Chen Chuan walked back, having realized that even at this stage, the anomaly was not truly eradicated.
Even now, two faint traces of an anomalous aura remained concealed beneath this temple.
If he were to just turn around and leave right now, after being nurtured for some time, this thing could crop up once more.
Of course, with the Great Impact approaching soon, no one knew what changes would occur, but it might even transform into an even more formidable anomaly.
Leaving it here unchecked would unquestionably be a looming danger.
The auras were located directly beneath the floor of the Fish King Temple. As his gaze fell upon the spot, the ground heaved and churned, and two objects resembling stone beads flew out.
Chen Chuan looked at them and realized they were two fish eyes. Though the aura clinging to them was weak, it seemed to stem from another source.
He pondered for a moment, and a sudden thought struck him. Spurred by his mental will, the two fish eyes dropped back into the eye sockets of the fish skeleton.
The moment they fell into place, as if completing a ritual, the entire Fish King Temple shuddered with a deep rumble, and the last vestiges of tangled anomalous qi upon it finally dissipated.
Deprived of energy to sustain them, the two fish eyes clattered to the floor, one of them rolling right up to Chen Chuan's feet.
With a sharp crack, it fractured, exposing the corner of something yellow inside.
When Chen Chuan saw this, he drew it through the air into his hand and found that it was a silk slip inscribed with words:
"Peering into Chiqiu, claiming the realm's destiny, gathering divine qi, amassing auspicious fortune. Having broken my arrangement, claim it for yourself. Left by Sanjian Sanren."
"Sanren" was an alternate term for mystics who did not belong to the orthodox Xuan Cult.
Turning the silk slip over, there was a date recorded on the back. Calculating it, it had actually been buried back during the Feng Dynasty, some seven or eight hundred years ago—precisely the era when the Chan Cult was expelled and the Xuan Cult underwent a revival.
He mused in silence. Though there weren't many words, when referenced against the context of Xuan Cult texts, the meaning they conveyed was remarkably rich.
Judging from the contents, this Sanjian Sanren had likely set up an arrangement here amid the chaos of the realm back then in order to nurture something.
If his deduction was correct, this person had managed to open a fissure and draw power from it, likely connected to the immortality fissure toward Chiqiu, while this anomaly was merely a byproduct meant to sustain the arrangement.
From the pattern of the anomaly's manifestations, every emergence occurred at the intersection between the Period of Fluctuation and the Period of Cold Silence, utilizing the anomaly to maintain its existence—like turning stagnant water into running water so that the ritual would not fall dormant.
Entering the current protracted Period of Fluctuation, these anomalies should not have appeared again, because the fissure was active and possessed sufficient energy to sustain the ritual.
Yet that figure could never have anticipated that the present world would feature the Ring of the World, which absorbed almost every fissure as soon as it opened.
Thus, even during the Period of Fluctuation, there was not enough energy to maintain it, creating a disguised Period of Cold Silence. An anomaly should have manifested under such conditions, yet because the mountain had suffered artificial damage, it was unable to emerge.
Later, however, someone came here to construct recreational facilities, inadvertently reconnecting and triggering the ritual. One could say that a cascade of coincidences had led to everything today.
Those two fish eyes were likely the lynchpin of the ritual. So long as they remained pinned beneath the floor, the ritual continued; restoring them to the fish skeleton signaled that the ritual had reached its conclusion.
Chen Chuan hadn't known this beforehand, but upon seeing them, his prior experience suggested this course of action, and it seemed he had indeed been right.
With this, the anomaly was truly resolved and would never appear again.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved that section of vertebra. Originally, it had been as thick as a ring finger and around three inches long, but now it had shrunk to the size of a finger joint—lustrous, pure white, and harboring an inner reservoir of power.
A look of surprise flickered in his eyes. A relic?
And a rare Grade 1 relic at that—its grade perhaps even surpassing ordinary Grade 1 relics.
From the look of things, this ritual had existed solely to nurture this relic. Several centuries had likely been spent absorbing a certain type of energy from the immortality fissure to induce a transformation in the relic.
Yet perhaps because it had been retrieved prematurely, or due to various unforeseen variables along the way, the relic had not attained an even higher grade.
From the latter part of the silk slip—"Having broken my arrangement, claim it for yourself"—Chen Chuan felt as though across time and space he had encountered an adversary with an intensely competitive spirit, someone who accepted defeat willingly and gifted his treasure away.
He searched his memory, but in all the Xuan Cult texts he had read, he had never come across this person's title, leaving him in the dark about who this individual truly was.
Regardless, it was an unexpected gain. He happened to be lacking items of this nature anyway, so there was no need to stand on ceremony. He clasped the item and put it back into his pocket. This time, he lingered no further and headed straight down the mountain.
Zhan Jiyue was still waiting by the vehicle. Seeing him appear, he came forward. "Commissioner Chen, how did it go?"
Chen Chuan nodded to him. "It's taken care of. There won't be any more anomalies here."
A faint smile appeared on Zhan Jiyue's face. "Then can we leave?"
Chen Chuan nodded. "Let's head back."
"Alright!"
The two returned to the car. The engine started, and the vehicle drove out along the mountain road, leaving Mount Jie far behind.
Upon returning to the Ministry of Security, Chen Chuan submitted a report stating that the anomaly had been resolved and that the traffic lockdown could now be lifted.
Naturally, the Ministry still needed to verify it, but those follow-up matters were not his concern.
With this matter settled, he had some free time for the moment. Ignoring the debates still raging in the outside world, he immersed himself in his cultivation.
Time quickly moved to November 20. On that day, he received a message from Qi Weizhao asking to meet, with the location set at Yuhai Jinchi.
Anticipating that something significant was afoot, Chen Chuan arrived at the agreed-upon location at the appointed time. To his surprise, Qi Weizhao was not the only one there; two others accompanied him. One was a solidly built middle-aged man with thick, bushy eyebrows who gave off an impression of utter reliability.
The other was someone even more familiar, standing with hands shoved into his pockets and a slightly lazy smile on his face.
Chen Chuan was slightly surprised. "Teacher Xue?"
Xue Shou chuckled and said, "Trainee Chen—or rather, Commissioner Chen now. I expected you'd come to Zhongjing, but I didn't think it would be this soon."
Chen Chuan smiled faintly, stepped forward, and shook hands with Qi Weizhao, exchanging greetings. The latter then introduced the man beside him. "This is Secretary Sun Yangde, Senior Secretary of the National Defense Headquarters."
Secretary Sun stepped forward with a smile and shook Chen Chuan's hand. "Commissioner Chen, I have long heard of your renowned name."
A thought crossed Chen Chuan's mind: anyone entitled "Senior Secretary" in the Defense Department most likely served the Minister or a Vice Minister. Out in public, such a person typically represented the figure behind them.
It seemed the matter they wanted to discuss today was anything but simple.
At Qi Weizhao's invitation, Chen Chuan boarded a pleasure boat with them, which set off into the deeper waters of Yuhai Jinchi.
The scenery here went without saying; since antiquity, it had been a private pleasure lake of the imperial house. Today, the landscape was in its prime and the temperature pleasant. Lush flowering trees lined the shore, the water was emerald and clear, and a gentle breeze brought faint whiffs of floral fragrance.
The four admired the scenery for a while before an attendant came forward, poured them tea, withdrew, and pulled the cabin door shut.
Qi Weizhao said with a smile, "Commissioner Chen, we invited you here today to discuss several matters. First, allow me to share some good news: in two hours, at eleven o'clock noon, the central city of Hedong Dao will announce that it is joining the Skyline Project."
"Oh?"
Chen Chuan's eyes lit up.
Sun Yangde said with a chuckle, "That things went so smoothly is inseparable from your efforts, Commissioner Chen. In Hedong Dao joining Skyline so seamlessly, we received immense assistance from Mr. Gui Zihan. According to him, he is simply walking the very path you once tread."
"Gui Zihan..."
Chen Chuan was lost in thought. When Gui Zihan had parted ways with him, he had mentioned that he would vigorously push forward the Skyline Project. Now, he had indeed kept his word.
Qi Weizhao tapped his boundary credential, and a light screen descended inside the cabin, projecting a territorial map of Great Shun.
Sun Yangde looked at it and said, "Great Shun comprises one capital and nineteen dao, among which are the five major prefectural dao: Jibei Dao, Jiangnan Dao, Chuanxi Dao, Hedong Dao, and Lingnan Dao.
"Now that Hedong Dao is also incorporated into Skyline, we have sufficient confidence to contend with the rest. As for Chuanxi Dao, we have been actively courting it for a long time, and at present, the likelihood of it joining us is very high.
"If that succeeds, with the advantages brought by Skyline, once resource integration is complete, we will for the first time possess the strength to overpower the Conservative Faction on the local level."
Chen Chuan nodded slightly.
Qi Weizhao said, "The matter of Chuanxi Dao is left to other colleagues to handle. Right now, we face another critical problem."
He magnified the territorial map, isolating Zhongjing and the surrounding region.
"Zhongjing sits in the center of Shannan Dao, Hedong Dao, Longyou Dao, and Anbei Dao. Originally, Shannan and Longyou already accounted for half the perimeter. With Hedong Dao joining, three of the four directions are secured."
As he named each prefectural dao, the corresponding region on the map lit up.
One could see that the illuminated areas already enclosed more than half of Zhongjing in an arc.
"The key next step lies in Anbei Dao. If Anbei Dao also joins Skyline, it will form a contiguous whole with Zhongjing. Commissioner Chen, you can surely imagine what that means."
Chen Chuan looked at the map. If Zhongjing was surrounded on all sides by cities that had joined Skyline, the ramifications would be immense, and the likelihood of Zhongjing joining Skyline would skyrocket. This was undoubtedly the exact outcome the Progressive Faction longed to see.
Sun Yangde said, "So once Hedong Dao joins Skyline, the crux of the conflict will inevitably converge on Anbei Dao. The people of the Conservative Faction will never want to see such an outcome. They will do everything in their power to obstruct it."
Xue Shou spoke up then, chuckling. "We don't want to waste our breath waging political wars of words with them.
"So we've decided to fight a battle in the convergence zone over there—just like in Jibei Dao, settling this through military means."
Chapter 1378