Chapter 161: Chapter 157: In a Hundred Years, Bound to Be a Great Power
Meng Xiao returned once more, bringing the latest news.
Everything was in place, waiting only for the transfer orders.
The special envoy responsible for the demotion of the Hundred Flowers Sect had also been chosen.
This special envoy arrived a few days before Du Youqian’s transfer orders.
The envoy’s name was Yan Jiao.
True to her name, she was a charming woman.
A pity, then, that her pretty face was perpetually frosty, her eyes were like ice, and her killing intent was practically boiling over.
She looked like the type who never smiled and would draw her sword to kill at the slightest disagreement.
When the women of the Hundred Flowers Sect came to welcome her, they were nearly frostbitten by her chilling presence.
From the moment she landed in the Hundred Flowers Sect’s Blessed Land until the end of the welcome banquet, Yan Jiao spoke a total of three sentences.
"I have come to demote the Hundred Flowers Sect. I despise pointless ceremony, so let’s keep everything simple."
"I’m not drinking."
"Be ready tomorrow morning. The demotion ceremony will begin at chen hour."
However, when Du Youqian visited her in the room the Hundred Flowers Sect had arranged, she greeted him with a smile.
While she wasn’t exactly warm, they could at least have a conversation.
After sending her attendants away, she disregarded the propriety between men and women and clasped Du Youqian’s hands.
"Junior Yu, before I came, Master Xi instructed me to follow your lead completely regarding the demotion. Just tell me what to do tomorrow. Let’s get this business over with quickly so we can go back to our Cultivation. This place is so desolate and harsh, the Spiritual Qi is thin, and it’s surrounded by unbearably vulgar people. I can’t stand to stay here a moment longer. It’s a wonder you’ve managed to serve as Garrison here for so many years."
See? This was an Inner Disciple from a First-class Sect.
She actually considered the Blessed Land of a Third-class Sect to be "desolate and harsh."
Du Youqian really wanted to invite her to see Soul-shaking Mountain, the place where he cultivated during his second life.
Compared to Soul-shaking Mountain, the Hundred Flowers Sect’s Blessed Land was practically Langyuan Immortal Palace.
Combining this with the intelligence Meng Xiao had provided a few days earlier, Du Youqian could roughly tell that while this woman, Yan Jiao, understood all sorts of treacherous schemes and was capable of bloody methods, she only viewed them as tools of last resort, not as something to rely on.
At her core, she was an ascetic dedicated solely to Cultivation. Her heart for the Dao was exceptionally pure.
A person like her, by all rights, should have joined one of the Profound Sects Orthodox Sects.
Unfortunately, her aptitude was ordinary—she only had a Middle Grade Spirit Root. If she had actually joined one of the Profound Sects, her prospects would have been even worse. Her luck also seemed average; she’d never had any fortuitous encounters.
Now, at nearly one hundred years old, she was only at the Foundation Establishment Sixth Layer. She didn’t qualify to be a True Successor Candidate and was just an ordinary, unremarkable Inner Disciple serving as a common Senior Steward in the External Affairs Hall.
Because she hadn’t chosen to align herself with any of the True Successor Candidates, the resources she could obtain were extremely limited, and her Cultivation was slow.
Compared to those prodigies, she could only be considered a slow learner.
Based on her rate of Cultivation, most people would conclude that she had no hope of reaching Core Formation.
But Du Youqian thought differently.
He believed that such Cultivators were often the type to accumulate power slowly before a sudden burst. Perhaps in a few years, her fate would take a turn.
She might even have a higher chance of reaching Core Formation than some of the True Successor Candidates who had luckily survived the brutal struggles but failed to become True Disciples.
Du Youqian was keen on befriending a solitary figure like her—someone who hadn’t taken a side in the struggle for the True Inheritance and who seemed ordinary but possessed decent potential.
That night, they talked by candlelight, exchanging insights on Cultivation, and he made no improper advances.
By the next day, before the demotion ceremony, Yan Jiao already considered Du Youqian a friend, and her attitude had grown much warmer.
During the demotion ceremony, Yan Jiao was severe and frosty, her harsh words and cold demeanor making Shuyue Hua and the other Hundred Flowers Sect leaders tremble with pessimistic thoughts.
However, when Yan Jiao loudly announced that the Hundred Flowers Sect was demoted to a Fourth-class Sect and began to strip them of their Inheritance and resources, Shuyue Hua and the others nearly wept with joy, repeatedly casting grateful glances at Du Youqian.
Because Du Youqian had kept his promise.
The Inheritances Yan Jiao confiscated were all Tier Three and above—the Cultivation Techniques, Secret Techniques, and Cultivation Technique Inheritances that, by rule, the Hundred Flowers Sect was absolutely forbidden from keeping.
As for the ambiguous items that could either be taken or left, Yan Jiao turned a blind eye to them all, tacitly allowing the Hundred Flowers Sect to keep them.
And as for their various resources, she didn’t take a single thing.
This gave the Hundred Flowers Sect a chance to make a comeback!
Although having their Sect demoted was a tragedy.
But human happiness is a matter of comparison.
Even if you’re miserable, as long as someone is more miserable than you, you can always find some comfort.
If two people are being whipped, the one who receives ten lashes will feel much happier than the one who receives twenty.
Likewise, among those starving, the one who gets a bowl of meat soup will be much happier than the one with no soup at all.
Shuyue Hua was incredibly glad that after a brief struggle, she had decisively bowed her head to Du Youqian and chosen to request the demotion herself.
Compared to the miserable fates of other demoted sects she remembered or had read about in the archives, the Hundred Flowers Sect was practically a darling of destiny.
To make a rather inappropriate and crude analogy: when other sects were demoted, it was like a young maiden being brutally ravaged in turn by several burly men.
But the Hundred Flowers Sect’s demotion was like a young maiden being forced to marry a rich, decrepit old man as a concubine.
It was still a miserable fate.
But compared to other demoted sects, they were a hundred times more fortunate.
After the demotion ceremony ended, Shuyue Hua consulted with the other high-ranking members of the Sect and realized their actual losses weren’t that great.
In their worst-case scenarios, the losses would have been more than ten times what they were now.
’In that case, the things we gave Du Youqian before were a real bargain.’
After presiding over the demotion ceremony, Yan Jiao returned to the Holy Blood Sect.
Before she left, Du Youqian slipped her a Storage Treasure Pouch containing Cultivation resources worth 500 Spiritual Jade.
Yan Jiao was delighted. By toiling away at sect missions, and even occasionally taking on riskier jobs, she couldn’t earn even 100 Spiritual Jade in an entire year.
More importantly, she felt Du Youqian’s kindness and respect.
In her eyes, Du Youqian was only thirty-one and already at the Foundation Establishment Fourth Layer, had a Core Formation Ancestor as a backer, and had severely wounded a Foundation Establishment Late Stage disciple from the Taihe Sect with three sword strikes just a few years ago.
No matter how you looked at it, Du Youqian was a young prodigy comparable to the Sect’s True Successor Candidates.
And yet, Du Youqian wasn’t involved in the struggle for the True Inheritance, so his chances of dying prematurely were low.
A person like him would surely become a major figure in a hundred years.
How could Yan Jiao not be moved to tears of gratitude when a future powerhouse showed her such goodwill?
After seeing Yan Jiao off, Du Youqian was invited to Shuyue Hua’s private manor.
As soon as he entered, two Perfect Qi Cultivation Kun Cultivators greeted him and began to serve him attentively. Their beauty was no less than Fang Hua’s, but their demeanor was more delicate and lovely, a clear sign of their profound cultivation in the Charm Art.
Shuyue Hua had arranged a banquet to thank Du Youqian for his help during the Hundred Flowers Sect’s time of crisis.
After several rounds of drinks, she even loosened her robes, clad only in a translucent, revealing gauze, and performed a tantalizing dance.
She was willing to set aside her dignity as the Sect Leader to personally entertain Du Youqian.
When the wine had warmed them, Shuyue Hua said, "I personally trained these two children. Fellow Daoist Yu will understand their wonderful qualities once you experience them. I have kept them hidden away, never showing them to anyone, and they are both still virgins. Furthermore, they have only practiced the Charm Art, not the Gathering and Replenishing Art, so Fellow Daoist Yu can enjoy them without any worries."
This time was different from the last time Shuyue Hua offered herself.
Last time, Shuyue Hua was asking for a favor, while Du Youqian had other plans and wasn’t interested in her body.
This time, however, Shuyue Hua was expressing her gratitude, and Du Youqian had already gained plenty from the Hundred Flowers Sect’s Collection Room and Treasure Pavilion.
He wasn’t some pseudo-moralist, nor was he cultivating any Child Skill. When such beauties were delivered to his doorstep, he accepted them with a smile, considering it a diversion from his Cultivation.
Shuyue Hua, who had quietly withdrawn and left the manor for Du Youqian’s pleasure, was also very satisfied.
Offering her personally trained beauties was partly an expression of gratitude; more importantly, she hoped to maintain a long-term friendship with a promising young talent like Du Youqian.
’Perhaps in a few decades, when the Hundred Flowers Sect wants to make a comeback and be promoted back to a Third-class Sect, they will have to rely on him.’
~~~~~~~~~~
A few more days passed, and Du Youqian’s transfer orders arrived.
Without delay, he set off immediately for the Qi Kingdom with Luo Jinyu, Gu Xiaofang, and Fang Hua.
As for Meng Xiao, he was left behind to succeed him as the Guardian Envoy of the Wu Kingdom.
With Meng Xiao’s Foundation Establishment Perfection cultivation, serving as the Guardian Envoy of a single kingdom was actually a bit of a waste of his talents.
Usually, the position of a kingdom’s Guardian Envoy was held by someone at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage.
A Foundation Establishment Perfection Cultivator, on the other hand, would typically spend most of their energy cultivating Secret Techniques to aid with Core Formation, searching for Core Formation Spiritual Objects, and frantically accumulating Sect Contribution points to exchange for life-saving items in case of failure.
But Du Youqian didn’t feel comfortable entrusting the position of Wu Kingdom’s Guardian Envoy to anyone else, at least not for the time being.
The new regime in the Wu Kingdom was in the midst of sweeping reforms, and it needed one of Du Youqian’s trusted subordinates to stand guard and protect the process.
Only then could the reforms bear fruit, allowing him to gain a stable supply of "the kingdom’s fortune of fate"—’Let’s just call that power ’the kingdom’s fortune of fate’ for now.’
’So, Meng Xiao would just have to be inconvenienced.’
Then again, it wasn’t really an inconvenience for him.
Meng Xiao usually spent all his accumulated contributions on items for Ghost Cultivators, not worrying about his own Core Formation at all.
Although any Foundation Establishment Perfection Cultivator could attempt to break through to Core Formation.
But if Meng Xiao tried to break through now, his success rate probably wouldn’t be much higher than Shuyue Hua’s.
By arranging for Meng Xiao to oversee the Wu Kingdom now, Du Youqian would naturally procure some Ghost Cultivator items to reward him.
’Meng Xiao might even be secretly delighted. For a homebody like him, being the Garrison of the Wu Kingdom is much easier than running all over the world doing sect missions, and far less troublesome than sneaking around to gather intelligence for me.’
The moment the Flying Boat crossed the border, Du Youqian felt the gentle trickle descending from the void suddenly diminish, leaving barely a tenth of what it was.
Du Youqian made an excuse to have the Flying Boat turn back. Once they re-entered the Wu Kingdom’s territory, the trickles returned to their original level.
’Could it be? Are these trickles really the ’kingdom’s fortune of fate’?’
Mulling over this speculation, Du Youqian urged the Flying Boat onward toward the Qi Kingdom’s Garrison Office.
