Volume 5, Chapter 10 – Strike Down

She dared impersonate the High Emperor!?

Of course Qiao Wen recognized Bai Xiang’s portrait. She only froze for a brief moment before flying into a rage. Her hand swept across her waist, and with a grab, a three-foot broadsword dropped into her hand. With a metallic ring, she drew it and thrust it at Bai Xiang.

Bai Xiang did not move at all, allowing the woman to stab straight into the qi force covering her body. Then Qiao Wen, Wang Muyu, and Shen He watched with their own eyes as that costly broad-bladed sword bent violently as if it had struck a slab of adamantine metal. With a sharp clang, it snapped cleanly in two!

How was that possible?

Qiao Wen’s face went deathly pale.

Qi methods did not emphasize external incarnations, and the bond between weapon and wielder was not as profound as it had been under the old methods, so there was no saying that a broken sword would damage one’s foundation.

Even so, this was still a weapon she had spent considerable resources forging for her own use, a military sword capable of cutting through the scales and armor of great demons!

How could it fail to pierce even the qi protecting the other side’s body, only to snap apart from the recoil alone?

Qiao Wen was horrified!

She could not accept so cruel a reality!

But that feeling came and went quickly, because an ineffable sensation swiftly enveloped her.

It was extraordinarily soft and intimate, as gentle as an infant returning to the womb and being submerged once more in amniotic fluid… Within it, Qiao Wen actually found a peace and serenity she had never felt again since enlisting.

No… what exactly was this?

Abruptly coming back to herself, she stumbled back three steps and once more stared at Bai Xiang with fear, shock, and disbelief in her eyes.

“A False Core, and only just beginning to gather medicine?”

With a single sentence, Bai Xiang laid bare Qiao Wen’s realm. Her gaze dropped to the woman’s waist.

“The one you call the Imperial Court Regent should have given you a communication artifact, yes? There should be a new hidden instruction inside it.”

With a beckoning motion, a gold-inlaid jade order flew from Qiao Wen’s waist. Its form clearly inherited the style of the previous dynasty, with only the fine carvings changed, the central motif having been replaced with a golden cicada.

No one knew what Bai Xiang did to it. Once the jade order landed in her hand, she merely rubbed it once. A brilliant golden light flew out of it, branding characters one by one in midair while a cold and authoritative female voice rang out at the same time.

“Qiao Wen, Imperial Envoy, is hereby sent to Wangchuan to serve as Watchman. Beyond the matter of ‘drawing out the snake,’ there is one further injunction, and it is this voice you now hear.”

“The only one who may activate this command is the true incarnate return of High Emperor Ancestor Xia. Do not transgress against her majesty. Obey the sacred command with utmost care.”

In plainer words:

Qiao Wen was being sent to Wangchuan Circuit to serve as its Watchman. Besides the plan to lure the snake from its hole, there was one hidden warning as well, namely the one she was hearing now.

The only person who could activate that warning was High Emperor Ancestor Xia. If Qiao Wen heard it, that meant the emperor’s true body had returned to the world. She was not to overstep Bai Xiang’s authority and was to await her orders without fail.

This…

Qiao Wen stared wide-eyed, still finding it hard to believe.

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That was hardly her fault. She was one of the figures who had risen only after Year One, one of the newer generation. She herself had not personally heard Bai Xiang preach ten years ago, so she could not identify her at first glance. Even after hearing the command, she still hesitated.

Only when she met Bai Xiang’s golden eyes, and felt her spirit and consciousness instantaneously dragged into two star vortices and churned within them, as though centuries or millennia had passed before she was flung back into her body, did she finally realize the realm of divine abilities possessed by the person before her. At once, she dropped to her knees in hurried prostration.

“This subject… Qiao Wen, Directorate Guard of the Yufang Directorate under the Privy Council, Watchman of Wangchuan Circuit, pays homage to Your Majesty!”

There was not the slightest hesitation. The address “Your Majesty” had already left her lips.

Because in the present Imperial Court, strictly speaking, no new emperor had ever been enthroned. Though many veteran ministers had urged it again and again, the Imperial Court Regent had refused to ascend the throne.

From Year One onward, in all of Eastern Xia, there was still only one person qualified to be addressed in that way.

“Hm?”

Bai Xiang had not even reacted yet when Qiao Wen lifted her eyes again and viciously swept them toward Wang Muyu and Shen He beside her.

Understanding the threat in that look, Wang Muyu reluctantly stepped forward and knelt to Bai Xiang as well.

“This commoner Muyu, together with Watchman Qiao, pays homage to Your Majesty.”

The phrasing alone made it obvious she did not mean it sincerely.

Clearly, Wang Muyu was still only half-convinced of Bai Xiang’s identity. She had no idea just how weighty an Imperial Court Jade Order truly was.

Should I be bowing to the Imperial Venerable too?

Shen He was thoroughly confused. She had been standing at Bai Xiang’s side, and now that Bai Xiang had let go and was no longer carrying her, she instinctively followed Qiao Wen’s example and knelt from slightly behind Bai Xiang’s side. Then she froze there, unsure whether she ought to stand up or keep crouching.

Bai Xiang did not care much about the two beside her. She merely swept them a glance, then looked back at Qiao Wen and said, “Tell me about the situation at court.”

“Yes!”

Now wholly convinced of Bai Xiang’s identity, Qiao Wen’s eyes flashed with dense joy and fervor. Lowering her voice, she began to report, “Since Your Majesty issued the Zhengyuan Edict to seal and stabilize Heaven and Earth, returning the primary order to origin, bringing the provinces to one heart, raising the Shenming Sacred Dao as the path chosen by all under heaven, founding the new Great Xia, and establishing the capital at Xiajing…”

She spoke in great detail, from “acting in accordance with the sacred will, dividing the provinces and circuits, adding five new provinces atop the original Nine Provinces to form the fourteen provinces of Eastern Court Great Xia,” all the way to “establishing Zhengyuan as the reign title, abolishing all mountains-and-rivers dojos and replacing them with universities coordinated uniformly by the central peaks”… She described nearly every matter, great and small, for Bai Xiang.

After hearing part of it, Bai Xiang asked, “Xiajing is the former Yujing?”

Qiao Wen nodded. “Exactly!”

“Shenming rose in Mao Province. Why was the capital not established at Zhennan in Mao Province?”

“The Regent did explain that,” Qiao Wen replied. “She said the northern front was under pressure, and as the one overseeing the realm and governing in regency, she could not remain safely in the rear.”

So it was a matter of the Son of Heaven guarding the frontier?

Bai Xiang understood, and a sense of comfort rose in her heart.

She had identified at once whose voice had read out that instruction just now.

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Why had she been so sure that the jade order contained a corresponding hidden measure?

Because a true ruler’s every strategy and every scheme should in fact follow the same underlying thread.

Since this Imperial Court Regent had dared to employ someone like Qiao Wen, using her inborn radicalism and progressivism to lure people like Li Chengtang into exposing flaws and weaknesses, then she was certain to be using similar strategies elsewhere as well.

And the most obvious example was the posthumous honorific she had been given, specifically marking her as High Emperor Ancestor Xia.

Using Qiao Wen to draw out the likes of Li Chengtang, and posthumously honoring her as High Emperor Ancestor Xia in order to draw out all those restless people, followed exactly the same logic.

Make them think she was dead and gone, and only then would those people dare jump out and start making trouble.

And looking at how stable Wangchuan Circuit was now, the fate of such people needed no further explanation.

Good.

Bai Xiang was extremely pleased with Bai Zhuqing. That was why she had made that remark at the outset, praising her for understanding how to balance the board and borrow one force to strike another.

A person like Qiao Wen certainly had her shortcomings. Her thinking was too progressive and too open. She actually believed that the defiled military path could be reconciled with qi methods.

Bai Xiang herself did not fear contamination, but if other cultivators dared touch even a little of it, the likely result was that they would be possessed by mechanized arms and unknowingly shift their loyalties.

Once someone had become one of the Sacred Weapon Clan, they were no longer even the same kind of life-form. What loyalty to the ruler? What service to the nation?

This thing was like toxic powder, a taboo that could not be touched.

And yet even with someone like Qiao Wen, Bai Zhuqing knew how to place her in the most suitable position, even turning her shortcomings around and using them as bait.

Seeing a leopard through a tube, Bai Xiang could infer a great deal from the way the Eastern Xia Imperial Court employed Qiao Wen, and from Qiao Wen’s attitude toward herself, meaning from political positioning alone.

The Bai family had not been sidelined.

The Eastern Xia Imperial Court was undoubtedly still held firmly in the hands of the Bai family, and of the Shenming Sword Dao. None of this was the style or method of her master, Xiang Xian.

And the fact that they had known to leave a hidden instruction for an administrative Watchman like Qiao Wen, here in Wangchuan Circuit, at the very place where Bai Xiang had vanished, clearly showed that they firmly believed she was not dead and had been waiting at all times for her return.

A scheme as dense as spider silk, with footholds everywhere and no miscalculation anywhere, perfectly matched Bai Zhuqing’s qi-force nature. It could only have come from her mind.

That little brat who used to do nothing but cling to her and call her aunt and big sister had truly grown up and matured…

Bai Xiang was deeply gratified.

She was already a little impatient to see the girl’s face and hear her voice again.

While she was speaking with Qiao Wen here, Wang Muyu beside them grew more and more alarmed the longer she listened. The look in her eyes when she gazed at Bai Xiang became increasingly fearful.

Wang Muyu was gradually coming to understand as well. With Qiao Wen’s depth, what kind of person could possibly impersonate the former emperor and fool her into willingly lowering herself in submission?

Bai Xiang’s appearance was exactly the same as the “High Emperor Ancestor Xia” in all the records, and on top of that, she possessed that unique warm aura that any cultivator on the Path of Qi could feel. Little by little, Wang Muyu realized that the woman before her might actually be real!

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This was the real High Emperor Ancestor Xia!

The real Empress Xiang!

If that were true, then the whole order of the realm was about to change…

Wang Muyu’s teeth chattered in excitement. Countless thoughts churned in secret through her mind as she began calculating what advantages the Wang family might gain in the oncoming torrent.

She had truly realized just how great an opportunity this day was.

Rumble, rumble.

Just then, the building suddenly trembled, as though something were approaching.

Hm?

Wang Muyu and Shen He both froze.

Only Qiao Wen reacted, saying to Bai Xiang, “It should be the federal ambassador…”

“I intended to use these people to push mechanized-arms technology, but I did not expect them to run into Your Majesty at Qinglao Mountain…”

With High Emperor Ancestor Xia standing right in front of her, Qiao Wen now understood perfectly well what had caused the strange phenomenon in the valley.

Those two unlucky federal lieutenants had undoubtedly offended the imperial presence. Their deaths were no more than what they deserved.

Only their teacher was more troublesome.

The Tianji Silver Eagle, Suo Nie.

After mechanizing himself, his strength surpassed that of a cultivator at the initial stage of the Golden Core. Even Qiao Wen herself would have to pour power into the Imperial Court Jade Order to contend with him.

He had already submitted an official document earlier demanding an explanation from her.

Well, this was just perfect.

She was afraid the imperial presence was about to have a good laugh at her expense.

“So it’s him?”

After hearing Qiao Wen’s report, Bai Xiang looked through the floor-to-ceiling window at a silver-white construct mech just over eight meters tall, trailing three plumes of blue flame behind it, its whole design sharp and handsome.

Qiao Wen nodded. “Yes.”

She drew in breath again, preparing to explain Suo Nie’s considerable status within the Federation, as well as his cooperative ties with the transnational giant Star Tower Group.

But before she could utter another word, Bai Xiang threw out the wooden sword she had taken from Shen He.

No one could see how the sword vanished.

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The floor-to-ceiling window did not break.

No sound or wind could be heard either.

From Qiao Wen’s angle, she could see the hovering mech pause for an instant. The blue light in its eyes and the blue flames behind it went out at once, and it plunged headfirst from the sky.

Crash!

A huge impact sounded in the distance, followed at once by the dense clamor of countless alarms.

“Ah… ah…?”

Qiao Wen, Wang Muyu, and Shen He all stared with wide eyes and gaping mouths, unable to believe what they had just seen.

What…

How could…

The Tianji Silver Eagle, Suo Nie, had actually just… just like that…

“I know that while I was absent, there were many constraints on the things you did.”

Bai Xiang’s voice descended from above.

“But from this moment on, I hope you understand that some things you see as constraints are not constraints in my eyes.”

“Do you understand?”

Qiao Wen slowly lifted her head and met a pair of majestic golden eyes.

“Yes!” She immediately lowered her head again and answered with absolute humility and equal fanaticism.

“This subject obeys the decree!!”

“Make up some excuse and send them away,” Bai Xiang ordered.

“I am going to Xiajing. Buy me some time on the way.”

“And one more thing.”

Her tone paused. When she turned her wrist, a green stone had appeared in her hand.

“There is something good in Qinglao Mountain.”

“Send people to guard it.”

“Do not do business with the likes of Yinggou anymore.”