Volume 5, Chapter 70 – A Corner

As time passed, another two days went by.

The surge of ancestor worship during the Clear-Season Festival finally came to a complete end. Team after team returned to the interior of the base city, and the base city once again shut and sealed its gates tight, relying on its towering walls to withstand disaster, especially to guard against those cunning demon beasts.

It was precisely amid this orderly calm that, as the people on the list were taken away and thrown into prison, more and more of them by the day, part of the news began to spread despite all efforts to stop it, stirring panic within a certain range.

“Have you heard? Hu Wenping, the principal of Zhong’an Academy, got arrested!”

“Hm? Why?”

“Why else? He’s been posting weird nonsense online every day. If you ask me, they should’ve arrested him long ago! People like that ought to be dealt with! Just look at the stuff he posts every day!”

“But doesn’t that set a bad precedent? Once people start being punished for what they say, it feels like there’s no easy way back…”

“What do you mean?”

“It means if Principal Hu can be arrested today for speaking carelessly, then tomorrow we can be arrested for speaking carelessly too. Where exactly is the line supposed to be drawn? That’s hard to say…”

“Oh… when you put it that way, I guess that’s true too…”

“Fearless. Ignorant.” After reading through that discussion, Tao Muyun let out a cold laugh, set down his phone, and took a big gulp of the tea beside him.

Discussions like this had not spread on a wide scale yet, but the stench coming off them was far too strong. With a single glance, he could tell that some “interested parties” were mixed in among them, deliberately steering things and shifting the focus of public attention for what came next.

They wanted nothing more than to play the same old game. Really… all one could say was that the methods and tricks of people like that had not changed in hundreds or thousands of years. For profit, they would dare offend anyone. To stay alive, they would dare do any mad thing at all.

“Grandfather.”

Just then, a young man walked in from outside the courtyard. When he saw Tao Muyun, he frowned slightly.

His name was Tao Peichi, an illegitimate child from one branch of the Hantian Sword Dao clan.

Back in earlier years, the clan had kept his existence hidden from Tao Muyun for fear that violating ritual propriety would make the old man despise them. But later, when they looked again, things like “Void Tribulations” and “rebellion” had already happened, so an illegitimate child did not seem like such a big deal anymore. So they brought him back, got thoroughly cursed out for it, and at least managed to return him to the family line.

Tao Peichi was fairly talented in cultivation. Just over twenty, he was already at the False Core stage. But his ambitions did not lie there. Instead, he was much more enthusiastic about relationships and networking, and had made a great many friends outside.

Many members of the Tao family had high hopes for him. This time, his return had not been by choice. Tao Muyun had forcibly called him back.

“Grandfather.” Tao Peichi looked at the ruddy complexion on the old man’s face and asked with uncertainty, “You know the current situation these past few days as well… A lot of my friends happen to need me right now, so when you called me back, was it because…?”

Tao Muyun gave him a sidelong look and said, “Of course it was to save your life.”

Rеаⅾ οn КαtReαⅾinɡCafe

?

Tao Peichi froze. No matter how he thought about it, he could not understand what this had to do with saving his life.

“Have a lot of people been asking you for help, telling you to come back and persuade me, to get me to pass along a few words for them?” Tao Muyun asked.

Tao Peichi nodded. That was indeed the case.

Tao Muyun asked again, “Then after Her Majesty returned, do you know how many people she’s arrested?”

Tao Peichi nodded again. He had indeed heard about all that already.

Tao Muyun found this strange. “And you still can’t see the connection?”

“What connection could there be?” Tao Peichi could not hold back anymore. He decided to say what had been bottled up in his heart. “Grandfather… listen to me. What Her Majesty is doing can’t last…”

“Shut your mouth!” Tao Muyun barked at him at once. “Pig-brained fool! Beyond saving!”

“I’m serious!” Tao Peichi lifted his head. “I know what you’re going to say again. She’s the Founding Saint, the one who built this realm with her own hands, so she has the right to do whatever she wants.”

“For example, with the Tao family matter, if those people submitted remonstrances, she could willfully kill them all, no problem.”

“But once this gap is opened, look at how many territories we have, more than fifty Dao cities, over a hundred universities, all of it involving tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people behind the scenes. The web of relationships inside all that is unbelievably tangled.”

“And who can be certain that everyone punished will really be someone who deserves to die?”

“Just wait and see, Grandfather. I’m not opposing her. I’m saying that very soon, rotten people will start twisting her intentions, and may even turn around and use her authority to kill people!”

“Hm?” Tao Muyun was taken aback for a moment, then said, “If you can see as far as that, then you’re not completely stupid.”

A pleased smile appeared on Tao Peichi’s face.

“But you’re still a pig-brained fool! Still stupid beyond saving!”

The smile vanished from Tao Peichi’s face at once.

“Grandfather.” He frowned deeply. “We still have to be reasonable… If this is something doomed not to last, what’s wrong with making preparations early?”

After all, that would let him sell quite a few favors, and those were all precious resources.

Rеαⅾ оn KatRеadіnɡСafe

He felt certain his judgment on this matter was not wrong, and the reason was simple: carrying out that one’s decree all the way through would be far too difficult.

Yes.

If something went wrong, arrest them. If anyone pleaded for mercy, arrest them too. It sounded extremely satisfying.

In the short term, doing things that way was fine. It could even help increase prestige, cow petty schemers, and bring the officials to heel. But if it kept being done like that over the long term, the situation would very quickly descend into chaos.

Just as he had said before, many people would get mixed into the process and twist the meaning.

The lands of Great Xia were so vast, and Her Majesty did not know any duplication technique. How could she possibly inspect every single matter and determine whether there was any injustice behind it?

If it was not handled properly, some people’s goodwill would drain away. And if that happened, it would do nothing to increase her prestige or her gains, so sooner or later it would surely be forced to stop.

But Tao Muyun did not see it that way.

He looked at his self-important grandson with a cold laugh and slowly shook his head. “You people have never seen her nature clearly.”

“Then I’m all ears.” Tao Peichi was unconvinced and wanted to hear the explanation.

“You know Yao Lie, don’t you?” Tao Muyun asked him.

Tao Peichi nodded.

Yao Lie, an emperor of the previous dynasty. A historical figure from over two hundred years ago. Because he once discussed how to govern corruption with his chief minister in the main hall, the saying “the Cleansing of the Hall under Emperor Lie” came into being.

At the time, Yao Lie had asked his chief minister how corruption should be governed. The chief minister used the mosquitoes and flies in the palace as an example, saying that with wings so weak, mosquitoes and flies could never have flown in from outside. The reason there were always mosquitoes and flies inside the palace was because they kept laying eggs within it. As long as the eggs were not exhausted, the insects would never disappear. That was why mosquitoes and flies were always hard to eradicate.

Yao Lie understood the hint and chose to begin with “cleansing the inside of the hall,” calling on his ministers to follow that example. To this day, it was still considered a fine story.

“Wrong. Emperor Lie of Yu was a piece of reeking trash.” Tao Muyun was openly contemptuous of the man. “The reason history judged him highly was that during his reign, not a single upright worthy minister with any backbone was willing to expose his true face.”

“Grandfather, why do you say that?” Tao Peichi was shocked and deeply confused.

Very few emperors of the Yao family had good reputations. Yao Lie was already one of the rare decent ones, and he still deserved this kind of criticism?

Based on what?

“Do you know why he only started cleansing from ‘inside the hall’?” Tao Muyun sneered. “Because if he only cleansed ‘inside the hall,’ then he only needed to deal with the corrupt officials who had already been exposed and confiscate the silver they had embezzled.”

Wasn’t that right?

Rеad on КаtRеaԁingCafе

Tao Peichi did not understand.

Wasn’t that exactly how corrupt officials were supposed to be dealt with?

“And the common people?” Tao Muyun hammered on the table hard, producing heavy thuds. “What about the common people? Answer me that.”

“Huh? Where the hell do you think a corrupt official’s silver comes from? He squeezes it out of the common people. That whole process, Yao Lie didn’t care about. The harm the common people suffered in that process, he didn’t care about either. He only arrested the corrupt officials. So where did the money he confiscated come from, then? Have you ever thought about that?”

This…

Tao Peichi was stunned.

He realized it really did seem to be that way. If Yao Lie only governed “inside the hall,” then that meant he had effectively used corrupt officials as his white gloves. The money that had truly been embezzled all ended up in the state treasury, while the harm suffered by the common people did not change in the slightest.

He reflexively said, “But all along…”

“That’s exactly how it’s always been.” Tao Muyun finished the sentence for him and nodded hard. “Yes, at the very least, that was how so many sovereigns of the previous dynasty all did it! Because they truly had no need to care about any of this. As long as they could govern to Yao Lie’s level, that was enough for people to call them enlightened rulers.”

“But all order began collapsing completely from precisely that step onward.”

“The affairs of six dynasties came to nothing but the private calculations of great houses.”

“And yet you say she’s the one opening that door… Then let me ask you, who is opening the sort of door I’m talking about here? And once that sort of door is opened, what are the consequences? Go on, tell me!”

Cold sweat covered Tao Peichi’s forehead.

In truth, he already had a sense of the answer in his heart. There were just some things that truly could not be said aloud, and some that he did not dare say.

“So now you understand, don’t you? She is completely different from someone like Yao Lie.”

Tao Muyun gave a cold snort.

“Don’t go pinning the ‘motives’ you imagine onto her.”

“What she seeks is fundamentally not what you people imagine.”

“To say nothing else…” Tao Muyun lowered his voice. “Have you ever thought about how many years a Saint can live?”

“Your grandfather here has now, by sheer luck, entered the Origin Realm. In one stroke my lifespan broke through the Heaven-ordained limit and extended to four hundred and fifty years.”

Reаԁ οո ΚatReaԁіոɡСαfе

“And at an even higher realm… a Path-Creation Patriarch like her, how long do you think she can live? Have you considered that?”

By now, Tao Peichi was already trembling like a sieve.

Because he had realized the implication behind Tao Muyun’s words: if a Saint’s lifespan far exceeded that of the people under her rule, then the old rules of the past were completely useless to her.

She was not putting on a show.

Not doing it to increase her prestige or obtain benefits.

Not only had she surpassed his guesses on the level of thought, not only did she possess power enough to suppress the world by herself, she also had a lifespan long enough to grind everyone down through sheer endurance.

She did not need to worry that once certain things were smashed, they could not be restored, because she had more than enough time to wait for a new generation of blood to grow up.

She had the certainty and confidence to protect the nation’s peace and well-being through that span of time.

“I was wrong, Grandfather.”

After a moment of silence, Tao Peichi yielded.

“For this period of time, I’ll stay at home and cut off all contact with the outside world.”

“Mhm.” Only then was Tao Muyun satisfied. “At least you’re not beyond all cure.”

“But since you already understand all this, there’s no need for you to keep holing up at home. Go help me with something tomorrow.”

“Grandfather?” Tao Peichi was startled.

“Whether she cares or not is one thing. But the losses incurred during the process are still real enough.”

Tao Muyun merely let out a sly chuckle.

“If we have the ability to recover part of those losses, why not do it?”

“I’ll give you a list. Tomorrow, go back to the dojo and gather people. Have them handle things with you.”

“If anyone blocks your path, ignore them.”

“I permit you to execute first and report afterward!”