With nearly a hundred thousand people winding their way northward, the march naturally moved slowly.
Wei Yuan had given them only fifteen minutes to pack their belongings. Even so, many were festooned from head to toe with possessions, clinging to their wealth as if they loved money more than their own lives. Had they been granted a little more time, they surely would have dismantled even their sheds to carry along.
Throughout the journey north, the riders remained silent and utterly unyielding. Anyone who lagged behind was whipped without mercy.
Anyone bold enough to throw a tantrum or roll on the ground was struck half-dead with a single lash. Those beaten too severely or genuinely too exhausted to walk were permitted to ride in the wagons, but only on the condition that they discard everything on their persons. Everything—not even a piece of immortal silver could be kept.
Such personal belongings were clearly beneath the notice of the Heaven-Battling riders. The immortal silver was tossed carelessly onto the ground, yet no one else in the column was allowed to pick it up.
Faced with this, many quietly discarded their excess burdens, keeping only their most precious valuables.
Wei Yuan did not travel slowly with the main column, returning first to the domain. Having swept up eighty thousand people in one stroke, the mortal population of the entire domain was about to surpass a hundred and forty thousand. How to settle so many mortals was a matter of great importance.
Yong'an was already at capacity. Wei Yuan had planned five new town sites, and once this influx arrived, they would be distributed among the five locations. All five lay along the domain's perimeter, ringing and guarding the central territory. Should external enemies invade, these five new towns would form the first line of defense.
The moment he returned to the domain, Wei Yuan sensed the emergence of a new pulse of vitality. It originated from the medicine garden, where a shoot of Celestial Star Nightshade had finally sprouted!
After handing down arrangements for resettling the mortals, Wei Yuan hurried straight to the medicine garden. There, poking out of the soil, was a fresh sprout. It was an astral blue, but upon its first leaf ran a distinct line of white gold.
Wei Yuan recalled that the leaves of the millennial Celestial Star Nightshade he had seen at Bao Yun's residence bore no such white-gold line. Had this early-sprouting Celestial Star Nightshade undergone a mutation as well?
He examined the sprout closely, but spiritual flora was not his strong suit, and he could discern nothing unusual.
Yet at that very moment, another sprout pushed out from a patch of open ground beside the Jade Mountain within his Dao Foundation. Running down its leaf was the exact same white-gold thread, identical to the shoot in the medicine garden.
The instant the sprout appeared within his Dao Foundation, it began breathing out wisps of pure, vibrant vital energy, shortening the time Wei Yuan needed to reach the middle stage by more than ten days. Filled with pleasant surprise, Wei Yuan immediately searched his Dao Foundation thoroughly. A moment later, he indeed discovered that the earth adjacent to the new sprout was unusually abundant and fertile.
Beneath this soil, another shoot was gestating, its aura profound and carrying an ancient sense of extinction. Such an aura was exceptionally rare, virtually impossible to find in spiritual plants, so Wei Yuan could not mistake it: it was the other Celestial Star Nightshade.
He searched the vicinity carefully with his divine sense and ultimately detected more than a dozen faint, intermittent pulses of life. Though exceedingly weak, they already carried distinct wood-attribute Dao power, clearly corresponding to the Wood Spirit Ginseng.
It seemed that spiritual flora grown in the Qingming Domain would gradually manifest matching counterparts within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, accelerating the circulation of spiritual energy and hastening his cultivation.
Around these spiritual plants, visibly more wasteland was transforming into fertile soil. The withered branch, however, remained rooted in the puddle of white-gold water. Occasionally, a faint spark of life flickered, but whenever Wei Yuan focused his senses to examine it, he could detect nothing at all.
Withdrawing from his sea of consciousness, Wei Yuan resumed organizing affairs throughout the domain.
The top priority was opening more spiritual fields. The first crop of Liang rice had grown to over a foot tall and was beginning to head; it would be ready for harvest in another month. Beside the initial plots, Wei Yuan arranged for cultivators to continue clearing land, expanding the total spiritual fields straight to five thousand mu.
Wei Yuan had already scoured clean all the Liang rice seeds within several hundred li, and the reserves of Ningxi's Xu family had likewise been emptied. For the moment, no further expansion was possible.
Having dealt with the spiritual plants, Wei Yuan threw himself into reorganizing the armed forces. It was a massive undertaking. Theoretically, within the Qingming Domain, everyone from eighty-year-olds down to eight-month-olds possessed combat capability, making it necessary to organize them all into military units. They would farm in peacetime and march to battle during war.
After laboring for who knew how long, Wei Yuan had committed the one thousand and twenty-second squad leader to memory. This was the most basic unit of the domain's military system: a leader in charge of ten soldiers.
At present, he was organizing only the forces already within the domain. Once the large contingent from Quliu Town arrived, several tens of thousands more troops would have to be organized anew.
***
Along the road leading toward Yong'an, a procession of men and horses appeared.
Yong'an had been established less than a month ago, and this route connecting it to the outside world had been packed down by passing travelers and wagon trains during that brief period. Calling it a road was generous; in truth, it was merely two deep wagon ruts choked with mud and deep puddles.
The escorting foot soldiers were splattered with mud from head to toe, leaving only a few mounted officers looking somewhat presentable. The carriage swayed continuously, groaning and creaking as though it might fall to pieces at any moment.
Ahead, over a dozen riders suddenly appeared, galloping toward the caravan. Blocking the way, they shouted, "Who goes there? What business brings you here?"
The escorting officer's expression darkened, and he barked, "Are your eyes blind? You cannot recognize our banners, nor see the armor on my men? By order of the imperial court, I am escorting Lord Niu to take up his post! Who are you to dare intercept an imperial official? Have you grown tired of living?"
The intercepting riders exchanged glances, their momentum faltering slightly. One of them said, "We are the Yong'an City Defense Guard, ordered to patrol the border. We haven't heard anything about an official coming to assume office. How about this: wait here while we report back to our captain and see what he says."
At that moment, a voice called from inside the carriage: "I am the magistrate of Yong'an. How is it that I know nothing of any City Defense Guard in Yong'an?"
Hearing this, the patrol captain snapped back, "Nonsense! Our city lord is clearly Lord Xiao! If we have a magistrate, that would be Lord Xiao as well. Where did this Lord Niu come from?"
The carriage door swung open, and out stepped a burly, ferocious-looking man with a face full of scowling fat. He wore his official court robes with the rough, swaggering air of a bandit.
Noticing two female cultivators among the patrol, the official's eyes instantly lit up. "Insolent rabble, daring to impersonate government troops! Men, seize every last one of them! Kill anyone who resists!"
Receiving the order, the escort soldiers surged forward at once.
The Yong'an patrol squad consisted merely of Body Casting cultivators, whereas the government colonel was already in the Dao Foundation realm. Within moments, several members of the patrol were struck down. Terrified, the remaining patrol members wheeled their mounts and fled, simultaneously firing a whistle arrow into the sky that burst into a plume of red smoke.
Seeing them try to escape, the official gave a savage grin, vaulted into the air, and conjured a bear's paw the size of a millstone. Hurling it across several dozen yards, he knocked the two fleeing female cultivators from their horses.
The other patrol members did not dare stop to rescue them, spurring their mounts to flee into the distance. Right before his assembled troops, the official tore open the two female cultivators' robes with his bare hands and hauled them into the carriage.
The colonel stared in disbelief.
While such deeds were hardly uncommon, he had never heard of anyone doing it so brazenly in front of a hundred soldiers.
With one foot already inside the carriage, the official looked back. "Colonel Liu, do you still not understand why the higher-ups sent us here to take office? If we die at our post, our families might still receive a bit of imperial favor. If we go back alive, the best we can hope for is to die quietly in a dungeon."
Colonel Liu froze, then let out a bitter smile.
"Don't say Old Niu didn't warn you. We're dead either way, so these two wenches are our last taste of pleasure. If you're not coming in, don't blame me for leaving you out!"
Gritting his teeth, Colonel Liu ducked into the carriage as well. Instantly, furious curses and screams rang out from within.
***
Back in his quarters, Wei Yuan was busy marking his map, planning where each unit would train and where they would garrison. Suddenly, he sensed a commotion among the Yong'an City Defense Guard, which was rushing out of the city in large numbers.
Frowning, Wei Yuan set down his work and flew toward Yong'an.
The city guards were heading beyond the domain boundary, where his perception was murky. At the moment, no large enemy force had appeared, nor were there any powerful cultivators or demonic beasts.
In the blink of an eye, Wei Yuan arrived over the scene. Below, several dozen armored imperial soldiers had formed a circular formation, facing off against hundreds of city guards. Among the imperial troops were two Dao Foundation cultivators. One wore Western Jin official robes of the same color and cut as Sun Chao'en's had been—a county magistrate. Several dozen imperial soldiers lay scattered around them, groaning in pain.
The thickset man in official robes was stomping his feet and howling, "Rebellion! You dare rebel?! I was personally appointed by the King of Jin himself! For lowly rabble like you to strike an imperial official is a capital offense warranting the extermination of your nine clans! I risked my life to save the Right Prime Minister! If anything happens to me, the Right Prime Minister will see every last man, woman, and child in your city buried with me!"
With the official shouting so vehemently, the city guards hesitated. Though the folk of the Western Regions were fierce and unruly, this area had been under Western Jin rule only a few years ago. It was hardly impossible for the imperial court to reassign officials here. Even the most ruthless outlaws tended to stand a little shorter before the authorities.
Spotting Yun Feifei in the crowd, Wei Yuan beckoned her over and asked, "What happened?"
Yun Feifei replied, "This fellow named Niu led over a hundred soldiers straight toward Yong'an, claiming he's here to assume office. Our patrol stopped them on the road to question them. But when that brute saw that two girls in the patrol were fairly good-looking, he attacked on the spot, scattered the patrol, and violated them! The patrolmen who escaped brought word back, and the city guards on duty rushed out. I've only just arrived myself."
Wei Yuan looked at the smashed carriages not far off, then caught sight of the two young female cultivators with disheveled clothing. The two girls could only be described as presentable in appearance, though as Body Tempering cultivators, their figures were quite toned.
Neither of them was crying. Instead, they glared at the official and the colonel, their eyes burning with hatred. The culture of the Western Regions was uninhibited, and after years of continuous warfare, matters between men and women were taken in stride. Upon being violated, their first instinct was not to weep, but to take up blades and hack their violators to pieces.
Wei Yuan said to Yun Feifei, "Go drag that fellow over here."
Yun Feifei nodded. In a flash, she appeared directly within the soldiers' formation. The official and the colonel fought back with all their might, but their Dao power fell far short of hers; all their arts were shattered by her sheer spiritual energy.
Grabbing one in each hand, Yun Feifei tossed them before Wei Yuan.
"Who are you?" Wei Yuan asked.
The official was thick-boned, his face and body packed with heavy meat. Stiffening his neck, he sneered, "Your granddaddy is named Niu Jinbao! If you've got the guts, chop off my head right now! I am a magistrate personally appointed by the King! Kill me and you won't live long either—your granddaddy will just wait for you along the Yellow Springs!"
Wei Yuan frowned slightly and questioned him further, soon realizing the man was essentially a crude ruffian. Everything he said circled back to how he had saved the Right Prime Minister's life, been granted an audience with the King of Jin, and received several jugs of imperial wine.
Meanwhile, Yun Feifei searched the official's baggage and turned up an official seal and an imperial decree of appointment. The official seals of Great Tang's nine vassal states each followed standard designs and were imbued with Dao charm, making them impossible to forge.
This Niu Jinbao truly was the magistrate of Yong'an County, appointed by the King of Jin.
Chapter 179