Chapter 160 Luoyang’s Choice
Gradually, the sky took on a marble-white color as dawn arrived. Frost and dew gathered on the walls of the palace. Li Chunzhi’s brows were decorated with a layer of frost. The Chief Councillor of the Grand Council of Tang State trailed behind him, with the imperial bodyguards staying put a short distance away. Countless cultivators from the Judicature lay in ambush at all corners.

Tang State continued to be compromised from all sides. If anything happened to Li Chunzhi, it would be the cherry on top of their misfortune.

No one went up to stop him. Neither did they dare to. They could all tell that this soon-to-be Emperor was stewed in worries underneath his expressionless face.

At dawn, Li Jianqi draped a white robe over her shoulders and climbed up the tower atop the walls.

She stood behind Li Chunzhi and contemplated for some time before saying gently, “Father, you should mind your health. You’ve stood here for an entire night. Please take some rest or you’ll collapse. We’re now in dire times. You’re the one person who can’t fall ill.”

Ignoring her persuasion, Li Chunzhi continued to stand in front of the city and stared into the distance in silence.

Li Jianqi took a step forward and said in a louder voice, “I’ll get mad if you keep this up. My Father is a valiant hero that can support both heaven and earth, the rightful Emperor of the Human World, the reincarnation of True Dragon. How can such a trivial trial defeat him? Never mind being compromised from all sides, he can even deal with enemy troops at the city walls without trouble. He’ll even turn peril into safety and return peace of mind to the people.”

“Father, you can’t hurt yourself!” Li Jianqi chided her father in a strict voice.

Finally, Li Chunzhi slowly turned his head around to look at Li Jianqi in bewilderment. He then looked at the nearby Huang Shan and the distant soldiers. “Did you all think I’m doing this to torture myself?”

“How could I, the monarch, commit such folly when my country is in distress?”

“How ridiculous!”

Li Jianqi curled her lips. “Then what are you doing, standing in the cold wind all night long? Don’t tell me you’re contemplating how to make our enemies retreat.”

“I’m not a child.” Li Jianqi pointed to herself. “Don’t try and fool me!”

Li Chunzhi chuckled. “You’re not much stronger than a child.”

“The reason I stood here all night is to examine the movements in Luoyang. How will the people react when they hear that the country is under siege? Will they escape Luoyang and renounce the country? How should I deal with such a situation if it arises?”

“Fortunately, Luoyang didn’t disappoint me.”

Li Chunzhi waved his hand at Huang Shan. “Shift the ceremony to commemorate the fallen soldiers to an earlier date. We’ll have it tomorrow. You can prepare the monument dedicated to the 200,000 soldiers of the Ye Army with Jianqi. If someone obstructs you, kill without mercy.”

Little did he knew just how many incidents occurred in the city of Luoyang.

Liang Sheng had been appointed by Li Chunzhi to be the general overseeing the ambush of Xia State. Tonight was his last night in Luoyang, and he had been given two hours to bid his family farewell. His mother with her pale complexion and snow-like hair was confined to her sickbed as she stared at her son in silence.

The elderly mother of a Second Rank general and the matriarch of an influential clan, Liang Shen’s mother had learned the news from the palace long before Liang Shen came home. With one glance at her son, she came to understand everything. “Had His Majesty ask that you lead the troops?”

It was a straightforward question, but Liang Sheng didn’t know how to answer her. He ultimately chose to be honest. “It’s a secret operation. I must bid you farewell, Mother.”

His voice began to tremble. Even an extraordinary general was no more than an unfilial son if he couldn’t stand by his mother’s sickbed.

She gently patted Liang Sheng’s shoulder. “It brings me joy knowing that my son is far from home to protect the country and bring honor to the family. Don’t worry about my health. I’ll get better soon.”

“I await your triumphant return.”

“When you return, I’ll personally cook you a celebratory feast.”

His mother flashed him a small, kind smile. She then gestured sideways with her eyes, and he swiftly fetched a copper cauldron for her. Inside the cauldron was piping hot mutton soup.

“I didn’t know you’re leading the troops, so I made you mutton stop. Forget the wine. I’ll feed you a bowl of mutton soup so your stomach will be full and your heart will be warm.”

With shaky hands, Liang Sheng’s mother scooped a bowl of mutton soup out of the cauldron. She then used a spoon to slowly feed her son until the bowl was empty.

Liang Sheng couldn’t remember her ever feeding him, not even when he was ill. Did his mother foresee a perilous journey for him now that the country was in distress?

After finishing the bowl of mutton soup, Liang Sheng’s mother suddenly turned around with great difficulty and reached her hand into the corner of her bed. She triggered a small mechanism, expelling a brocade box from within.

She straightened her back and solemnly handed him the case. “Your father left us early, having died in the frontlines for our country.”

“Our family have produced generals for generations. Our heirs must step forward bravely in times of calamity. Here are a thousand pounds of gold. It’s not a lot, perhaps just enough to buy some weapons, but consider it a small gesture from our family. Find a way to send this to the Crown Prince in the palace.”

Li Chunzhi would always remain a Crown Prince until he officially ascends the throne. This was an unbreakable rule.

Suddenly.

Tears streamed from Liang Sheng’s eyes.

“This is your…”

“If you hand this over…?”

His mother stopped him before he could finish his sentence. “This isn’t my will alone. This money represents our family. Left with me, this money will always be gold and silver. But it’ll be a great virtue if we use it for the country. Who could guarantee the quality of the weapons you use this time? If you have more money, naturally you can afford weapons of higher quality.”

Liang Sheng accepted the brocade case from his mother with trembling hands. His heart was full of veneration for her.

In the same night, dozens of suitcases were quietly moved out of the open doors of the old Governor’s Manor and sent to the palace.

The old Governor, a government official for most of his life, was a very divisive character.

What was the most infuriating was the old Governor’s greed and protectiveness over his wealth. Rumors had it that there were countless money and treasures in his manor, all gained through his corrupt ways as the Governor. It was even said the old Governor sold favors and connections to others.

Everyone knew how close the old Governor and the late Emperor were. They were childhood friends and had a friendship that developed over a lifetime. Thus, many in the court could only swallow their anger. Not a memorial to the Emperor admonishing the old Governor was written to the day of his retirement.

“Father, we can never recover these items if they leave our manor today. Moreover, the entire Luoyang will know that you’re not an upright official. History may even remember you as a corrupted scoundrel and the greediest Governor in the history of Tang State.” The old Governor’s only son looked at him in worry.

The old Governor guffawed. He pointed to the endless stream of money and treasures being moved transported out of the manor. “These are mere worldly possessions.”

“Such loss is of no significance.”

“Our country is under siege. Now is when it needs money the most. There’s no need to care for historical records and rumors. If we lose our country, the rest is just prattle. No pain, no gain. It was His Majesty who privately bestowed me these valuables anyway. I’m just returning them.”

Meanwhile, the proprietress of the Eighteenth Red Pavilion on the Verdant Willow Alley, Sixth Lady Liu, liquidated half of her fortune and sent a hefty sum of gold to the Crown Prince’s Manor. No one knew why a lady from a tycoon family would make such a donation. Nor do they know why Sixth Lady Liu would deliver all that money to the Crown Prince’s Manor.

All they knew was that the statue of Bodhisattva was moved into her room that night. She began praying for the safety of Tang State and the soon-to-be Emperor every night.

Twenty years prior, the brothel on the Verdant Willow Alley wasn’t called the Eighteenth Red Pavilion. Twenty years later, there was only Eighteenth Red Pavilion in the alley and nothing else. There had always been parties trying to annex the lane or people trying to bribe Sixth Lady Liu, but it was all in vain. Judging from the current circumstances, she had a backer all along — a backer with extraordinary influence and power.

Tonight, some shops closed before reopening again.

The one hundred and thirty blacksmith’s shops in the city remained open the entire time, with the blacksmiths forging weapons as if their lives depended on it. They even melted the domestic kitchen tools they had made in the stove and used them to forge weapons meant for the battlefield.

Tonight, countless households debated endlessly. The noise continued well until daybreak all to decide whether to send their sons to the battlefield.

Tonight, over ten thousand veteran soldiers took out their uniforms and equipment of many years and bade their family a silent farewell. They then set forth on a long and arduous journey.

Tonight, the city of Luoyang was shrouded in fog and darkness. When the fog finally dissipated, the city blossomed like a flower…

At dawn, Liang Sheng secretly left the city on a speeding horse and headed straight for the main camp in the west.

Thirty thousand light cavalries journeyed westward at full speed on their horses to ambush Xia State.

On the same night, Ye Que cleaned the massive General’s Manor by himself until it was spick and span. Then, he began making large transformations of the manor without rest.

Even though the five black-clothed men were of little use, they did remind Ye Que that the manor faced a constant threat of assassinations for a long time. He wouldn’t mind it most times of the day, but there was a chance that he would be disturbed at a critical point of his cultivation. It was one thing to disrupt him from entering the next realm, but suffering Qi-deviation would be a major setback.

Fortunately, he had been studying formations all this while.

Time was the best way to verify the truth.

After another full day, he dressed the manor in a chain of nine intricately-linked small-sized formations.

He wouldn’t go as far as to claim that these formations were effective against cultivators above the Formless Realm, but he was sure that these formations could stop all those underneath. Never mind the human soldiers who had fled You Prefecture.

What was certain was that they would be able to enter but not leave.

Ye Que was very pleased with his achievements. Lin Dashu had also come to report that renovations had completed for the shops that Huang Shan gave him the keys to. Thanks to the strings that the court pulled behind the scenes, everything inside was ready by the time Ye Que inspected it. The Divine Sect Seminary needed only to do simple decorations.

Lin Dashu didn’t stay for long. When he left, in his hand was a stack of invoices that Ye Que had written for him to purchase. The most eye-catching purchase was ten giant, custom-made medicinal stoves. The rest of the orders was of the herb variety, many of which Lin Dashu hadn’t even heard of.

After he had left, Ye Que once again closed his eyes and sank into contemplation. This time, he wasn’t comprehending formations but refining pills. There was indeed a page of Divine Book contained in the censer that he had obtained by chance. He said “contained” and not “buried” because it had been so unbelievably easy for him to get it.