Chapter 719: Extra 3: Barbarian Land Sequence

Chapter 719 Extra Story Three: The Savage Sequence

"Time: The fourth day of the second month, the third year of the New Calendar, at the hour of Zi."

"Location: The Golden Tower, Chongqing Prefecture."

"Recorder: Lin Jinjiang of the Miscellaneous Sequence."

"This truly is not something I willingly chose to do. Those who know me well should be aware that I have long since retired from this trade. Today, I take up my old profession solely to entertain everyone. After this one final act, I shall wash my hands of this business and never again concern myself with the affairs of the pleasure houses. Every word is true, and the images bear witness."

Lin Jinjiang, facing the manifested desk, recited the above words with utter seriousness, then rose with a drooping head and trudged forward reluctantly.

Within this extravagantly decorated banquet hall, countless eyes were fixed upon him.

Lin Jinjiang stepped onto the stage built in the center of the venue.

"Dear friends and relatives who have journeyed from afar..."

Lin Jinjiang spoke softly, his back to the crowd, then slowly turned. As he lifted his bowed head, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes.

Lin Jinjiang flung his arms wide, his voice rising in volume.

"Welcome to Lord Ma's welcome feast. Tonight, there will be no clashing of blades, no bloody storms—only wine, women, and song, and unbridled revelry. Most importantly, tonight’s entire bill is on Lord Ma!"

Lin Jinjiang shouted, guiding everyone's gaze toward a figure lounging on a barbarian-style sofa.

The man had a ruggedly handsome face with deep-set eyes, a buzz cut of graying hair, and a fiery red cloak draped over his shoulders. A thumb-thick gold chain hung around his neck, and his bare torso was a mass of bulging, sharply defined muscles, exuding a raw, masculine vigor.

"Long live Lord Ma!"

The cheers were thunderous. The man at the center of all attention, Lord Ma, merely waved his hand casually and uttered two words.

"Let the fun begin!"

As the words fell, seductive music began to play, and the intoxicating lights swept through the sultry air. A procession of graceful figures emerged in single file.

"Ladies, please line up by age—veterans, matrons, and young girls. Don't worry about choosing the wrong line and going home empty-handed tonight. Jinjiang made inquiries early on; the brothers here today are all mature men who adore caring older sisters."

"Of course, younger sisters need not be disheartened either. You may not know how to care for others, but your uncles and elder brothers do. In short, Lord Ma vows that no one will leave empty-handed tonight! But how much you take home depends on your own skills!"

Lin Jinjiang announced loudly: "Without further ado, my sisters, sway your hips and let everyone witness your charm!"

Under Lin Jinjiang’s direction, the atmosphere in the hall grew feverish, with laughter and cheerful voices rising one after another.

"I never imagined this Lin Jinjiang, with those big eyes and thick brows, would be hiding such a talent. What a damned prodigy!"

In one corner of the hall, the host He Zangjia paid no heed to the fluttering beauties around him, his eyes fixed solely on Lin Jinjiang, who had taken on the role of a brothel madam.

"It's a pity that the man is now a top-tier celebrity in Huangliang with millions of followers, and he looks down on my humble turf. Otherwise, I would throw a tantrum today and dig him up to manage my business at the Golden Tower in the capital."

He Zangjia sighed in regret, his heart full of melancholy, and could only raise his glass in despair, drowning his sorrows in drink.

"Enough, stop being glib after gaining an advantage. Now that you’ve got the great tree of Liaodong Tianque to lean on, with Golden Towers opening one after another and your business growing bigger and bigger, what more could you be dissatisfied with?"

A chiding laugh sounded beside He Zangjia.

"How is that being glib? Precisely because the Golden Tower business is expanding, we need such uniquely gifted talents more than ever. These days, Sequence users are no longer valuable; it’s talents like Lin Jinjiang that are the rare goods."

He Zangjia let out a heavy sigh. "His retirement from the trade is truly a loss for the flower kingdom!"

"Other Agricultural Sequence users farm the land or themselves, but you, you cultivate people. I advise you to be more careful—don’t take one wrong step and cause your Sequence to drop. Then no one will be around to collect your corpse."

"Thanks to your blessings, I’m now a Lord of the Four Furrows in the Agricultural Sequence. It may be slow, but it’s barely presentable."

He Zangjia turned his head and asked with a squinting smile: "But may I ask, Sir Wang Xie, what Sequence are you at now?"

"Hmph!"

Wang Xie gave a cold snort. In the battle at Jinling, he had been severely wounded and nearly died. Though he had barely survived, his injuries had yet to fully heal, and his Sequence had been stuck at the Fourth Grade Decision Officer of the Zongheng Sequence, long unable to ascend to the Third Grade Adversity Lord.

In fact, if not for the fact that the current situation in Mingtu was quite favorable for the survival of the Zongheng Sequence, he might have even dropped a grade due to his injuries.

"Hey, it was you who provoked me first, so why are you getting angry now?"

He Zangjia laughed heartily. Though Wang Xie belonged to the Zongheng Sequence, his path was that of a king, not a tyrant. When it came to sharp tongues, two Wang Xies tied together would be no match for him.

"Have you thought about what I mentioned last time?"

He Zangjia reached out and draped an arm over the other’s shoulder. "Come to the capital and work with me. If you agree, I’ll hand over the entire intelligence network of the Golden Tower to you immediately."

"Give me some more time to think it over," Wang Xie said gruffly.

"What’s there to think about? Haven’t you grown tired of that life of fighting and killing?"

Seeing that the other’s resolve was wavering, He Zangjia pressed on. "In the past, you followed Old Master Pei because you couldn’t stand the Zhu family. But now the Zhu family is gone. Who else do you have to fight? You’ve held a blade for half your life; it’s time to take it easy."

"But what about Yang Baize..."

"Rest assured, I’ve already talked to him. You can leave anytime you want; he won’t stop you."

Wang Xie fell into a long silence after hearing this. "Even if he’s willing to let me go, I still have ties to the Red Society. It might not matter now, but no one can say what will happen in the future."

"What’s there to fear?" He Zangjia pointed upward with his finger. "We’ve got someone above us. Chaos won’t break out."

Wang Xie naturally understood his friend’s implication. As long as that person was alive, Mingtu would never again descend into chaotic warfare.

After all, every major power worth mentioning nowadays, each and every one, had some connection to him.

Perhaps that was part of the reason why he had chosen to leave Mingtu.

"Let me think it over a bit more."

Wang Xie still couldn’t make a decision on the spot. Seeing that He Zangjia was about to continue his persuasion, he quickly changed the subject.

"Speaking of which, do you think Brother Jun will come back for Zou Sijiu’s wedding?"

"You ask me, but who am I supposed to ask?"

Lord Ma raised an eyebrow and said irritably.

At this moment, a full glass of wine was before him, and a beautiful woman was nestled on his left—the perfect time for the atmosphere to grow intimate.

As a veteran of the sea of romance for decades, Lord Ma naturally understood the value of intimacy.

It was the process where two strangers, from first meeting to getting to know each other, open their hearts. She talks about her impoverished family and unbearable past, while you speak of the hardships you’ve endured and the glory of building your fortune from scratch.

In the end, hearts resonate, emotions align, and everything falls into place.

Every step in this process is indispensable, and the experience is indescribably wonderful.

But precisely at such a critical moment, having an obstructive Zhang Siyuan on his right made Lord Ma feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Zhang, boy, do you know why the lighting is so dim?"

"Why?"

"Because at a time like this, you shouldn’t be looking at me. You should be in your proper place, telling a diligent, thoughtful young girl about your days as a headmaster at the New Donglin Academy."

"There are no stories at the New Donglin Academy, only accidents."

Lord Ma clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. "Then switch to another one—tell her about your wretched days on the streets, with no parents."

"Her life is already miserable enough. Wouldn’t it be bad for me to go and compete with her in misery?"

"Then did you bring a gun?"

Zhang Siyuan asked blankly: "Of course not. I came for a wedding, not a fight. Why would I bring a gun?"

"I’ll lend you one! Come on, let’s go out and have a fight. I’ve finally figured it out—if I don’t take you down today, I won’t find any pleasure."

Lord Ma was about to rise when Zhang Siyuan grabbed his arm.

“Don’t be angry, my lord. The night is long, so if I’m not anxious, why should you be?”

Zhang Siyuan forced a smile. “I simply cannot contain my curiosity. That fellow Li Jun has been gone for three years without a single word. I have no idea what he’s been up to out there.”

“The barbarians have no Yellow Millet covering; how could he send you a message?”

Lord Ma asked, “And I’m puzzled: why do you care about all this? Can’t you just do well as the head of your academy?”

“I have only seven more years before I can step down as head. I’m just making plans in advance, preparing to go and join Brother Jun when the time comes.”

Seeing Zhang Siyuan’s determined expression, Lord Ma could only stifle his own restless desires and signaled the beauty in his arms to leave first.

“About a year ago, he did have someone bring back a message.”

No sooner had Lord Ma begun than Lin Jinjiang, like a hyena catching the scent of blood, hurried over.

He flanked Lord Ma together with Zhang Siyuan, one on each side.

“Rest assured, I am merely recording. Without your permission, I will not reveal a single word to anyone!”

Lin Jinjiang immediately professed his loyalty and eagerly offered Lord Ma a cup of wine.

“He said the outside is quite interesting—that those barbarians are not as weak and ignorant as we imagined. On the contrary, their Sequence is richer than ours, and they have no small number of high-order individuals. In just those two years, he killed several Order Threes and even one Order Two.”

As Lord Ma spoke, a look of longing crept onto his face, along with a hint of restless battle fervor.

“So it seems the barbarian lands are not weak,” Lin Jinjiang asked in confusion. “Then why, aside from a few ordinary itinerant merchants, have their Sequence followers almost never appeared in our Ming territory?”

Zhang Siyuan nodded in agreement, as this was also a point of confusion for him.

He had previously asked his father about this very issue, but Zhang Fengyue only smiled faintly each time, never answering directly.

Even in the archives of the Confucian Sequence, records concerning the barbarians were scarce.

This was clearly abnormal, for before the criminal zones were conquered by the Great Ming Empire, they too had been part of the barbarian lands. And yet, coincidentally, vast amounts of history had inexplicably disappeared.

Even the Longwu Emperor had only subdued the surrounding kingdoms and then stopped, never venturing far into the barbarian lands beyond.

Coupled with what Lord Ma had just said, it seemed as if someone had deliberately cut off the exchange of Sequence followers between Ming territory and the barbarian lands.

“For centuries, our Ming territory has been in constant turmoil, with endless fighting among ourselves, so naturally we had no time to pay them any attention. From this perspective, the ones deliberately blocking the two sides from interacting must be the barbarians themselves, no?”

Zhang Siyuan asked, “But why would they do that?”

“Because they are afraid of us.”

Lord Ma chuckled, dropping an answer that left both men stunned.

“Afraid of us? Why?” Lin Jinjiang pressed.

Lord Ma did not rush to answer but instead continued asking: “In our Ming territory, during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods thousands of years ago, we boasted a hundred schools of thought. Yet when the Zhu family set down the Sequence, why did only the Three Teachings and Nine Schools remain?”

Lin Jinjiang was of the Miscellaneous Sequence, Zhang Siyuan of the Confucian Sequence—both supposedly learned in their own ways. But now, before Lord Ma, a man of rough and simple manner, they seemed like bewildered schoolchildren, staring at each other in confusion.

“Because the Sequence had existed long before—it simply wasn’t called ‘Sequence.’ That term was coined by Emperor Yizong. And when he set down the Sequence, his ultimate purpose was to steal that renown and consolidate the Zhu family’s hegemonic legacy.”

“And that is why all traces of the hundred schools were buried by the Zhu Ming imperial house, rewritten into their own history. As time passed, they were gradually forgotten by the world.”

“As for those barbarian merchants who appear in the empire, they are actually actors arranged by both the Zhu family and the barbarian lands—a smokescreen they release.”

“As for why the barbarian Sequence fears us…”

Lord Ma grinned. “Because they are precisely the hundred schools of thought that lost the competition in Ming territory back then, lost their foothold, and had to flee to distant lands. The twelve Sequences of the Three Teachings and Nine Schools, on the other hand, are the victors who remained in Ming territory after a bloody struggle of survival of the fittest!”

At these words, Lin Jinjiang and Zhang Siyuan were both utterly astounded.

They had never imagined that the fallen Zhu Ming imperial house could still harbor such secrets.

“But these are all messages brought by Li Jun—whether true or false remains to be seen. You know his methods for gathering information are crude and straightforward; even if someone made up a story, he might not be able to tell.”

Lord Ma drained his cup and added slowly.

Despite this, Zhang Siyuan felt that the information was likely true; even if there were discrepancies, they could not be significant.

Otherwise, how could the Zhu family, after so many years of decline, still possess such deep foundations?

His own father had always remained tight-lipped, never directly answering his questions.

At this thought, Zhang Siyuan felt suddenly enlightened, but then a new doubt sprang into his mind.

“Then the lifespan shackles of our Ming territory Sequence followers…”

“Are also related to this matter.”

Lord Ma nodded. “When we advance in Sequence, we rely on ourselves, not others. The barbarians, in contrast, rely on others, not themselves.”

“The Zhu family wanted to imitate them, by taking control of all the Three Teachings and Nine Schools in Ming territory.”

Lord Ma smiled. “They too wanted to sever the connection between Heaven and Earth—but they would sever us, leaving only the Hegemons to reach Heaven!”