After reviewing current affairs and state matters of the realm, Wei Yuan turned his gaze inward to Qingming. First were the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning.
Zhang Sheng and Bao Yun were both in seclusion. Zhang Sheng was still nurturing sword spirits for over five hundred immortal swords, and at present had only completed half. Fortunately, the Heaven Tier and Earth Tier had already birthed sword spirits; the remaining Mortal Tier ones could be done somewhat faster. Bao Yun was consolidating her dharma idol—her Wondrous Heavenly Demon Manifestation was formidable and bizarre, requiring far more time than others.
Also in seclusion were Ji Liuli and Feng Tingyu. Their dharma idols were likewise immortal manifestations, requiring a great deal of time to consolidate before they could step into the Myriad Transformations realm.
Once one ascended to the Dharma Idol realm, the immortal path grew increasingly exalted and distant; a single bout of seclusion routinely took several months or even years. Though today was the first day of the New Year, the immortal city was remarkably quiet and deserted.
Wei Yuan's seclusion this time had been somewhat different from the norm. He had essentially spent over half a year grinding away at theory, and now had finally crossed the threshold. He strolled over to the Medicine Garden, which was currently the place with the densest spirit qi—and the liveliest bustle—in all of Qingming.
Moreover, beneath the Medicine Garden's grand array, a faint strand of scorching immortal spirit qi lingered in ethereal coils. Yet this aura was extremely elusive; even a Scenery Command expert standing right in front of it would very likely overlook it. Only with his authority as Realm Lord bolstered by the Great Array of the Heavenly Starlight did Wei Yuan detect its presence.
Normally, immortal flora never left Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. The only immortal creature active in Qingming was the little rooster.
It seemed the little rooster had been living quite well in the Medicine Garden lately, though who knew how many medicinal herbs it had ravaged.
Wei Yuan entered the Medicine Garden and soon located the little rooster's roost, right beneath the earliest two mutated black nightshades. Now, however, the area for dozens of zhang around was enveloped in a natural formation, cutting off inside from out so that one could not enter or leave at will.
The voice of Perfected Chuhe came from ahead. Curious, Wei Yuan slowed his steps.
He heard Perfected Chuhe say, "It still refuses to see me?"
Two squeaks followed—the voice of the flying sable, meaning: "It said it won't see idlers."
Perfected Chuhe replied, "No matter. I treat it with an earnest heart. Sooner or later, it will understand my painstaking intentions."
The flying sable: "Why don't we switch targets? I don't think it's all that impressive anyway. Once I ascend to immortality, I'll bite it to death in one chomp!"
Chuhe chuckled. "Affinity is something one may chance upon, but cannot force. Since we have crossed paths, it is destined affinity, so we shall not change. Take this basin of spirit rice inside to it."
"Whoever wants to take it can take it, I'm done waiting on it!" The flying sable stalked off in a huff.
Chuhe shook his head and placed the spirit rice on the ground. A hot breeze swept up the rice and carried it into the array. Old Daoist Chuhe took no offense, singing a tune as he sauntered off. This demeanor had the easygoing flair of someone who could let spit dry on his face without taking offense.
Wei Yuan had thought the little rooster would get along swimmingly with Chuhe, but he hadn't expected their relationship to remain this deadlocked after more than half a year. Did Old Daoist Chuhe's tricks actually fail for once?
Wei Yuan walked toward the grand array. This kind of formation was innate to an immortal spirit, and in Wei Yuan's eyes at this stage, it was riddled with flaws. With just a few leisurely steps, he slipped through the immortal array and stepped inside.
"Wait, don't come in!"
The little rooster was too late. Wei Yuan was already inside. Right in front of him stood a wall of red tinged with gold!
The texture of this wall was... quite nice. Wei Yuan felt it, only to realize: this was no wall, it was chicken feathers!
Wei Yuan looked up and saw an enormous chicken head looking down at him.
The little rooster he once could carry around by hand was now two stories tall just lying down! Its wings were plump and colossal, kicking up gusts of wind with the slightest shift. Dense formation patterns and Dao talismans lined its beak, and each of its eyes was the size of a washbasin—larger than Wei Yuan's entire face. Crystal clear and translucent, swirling patterns rotated within them like vortexes threatening to suck a person in.
"What... what happened to you?" Wei Yuan was dumbfounded. In less than a year, the little rooster had grown as hefty and gargantuan as a building.
The little rooster sighed. "I told you not to come in! Now that you've seen me like this, how am I supposed to hold my head up as a rooster? After you left, all I did here was eat and sleep, sleep and eat. Down a hundred zhang underground, there are spirit bugs everywhere, and every day I had spirit rice for snacks. Then, before I knew it, I got fat."
Wei Yuan was at a loss for words. Deciding to ignore its size for the moment, he asked, "Did Perfected Chuhe outside offend you?"
"If he hadn't brought spirit rice three times a day—morning, noon, and night—I wouldn't have gotten into the habit of eating three square meals!" the little rooster retorted crossly.
"For more than half a year, it's been like that?"
The little rooster looked a bit dazed. "Has it really been more than half a year? I thought only a dozen days had passed."
Wei Yuan pointed up at the sky. "It's already the first day of the New Year."
Now the little rooster was speechless. "I only took a few naps, and an entire year went by?"
Wei Yuan looked up and down at the mountain of a rooster, then suddenly asked, "How big will you be once fully grown?"
The little rooster couldn't say for sure either. It only knew that from the day it hatched, it had never seen its parents, nor did it know who had incubated it. For its first dozen or so years, it had barely grown at all, yet somehow, as soon as it came to Qingming, it started shooting up wildly.
Wei Yuan said, "Perfected Chuhe outside is my martial uncle. He is exceptionally adept at caring for immortal beasts and beings. Since I spend most of my time in seclusion now, why don't you meet with him? It will make things easier for him to look after you going forward."
Feeling a bit sheepish, the little rooster said, "Actually, he didn't really offend me. It's just that I grew this fat, so I was too embarrassed to see anyone."
Seeing that it relented, Wei Yuan immediately summoned Perfected Chuhe inside. At the sight of the mountain-like rooster, Chuhe was momentarily stunned, but quickly regained his composure, bowed, and said, "Greetings, Brother Rooster."
Feeling somewhat self-conscious, the little rooster dipped its massive beak. "You've worked hard these past six months or more. Actually, if you just brought more spirit rice at once, you wouldn't have to toil like this."
Chuhe replied placidly, "This variety of spirit rice is a mutation found nowhere else. It must be consumed within half an hour of harvesting for optimal flavor. Past that window, most of its spiritual energy dissipates, and the taste is no longer nearly as good."
The little rooster was startled, growing even more embarrassed.
Chuhe did not linger; after saying his piece, he took his leave. Wei Yuan told the little rooster to live here in peace, since he could easily afford to support it anyway. After exchanging a few more words, the little rooster grew drowsy again, yawning incessantly.
Wei Yuan took his leave as well, catching up to Chuhe. "That wasn't your usual style back there," he remarked. "Will that really work? Shouldn't you have... taken him as your adoptive father?"
Chuhe replied, "That routine works fine on ordinary spirit beasts, but not on a natural-born immortal creature like this. Young innate immortal beings have encountered either people forcing them into servitude or people scheming to curry favor. Only by interacting on equal terms can one earn its genuine respect."
Wei Yuan knew this touched upon Perfected Chuhe's path of Dao, so he asked, "Is there enough spirit rice? If not, should I go buy some more?"
"This rice cannot be bought outside." Perfected Chuhe took out a single grain and handed it to Wei Yuan.
The grain was the size of an orange, perfectly round and snow-white, with a lustrous sheen like an oversized pearl. This rice originally came from the Cui family of Ji and Zhao, and had subsequently been cultivated across generations in Qingming. After True Monarch Huangyun passed away, under the influence of the Jianmu life-mystic power, it mutated into its current form.
However, its yield was extremely low, and it had to be consumed quickly. The moment the mutation stabilized, the old Daoist had fed it to the immortal fowl.
As Wei Yuan prepared to leave, Perfected Chuhe said, "There might be another fortunate opportunity at hand."
"Oh? Let's hear it."
Perfected Chuhe explained, "This rooster is a natural nemesis to venomous insects and vermin. Roosting in the Medicine Garden, it ended up drawing in every spirit insect within a thousand li. Right now, five hundred zhang directly beneath the Medicine Garden, countless spirit insects have gathered and are slaughtering one another to crown a king. Once the Insect King emerges, it will lead the swarm in a fight to the death against this fowl. If we can capture the Insect King when the time comes, we will gain a formidable combat pet."
"What preparations are needed?"
"Nothing special—merely laying down a few more formation nodes of the Great Array of the Heavenly Starlight here to extend the underground monitoring range from one hundred zhang to a thousand zhang, so we can track the swarm's movements at all times."
Monitoring a thousand zhang underground was a heavy burden even for the Great Array of the Heavenly Starlight. Yet Wei Yuan instinctively sensed that if they could subdue the Insect King, Qingming would gain vast swarms of spirit insects, and its worldly Great Dao would become all the more complete.
Leaving the Medicine Garden, Wei Yuan inspected several other key locations one by one.
Qingming had now expanded to nearly two thousand li, matching the scale of several commanderies. Workshops throughout Qingming were expanding desperately, all to ensure that the newcomers would have clothes to wear and places to live.
Constructing housing alone had exhausted all concrete production and over eighty percent of the steel. The influx of people was simply immense—in just over a year, eighteen million people had poured in. Food was sufficient, but clothing and shelter had become major predicaments.
Fortunately, with vast numbers of mortals came boundless ingenuity. Based on available materials, several craftsmen proposed a minimalist method for rapid construction, which was then optimized through multiple iterations within Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to yield the final plan.
The plan was not to build finished houses, but rather to build structural frameworks. Reinforced concrete formed the main load-bearing skeleton, leaving each floor hollow with no walls at all. Lines drawn upon the cement floors simply demarcated one household from the next.
Houses built merely as frameworks went up at an incomparable speed. With enough Dao Foundation cultivators taking part, a floor could be erected in two days; a ten-story framed building took only a month, including capping off and inspection testing.
Fast as it was, when Wei Yuan inspected them on-site, he found the sight naggingly familiar. Searching his memory, he finally recalled that in the illusions of world fragments, so-called "unfinished buildings" looked just like this.
Once the rapid-build framework was complete, officials distributed building supplies for the occupants to build their own walls, windows, and partitions.
The wall-building materials were humble items like wooden planks, yellow mud, and straw. The refugees handled these materials with practiced ease, throwing together a high-rise thatched cottage in a dozen days or so.
People moved in, though from afar it looked as if ten layers of shanties had been stacked atop one another. To make matters worse, the officials in charge of the project christened every building a "Tower of Yuan," ensuring people would remember whose grace granted them a multistory home.
Unsightly though the Towers of Yuan might look, they were ten-story high-rises nonetheless. When had displaced refugees ever seen such a thing?
Thus, household after household enshrined memorial tablets for Wei Yuan, praying day and night for the Realm Lord to live a thousand years—and those especially devout wished for him to live nine thousand years.
Over the past half-year and more, the karmic luck flowing from the Towers of Yuan had accumulated to well over a million, with virtually every resident contributing. Only now did Wei Yuan understand the true weight of the saying: *A roof over every head.*
Chapter 810