Face

Once the matter of the breakthrough grand pills was settled, the cultivators dispersed. Feng Chutang did not leave immediately, however, lingering behind until no one else remained before speaking to Wei Yuan. "The Pure Land has existed for far too long, and its foundations run exceedingly deep. Who knows how many methods and techniques they possess? I believe we should remain vigilant. Those fellows who emerged from the Pure Land are making offerings and praying to you without any rhyme or reason—they certainly harbor ill intent!" Wei Yuan halted his steps and asked, "Then what do you propose we do?" Feng Chutang answered without hesitation, "Seize them first, brand them as Pure Land spies, and if we lack evidence, we can simply fabricate some. Once they are detained, we can interrogate them at leisure. In short, we cannot allow them to worship you so casually." Wei Yuan countered, "You know as well as I do that many who come out of the Pure Land, particularly those of high cultivation, are little more than empty husks. Torture and harsh interrogation will yield nothing." Feng Chutang remained unfazed, retorting, "Our Palace of Grand Beginning possesses a multitude of spells, and our forebears passed down plenty of orthodox methods capable of bewitching the mind and confounding the spirit. If I master a few more of them, one is bound to work on those bald thieves." Wei Yuan chuckled. "Even if we prove they are Pure Land spies, what of their mortal followers? Are we to arrest them all as well? That is hundreds of thousands of people!" Feng Chutang's expression turned grim, his tone chilling. "Those who achieve great things do not sweat the trifles! Though these mortals followed blindly, they are not without fault—and where there is fault, there must be punishment! We could establish a city in a mining region or mountainous terrain, relocate them there, and set them to hard labor mining ore, smelting iron, and carving roads through mountains. We can temper their temperaments bit by bit, thoroughly grinding away every trace of the Buddhist cultivators, and only then release them." Wei Yuan shook his head. "That would turn this into far too grand an ordeal. Besides, even if these people erred, they should not be punished. Put yourself in their shoes: if you were merely a mortal who knew nothing of the wider world, and saw that offering worship to the Realm Lord could open a path to immortality, would you not participate?" "That may be true, but—" Wei Yuan cut him off. "For now, let us avoid major upheavals. We will study the entire matter thoroughly first and determine exactly what the Pure Land is scheming. In the meantime, we can freeze the opening of new dao fields and forbid existing dao fields from accepting new registrations, treating it as a temporary restriction." Feng Chutang knitted his brows tightly, clearly still unsatisfied. Wei Yuan offered comforting words: "Martial Uncle Feng, we currently have many critical affairs before us, all of which take precedence over this matter. Those Pure Land monks employ shifting, invisible methods and love laying lines far into the distance, so let them be! While they fuss with their little plots and schemes piece by piece, we will dash ahead along the Great Dao. Before long, whatever schemes the Pure Land devises will naturally become useless." Helpless, Feng Chutang let out a sigh. "Lately, I have been gripped by constant unease—it is my dharma idol's ability to sense calamity. You must never underestimate the Pure Land. According to the ancient records I consulted, the fall of the third, fourth, and fifth generation Palace Masters all seemed to have traces of the Pure Land behind them. Yet during that era, the Pure Land was ostensibly on remarkably intimate terms with our Palace of Grand Beginning, to the point where both factions once joined forces in a contest of spells against the Sword Palace." "The bald thieves are treacherous—I realized that long ago. Rest easy!" After seeing Feng Chutang off, Wei Yuan returned to the Lu Clan Ancestral Mountain and began preparing for pill refinement. Others would handle gathering ingredients, arranging the cauldron and arrays, and regulating the weather and earth pulse around the grand hall; Wei Yuan only needed to ignite the flame and begin the refinement when the time came. After operating for all these years, the World Refining Grand Array now enclosed virtually the entirety of the ancestral grounds, leaving only the very bottom unsealed. Wei Yuan diverted a portion of his divine sense and began excavating from top to bottom. The upper portion of the immortal remains beneath the ancestral mountain had already been noticeably shaved down by a layer, pierced by several deep shafts leading straight to its interior. Deep within the mountain, a cavern tens of zhang high had been carved out, at the center of which stood a cylinder ten zhang thick and fifty zhang tall. At this moment, thousands of gossamer array threads were ceaselessly carving away at this pillar, though it took quite some time for even a sliver of fine white sand to drift down. This pillar was extraordinarily difficult to carve, but it was nothing ordinary—it was an uncorrupted phalanx of the immortal! The moment Wei Yuan excavated his way here, he immediately expanded the dig along the finger bone, focusing his efforts on refining this single segment. Amidst the busyness, time passed swiftly. In between tasks, Wei Yuan reviewed recent affairs within Qingming, where certain reports caught his attention. *** Several months prior. The border between Jin and Zhao had seen no major warfare for several years, yet it was never a tranquil region. Three dharma idols were flying through the air aboard their magical artifacts when a streak of escape light ignited ahead. An elderly man carrying a youth flew along the same altitude, placing them directly on a collision course. The trio of dharma idols halted abruptly, barking out, "Who goes there? How dare you sweep us with your divine sense?" The old man hovered in midair, shielding the youth beside him, and sneered, "What a laughable thing to say! The world is so vast—how am I to watch the road without using divine sense? Besides, why shouldn't this old man sweep the three of you fake, mixed-breed cultivators?" Enraged, the three dharma idols roared in unison, "We are subordinates of Qingming, escorting military supplies! Approaching us means you harbor ill intent!" The old man scoffed. "Not everyone is willing to be a dog. And if you're going to be a dog, don't wag your tail so hard—you'll only let everyone see your bare backside!" With words having gone this far, only a contest of spells remained. A short while later, covered in wounds and their robes in tatters, the three dharma idols fled at top speed without daring to look back, abandoning even the storage rucksacks on their backs. The old man drew out a square handkerchief and dabbed at the two drops of sweat that had finally managed to appear on his brow. The youth's eyes shone brightly, and he lunged toward the storage rucksacks on the ground. But halfway there, he froze in midair, immobilized by the old man's finger. "Those are Qingming's military supplies. The rucksacks bear seals; the moment they are opened, their army formation will know instantly. We are merely passing through. Beating a few Golden Pellet beaten dogs is no big deal, but if you touch military supplies, Qingming will dispatch high cultivators from the army to hunt us down—perhaps even an Earth Tier, or a Heaven Tier." The youth stuck out his tongue in fright, not daring to act recklessly. The old man gathered the rucksacks together and casually erected a protective array around them before taking the youth into the air to resume their journey. Several hours later, a squad of dharma idol cultivators flew in swiftly. Their attire was neat and uniform—black robes embroidered with silver patterns, sharply tailored to convey competence and power. All ten members of this squad were dharma idols. The leader bore a single gold stripe on his epaulet, marking him as a Mortal Tier dharma idol, not a Golden Pellet. Upon arrival, the dharma idols promptly cordoned off the area. Several immediately unslung their packs, produced tools and array disks, and began conducting an on-site investigation. "There are fingerprints on the rucksacks. All have been extracted and prepared for comparison." "The array retains traces of spirit power aura. It has been successfully captured and analyzed for its origin technique... Analysis complete: the Spring Pavilion Dew Trace Qi-Harvesting Method, a technique of the River Flow Sect from Wen County, Yu Province, in northern Zhao." "Environmental survey complete. Two cultivators lingered here for an extended duration: one mid-stage dharma idol, one Dao Foundation." "The River Flow Sect possesses one Scenery Command and three dharma idols in total. Only one is a mid-stage dharma idol: Zhang Zhounian. The Dao Foundation possesses vigorous vitality and young age—likely his direct great-grandson, renowned as a prodigy." These cultivators operated with consummate professionalism and meticulous precision. Being not far from Qingming, they possessed specialized magical artifacts linking them to the Splendor of the Many Realms, allowing them to search for information with remarkable speed—nearly in the span of a single breath. In the blink of an eye, the backgrounds of both the old man and the youth were laid bare. A Golden Pellet asked, "Should we petition the Grand General to dispatch the Night Patrol Office to capture them?" The cultivator with the gold-striped epaulet pondered for a moment before replying, "They left the military supplies untouched, which shows they feared escalating the matter. Moreover, they were heading toward Zhao and have likely crossed into Zhao territory by now. Going into Zhao to apprehend someone might invite unnecessary trouble. This affair is beyond our authority now—report it upward." The cultivators cleared the scene and submitted their report on the spot through their magical artifacts. With their duties concluded, one of the Golden Pellets suddenly spoke up: "Lord Cui, the comrades who returned said that the old fellow looked down on them terribly. We are all Golden Pellets too, and this insult is hard to swallow." General Cui sighed helplessly. "Then our only choice is to lay an ambush nearby and see if he passes through this way again. In any case, crossing into Zhao territory is forbidden." "General, I know our Golden Pellet dharma idols are meager in strength, but this path belongs solely to Qingming! Knowing full well who we are, they still chose to humiliate us. Is that not showing contempt for Qingming—and contempt for the Realm Lord himself?" General Cui was left speechless. In the end, he added a few extra lines to the end of the report. This incident was hardly an isolated case. With warfare subsiding in the surrounding regions, Qingming's grand army found itself without battles to fight. However, an increasing number of administrative and operational duties were handed over to Golden Pellet dharma idols and template Dao Foundations, frequently requiring them to venture outside Qingming. Some cultivators had even expanded their activities into Southern Jin and Song. Beyond Qingming's borders, the template Dao Foundations fared tolerably well, as everyone had grown accustomed to seeing them. But the Golden Pellet dharma idols were treated almost like creatures from another world; foreign cultivators viewed them as curiosities and subjected them to all manner of ridicule. Far from Qingming, no one cared much about how mighty Qingming was. And when words turned sour between cultivators, they naturally settled matters through magical prowess. Yet how could a Golden Pellet dharma idol measure up to a true dharma idol? They were invariably beaten into a sorry retreat, losing ten out of ten fights. Every single report placed another small knot in Wei Yuan's chest. With enough knots gathered, he suddenly realized on this day that this was a problem that demanded a resolution. The reported instances of Golden Pellet dharma idols losing duels and suffering humiliation were already plentiful, and the unreported cases were surely far greater. Intelligence from other channels had even mentioned a Golden Pellet dharma idol fighting three Dao Foundations in Southern Jin, only to be defeated and captured. The incident had become a widespread laughingstock, causing many who had intended to transition toward the Golden Pellet path to reconsider. Within Wei Yuan's heart, a voice grew steadily louder: The Golden Pellet belongs solely to Qingming. Humiliating a Golden Pellet means humiliating Qingming—and humiliating the Realm Lord... A chill settled in Wei Yuan's eyes. With a shift in thought, a new research project was promptly placed on the desks of countless researchers: Enhancing Golden Pellet Combat Prowess. Times were different now. Qingming no longer relied on a dozen-odd dharma idols to conquer the world; its research rested upon millions of templates. With such a massive pool of researchers, before long, Qingming's Golden Pellets would undoubtedly stun the world! Beneath this rousing resolve, however, lurked a modest private thought: If he could vent this bitter grievance and clear his dao heart, those living ancestors among the Golden Pellets would surely feel too embarrassed to keep hoarding that karmic luck, wouldn't they?