Xu Yuan was not lying.
Before the New Year, during the core secret conclave held after the Grand Banquet of the Prime Minister's Manor, Lou Ji and the other high-ranking officials had submitted a formal proposal to Xu Yinhe regarding how to deal with the remnants of the underground palace.
As a sprawling power spanning the entirety of Great Yan, this was hardly the first time the Chancellor's Manor had dealt with such matters. In the course of its aggressive expansion, the manor had subdued many tribes similar to the crypt remnants.
The smaller ones numbered a mere few thousand, while the larger ones reached millions. Yet even for populations in the millions, not a single one of their contingency plans had ever warranted deliberation in the Prime Minister's Manor's core secret conclave; an informal audience was enough to seal their fate on the spot.
The underground palace remnants, however, were a people deemed worthy of entering the core conclave.
Furthermore, the manor's leadership—who usually clashed over almost everything—showed an astonishing unanimity on this matter.
Divide and assimilate.
Both hawks and doves stood united on this approach.
It was the very first time the various factions within the Prime Minister's Manor had ever formed a united front.
Because this group of underground palace remnants was simply too special—so special that it instilled deep unease, and even dread, in these senior officials.
Yet what they feared was not the crypt remnants' overall martial prowess, but rather their terrifyingly high proportion of potential cultivators.
Throughout the long river of time, cultivators had never ceased their exploration of cultivation constitutions, yet no one had ever arrived at a definitive answer—only practical experience handed down through generations.
A constitution capable of cultivation was random. While it could be gradually stabilized through generations of selective breeding between cultivators, doing so required vast spans of time.
Local clans entrenched in counties and prefectures for hundreds of years bred like stud horses with every generation, yet many of their offspring were still mere mortals. A large reason they managed to endure was their adaptability—using political marriages to win over external cultivators.
Only the descendants of great clans that had endured for over a millennium possessed a rudimentary "certainty," and even then, it was only rudimentary.
Moreover,
the direct bloodlines of such clans numbered at most several hundred to a thousand.
Yet the underground palace remnants had four hundred thousand.
It was an unprecedented and chilling number.
Within the Silent Crypt, the remnants' population had been constrained by the scarcity of food and by the desperate plight of being surrounded by aberrant ghosts, barely managing to sustain a population of four hundred thousand.
Once those constraints were removed, according to their customs, the population of this people would balloon rapidly in a short span of time. Furthermore, the inertia of surviving ten thousand years in a deadly wasteland made them monolithic and utterly fearless of death.
This had caused the Prime Minister's Manor's leadership to keenly perceive a crisis.
As a power rivaling an entire state, the manor's leaders had to look beyond the present and foresee the landscape decades into the future.
If they allowed this intensely xenophobic, religious people the opportunity to grow, they would become an enormous threat to the leadership, to the future of the Prime Minister's Manor, and even to the whole of Great Yan.
Therefore,
dividing and assimilating this people was the only option that served everyone's interests.
Xu Yuan hoped Xiao Bai would realize this, for the remnants of the underground palace were already teetering on the edge of a cliff.
His father had used the absolute prestige built over decades to suppress the dissenting voices below, placing the final choice into Xu Yuan's hands.
If Bai Muxi could not understand this—or understood it but feigned ignorance to test his bottom line—her people would be systematically dismantled over the coming months and thoroughly relegated to history within a few decades.
And soon, Bai Muxi gave Xu Yuan her response.
Her voice was very soft:
"...I hope Young Master can treat Muxi's people kindly."
"..."
Hearing this, Xu Yuan's brow did not relax; if anything, his frown deepened.
This answer could be considered surrender, but he was not satisfied.
With a soft scoff, Xu Yuan asked quietly:
"Treat them kindly... How do you want me to treat them kindly?"
Bai Muxi's eyes flickered, and she blinked, but before she could speak, Xu Yuan's voice sounded again:
"I don't know what you are really thinking, but let me remind you: this is my final question. How your people are dealt with will depend entirely on this answer."
"..."
After his words fell, silence descended upon the wide, magnificent staircase.
A sliver of panic began to spread through Bai Muxi's heart.
Upon arriving in Great Yan and traveling those thousands of li, everything she saw and heard confirmed that her people were extraordinary. Given enough time, they could carve out a place of their own in this new surface world.
Yet alongside that realization came a lingering, indelible anxiety.
She had tested the waters, and the outcome left her feeling a despairing powerlessness.
The leaders of the Prime Minister's Manor were far more decisive than she had imagined.
In the silence, Bai Muxi slowly bowed and knelt onto the cold steps, lowering her gaze to stare at the tips of the man's boots before her, whispering:
"Muxi... wishes to remain only Young Master's maidservant for the rest of her days."
At these words, Xu Yuan's expression did not change in the slightest:
"Don't speak in riddles. Make it plain."
Bai Muxi took a deep breath, her lips pursing slightly beneath the sheer purple veil:
"After today, there will no longer be a Chief Arbiter of the Seven Cities in this world—only the maidservant Bai Muxi by Young Master's side."
"In other words, you will never contact the people of the underground palace again for the rest of your life, correct?"
"Yes." Bai Muxi bowed her head.
"A wise choice."
Xu Yuan raised a hand and gently rested it upon the hair of the woman before him, his voice faint and low: "I am pleased with this answer. But what about the other two high-ranking divine officials from your crypt?"
Bai Muxi did not hesitate in the slightest:
"Young Master may deploy them as you see fit in my name, or strike them down directly."
Xu Yuan smiled at that. He leaned down slowly, pulled the woman up from the ground, and said softly:
"Xiao Bai... A woman as clever as you must have understood the stakes long ago. Why did you have to push things this far with me?"
The gentle breeze fluttered her veil. Bai Muxi looked into his narrow, elongated eyes from inches away and murmured:
"I was merely... clinging to hope."
"Was it truly just wishful thinking? Today we have laid everything out in the open, and the knot between us seems to have been untied. Whatever your purpose is, you might as well speak plainly."
Xu Yuan also looked into her bright, luminous eyes, not believing a word from this crafty green tea schemer's mouth.
He understood her reasons for testing him, but probing in this manner risked crossing his—and the Prime Minister's Manor's—bottom line. If she had left herself no way out, that would have been sheer stupidity.
For her to bring this up now meant Xiao Bai had something she truly wanted.
"..."
After locking eyes for several breaths, Bai Muxi suddenly looked away and took a step back. Pursing her lips, she spoke in a voice as faint as a mosquito's hum:
"Young Master, according to the customs of the crypt, every Chief Arbiter bears the duty of renewing the heavens. Though Muxi has severed ties with the underground palace, I still hope Young Master will permit Muxi to fulfill this obligation—as a ritual to cleanly part with my years in the crypt..."
"Speak human."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Please favor me with your intimacy, Young Master, and grant Muxi an heir."
"..." Xu Yuan.
After a heartbeat of silence, Xiao Bai, clad in her loose, plain garments, bowed low in salute.
Her soft, slender body tilted forward slightly, her chest swelling as though straining to spill from her bodice.
That exquisite curve of her posture allowed the pale purple silk to trace the alluring contour of her waist and hips...
Chapter 540