ATEG Chapter 113

As the capital of the Liang Kingdom, Quqiu City may not have been the most prosperous city in Liang, nor the largest, but it was certainly the most stable. Yet recently, even this most stable of cities had been gripped by an atmosphere of profound tension.

The previous Liang King, Xu Chang, had died suddenly. The Crown Prince Xu Kang, said to be gravely ill, had disappeared without a trace, and it was instead the nearly invisible Xu Huan who had ascended to the throne. This new Liang King had not risen through mere fortune — before taking the throne, he had already established his position of real power through the severed heads of nineteen ministers, declaring to the former king’s powerful retainers and old guard that Xu Huan was not, and would never become, a puppet.

And because of the deterrence of those nineteen heads, the atmosphere within Quqiu City was like the moment after a thunderclap, waiting for the downpour to begin.

Ironically, even when the locust plague had swept the land and refugees had been everywhere, they had not been this tense.

Xu Huan turned through the memorials on his desk, his expression cold. Most of them were empty praises and congratulations, with only a scant few that genuinely addressed the state of the Liang Kingdom. He tossed aside yet another memorial written with earnest-sounding yet hollow sincerity, closed his eyes, and slowly exhaled.

He had to give them time. These people had never had dealings with him before, and the nineteen severed heads had terrified them out of their wits. They were now probing carefully to understand his true disposition before any of them would dare truly come forward and be of use to him.

A figure appeared silently in the room.

Dují, still with eyes closed, spoke. “What is it?”

“Sect Master.” The newcomer knelt before him in a full bow and delivered a low, rapid report.

As the Xuanqing Sect’s influence within Liang had grown ever larger, conflicts with the Disciplinary Bureau had inevitably grown as well. However, because of the change in Dují’s public identity, the boundary between their opposition toward the Disciplinary Bureau was exceptionally difficult to calibrate.

“The Disciplinary Bureau.” Dují murmured slowly, his voice carrying a chill.

The Xuanqing Sect’s rise would naturally unsettle them. After all, for seven hundred years, the only thing the Disciplinary Bureau had ever known how to do was balance the various powers within Liang. Besides balance, what else could they do? They could not even do that one thing well — they had allowed Xu Chang to collude with the Luo Sect, kill his own father, and lose Shezhou City.

Since then, the capital of Liang had been stripped of its shield, and for twenty-three years, the Disciplinary Bureau had been unable to reclaim Shezhou City from the Luo Sect. Such a Disciplinary Bureau was nothing but useless.

Yet this useless Disciplinary Bureau was inexorably bound to the national fate of Liang. The people of the Disciplinary Bureau had not sworn their oaths and taken on their prohibitions without purpose — they thereby received the protection of the national fate, and in exchange gained the power, as human envoys, to act even against the king’s command. Unless the Liang King wished to abandon Liang entirely… he could not easily move against the Disciplinary Bureau.

The Xuanqing Sect had merely ridden the momentum of the Great Calamity to dismantle the various large and small powers within Liang and consolidate them under its own hand. The Disciplinary Bureau had entrenched itself within Liang for seven hundred years, yet during the Great Calamity it had only managed to send the situation in Liang spiraling further into chaos.

At first, Dují had wondered whether the Disciplinary Bureau was not truly that incompetent — perhaps their approach of balancing the chaotic powers within Liang without subduing them one by one had been deliberate, and they had simply had one accidental setback with Xu Chang and the Luo Sect. After all, Liang was the only kingdom in the world that shared national fate with people outside the royal family, and if Liang’s internal situation stabilized, the Liang King would no longer need the Disciplinary Bureau.

But watching the Disciplinary Bureau remain so feeble and powerless throughout the Great Calamity, he understood: the Disciplinary Bureau was beyond saving.

However decisive and courageous the forebears who had established the Disciplinary Bureau had been, their descendants had proven just as incompetent. Seven hundred years had passed, and still they had allowed an institution that should have served only a temporary purpose to continue existing to this day.

Dují listened to the long, slow, steady breathing of the person kneeling below him, and let out a soft laugh. “Tolerate them for now — but there is no need to retreat too much. Wait a little longer…”

Wait a little longer. After he had separated the Disciplinary Bureau from the national fate of Liang, he would keep those among them who were of use and dispose of those who were not.

The Xuanqing Sect was the arm he controlled. Liang’s situation was poor now, but its future was promising — this vast stretch of land and the people upon it would become solid, substantial capital for him. As for the Disciplinary Bureau — a power that had grown too large to easily remove, that was feeble and obstructive and still consuming his resources — what reason was there for its continued existence?

After receiving his orders, the Xuanqing Sect member disappeared as silently as he had come.

The Xuanqing Sect was the true power he held in his hands. He wanted to use this opportunity to spread its reach wider, and through its strength, guide Liang back onto the right path of development. Nor could it be limited to Liang alone — this world did not contain only Liang, but four other kingdoms, Great Yin, and the cultivators who moved on planes beyond ordinary men… Expansion was no easy matter, and it should not proceed too quickly, for that would easily cause instability. Moreover, he had only taken control of the Xuanqing Sect a few years ago. But it would be very difficult to find another opportunity as good as this one.

Dují sat with half-closed eyes, deep in thought. The autumn wind was cold, entering through the window, stirring his loosened hair, filling the room with a penetrating chill.

Tushan Tiao appeared in the room at some unknown point. Sensing the temperature, she frowned, raised her hand, and closed the window.

“I am not cold,” Xu Huan said, though he made no move to object.

His hand rested on the warming brazier cradled in his arms. From inside it rose a gentle, warm fragrance, and pale white wisps of smoke curled around his ice-white fingers, bringing just the right degree of warmth. Though Xu Huan held the brazier, he was not dressed heavily. Being a cultivator of no small ability, a bit of cool wind was far from enough to make him feel cold. The chill that inhabited his body came from years of damage to his physical foundation, and fur robes or warming braziers could not ease that kind of cold. As for the brazier in his arms, what burned inside it was medicine that Tushan Tiao had sought out for him.

“Is there enough medicine?” Tushan Tiao asked.

“You are leaving?” Xu Huan responded instead with a question that seemed entirely unrelated.

With the Xuanqing Sect before, and now the added strength of the Liang Kingdom, he was not short of such things. That had been a question with no real practical significance, but one deeply precious in sentiment. And Xu Huan had already caught the little extra information it had inadvertently revealed.

Tushan Tiao nodded.

She truly was leaving — even though she had only just returned a few days ago, at the moment Xu Huan had ascended to the throne of Liang King. In truth, the time they spent together was not much.

She bore a face identical to Tushan Yao’s, carried the same blood in her veins. She had helped him regulate his body, guided him in cultivation, drawn him into the Xuanqing Sect. Her presence always inevitably reminded Xu Huan of his mother, yet she always refused to stay long.

“Is there anything you need me to do?” Xu Huan asked.

Tushan Tiao came only once every several months or even over a year, staying only a few days each time before leaving again, and she never would say what she did during her absences. The Xu Huan of earlier days would never have asked. But things were different now — he had accumulated power, and no longer needed to conceal himself, so this time he asked.

“The Cold Clothes Festival is almost here,” Tushan Tiao said, walking over and gently smoothing his hair with warm fingers. “Make offerings for Ah Yao. And have the people of Liang make offerings too — so many have died. The dead need proper rites along the Yellow Springs River before they can cross over well.”

(TL: Cold Clothes Festival = a Chinese festival during which people offer warm clothes to deceased ancestors for the afterlife, usually in late autumn.)

Xu Huan was silent for a moment, then said, “I understand.”

He had asked this hoping to help Tushan Tiao with something, but she had given him an answer like this. She did not need his help. That he should make offerings for his mother was genuine. That the people of Liang should all make offerings on the Cold Clothes Festival was equally genuine. She believed that at this moment, Xu Huan should not be spending his energy on her affairs — he should first set in order the Liang Kingdom he had just taken into his hands.

The Cold Clothes Festival was an ancient, long-preserved custom. Besides sending offerings to deceased loved ones, one also had to send offerings to the ferryman of the underworld’s Yellow Springs River, so that the ferryman would not be negligent or delay in ferrying one’s loved ones into reincarnation. This was Great Yin’s custom.

Then let offerings be made.

Suddenly, the sound of commotion came from outside the window. Though it came from far away, for cultivators it was easy enough to hear clearly.

It was a young woman’s voice, raised in furious cursing, mixed with the sounds of objects being shoved and smashed. Tushan Tiao looked in the direction of the sound, and her handsome brows gradually drew together in a frown.

“Let her make her scene.” Xu Huan also looked in that direction, his expression blank.

That was Ah Ci. After she had recovered her senses, her temperament had changed drastically — she ran wild, smashing things wherever she went, making endless trouble. Both her parents were dead, and her only brother had vanished without a trace. How could the grief and pain within her not be vented?

The fact that she raged and made this kind of uproar was actually far more reassuring than if she had become gentle and compliant.

“As long as you know what you’re doing,” Tushan Tiao said.

She left Quqiu City quietly, just as she had arrived — unnoticed by anyone.

****

The autumn wind was fierce, sweeping withered branches and dead leaves together with grey dust up to the height of a person. At this season, apart from pines and cypresses, most plants had already withered.

A figure dressed in a dark teal robe appeared in the courtyard, and the wind suddenly dispersed. What had been swept up clattered and fell in all directions, coating a certain small green plant in a dull grey.

Li Quan lowered his gaze to look at the inconspicuous green plant. It was an orchid, but it grew wild as a weed, utterly unremarkable. Though it was nearly winter, it was in bloom — yet even its petals were green, with only the stamens touched by dark reddish-brown and yellow. Its leaves were slender, long, and straight, as were its petals — remarkably resilient, tilted in the soil, possessing a kind of fierce, untamed vitality.

This was not a carefully tended plant. The pot had been knocked over and left where it fell, unattended. Yet this orchid, once painstakingly cultivated in a fine porcelain pot and then carelessly thrown outside, had extended its wild greenery into this stretch of withered late autumn.

Li Quan took a step forward through the desolate courtyard. His toe swept through the thick layer of accumulated fallen leaves, his hem brushing past the deep green orchid. Those resilient leaves swayed several times, then shook off the grey dust that had settled on them.

This was a courtyard that had only recently fallen into ruin. The decorative rockery and water features within it still showed traces of clever, sophisticated design, with transitions between vistas that spoke of refined elegance. Shards of broken porcelain, their patterns exquisite, lay scattered in the soil. Through the broken windows one could see toppled furniture inside the rooms, though there was nothing of any value remaining.

This had not been a relocation. It had been a purge — and the reason the atmosphere in Quqiu City was so taut.

A jade toggle turned idly between his fingers. Before long, another person arrived in the desolate courtyard.

Li Quan slowly rounded a nearby taihu stone, and there stood a man whose face was as white as jade.

Dují.

“Since Brother Li Quan has come to Liang’s capital to sightsee, how did you come to end up here?” he asked.

“Looking only at a city’s surface scenery is a very tedious affair. Looking at why it became what it is now — that is where the interest lies,” Li Quan replied.

There was no need for pleasantries. They met again after so long a separation, yet both seemed to fall naturally back into conversation.

“In that case, allow me to show Brother Li Quan around,” Dují said.

“Very well,” Li Quan said with a nod.

The wind shifted, and the two figures in the courtyard vanished. The autumn wind swept across the ground again, sending withered leaves and dirt swirling up once more to the height of a person.

Xu Huan had become the Liang King and had severed nineteen powerful heads — but far more than nineteen people had died because of it. Those men had wives and children and households. Xu Huan had not implicated them, but in the midst of the Great Calamity, how long could people who had lost the protection of power and influence survive?

“Has Brother Li Quan already traveled throughout all of Liang?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I have a fine vantage point from which to observe all of Liang.” Dují gave a soft laugh. “Looking only at a city’s surface scenery is a very tedious thing — and looking only at a kingdom’s capital city is equally tedious.”

They arrived at the base of a hexagonal high tower — the tallest tower in all of Liang. Its base was wide enough to accommodate the tents of an entire army’s encampment, and it tapered upward to support a pavilion built high enough to make ordinary people dizzy. It was said that the Liang King of a certain era had enlisted the aid of cultivators in order to build a tower of such height. The pavilion atop the tower could be seen from the wilderness far outside the capital, and wanderers who had lost their way in the wild countryside needed only to spot its spire to find their bearing and make their way to Liang’s capital.

This tower could have become a place of aspiration for the people of Liang, a source of pride in their hearts. For when the people of a kingdom all share the same thing to be proud of, the hearts of the populace are drawn together.

Regrettably, no Liang King throughout the generations had ever used the tower in such a way. Perhaps they had never thought of it, or perhaps they had thought of it but found no way to make it work. When the people of a place live in turmoil and worry about their own survival, how could they spare the energy to feel pride in a dead structure?

They ascended the high tower. At the very top was a six-sided open platform surrounded by railings, with no covering overhead. The wind up high swept fiercely. The people below were reduced to the size of ants, and with unaided mortal eyesight one could observe the landscape for ten thousand li — one could even make out the outlines of She, Jing, and Hong, three provincial cities.

At the center of the high platform stood a statue of an immortal cast in pure bronze. Its lines were natural and graceful, its robes flowing as if about to ride the wind and fly away, though the immortal’s feet were cast into the platform itself — for otherwise, even such a heavy solid bronze figure would likely be moved by the fierce winds at such height. The immortal held in its hands a jade basin, a full two palms in diameter, pure white and without blemish save for a seep of cerulean blue at its center, like a pool of clear water cradled within. This jade basin was tightly set within the immortal’s billowing sleeves, with several folds of bronze drapery cleverly hooking the basin’s rim — it could not be removed intact without melting down the entire bronze figure.

Dují glanced at the immortal casting cradling the jade basin. “This is a dew-collecting basin left by one of the Liang Kings — he wished to use it to gather immortal dew from the heavens.”

The jade basin was for collecting dew, and the bronze immortal figure was the hidden, private longing of his heart. That particular Liang King had possessed a degree of spirit and ambition — he disdained the heretical, deviant sects within Liang that had no true cultivation methods, and would rather forego readily available life-extending opportunities than cultivate by evil means. Yet he was equally unwilling to relinquish the power of the Liang throne in order to gamble on the chance of entering a prestigious sect to cultivate. So he built this dew-collecting tower, hoping that some immortal in the heavens would take pity on his sincerity and descend to teach him cultivation.

This whole magnificent tower — built merely to set a jade basin at the point closest to the sky, to fulfill one deluded dream of one Liang King. Yet no matter how high the jade basin was elevated, the only dew it could ever gather was the dew of the mortal world.

Dují gazed coldly at the weathered, mottled bronze immortal figure, the way one might look upon that foolish and pitiable Liang King.

Praying for the pity of immortals? If there truly existed in this world the kind of just, compassionate, all-powerful immortals that people imagined — then in a calamity this great, why were they nowhere to be seen?

Where were the immortals?