In Qingming's Dingxi City, an immense sea of people packed the plaza before the City Lord's Manor. Bao Yun was presiding over a grand renaming ceremony, officially rechristening Dingxi City as Qingwu City.
Accompanying this grand ceremony was a colossal engineering undertaking: a vast terrace was to be raised behind the City Lord's Manor, surrounded by an extensive complex of palaces. An open area spanning several li in the center would be filled with rich soil, and right in the middle stood only a single small sapling, barely a foot tall, its branches just putting forth a few fresh buds.
Raising a ten-li terrace and building sprawling palaces—this place was christened Fengqi Palace.
Even by Qingming's current standards, this was a massive undertaking. In the Nine Kingdoms, building something of this scale would demand the entire realm's resources, ranking right alongside the Grand Canal or the Zhang Terrace.
A year earlier, when Bao Yun first presented the project's plans, everyone around her had been stunned. Objections were plenty, and even more than half of the city's million residents opposed it. Yet Bao Yun suppressed every opposing voice and pushed forward with the project regardless. According to their original agreement, Wei Yuan had given Dingxi City to Bao Yun as her betrothal gift, so in municipal affairs, she had always held supreme authority—even Wei Yuan had to respect her decisions.
Those who relocated to Dingxi City and registered their households here were effectively joining the Bao family, becoming vassals of a prominent clan. In the earliest decade or two, this had been an irresistible draw attracting displaced wanderers to settle here.
After launching the project, Bao Yun discovered during the planning phase that relying solely on Dingxi City's own resources made constructing a ten-li terrace rather difficult, which was where many of the objections had originated. After all, a city couldn't saddle itself with decades of debt just for a single project, could it? But Bao Yun had her own solution: she wrote a letter to the Bao family.
The Bao family had originally been like a tranquil pool of spring water, secluded from the mundane world. Yet with the arrival of Bao Yun's letter, that paradise-like serenity was shattered completely.
The letter contained only a single matter: borrowing money. And the sum was staggering: one hundred million immortal silver!
As for the reason, Bao Yun had not even bothered to invent a proper excuse, writing merely a few words: large-scale construction, building pavilions and towers.
The arrival of that letter left the elders of the Bao family sleepless for days, debating the issue over and over again. As wealthy and influential as the Bao family was, they were still shaken by the astronomical figure.
However, the Old Ancestor of the house had been in seclusion in recent years, forbidden to all disturbances. Rumors spoke of an enigmatic Second Ancestor, but like a divine dragon showing its head yet concealing its tail, no one had any idea where this immortal might be.
When the immortal ancestors did not respond, conventional practice dictated that the elders decide such secular affairs themselves. How could they disturb an immortal ancestor's cultivation over a trivial matter of silver and coin?
The principle held sound, yet the elders were in an immense bind. It was indeed a financial matter, and undeniably secular, but a sum exceeding one hundred million seemed far from simple mundane business.
After deliberating for several days, the elders agreed that the money had to be lent. If a clan as vast as the Bao family couldn't even produce a hundred million immortal silver, wouldn't they become the laughingstock of the world?
Yet the amount was simply too enormous, far exceeding the elders' authority. Furthermore, at this point in time, none of them wished to offend Bao Yun. Bao Yun was ranked among the Twelve Celestial Idols and was all but guaranteed to be the Bao family's next-generation immortal ancestor. The elders were all shrewd schemers; how could they not know the wisdom of picking the right side early?
Amid the elders' agonizing discussions, someone suddenly remarked, "Back then, when little Yun traded for a city, several of you said it was nothing more than a ruined mountain village, didn't you?"
The hall immediately erupted into chaos. Between shouting, cursing, and bickering, memories of the past flooded back. Two newly appointed elders who were not yet a hundred years old wore particularly complicated expressions.
The elders knew full well that these two were outstanding figures among the younger generation, both of whom had once harbored feelings for Bao Yun.
Back when Bao Yun eloped with Wei Yuan, she mentioned to the clan years later that Wei Yuan had given her a city.
At the time, the entire Bao family had responded with mockery, convinced that a bitter, remote frontier could never hold a decent city. Wei Yuan using such a thing to take Bao Yun's hand—wasn't that treating her like a beggar? Moreover, in the northwest, what they called a city might well be a rundown outpost, perhaps nothing more than an overgrown village. The two youngest elders present had been among those who said such things.
Because of Bao Yun, many in the family began paying attention to news of Qingming. But after learning more, many who favored Bao Yun, along with her numerous suitors, grew thoroughly indignant. Back then, Qingming was an unsettled wilderness; Wei Yuan had practically staked out a patch of barren earth to deceive her.
What was the meaning of giving her a piece of wasteland? Did he expect Bao Yun to fund the city's construction out of her own pocket? Bao Yun was just a young maiden back then; how much personal savings could she possibly have? Everyone concluded that Wei Yuan was really after the Bao family's fortune.
When Bao Yun subsequently asked the clan for money several times, it only solidified their impressions. In truth, she had merely drawn upon the baseline resources allocated under her own name—a share every core genius of the Bao family received—without asking for anything extra. It was just that Bao Manshan had quietly slipped her extra funds, an amount several times what she had requested.
Believing Wei Yuan to be insatiably greedy, bent on securing both the woman and the clan's fortune, everyone had been filled with righteous fury, heaping curses upon him.
During that period, both inside and outside the Bao family, Wei Yuan's reputation had been thoroughly scandalous and utterly notorious.
In the blink of an eye, decades had slipped by.
Most of Bao Yun's suitors from those days had married and established their careers. A few had formed dharma idols, three or four had made considerable progress within that realm, and two had already become elders. In the quiet hours of midnight dreams, those few would occasionally wonder: had they been braver back then, might there have been a sliver of hope to win her heart?
Naturally, they could only dream. Qingming was vastly different now, and Wei Yuan's feat of slaying an immortal had shaken the world; any thought of comparing themselves to him had long been extinguished.
Ultimately, after days of agonizing debate, Bao Manshan overrode all objections and determined that the money must be lent. His reasoning was sound: the city Bao Yun was building belonged to the Bao family, and what clan refused to pay for its own city?
Awed by Bao Manshan's persuasive rhetoric, the elders reluctantly agreed. Still uneasy, they arranged for Bao Manshan and Bao Shu to carry the immortal silver to Qingming personally, using the opportunity to see exactly where Bao Yun intended to spend it.
And so, while Bao Yun was holding the renaming ceremony, Bao Manshan and Bao Shu sat in a nearby restaurant, watching her preside over the grand event. Both of them, however, wore rather peculiar expressions.
Bao Shu had already cultivated his mindscape world, having recently advanced to Scenery Command. A glazed jade tree faintly manifested within his pupils, allowing him to perceive boundless azure qi rising across the plaza and converging toward Bao Yun. Yet after watching for merely a few breaths, his eyes stung so severely that tears nearly spilled forth.
Wiping his eyes with a white cloth, he said, "Just two days ago, at least thirty or forty percent of the common folk in this city opposed the massive construction of this Fengqi Terrace. Now little Yun comes out and says a few words to their faces, and they've all forgotten their original convictions?"
Bao Manshan pointed toward the plaza and sighed. "If you were down in that crowd, you wouldn't have any convictions left either."
Right now, the plaza was packed tight. People stood eagerly on tiptoe, craning their necks toward the stage, terrified of missing even the slightest glimpse.
Bao Yun's opulent robes swept the floor, her jade and jewels shimmering brightly. A golden step-shake hairpin swayed above her clouded coiffure, and a jade hairpin held her dark tresses in place. Her crimson lips glistened like dew, her pale wrists resembled sculpted frost, and an aura of effortless nobility radiated from her—she was breathtaking beyond description.
She walked to one side of the raised platform and waved to the crowd below. "Friends of the East District, how are you?"
The crowd answered with a roar of cheers like a crashing tsunami! Countless colored paper scraps and streamers drifted into the sky, while cultivators repeatedly fired off Daoist arts upward, bursting into blossoms of dazzling fireworks.
Bao Yun asked again, "Are you all willing to build Fengqi Terrace?"
"YES!!!" The collective shout seemed to shake the very earth and shatter mountains!
A smile finally rippled across Bao Yun's face. The moment she smiled, screams erupted from the crowd below, and several people fainted on the spot from sheer excitement.
Bao Shu covered his face with a hand, sighing incessantly. "The world has fallen so low, and people's hearts are no longer pure! How can she show her face in public like this? This... what kind of propriety is this?!"
Bao Manshan wore a peculiar monocle over one eye, clicking his tongue in marvel. "Remarkable! Truly extraordinary! Why didn't I ever think of this?"
Bao Shu was bewildered. "Isn't this shameless enough? How is it extraordinary?"
Bao Manshan handed the monocle over. "Take a look and you'll understand. There isn't much immortal power left in it. With the Old Ancestor in seclusion, there's no way to replenish it, so I can only let you look for three breaths."
Bao Shu put on the monocle and looked toward the plaza once more. This time, his vision revealed vast blankets of mist rising from the populace, surging toward Bao Yun from all directions.
Above Bao Yun's head, a treasure tree faintly manifested, continuously absorbing the clouds and mist. Its entire form grew increasingly translucent, warm, and lustrous, while deep within the milky-white radiance, a glimmer of multicolored celestial light faintly emerged!
Bao Shu was astounded, his voice trembling slightly. "How could there be so much karmic luck?! Does every single person here possess karmic luck?"
Bao Manshan gestured, summoning the lens back into his grasp. "Do you understand now? Little Yun's method of harvesting karmic luck is brilliant to the extreme! The karmic luck she has gathered from this single ceremony is more than you could amass in an entire lifetime! Look—her dharma idol has absorbed so much karmic luck with nowhere to place it that it's already on the verge of undergoing a transformation!"
Recalling the image he had just witnessed, Bao Shu's expression gradually turned to shock. "When mortal karmic luck reaches its absolute zenith, it produces celestial light? She... she is..."
Bao Manshan's discernment and vision far surpassed Bao Shu's. "This can be considered an alternate path to becoming a Sovereign of Men. Who would have thought this city could reach such scale, with so vast a population and every single resident bearing karmic luck? Only this could make her path viable. However, her summoning us here wasn't merely to watch the spectacle. A grand ceremony of karmic luck like this invites the most volatile variables—it might even draw extraterrestrial fiends."
Only then did Bao Shu understand. "So we're actually here to guard her!"
Bao Manshan rolled his eyes at him. "You're only just figuring that out? Stay alert, and don't let anything interrupt little Yun's process of absorbing karmic luck."
Bao Shu grew solemn, scanning the surroundings. He had a strange sensation that some demonic creature ought to be appearing right about now.
Yet none did.
Chapter 1184