City Massacre

Current affairs at Water Moon Hall were very simple. Wei Yuan spent two days wrapping them up, then assigned a task to the Real Person left behind: drawing up a detailed proposal for expanding Water Moon Hall with additional floors. Wei Yuan's requirements were meticulous and the deadline was tight. Moreover, this was an enterprise of great consequence; Wei Yuan intended to invest an initial sum of five million qingyuan, with further additions depending on how things progressed. That was equivalent to seven or eight years of total funding from the Palace of Grand Beginning. Consequently, the resident Real Person was both thrilled and trembling with trepidation, terrified of botching such a monumental undertaking. Wei Yuan offered a few words of hearty encouragement, urging her to proceed boldly without worry, and that it would not matter if she could not finish it. In truth, however, Wei Yuan knew full well that she was bound to bungle it. Without the aid of the Splendor of Myriad Realms, not even a True Monarch could pull off such a feat in so short a time. Having casually dug a massive pit for her to stumble into, Wei Yuan departed the main mountain, fired up his sixty-four thruster tubes, and was kicked by the ancient Human Sovereign straight into the State of Ji. As for the State of Ji, Wei Yuan was in no hurry whatsoever. Winter had set in, and with the first snowfall, it was prime time to mobilize labor for public works—unlike in Qingming, where crops were harvested six seasons a year, leaving earth-shaping, life-cultivating cultivators with no leisure at all. This winter, Wei Yuan planned to build several roads, over a dozen clinics, ten ore-smelting blast furnaces, and four mines. At the same time, new fertilizer yards and weapons workshops would be erected. He also conscripted fifty thousand Body Casting cultivators to form a garrison force for the State of Ji, stationing them across fixed strongpoints along the border for defense and patrols. When the several dozen Water Moon Hall disciples were scattered across the expanse of the State of Ji, their traces vanished in an instant. *** In Ningshui Commandery of the State of Ji, a sizable rebel force had just captured a county seat, slaughtering the defenders to the last man. Standing atop the city wall, Liu Heihu watched the smoke and flames rising across the town and listened to the screams that echoed from time to time. Frowning slightly, he said, "Tell the boys to show some restraint. Take only grain and money! No killing, no burning! How can we let military discipline fall into such shambles? If we run into an elite army later, it'll be our death!" Several officers beside him immediately flew into the city. Moments later, the screams had largely ceased, and some of the fires were even extinguished. Just as Liu Heihu began to feel somewhat satisfied, a swift courier on horseback suddenly rode in like the wind from the distance. Looking closely, the horse was actually treading upon the wind with all four hooves, never once touching the ground. This was one of Lu Jiande's personal dispatch riders, capable of covering ten thousand li in a single day, tasked exclusively with carrying urgent military intelligence. In the blink of an eye, the rider reached the city wall, vaulted off his mount, and landed before Liu Heihu. Presenting a sealed military dispatch, he said, "An order from Lord Lu. General Liu, please break the seal and read." Liu Heihu took the dispatch, broke the seal, and looked at it. His expression changed instantly. Beside him, a hot-tempered late Dharma Idol general glanced at the dispatch and flared up at once, shouting, "Why another city massacre?! What does he take our brothers for? Even otherworldly fiends aren't this devoid of conscience! Fucking hell!" The dispatch rider's expression turned chillingly cold. "This is Lord Lu's military order. You dare defy it? Looking to die?" The Dharma Idol cultivator's temper erupted. Snatching the courier by the throat, he choked him until the man's face turned purple, leaning right into his face and snarling, "What kind of dogshit is Lu Jiande?! Without our Eldest Brother's backing, he wouldn't amount to a fart! I only answer to Eldest Brother! One more word out of you, you little whelp, and I'll knock your head crooked!" Seeing that the courier was on the verge of dying, Liu Heihu gave a cough and said, "That's enough." Only then did the Dharma Idol general grudgingly drop the dispatch rider. Shaken and terrified, the rider had none of his earlier arrogance. Liu Heihu bowed respectfully in the direction of the rebel headquarters and said, "Please report back to Lord Lu that this city will be thoroughly slaughtered. Rest assured." The courier dared not linger for a second and sped off like the wind. Liu Heihu looked out over the county town, which had gradually quieted down, his brows tightly knit. The hot-tempered Dharma Idol said, "Eldest Brother, things were fine for a little over a year, so why massacre another city?! Honestly, at first we could barely stomach it, but one city after another—who can bear this? We brothers aren't beasts; how can we keep doing this kind of thing?" Liu Heihu let out a heavy sigh and said helplessly, "This wasn't Lu Jiande's idea. It's..." Saying so, he pointed toward the heavens. The generals all fell silent, save for the hot-tempered Dharma Idol, who muttered under his breath, "A thing like that can become an immortal?" Suddenly, leaden clouds gathered thick in the sky, whirling into a colossal vortex as though Heaven had opened an eye of wrath! At the center of the cloud vortex, a grey-robed immortal stood out of thin air. With a cold sneer, he casually reached downward and made a grasping motion. The hot-tempered Dharma Idol screamed in agony as streams of white vapor blasted from all seven of his apertures, each wisp faintly bearing the shape of a face twisted in extreme torment. Then the flesh and skin across his body split apart, sloughing off in chunks until a mound piled up at his feet, leaving a stark white skeleton standing amid the gore. His dharma idol was trapped inside his skull, thrashing violently and howling in excruciating pain, repeatedly trying to burst through the eye sockets only to be repelled by an invisible barrier, unable to escape. Grey flames erupted within the skull, burning the dharma idol into ash bit by bit. Thus, the fiery late Dharma Idol cultivator was reduced to bare bones, dying in agonizing torment without the slightest power to resist. Liu Heihu pressed his hands down, surging with magic power to force his grief-stricken, furious brothers to the ground before dropping to his own knees, repeatedly crying out for the Immortal Monarch's mercy. High above, Cangwu stood with his hands behind his back and said indifferently, "Since you know it is my command, why haven't you carried it out? What are you waiting for?" Liu Heihu kowtowed repeatedly, stammering, "Rest assured, Immortal Monarch! Not a chicken or dog shall be spared!" He scrambled to his feet and kicked his brothers away one by one, roaring, "Are you all deaf?! Get to it!" The men had no choice but to seize their weapons, lead their divisions into the county seat, and begin the slaughter. Liu Heihu patrolled back and forth incessantly, hammering home the order: "Kill anything that moves, and put two more blades into anything that doesn't!" Many rebel soldiers hesitated, but looking up at the tribulation clouds that refused to disperse and the immortal beneath them—appearing no larger than a grain of rice—they had no choice but to keep swinging their bloodstained blades, hacking down mechanically stroke after stroke. Not until the entire county town fell silent did Cangwu finally nod and vanish along with the vast expanse of tribulation clouds. Liu Heihu let out a sigh of relief. He wiped his face, only to find it covered in sticky slime. He glanced at his palm: it was coated in blood and minced flesh, and he could not tell whether it had already been on his hands or wiped off his face. The whole county seat was permeated with a deathly aura. In Liu Heihu's eyes, a damp, clammy white mist hung everywhere; whenever a rebel soldier passed through it, cobweb-like strands clung to his body. Not even the rebel Dharma Idol generals could see the white mist, but Liu Heihu knew it was formed of grievance and karmic debt. Within the mist stood many bewildered figures—souls unable to enter reincarnation, destined to wander as lonely ghosts for a time before dissipating. Dragging his heavy steps, Liu Heihu climbed onto the city wall. The white bones of the hot-tempered Dharma Idol still stood there, two streaks of dark, murky tears of blood trailing down from the eye sockets. The youngest of the generals said in a trembling voice, "Eldest Brother, Third Brother... he died so horribly..." Liu Heihu gritted his teeth and said, "Someone go to Guantun County and tell him everything that happened here." The generals looked at one another before finally saying to the eldest among them, "Second Brother has a family. Let him go!" The generals chimed in all at once, brooking no objection, and settled the matter. Liu Heihu clapped Second Brother on the shoulder and said, "Once you get there, don't come back. I'll send people to bring your family over." *** Guantun County. Wei Yuan was at the drill ground watching the new batch of militiamen undergoing collective training. This cohort totaled thirty thousand men and had trained for over half a month. They were beginning to take shape; at the very least, their ranks remained orderly on the march. Wei Yuan nodded secretly. So long as the formation remained unbroken, the army's martial aura would not waver—this was the most critical factor for victory in the cultivation world. Moreover, advancing while firing or facing cavalry with infantry required a disciplined, orderly line. Just then, an attendant ran over, reported a few words, and brought forward a rebel general. Wei Yuan looked him up and down. The man was not very tall, with an untidy beard and a face full of wrinkles. Without a closer look, one might easily mistake him for an old peasant. "Lord Wei, I am here on behalf of my eldest brother, Liu Heihu, with a verbal message. The immortal and Lu Jiande are once again massacring cities on a massive scale east of Ningshui, leaving not even a chicken or dog alive! Eldest Brother wants to ask if you have any way to stop them, and if not, whether you could take in us brothers." Hearing that mortals were once again being slaughtered on a vast scale, Wei Yuan's face darkened immediately. He ordered someone to bring a map at once and had the rebel general mark the regions subjected to massacres. From the subsequent questioning, Wei Yuan learned that Liu Heihu still commanded more than seventy thousand men, most of whom hailed from peasant and hunter backgrounds. Successive massacres had turned a small portion into fiends, but the vast majority were pushed to the brink of collapse, unable to bear it any longer. After hearing this, Wei Yuan did not make an immediate decision. Instead, he sank into deep thought before the sand table, pondering for a full hour. Finally, he jabbed a finger heavily onto the sand table! He traced several routes, each pointing toward areas under rebel control. Moments later, all of Guantun County stirred into motion. Veteran units from Qingming donned heavy breastplates they had grown somewhat unaccustomed to, mounted warhorses they had long deemed obsolete, and reequipped themselves with lances, sabers, and mounts. At the crack of dawn the following morning, they departed Guantun County. These troops moved out in four regiments of three thousand men each, every one of them heavy cavalry, charging toward the rebel territory. Behind these units followed two supply wagon trains, one heading south and one north. Though Wei Yuan was not yet fully prepared, tens of millions of mortals could not afford to wait, and the enemy was equally unprepared. *** In the early days of winter, Zhang Quanliang, the General Who Conquers the East and Marquis of Mingkong garrisoned at Tiexian Pass in the State of Ji, suddenly received a strange report: Beyond the pass, battle cries had suddenly erupted at the main rebel camp, flames soaring into the sky as a force of unknown origin stormed into their midst. The two sides fought through the night, only ceasing when dawn broke. Zhang Quanliang hastily dispatched scouts for further reconnaissance, only to receive word that the camp holding thirty thousand rebels had actually been trampled flat. Dead and wounded were beyond count, and not a single living soul remained. From the traces on the ground, it appeared as though two rebel factions had suffered infighting. Zhang Quanliang then mustered some light cavalry and cautiously scouted the scene himself. Sure enough, there were at least ten thousand corpses strewn across the ground, every one of them a rebel. Zhang Quanliang examined the scene repeatedly, but apart from scorch marks on the corpses and an abundance of strange steel pellets and lead balls, he found no clues whatsoever. He had no idea what army had wiped out this rebel camp. Yet having spent long years in officialdom, not knowing who was responsible mattered little to him. He returned within the pass at once and submitted a memorial to the King of Ji, claiming that after battling the rebels bitterly outside the pass for over a month, he had finally annihilated this rebel contingent, beheading over ten thousand foes and lifting the siege of the pass. Memorial written, Zhang Quanliang immediately ordered couriers to rush the victory report to the capital of Ji by top-priority express. When the King of Ji received the memorial, he was feasting, enjoying a dance duel between Cai Miao and Xu Shang alongside Sun Chao'en and the civil and military officials. The arrival of Zhang Quanliang's memorial brought immense delight to the royal countenance—after all, this was already the third report of great victory received today.