Volume 5, Chapter 63 – On Merit (2-in-1)

“Sister~”

As nine in the morning approached, Bai Zhuqing came to find Bai Xiang draped in a bright red phoenix robe. Upon meeting her, she first murmured a soft line, then very naturally threw herself into Bai Xiang’s arms and burrowed into the soft warmth with an intoxicated expression.

“Aoo! Aooom!”

The little white fox was nearly flattened under her. It struggled desperately before finally managing to poke its head out through a gap, baring its teeth and yowling at Bai Zhuqing.

“Little thing, have you forgotten who your master is?”

Bai Zhuqing narrowed her eyes at the exposed fox head, reached out with both hands, and tugged at the little fox’s cheeks from side to side, forcing it again and again to let out embarrassed cries.

“Enough.”

A reprimand came from above. Then Bai Zhuqing felt a force restrain her. After a dizzying whirl, she found herself curled up and lying across Bai Xiang’s lap, with one hand stroking her hair, while the little white fox lay in her arms instead.

This…

Bai Zhuqing froze for a moment, suddenly feeling as though she had been playing with the little white fox, while Bai Xiang had been playing with her.

“Just say it.” Bai Xiang was studying the “extra functions” of her new phone and, for the moment, could not be bothered to lower her head and look at Bai Zhuqing. “What did you come running over here for?”

She was going to lecture at the dojo this afternoon. Apparently many disciples had already arrived, and her schedule was extremely tight.

“It’s about the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate.” Bai Zhuqing’s tone turned serious.

Yu Daoyong had come to see Bai Xiang earlier. After receiving his instructions, the very first person he went to find was Bai Zhuqing, the Imperial Court Overseer.

Strictly speaking, Great Xia’s administrative affairs were still handled by the Overseer. Yu Daoyong wanted to establish a new directorate. How its territory should be chosen, how its funding should be approved, how many people ought to be assigned under it, what rank each level of administration should count as, what compensation should be given—these exceedingly tedious matters all had to be approved personally by the Overseer.

Of course, that was also because the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate was special. It was the kind of directorate that reported directly to the Imperial Court.

If it had been some other small department, Bai Zhuqing would not have needed to handle everything herself.

“The problem with the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate is that things are moving too fast.”

When speaking of this, Bai Zhuqing’s expression turned a little strange.

Yu Daoyong, after all, had once been the Hall Master of the Heaven-Monitoring Hall in the Demon Court. Back when Zhu Qingluo was still around, she had treated old stories from the Demon Court as flashy tales and told them to the others, so even though Bai Zhuqing did not know Yu Daoyong personally, she had some idea of what kind of person he was.

Since he had already seen Bai Xiang and received permission, there was naturally no problem with letting him establish a directorate.

Originally, everything was supposed to proceed according to standard procedure: deciding the Heaven-Monitoring Directorate’s rank, finding it a site, recruiting people, and so on.

Yet Yu Daoyong said he did not need many people. Just give him a few gatekeepers and that would do; he could handle the internal affairs himself.

So Bai Zhuqing had him pick a few disciples from within the dojo for field duty, then allocated him a small two-story building in Zhennan’s urban district. It was not far from the city center, and once the surrounding area was hurriedly enclosed with walls, it could be used as office space.

And yet while she was still here calculating the budget, Yu Daoyong sent her a message saying he had an “important plan” and asking Bai Zhuqing to pass it on to Bai Xiang.

“It’s this.”

Bai Zhuqing brushed her hand across the jade token at her waist, and a handwritten manuscript appeared in her hand.

Bai Xiang set down her phone, took the manuscript, and began to read.

The title was written in large characters: *Qi Method Echo Monitoring Technology*.

Yu Daoyong wanted to embark on a massive construction effort and build at least three “Echo Towers” in every base city within Great Xia.

These things functioned somewhat like “signal transmission towers.” Yu Daoyong understood more methods for detecting and utilizing Returning-to-Origin Purple Qi, and he was confident he could make these “Echo Towers” reflect vibrational waves back, using them to listen in on and monitor most activity within the surrounding area.

If it could be done, then this monitoring network would not only guard against petty threats, but also against disasters from the outside world.

Earthquakes, windstorms, and even meteor showers like the one that had passed over Wangchuan Circuit.

Most importantly, it could be used to warn against invading demon tides.

That would undoubtedly be a great merit.

“What does he want out of it?”

Bai Xiang set down the manuscript and asked Bai Zhuqing.

“I asked too.” Bai Zhuqing remained lying on her back across Bai Xiang’s lap, her eyes fixed unblinking on Bai Xiang’s face. “His answer was… that the foundation of his Dao lies here.”

“To voluntarily attach oneself to the greatest power structure in a given environment, and use the strength of that structure to extend the office of oversight…”

“This is only a minor path.”

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Bai Xiang shook her head, somewhat disappointed in Yu Daoyong.

He was still placing his hopes for attaining the Dao on the divine pool, instead of going all in on the Path of Qi the way Li Huiran had.

But every person had their own aspirations.

As long as he could be useful, that was enough.

She would not force the matter of his deeper motives.

Beep beep beep!

Just then, the phone Bai Xiang had left on the table began to cry out.

The little white fox had been mischievous. It had leapt onto the table and pawed at the screen, somehow triggering a function that projected a spray-like shaft of light from the top of the phone’s screen. The light formed a halo like Buddhist radiance, complete with waves of Buddhist chanting.

“…”

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes, feeling that Bai Maoxu might need a little discipline.

“Since you agree, then Sister, I’ll head back first.”

Smiling, Bai Zhuqing climbed to her feet, casting one lingering glance at Bai Xiang.

“Besides this matter, there is another matter concerning your lecture today, Sister.”

“How it should be handled—please send me your reply as soon as possible.”

Bai Zhuqing’s infatuation with me seems to have lessened…

Watching the red skirt vanish outside the hall, Bai Xiang felt a trace of strangeness in her heart.

No.

It had not lessened.

When Bai Zhuqing looked at her, that same burning intensity was still there.

It was just that Bai Zhuqing’s heart was steadier now, so there was no longer any need to express that intensity outwardly.

…Was this what a normal relationship was supposed to be like?

Bai Xiang was not sure. She did not have much experience in that regard, after all.

Still, Bai Zhuqing had said there was one more matter?

After thinking for a moment, Bai Xiang picked up the document again and turned to the back, only to find several more handwritten pages in different scripts.

She began reading through them in detail.

As time passed, the gaze in those golden pupils grew darker and darker.

…

“Qing’er!”

As Bai Zhuqing came down the steps, she heard someone call out.

In the entire Bai family, there were not many left who still addressed her like that. She immediately turned and saw Bai Shengju standing beside the stone railing, staring at her with a severe expression.

So it had come.

Bai Zhuqing tipped her head back slightly, and the expression on her face was not at all surprised.

“Qing’er, come with me.”

Bai Shengju could see that she was not surprised either. He led her back to the courtyard where he lived, had her sit down, then brought over a stool and sat across from her himself.

“Grandfather?”

Bai Zhuqing blinked, looking utterly innocent.

“Why are you still pretending in front of me?!” Bai Shengju snapped, then asked her directly, “You know what Chenyu has done, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Bai Zhuqing nodded.

After all, she had people watching Bai Chenyu. She knew everything he had been doing these past few days.

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“Chenyu was invited out last night.” Bai Shengju frowned and lowered his voice. “The other side was from the Academic Alliance. As far as I know, they approached Chenyu because they wanted him to make introductions, so they could use his connection to climb the mountain gate today and meet your sister.”

“That’s right.” Bai Zhuqing kept nodding.

“What exactly are you thinking?” Bai Shengju was almost unable to hold back anymore, and looked at his granddaughter with uncertainty and suspicion.

He had discovered that ever since Bai Xiang returned, Bai Zhuqing’s “nature” seemed to have been released. Her style of doing things had grown fiercer and more decisive.

At first he had thought that was Bai Xiang’s instruction. But after looking into it, he found that other than in the handling of the Tao family’s case, Bai Xiang had barely interfered in administrative matters at all.

That made this rather alarming.

And combined with the fact that Bai Zhuqing had most likely already discovered this matter and yet had not made any noise about it at all, he had to consider whether this granddaughter of his was planning something—whether she meant to stage an act of “putting righteousness above family” for him today.

“Chenyu himself doesn’t have the guts for this.” Bai Shengju tried to reason with her. “You called him over before and gave him a stern warning. He should already know he was wrong…”

“Grandfather.”

Bai Zhuqing interrupted him. “If he really knew he was wrong, and if he had even the slightest awareness that he belongs to this family, then he should not have accepted those people’s invitation, nor should he have gone eating, drinking, and making merry with them until after midnight before coming home.”

Last night, Bai Zhuqing had received intelligence from the sword attendants that Bai Chenyu had accepted an invitation from Hu Wenping, president of Zhong’an Academy, and his group, and had all but reveled through the entire night.

Zhong’an Academy had formerly been Zhong’an University, once located in Zhong’an Circuit, Daizhou. Its training focus had originally leaned toward supplying talent to the military.

Later, under the impact of the Void Tribulation, vast mountain ranges rose up across Daizhou while Huangzhou became a broad plain. Xia Capital was pushed into prominence as the “gateway of the nation,” and Zhong’an University accordingly relocated to Pingzhou, renamed itself Zhong’an Academy, and shifted its focus toward training civil personnel.

Pingzhou and Yuzhou, hemmed in at the center by the other provinces and base cities, were the only two places in Great Xia that were still free from demonic disaster and war. These areas really did need large numbers of civil functionaries; training so many cultivators there would have been useless instead.

Bai Shengju hesitated, as though he wanted to speak but could not. “President Hu is an authority in exploration, ancient seal script, and script-talismans. Perhaps he simply values Chenyu’s talent and wants to bring him to Pingzhou to develop there.”

“I’ll be blunt, Grandfather.”

Bai Zhuqing sighed.

“Hu Wenping appears to be highly respected in academic circles, once a figure as famous as Mr. Liu Haoran, with extremely high professional attainment.”

“But he has repeatedly published ‘opinions on governing the people’ in newspapers and regional networks. Even if his stance isn’t outright opposed to the Imperial Court, it is at least clear enough that he belongs to the traditionalist camp. He does not approve of the Xia Code abolishing the four-tier civil law.”

“A person like that carries a political identity far stronger than his scholarly one.”

“You should know what that group is really here to ask Sister for.”

“I’ve heard some things…” Bai Shengju mused.

“Regarding the Tao family matter, quite a lot of people—one could say a great many people—have pulled every string they could, tried every method they could, and begged me, your father, and even your mother.”

At this point, the old man found it a little hard to continue.

He actually knew that what he was doing now was not very appropriate. By all rights, he ought to stay completely out of these affairs and stand firmly on the side of his two granddaughters.

But the impact of this incident was simply too great. In the eyes of the outside world, it was “too vicious.”

Those people who were pleading for mercy were no longer really pleading on behalf of the Tao family.

The Tao family’s fate had already been settled that very morning—a whole household had died miserably within their estate. Aside from the main building of the State Chancery, every residential courtyard behind it had been set ablaze, house and corpses alike burned clean away.

What those people were pleading for was the release of those who had once been imprisoned for pleading on behalf of the Tao family. More than that, they were pleading for themselves.

They were afraid that the Tao family’s fate would fall upon them as well.

Under ordinary circumstances, Bai Shengju would only have cursed them out and said they deserved it. But the uproar raised this time was simply too great.

The joint petition bore more than a thousand names.

Every one of them was highly respected, drawn from over a hundred universities across Great Xia’s fifty-four base cities, spanning communications, media, art, literature, business strategy, governance theory, and more. Together, these people could influence nearly half the country.

And the wording in the letter was killing in its own way.

At first, it contained only phrases like “risking death to remonstrate” and “urging benevolent mercy.”

That would have been one thing.

But as it went on, lines began to appear such as, “Seeing this sacred act today, the realm fears the return of the tyrannical rule of Yu.” Reading that, Bai Shengju had been so troubled that he could neither eat nor sleep, and had been unable to resist stepping in to try to mediate.

Grandfather was, after all, still old-school in his thinking.

Seeing Bai Shengju’s troubled expression and his inability to continue, Bai Zhuqing inwardly sighed as well.

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She knew that what had truly brought Bai Shengju to her was not favoritism toward Bai Chenyu, nor because he had chosen to stand with Hu Wenping. It was because Bai Shengju was afraid those people might be right.

Bai Shengju had a hero’s temperament.

Back when he had first arrived in Chilong Circuit in his early years, he had loved to uphold justice and champion the weak, and for a time he had won immense renown. Later, when her younger aunt was wrongfully imprisoned, he had clearly known she had been framed, yet he still observed law and ritual, and for many years never made any real resistance.

A hero was supposed to protect home and country.

No matter how great an injustice a hero suffered, he still could not defy the sacred command.

Every story said so. All the education through the ages said so. Naturally, Bai Shengju had been deeply influenced by that, and feared that his two granddaughters would become “tyrants.”

Perhaps in the old man’s eyes, governing a great nation should be like cooking a small fish.

Yield benefits.

Fulfill the needs of the people.

Even if one had reasons, when one faced opposition from nearly everyone, one ought to reflect on whether the problem lay with oneself.

Otherwise, how could one be a sage-ruler?

So many people opposed them. At this rate, they could not possibly just kill them all.

“Grandfather.”

Bai Zhuqing closed her eyes and said softly, “Do you still remember… how we got through that period in the first year of Zhengyuan, and before the first year of Zhengyuan?”

Hm?

Bai Shengju froze. His thoughts did not turn fast enough for a moment.

The first year of Zhengyuan was when the reign title was first officially set, marking the true founding of the Xia Dynasty, when most of the provinces had come under the Imperial Court’s direct control.

Yet that stretch of history before Zhengyuan was rarely described in detail, because it was, in truth, the history of the Bai family formally raising the banner of rebellion, lifting high the Shenming Sword to summon countless people of the qi methods across the world, leading them in a counteroffensive against tyrannical Yu.

“In that stretch of history, were we not standing against the whole world?”

Bai Zhuqing lifted her head and stared straight into Bai Shengju’s widened eyes.

“I still remember that river-crossing battle. Grandfather held a three-foot green blade in his hand and rode a horned deer, leading ten thousand men in a flanking strike and working with Second Uncle to wipe out that Yu army to the last man.”

“At that time, Grandfather was full of spirit and towering ambition. You did not put any threat in your eyes.”

“So how is it that now you have become so timid, unable to withstand even a few rumors?”

I…

Bai Shengju fell silent.

But how could the two be compared?

He wanted to try to defend himself.

Back then, he had been brave and fearless because he knew he was doing the right thing.

The Bai family, the Xia Dynasty—they did not represent only themselves. They had also gathered up the hopes of the common people, standing in resistance against tyrannical Yu for the sake of everyone under heaven.

But now?

He could not just watch Bai Xiang’s reputation grow worse and worse, could he? Could he really turn around and set himself against the “common people”?

“Who are the ‘common people’?

“And who has the right to represent the ‘common people’?”

After Bai Shengju said that, Bai Zhuqing coldly refuted him.

“By my own senses, the true common people—the lower they stand, the more fanatical their faith in Sister becomes.”

“And is it not true that only they themselves have the right to represent their own will?”

“Since when did they need so-called scholars and professors to speak on their behalf?”

“Those who have never been enslaved, who have never struggled in the mud, who oppose the abolition of the four-tier civil law only so that they may go on enslaving their servants and living in comfort and ease through it—”

“Since when did such people count as the ‘common people’?”

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Bai Zhuqing’s barrage of words left Bai Shengju staring in utter astonishment.

“Besides.”

Bai Zhuqing continued.

“Sister marched north against Yu and rescued countless enslaved people.”

“Before that, she left behind the Shenming Sword, allowing the Path of Qi to truly flourish and giving us the power to resist demonic and evil incursions.”

“And even earlier than that, she issued an edict decreeing that heaven, earth, and the myriad phenomena were not allowed to change too drastically. Only because of that have the living beings of the main world been able to continue breeding and thriving in a relatively familiar environment.”

“Which of those things is not a great merit?”

“Among the wise rulers and sage-rulers of history, who would dare compare himself to Sister?”

“Her achievements and virtue have already reached such a degree, yet those people have enjoyed the blessings she brought them while refusing to remember her grace. Instead, they self-righteously think they can criticize her the way they criticize the sage-emperors of ancient times.”

“Can such behavior truly be called ‘loyalty and righteousness’?”

“And I understand Sister very well.” Bai Zhuqing raised her head proudly. “If it were not absolutely necessary to condense a ‘symbol’—because only through that method could the effect be maximized and the greatest number of people be saved—she actually would not be willing to be emperor at all.”

“What sage-ruler, what Empress—she does not care.”

“I think the people she truly cares about are us.”

“Us, her kin, who are willing to believe in her and support her no matter what happens, Grandfather~”

“Enough, enough, don’t say any more…”

Bai Shengju was sweating all over. He had already realized his mistake, and quickly waved his hand to stop his granddaughter.

He really had been in the wrong today.

It was his own fault. He had shut himself in for too many years, knew too little about many things in the outside world, and had let certain voices influence him into making a wrong judgment.

“I can spare Chenyu’s life.”

Bai Zhuqing nodded.

“After all, Grandfather is pleading for him, and Chenyu is still our blood kin.”

“But I will make him suffer a little.”

“And after this matter is over, he and Third Uncle’s family must be sent to Xia Capital.”

After Bai Zhuqing left, Bai Shengju sat alone in the courtyard, staring blankly for a long, long time.

“Dad! Dad?”

Bai Guanshan rushed over after hearing the news, and was instantly alarmed when he saw him sitting there like that.

This…

You little brat, Bai Zhuqing—what exactly did you do to the old man?

Only Bai Shengju himself knew what he was thinking.

He realized he had fallen for it.

He had been hit by a move of retreating in order to advance.

She had laid out a whole string of grand principles, refuted her elder, then knowingly taken one step back of her own accord and satisfied the elder’s bottom-line wish, all to win from him a firm stance on this matter—and in future matters as well.

How cunning.

Bai Shengju sighed inwardly.

Only someone like Bai Xiang could probably handle a mind like that.

But when he thought of that, Bai Shengju suddenly felt a little startled.

He had already accepted that kind of relationship between his two granddaughters. But because Bai Xiang was the child he himself had taken in and raised, when he had looked at that relationship in the past, he had tended to think of Bai Xiang as the one “taking the bride,” and had comforted himself with the thought that it was simply keeping the marriage within the family.

But after the rebuke he had just suffered, after experiencing that suffocating pressure—

Bai Shengju no longer knew how he ought to count it.