Chapter 438: Past Events of Su Ce

Chapter 438 The Past of Su Ce

"These people are not coming as guests, but as masters with blades in hand."

Yuan Mingfei swiped her hand across the electronic desk, and a list of names leaped into view.

"Previously, among the administrative officials sent from the imperial heartland to the ten cities of the Wa region, aside from Liu Dian of Edo City, most came from minor families or petty factions, and some, like Yang Baize, weren't even members of the Donglin Party. But this new batch of Confucian scholars about to arrive in the Wa region are all scions of the first-rate aristocratic families from the Southern and Northern Zhili provinces."

Yuan Mingfei furrowed her brows slightly; her face bore no trace of allure, only a faint shadow of worry.

After Xie Bi'an was injured, this former rumor-spreader of the Sichuan-Chongqing gambling rings had temporarily taken over the intelligence work of the Second Office of the Jinyiwei at Inuyama Castle.

Though aided by a host of junior agents from the Second Office, such as Painted Skin and Ghoul Whore, even Yuan Mingfei found it impossible to fully unravel such a tangled web of intelligence in so short a time.

At this critical juncture, the sudden move by the New Donglin Party could not help but stir unease within her.

"The true commanding officers of each city's Pacification Office are the Pacification Commissioners. Since the start of the New Deal, these positions have been deliberately left vacant—likely reserved for these aristocratic youths who have come to pluck the ripest fruits."

"If it weren't so, would Yang Baize and his ilk ever have had a chance to enter the Wa region? Robbing by force and intrigue—that's the Confucian order's age-old tactic."

Li Jun lounged in his chair, offering a faint smile. "But you needn't worry. They come with ill intent, but are we any better? Whether they bring blades or guns, this time they are destined to be nothing more than honored guests delivering us money."

"Well done, knowing how to bring money home—you deserve praise."

Yuan Mingfei teased with a laugh, but then her tone shifted abruptly: "We'd better be careful, though. This honored guest coming to deliver money to our Inuyama Castle is no easy mark. I've received word that the one who chose Inuyama Castle is the Langya Wang clan, a first-rate aristocratic family of the Confucian order."

"The Langya Wang clan bears a grudge against Yang Baize," Yuan Mingfei said seriously. "Or to be more precise, against Yang Baize's teacher, Pei Xingjian, now the prefect of Chongqing. Their choice of Inuyama Castle is likely deliberate—they want to drive Yang Baize out."

"So it's old grudges meeting new hatred."

Li Jun narrowed his eyes, pondered a moment, then ordered: "In the coming days, have people keep an eye on the Pacification Office. Tell the Kakogumi to also watch every stir on the surface. We can't afford to lose our commanding piece before the battle even begins."

Yuan Mingfei looked startled: "You're worried the Wang clan might send someone to assassinate Yang Baize? They're both from the Confucian order—surely they wouldn't stoop so low?"

"With scholars, you can never be sure. Caution does no harm."

Li Jun then asked, "By the way, how is Xiao Bai?"

"He's still in deep slumber. Zou Sijiu is trying to 'summon his soul.'"

Yuan Mingfei paused. "But when he'll wake up is still uncertain. Daosim's methods of refinement inflict too much damage on the Name Sequence."

"Mount Gezao, and Mount Longhu..."

Li Jun looked up and exhaled a long breath, his voice laced with icy menace. "They are the real trouble."

Yuan Mingfei stood before the desk, her lips pressed tightly together.

Around the Inuyama Castle Hundred Household Office, a storm was now raging.

On the surface, the Jinyiwei of Inuyama Castle had agreed to a defensive alliance with Yang Baize's Pacification Office. With the Langya Wang clan descending in full force, open conflict was inevitable over the fruits of the New Deal.

In the shadows, an earthly immortal from Mount Gezao had entered the region. Though the timing of their appearance was unknown, there was no doubt they would eventually come to Inuyama Castle to avenge Luo Cheng and the others. If Mount Gezao failed to reclaim its honor, it would not deserve its place in the Daoist order.

Zhang Qinglü of Mount Longhu, who had been duped, would not let the matter rest either.

Though they might not dare to confront the Jinyiwei directly, if Li Jun ever found himself in danger, they would surely seize the chance to kick him while he was down.

What's more, Mount Longhu also had an earthly immortal about to enter the Wa region!

In comparison, the internal situation within the Jinyiwei seemed remarkably calm.

Especially after the 'Mop-up Operation,' when Ren Capital collapsed and Honghu withdrew completely from the Wa region, the bloodthirsty Jinyiwei of each city finally caught their breath, holing up in their offices to lick their wounds.

"Some pull strings, others call in favors—truly, 'the eight immortals cross the sea, each revealing their divine prowess.'"

Li Jun let out a cold laugh, slapped his hands on the armrests, and stood up. He looked at Yuan Mingfei and said, "Get the car ready. I'm going to Edo City now."

Yuan Mingfei was taken aback. "The day after tomorrow is the first of the fourth lunar month. Why are you going now?"

"I'm going to call in favors too! Isn't there some big shot behind everyone?"

Li Jun tossed out these words and strode out the door.

From Inuyama Castle to Edo City, if one took the rapid expressway without any stops, the journey took only three hours.

This time, Li Jun did not bring Fan Wujiu or Chen Qisheng; he only took Horse King with him.

In addition, there was a Jinyiwei junior agent who drove the car—Ghoul Whore.

After Li Jun killed Yu Canghai, Ghoul Whore, whose identity had been exposed, could no longer stay in Osaka. After selling off his assets, he returned to Inuyama Castle to serve.

Perhaps because of his long years undercover outside, Ghoul Whore struggled to adapt to life inside the office and seemed somewhat out of sync with his colleagues.

This chance to accompany Li Jun to Edo City made Ghoul Whore particularly delighted.

"Sir, on this trip to Edo, will we have a chance to meet Lord Su?"

Ghoul Whore rubbed his hands nervously on the steering wheel, his tone barely hiding his excitement.

"What, Ghoul Whore, have you never met a Chiliarch before?" Li Jun asked from the back seat, surprised.

"Of course not. I'm just a junior agent, not qualified to enter the Chiliarch's office."

Ghoul Whore scratched his head, a simple, honest smile spreading across his rugged features. "Sir, are you familiar with Lord Su? Could you tell me some stories about his esteemed self?"

"I don't really know what the old man Su did in the past."

Li Jun wasn't trying to dodge the question. The truth was, he knew little of Su Ce's history.

Within the Jinyiwei archives in the Wa region, he had no authority to access Su Ce's files.

He had only heard snippets from others—for instance, that Su Ce's sect was called the Pacifying Barbarian Court, once a great and glorious school in the imperial heartland.

"Oh, I see..."

Ghoul Whore sounded disappointed, but quickly recovered and said eagerly, "But over the years, I've picked up some bits of gossip—true or false, I can't say."

"Let's hear it." Li Jun raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"It is said that before the Great Schism of the Martial Arts erupted, our Chiliarch had already become a Martial Sequencer. But because his talent was poor, he was never well-regarded in his sect—just an expendable figure on the periphery. Later, seeking a chance to break through his bottlenecks and advance in Sequence, he resolutely left his sect and volunteered to join the Jinyiwei."

"Back then, the Empire's situation was nothing like today. The Three Teachings and Nine Schools were locked in constant strife, fighting tooth and nail over a single province or prefecture. Even the Confucian aristocratic families, who loved to scheme behind the scenes, often rolled up their sleeves and risked their lives just to control a few Confucian temples that could spread their ideology."

"The court was also in chaos, with factions everywhere: Confucian Grand Councilors, Daoist Ministers, Martial Pillars of State. Though the Martial Sequence held the overall advantage, with the rise of Yellow Millet Dream technology, various 'spirit-over-flesh' sequences began to flourish. The Martial Sequence, restricted by their genetics, could not benefit from this at all, and the drawbacks of sect transmission grew more pronounced, so their dominance began to waver."

Ghoul Whore's face lit up, radiant with excitement, as if lost in these ancient tales.

"Beyond the Empire, there were the lands of the condemned—oh, right, back then they were called vassal states. Every one of them had treacherous ambitions, constantly trying to break away from our Great Ming Empire and set up their own rule."

"Internal troubles had already arisen, and external threats were looming. That's why, in those days, the Jinyiwei truly walked the edge of a blade. Not only did they represent the Zhu-Ming imperial family in mediating conflicts among various factions, but they also had to hunt down traitors in vassal states and assist local military garrisons in suppressing rebellions."

Ghoul Whore sighed with emotion. "It was against this backdrop that our Chiliarch Su, relying on nothing but his fists and a Embroidered Uniform Blade, stepped over a field of corpses and shattered all those terms like 'aptitude,' 'bone structure,' 'talent'—all words used to describe genetic quality—to successfully advance to Martial Sequence Four and become one of the Jinyiwei's Regional Military Commissioners."

"If the Great Schism of the Martial Arts hadn't happened, or had been delayed by a few more years, our Chiliarch Su would probably have become the Jinyiwei Commander long ago."

At this point, Ghoul Whore suddenly let out a long sigh. He reached out and lowered the car window, letting the slightly cool wind from the wilderness slap against his face.

"But even if Chiliarch Su had become Commander, it wouldn't have mattered. He would have been implicated sooner or later in the Pacifying Barbarian Court affair..."

"Wait." Li Jun frowned deeply, interrupting Ghoul Whore. "I heard you say earlier that Old Su joined the Jinyiwei because he was unpopular in his sect. So how did he end up entangled with the Pacifying Barbarian Court?"

"That's the rule of the Martial Sequence sects: once you enter the martial gate, you never leave for life."

Ghoul Whore said ruefully, "The imperial house had long been dissatisfied with the tyrannical and overbearing Martial Sequence. Especially after the establishment of the Yellow Millet Dream, the imperial family felt the time had come. They secretly incited other Sequences—mainly Buddhist and Daoist—to begin purging the Martial Sequence, hoping to reconsolidate imperial power."

"The Pacifying Barbarian Court, where Chiliarch Su belonged, was the paramount Martial Sequence power in the Empire's Liaodong region. Naturally, it bore the brunt of the purge. It is said that an area of a hundred li around the Pacifying Barbarian Court's mountain gate was completely shrouded by a Buddhist Land of Elysium. Anyone who stepped inside would instantly fall into layers of illusions, unable to tell truth from falsehood. The Daoist Ancestor's artifacts in the sky shone all night long, and no one knows how many mountain peaks were sheared off."

"The Pacifying Barbarian Court fell in one battle; its disciples were nearly all killed or wounded, leaving only a scattered few. Chiliarch Su, who had been deliberately assigned by the Jinyiwei to a mission outside the imperial heartland, rushed back to Liaodong as soon as he heard the news."

"But as soon as his carriage passed Shanhai Pass, the then–Commander of the Imperial Guard stopped him and told him not to get involved. As long as he agreed to turn his carriage around and head straight back to the capital, the imperial house promised to guarantee his safety. They could even find a way to reconnect the path of advancement that had been severed when his sect was destroyed."

Li Jun said, "So Old Su must have refused, right?"

"No."

The Whore Ghost nodded. "Though I don't know exactly what happened, in the end that carriage charged straight through Shanhai Pass, forging ahead without hesitation, traversing the black waters stained red with blood, and came to a halt at the foot of White Mountain, which had been bombarded into scorched earth."

"The surviving disciples of the Shock Barbarian Court, who were about to be slaughtered to the last, finally saw reinforcements arrive. At that moment, they forgot how they had once mocked the figure standing before them; how they had jeered at his genes being as worthless as mud, how a single boxing form took him a year to learn, and how even a single internal technique remained beyond his grasp for years. And how they had sneered at Su Qianhu for not joining the Ministry of War, which was controlled by the Martial Order, but instead willingly becoming a hound of the imperial family—even planning to brand him a traitor, purge him from the sect, and take back all his martial skills."

The Whore Ghost's hand, resting on the carriage door, clenched into a fist, and his voice was bleak and bitter.

"Su Qianhu gave up the high office and lavish rewards promised by the imperial family and chose to fight for his sect. But when he stood alone against the pursuing Buddhist and Taoist orders, a knife was viciously driven into his back."

"Those survivors of the Shock Barbarian Court had already surrendered. Those spineless weaklings, to save their own skins, willingly played along with the Buddhist and Taoist orders in a charade, all to lure Su Qianhu back to the homeland so they could surround and kill him."

"They never once considered that the long-oppressed Buddhist and Taoist orders, having finally grasped their chance to turn things around, would never let them go."

The Whore Ghost cursed in fury, "A pack of motherfucking bastards!"

"What happened next?"

Li Jun, sitting in the back, asked calmly. Unlike the Whore Ghost, his voice betrayed no hint of emotion.

The Whore Ghost said with grim satisfaction, "Su Qianhu butchered them all with his own hands!"

"As for what happened after that, I don't know. But Su Qianhu never died on imperial soil. He became one of the very few sect Martial Orders to survive the Great Division of the Martial World. Then he voluntarily exiled himself to the Horde Lands, guarding that barren, hostile territory for the empire, right up to today."

"Exile…"

Li Jun savored the word. After a long silence, he suddenly asked, "Whore Ghost, how do you know all this?"

"Sir, have you forgotten? I come from the Miscellaneous Order. To gather materials for building a Golden Millet Dream, I've collected no shortage of these stories."

The Whore Ghost smiled. "You may laugh, sir, but my lifelong dream is to construct a Golden Millet Dream set against the backdrop of the Great Division of the Martial World, letting links enter as a Martial Order, turn the tide, sweep away all other orders single-handedly, and see what the empire's future would have been if history had veered down that divergent path."

"Why did you come up with that idea?"

"To record, to reshape, to share—that, as I understand it, is the true meaning of the Miscellaneous Order's existence!"