"This isn't any different from other countries." He Lingchuan was exceedingly curious about the Beijia Kingdom's system. "Lingxu City can actually tolerate regional warfare within the demon kingdom?"
In his impression, what country wouldn't be desperate to quell rebellions?
"I grew up in the Green Wilds. Every few years, wildfires sweep through the forests and plains there, blazing across the hills and ravines, devastating all living things. In the aftermath of the blaze, you can barely find a living creature." Fu Shanyue smiled. "Yet barely half a year later, the land is lush and green once more. New grasses and saplings flourish with vibrant life, and all the decaying detritus has been swept clean."
"Such is the Heavenly Dao; shouldn't human affairs renew themselves in the same way? Beijia has stood for a very long time, and this philosophy took deep root in the hearts of its people long ago."
He Lingchuan did not reply.
Fu Shanyue's argument only sounded poetic. Leaving rebellions unchecked? Any kingdom daring enough to play such a game would likely bring about its own downfall.
Events often developed in unpredictable ways; various nations strove for peace and stability because of lessons paid for in blood.
Yet Beijia was an exception.
Why?
Simply because they had surrendered to the gods?
Fu Shanyue took the wooden bottle. "So it's a wood-transforming venom. Thank you for telling me."
Now that he knew what this thing was, he already had a plan in mind.
He Lingchuan asked him, "The Wind Demon you released—that wasn't the one subdued by the Jeweled Tree King, was it?"
"No." Fu Shanyue stood up and stretched lazily. "A thousand years ago, the Piaomiao Sect's Fengbo split off a smaller one. So they actually possessed two mountain-guarding divine beasts, one large and one small; the world simply never knew."
Whether dealing with cats or tigers, telling male from female or old from young by outward appearance alone was difficult enough, let alone for Fengbo, which spent most of its time formless and invisible.
"The one the Jeweled Tree King subdued was the large one, while the small Fengbo hid inside a Wind Lion Lord at the time and went undetected. Later, someone picked up that Wind Lion Lord and took it to the market down the mountain to sell. After changing hands multiple times, the small Fengbo ended up with me."
He Lingchuan didn't bother asking why the official road at Black Stone Stockade had suddenly suffered a landslide; the reason was all too obvious.
"As for why the Jeweled Tree King defeated the Piaomiao Sect, he simply took a fancy to their territory and wanted to carve out a road there to connect north and south. The Piaomiao Sect refused to relocate, so their sect was annihilated."
"In the past, rare medicinal herbs like snow lotus and topaz ginseng grew on the Gale Tundra because Fengbo loved roaming the plains, thereby bringing up unique nutrients from deep underground. Commoners could harvest them at will, free from worry about food and drink. After the Jeweled Tree King destroyed Fengbo, the Meridian Divine Winds that came later had no sentience and no longer descended upon the tundra. From then on, these spirit herbs vanished from the plains, growing only on sheer mountain peaks." Fu Shanyue gave a mocking sneer. "How ridiculous that the common folk of the tundra believed the Jeweled Tree King's words and cheered the destruction of Fengbo and the Piaomiao Sect, never realizing that it was precisely what severed their livelihoods."
He looked at He Lingchuan. "You're not a bad sort. How about following me to build a grand enterprise? Attaining high office and winning noble titles and privileges for your wife and children down the road would naturally follow."
Fu Shanyue actually wanted to recruit him? He Lingchuan smiled. "I'm used to doing as I please."
Fu Shanyue assumed he merely aimed higher: "Lingxu City may be fine, but deep-seated rot has accumulated there for more than six hundred years. Factions are hopelessly tangled, and countless talents have met disaster and ruin there. You might not necessarily find a path to rise through the ranks."
"I'll consider it." He Lingchuan held out a hand toward him, crooking his fingers to signal him to hand over the goods. "Keep in touch. After all, once I reach Lingxu City, I'll be staying in your mansion."
Fu Shanyue laughed. Only then did he fish out the property deed, keys, and a token, handing them over. "There's a steward there. Just show him the token."
"You've missed out on a prime opportunity to make a name for yourself. Ah well, let's just be friends for now." He cupped his fists to He Lingchuan in salute. "Until we meet again."
He Lingchuan returned the salute, watching as the man stored his subordinate's remains in his storage space, leapt through the hole in the wall, and vanished in a few bounds.
Wait, wasn't that heading toward the inn's kitchen?
Fu Shanyue caught a plump rat in the inn's kitchen, forced some of the venom down its throat, and carried it elsewhere to observe the effects.
Roughly five shichen later, the rat finally turned into a wooden carving.
Fu Shanyue carefully noted every step of its transformation.
By then, daylight had long arrived. He made inquiries around Tong City and found an inconspicuous little shop in the northwest corner.
The shop was a two-story building—goods were sold in front, a workshop sat in the middle, and the living quarters were upstairs.
The craftsman-shopkeeper was a man in his early forties, his temples already graying and the joints of his hands thick and knobby.
The neighboring shop sold sundries and was always stacking wares in front of his door, encroaching on his storefront. The craftsman kicked the baskets back into the neighbor's shop, engaged in a loud squabble, and only then strode back with his head held high.
Just then, Fu Shanyue approached and got straight to the point. "I hear you're the best woodcarver in western Tong City?"
"Western?" The shopkeeper glared. "I'm the best in all of Tong City."
"Carve something for me. Do it well, and you will be richly rewarded." Fu Shanyue reached toward his waist out of habit before remembering that all his large silver notes had gone to He Lingchuan. He had only two small bits of loose silver on him, not even enough to cover the labor fee.
*Sigh, when have I ever been so strapped for cash?*
He had no choice but to pull off the jade thumb ring from his hand. "Let this cover your fee."
"Black jade banded with green?" The shopkeeper had a discerning eye. Holding it up to the light, he saw that while the jade appeared pitch-black, tilted at an angle it caught an oily sheen of rich emerald. "Now this is valuable. What do you want carved?"
Fu Shanyue looked left and right. Understanding immediately, the craftsman led him into the workshop in back.
Only then did Fu Shanyue draw the wooden statue of Fu Ji from his storage ring and set it on the floor.
The craftsman started when a life-sized wooden carving suddenly appeared before him. Slipping on a magnifying headband, he leaned down to inspect it closely and couldn't help letting out a gasp. "This craftsmanship is miraculous—it doesn't look carved by human hands at all!" There was not the slightest trace of chiseling or whittling.
*Quite right,* Fu Shanyue thought with a faint smile. "I need you to alter it."
"Alter something that's already at this level?" Still, the craftsman was bewildered—why carve someone in such utter agony?
The craftsmanship was exquisite, yet what emanated from the carving was not beauty, but pure torment.
Moreover, this wooden carving was dressed in actual clothes. Truly bizarre.
"Change his face to mine."
The craftsman didn't catch it at first. "Eh?"
Fu Shanyue leaned against the statue; their builds were fairly similar. "Can you do it?"
"Er..." This request was even more bizarre than the statue itself. As the craftsman hesitated, Fu Shanyue extended a finger and tapped down sharply on the workbench. With a dull thunk, a hole was punched straight through the wood.
The motion was like a mantis shrimp striking—so fast the naked eye could barely track it.
Fu Shanyue asked once more, "Can you do it?"
The craftsman's workbench was made of black ironwood, a timber of astonishing hardness; he had ruined numerous tools just building this table back then. Was this man's hand tougher than a chisel?
Only then did the sharp claw at Fu Shanyue's fingertip slowly retract.
A shudder ran through the craftsman. After scrutinizing and comparing the face shape and facial features between Fu Shanyue and the wooden statue, he nodded repeatedly. "Y-yes, I can! When do you need it?"
Fu Shanyue dragged over a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs. "I'll wait right here. Take your time carving, but make sure it looks identical to me."
...
The following day, Fu Shanyue returned to the inn.
Fu Jiu came up to greet him. "Young Master, did your outing go smoothly?"
"Mm." Fu Shanyue told him to fetch water.
"Huh? Where is Fu Ji?"
"Out buying things for me." After washing his face, Fu Shanyue had a bit of wine and idled around until afternoon before saying, "Assign men to stand guard for me."
Once everything was ready, right in front of Fu Jiu, he raised the wooden bottle and drank it dry in a single gulp, then tossed the bottle into the corner. "Tastes awful. Get out."
Fu Jiu hurriedly picked up the bottle. Before leaving, he saw Fu Shanyue close his eyes and sit upright in meditation.
Pulling the door shut behind him, Fu Jiu sniffed the bottle and caught a whiff of sweet fragrance.
Roughly one shichen later, he heard faint groans coming from inside the room, laced with agony. Fu Jiu turned on his heel and instructed two attendants, "Keep close watch. I'll be back shortly."
He said he would be back shortly, but in truth, he slipped out of the inn in a flash, headed into the nearby market, and bought foul fish and rotten shrimp to smear all over himself.
Once he had coated himself thoroughly, reeking of rank fishiness, he crept into the alley across from the inn and lay in wait in the shadows.
About a quarter of an hour later, chaos suddenly erupted in the inn. Cries of alarm, pounding footsteps, and shrill screams echoed ceaselessly.
Before the city bailiffs could arrive, a shadow burst out of the inn, circled about the market as if disoriented, and then wheeled around to bolt toward the city outskirts.
That figure was Fu Shanyue.
He had realized something was amiss while refining the "spirit medicine" and pieced together the crucial truth, charging out to settle scores with the culprit.
Yet the scent broke off behind the market. The air reeked everywhere of fish, and with fury consuming his mind and his head spinning, he couldn't distinguish scents properly.
By now, Fu Shanyue's limbs had grown stiff, making his running posture awkward. Tong City's residents were accustomed to seeing all kinds of demons and merely gave sidelong glances at his strange behavior.
Clutching his belly, Fu Shanyue abruptly pivoted and sprinted out of the city.
Even after ingesting something he shouldn't have, he moved with startling speed, so fast his pursuer could barely keep up.
Once outside the walls, he dashed due west into the mountain forests and never emerged.
Two shichen later, Fu Jiu arrived leading the other guards. "Search the mountain! A passerby said the Young Master rushed into this mountain range!"
The search continued until dusk.
At last, a guard found an upturned wooden statue lying face-up in a ravine. Scrutinizing the features, it was none other than Fu Shanyue!
Everyone was utterly bewildered. One of the guards swallowed hard and stammered, "W-what does this mean?"
The wooden statue's face was twisted in agony, its expression contorted, but the features were unmistakably Fu Shanyue's.
The Young Master had come this way earlier, yet after scouring the place, they couldn't find him—only this wooden statue that looked identical to him.
Could this be the Young Master?
"What are you thinking!" Fu Jiu snapped with a dark face. "Of course this isn't the Young Master! Keep searching!"
The men searched from nightfall until the following afternoon, turning up nothing, of course.
Fu Jiu sullenly called off the search.
That night, however, he slipped away from the inn in secret and rode east on horseback for fifteen or sixteen li, arriving at a small town.
With only six or seven hundred residents, the settlement was called Tianhe Town, populated mostly by tenant farmers and hired laborers.
Fu Jiu walked up to one of the houses and knocked softly on the door: two short raps, three long.
As he approached, a neighbor opened their door, eyed him twice, and shrank back inside without a word.
Chapter 405