Classic of Great Peace

At that moment, Wang Ping was certain he was dead. At the same time, in his heart, he cursed all eighteen generations of his handler's ancestors. Is this how you do your job? What happened to absolute secrecy? 'Did you treat me as an expendable pawn?' Just as Wang Ping sank into despair, Shouchong did something that caught him completely off guard. Far from decapitating him with a single stroke, the old Taoist stepped back. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed something. Wang Ping instinctively reached out. The Lotus Blade—the very flying dagger that had shattered the rockery—landed lightly in his palm, biting into his flesh with bone-chilling cold. "It works out just fine. In that case, you may have it." Muttering those incomprehensible words, Shouchong grabbed Xie Shi beside him. Fast as lightning, the two smashed through the roof and streaked away into the distance. Almost simultaneously, Wang Ping felt his scalp tingle with terror. This feeling... I'm locked on! For no apparent reason, a sudden realization struck Wang Ping's mind. Then he heard another voice shouting from outside the Taoist temple: "The one holding the Lotus Blade is the White Lotus rebel leader!" "...Huh?" At those words, the Lotus Blade in Wang Ping's hand suddenly felt like a red-hot branding iron. He frantically hurled it away. "Misunderstanding! It's a misunderstanding!" Wang Ping screamed at the top of his lungs, "I'm an undercover agent for the county yamen! I've served the yamen with merit! I want to see the chief constable! Someone in the yamen can prove my innocence—" What answered him was the twang of a bowstring. In that instant, Wang Ping only felt an empty numbness in his chest. Looking down, he discovered a bowl-sized hole punched straight through his torso. It was the gaping wound left by an arrow piercing through his chest. His second life had ended just like that, without the slightest preparation... Sure enough, he shouldn't have dreamed of rising above his station. He should have stayed honest and tilled the soil. He had simply died too wronged. Why had the county constables suddenly stormed this place anyway? And since they were here, why hadn't his handler come with them? He should have been able to survive... Just as these thoughts drifted through Wang Ping's fading consciousness, in his dying moments, he suddenly caught sight of a pair of black leather boots. The owner of the boots seemed to be barking orders: "Seize them! Don't let any of them escape!" "Lock up all those detained in the main hall... There aren't enough of them. Go into Qian Village and grab more! We didn't mobilize with such great effort just to return empty-handed." —That was his handler's voice. Right then, another voice spoke up. "Chief Constable, one of the rebels just claimed he was an undercover agent for the county yamen..." Yes, yes, yes! That was me! The chance to clear his name and survive was right within reach, and Wang Ping's will to live surged fiercely. But the next second, the other man's words plunged him into an icy abyss. "What undercover agent? The county yamen has never planted any mole in the White Lotus Sect. It's just a rebel spouting nonsense to save his own skin." At that moment, Wang Ping was beyond furious. By his moral standards, he had assumed that cheating him out of his merits and bounty was the lowest the court would stoop. It turned out he had been far too naive. They were burning the bridge after crossing it! At this thought, all the terror, confusion, frustration, and resentment within Wang Ping's heart coalesced into an indescribable, towering inferno of rage. Yet what brought him to true despair was that he could do nothing. He could only lie on the ground in impotent fury. In the next second, Wang Ping's vision plunged into bottomless darkness. In a daze, the rustling sound of turning pages seemed to echo beside his ears. ............ Qian Village. Once, this had been a tranquil hamlet nestled in the countryside, but now flames leapt toward the sky, and shouts of slaughter echoed everywhere. "Officers! Have mercy, officers!" "Help!" "Run! Run!" Flames danced against the crimson blood, illuminating Chen Haoyan's face. Though surrounded by a sea of fire, the constables flanking the chief constable felt only a bone-deep chill. He stood in the inner courtyard of the Taoist temple, quietly studying the shrine placed inside the residence before him. He remained utterly indifferent as the pungent stench of blood wafted in from the outer courtyard. Even when the ones dying were not White Lotus members but rustic village children, he didn't care in the slightest. Just then, a constable strode over, covered in dust. If Wang Ping were here, he would surely recognize this man as Master Liu, the street tyrant who had collected protection money all over the grass market outside town. "Chief Constable, we've swept the area." "Although this place is the White Lotus Sect's stronghold, not many villagers actually joined them—only about a dozen or so. They've all been detained." "May I ask, sir, should we bring them back for interrogation?" Chen Haoyan turned around, his gaze serene. "Interrogation? Liu Ye, it seems you've spent too much time in the grass market. Those who harbor rebels share the same guilt as rebels. Do I really need to teach you such a simple principle?" Hearing this, Liu Ye froze. "Your meaning is..." "Kill them all." Three nonchalant words fell like a mountain upon the constable's shoulders. Almost instinctively, he glanced around the temple. The ground was strewn with corpses, severed limbs, and rivers of blood. Yet not a single person had held a weapon. Judging by the calluses on their hands and feet, what little they had practiced was merely minor health-cultivating exercises; not a single one among them had truly learned martial arts. Otherwise, this encirclement wouldn't have gone so smoothly. Even a fool would know they couldn't possibly be rebels. Yet they had still been slaughtered. At this thought, sentiment pushed Liu Ye to open his mouth, but reason forced him to swallow back every word. In the end, he could only squeeze out: "Understood, sir..." "Wait!" Just then, a young constable stepped forward, his face brimming with indignant fury. "Forgive me, sir, but I cannot agree with this course of action!" Hearing this, Liu Ye turned his head and saw that the speaker was Lin Sheng. Lin Sheng's family had served the yamen for three generations, and he had mastered impressive martial skills at a young age, allowing him to join the county yamen as a constable at barely twenty. As he stepped forward now, his brow was etched with youthful zeal. "Sir, we took orders to suppress rebels! We suppress rebels, not the common people!" The young constable spoke in a ringing voice: "These people were merely deceived by the White Lotus Sect and remained ignorant of the truth. They are not true rebels! If we slaughter them indiscriminately, how will the imperial court ever earn the trust of the people again?" "...The people?" Listening to Lin Sheng's words, Chen Haoyan's expression remained completely unperturbed. He merely curled his lips, as if he had just heard a preposterous joke. Thud! The next moment, Lin Sheng felt as though a massive sledgehammer had struck his chest. His entire body shuddered violently, and he coughed up a mouthful of hot blood as he was thrown backward. Immediately after, Chen Haoyan's voice reached his ears: "Offending a superior officer—consider this minor punishment an admonition." "As for your question... no matter. Since you have entered my county yamen, you are one of us from now on, a brother. I will give you a proper explanation." At this point, Chen Haoyan seemed to summon a bit of patience, chuckling softly. "We who work in the yamen naturally have many rules to obey. But when all is said and done, it boils down to the public good and private gain. No matter what we do, we must balance both the public and private sides. Only then can we stand firm." "Take this matter, for example." "What is the public good here, and what is the private gain?" As Chen Haoyan paused, Lin Sheng was momentarily taken aback, but he quickly rallied and replied, "The public good is suppressing rebels and eliminating treachery; the private gain is the gold, silver, and bounty money..." Eliminating rebels through the county yamen indeed yielded bounties. In particular, the leader of the White Lotus rebels—that old fellow named Shouchong—carried a bounty of five hundred taels of silver, a fortune even to a chief constable. Seeing his answer, Chen Haoyan nodded. "Since that's the case, you ought to understand." "Coming out on this excursion, if our brothers fail to kill a single White Lotus rebel, the trip will have been in vain, and there will be nowhere to collect our reward." Lin Sheng stared blankly. "B-but we truly did not find any White Lotus rebels..." "Who said that?" Chen Haoyan pointed toward Qian Village not far away. "Aren't they right over there? The White Lotus Sect attempted to assemble a mob and incite rebellion, and we uncovered it. That is a great merit!" "Would you prefer I report to the county magistrate that our campaign was ineffective and we let all the rebels escape, or that we thwarted their plot to rebel? The former means total failure, and everyone might even face severe punishment. The latter guarantees the county magistrate is satisfied, and our brothers all collect their bounties together." With that, Chen Haoyan produced a silvery-white flying dagger. "This is the Lotus Blade of the White Lotus rebel leader. We have now seized it. It will serve nicely as evidence, allowing us to report that he fled in disgrace after suffering heavy injuries at our hands." "With both witnesses and physical evidence accounted for, everyone is happy." "No... that's wrong!" Lin Sheng shook his head violently, gritting his teeth. "That is private gain! We clearly failed to resolve the problem, yet we pretend to have done so. In acting like this, where is the public good?" "A good question." Chen Haoyan nodded. "Why do you think we took such pains, made such loud claims, and mobilized with great fanfare to come out here and suppress the rebels?" To such a simple question, Lin Sheng replied almost without thinking, "The White Lotus rebels bring harm to the countryside. What we do is naturally to protect our territory and secure the people." "You are wrong. Dead wrong!" Chen Haoyan sneered. "We have the White Lotus Sect here, and the neighboring county has the Luosheng Sect. In this world, there is no end to the rebels you can kill." "Then..." Lin Sheng was bewildered. If suppressing rebels wasn't to protect territory and secure the people, then what was it for? The next second, Chen Haoyan gave the answer: "It is to make the prominent clans and scholars of the county seat—to make everyone believe we are protecting the territory and securing the people." "Only then will they contribute money to support us." "Only when they pay will the county magistrate have funds. When the magistrate has funds, we receive our bounty silver and can lead comfortable lives without having to starve." "If they believe it, the county seat remains stable." "When the county seat is stable, the realm will not fall into chaos." "That is the public good." "Therefore, what we are doing today compromises neither the public good nor our private interests. As for the rest, as the saying goes, one need not be bound by trivial details; minor matters are unworthy of concern." "A... minor matter?" Upon hearing this, a tremendous sense of absurdity flooded Lin Sheng's heart. He looked around, only to see the surrounding constables all keeping silent. "Slaughtering innocent civilians to claim bounties, massacring rustic villagers outside town... human life is of paramount importance! Can even this be called a minor matter?" "You seem to be mistaken about one thing." Chen Haoyan's voice drifted over, carrying a chilling indifference that terrified Lin Sheng: "Human life is of paramount importance only when it refers to those living inside the county walls—the prominent clans, the scholars. As for the common folk out in the countryside... do they even count as human?" With that, Chen Haoyan swept his sleeves and turned to leave. Before walking away, he did not forget to cast a glance over the corpses covering the ground. His gaze lingered for a moment on one of them, and he shook his head privately: 'A pity about this one.' This raid on the White Lotus Sect had actually been a rushed affair. The reason was simple: after meeting with Wang Ping, Chen Haoyan had turned back to gather men for an ambush at He Village—only to discover that word had leaked. Yet his men had already been mobilized. If he did nothing and abandoned the original plan, the only outcome would be the undercover agent being exposed and murdered while the White Lotus Sect made fools of the county yamen. Once that news spread, as the chief constable, he would inevitably have to bear full responsibility, and the magistrate would very likely deem him incompetent afterward. Good grief, that would ruin his official prospects! Therefore, in the end, Chen Haoyan devised a makeshift solution. Though he lacked the ability to wipe out the White Lotus Sect, he had plenty of skill when it came to slaughtering innocents to claim merit. Immense skill, in fact. As for that undercover agent... merely one of the common folk born in the countryside. His life was cheaper than dust. If he was dead, so be it; there was no need to take it to heart. It wasn't as if he could come back to life and seek revenge anyway. ............ Wang Ping opened his eyes once more. "...Huh?" The drastic change in scenery was more than he could process for the moment; his brain couldn't keep up with the shifting images fed by his vision. This time, what met his eyes was boundless darkness, and a towering dais standing amidst the gloom. Resting atop the dais was a closed book, so colossal it resembled an imposing palace hall. Wang Ping, who had thought himself dead for sure, was left entirely stunned, unable to collect his senses for a long time. "Where is this?" Wang Ping looked around in bewilderment. Right then, the imposing book before him suddenly swung open. The crisp rustle of flipping pages echoed endlessly before settling upon a single page. Classic of Great Peace Volume One: Fiend from Beyond An existence from beyond the heavens, wandering the nether realm yet possessing no ghostly body; the sole anomaly between heaven and earth, defying all expectations. Grants one resurrection after death, requiring a seven-day cooldown after revival. Upon resurrection, one may randomly enter a new world or enter a world previously visited. Furthermore, within specific worlds, expending destiny upon rebirth can secure a new identity; the more destiny consumed, the higher the status of the identity obtained. "...I see." Twenty years since his transmigration, and only now, when everything had come crashing down... Wang Ping slapped himself hard across the cheek. Feeling the sting, he confirmed it wasn't an illusion. Staring at the monumental tome before him, he had only one sentence to utter: "Dad! What took you so long?!"