Taking the Dao Profound Jade, Zhang Sheng swept her divine sense across it and immediately recognized what it was. She placed it back into Wei Yuan's hand and said, "I have no use for this. It can raise the grade of an Earth Tier dharma idol, but it is of little help to Heaven Tier, and Immortal Tier has no need of it whatsoever. Even so, it remains a priceless treasure, even more coveted than your Kunyuan Longevity Pills. Keep it for yourself."
Wei Yuan said, "I wouldn't get much by selling it anyway. Who with an Earth Tier dharma idol has that kind of wealth? It's better kept with you, just in case."
Unable to persuade him, Zhang Sheng had no choice but to accept it. She said, "There is actually a very specific sort of buyer for an item like this—such as the current King of Zhao, or several princes of the Tang imperial clan. Breaking through to Scenery Command is extraordinarily difficult for them. Reaching it with an Earth Tier idol is utterly hopeless, but Heaven Tier gives them a sliver of hope. With this Dao Profound Jade, it is the difference between zero and one."
"All the more reason to leave it in your keeping for now."
"Very well. Go look over the current situation first, then come find me and tell me what happened in that illusory realm."
Wei Yuan's heart leaped, filled with both apprehension and anticipation.
Over the past two months, Li Chengfeng had certainly proved his mettle. After handing Hanyang Pass over to the Sixth Princess, he had swept through Huangping Commandery, annihilating the Xu family's garrison of one hundred and fifty thousand private troops and capturing three of their elders. Only after extorting a hefty ransom did Li Chengfeng withdraw his army back to his state. After this round of upheaval, over a million more people in Huangping Commandery were displaced from their homes; eight hundred thousand made it to Qingming, over a hundred thousand were turned back, and eighty thousand went elsewhere.
Zhao was besieging the two commanderies of Yunxiang. Meanwhile, as spring blossomed and the northern snows melted, the Liao Clan grew restless once more, and Wei Yuan received tens of thousands of Liao corpses. However, because he was not at the northern mountain gate, he gained no reincarnated Liao.
With the Liao moving south, pressure on Zhao surged abruptly, prompting even the Tang imperial court to issue an edict to mediate. The King of Zhao's bitter rivals pointedly accused him of taking advantage of others' peril, hurling vicious insults.
Unmoved, the King of Zhao continued his siege of Yunxiang, pounding Lü Wenbai into utter disarray. Lü Wenbai's pleas for help reached Qingming, but went unanswered. In his despair, Lü Wenbai memorialized the imperial court, impeaching Wei Yuan for sitting by and watching him die. He also mobilized a horde of scholars to pen articles bitterly denouncing Wei Yuan.
Yet Qingming was now brimming with academies. It was not merely refugees who arrived, but a ceaseless stream of scholars as well. In Qingming there was no suffering of war, the food was good, and they could teach and nurture students—why wouldn't they come?
Furthermore, as a Tang Military Commissioner, Wei Yuan possessed the authority to confer official appointments. The posts he granted were legitimate offices of Great Tang. The prevailing ambition of most scholars, after all, was to master civil and martial arts to sell their talents to the imperial house.
Thus, Wei Yuan designated the heads of city academies directly as eighth rank and the supreme director as seventh rank, prompting countless scholars to flock over at the news. With scholars in abundance, Wei Yuan never fell behind in wars of words. Lü Wenbai's side had barely published a dozen articles before Qingming churned out over a thousand!
And they came in every format: prose, poetry, and songs, though the vast majority were letters written to beloved relatives and friends in every direction.
Lü Wenbai was cursed into the dirt. Scholars had venomous tongues; many took subtle jabs questioning the parentage of Lü Wenbai's offspring, infuriating the Military Commissioner to the point of smashing several vases a day and having two concubines strung up and whipped.
Zhao was not without designs on the five commanderies either. They sent troops to test an assault on the southern Military Affairs Outpost, only to lose several thousand men to artillery fire before they could even reach the walls. The military camp also radiated a faint presence capable of chilling even a Scenery Command cultivator's heart, so they let the matter drop.
Seeing that dealing with Lü Wenbai required no effort on his part, Wei Yuan was relieved and continued reviewing Qingming's domestic affairs.
Speaking of food, under the vigorous promotion of Old Daoist Chuhe, Beast Taming Heavenly Heart had become the hottest Dao Foundation, simply because the perks were so generous. Those closest to the water enjoyed the moon first; naturally, those who raised cattle and horses never lacked meat. In an era where a single piece of meat could brighten an ordinary person's life for an entire year, everyone wanted to get closer to cattle and horses.
Of course, only after completing their cultivation would they discover they were not tending cattle and horses, but guinea pigs. These creatures tasted delicious, ate little, grew quickly, and produced several litters a year. They reached maturity in a month, could breed at three months, and by the end of a year, a single one could multiply into hundreds. Fortunately, being around guinea pigs meant they got to eat meat, so hardly anyone complained.
In contrast, cattle and horses offered little beyond manual labor. In Qingming, labor relied far more on Dao Foundations—people were far more useful than beasts of burden.
Seeing this, Wei Yuan recalled fragments of knowledge he had gleaned from the school library. In a highly developed world, cattle farmers couldn't afford to eat beef. For those cultivating the Beast Taming Heavenly Heart, once the trend passed, their Dao hearts would likely shatter.
Troubled by the thought, Wei Yuan summoned Old Daoist Chuhe to discuss the matter.
Yet Old Daoist Chuhe scoffed. "What sort of people cultivate this old daoist's Beast Taming Heavenly Heart? They are folks who struggle to cultivate even a Great Bright Demon-Subduing Sword! Without this Beast Taming Heavenly Heart, they wouldn't achieve a Dao Foundation in their entire lives. You don't need to worry about their Dao hearts—you can't shatter something that doesn't exist!"
Wei Yuan was left speechless. Those hundreds of Beast Taming Heavenly Heart cultivators treated the old daoist with supreme reverence, addressing him as Grandmaster at every turn. They probably had no idea how little he thought of them.
Qingming's population had now reached fourteen million. Though Wei Yuan had been away for two months, his azure qi had actually increased by five hundred thousand strands. Qingming had become exceptionally adept at resettling refugees; the entire workflow was swift and seamless. Refugees had nothing worth plundering, so officials couldn't be bothered to harass them. Moreover, many of these officials had come from refugee backgrounds themselves and had not yet forgotten their roots.
Even so, a few officials still crossed the line, primarily targeting the young women among the refugees. Women were scarce among the displaced, and young women scarcer still; their bodies were their only capital.
What the officials hadn't anticipated, however, was that the refugees who managed to walk all the way to Qingming possessed remarkably hardy constitutions. Furthermore, ever since the immortal dog's canine head had passed away here, the reproduction of spirit beings had been dramatically enhanced.
Humans, too, were spirit beings.
Thus, over the past year, as large waves of refugees flooded in, over a thousand children suddenly surfaced looking to claim their fathers. The officials had no way to deny it; without karmic interference, it took merely a single glance from a late-stage Dharma Idol cultivator to verify bloodlines.
Zhang Sheng had already dealt with the matter. After a meticulous investigation, she discovered that many of the refugee women had been willing, a few had yielded after half-hearted resistance, and genuine cases of bullying the weak were few.
So Zhang Sheng laid down two rules. First, for children born, the woman decided who would raise them. If the woman chose to raise the child herself, the biological father had to provide support until the child turned fourteen.
Second, during the period before a refugee's resettlement paperwork was completed, if any official touched a female refugee—regardless of whether she was willing or not—the official had to support her financially and could not prevent her from seeking other partners; any child born within three years, whether his or not, had to be raised by him until age fourteen.
Qingming's low-ranking clerks held no formal grade and drew modest stipends. Supporting two refugee women would cause their standard of living to plummet. Those who couldn't control their lower halves and took on three to five would spend the rest of their lives slaving away for them, watching them use their money to enjoy themselves with other men, raising other men's children, and mocking their foolishness all the while.
Wei Yuan couldn't help but marvel; his teacher's measures always struck straight at the vital spot. Sure enough, once the new regulations were promulgated, Qingming's administration was swept clean, and the number of illegitimate children plummeted.
Disciplining the bureaucracy had become an absolute necessity for Wei Yuan; otherwise, it would directly harm human karmic luck. Wei Yuan knew this, and Zhang Sheng understood it just as clearly.
Having sorted through the current situation, Wei Yuan headed to Zhang Sheng's study, preparing to report on his experiences during this period. The moment he stepped inside, he was surprised to find that Zhang Sheng was not reading as usual. Instead, she was wrestling with the tortoise shell and counting rods before her. Watching her scatter the counting rods again and again, Wei Yuan had no idea what she was divining, and his conscience began to prick him again.
Her face expressionless, one sleeve hitched up, Zhang Sheng spread her fingers, scooped up the counting rods, and cast them down, only to gather them and cast them once more. Her hands were exquisite, but the divined results were anything but pretty.
Every cast yielded an utterly meaningless outcome, without the faintest sign or omen. Seeing Zhang Sheng stubbornly persist without end, Wei Yuan asked, "Teacher, what are you calculating?"
Zhang Sheng remained completely expressionless. "I am calculating whether a certain someone is lying to me."
Chapter 764