her, Bai Xiang ordered them to begin accusing one another.

She had killed Fang Wenyuan and seized his remnant soul and memories. Naturally, that meant she could judge whether their accusations were true according to the memories of the man who had directed the affair.

Anyone who lied was beheaded.

Right here, on the spot. And not by her own hand either, but by other officials whose accusations had proven correct.

Among them, those whose crimes were especially grave and whose clans lived locally received the full clan-extermination package directly from her. She appointed the commanders of those prefectural troops and armored guards to personally lead the operation, and by tomorrow morning the corpses of those entire families had to be nailed up at the street corners.

The advantages of doing this were obvious. Her killing was so ruthless and decisive that no one dared object to her will in the slightest, and every part of the process was being carried out at the fastest possible speed.

Heads thudded to the ground one after another. Blood sprayed out in arcs.

The officials’ faces were pale, their bodies trembling. Even those whose accusations had succeeded were no exception, because they understood perfectly well that from the moment they picked up the blade and, under Dao Lord Bai’s order, cut off a colleague’s head, their fate was no longer theirs to command.

There was only one road left to them now: to follow this person, to follow her, and let themselves be driven in her service.

If she failed, and reckoning came afterward, then they too would be beheaded and have their clans exterminated. They could only follow her with all their hearts now.

This was their pledge of allegiance.

Bai Xiang had no interest in hiding that.

Even Shenming Sword Dao’s own territory lacked capable officials to govern it. As for the people before her, regardless of what they had done previously, the fact that they had at least struggled when Fang Wenyuan tried to win them over was enough for her, for now.

She could not kill all of them. At least, she could not kill them all now.

The best course was to use them first to continue governing the three circuits of Qizhou, then settle accounts with them slowly in the future, once she had the time and enough manpower to fill their positions.

The Dao-Void martial exercises were about to begin, and she still had many things to do.

The chaos in Qiyun Circuit had to be suppressed and brought to an end as quickly as possible.

She had thought it through clearly, and what she did could truly be called swift and resolute.

Only, she truly had not been paying close attention. As more and more blood flowed, the look in many people’s eyes as they stared at her in the hall had already changed.

It was not simple submission anymore. Something else had been mixed into it, something far more fanatical.