Volume 5, Chapter 22 – Setting Out

“You want me to take you up to the North Bastion for a look around?”

Still in the middle of brushing her teeth, Bai Zhuqing stared over in astonishment, toothbrush in her mouth and foam all around it.

“That’s right.” Bai Xiang looked at her younger sister quietly. “I want to see what things are like over there.”

Bai Zhuqing stared at her blankly for a while. Then her expression gradually turned grave, and she nodded hard.

“All right. I’ll get ready and take you there.”

Just as I thought.

Bai Xiang lowered her eyes slightly, reading a great deal from Bai Zhuqing’s reaction.

The heaviest responsibility in guarding the Xia Capital was definitely not dealing with people like Zhang Yu or handling government affairs.

If she was right, the deepest threat came from the North Bastion wall, from that Blood River Plain thick with the stench of blood.

After tidying up, Bai Zhuqing put on her bright red phoenix robe, copied Bai Xiang by wearing the Shenming Sword at her waist, and also hung the Qingwu Sword from her belt sash. She had a car brought around at the inner gate, and she and Bai Xiang boarded it together.

Bai Zhuqing drove, while Bai Xiang sat in the front passenger seat.

Once the sedan pulled away, several unmarked cars drove out one after another from the alley by the side gate of Zhengyuan Palace and followed behind theirs, faintly forming a protective formation and providing security from the rear.

These cars had all been modified and could switch into flying-vessel mode to travel through the void. The reason they remained on the ground was that they were following Bai Xiang’s orders.

She simply wanted to use her own eyes to see more.

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Beyond the high-rises and skyscrapers of the upper city, in the Eastern Xia Imperial Court she had founded, in its most prosperous and most illustrious city, what kind of scenery lay spread out on the ground?

“Why did you suddenly want to go to the North Bastion, Elder Sister?”

On the road, Bai Zhuqing glanced toward Bai Xiang as she drove and asked her the question.

Bai Xiang did not answer.

After waiting a long time without getting the response she expected, Bai Zhuqing could not help turning to look at her elder sister, only to find that Bai Xiang’s gaze on her was somehow different.

“How many people have died this year?” Bai Xiang suddenly asked.

“…” Bai Zhuqing fell silent.

“I came here through Wangchuan Circuit.” Bai Xiang let out a breath, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. “Qiao Wen, the Watcher of Wangchuan Circuit, is one of the progressives. She’s trying to introduce combat-mech technology to ease the pressure on the front line.”

“Qiao Wen is a military cultivator, a battle-hardened cultivator who truly survived the battlefield. Someone like her would absolutely know where the red line is.”

Opening her eyes, Bai Xiang turned to look at her sister again. “If things have pushed even her to this point, then tell me directly. How many have died at the North Bastion this year?”

“Knew I couldn’t hide it from you.” Bai Zhuqing parted her lips slightly and reported the number truthfully. “If we count only this year, the number dead before the Start of Spring was 653,000.”

That many?

Bai Xiang’s heart sank, and she pressed at once, “Is that the losses across the entire war front?”

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Bai Zhuqing shook her head. “That’s only counting the North Bastion.”

No wonder Qiao Wen wanted to seek technology from the Federation.

Bai Xiang understood.

Eastern Xia currently had five main fronts.

The first was the line defined by the Jing River that ran through the whole country, stretching from the region of the three states north of the river to the Hexi Corridor, with the foremost front line at Tianji Circuit.

The second was the three southwestern states, namely Maozhou, Zezhou, and Qizhou, the region Bai Xiang knew best. Of these, Maozhou bore the brunt of it, holding the natural choke point of Longchuan.

The third was the southeastern twin states of Xuzhou and Luezhou, with Luezhou in particular serving as the bridgehead facing the southeastern continent.

The fourth was the Eastern Sea front, held by the three states east of the river.

The fifth was the Xia Capital itself. This super base city was like a wedge, driven firmly into the only southern gateway from the northern frontier.

Calculated like that, among Eastern Xia’s fourteen states, the three states north of the river, the three southwestern states, the southeastern twin states, the three states east of the river, and the Xia Capital meant that fully twelve of the fourteen states were bathed in war. Only the two states protected at the very center, Pingzhou and Yuzhou, could enjoy peace.

And among so many fronts, the North Bastion line alone had already lost more than six hundred thousand this year.

Then what would the total be if all the other fronts were added together?

And this was only the dead. How many would there be if one counted the wounded as well?

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The whole country only had a population of a little over four hundred million. How could it possibly withstand such losses?

Of course Qiao Wen couldn’t sit still!

“We really have been trying to find solutions,” Bai Zhuqing said, attempting to explain to Bai Xiang. “Do you remember that lizardman you took in back then, Dr. Hannah? She joined Starwater Company’s research team. Now many of Starwater Company’s industries and Yuming Peak’s industries have been merged, and under our coordination all the top researchers have been brought together to tackle this problem…”

“What problem?” Bai Xiang cut her off. “What kind of problem?”

Bai Zhuqing had just been about to say more when she realized Bai Xiang had already turned to look out the window.

Without their noticing it, they had already drawn close to the northern districts.

Most of the people living there were factory laborers, along with some military cultivators who had, in theory, already retired.

It was still early morning. The roads were full of bicycles and hurrying pedestrians. From time to time, white steam rose from breakfast stalls and blurred the walkways. Bicycle bells and car horns sounded now and then through the windows, stirring ripples in both sisters’ hearts.

“This kind of technology?”

Bai Xiang pointed at a man kneading dough at a food stall.

His cheeks were a little fleshy, and he was deeply focused on the kneading. But on closer inspection, both his hands were actually mechanical prosthetics. Every time he exerted force with them, faint qi talismans lit up across their surfaces.

“Or this kind of technology?”

Bai Xiang turned her gaze to the giant screen mounted on a street archway.

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It looked like a recruitment advertisement.

The screen first showed a video in which a black-robed cultivator with a shifty, villainous look summoned a tide of fiendish monsters and drove them against the city wall. Along the way, the defending forces repeatedly tried to stop them with technological weapons, namely machine guns and rocket launchers, but the results did not seem very good. Several military cultivators who charged forward were also knocked down in two or three moves by the black-robed cultivator.

Then, at the critical moment, those downed military cultivators all gathered together. Each formed a different hand seal, exhaled a strand of translucent, twisted qi-force, and drove it into the seal to form a qi talisman. Then all the talismans merged into a huge qi array. Relying on that qi array, the military cultivators pooled all their strength and together slashed the evil cultivator with a single sword strike, instantly blasting him into a cloud of blood.

A crowd of schoolchildren with backpacks had gathered beneath the giant screen. Seeing that scene, they all burst into cheers and excitement. Their laughter came over in waves, while Bai Zhuqing’s face grew paler and paler by the moment.

She knew Bai Xiang had seen through it.

Seen through just how distorted Eastern Xia’s current mode of warfare had become.

After years of war, and with demon tides invading from time to time on top of it, the lower strata of society had long been pushed to the brink.

Bai Xiang had left behind the Shenming Sword and founded the Path of Qi, creating a new cradle for the geniuses of the human race. But if the fighting went on like this, with casualties so enormous, where would those geniuses find the time to grow?

It was not as though no one sufficiently loyal to the imperial court had been promoted over the years. But half of them would die in battle within two years of being raised up.

The pressure was too great.

It was precisely because the pressure was so great, and because False Core and Golden Core experts were dying too quickly, that recruitment ads like this had to emphasize the power of qi arrays.

This was the state telling everyone that even if your cultivation was weaker, if you could make good use of qi talismans and qi arrays, you would still have a chance to defeat stronger enemies.