Chapter 314 : Envoy Mission
Chapter 314: Envoy Mission
Over the next few days, Chen Ming mainly did three things.
First, following the list provided by Du Yan, he summoned people one by one to meet and talk with them. Those willing to follow him stayed; those unwilling were not forced.
Within the Six Doors Authority, how could one accomplish anything without a proper team?
Fortunately, if the Six Doors Authority lacked anything, it certainly was not people who had long been frustrated and unable to realize their ambitions.
Very quickly, he gathered his core group: five First Grade experts and ten Second Grade experts. As for Third Grade ones, he let those subordinates recruit them themselves.
With these people under him, the Abyss-Gazing Pavilion could finally begin operating.
The second task was conducting visits and inspections around the scene and nearby areas.
The final task was interrogating Yang Shuchang. Although it was called an interrogation, the man never spoke, and Chen Ming had no real way to deal with him.
To put it bluntly, Chen Ming did not want to get involved in this matter. The old man who had truly annihilated the Delegation of the Northern Frontier Nations possessed unfathomable strength.
Someone like that was not to be provoked.
So Chen Ming simply used the delaying tactic.
Of course, if His Majesty insisted on forcing him to investigate and intended to make him a scapegoat if he failed, Chen Ming would simply produce the old man’s portrait to report back.
He had already prepared both options.
Just like that, ten days passed. The emperor’s personal old eunuch stopped appearing, which meant the emperor had given up.
Presumably, the emperor had realized that with Chen Ming’s strength, failing to uncover the truth was entirely normal. Recalling the old eunuch represented a certain attitude.
However, the emperor neither pursued responsibility from Chen Ming nor reclaimed the token he had granted him. It seemed he intended to let the matter quietly fade away.
Chen Ming’s first thought was that it was no wonder the emperor could not defeat the Empress Dowager. Acting this way, how could the people below truly fear him?
However, as a subject, encountering such an emperor was actually quite fortunate.
After that, Chen Ming’s life returned to normal.
Every day he would first make a round at the Six Doors Authority, training and disciplining his subordinates.
Then he would visit the Imperial Guards of the various divisions and conduct evaluation sparring with their senior commanders.
Although after reaching level one hundred, fighting opponents far weaker than himself gave significantly reduced experience points, he still gained several hundred thousand per day.
Even so, it was still far better than most people.
Hundreds of thousands per day meant over ten million per month. In a year, he could accumulate one hundred million experience points.
…
In the blink of an eye, half a month passed.
One morning, just after Chen Ming arrived at the Six Doors Authority, he heard news: the Northern Frontier Nations had finally reacted. It was said that their ruler had flown into a rage and immediately formed a coalition army of two hundred thousand troops, preparing to march south.
War was coming again.
On that very day, His Majesty summoned Chen Ming.
Nearly a month had passed since their last meeting, and the emperor looked far more haggard.
“Loyal Subject, war is now unavoidable. Your wedding approaches, and I should not be sending you away at such a time. But this battle concerns the fate of the nation. You must shoulder this responsibility.”
“Your Majesty may command as you wish. The matter of marriage can wait.”
“I intend to send you as an envoy to Southern Chu.”
An envoy to Southern Chu?
This greatly surprised Chen Ming. He had originally thought the emperor would send him to the Northern Frontier to participate in the great war and gain battlefield experience. Unexpectedly, he was being sent to Southern Chu.
The emperor continued, “You should understand that this war carries great danger for Great Jin. At such a time, if Southern Chu were to stab us in the back, the consequences would be disastrous. Therefore, I am sending you as envoy. No matter what, you must maintain friendly relations with them and preferably establish an alliance. As long as Southern Chu remains stable and does not attack us, it will be a great achievement.”
Chen Ming said solemnly, “Yes. This subject will do everything in his power to accomplish the mission.”
…
That very day, the cabinet approved the appointment. Chen Ming, as the Prince of Linjiang, would serve as chief envoy to Southern Chu.
The next day, Chen Ming set out with the delegation. At such a time, the cabinet displayed extremely high efficiency.
A grand convoy departed from the southern gate of the Capital, heading south.
Among the entourage, besides officials from the Court of Diplomatic Reception, there were unexpectedly two familiar faces.
“Senior Chang is also going to Southern Chu?”
Chen Ming went over to greet Chang Yunshan. Seeing this Divine Repository Realm expert from the Heaven's Path Alliance appearing within the envoy delegation with Su Zhining truly surprised him.
Chang Yunshan replied calmly, “I’m going to see an old friend.”
“Oh.”
Chen Ming did not press further. Seeing that Su Zhining beside him looked quite well, he merely nodded slightly in greeting.
The delegation consisted of several hundred people and dozens of carriages. Naturally, they could not travel quickly—at most forty or fifty li per day.
Chen Ming was not in a hurry. Each night after the camp was set, he stationed guards outside his tent and used the Purple Mansion Secret Volume to enter the Demon-Suppressing Tower inside the Heaven's Punishment Hall to grind experience.
With the Celestial Master Robe, he truly moved like lightning. Facing great demons or Ghost Kings head-on would be impossible, but as long as he remained careful and avoided traps, they could not do anything to him.
He would unleash a strike of Nine Heavens Divine Thunder and immediately change locations, never lingering.
This guerrilla-style battle yielded considerable gains.
In a single night, gaining one million experience points was no problem.
Inside the Demon-Suppressing Tower, there was no shortage of demons, monsters, and ghosts to kill.
After several days, the delegation switched to traveling by boat, moving downstream, and their speed increased significantly.
…
More than a month later, the delegation finally arrived at Yunzhou, the southernmost province of Great Jin, bordering Southern Chu.
Present-day Yunzhou had only half still under Great Jin’s control. The other half had been taken by Southern Chu during the war one hundred years ago. This included Linjiang County, the fief of the Prince of Linjiang.
On that same day, news came from the Six Doors Authority: the commander leading the defense against the Northern Frontier coalition was indeed the Grand General Yang Wuzhong. The court had dispatched an army of two hundred fifty thousand to the Northern Frontier.
Of those troops, more than half were newly trained soldiers, while the rest were Imperial Guards who had not fought a war in several hundred years.
Could such an army defeat the battle-hardened forces of the Northern Frontier Nations?
Chen Ming felt it was uncertain. However, if they focused on defending cities, they should be able to hold out for a time.
After all, the northern coalition was fighting far from home, and supplies would be difficult. If the war dragged on long enough, the enemy might collapse.
Now it depended on Yang Wuzhong’s abilities.
Several days later, the delegation finally left Great Jin’s territory and entered Southern Chu.
Upon entering Southern Chu, Chen Ming immediately felt that its cities were very different from those of Great Jin.
If he had to describe it, they were more vibrant.
Especially when they encountered a group of energetic youths—boys and girls dressed in uniform clothing, chatting and laughing as they walked along the road.
When Chen Ming saw them, he felt momentarily dazed.
It looked exactly like students leaving school.
“These must all be students from martial academies,” he heard an official from the Court of Diplomatic Reception say beside him.
“I’ve heard that Southern Chu practices universal martial training. All children of suitable age must attend school. Those with high talent enter martial academies; those with lesser talent enter literary academies.”
“That Prime Minister truly possessed great courage. Back then he pushed through this national policy despite strong opposition. In less than a hundred years, talents have emerged endlessly in Southern Chu, and the nation’s strength has greatly increased.”
“What I admire even more is his ability to raise money. He had to supply enormous amounts of gold and silver to the Southern Chu emperor while implementing several extremely expensive national policies. That’s the truly remarkable part.”
“…”
Although the two officials were communicating through spiritual transmission, Chen Ming’s powerful spiritual awareness still captured their conversation.
From their tone, it was clear they both deeply admired that “Prime Minister.”
And indeed, the Prime Minister was extraordinary.
After becoming a Red-Robed Officer, Chen Ming had access to many secret records within the Six Doors Authority, including intelligence about Southern Chu.
This Prime Minister had already been serving as chancellor of Southern Chu two hundred years ago. Over a hundred years, he implemented numerous reforms that steadily strengthened the nation.
In the war one hundred years ago, he crushed Great Jin’s elite forces, completely reversing the balance between the two nations.
In fact, according to the Six Doors Authority’s records, that battle had not been so simple.
At the time, Great Jin’s elite forces were almost entirely wiped out, and Southern Chu’s army could have marched straight forward. Several provinces of Great Jin were already within their grasp.
But after such an epic victory, Southern Chu’s army did not continue advancing to seize more territory.
This was because a Celestial Being Realm expert from Great Jin appeared and single-handedly blocked Southern Chu’s million-strong army, ending the war.
Not long after that battle, the Prime Minister resigned. Some said he had been injured during the war; others claimed he had already touched the threshold of immortality and withdrawn from the world.
Although Southern Chu no longer had the Prime Minister, the national policies he established continued to be implemented. Over the past century, Southern Chu’s national strength had only grown stronger.
Its territory had expanded greatly as well. It was said that the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the south had almost entirely been conquered and incorporated into Southern Chu’s domain.
Now Southern Chu’s territory was even larger than Great Jin’s.
Chen Ming felt that his envoy mission to Southern Chu would probably just be a formality.
In this world, strength ruled above all.
Whether Southern Chu would send troops or not was not something he could decide. It depended entirely on Great Jin’s strength.
Just like a hundred years ago, when the Celestial Being expert blocked Southern Chu’s million troops.
As long as that expert still existed, Great Jin would not collapse so easily.
…
After the envoy delegation established contact with Southern Chu’s authorities, Chen Ming no longer had to worry about the itinerary. When and how they would travel to Southern Chu’s capital would all be arranged by Southern Chu.
After staying in this border city for two days, they received permission. Southern Chu dispatched a two-hundred-man military escort to accompany them to the capital.
Chen Ming noticed that the horses used in Southern Chu were exceptionally strong—faster and far more enduring.
Not only that, there were even giant birds that soldiers could ride.
The entire style was vastly different from Great Jin.
Chen Ming could not help asking a Southern Chu official, “Those horses and giant birds all possess Demonkind bloodlines, don’t they?”
“Indeed,” the Southern Chu official admitted. “Within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, Demonkind have multiplied for tens of thousands of years, producing countless strange species. The Wu tribes living in those mountains are skilled at taming and using these demon beasts, which are useful in many situations.”
Chen Ming immediately thought of the Demonic Transformation Branch. In Great Jin, demons had almost vanished, so this branch of the Eternal Life Cult had disappeared as well. But in Southern Chu, that might not be the case.
Where demons existed, the Demonic Transformation Branch would exist.
From this perspective, Southern Chu’s court was quite pragmatic.
Chen Ming then thought of the three realm entrances suppressed inside the Demon-Suppressing Tower of the Heaven's Punishment Hall. He could not help pondering whether such a crude method of handling them truly had advantages.
Suddenly, the Southern Chu official said, “Ahead is Linjiang County. The ruins of the old Prince of Linjiang’s Residence are there. Would Your Highness like to take a look?”
Chen Ming replied, “If possible, I would like to pay my respects.”
“Of course.”
…
The previous Prince of Linjiang had died without heirs during the war a hundred years ago.
When the emperor granted Chen Ming the title of Prince of Linjiang, he likely hoped that one day Chen Ming would reclaim the land taken by Southern Chu.
But what Chen Ming was curious about was the fate of the first Prince of Linjiang.
At the founding of Great Jin, only a few people had been granted princely titles, and all were among the most distinguished founding heroes in both strength and merit. Logically, such a figure should not have fallen so early.
Yet the first Prince of Linjiang had not appeared during the war a hundred years ago.
After the war, the title had even been abolished.
So where had the first Prince of Linjiang gone?
Standing at the ruins of the Prince of Linjiang’s Residence, Chen Ming could not help thinking about this question. After all, even the First Duke of Jingguo was still alive.
Though called ruins, the residence was actually well preserved. A signboard stood at the entrance introducing the place. It had become something of a tourist attraction.
The estate covered an enormous area.
Local officials acted as guides, explaining the various parts of the residence.
Chen Ming did not react much. However, the two attendants following behind him had unusual expressions—humiliation and anger flickered in their eyes.
Eventually they arrived at the very center of the residence.
“This is the ancestral hall of the Prince of Linjiang. The spirit tablets of all past princes are placed here,” the official explained.
Chen Ming looked at the tablets displayed there. The feeling was somewhat strange.
Although he now held the title of Prince of Linjiang, he had no real connection with the previous princes.
As he was thinking, he suddenly felt something unusual.
It seemed that something was calling to him.
His heart stirred, though his face remained calm.
“By the way,” he asked, “is the first Prince of Linjiang dead or alive?”
“Well… the general consensus is that he died long ago. Back when he followed the Founding Emperor of Great Jin to conquer the realm, he suffered severe injuries. He probably couldn’t have lived for several hundred years.”
“I see.”
Soon after, they left the ancestral hall and continued touring other areas.
The group wandered through the residence for quite some time before finally departing.
…
Night fell.
Within the ruins of the Prince of Linjiang’s Residence, a gust of wind swept silently through the darkness and drifted into the ancestral hall.
Then a formless figure appeared and floated toward one of the spirit tablets.
“So it was here.”
The figure murmured, “My apologies.”
The shadow wrapped itself around the tablet, and soon a faint purple aura seeped out, condensing into a single drop of purple liquid.
“This… could it be the legendary supreme treasure, the Mystic Soul Pearl?”
The invisible figure was Chen Ming’s Yang Spirit. He had secretly returned to the residence to investigate the mysterious sensation he felt earlier.
He had never expected to discover such a supreme treasure.
Could it truly be that the Prince of Linjiang was guiding him from beyond the grave?