Shanyue Turmoil

Eastern Shanyue. Mu Jiaoman lay upon his couch. Scorching breaths surged in his mouth, and his heart convulsed with griping pain, leaving his throat parched, his tongue dry, and speech impossible. "Great King! Great King!" Surrounding wives and concubines wailed and wept, their shrill clamor agitating him to no end. He gritted his teeth, pouring all his strength into a roar: "Shut up!" Yet the sound was as faint as a mutter. Not a single person noticed him; they all continued their selfish weeping and squalling. His heart turned bleak and desolate. Eastern Shanyue under his rule could hardly be called prosperous with a thriving populace, but it was far better than the chaotic times of the past. The territory of Eastern Shanyue had been expanding continuously, with Shanyue settlements pledging allegiance from time to time. Mu Jiaoman knew Li Tongya was cautious. By feigning that he had Mount Wu backing him, he had deterred Li Tongya from crossing the border to invade. At the same time, he compromised to seek survival, opening trade routes and letting the Li family exchange novel luxury goods for mountain-loads of grain and materials from the Shanyue nobility. In essence, he had used hundreds of thousands of Shanyue as labor to sustain those slightly over one hundred thousand lowlanders, thus buying a glimmer of life. Just when everything was full of vigor and heading toward better times, a monster wolf broke into the settlement. Mysteriously and silently, this stage-six Qi Refinement monster had traversed hundreds of li of mountains and rivers, descending upon the foot of his city walls. Mu Jiaoman had no choice but to take the field. Eastern Shanyue had developed over the years and gained two or three Qi Refinement cultivators of its own. Though they had only ingested impure qi and could never compare to proper immortal cultivators, they were still counted as combat strength. Unfortunately, they were stationed along the western frontline and could not rush back in time. He had thought to hold out for a while and wait for reinforcements, never expecting the beast to possess multiple innate spells that beat him into steady retreat. Left with no choice, he gritted his teeth and sacrificed his vital blood, calling upon Mount Wu according to ancient witchcraft. "How could there be no response whatsoever..." Mu Jiaoman's mind went blank, his heart falling into dead silence. The keen instincts honed over all these years told him of a monumental truth. "Something has happened to Mount Wu. This monster is definitely a stone thrown by some immortal cultivator to test the path..." Having burned away his own lifespan with witchcraft, Mu Jiaoman had finally driven the beast off. Returning to lie upon his ornate jade bed, he knew his end was near. "Out of the way, all of you!" The crying and sniffling concubines were cut short by an angry roar. A burly Shanyue man covered in talismans rushed anxiously into the hall, the animal bones and jade stones upon him clattering. Summoning his strength, Mu Jiaoman murmured: "You..." "This old slave came too late!" The burly man wept. Yet Mu Jiaoman suddenly rallied, gripping his hand tightly, and murmured: "Pass my tribal seat to Young Master Qimu. As for the rest of my children... slaughter them all! By no means leave any alive." "Yes..." "Remember it well!" Tears streaming down his face, Mu Jiaoman gritted his teeth and emphasized: "The remaining children must be slaughtered clean... Under no circumstances must they fall into the Li family's control. My Shanyue clan endures in silence; we have never submitted to them! Do you understand?! Do you understand?!" The burly man raised his head. Before the tears in his eyes could fall, Mu Jiaoman's grip went slack. With a thud, his head knocked against the jade bed, his breath having ceased. Wiping away his tears, the burly Shanyue man wailed in grief: "Great King!... He has gone to see the Great King!" Bells rang out loudly across the city. Shanyue soldiers darted through the streets as cries of slaughter and shrieks erupted everywhere. Those high-and-mighty sons of yesterday were dragged out one after another, their heads cleanly lopped off. Yet a gray-black ox cart had already slipped out of the city. After traveling along the rugged Guli Road for a stretch, several figures scrambled off the cart and plunged into the woods to the east. "The old dog truly favored that Qimu. Fortunately, we had informants in the palace, so we weren't slaughtered like pigs and dogs by him!" "My lord, what do we do now?" The few behind him were clearly guards or advisors, following close behind the leading man. When someone asked, he replied: "I hear Aunt is a consort among the Eastlanders. Our only option now is to flee east and throw ourselves upon Aunt's mercy!" Consulting the starry sky to find their bearings, the group plunged headlong into the dense, boundless jungle and vanished from sight. *** Inside his cave dwelling, Li Tongya read the *Moon Crescent Sword Scripture*, silently gesturing with his hands. From time to time, he voiced praise, murmuring in a low voice: "Brilliant! Utterly brilliant to the peak!" Back when Li Chijing had returned home and penned down the Lunar Crescent Sword Arc, Li Tongya had been a complete novice who had only just stepped into the sword dao. He had never sensed how profound and exquisite Li Chijing's sword method was. Later, as his cultivation grew year by year, grounded in the Lunar Crescent Sword Arc personally explained by Li Chijing and aided by his own respectable talent for the sword dao, his sword cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. He soon comprehended sword qi and finally came to understand just how deep his younger brother's grasp of the sword was. The *Moon Crescent Sword Scripture* explained profound mysteries in simple, lucid terms. Over the past few months, Li Tongya's previously sluggish progress in the sword dao had advanced by leaps and bounds. Many questions that had confounded him before suddenly became crystal clear. Estimating the time, he would likely have the chance to comprehend the sword dao's next realm, sword origin, in under ten years. The Lunar Crescent Sword Arc was merely the opening stance of this scripture. Within it were dozens of exquisite combos and variations, leaving Li Tongya dazzled and full of praise. As he was still gesturing with his hand, he heard a rap on the stone door—*tap, tap*. "Who is it?" Li Tongya looked up and asked, only to hear his son Li Xuanling's voice respectfully reply: "Father, someone has arrived from the Xiao family. He is a Qi Refinement cultivator, so I fear we must entertain him properly." "I understand." Li Tongya pondered for a few breaths, then rose and exited the cave dwelling. Li Xuanling was waiting before the door and let out a soft sigh of relief at the sight of him. Li Xuanling was indeed in a difficult position. The gap in status between the Qi Refinement and Embryonic Breathing realms was vast, and the Xiao family had shown kindness to the Li family. If they did not send a Qi Refinement cultivator to receive him, it would inevitably seem slighting and lacking in propriety. Li Xuanfeng had long since entered secluded death-seclusion; Li Xuanxuan was at a critical juncture in breaking through to Qi Refinement, and no one dared disturb him; Chen Donghe had Qi Refinement cultivation, but he was not someone who could make family decisions. Looking around, only Li Tongya was not in secluded cultivation, so Xuanling had come up the mountain to invite him. Li Tongya stowed away the *Moon Crescent Sword Scripture*, left his cave dwelling, and accompanied Li Xuanling to the main courtyard on Mount Lijing. There, he saw a young man looking about twenty-five or twenty-six looking up at him. Dressed in robes that drifted with an ethereal, transcendent air, he had an outstanding appearance. At the sight of Li Tongya, he was visibly startled, hurriedly rising to cup his hands: "Xiao Ruyu of the Xiao family greets Senior!" Xiao Ruyu had originally expected Li Xuanfeng to meet him. He had not anticipated the Li family would place such importance on him, with Li Tongya personally coming out to welcome him. He felt both pleasantly surprised and somewhat apprehensive. *Senior Li Tongya is of the same generation as my clan uncle Xiao Yongling, and one of the most outstanding cultivators of this generation along Guli Road...* After a moment's thought, Xiao Ruyu smiled and said: "Ruyu has heard my clan uncle speak of Senior more than once, always with high praise. Ruyu has long admired you, and today I have finally met you." Li Tongya offered a warm smile. Seeing that the young man knew when to advance and retreat and possessed an extraordinary bearing, he felt favorable toward him and said softly: "I have also heard Xuanfeng mention you. To accompany him deep into peril shows you are indeed a man of courage!" "Senior overpraises me." After trading pleasantries, Xiao Ruyu dared not delay and said respectfully: "Ruyu came for two important matters. First, nine out of ten households in the commandery lie empty, making it necessary to relocate people from various regions. Among all the families, the Li family boasts the most abundant population. The Xiao family is willing to pay a certain price..." "What does that matter?" Li Tongya smiled and said gently: "Our Li family can provide your noble clan with around a thousand male and female laborers each year. The Xiao family need not speak of any payment. Given the relationship between our two families, why stand on ceremony?" The Li family lacked many things right now, but population was not one of them. The refugees fleeing from Shanyue every year posed a dilemma for the family: settling them locally risked having too large a Shanyue population stirring up trouble and influencing the Li family with Shanyue customs, while sending them back would be a great waste, given that they represented substantial manpower. In the seven-plus years since the Li family took over Mount Huaqian, the population there had grown from five thousand to twenty thousand. Combined with the nearly one hundred thousand people in the Li family's home territory, the Li family had nearly as many people as half a commandery seat. Had it not been for the hundreds of thousands of Shanyue in the west sustaining them, managing it would have been quite difficult indeed.