Chapter 24: Autumn Arrives

[Success in changing your destiny! You have gained 2,000 Reincarnation Points!]

[The trajectory of your destiny has been updated!]

[Enraged by the capture of your parents by Lord Wang and Magistrate Chai, your fury erupted, turning the Sanhuang County Magistrate's office into a river of blood!]

[Little did you know that your actions had crossed the imperial court's bottom line and drawn the attention of the high-ranking officials of the Demon Qing Court. On your flight, you were hunted by dozens of martial arts experts from the Bureau of Prisons, eventually perishing along the way.]

[Congratulations, temporary reincarnator! You have completed your first turning point of destiny, and your reincarnation evaluation has risen significantly!]

When everyone had departed, Li Chang'an cast a fleeting glance over the words floating upon his retina, softly exhaling a breath of turbid air.

Changing one's destiny to defy heaven was truly a grueling ordeal.

Particularly so when one commenced from such a wretchedly low starting point.

It had taken Li Chang'an a massive expenditure of effort to finally rewrite this first destiny entirely.

Now, he no longer had to tread with such fearful caution.

Having successfully rewritten the first destiny, his currently accumulated reincarnation score should have already surpassed the C+ rank. Even if he were to perish right now and exit the reincarnation world, the points amassed would suffice to make him a permanent reincarnator.

Every subsequent piece of established destiny he rewrote from here on out would be pure profit.

At long last, he could afford to be radical.

With this thought, Li Chang'an hesitated no longer. Turning on his heel, he walked up to the old Taoist priest and spoke: "Are the military provisions currently in critically short supply?"

Hearing him speak, the old Taoist, who had been somewhat lost in thought, snapped back to reality and replied: "The rebel army is nothing more than a ragtag band of stragglers. Provisions and ironware are naturally in perpetual shortage!"

Li Chang'an nodded: "If that is the case, what do you intend to do?"

"What else can be done? Since time immemorial, when rebellious armies rise, are not the common folk always the first to suffer?" The old Taoist gave a bitter smile, shaking his head with a sigh: "But the people near Sanhuang County have only just endured a flood and a plague. The grain stored in their homes is already less than a tenth of what it was. This old Taoist truly cannot bear to lay hands on them again..."

Were it not for the fact that Wang Su himself was a peak Martial Master who possessed absolute authority within the rebel faction, this so-called rebel army would be no different from the bandits and rogue vagrants outside.

Presently, this crude force, raised with an immense amount of painstaking effort, stood upon the precipice of life and death. Yet, as its leader, he simply could not bring himself to prey upon the deeply suffering populace.

If he did not strike at the common people, who else could he target?

The dignitaries and the wealthy?

Those people possessed household guards, retainers, and martial artists serving as bodyguards. Even if the old Taoist could suppress them by sheer force of arms, the grain obtained would be a mere drop in the bucket.

Moreover, once this deed was done, the reputation of the old Taoist himself and the entire rebel army would thoroughly explode into infamy among the local gentry and aristocracy everywhere, making them hated outcasts wherever they went.

In this era, being rejected by the gentry and aristocracy carried consequences that were, in some respects, even more terrifying than the imperial court dispatching troops for a campaign.

After all, the court had to recruit soldiers and buy horses to suppress rebels.

But the local gentry had no such need.

If truly driven to desperation, they could swiftly assemble a private army right within their own localities.

Seeing the tight furrow of the priest's brow, Li Chang'an understood the anxieties weighing on his heart and could not help but smile: "If there are matters you find inconvenient to perform, you may leave them to me!"

The old Taoist raised an eyebrow, questioning in bewilderment: "What is the meaning of these words?"

"I want to become the leader of the rebel army!" Li Chang'an spoke words that were astonishing enough to strike men dead, continuing to gaze at the old Taoist as he said: "I intend to first consolidate our forces and declare our slogans. Next, we shall execute a batch, release a batch, and recruit a batch, striving to overthrow this dog imperial court of the Demon Qing within ten years!"

Without a shred of hesitation, Li Chang'an immediately revealed his plan in its entirety.

He spoke these words with such casual lightness, as though he were not talking about overturning the Demon Qing Court, but rather slaughtering a pig or slaughtering an ox for dinner.

Hearing this, the old Taoist felt only dumbfounded, utterly at a loss for what expression to wear for a moment.

Though the Demon Qing Court had long since grown corrupt, it had not yet reached its twilight years. Over the years, countless rebel armies had cropped up across the lands, yet all of them had perished within a few months without making much of a splash.

How could it be overthrown just by saying so?

Had these words spilled from anyone else's mouth, the old Taoist would likely have done nothing but smile in silence.

Yet coming from the mouth of Li Chang'an, the old Taoist did not treat them as a jest.

After a long pause, the old Taoist spoke in a hesitant tone: "I, Wang Su, am not one who covets power, and moreover, this mantle of rebel leader is hardly a pleasant hat to wear. But are you certain you wish to do this? To say nothing of the endless gossip of the world's people, the overt blades and hidden arrows from the imperial court..."

He did not finish his sentence.

But he believed Li Chang'an would understand his meaning.

"With many a proud sacrifice, we dare to command the sun and moon to bring a new day. New regimes are always constructed from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood!" Li Chang'an smiled and said: "An evil name, a good name, or even life and death—none of these hold any particularly vital significance to the current me. You need not worry for me either."

At this point, his voice suddenly paused, his eyes gleaming bright and clear: "To take ten thousand steps back, even if we fail, so what? A single spark can start a prairie fire. As long as the seeds of fire are sown, there will always be those who come after us, standing on our shoulders to change everything!"

The old Taoist fell silent once more for a very long time.

He considered himself a man of considerable vision, having aspired since youth to overthrow the rule of the Demon Qing and restore the glory of the Central Plains.

Yet compared to Li Chang'an, he was startled to find that his own vision seemed no larger than a thumb.

He himself lacked the confidence to lead the rebel army to the opposite shore, but for some unknown reason, he felt a touch of inexplicable trust toward this registered disciple of his.

Thus, after a protracted silence, the old Taoist assumed a solemn expression and said: "Are you truly prepared?"

Li Chang'an nodded: "Relying solely on the breath within my heart, I shall forge a river of blood to carve out a bright and clear world!"

The old Taoist closed his eyes, his violently heaving chest betraying the tempestuous emotions surging within him at this moment.

Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that, with half his body already buried in the earth, his blood would boil and race like a young man's just because of a few words spoken by another!

"Good!"

The old Taoist's voice was brief and solemn.

It was merely a single word, yet it seemed to consume the entirety of his strength.

...

...

The twenty-third day of the ninth month of the two hundred and forty-first year of the Demon Qing Imperial Calendar, Autumn Equinox.

Li Chang'an took over the position of rebel leader from the old Taoist's hands and officially renamed the force 'Taiping'!

In days past, this time of the year was always the most joyous season for the common people, but this year, the vicinity of Sanhuang County was wrapped in a shroud of grief and silence.

The floods of the rainy season had drowned far too many seedlings.

The plague of the summer had taken away far too many of their relatives and friends.

This caused the autumn, which should have been a celebration of harvest, to become like that brush of withered yellow upon the tree leaves, tinged with scattered specks of decay.

Hearing that the rebel army had captured the county seat, the people of Sanhuang County were filled with absolute despair.

The bloody history of the past told them that no matter who eventually sat inside that magistrate's office, the ones who suffered in the end were always this group of mud-legged peasants with their backs to the loess and their faces to the sky.

Though Magistrate Chai did not act like a proper human being, he was, after all, a county magistrate personally appointed by the imperial court, and he had already collected all manners of taxes for this year in advance; at the very least, he would leave them a way to survive.

But now, after the county office had been seized by this band of rebels, ghost knew what would happen?

The rebel army was unlike the imperial court; the court still needed to concoct a righteous cause on the surface, but when the rebels wanted something, they did not even need to make up a reason—they would simply plunder by force!

Yet, just as the neighboring populace spent their days in terrified suspense, paralyzed by fear.

The rebel army did not, as they had anticipated, plunder far and wide like a plague of locusts passing through. Instead, they posted notices outside every village, proactively declaring that Li Chang'an, the leader of the Taiping Rebel Army, was to distribute a batch of relief grain to aid the disaster-stricken populace.

The notice was written with a stark and direct simplicity.

Yet the tremor it sent through the soul was far more devastating than that of any decree the Demon Qing court had ever posted at the entrances of the villages outside Sanhuang County over the past several centuries!

...