Blossoms of fireworks bloomed across the night sky, and brilliant spells lit the firmament above the royal capital. Such immortal splendor appeared only once a year, allowing even ordinary mortals to enjoy the spectacle. Flakes of heavy snow drifted down like goose feathers, blanketing the royal capital in a thick coat of white.
It was New Year's Eve once again.
The royal palace was brightly illuminated, and the civil and military officials were gathered together. Melodious pipes and strings echoed through the grand hall, accompanied by enchanting dancing girls of remarkable skill. Moving as though completely devoid of bones, each could strike any posture imaginable.
Wei Yuan was seated quite near the front. Flanked by a dancing girl on either side, he did not need to lift a finger to eat or drink. The dishes were rare delicacies and the wine was piping hot. Once swallowed, waves of spiritual qi unfurled within his belly—an indulgence ordinary people could not begin to imagine in an entire lifetime.
From time to time, the King of Jin raised his cup to drink with his assembled ministers. Ruler and subjects shared in the revelry throughout the great hall.
Tonight, the King of Jin was particularly cheerful. The keener, more inquisitive, and better-informed officials all knew the reason: with the new year approaching, Western Jin's state fortune had grown once more, and heaven had bestowed several auspicious omens. Naturally, the king was overjoyed.
Within Wei Yuan's mindscape world, the sky remained dark red only around the outer edges; the central expanse had transformed into a clear blue sky, where faint blue mist drifted gently.
This portion of Western Jin's state fortune had shifted from blood-red to white, and then to pale blue.
Wei Yuan's thoughts suddenly drifted, feeling for a moment as though he had returned to the days when he first ascended the Palace of Grand Beginning. There had been one thing he could not understand back then, and he still did not understand it now.
On a snowy night like this, surely many people would not survive until daybreak, unable to see the new year. If it was so in the royal capital, it was even more so beyond its walls.
Yet Qingming had no winter. Before leaving, Wei Yuan had already made arrangements to distribute an extra jin of grain to every single person on this day. While grain was the only thing in surplus, at least no one in Qingming went hungry anymore.
Across the entire human domain, aside from a few secret realms and grotto-heavens, there was nowhere else where not a single person starved.
Wei Yuan felt there was no reason to linger in the royal capital and decided to set out first thing tomorrow morning. However, he would not be returning to Qingming, but heading to the Northern Mountain Gate to pay respects to the patriarch, and see whether his teacher and Eldest Senior Sister had emerged from seclusion along the way.
Zhang Sheng's foundation had been mended, so whether she emerged a bit earlier or later made little difference. Ji Liuli's prolonged seclusion, however, was somewhat abnormal.
Back then, True Monarch Yanshi had spoken vaguely, but for something to leave one of the two strongest True Monarchs in the Palace of Grand Beginning helpless, Ji Liuli's problem was evidently quite thorny.
Whether during his studies or later in Qingming, Wei Yuan had spent nearly as much time with Ji Liuli as he had with Zhang Sheng. Although she had never braved life and death for him like Zhang Sheng had, Wei Yuan could feel that his Eldest Senior Sister cared for him no less. The cleansing alone during his ten years of Body Casting had cost her an untold amount of painstaking effort.
The grand banquet did not end until dawn approached. When the King of Jin left his seat, he was already swaying, clearly in a state of rare elation today.
After leaving the palace, Wei Yuan looked out at the skies full of heavy snow and ceased dwelling on mortal matters.
This world was a fragile mansion. What Wei Yuan wished to do seemed insignificant, yet he was pulling out the mansion's foundation stones. The edifice was already teetering; even if he extracted only a small piece, a vast section might collapse and crush him to death beneath the rubble.
Wei Yuan instructed Cui Yu to lead the troops back to Qingming while he quietly slipped away from the royal capital, heading for the Northern Mountain Gate.
As faint daylight broke, a cloaked figure braved the heavy snow to arrive at the courier station. She handed an object to the officer guarding the gate, who immediately and respectfully let her inside. She hastened into the courtyard where Wei Yuan had been staying, only to find the rooms empty.
The northern lands were a vast expanse of white. Wei Yuan sat inside a curious apparatus, flying at high altitude. This device was something he had built during his escape back from the northern frontier; it was exceptionally useful when traveling alone, boasting speed no slower than a Scenery Command cultivator.
As he flew, Wei Yuan suddenly felt a burst of scalding heat at his waist. A plain storage pouch hung there, containing more than a dozen large rubies. Now, light shone from within each gem, revealing an incandescent Buddhist seal at their centers.
These rubies were the blood shed by that Scenery Command assassin who had attacked the Young King of Chu. The blood had crystallized into gemstones upon hitting the ground; Consort Yuan had kept a few for herself and handed the majority over to Wei Yuan.
Now that this blood had suddenly reacted, Wei Yuan was instantly on guard. Either that Scenery Command cultivator was nearby, or someone closely related to him had arrived, wielding a secret treasure powerful enough to resonate with the blood right through the storage pouch.
A figure emerged on the horizon to Wei Yuan's flank. It was a barefoot, burly man carrying a massive refined-iron staff. Taking huge strides as he strode atop the clouds, he shouted from afar, "Fellow Daoist, please wait!"
"Wait your ass!" Wei Yuan made a rude gesture at the man and engaged two spare thruster tubes. The flying apparatus surged forward, rocketing away in an instant.
By the time the burly man caught up, Wei Yuan was already a tiny dot on the horizon before vanishing completely.
The man glared furiously. A tempest abruptly whipped up around him, and the faint projection of a coastal cliff appeared, beset everywhere by howling gales and towering waves as he gave chase in the direction Wei Yuan had fled.
Wei Yuan engaged another two thruster tubes, visibly picking up another notch of speed. Within moments, he vanished completely from the man's perception, leaving the burly fellow fuming so hard that steam rose from his crown, utterly helpless to do anything about it.
Wei Yuan flew at full tilt, going faster and faster. Along the way, he encountered several sweeping divine senses, but he shook every single one of them off behind him.
Wei Yuan had activated his concealment abilities. Although high-speed flight prevented absolute stealth, someone would need to be very close to detect him. Moving at a speed comparable to a Scenery Command expert flying all out, he was long gone by the time anyone noticed.
Another day passed before Wei Yuan flew into the Northern Mountain Gate of the Palace of Grand Beginning, and the gazes tailing him finally disappeared entirely.
Upon returning to the mountain gate, Wei Yuan's first order of business was naturally to pay his respects to the patriarch. True Monarch Xuanyue sat in the hall, inspecting a sand table of the front lines. Wei Yuan found it rather odd; he had never seen the patriarch take such a keen interest in troop deployments before.
Seeing Wei Yuan arrive, Old Daoist Xuanyue naturally beamed with delight and beckoned him over to the sand table. "This is the defensive sector assigned to our Sky Azure Hall, garrisoned by over three thousand Dao soldiers and thirty thousand mortal soldiers. This is the defense I've just drawn up. Come take a look and see what's wrong with it."
When it came to cultivation and combat, True Monarch Xuanyue had few rivals, but directing troop deployments was a different matter entirely.
Wei Yuan cast a brief glance over it and immediately spotted several weak links, as well as areas that could have served as traps but were instead blocked off completely by the old daoist's heavy garrisons.
Wei Yuan first asked about the composition and source of the troops. Sky Azure Hall's strength had surged recently, and with Xuanyue taking the lead while Fenhai, Lanhua, and others fought day and night, Sky Azure Hall had accumulated a massive amount of military merit. Consequently, the palace had specially allocated three thousand Dao soldiers to Sky Azure Hall a few days prior. The hall now had four thousand ordinary Dao soldiers, one thousand Dao Foundation Dao soldiers, and fifty thousand mortal soldiers, making for quite a formidable force.
Hearing that Fenhai and Lanhua had been fighting day and night to earn military merit, Wei Yuan suddenly recalled that a similar group of people existed in the world beyond the heavens. They toiled until dark circles ringed their eyes and their hair fell out, all just for a bit more overtime pay.
Of course, an even more miserable group had dark circles, gained weight, lost their hair, and still received no overtime pay at all.
Wei Yuan simply could not fathom why the hard-working underclass in the world beyond the heavens tended to gain weight.
Fortunately, Fenhai's overtime military merit was plentiful, which made him somewhat better off than the people in the world beyond.
Having commanded armies for years, Wei Yuan possessed immense combat experience. Looking over the sand table at the opposing Liao Clan's force distribution, he already had a preliminary plan in mind. Once optimized through Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, it formed a complete defensive system.
A virtual defense map appeared in Wei Yuan's vision, superimposed over the sand table. All he needed to do was read it off.
Wei Yuan began, "First, this multi-barrel flying-sword gun position needs to be moved forward seven chi—"
Patriarch Xuanyue suddenly felt a rush of hot air surge straight to his crown. In a grim voice, he said, "You little brat, you haven't learned any good habits, but you've picked up plenty of Fenhai's rotten ones! It seems this old man hasn't disciplined you in far too long, and you've forgotten how to write the words 'respecting teachers and honoring the Dao'!"
Wei Yuan was taken aback, having no idea why the patriarch had suddenly flown into a rage.
The more Xuanyue thought about it, the more annoyed he became. Moving a flying-sword gun position forward or backward by a hundred zhang was one thing, but this brat came out with moving it forward seven chi! If this wasn't nitpicking, what was?
However, considering Wei Yuan was still young and had always been obedient and sensible, Xuanyue suppressed the urge to give the kid a beating and said, "Then explain yourself. Why must it be seven chi? Won't six chi do? Won't eight chi do?"
Wei Yuan was also stunned. The terrain here was unique: shifting the flying-sword gun position forward slightly would broaden its field of fire considerably, while shifting it backward protected it from enemy flanking archery. Moving it forward seven chi was the optimal position calculated after balancing both factors.
In truth, leaving it untouched was fine too, but this was the most critical position, where a single move would affect the entire board. Leaving it unadjusted was like a black sesame seed dropped into a bowl of white congee; failing to pick it out would easily unsettle his dao heart.
And so, patriarch and granddisciple argued over this seven-chi plot for nearly an hour, and in the end, Wei Yuan won the dispute.
After finally adjusting the entire defensive line, Xuanyue remained huffy and sullen. He rarely lost an argument. Yet he could hardly follow the mountain of numbers Wei Yuan rattled off, and since he could not bluntly admit he didn't understand, he could only sulk by himself.
With the defensive system revised, Wei Yuan asked about Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli.
Speaking of Zhang Sheng, Xuanyue was entirely relaxed, merely remarking that the girl had always possessed a stubborn temperament. A Dao body was easy to mend, but a dao heart was troublesome to manage. Once she figured things out for herself, she would naturally be fine. Calculating the days, she ought to emerge from seclusion in the next few days.
When Ji Liuli was mentioned, however, Xuanyue turned solemn. "That child's dao heart has also run into trouble. I heard from Yanshi that it started out as just a minor flaw, but then swelled inexplicably. Now it has reached the point where she can no longer condense a dharma idol."
Wei Yuan was deeply shocked, not having expected Ji Liuli's trouble to be so severe. In the past, his Eldest Senior Sister had acted with utter abandon; she possessed no heart of invincibility, yet it was more potent than any heart of invincibility. From what Wei Yuan knew of her, she cultivated relying on terrifying innate talent. She harbored no stubborn obsessions, nor did she hold to many principles or convictions—especially toward enemies, against whom she used whatever ruthless means were necessary.
Wei Yuan felt that even if everyone else in the Palace of Grand Beginning suffered from flaws in their dao hearts, Ji Liuli would still be perfectly fine. How had it suddenly escalated to such a dire state?
Yet True Monarch Xuanyue could not explain the root cause either, so Wei Yuan decided to pay a visit to the Hall of Heavenly Secrets next.
True Monarch Xuanyue's brows suddenly furrowed slightly. Reaching out, he drew a small pouch from Wei Yuan's waist into his grasp. Dense blood qi immediately billowed from the pouch, and countless dark shadows surged out, attempting to flee. Yet all were locked down by True Monarch Xuanyue's dao power, unable to escape in the slightest.
"Where did this true blood come from?"
Wei Yuan explained his visit to Consort Yuan in the state of Jin and his encounter with the Scenery Command assassin's sneak attack. Naturally, he did not mention who the target of that ambush had been.
Chapter 457