Volume 5, Chapter 124 – Turning

After returning to Yuming Peak, Xiang Xian made and took several phone calls. Then she suddenly noticed that the black-furred fox’s shadow on the wall had begun to swell, changing from a mass of indescribable tentacles into the outline of a slender woman.

“How are things on your end?”

Setting down her phone, Xiang Xian turned around and saw before her a terrifying figure made entirely of black-mud tentacles stitched together, its body covered all over with enormous golden eyes.

“We’ve basically identified Meng Wanyu’s backer and the specifics of their plan.”

The creature did not move at all, but Bai Xiang’s voice came from within it.

“There’s no problem on my side… how is Qing’er?”

“She drove the man back with the sword pellet she had been nourishing in your palace sea,” Xiang Xian replied. “Still, she was definitely shaken to some extent. So now she’s gone into seclusion to make her breakthrough.”

“…”

Bai Xiang fell silent, then after a pause said, “This carrier body could actually have been activated earlier.”

A mindless corpse of a god or Buddha, especially one in such a bizarre form, could in fact serve as a carrier body or vessel once Bai Xiang had captured it through the path of the Illusory God.

This was not a split soul, much less an incarnation. Bai Xiang remained a whole and complete Bai Xiang. The Buddha corpse merely functioned as a sort of signal relay station. Once activated, it allowed her to project her influence over here even from a great distance away.

“Ah, so what you mean is that your requirements for her are just for her to be an administrative talent, right?”

“With all due respect, that’s not the same as the high standards you used to have for her.”

Xiang Xian drew a long smoking pipe from her sleeve, lit it while leaning back in her seat, and took a leisurely drag.

Were my standards for her high in the past?

Bai Xiang paused.

She did not think they had been particularly high. After all, she never required Bai Zhuqing to possess the same ability she had to fight across realms. Every demand she had ever made of her younger sister in cultivation had only one ultimate goal: that she be able to live forever together with her.

You can talk all you like about sisterly affection or love, but without matching cultivation, if even your lifespans are of different lengths, then is tragedy not already guaranteed the instant you come together?

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As for everything else, Bai Zhuqing had never really been suited to that sort of path anyway. At present, she seemed much better suited to administrative and governing work. Bai Xiang had long since stopped forcing the issue.

“That may be true, but when a child wants to better herself, that’s definitely a good thing,” Xiang Xian said, biting the filter between her teeth and squeezing the words out through the gap. “If you’re worried about her, then just use your palace sea more often to help her nourish her sword.”

“You saw it today too, didn’t you? The effect was quite good.”

Nourishing the sword.

Bai Xiang pondered.

Because Qing’er’s sword pellet had been infused with my qi-gang, its sudden eruption really was able to injure a Saint-level great power.

“Let me briefly describe the situation for you,” Xiang Xian said, her expression turning serious as she changed the subject. “You definitely don’t need to worry about Zhennan in Maozhou. As for everywhere else…”

“The Tianji Circuit defense zone has expanded. Bai Tingyun led troops north, took the old site of Xifeng Ancient City—the former Xifeng Circuit of Great Yu, buried beneath yellow sand—and is digging out the sand and building fortifications there, trying to set up another military town and completely choke off the Federation’s southern route.”

“Now that Bai Tingyun has freed up his hands, the three states north of the river don’t dare make any rash moves.”

“The same goes for Ze and Qi as well. With Li Sheng and Wang Ran commanding the armies of the Grand Academies there, plus the Central Court dispatching people to govern and stabilize things, more than seventy incidents of disorder, major and minor, have basically been brought under control.”

“Liu Haoran already flew overnight to Xiajing to build a new administrative team. He recommended several people. One of them is named Xu Huangying, a descendant of Xu Shilin, the former southern provincial inspector of the previous dynasty. Qing’er already screened him for you, and he can be heavily relied on.”

“Yu He is holding the line at the Demon-Suppression Directorate and rushing around putting out fires everywhere. In the capital, your Senior Brother Guo and Senior Brother Song are keeping watch, with Commandant Huang on the left. Your grandfather and Chen Yuchan are guarding Gongwei Liangzhou on the right. No petty schemer is going to overturn the heavens, so you don’t need to worry.”

As Xiang Xian reported the major events of the past several hours, Bai Xiang listened carefully.

“What about the twin southeastern provinces, Xuzhou and Luezhou?” Bai Xiang asked.

Xiang Xian had mentioned all the others, but left out only those two places.

And judging from the reports and disaster updates Bai Xiang had heard earlier, those seemed to have been the two regions most heavily affected by the celestial and terrestrial upheavals.

“The Tao family is guarding Luezhou, and it’s solid as a fortress,” Xiang Xian said with a nod. “As for Xuzhou… some impressive people have emerged among your disciples. That one surnamed Lian, working together with the Shiyou Gang that was relocated there, wiped out the demon scourge invading from the south in one sweep. I heard he even killed a great demon equivalent to the Origin Realm. Quite outstanding.”

That would be Lian Feng.

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Bai Xiang nodded.

Good… the fact that these younger ones could handle the trouble meant the intensity still had not truly escalated.

Even Yuxiu, Daoist Guangsha, attacking Zhennan had looked more like a probe than the enemy preparing to launch an all-out offensive.

So were they organized…?

The Demon Lord, since he was able to obtain intelligence in advance through the Silver Sea Merchant Guild and make arrangements within this Buddhist kingdom, might he also have contacted the Saint-level great powers who had awakened so far ahead of time, perhaps even struck a few deals with them?

“What’s the situation with the Federation?” Bai Xiang cared most about this.

“No unusual movement,” Xiang Xian said, shaking her head.

It was already certain that the Starsea Federation had been the instigator of this natural disaster. But it also had to be admitted that the Federation was a victim of the disaster as well. Violent changes had occurred in many Federation regions too, causing enormous economic losses and casualties. That might leave the Federation with no spare energy to kick Great Xia while it was down and use the momentum of the disaster to make incursions on Great Xia’s borders.

Relations between the two sides had already been on a knife’s edge because of the Demon-Expulsion Edict. Online, verbal warfare had never been in short supply. Any kind of development was possible.

“That’s the general picture.”

Xiang Xian finished speaking, then concluded, “As long as no more Saint-level things emerge, Great Xia has no reason to fear any external enemy.”

Before Bai Xiang returned, she would not have dared say that.

But now she did.

The difference in mobility, execution, and operating efficiency between a country that has a backbone and a clear direction, and one that lacks those things, is enormous.

The Great Xia of the past could indeed be called a nation, but viewed as a whole, everyone’s goal had merely been to survive.

They had been struggling, and many had been struggling quite hard. At the same time, they had lacked inner drive.

But now things were different.

The moment the Demon-Expulsion Edict was issued, it was no less than pointing out the future direction for the main ethnic population. All mental force could now be twisted into a single strand because of it. Great Xia, this vast and enormous state machine, had finally begun to truly turn, roaring as it set itself into motion.

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“I see.”

Bai Xiang nodded through the Buddha corpse.

“Then Master can rest easy.”

“Since this round of probing failed, no Saint will show themselves again before the Demon Lord’s plan succeeds.”

Not show themselves, rather than not exist?

Xiang Xian’s breathing caught.

Wasn’t that even worse…? Because it very clearly meant this was premeditated and organized. What exactly had Bai Xiang uncovered over there in the ruins?

“The Demon Lord is a special individual, different from ordinary enemies.”

Afraid that Bai Xiang might grow careless, she warned her very seriously.

“Before contacting you, I carried out a divination. The result was very vague, but it gave me a suspicion…”

Gritting her teeth, Xiang Xian still decided to say it. “It and the Heavenly Dao… may have some degree of… mmph… urk—!”

Before she could finish, her expression changed drastically, as if she had been struck by a bolt of lightning bursting out of the void, and she spat out a mouthful of heart’s blood.

“I know.”

Through the Buddha corpse, Bai Xiang saw the scene clearly and narrowed her eyes slightly.

As expected.

There was no such thing as that much coincidence in the world.

This result, the mystery of the Demon Lord’s origins, was almost exactly what she had anticipated.

“Master need not worry about this side.”

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“I’m here.”

“Everything is under control.”

After saying that, she made the Buddha corpse revert to the shape of the little black fox, and her consciousness withdrew from this carrier body.

“What’s wrong with you?”

The moment she opened her eyes, she saw Li Wenyu leaning close in front of her, holding a “brass alms bowl” she had dug out of another temple.

The bowl glowed with a violet-gold sheen, and within that radiance one could faintly hear bursts of Zen chanting. Holding it at close range, Li Wenyu was very obviously already being influenced by it. In a dry voice, she said to Bai Xiang, “I think what we’re doing is wrong… We should respect the orthodoxy here instead of destroying things so recklessly…”

Crack!

Bai Xiang snatched the bowl away and broke it in two with both hands.

“Hm?”

Li Wenyu froze, then shook her head, looking bewildered.

“That makes three.”

Bai Xiang tossed aside the ruined alms bowl, glanced at her, and suddenly asked, “If someone insisted on forcing you to choose between Emperor Feng and me, and your choice really could affect certain outcomes… how would you choose?”

Li Wenyu was completely at a loss. “I don’t really understand?”

The question was extremely abrupt.

Just because she did not choose Emperor Feng did not mean she necessarily had to choose her Emperor Xiang did it?

Bai Xiang looked at her deeply and said nothing.

The two of them rose into the air and continued on toward the other villages and towns.