Chapter 101: The Li Family's Reasoning
Fu Leisheng's heart burned with great anxiety. How could this person fail to distinguish good from bad?
They had come seeking vengeance, with a resolve to die. Now vengeance was achieved, and with one of the two surviving, it was already the Li family eldest madam granting mercy beyond the law!
"How is the judgment unfair? It's a fine judgment—truly the work of a clear-sighted lord!"
Fu Leisheng seized Chen Shi's hand and squeezed it forcefully, signaling him to leave at once.
"Since ancient times, a life for a life. Sister Gu killed Tian Huaiyi and Shen Yusheng, so she must pay with her life! I've slain so many Li family retainers and Embroidered Uniform Guards, so I must pay with my life too! You can't even articulate the reasoning properly—go back, study a few more years, then try again!"
Eldest Madam Xia Weiyin smiled.
"Mr. Fu, no need to hurry. Without explaining the reasoning, how could it be clear? Since this young brother has principles burning in his heart that he wishes to voice, by all means, let him speak. Young brother, how do you think they should be judged?"
Fu Leisheng seethed with frustration. He had meant to trade his life for Chen Shi's, but now it was all over.
Chen Shi said, "Mr. Fu, no need to worry. Scholar Zhu, who taught me, said half the Analects suffice to govern the realm. I've studied the whole text—I won't act rashly."
Fu Leisheng recalled that exam paper, despair swelling further in his heart. Chen Shi said, "Sister Gu murdered the chief examiner Tian Huaiyi and Shen Yusheng, slicing open the back of his skull to seize a first-grade Divine Embryo. Her crime warrants a thousand deaths. But for whom did she extract the Divine Embryo? To whom did she deliver it? And who commanded her?"
Fu Leisheng wilted in defeat.
With words like those spoken aloud, was there any path to survival left?
Chen Shi pressed on.
"The bribes she paid to Assistant Magistrate Zheng Shiyun—where did the money come from? Who supplied it? A mere Li manor servant, wielding absolute power in Xinxiang County, bending the assistant magistrate and bailiffs to her will, storming the yamen to slay the chief examiner, invoking the Xinxiang Earth Book... who granted her such authority? The Xinxiang Earth Book is a treasure of the imperial court. Who allowed this treasure to fall into a servant's grasp? Who permitted a servant armed with such a treasure to murder an imperial official while keeping the yamen in perfect calm? Who empowered her to strike Shen Yusheng's name from the rolls?"
He took a step forward, eyes alight.
"Madam, if you're to play the clear-sighted lord, first uncover these truths. Only then do you qualify for the title!"
Eldest Madam Xia Weiyin smiled.
"Are you angling to play that role yourself? Chen Shi, forget you—even your grandfather couldn't manage it. The world has ever been thus; I simply wish to avoid trouble. And you imagine reasoning with the Li family?"
Chen Shi froze.
"She knows my grandfather?"
Eldest Madam Xia Weiyin clapped lightly, tone indifferent.
"Come. Show him the Li family's brand of reasoning."
"Yes, Madam."
Several maids hauled out a book chest. The contents felt immensely heavy—at least one or two hundred jin, judging by their labored efforts.
Yet when the chest opened, it held but a single volume.
A golden tome, some thirteen or fourteen inches long and shy of a foot wide, its pages secured by golden clasps.
Each leaf was gilded paper, faint script and diagrams shimmering upon it.
One maid flipped to the second page and exhaled a puff of true qi onto it. Instantly, a map of all Xinxiang County rose from the page, vaulting into the air and pulverizing Chen Shi's Nine Yang Heavenly Thunder Guiding Talisman.
This page linked to the qi of the banner safeguarding Xinxiang County—and beyond, to every village and town under its jurisdiction. In a flash, an oppressively vast aura descended, thick as loess blotting the heavens, bearing down relentlessly!
Earth Book, Xinxiang County Chapter.
Chen Shi and Fu Leisheng each stifled a grunt, straining against the horrific pressure. They could not budge.
The maid was mere Divine Embryo Realm, her breath of true qi far from unleashing the page's full might. Even a sliver sufficed to pin two Golden Core experts like Chen Shi and Fu Leisheng, ripe for the slaughter!
Should that page be fully roused, it might well rival a Soul Transformation expert!
Eldest Madam Xia Weiyin said, "Now expound a bit more on the Li family's harder truths."
Her words barely fell when the guards flared their cultivations. Divine Shrines and Divine Embryos manifested in droves—Golden Cores hovering aloft in a riot of colors, many Ninth Cycle paragons among them!
Then came more than a dozen Nascent Souls, seated lotus-style, wreathed in radiant divine glows, perched as if upon the void itself—immeasurable, unfathomable, boundless. Ten thousand dharmas could not assail them, nor ten thousand blades breach!
Golden Core and Nascent Soul luminosities bathed the gloomy sky in splendor akin to a brilliant dusk.
In that instant, another blaze of divine radiance pierced the firmament. A four-zhang Nascent Soul loomed in midair, peerless as a great Buddha—one hand in flower-pinch mudra, the other cradling a treasure vase—gazing down imperiously upon Chen Shi and Fu Leisheng!
Its aura so dense the overhead thunderheads wavered, on the verge of scattering!
Such dominion bred utter despair.
Eldest Madam Xia Weiyin's eyes settled on Chen Shi's face. She smiled faintly.
"Chen Shi, do you grasp the Li family's reasoning now? We mere women and children are but the clan's kin, of little account. Yet for Xinxiang County, what difficulty is there in my donning the mantle of clear-sighted lord?"
She averted her gaze and drew the carriage curtain.
"Mr. Fu, the Li family brooks no disgrace. I've granted you justice. Now, in the Li family's stead, I claim mine. Can you provide it?"
Fu Leisheng nodded mutely.
Xia Weiyin smiled.
"I am, after all, but a frail woman averse to bloodshed. Master Zeng, you remain. See to Mr. Fu's proper burial, then deliver his head to the provincial city."
Master Zeng bowed.
"Eldest Madam, rest easy."
"Depart."
The maids shut the Xinxiang Earth Book, sealed the chest, and loaded it aboard.
The Li retainers and Embroidered Uniform Guards mounted swiftly, escorting the caravan beyond the city walls.
Chen Shi and Fu Leisheng had felled many, true—but to the caravan, they were replaceable chaff, soon restocked in the provincial seat.
"Rumble!"
Thunder crashed overhead, bolts crisscrossing wildly. From the roadside Qingqu River rose the patter of rain upon water.
Thunder roared fierce, yet rain fell sparse.
The storm ought to have raged, but the Soul Transformation expert's aura had rent much of it asunder. Once the madams' caravan departed, hordes of houseboys poured from a wealthy Lingnan merchant's estate, towing thin coffins apace—one to unlatch, two to heave corpses within.
Into the box they went, whereupon hammers and nails emerged—clang and clatter sealing lids watertight.
Along this river road, four or five dozen bodies—retainers and Embroidered Uniform Guards alike—vanished clean in the span of one incense stick.
Another crew of houseboys advanced, channeling water spells to scour blood from stone. Masons chipped crimson from walls, slapped on fresh limewash.
Slaves bore bluestone slabs, prying rotten segments free, scouring bare, slotting pristine replacements.
They tucked moss into slab cracks with care, masking all signs of renewal.
Girls arrived riverside next, uprooting ruined blooms and bedding new posies.
Fragrance bloomed riotous.
Chen Shi and Fu Leisheng gawped at the spectacle. In mere heartbeats, the road gleamed reborn—as if the savage clash were but a yellow millet dream, never chanced.
Master Zeng stood stock-still till two houseboys bore a thin coffin before Fu Leisheng, whereupon he dismissed them with a wave.
"Mr. Fu teaches superbly. I hold it in esteem."
Master Zeng's visage was kindly, fixed upon the kneeling Fu Leisheng who rose not.
"Tian Huaiyi brimmed with righteous qi, incorruptibly stern. Shen Yusheng's civil exam verse dazzled heavenward, earning divine boon of a first-grade Divine Embryo. And young Chen Shi here—sword qi piercing eighty zhang, shattering the child scholar's thirty-six-zhang mark from a decade past. Impressive. Thus I respect you. A tutor rearing three such stellar pupils in one life? Rare fortune."
He spoke with feeling.
"Our ages align, yet fates diverge. Post-scholar exam, I sat for juren—repeated failures. Seventeen to thirty-five, no passage. Tutoring a Li collateral scion brought favor; at thirty-eight, an examiner's whisper saw me through juren that year."
He shook his head.
"Elation consumed me—leaping, laughing, proclaiming to all. I craved my detractors groveling 'lord,' spurned maidens ruing their lost prize. Sobriety came: juren not by merit, but Li favor. I knew then officialdom held no ascent for me. Post-juren, I tutored the Li house. Over a decade slipped by."
Fu Leisheng raised his eyes.
"Over a decade. How many prodigies forged?"
Master Zeng chuckled.
"Prodigies? Some. Absent that, heaps of heavenly treasures, expert tutelage, prime Divine Embryo grafts—they emerge prodigies regardless. Had another taught, same heights attained; clan depths brook no shortfall. Terrifying."
Gravely:
"By title, Li scion tutor—yet I gained most. Sans Li house, Golden Core stagnation awaited, Nascent Soul a pipe dream like yours. In Li house, Ninth Cycle Golden Core reached, I mused breakthrough woes—masters dispatched peerless art, myriad spirit pills forthwith."
To Fu Leisheng:
"Unthinkable to you, aye? Mr. Fu, long stalled at Ninth Cycle? Qi-blood wanting? Suspect not your flaw, but flawed art? Qi-blood dearth offset by treasures, pills storming the pass? Lifetime earnings buy not one Nascent Soul pill! Breakthrough? Delusion!"
Fu Leisheng grunted.
"Yet I envy you."
Master Zeng sighed.
"Lifelong pedagogue, yet none like your Tian Huaiyi mine to mold. World unchanged, I drift with current."
Silent, he brightened abruptly.
"Friendlike converse—ages past. Mr. Fu, end it."
Fu Leisheng shuddered, invoked Divine Shrine and Embryo; from its maw rolled a Ninth Cycle Golden Core.
Panting ragged, he primed detonation for self-immolation—till a deafening roar assailed his ears, thundering Xinxiang citywide, dazing him nigh to blackout!
Eyes bulging in horror, he beheld Chen Shi stride forth beside him, hand rising, hacking down.
Behind Chen Shi's pate floated divine radiance unawares, a dainty temple adrift therein. From the temple bounded a tiger-cub—tigerish head and brains—shadowing Chen Shi's step, rearing fuzzy forepaw to smite!
Heaven-shaking tiger-roar bellowed from its jaws. Palm descending whipped gale before the shrine; vast as a hillcrest gleamed the tawny tiger-paw plummeting heavenward!
"Hoo—"
Majestic palm-force crushed down. Master Zeng's unsheathed Nascent Soul flared desperately—void-perched, dharmas-proof, blades-proof—yet beneath tiger-paw, all sundered!
No resistance, no reprieve—his Nascent Soul vaporized in terror-force!
"Bam!"
Thunderous impact: immense tiger-paw clapped Master Zeng to pulp, smashing bluestone!
Chen Shi recalled hand; titan paw shrank temple-ward.
Cub within fretted perplexed—what sorcery swelled its roar, hefted paw to pulp the man?
Seemed but nature's course.
Chen Shi snorted, fished oil-paper umbrella from fish creel, unfurled it, cast creel aside.
Low-voiced:
"Ever thus makes it just? Promising youth Divinely Embryo-reft, slain. Your airy 'justice' absolves?"
Fu Leisheng gaped transfixed at the wee shrine rearward, incense haze coiling.
Fearing Chen Shi pursuit of Li convoy into Soul Transformation jaws, he lurched up, clutched Chen Shi's hand.
"This is the world!"
Chen Shi raged.
"This world is rotten!"
Fu Leisheng bellowed.
"Can you remake it?"
Chen Shi stilled, blanked long, then boomed:
"Wealthy merchants, out scrubbing! You lot—over here! Scrape Master Zeng's remnants, box 'em! Haul to provincial Li manor. Tell 'em Chen Shi sends regards! That hag craves justice? Young master delivers!"