Within Northern Qi, a flying boat drifted slowly across the land. Xiaoyu stood at the prow, watching an unmistakable road below that was being built continuously eastward.
Along the road's final fifty li, craftsmen and machinery clustered in dense swarms. This floating road was of prime importance, so massive manpower had been mobilized to work on a fifty-li stretch simultaneously, extending it forward section by section.
Yet the domain of humanity was vast. To cut across Eastern Jin and reach Northern Qi, tens of thousands of li of construction still remained.
The thought of endless roadbuilding dampened Xiaoyu's spirits. He turned to the cat-like girl beside him and said, "You see it now, don't you? Down below is the North Frontier floating road. This is what building a road is like—dull and tedious, taking decades or even centuries. Besides, it involves a great deal of technical learning, especially arithmetic. Even if I explained it, you wouldn't understand. You'd be better off squatting back at the immortal city; sooner or later, you'd catch him there."
This girl, who looked not quite of age, was the Sixth Princess of the State of Zhao. Bored out of her mind, she had journeyed specifically to the northern frontier to watch the construction of the floating road.
Xiaoyu was currently in overall charge of civil and military affairs in the direction of Eastern Jin. Since both came from aristocratic great clans, he had no choice but to receive her. But from start to finish, he had never shown her a pleasant face.
The Sixth Princess was curious about everything. No wars were being fought along Eastern Jin, and their court chose to pretend ignorance regarding the massive floating road slicing through from the south.
Displeasure was written all over Xiaoyu's face, yet the Sixth Princess seemed utterly oblivious, pestering him every day regardless. To maintain the basic decorum expected between great clans, Xiaoyu simply brought her to the construction site to see it firsthand.
Sure enough, confronted with the grand scale of the construction, the Sixth Princess was struck speechless in awe. Then she began asking a barrage of utterly idiotic questions, their foolishness directly proportional to her pretty face.
Xiaoyu scowled throughout, but he patiently answered nonetheless. As he talked, the topic naturally drifted to arithmetic.
Growing exasperated, Xiaoyu offhandedly listed a few mathematical tools before saying, "Calculating the workload and required materials mostly requires these mathematical tools. But that's not the difficult part. The real challenge is whether the foundation can bear the stress of passing floating carriages once these materials are laid. For that, you need different mathematical tools."
Xiaoyu mentioned two more tools specifically for calculating materials, stress, and related problems. Just as he was about to move to the next topic, the Sixth Princess chimed in unexpectedly: "I know the material you mentioned, and I've studied those mathematical tools a bit. But there's a question I've never quite figured out. When a flying boat passes overhead within a certain speed range, it can induce vibrations in the foundation pillars. How should that vibration be calculated, and how should the pile foundation be reinforced?"
"Vibration..." Xiaoyu parted his lips, but nothing further came out.
Then, with that innocent, naive little face, the Sixth Princess asked a succession of deeply complex questions spanning materials, geology, structural mechanics, and even leylines and spiritual fields. Xiaoyu could not answer—in fact, he could barely comprehend what he was hearing.
Under the gaze of her wide eyes, Xiaoyu felt his entire body stiffen, as though the whole world had frozen over.
Just then, Star Lord Shaoyang stepped out from behind Xiaoyu and said with a smile, "These are excellent questions. Why don't we descend and see how the site handles them?"
The flying boat landed, and the Sixth Princess quickly hit it off with the engineering cultivators on site.
Watching the Sixth Princess's figure, Xiaoyu found his dislike of her scaling new heights—the kind from which there was no going back.
Standing beside him, Star Lord Shaoyang frowned. "Find some time to send her back, or notify the Realm Lord to come pick her up. Lingering here like this, without any clear standing, will easily breed gossip and rumors."
Xiaoyu had been nodding along, but at that last sentence, he nearly leaped into the air, barking in outrage, "Gossip?! What gossip? As if I could ever fancy someone like her!"
Star Lord Shaoyang remained unperturbed and asked, "Why? Do you think she isn't as good-looking as you?"
"What else?" Xiaoyu blurted out, only realizing his slip after the words left his mouth.
An article had been published recently in which a template cultivator pointed out that when people look in the mirror, they perceive themselves as over thirty percent more attractive than others see them. The paper had caused quite a sensation, and Star Lord Shaoyang had read it too.
So Star Lord Shaoyang refrained from commenting on their looks, shifting the topic instead: "During this decisive battle in the Pure Land, why didn't the Realm Lord summon you?"
"I'm quite busy here; I can hardly pull away."
Star Lord Shaoyang said faintly, "Ji Liuli oversees nearly half of the research projects, and Feng Tingyu's role as director grows more worthy of the name by the day. Clearly, they are much busier."
Xiaoyu's eyebrows flared. "What are you getting at?" he demanded coldly.
"What sort of mortal karmic luck does Qingming possess right now? Mortal cultivators might not understand, but borrowing my eyes, can you not see it? Gathering the luck of hundreds of millions into himself, the Realm Lord has become the paramount peak of karmic luck in this era. Without substantial karmic foundation, drawing too close to him invites sudden death; yet straying too far leaves one stranded in a karmic desert, dithering in hesitation, accomplishing nothing."
Xiaoyu knitted his brows. "If he calls on me, I will naturally do my utmost. But if he doesn't call, asking me to fawn over him on my own initiative? I can't do it!"
"For pride, of course you need not. But what about for your Dao path?"
"Still impossible! Absolutely impossible! Never going to happen!" Xiaoyu declared emphatically.
Just then, a monk in green robes swept in like the wind, wide sleeves billowing.
The monk bore an extraordinary presence, Buddhist light shimmering in his eyes. Walking straight up to Xiaoyu, he said, "By decree of the Realm Lord, another Bodhisattva fruition is soon to be established, and he asks if you have any interest. If you are disinclined, the Realm Lord will look for someone else—"
Xiaoyu blurted out immediately, "I'll be there tomorrow! Tell him to send everyone else away!"
The monk was startled, but quickly recovered his senses and bowed hurriedly. "This humble monk shall transmit the message at once."
Watching the monk depart, Star Lord Shaoyang marveled, "These two Arhat fruitions are truly unfathomable, yet extraordinarily useful. Henceforth, even the ends of the earth will be next door!"
Xiaoyu nodded, then asked, "Why have you been so snide and sarcastic with me lately?"
Star Lord Shaoyang sighed. "We Star Lords share a faint mutual awareness. Lately, Lord Taiyin's power has advanced by leaps and bounds, firmly eclipsing mine. Yet she still hasn't awakened her sapience! She resides inside the Realm Lord's grotto-heaven, where no mighty foes press down to force her into hiding.
"That leaves only one explanation: she feels the environment is safe, and her strength has entered a phase of explosive growth!
"What is that? That is the Dao path! And me? What kind of place am I staying in? Must I continue to be thoroughly suppressed by her even after thousands of years?"
Xiaoyu's face darkened with every word. He snapped back unceremoniously, "Back when I formed my dharma idol, who invited themselves in unasked?
"Besides, if you can't best Taiyin, can you really blame me? Isn't it just because you're useless yourself?"
"What do you mean, uninvited?! When I descended into this world, whose family was planning to throw a Dharma Idol Grand Ceremony?!"
The argument stalled there, neither able to continue. They traded looks of pure mutual disdain.
Fortunately, military banners suddenly rose in the distance as a force advanced southward at high speed. Composed entirely of light cavalry in blue armor beneath white pennants, they were the elite northern frontier army well known in Eastern Jin.
Xiaoyu's spirits immediately lifted. "Is Eastern Jin rebelling?"
Star Lord Shaoyang shook his head. "Doesn't look like it! Only ten thousand light cavalry—they couldn't even defeat our construction cultivators. That's no way to stage a rebellion."
Star Lord Shaoyang returned to Xiaoyu's sea of consciousness, while Xiaoyu flew toward the work site.
On the floating road construction site, tens of thousands of mud-caked templates paused their work, weighing the tools in their hands—ranging from hundreds to thousands of jin—and peered into the distance, baffled as to why this puny light cavalry force had traveled thousands of li just to throw their lives away.
Several li away, the cavalry halted. The commanding general brought only a few mounted attendants and galloped ahead. Moments later, he was ushered before Xiaoyu, bowing deeply right away. "Northern Liao has invaded in great force! We truly cannot hold them off. We beg Your Excellency, in consideration of the enduring friendship between our states, to dispatch troops to our aid!"
The news was so sudden that even Xiaoyu was taken aback. Of all times for Northern Liao to attack, why now? Wait... this was impeccably timed!
The floating road site held hundreds of thousands of roadworkers, including twenty thousand templates and over a hundred thousand Body Casters. The moment they dropped their tools, took up spears, and donned armor, they would form a heavy elite army.
For a moment, Xiaoyu was caught in a dilemma. Battling foreign tribes on one hand, taking up an exalted seat as a Bodhisattva on the other—both sounded enticing.
As he hesitated, Star Lord Shaoyang reminded him that such a major matter ought to be reported back to Qingming first. Snapping back to reality, Xiaoyu immediately had someone summon the monk to relay the news of Northern Liao's border raid to Qingming.
Before long, the monk returned with the reply: *What's in it for us?*
Xiaoyu's eyelid twitched. Calling the general back over, he sat upright and poised, took a sip of tea, and began in an unhurried, measured tone. First, he emphasized their hardships—being far from home, short on food and clothing, suffering cold and hunger. Then he pointed out that Qingming was far away, and his men were mere construction cultivators who only knew how to pave roads and were utterly useless at waging war; after all, without a decent weapon among them, wouldn't they just be run through by the iron cavalry of the Liao Clan?
Finally, Xiaoyu took special care to emphasize that Qingming and Eastern Jin had always enjoyed friendly relations and deeply respected King Xuan of Jin, so their army would never trespass into Eastern Jin territory without just cause.
With that, Xiaoyu dismissed him.
The general took the hint, assuring him he would convey every single word verbatim.
Once the general had departed, Star Lord Shaoyang manifested and frowned. "It's already near early winter. Why would Northern Liao launch a massive southward offensive at this time?"
"Who cares? Isn't this a good thing? A conspiracy? Heh." Xiaoyu glanced at the templates covering the hills and valleys.
***
In Qingming, Wei Yuan frowned slightly as he looked at the two battle reports before him.
One detailed Northern Liao's massive southward thrust; their military spearhead was ferocious, driving Eastern Jin's northern front to the brink of collapse. The Eastern Jin court was flexible enough: seeing they couldn't win, they immediately appealed to Qingming for aid.
The other reported escalating friction along the border with the Shaman Clan, which had reached more than ten incidents a month. The Nether Shamans showed every sign of staging a comeback. Qingming's border troops had already suffered casualties, and the soldiers' clamor for battle grew louder by the day.
There was another report from Yizhou. This one was not a request to fight, but merely brought up a discovery: a colossal spirit ore vein stretching several hundred li had been found, with deep subterranean signs of a leyline coursing beneath.
The trouble was that only a few li of this vein currently lay in Qingming's hands; the remaining seven hundred-plus li belonged to the Mountain Folk.
Viewed separately, none of these reports seemed amiss. But taken together, they reeked of trouble. Furthermore, there was a whole stack of memorials, some containing truly preposterous petitions—such as two in particular:
One read: *The State of Zhao has sent forth two women of its royal clan in a vain scheme to seduce the Realm Lord with beauty. Their intentions are truly sinister and their crimes heinous; an army must be dispatched to punish them.*
The other read: *The State of Zhao dispatched merely two women of its royal clan yet presumed to seduce the Realm Lord. This is utterly insolent and arrogant; an army must be dispatched to punish them.*
Chapter 1273