Drawing Oil from Stone

Can you squeeze oil out of a stone? The answer was: Wei Yuan could not, but Baoyun could. This was an unexpected answer, and one Wei Yuan was exceedingly reluctant to admit, but it was nonetheless the truth. From the founding of Ding'an City onwards, every batch of people Wei Yuan sent over had consisted of young, able-bodied men and women who had recuperated well in Qingming. Having rested and recovered for at least several months, and up to a year, well-fed and well-rested, each and every one had grown remarkably sturdy, with many already possessing the foundations for Body Casting. Clearly, the caliber of these people was far above Qingming's average. In sending them over, Wei Yuan had blatantly played favorites—a fact that drew no small amount of grumbling from Xiaoyu, who was also a city lord. Yet what Baoyun gave in return was different from what Xiaoyu offered; she provided what Xiaoyu could not, leaving him with no choice but to curse under his breath and let it go. On this matter, Star Lord Shaoyang seemed to have a different opinion, though he kept it to himself. Xiaoyu's Yong'an City was the earliest and largest city in Qingming. Located near the immortal city and connected in all directions, it boasted a massive population. Inevitably, however, the good was mixed with the bad, and unruly scoundrels proliferated. Naturally, these troublesome folk dared not oppose Xiaoyu openly, but they were remarkably adept at doing countless petty, bizarre things that proved extraordinarily taxing on Xiaoyu's mind. For instance, Person A sued Person B: "We passed each other on the road, and he glared at me." A demanded that B kneel and apologize, be paraded through the streets as a public spectacle, and pay a sum of immortal silver in compensation. Or peasant woman C accused D: "He cast lecherous glances at me with illicit intentions." In this case, Xiaoyu took a single look at the woman's countenance and ruled against her on the spot. Yet Xiaoyu did not let handsome, tall, and burly D off easily either. He dispatched subordinates to investigate D's background and discovered that he was indeed married, yet had affairs with multiple women. In a fit of fury, Xiaoyu cast a divine ability then and there, ensuring that D would never again be capable of improper conduct with any woman other than his wedded wife. To D, this was truly a bolt from the blue. He cried grievance relentlessly, claiming that no matter how many women he dallied with, it would never have been her turn—the woman had undeniably framed him! Whereupon Xiaoyu, citing contempt of court, ordered him caned several dozen times. ... With all manner of such trivial nonsense crossing his desk every day, Xiaoyu grew irritable and his Dao heart grew unsettled. From then on, he never again dared to venture out incognito on whim to play the role of a low-ranking magistrate judging cases. Whenever this happened, he felt exceedingly envious of Baoyun, whose city was orderly and uniform, filled entirely with robust elites. However, every gain brought a loss. The residents of Baoyun's city had all contributed karmic luck, many of them twice: first upon arriving in Qingming, and second after growing strong and beginning Body Casting. A small portion who were literate and enlightened had even contributed a third stream of karmic luck. In layman's terms, this thick crop of chives had already been thoroughly harvested. In Xiaoyu's Yong'an City, on the other hand, many were wild chives—those troublesome rabble-rousers, for instance, had never contributed any karmic luck at all. Yet among those unruly sorts, some were indeed chives that merely required meticulous cultivation, while many others were fundamentally weeds. No matter how stout and well-nourished weeds grew, they remained weeds. Regardless of how fat and robust they became from food, they would never contribute a sliver of karmic luck, spending their days doing nothing but cursing mothers. Such was the difference between the two cities. At first, the cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning had not understood, but over time they came to grasp Wei Yuan's arrangement. Spurred on by Wei Yuan, the cultivators had now made tremendous strides in the Dao of karmic luck. The scouring of mortal karmic luck had become the second path to elevating aptitudes, alongside tempering divine senses within the Splendor of the Many Realms. However, while the Splendor of the Many Realms was open to everyone, mortal luck scouring was an exclusively elite track. Only that earliest cohort from the Palace of Grand Beginning who had followed Wei Yuan out could partake; cultivators who arrived later—such as the so-called Eight Minus One Heroes of Jianmu—had no chance at a turn. Wei Yuan knew that the people in Baoyun's city could contribute only limited karmic luck. He had always felt a touch of guilt over this and sought to mix in some fresh arrivals. Yet the moment he did, it provoked fierce discontent among the city's original residents, who questioned how these sallow, emaciated folks had managed to sneak in. By now, they regarded themselves as members of the Bao family, looking down on people from other parts of Qingming altogether. Noticing the marked rise in friction throughout the city, Baoyun ceased accepting fresh newcomers to Qingming and set the residency requirements sky-high once more. Everyone was satisfied thereafter, and batch after batch of sturdy chive roots joined Ding'an City to become its backbone. Wei Yuan had originally assumed that Baoyun's true objective was the children born to these chive roots. Those children would surely possess outstanding aptitude—not only useful, but with their karmic luck belonging wholly to Baoyun. By any calculation, however, that should have been a matter for ten years down the road. Yet before that time had even arrived, Wei Yuan suddenly sensed a fierce surge of karmic luck in Qingming—someone was harvesting karmic luck on a massive scale! This came as no small shock, followed immediately by soaring fury! To dare reap karmic luck so brazenly within Qingming was snatching food straight from a tiger's maw—it showed utter disregard for Wei Yuan! As long as he stood in Qingming, Wei Yuan dared to trade curses with minor immortals; how could he brook such provocation? Breaking out of his seclusion, he emerged from the cave estate's entrance, first glancing cautiously left and right. Once certain no one was around, he manifested a bizarre craft. The object resembled a missile, yet rested on the ground supported by three thick legs at its base. Wei Yuan leaped aboard, perching atop the tip of the craft. Instantly, plumes of spiritual flames erupted from the three support legs, rocketing straight into the sky before executing an abrupt turn—as though kicked by an immortal—to level into horizontal flight. Then the main body vented a long trail of fiery exhaust, and its speed surged drastically, far outstripping ordinary minor immortals. Just like that, swift as wind and fierce as fire, Wei Yuan vanished into the distance in the blink of an eye! Only a moment later did the heights of heaven detect the disturbance in the ancestral lands. Gaze after gaze turned toward him, only to discover that Wei Yuan was already on the verge of entering Qingming. Among the almighty figures in the heavens, some were startled, some aloof, and others puzzled, wondering what Wei Yuan was up to. Yet one thing became clear to all: with speed exceeding even ordinary immortals by a fraction, if he were merely shuttling back and forth between the Lu family's ancestral lands and Qingming, intercepting him would be terribly difficult. By the time anyone noticed, he had already crossed more than half the journey. While the mighty figures were busy plotting counteractions, dark mist suddenly billowed across the celestial heavens, the wind carrying a foul tang as countless ghostly heads flickered in and out of sight! In the heart of the demonic dark wind, Zhu Yan, cradling a crystal skull in her hand, leisurely strolled out for a turn. Drawing every gaze that had been fixed on Wei Yuan onto herself, she sank back into the void and vanished. Only then did the almighty beings recall that another scourge had recently appeared in the celestial heavens. For now at least, this nuisance was far more difficult to handle than Wei Yuan. In the short time since entering the celestial heavens, Zhu Yan had detonated three immortal treasures in succession, severely wounding two immortals. Such a strike rate caused the immortals' assessment of her threat to soar, to the point that none dared walk masked in the dark. With this brief distraction, Wei Yuan had already entered Qingming. Soon after, a brilliant ray of light shot out from Qingming Immortal City, soaring ten thousand zhang into the celestial dome. The light burst open in the sky, forming a colossal middle finger aimed directly at the heavenly immortals! Such childish behavior caught the immortals completely off guard. Yet they soon discovered that having someone mock them right to their faces before the entire world was genuinely infuriating. Several immortals felt their Dao hearts shudder with rage, itching to unleash some measures to teach Wei Yuan a lesson. Once in Qingming, Wei Yuan was like a fish returning to water. His speed surged by another thirty percent while turning utterly silent and traceless; wherever he passed, it was like a spring breeze sweeping across the plains, leaving no trace behind. In the blink of an eye, he arrived above Qingwu City, where he saw Baoyun singing her heart out on the stage. Beneath the stage, hundreds of thousands of people jumped to her rhythm, driven to sheer frenzy! As the song concluded, fine beads of sweat dotted Baoyun's brow. Suddenly, she placed one hand over her chest, tucked the other behind her back, and bowed deeply to the audience below, her posture indescribably elegant and enchanting. The spectators below were mere mortals; when had they ever witnessed an aloof, transcendent immortal bowing and giving thanks to the likes of them? A tsunami of screams instantly erupted across the square. Many fainted on the spot from overwhelming excitement. The city guards had prepared in advance and immediately hurried to carry out those who collapsed. Yet though Baoyun had clearly deployed ten thousand city guards, over nine thousand of them were also screaming their heads off, with only a few hundred still remembering to do their jobs. Suspended in the air, Wei Yuan watched in disbelief as wisps of karmic luck drifted from people's bodies toward Baoyun even as they passed out. To contribute karmic luck even while losing consciousness—just how fanatical were they? Baoyun would only need a single word, and they would probably charge up mountains of daggers and plunge into seas of flames for her. Afterward, Baoyun sang several more songs while dancing gracefully, and for a time even Wei Yuan watched, spellbound. When the performance ended, Wei Yuan had only a four-word verdict left: singing and dancing supreme... no, both peerless in this generation. An hour flew by in an instant, and the renaming ceremony of Qingwu City finally drew to a close. Half the city's populace remained utterly enamored, lingering around the empty stage and unwilling to leave. Wei Yuan was rendered speechless. Just now, he had watched five hundred thousand spectators contribute a million karmic luck with his very own eyes! How much practical work would he have to do, how many mortal lives and destinies would he need to alter, to obtain a million mortal luck? Moreover, in Wei Yuan's eyes, these people had originally been stones from which no karmic luck could be squeezed. Now, right before Wei Yuan's eyes, the stones were oozing oil all by themselves, without any squeezing required. A wild thought suddenly occurred to Wei Yuan: if Baoyun's singing and dancing were broadcast simultaneously throughout Qingming, couldn't the three hundred million mortals of Qingming instantly yield six hundred million mortal luck? With that, Wei Yuan would dare charge up to the celestial heavens and trade three rounds of curses with the Venerable Master himself! Still, Wei Yuan mused, using the Wondrous Form of the Heavenly Demon for this purpose felt somehow off. As Wei Yuan was deep in thought, his eyes suddenly brightened as Baoyun waved to him from a distance. With a flicker of his figure, Wei Yuan walked alongside Baoyun, and in moments they reached the center of the high terrace, standing together beside the small sapling. Above Baoyun's head, the Seven Marvels Treasure Tree manifested. As its branches and leaves swayed, it poured the freshly gathered karmic luck onto the sapling like a fine, misty rain. Wei Yuan studied the sapling closely. The phantom figure on the lotus throne in the Pure Land's small shrine opened its eyes, gazing downward in unison with the Heavenly Demon residing in the Underworld Palace of the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven. Gradually, Wei Yuan discerned the clues. His expression shifted slightly as he asked, "Patriarch Huangyun?!" Baoyun nodded gently. "I could not bear to watch the Patriarch drift endlessly in reincarnation, so I devised this method. Aided by the karmic luck just gathered and guided by a thread of karma, this little sapling can draw together the scattered remnants of the Patriarch's karma across the myriad realms. Coupled with the constant veneration of the city's residents as it grows, it will serve as a beacon in the endless cycle of rebirth that only the Patriarch can see. Once the Patriarch's reincarnated self achieves success in cultivation, he may feel the summons and find his way here on his own." Remembering True Monarch Huangyun, myriad emotions surged within Wei Yuan, leaving him with only a sigh. Baoyun also felt weary, leaning back against Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan naturally reached out and put his arm around her waist. Little did he expect that this single embrace would once again cause several months of arduous cultivation in Desolate Roar to go down the drain.