Wei Yuan scrutinized the official before him. Although this body was merely an avatar with early Dharma Idol cultivation, it bore a wisp of Wei Yuan's divine consciousness; its true stature stood far above ordinary Scenery Command cultivators. With a single glance, he could pierce through most of the world's secrets.
The Dao force within this official was murky and impure, his Dao Foundation tier mediocre, sitting somewhere between Mortal Tier and Earth Tier. He likely hailed from some minor, obscure sect; his Dao path ended here, at best barely scraping into the Dharma Idol realm. He possessed a touch of clear, scholarly qi, yet it was meager and unsystematic—evidently acquired through reading scriptures on his own later in life rather than passed down through the heritage of the Four Sages Academy.
Aside from that, there was no Buddhist radiance, nor any Buddhist intent or Zen power—only a faint trace of incense aura, likely the result of recently listening to Buddhist sermons.
Seeing no traces of Buddhist cultivation on the man, Wei Yuan's anger eased slightly. Flashing his waist token, he said in a deep voice, "Since you still recognize the law, do you recognize this token? Why shouldn't I sit in this seat?"
The county magistrate replied, "Propriety has its standards, and authority has its process. If Your Excellency comes to inspect, an official dispatch should precede you, stating your identity and the purpose of your visit. I do not recognize Your Excellency—what if this waist token is a forgery?"
The temper Wei Yuan had just suppressed flared right back up. He said coldly, "So what your lordship means is that no matter who comes today, without an official dispatch, no one can direct you, is that it?"
The county magistrate held his head high. "Precisely! By law, so it should be. If Your Excellency is ignorant of this, then this subordinate believes Your Excellency is deficient in virtue and hardly worthy of your current post."
Wei Yuan had run entirely out of patience. Unwilling to play word games with such an obstinate, contrarian fool, he barked, "Down on your knees!"
Despite every fiber of resistance in the magistrate's mind, his knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor.
Wei Yuan said coldly, "Do you know your crime?!"
"What crime have I committed? If anything, it is you—a man of unknown origin throwing his weight around just because of a bit of cultivation—who is guilty of an unpardonable offense!"
Wei Yuan's expression did not waver. "Let me ask you: what is the current state of this county's preparatory academy? Is it teaching and educating the people?"
The magistrate attempted to stand several times, but his body felt as heavy as a mountain; every struggle only drew sharp cracks from his bones. Kneeling on the ground, his face flushed crimson, he gritted his teeth and declared, "I am an official commissioned by the court! In humiliating me like this, you humiliate the imperial court! Even if you hold sway over the entire realm, can you escape the lash of the history books?"
Wei Yuan said flatly, "I am asking you: what is the state of the preparatory academy? Refuse to answer once more, and I will strip you of your robes and cap on the spot, to be flogged in the bustling market square!"
The magistrate's face shifted slightly. Clearly, being stripped bare and punished in the open marketplace would be worse than death to him. He had no choice but to say, "The preparatory academy has been temporarily lent to an itinerant Master for preaching the profound truths of the scriptures. Heaven bestowed profound scriptures and wondrous arts upon the Master; I have personally debated with him, and they are indeed peerless classics. The Master had no place of worship, so I approved allocating the preparatory academy to him, so that more mortals might be guided to enlightenment."
Wei Yuan's expression darkened. "So you were the instigator! The court has repeatedly decreed that academies must not be diverted to other uses—do you mean to say you were unaware?"
The magistrate stiffened his neck again. "Laws are rigid, but times are fluid! A Master arrived carrying sacred teachings, allowing all living beings to find salvation, dissolve their sinful karma, attain compassion, and gain great joy—this is a fundamental opportunity! Teaching a mere hundred mortals to read a few characters is nothing more than petty gain. How could one abandon the greater principle for petty gain?!"
Wei Yuan's face grew darker still. "Who decided what constitutes the greater principle, and who decided what constitutes petty gain? You? Are you an official of Western Jin, or an official of Qingming?"
"I, Chi Fangyi, was appointed by Qingming and accepted a post under Western Jin. It is just as true to call me an official of Western Jin as it is an official of Qingming."
"Since you know you are an official of Qingming, why did you fail to uphold Qingming's laws and alter the academy's purpose without authorization!" Wei Yuan's voice was not loud, yet like rolling thunder, it echoed through the hall again and again.
The magistrate named Chi showed not the slightest fear, declaring loudly, "I came on Qingming's orders, but since arriving here, my duty is to seek the well-being of the local populace! Since taking office, I have weighed everything for the sake of the people and won their deep affection. So if you ask whose official I am, I am an official of this Tuchuan County! The people of the entire county chose me! Except for the commoners of Tuchuan, no one has the right to remove me from office!"
Wei Yuan's expression turned entirely frosty. "I see. Magistrate Chi is not an official of the people at all, but an official of the Pure Land! Had you not exhibited such unbending pride, I might have been fooled! Men! Strip his clothes, give him eighty strokes of the staff, cast him into prison, and await further judgment!"
A faint glimmer flashed in the hall. The yamen runners' faces instantly lost all expression as they surged forward like ravenous wolves and tigers. Their strength was shockingly terrifying as they pinned down Chi Fangyi—a cultivator of the Dao Foundation realm—stripped off every stitch of his clothing, and swung their heavy wooden rods in wide arcs. The first blow landed squarely on his pale buttocks, instantly drawing blood!
Crack! Crack! Crack! Blow after blow echoed through the room. Yet the magistrate named Chi did not utter a single cry of agony. He merely glared at Wei Yuan, his face full of obstinate fury. Wei Yuan saw it with crystal clarity: short of beating him to death, this man would never yield.
In the blink of an eye, the eighty strokes were completed. Chi Fangyi's thighs and buttocks were reduced to a mangled mess of blood and flesh. Dao Foundation cultivator though he was, he could endure no longer. With a final roar—"You defy the natural order! Even if you are the Domain Lord, you will cut yourself off before all the people!"—he passed out. Wei Yuan ordered him dragged away and thrown directly into death row.
Next, Wei Yuan dispatched men to the rear courtyard to seize all the magistrate's family members. The monk who had been preaching sermons attempted one spell after another in secret, hoping to escape. Yet beneath Wei Yuan's very eyes, every technique failed completely; he could not exert a single shred of divine power, and was clapped into irons like an ordinary mortal before being led into the dungeon.
By now, Wei Yuan understood the situation completely. Chi Fangyi had indeed been swayed by Buddhist conversion, yet the method was exceptionally subtle—subtle enough that even Wei Yuan could not detect any outward signs. Moreover, the conversion itself accounted for only thirty percent; roughly seventy percent came from his own preexisting thoughts, which the conversion had stimulated and cemented into unshakeable conviction. And because Chi Fangyi was the sort of man willing to die for his convictions, it culminated in the present standoff.
Wei Yuan possessed methods akin to conversion as well. With a single suppression of his divine consciousness, he had compelled those yamen runners—who had visibly already been converted—to obey his commands. In comparison, however, the Pure Land's methods were plainly subtler and vastly more potent. Coupled with an eminent monk sacrificing his life to cast the spell through parinirvana, the conversion effect became extraordinarily domineering, almost impossible to withstand.
Tuchuan County happened to sit at an intersection of the earth vein's spiritual qi, making the conversion effect especially pronounced. There were dozens of similar counties and three commandery seats; as one could imagine, their situations were likely much the same.
At this moment, Chi Fangyi was dragged away, leaving a long trail of blood across the floor of the hall. Looking at the crimson streak, Wei Yuan felt killing intent surge within him: To dare convert the commissioned officials of my Qingming...
Wei Yuan sat motionless. Expressions returned to the runners' faces: some showed bewilderment, some terror, while others trembled violently. Now that Wei Yuan had withdrawn his divine consciousness, they had regained their own senses. Yet a few runners glared at him with furious eyes, looking as though they might lunge forward to fight him to the death at any moment.
From this alone, Wei Yuan's conversion methods were indeed far inferior to those of the Pure Land; the moment he withdrew his divine consciousness, the Pure Land's influence regained supremacy.
Wei Yuan sat for a short while before a monk stepped into the hall from outside. A thick patch of stubble still lingered across his scalp—the very monk Wei Yuan had seen earlier in the academy.
Wei Yuan remained seated and asked coldly, "And which Great Master might this be?"
A faint glow shone on the monk's face as he replied, "Merely a mortal vessel. Who I am matters not; what matters is the practice one carries out."
The monk no longer seemed anything like the uneducated man from before. Had anyone else witnessed this, they would likely have praised him as possessing boundless supernatural powers, capable of manifesting ten thousand forms.
Yet Wei Yuan knew that the itinerant Master from earlier had genuinely been unlettered, whereas the one before him now was a true eminent monk. The Master from the academy had been replaced, rather than an eminent monk simply adopting one of ten thousand aspects.
The monk chanted a Buddhist moniker and said, "This humble monk wishes to know: how fares Master Jingru's golden body now?"
"Let me check..." Wei Yuan paused for a few breaths before saying, "The dissection is complete. The internal organs have all been removed, and portions of the muscle and flesh have been divided into fingertip-sized pellets—over four hundred pieces in total. They have just finished numbering them and are preparing to conduct various experiments."
Anger surfaced in the monk's eyes. "Master Jingru sacrificed himself to bring ultimate bliss to thousands upon thousands of sentient beings, an act of boundless merit! How could you bear to desecrate his golden body and defile his dharma vessel?"
Wei Yuan said flatly, "You converted an official commissioned by my Qingming. Where does that leave my dignity?"
"Is the ultimate bliss of all sentient beings more important, or the Domain Lord's face?"
Wei Yuan replied without hesitation, "Naturally, my face is more important! If you dare convert another commissioned official of Qingming, not only will Master Jingru's golden body be diced for research, but your dharma body will suffer the exact same fate."
The monk clearly had not anticipated Wei Yuan being so fierce. He sighed, "With such conduct, how is the Domain Lord any different from a devil?"
Wei Yuan said, "Leaving my conduct aside, in my eyes, anything is more important than your so-called ultimate bliss. 'Ultimate bliss, ultimate bliss'—that is bliss for you. Once the people receive your bliss, they become nothing more than puppets who know only how to smile."
The monk sighed. "The Domain Lord is mistaken! Even if they are puppets, that is their own choice—the will of the people. The Domain Lord has always professed to act on behalf of the multitude, so why act against the natural order today?"
Wei Yuan sneered. "Only when the people's minds are enlightened is it a true choice; when their minds are unenlightened, it is nothing but a scam!
"Therefore, until I enlighten the minds of the people, no flowery words of yours will matter! If you dare convert them, I will send every one of your dharma bodies into the laboratories to be studied by mortals."
Chapter 1206