Leading a few attendants, Li Zhi crossed ridges and mountains, traveling by night and holing up by day as they wound their way forward. At last, they arrived at the border between Qingming and Jin.
A general who had followed him for years grumbled, "It is barely a speck of land with at most five hundred thousand people. Was there really any need for Your Majesty to personally come receive it?"
Li Zhi said, "Not five hundred thousand. Only one hundred and fifty thousand."
Another general grew frantic. "Your Majesty is grievously wounded! You should be properly resting and recovering right now. So what if we abandon such a paltry crowd and tiny parcel of territory? If anything happens to Your Majesty, what will become of the rest of us?
"That Wei Yuan took advantage of our crisis and snatched away the lands Your Majesty spent nearly a century building up—more than a dozen commanderies! Now he gives us a mere two commanderies, and in the barren reaches of Southern Jin at that. Your Majesty, once you conquer the realm in the future, this debt must be repaid!"
Li Zhi smiled weakly. "You do not understand. In those early days, Wei Yuan and I shared a life-and-death friendship. It is only that his cultivation advanced too quickly. His world lies beyond the Immortal Heavens, which is why the chance to contend for this seat of Sovereign of Men fell to me."
A general said in confusion, "Is the common lord of the world not vastly superior to an immortal? Back then, when the Martial Ancestor dominated an entire era, was he not also the greatest immortal under the heavens?"
Li Zhi sighed softly. "You do not understand. On the surface, the Sovereign of Men shepherds the world and commands all living beings. In reality, all living beings command the Sovereign of Men's entire life."
The generals grasped the words only vaguely, unsure whether they were even meant to understand.
Li Zhi did not pursue the topic. Reaching the mountain summit, he surveyed the surrounding terrain and said, "We have entered the Qingming Domain now; there is no further need to hide. Once we cross the mountain ahead, we will find the warehouse. Let me warn you in advance—this warehouse might be a bit large."
A general said dismissively, "However large it is, it's still just a warehouse, isn't it? Could it possibly be bigger than Your Majesty's palace?"
Li Zhi smiled without answering. Leading the generals, he flew over the ridge—and froze midair!
Before him stood a structure as tall as a mountain, a thousand zhang wide and three thousand zhang long. In that instant, every person present, Li Zhi included, fell under the illusion that an immortal's magic had shrunk them into a speck of dust, leaving them stranded before an immortal's coffer.
One general twisted his neck with great difficulty, his joints cracking loudly. Then he stammered, "Th-this is a warehouse?"
"It doesn't look like a mountain... Is it truly not a mountain?"
"Where would you ever find a mountain that is square and straight?" another general countered.
"What if an immortal carved it flat?"
"Why would an immortal be so bored?"
Li Zhi finally recovered his wits and said, "Won't we know once we go take a look?"
Snapping out of their daze, the group flew before the warehouse. Confronted by a gate two hundred zhang tall, they stood dumbfounded once again, convinced either that they had shrunk or that something was fundamentally wrong with the world.
Li Zhi reached out and touched the steel door before suddenly remembering the token Wei Yuan had given him. He retrieved a jade pendant and pressed it against the surface. With the deep roar of machinery, the massive door began slowly lifting upward.
Only then did they realize the door was assembled from individual steel slats, rolling upward as it was hoisted.
They waited for the door to rise to the very top, waiting for a long time...
No one suggested stepping inside early. Facing such a colossal marvel, proper ceremony was required; they had to wait until the door opened completely before entering.
Finally, the door reached the top. As Li Zhi stepped across the invisible threshold, a strange buzzing resounded, and rings of light blazed to life across the dome like a cluster of suns, illuminating the vast warehouse until it was bright as day.
The instant the lights flared, everything turned blinding white. The men caught only fleeting glimpses of several colossal shapes squatting quietly in the distance. Once their vision cleared, they felt once again that their eyes must be playing tricks on them.
Moored before them was a floating vessel—except it was dozens of times larger than any floating vessel they had ever boarded. Before this behemoth of a hundred zhang, they felt even more like ants.
Li Zhi was the first to react. Spotting a figure standing before the vessel, he beckoned with a hand, drawing the man over. The man possessed a Dao Foundation cultivation, wore a pair of spectacles unique to Qingming, kept his hair meticulously combed, and was clad in strange dark-silver clothing—extraordinarily sleek, yet exceptionally pleasing to the eye.
Landing before Li Zhi, lines of text flickered across the man's spectacles. He then swept a strand of divine sense across Li Zhi, which promptly turned green.
Li Zhi asked amiably, "What place is this? And what is that floating vessel? Could you enlighten me, sir?"
The man ignored Li Zhi's questions entirely, droning, "Oh dear, our Heaven-Patrolling Gang worked so hard to build this mobile base, and you went and discovered it. Take the mobile base; just spare my life."
The words were delivered without the slightest inflection or emotion, as though he were mechanically reading lines, utterly devoid of professional commitment.
Li Zhi glanced again at the colossal vessel and found himself in a bind. Moving such a monstrous object would likely strain even an immortal. He had brought fewer than ten subordinates; how was he supposed to pilot this so-called mobile base away?
So he asked, "How does one pilot this mobile base?"
The man slapped his forehead. "Oh dear, our Heaven-Patrolling Gang still has fifty thousand gang members trapped inside the mobile base. If you rescue them, they will be very grateful to you."
This line was delivered with equal carelessness, as flat as an airstrip.
Yet the more nonchalant he acted, the more the generals took him for a reclusive master, treating him with immense deference. Li Zhi bowed courteously first and said, "May I inquire as to your esteemed name?"
The man said, "I am the chief of the Heaven-Patrolling Gang, surname Bu, given name Kaopu. Make yourself at home; I am running for my life."
Chief Bu Kaopu cupped his hands in a perfunctory salute, then sprinted out of the warehouse and vanished into thin air. For a moment, the generals' minds could not keep up.
Having weathered countless storms, Li Zhi quickly composed himself and led his officers aboard the floating vessel, where countless people were bustling about.
Following the directions given by the gang members they encountered, Li Zhi made his way to the base's command center. The command hub was not positioned on an exposed bridge, but concealed deep within the vessel's belly for defensive advantage.
At the center of the command hall hovered an image of the colossal ship, detailing the layout and functions of every internal sector. To their astonishment, the hull housed numerous workshops capable of producing the vast majority of common weapons and munitions—over two hundred workshops in total, each fully manned!
Just then, a general quietly tugged at Li Zhi's sleeve and whispered, "Your Majesty, beware of treachery—"
"What is it?" Li Zhi asked.
The general lowered his voice even further, staring warily at the figures hurrying to and fro across the command hall. "Everyone we've met along the way is at the Dao Foundation stage! The thousand-plus people in this hall alone could wipe us all out! Where in the world did this many Dao Foundation cultivators come from?"
Li Zhi's heart stirred. He summoned a passing gang member and asked, "I see that you possess a Dao Foundation cultivation?"
The man was at least slightly more normal than Chief Bu Kaopu. "Yes, my lord."
Li Zhi asked further, "Then how many people like you are aboard this ship?"
Finding the question odd, the man replied, "There are fifty thousand brothers from our gang aboard, and every single one is just like me."
Li Zhi froze. "All of them are Dao Foundation?"
The man answered as though it were the most natural thing in the world: "Of course, all of them. This may be a remote backwater, but we still have basic standards. If you haven't even achieved a Dao Foundation, what gang would take you?"
Li Zhi's generals had gone numb. They felt increasingly convinced that they had wandered into some grand illusion array cast by an immortal, so terrifyingly lifelike was the hallucination. Fifty thousand Dao Foundation cultivators? Even a fool wouldn't dare boast such nonsense.
Yet a short while later, not far from the site, Li Zhi discovered another encampment—home to the Axe Gang's hundred thousand melee brawlers, every last one of them possessing a Dao Foundation.
Chapter 1483