No Compliment

To complement the residency quotas, Wei Yuan adjusted the welfare benefits for mortals in Qingming. Effective immediately, all displaced persons who joined Qingming afterward—including those granted citizenship upon completing their residency period—saw their benefits curtailed. Their household registries were marked in blue to distinguish them from original Qingming registry holders. Those who merely held residency status were ranked a tier lower, their benefits slashed by more than half, leaving them essentially with only the right to receive relief rations. For those who had already arrived at Qingming's borders, Wei Yuan still turned no one away, though all were classified as displaced persons. Displaced persons formed the lowest tier in Qingming, their standing beneath even those holding residency status. This group had to undergo an audit period lasting a full ten years, laboring diligently, enduring hardship, successfully completing Body Casting, and fulfilling every requirement before they could be elevated to blue-tier second-class Qingming citizens. Otherwise, they remained white-tier third-class Qingming citizens. Yet as long as a child was born within Qingming, regardless of the parents' status, the child automatically became a citizen of Qingming. As for those who entered Qingming only briefly—such as caravan personnel—they received no welfare benefits, but their security and dignity were fully guaranteed. By the time this entire system was fully instituted, nearly another half year had elapsed, and the throngs surging toward Qingming grew ever larger without waning. With Southern Jin leading the way as an example, every nation began funneling displaced populations toward Qingming. In the twenty-third year of Zhaoning, seeing that the demand for munitions was far too fierce and that various nations often attached additional conditions—making it contentious whom to sell to and whom to refuse—Wei Yuan simply supplied military materiel openly to the whole world, placing no restrictions on a buyer's identity. At the same time, he enacted the Lend-Lease Act. Any faction temporarily lacking both funds and manpower could pledge various spiritual artifacts, resources, and property rights as collateral to lease equipment from Qingming. Those who genuinely had nothing left to mortgage could even offer high-level cultivators, youthful prodigies, or even scions of immortal lineages as collateral. When the act was proclaimed, the world was shaken once again. Right then, a few clever figures sneered, promptly dispatching a cohort of young prodigies to Qingming as hostages. Their thinking was marvelous: if these children grew up under Qingming's training system and returned to serve after maturing into talents, would they not have gained armaments while having Qingming cultivate talents on their behalf? Wei Yuan sneered as well. Under the indoctrination of Qingming's formidable training apparatus, it would not take long—merely a few years. Wei Yuan was eager to see just how many would still be willing to return. When the time came and these youths refused to go back, what could their native kingdoms do? At most, hurl a few curses. If a kingdom truly wanted those sent away to return obediently, it had better be stronger than Qingming. With the entire framework firmly in place, Wei Yuan released two more batches of five million residency quotas open to all nations and factions, instantly unleashing an avalanche of applications. However, this batch of quotas came with a prerequisite: the applicant had to genuinely love Qingming from the heart. This requirement seemed rather bizarre. While many truly possessed an innate love for Qingming, others scoffed, openly declaring that such a rule was purely the personal whim of the Realm Lord. Little did they know that the vetting officials stationed across various lands by Qingming were all serving in the Daoist Court. Wei Yuan had long since quietly blessed them with a divine ability that discerned whether an applicant had contributed karmic luck to Qingming. Only those who contributed karmic luck were approved. As time passed, people discovered that every single person who had muttered cynical remarks was barred at Qingming's gates. Only then did panic set in; households rushed to display portraits of Wei Yuan and kowtow furiously before them. But pigments were expensive across the impoverished Nine Kingdoms, so most of these portraits were rendered merely in ink wash. In the spring of the twenty-fourth year of Zhaoning, with everything prepared, Wei Yuan finally played his ultimate hand: releasing twenty million residency quotas specifically designated for Western Jin and reducing their audit period to just four years. Instantly, countless subjects of Western Jin wept tears of gratitude, realizing that in the Realm Lord's heart, people from Western Jin were indeed different from the rest. From that single announcement alone, Wei Yuan reaped a staggering three hundred million strands of human luck! Almost the entire populace of Western Jin spontaneously contributed human luck, though the majority suffered from poor health, their spirits willing but their flesh too weak. Having bowed to Wei Yuan, the people of Western Jin looked upon the folk of the other eight nations and deemed them nothing more than rustic peasants, disdainful of associating with them. After years of scheming, gathering hundreds of millions of strands of human luck in a single stroke was a rather decent return. The next step was to fatten the fish in the pond. More than three billion people had yielded only three hundred million strands of human luck. Judged by the standard proportions of the Nine Kingdoms, that ratio was hardly low—virtually all the extractable human luck had been dredged up. But compared to Qingming's standard of seven strands of human luck contributed per capita, it fell far too short. In Wei Yuan's eyes, falling short was no issue; it simply meant there remained immense potential to tap. Next came the fish-farming phase, where the fish in the pond had to be fattened further. Western Jin as a whole was still far too destitute; loan programs were difficult to implement, meaning mortals could not be spurred to work hard of their own accord. Besides, even if they wished to strive, there were no jobs to be found. Nevertheless, since this was an integrated package of measures, Wei Yuan had already laid out subsequent plans a year prior under the name "Nutritional Improvement" initiative. The crux of this plan was channeling vast quantities of cheap, industrially processed blended meat into Western Jin. To ensure prices remained low enough that every household could afford it, Qingming developed a new product line based on its existing formulations. The actual meat content was a shocking ten percent, with the remainder consisting of bean flour, fish gelatin, assorted fats and oils, offal powder, and the like. When he first saw the new formula, Wei Yuan initially frowned, but after glancing at the price, he immediately approved production. For large-scale procurement, this meat cost as little as two Qingyuan per ton, making it affordable for Western Jin commoners to consume daily. As for the taste and texture, with Qingming's research capabilities, it naturally surpassed ordinary farmstead stews. The people of Jin, who previously tasted meat only during festivals and holidays, were entirely incapable of resisting the temptation of heavy fat and salt. Given Qingming's productive efficiency, in merely a month, over ten thousand tons of meat were shipped into Western Jin, followed by a steady volume of ten thousand tons every month thereafter. In this manner, over three months, Wei Yuan gradually gathered another hundred million strands of human luck. With such a deluge of human luck pouring in, it was somewhat difficult to digest all at once. Wei Yuan went all out procuring battlefield essence blood from the Shaman Clan while simultaneously acquiring supplies from the Liao domain to refine boundary stones alongside the human luck. Regarding the Mountain Folk, Wei Yuan felt that Hule Gao'en was fighting ineffectively; after waging a holy war for several years, he had produced nothing of note. Unable to tolerate it any longer, Wei Yuan dispatched a dedicated force to bypass Hule Gao'en and strike into the Domain of the Mountain Folk from the flank. Yet even with this two-pronged approach, the speed of gathering the Mountain Folk's essence blood fell far short of the rate at which human luck accumulated. Before the Western Jin reservoir had even been fully tapped, Xu Youyi came calling once more. This time, she brought an autograph letter from King Xuan of Jin. When Wei Yuan opened it, his expression turned exceedingly colorful. Not only did King Xuan wish to honor Wei Yuan as his "surrogate father," but he also declared that Wei Yuan could "roam unimpeded and pick at will" throughout the rear palace. Caught between laughter and tears, Wei Yuan asked, "Does he take me for some lecherous, tyrannical despot? If this goes on, what will become of my reputation?" Xu Youyi replied, "Is there any room left for your reputation to be ruined? By the way, I heard a rumor recently." Wei Yuan sensed an ill omen and asked, "What rumor?" Xu Youyi said, "Someone claims that back then, you deliberately plotted to do away with Lu Lang just so you could lay your hands on me." Wei Yuan fumed, "Who said that?!" "My son." That single line left even Wei Yuan's fifty thousand divine senses struggling to wrap around it. Xu Youyi's son was no child; he was an expert at the peak of the Dharma Idol realm, several centuries old. How could his train of thought still be so utterly bizarre? Xu Youyi looked at Wei Yuan's expression, lightly smoothed her hair, and then said, "He hates Lu Lang to the bone, but he feels he could honor you as his foster father." "Hold on!" Wei Yuan hastily cut her off. "Immortal Xu, don't you still have a husband?" "He is willing to swear brotherhood with you, and he would gladly yield the position of master of the rear palace." *Rear palace?* Wei Yuan was taken aback, realizing he needed to re-evaluate the pure, refined female immortal before him. Even so, Wei Yuan declined such matters politely, then composed his expression and asked, "Immortal Xu, what brings you here today?" "King Xuan wishes to request some residency quotas for Qingming on behalf of his subjects." Wei Yuan said solemnly, "This policy is actually not beneficial to the various kingdoms. The vast majority of those who come to Qingming on these quotas will never return. It is equivalent to siphoning all the talent of the various nations into Qingming." Xu Youyi replied, "I know. Many of the people coming to Qingming this time are kin of princes and officials; they never intended to return to Eastern Jin in the first place." Wei Yuan nodded and said, "Very well, then. I shall issue ten million residency quotas, and these individuals may reside normally. In addition, I will grant one hundred thousand special residency quotas: they need only stay in Qingming for a full year to gain citizenship, though an administrative fee of one thousand Qingyuan must be paid." Xu Youyi remarked, "You truly possess the bearing of a Human Sovereign." That was no compliment.