Volume 5, Chapter 3 – Connecting the Threads

Under the same night sky, at the Broadcasting Building of Wangchuan Circuit’s General Administration, a slender young woman made her way down to the parking garage in the dark, feeling her way toward her car.

Just as she passed a load-bearing pillar, a black shadow swept out like lightning, carrying the sharp whistle unique to a blade slicing through air, aimed squarely at her throat.

Faced with the sneak attack, the young woman’s eyes widened. She bent her upper body sharply to evade the strike, and in the next instant a keen-edged longsword nearly three chi in length appeared in her hand. She slapped the attacker’s weapon aside with the flat of her blade, then flicked upward. The assailant let out a muffled grunt, and in the darkness there came a clang, as if something had been knocked from his hand onto the ground.

Taking the advantage, the young woman swung her sword and in two or three strokes severed the tendons in the man’s wrists and ankles. Grabbing him by the collar, she half dragged him into the light and stared at the utterly ordinary male face before asking, “Who sent you?”

The man said nothing. He only bared his teeth in a miserable grin.

That smile… not good!

Her expression changed. As if she had suddenly made some connection, the woman hurled herself sideways into a rolling dive, instantly throwing herself behind a black sedan for cover.

Boom!

A huge explosion rang through the parking garage. The woman, together with the sedan, was blasted into the air and slammed hard against that load-bearing pillar.

A disturbance like that naturally drew plenty of attention. In the darkness, several beams of light immediately lit up at the garage exit, and at the same time, from deep around a corner, a bespectacled middle-aged woman came running over. The moment she saw the scene, her face changed, and she hurried to check on the woman lying on the ground.

“I got careless… cough, cough.”

The young woman struggled to her feet with the middle-aged woman’s support.

“This one wasn’t an ordinary opponent…”

“Good thing you know how to fight!” The middle-aged woman’s voice was full of lingering fear. Otherwise, the consequences might have been unthinkable.

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Without another word, she first helped the injured woman into her car and got her settled. Only after a while did the middle-aged woman return to the driver’s seat and say softly, “Everything’s been taken care of. The Directorate knows you were attacked. Security won’t let word get out, and they’ve also granted you an extra three days of leave.”

“That was at least a three-star Qi-Fire Explosive Flame Array.”

As the young woman raised her head, the light fell across her face, revealing a cool, strikingly intelligent beauty.

“Even after that, they’re only giving me three extra days?”

If Shen He had been here, she would have recognized her at once. This was none other than Wang Muyu, the famous beauty host she had just seen on-screen the night before.

“There are people in the circuit who want to push the introduction of mecha, so naturally they need to make use of your influence.” The middle-aged woman started the car and drove out through the back exit of the garage. “Shouldn’t you have enough self-awareness to know that getting three days is already not bad?”

“And how is this attack supposed to be accounted for?” Wang Muyu was deeply dissatisfied. “Even with my cultivator certification, I could only buy a one-star Qi-Fire Explosive Flame Array. Do they want me to work for them, or do they want me dead?”

“Last night’s program was only meant as a test… we really didn’t expect the opposition to be this intense.” The middle-aged woman shook her head and sighed. “The Directorate’s plan was to put Jiang Anqiang out front to draw the brunt of public opinion. Most of the security force was reassigned these past two days to protect him. No one expected those extremists to come after you first.”

Wang Muyu gave a cold laugh. “That’s not how responsibility works.”

“I’ll tell them that.” The woman gave ground a little. “Your security will be strengthened. After the next episode airs, your rest period can be extended. I’ll do my best to secure that.”

Wang Muyu gave no further response, and the atmosphere inside the car quickly turned cold.

To ease the tension, the middle-aged woman switched on the car radio.

[Message from the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate: Recent observations indicate that the stagnation of the ‘Sky Sea’ is showing signs of weakening. The lower regions at the relevant coordinates may encounter a meteor shower. Personnel in those areas are advised to take proper safety precautions…]

“A meteor shower?” Wang Muyu frowned. “The Roads Directorate chose this month to bring in Western companies and their supporting technology. This couldn’t have something to do with that, could it?”

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“If you had asked before tonight, I would have said no.” The middle-aged woman glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “But now the news is half public, so my answer is yes.”

Wang Muyu’s expression turned even grimmer, because she knew full well that a meteor shower was not the same as an ordinary disaster.

In the first chaotic year, the main world planet had been cut into fragments by the Void Tribulation, and many regions had nearly been scraped right off its surface.

But because High Emperor Ancestor Xia had exercised divine power and used a single decree to offset nearly half of the tidal catastrophe, the main world planet had not been shattered completely.

Many regions had already been severed, yet under the power of that decree they had been drawn back together again.

On top of that, with the return and fusion of many heaven-seas and fragments of Illusory Realms, the present main world was not merely broader and larger across its planetary surface. Around it in the void also circled great numbers of Illusory Realm fragments, surrounding it like countless floating islands.

In the years after that first year, the tide of the Void Tribulation receded. Hundreds of millions of refugees of the Path of Qi gathered around Shenming Sword Dao as it rose to supremacy, replaced Yu with Xia, and established the vigorous Eastern Xia Imperial Court.

But that did not mean the world had known peace ever since.

Eastern Xia was a nation that upheld qi methods above all else. That was determined by the very makeup of its citizenry.

Among its people, more than three hundred million claimed to have heard High Emperor Ancestor Xia personally expound the Dao in that first year. Even if only one percent of them truly felt gratitude for it, that would still mean well over a million devoted believers. Those people could become the backbone of reconstruction across many regions, and they helped the Eastern Xia Imperial Court maintain a firm grip on the entire nation.

Yet at the same time, Eastern Xia was also the only nation that revered qi methods.

In the world today, the territory held by the Westerners and their total population were both more than ten times that of the Eastern Xia Empire. Most of those people should have died in the tidal onslaught of the Void Tribulation, yet they survived thanks to High Emperor Ancestor Xia and, after that first chaotic year, rapidly rose by relying on mecha technology, becoming a mountain pressing on the hearts of all Eastern Xia people.

The two sides had not yet gone to war, but Wang Muyu knew that was a false peace.

If the tidal force had not torn the void passages to pieces, causing voidfiend monsters to keep spawning in countless regions and forcing every power to unite against them, these past ten years would never have been this stable. The fighting would probably have started long ago.

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“With High Emperor Ancestor Xia’s ‘decree’ locking things in place, the order of the world has only been torn by tidal force to a very limited extent,” Wang Muyu said. “Under normal circumstances, meteors shouldn’t be falling at all. It would only be things that were originally locked in the ‘Sky Sea’ now entering free fall as the ‘Sky Sea’ dissipates.”

Which meant that some things from that first chaotic year might be coming down along with the meteors.

Wang Muyu was worried that some of them might be truly baleful objects.

“Since the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate has already reported it to the Roads Directorate, the people above will deal with those problems.” The middle-aged woman let out a soft laugh. “Lady Qiao may be somewhat extreme in certain respects, but she has always taken matters like this very seriously.”

“But even if we get lucky and there’s nothing filthy hidden in the meteor shower, the fact that ‘they are falling down’ already proves that the ‘Sky Sea’ above Wangchuan Circuit is dispersing…”

Wang Muyu’s brow did not relax in the slightest.

“Without the ‘Sky Sea’ as a natural barrier, are the circuit’s current defensive forces… really enough?”

After she asked that question, even the middle-aged woman fell silent.

“We’ll have to see how things develop.”

Only after a long while did the woman give a flat reply.

“I’m only an assistant assigned to you.”

“Whether a medium-sized circuit city within the protected zone of the battle line should be reactivated as a fortress… that is not my decision to make.”

So that was why they were so desperate to bring in new technology.

Wang Muyu had finally linked together most of the information, and she also understood why the Roads Directorate was in such a hurry to use her to dispel the public’s distrust of mecha technology.

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But it was mecha technology, after all.

Choosing to merge flesh into mecha equipment and “coexist” with it… if that sort of technology were accepted and spread, then what difference would remain between Eastern Xia and the other side?

Her brows faintly furrowed, Wang Muyu raised her right hand and gazed at the sword calluses gathered in several places on her palm. Then her eyes drifted out the window.

Once the car entered the public roadway, its wheels retracted and it rose into a hover. The street scenery began receding faster and faster. Soon, Wang Muyu’s view suddenly opened up, and she saw a jade disk hanging in the night sky.

Another full-moon night had come.

Her eyelids lowered halfway.

In the current situation…

If that person could…

Forget it.

Her eyes closed tightly.

There were no ifs.

As long as qi methods endure, we of this generation must remember Ancestor Xia’s teachings.

No matter when, no matter where, we must keep a firm grip on the three-foot sword in our hands.