This latest aberration among the Xu family youths was unlike anything before; it happened at a speed defying common sense.
Whether in the New City or within the army ranks, whenever an adolescent boy and girl of the Xu family came together, they would immediately begin reproducing, concluding the act in barely three thrusts. It was over so fast that Wei Yuan did not even have time to issue an order directly into their consciousnesses.
The previous occurrence had affected only a few thousand people, but this time the scope was extraordinarily vast, encompassing over forty thousand—nearly every single one of them had been drawn in.
Sun Yu, Xu Henshui, Old Daoist Chuhe, and Bao Yun all rushed over at once, yet none discovered anything out of the ordinary. Just like before, nobody could determine the cause behind the phenomenon.
Wei Yuan had quite the headache as well. Over the past year and more, the minds of the Xu family youths had grown far more active, gradually becoming no different from regular folk. Wei Yuan had thought they might slowly live like normal people, yet he never anticipated this would strike again without the slightest warning.
At that moment, Sun Yu and Xu Henshui examined several maidens in succession, arriving at the exact same conclusion: within each of their bellies, a tiny spark of life was already taking root.
Wei Yuan, on the other hand, noticed that a faint sliver of new karmic luck had appeared upon them. Though thoroughly negligible, it signified that an entirely new life had been conceived.
Yet with a great battle looming on the horizon, Wei Yuan had no time to delve into the matter. He could only reorganize the troops, pulling the pregnant girls from the army and gathering them in the New City. Fortunately, compared to the last time, the girls' Body Casting cultivation had generally advanced by a realm, so pregnancy would not hinder their daily movements or duties.
After inspecting the situation, the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning were equally helpless and could only disperse to attend to their own affairs.
This incident with the Xu family youths gave Wei Yuan an acute sense of crisis once more. Previously, one could enter and leave Qingming freely, with entry restricted to outsiders only at a few vital locations like the New City, the domain core, the main peak, the herb gardens, and the spiritual fields.
Yet recalling his experience in the Wu domain, Wei Yuan knew that without military qi to cloak his presence, traversing a mere hundred li risked detection. It wasn't that Qingming lacked the means to monitor heaven and earth; Wei Yuan had simply been reluctant to employ them in the past. But now it was wartime, and everything was different.
Leaving the New City, Wei Yuan went to Zhang Sheng's residence and conferred with her for a full hour, hammering out a rough framework for how to conduct surveillance across Qingming.
Afterward, Wei Yuan sank back into his sea of consciousness. By now, the central city had risen above the water's surface, and a ring of land around it had been elevated out of the water. The mortals packed tightly into the city immediately began constructing houses and facilities upon the surrounding ground. Even so, they cherished this hard-won land immensely; houses were erected only upon bare stone, while the vast majority of the earth was cultivated into spiritual fields already sown with spiritual plants and herbs.
A few li away from the city, Wei Yuan raised another parcel of land, roughly a li across and completely encircled by water. Several immortal plants gleamed with light, transporting thousands of mortals onto this small island to begin building facilities.
Casting a final sweep over the city, Wei Yuan noticed that the Grand Duke Angling Ground had been moved to the edge of the newly raised land. More than a dozen people stood in a line along the platform, creating quite an impressive sight.
However, they were all facing the direction where the Sea-Calming Pearl and the aquatic immortal plant resided. That had been the direction when they stood on the city wall, and it remained the same now that they had relocated to the shore.
With a shift of Wei Yuan's divine sense, he saw that the shattered Sea-Calming Pearl remained embedded in the earth, wrapped in a mass of deep blue water that stayed starkly distinct from the azure water.
Wei Yuan tried lifting the Sea-Calming Pearl and found that after releasing the water within, he was once again able to move it. However, because it was damaged, its grade had fallen; now it could only hold a thousand-zhang square of water.
The aquatic immortal plant, on the other hand, had begun to sprout signs of life, producing hundreds of nascent vitalities all at once. There was no telling what kind of immortal plants they would ultimately grow into.
After looking everything over without finding any further abnormalities, Wei Yuan was just preparing to depart when he caught sight of a small team of mortals walking down to the water's edge and beginning to cordon off land. The dry ground they staked out was quite small; most of the claim lay in the shoals and deep water. Then they erected a wooden placard: "Northern Depths Has Fish Ichthyological Research Institute."
*Whether the Northern Depths has fish is anyone's guess, but there certainly aren't any here...* Wei Yuan muttered inwardly. He could overlook the other institutes, but this one was simply too absurd. Unable to hold back, Wei Yuan took on mortal form and walked over to strike up a conversation with the group.
"Are there fish in this great body of water?" Wei Yuan asked.
A middle-aged woman directing the crowd in setting up the placard rolled her eyes. "Of course not."
"Then without fish, how are you going to research them?"
The middle-aged woman glared at Wei Yuan impatiently. Still, finding the young lad rather pleasing to the eye, she softened her temper and said, "What matters for a research institute is the research; what you research is beside the point. As long as you have an institute, you can have turf, and once you have turf, you can have a Director, a First Vice Director, a Second Vice Director, a First Assistant to the Director, a Second Assistant to the Director... Later on, we can establish a dedicated research department for every single kind of fish, which means heaps more managers and deacons. We could even divide a fish into subfields—one department researching the fish head, another researching the fish body..."
Seeing Wei Yuan staring dumbfounded, the middle-aged woman gave his firm arm a pinch and said meaningfully, "Young man, you're still wet behind the ears. Just because there are no fish here doesn't mean we can't research them, does it? Oh, right, your big sister here happens to need an assistant. Care to consider it...?"
Wei Yuan's figure vanished.
Just as he was about to exit his sea of consciousness, Wei Yuan suddenly noticed one of the angling mortals jerk his rod back hard, yanking a glittering silver fish straight out of the water!
The fish was fresh, energetic, and brimming with spring; it took several people working together just to hold it down.
Wei Yuan silently swept his divine sense across the entire body of water, checking the surrounding areas thoroughly several times over. Where was there even half a fish to be found?
He inspected the captured fish closely. Though he had no idea what species it was, it truly was a fish, endowed with its own spirit, just like the mortals here.
Finding nothing further after an exhaustive search, Wei Yuan temporarily put the matter aside. He assigned tasks to several mortals and then took his leave.
Their spirits bolstered, those mortals promptly retrieved a stone and deftly sculpted it into the likeness of Tianyu before placing it upon a cooking stove. Next, they went out and rounded up several hundred people, counted heads, and weeded out about a hundred of them, keeping only three hundred sturdy, simple-minded fellows who were desperate to prove their intelligence. Together, they began prostrating themselves before Tianyu's statue.
As for the prayer, a dispute arose among a few of them. Everyone agreed the wording needed innovation, but Wei Yuan had also forbidden expanding the scope at will. After carefully parsing Wei Yuan's instructions, they concluded his true meaning was that the scope of prayer could neither broaden horizontally nor extend downward. Therefore, they decided to trace it upward to its origin.
Dropping to their knees, the crowd began to pray with utmost devotion:
"O exalted Power of the Nine Desolations—Tianyu, we offer our heartfelt thanks to your ancestors back eighteen generations..."
Departing his sea of consciousness, Wei Yuan reflected on the Northern Depths Has Fish Research Institute, finding it more bizarre the more he thought about it. Just where had they learned these classic bureaucratic maneuvers of the Western Jin court? Did they figure it out entirely on their own, or had some petty official reincarnated into his mind?
Chapter 475