Idiot

Following his breakthrough, both his mindscape world and Qingming required time to slowly accumulate and develop. The Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was simply too vast; raising it as a whole was extraordinarily difficult. One could even say that however many times greater Wei Yuan's Dao power was compared to other Dharma Idols, advancing would require that many times more accumulation. At present, with Hongye struck by the Yang Bullet, the Land of Rain had drastically contracted, dedicating all its strength to the war against the Spirit Shamans. Consequently, a vacant buffer zone spanning over a thousand li was left between the Land of Rain and Qingming. This swath of land was for Wei Yuan to claim, enough to keep him occupied for several years. After all, Qingming currently possessed virtually no nurturing essence and relied entirely on natural expansion. It expanded by less than a li each day now; as the territory grew larger, the distance naturally extended each day would continue to decrease, even though the total area gained remained roughly constant. During the great battle, Wei Yuan had activated All Living Beings in an Instant too many times, using it almost the moment a sliver of nurturing essence was produced. Right after the battle concluded, he had conducted another round of Dao Foundation advancements, leaving Qingming's nurturing essence completely depleted once more. Wei Yuan unfolded a map and studied it closely for a long while before finally concluding: foreign foes would not be attacking anytime soon, so it was time to address the internal conflicts among the human race. At present, the Heaven-Extinguishing Gang was directly blockading the main gates of Hanyang Pass, and both sides had been locked in a standoff for quite some time. Looking at the map, Wei Yuan ran his finger north across Qingming in a straight line that reached all the way to the northern Desolate Mountain Plateau. He decided to deploy light cavalry there, preparing to intercept and slaughter the merchant caravans of the Xu family and the Leize Tribe. Outside Jade Mountain, the nascent portal was still growing slowly, gradually exuding a bizarre, enigmatic aura. Wei Yuan was just about to make targeted arrangements when the Holy Combat Pavilion beat him to it. They had erected three tiers of defensive walls around the portal, each higher than the last, and posted heavy guards atop them. Nearly everyone with any martial skill was put on rotating duty, fully armed and alert. Watching this gave Wei Yuan a headache—once again, the Creation Immortal Venerable had been robbed of his chance to display farsighted wisdom and issue grand directives. Even more speechlessly, even Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation and Dharma Idol warriors had been requisitioned to the walls. Wen, Wu, and Longying—the three great dragon guards—each guarded a wall. Wei Yuan had never imagined that someone other than himself could actually mobilize his dragon guards. Yet the sect worshipping the Creation Immortal Venerable remained sparsely populated; no one seemed to associate the three terrifying dragon guards with the Creation Immortal Venerable. Seeing that he had little presence to assert within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, Wei Yuan had no choice but to return to reality. Beside Yong'an City, ten brand-new workshops were springing up from the ground. Over a thousand Dao Foundation cultivators had been assigned under Yu Zhizhuo, yet practical operations were rife with hiccups. A handful of disciples from the Hall of Heavenly Craft scurried about putting out fires, overwhelmed and stretched to their limits. Thus, after working for two days on the original plan to build thirty workshops simultaneously, Yu Zhizhuo realized it was unfeasible and immediately called a halt. He shifted to concentrating all manpower on completing the first ten, which finally got things on track. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, summoned representatives of the major merchant caravans and placed another order for three million jin of raw silk. Furthermore, he stipulated that the top ten suppliers could opt to accept standard-price armor in lieu of payment. All the traveling merchants went wild. Qingming's armor enjoyed an immense reputation now, fetching as much as forty taels of immortal silver a suit on the external black market. Many Zhao soldiers secretly sold off their issued Qingming armor, then went to the market to buy lookalike counterfeit sets. With this single transaction, they pocketed ten taels of immortal silver. The standard price for the armor was twenty taels of immortal silver a suit. As a result, the merchants could turn a profit transporting the silk in and make another fortune hauling armor back on their return trip; their only problem was that there was never enough silk. The major merchant caravans immediately mobilized every resource at their disposal to purchase raw silk. The powerful, well-connected caravans finally exerted their full might, leveraging their channels to dispatch word to the deep interior in an instant. They sent all their stewards down to the countryside to gather silk, and some stewards even cordoned off mulberry groves, securing contracts for trees whose leaves had not fully matured. Other less scrupulous caravans bought raw silk directly from generals, garrison commanders, and even bandit chieftains, not caring in the least where these people had obtained the goods. Consequently, the price of silk skyrocketed, leaving the brocade guild wailing in distress. *** Atop the walls of Hanyang Pass, Xu Lanshan gazed toward the small hill twenty li away, her brows furrowed in a grim, heavy expression. In the distance, several dozen large freight wagons rumbled into view in grand procession, escorted by thousands of elite armored cavalry. Upon arriving, the wagons drove straight up the newly paved road to the hill, unloading full cartloads of uniform cement slabs and steel plates, reinforcing the hill's fortifications even further. Over the past several days, a hundred freight wagons had arrived each day, delivering hundreds of thousands of jin of supplies, turning an unremarkable hill into a steel fortress armed to the teeth. None of the defenders of Hanyang Pass dared to step beyond the pass gates anymore. Anyone who crossed the line was met with devastating artillery bombardment. After a dozen men were killed, no one was willing to throw their lives away. Originally, closing the pass had been meant to stifle Wei Yuan and Qingming, but now the tables were turned: the pass gates were blockaded, and they were being shelled under their very noses. Now it was the Xu family who felt utterly humiliated. Every cannon blast felt like a slap across Xu Lanshan's face. Yet the several elders garrisoning Hanyang Pass were surprisingly unified, flatly refusing to report the matter to the clan's Council of Elders. Their pretext sounded high-minded and righteous: Wei Yuan had just repelled the Shamans, and his prestige was at its zenith. Moreover, not a single cannon shot had struck Hanyang Pass itself; all of them had landed in the open ground outside the walls. Xu Lanshan naturally knew these elders resented her for cutting off their avenues of profit, which was why they dragged their feet and undermined her at every turn. But this was how the entire Xu family operated—intricately intertwined, their selfish interests hopelessly tangled. Unless she went directly to the Ancestral Immortal, she had no recourse. Yet unless pushed to the absolute brink, she refused to set foot in that secret realm. For now, Xu Lanshan still attempted to resolve the matter through official channels. On one hand, she sent an official dispatch to Qingming, fiercely denouncing Wei Yuan for disguising himself as a bandit and behaving with reckless abandon, warning that such perverse actions would sooner or later squander the hard-won reputation he had earned. Wei Yuan's reply contained only two large words: *Idiot!* Xu Lanshan then sent men to find Sun Chao'en, demanding he revoke the deed and documentation issued to the Heaven-Extinguishing Gang. But Sun Chao'en either had caught a chill, or was sleeping off a drunken stupor, or his concubine's cat had died... In short, his doors remained shut, and he refused to see guests. After repeatedly running into walls, Xu Lanshan finally realized that Western Jin's officialdom was rotten to its core—composed entirely of either corrupt officials or bandits. Yet the best window to strike the Heaven-Extinguishing Gang had already passed. The hill was now fully fortified, and a faint wisp of killing intent lingered around Xu Lanshan at all times. Clearly, that assassin possessed immense patience; the moment Xu Lanshan showed an opening, a thunderous strike would fall. Whenever she sensed this, Xu Lanshan's face grew dark as water, yet she showed no fear. The assassin underestimated her far too much. With her status and standing, how could she possibly stoop to attacking those low-level cultivators herself? The wagons arrived, and construction work on the hill carried on in full swing. Just like previous days, there was nothing worth watching. Just as Xu Lanshan was about to visit the workshop to see if the production of fire guns had improved, several Xu family cultivators flew over at top speed, calling out in urgency, "An imperial commissioner has arrived from the court! He has already reached the garrison commander's office, and the elders want you to go over immediately to receive the edict!" Xu Lanshan said, "Can't the elders receive it on my behalf? Why must I go?" "No, the commissioner specifically demanded by name that you receive the edict in person." Xu Lanshan frowned. Though deeply reluctant, she flew toward the garrison commander's office. Even if no one took the King of Jin particularly seriously, the King still bore Heaven's mandate, and proper appearances had to be maintained. When Xu Lanshan entered the main hall of the garrison commander's office, she found that both Zhao Tong and Liu Quangong were present. In addition, several experts in the attire of the imperial guard stood at attention to the side. The Xu family elders stood nearby, watching Xu Lanshan with sneering, mocking eyes. Since this woman had hindered their moneymaking, they naturally relished the thought of her making a fool of herself. At this moment, Liu Quangong spoke: "Xu Lanshan, why haven't you knelt to receive the edict?" A flush of crimson rose on Xu Lanshan's face, and she glared back with fury. However, Zhao Tong and Liu Quangong watched her like tigers stalking prey, both primed to strike. The atmosphere in the great hall was suffocatingly oppressive, causing Xu Lanshan's spiritual energy to flow with sudden sluggishness. In an instant, she realized that to suppress someone like her—a peak Dharma Idol on the verge of advancement—there had to be a Scenery Command expert among those imperial guards. The Xu family elders watched coldly, not one stepping forward to speak on her behalf. Xu Lanshan's expression shifted several times. Disdainful though she was, according to the Tang rites, once she had accepted this official post, she had to kneel to receive an imperial edict. If word got out that she had refused to accept an imperial decree, the Xu family would face universal condemnation, and scholars across the realm would write essays castigating them. In the end, she dropped to one knee and gritted her teeth to receive the edict. The imperial decree was held in the hands of an ordinary-looking young eunuch. Expressionless, he unfurled the scroll and recited: "Xu Lanshan, you idiot, are you trying to get over a hundred thousand displaced refugees killed? If you don't know how to be an official, don't occupy the seat! We see that after all your cultivating, not a shred of magic has reached your brain..." The entire edict consisted of crude insults, berating Xu Lanshan until she was covered in shame and fury. The young supervising eunuch read it with rhythmic cadence, his tone and expression rendered to perfection. Xu Lanshan was stunned at first, then infuriated, but after enduring several more insults, she actually calmed down. Soon, the edict came to an end. Xu Lanshan said, "May I look at the edict?" The young eunuch walked up to her, handed over the decree, and said, "This edict must be retrieved, but you may read through it here." Xu Lanshan took the edict and looked down. The text matched the words read aloud exactly; the young eunuch had not mispronounced a single character. With the edict received, the members of the imperial mission did not linger for a second. Exiting the main hall, they prepared to take flight. Xu Lanshan suddenly addressed one of the guards: "Since when did Prince Cheng take a liking to such sneaking and hiding?" The imperial guard merely chuckled, offering no answer. Once the commissioner's party had flown away, Xu Lanshan suddenly ordered, "Bring all the ledgers for the porridge stalls and refugee camps to my study. Right now, immediately! Not a single volume is to be missed!" Her attendants knew her temperament and rushed off to comply. An hour later, several hundred ledgers were piled in Xu Lanshan's study. Blessed with formidable divine sense, she finished reviewing them all in just an hour. Every single ledger was meticulously balanced, devoid of any flaw. Xu Lanshan let out a cold laugh. For there to be no problem at all proved that there was a massive problem.