For displaced disaster victims like those from Yong'an, to fight against the imperial army
was a losing battle, a gross overestimation of their own strength.
Yet, those who were cornered often possessed the courage to court one's ruin and bite
off more than they could chew. After that one riot, the hundreds of thousands of Yong'an
refugees finally left the city gates, backing off to some distance away, and changed
where they built temporary camps.
However, they just wouldn't leave. They might die on the road if they keep going, and
hanging around was also death, so what's the difference? Using the rations and water
the king distributed from before, plus munching on bark skins, wild herbs, plant roots,
critters and insects, and a build up of resentment and loathing on top of all that, those
people possessed an unimaginably persistent will to live, and stubbornly persevered.
After a few days, they managed to assemble some thousands of men, all carrying hoes,
rakes, rocks, branches, and returned for a bout of fight.
Although this clash was a mess, an utter defeat with over half of that some thousands
dead, but it wasn't fruitless. Lang Ying invaded the castle tower and returned hauling a
few large bags of grain and weapons. There might have been serious casualties, but it
provoked a will to fight to the death amongst the people.
Their nature was akin to that of bandits. They attacked once, twice, thrice. The soldiers
of Xianle soon discovered that those 'bandits' were rapidly improving.
The initial inexperienced rioters had gradually gotten a hang of things, and every time
they attacked they were more difficult to deal with than the last, and those who could
return to camp alive increased with every attempt. There were also endless waves of
new refugees joining, significantly growing the size of the group. How to best deal with
those 'bandits' became the hottest topic for debate within the Kingdom of Xianle, and
after five to six such ridiculous guerilla attacks, Xie Lian could no longer sit still on the
parapet and simply watch.
He hadn't reported in to the Heavens in a long time, but this time when he arrived at the
Heavenly Court, he dashed straight for the Great Martial Hall without a word. When he
broke in, Jun Wu was seated in his throne, and a number of heavenly officials were
bowing to receive a command, seeming to be discussing an important matter. In the
past, Xie Lian would've chosen a different day to pay his visit, but now, he couldn't wait,
and went in bluntly, opening his mouth to speak without pause, "My lord, I'm returning to
the mortal realm."
The heavenly officials were all startled, and immediately covered their mouths, keeping
silent, not wanting to show any kind of reaction. Jun Wu looked at him knowingly for a
moment, then rose from his throne, speaking in a gentle tone, "Xian Le. I know
somewhat of what's happening, but, you must remain calm."
"My lord, I didn't come here to request for permission. I came here to inform." Xie Lian
said, "My people are currently sunken in the depths of hell, so please forgive me if I
cannot remain calm."
"The universe has its own rhythm." Jun Wu said, "Do you not realize that if you descend
to appear before mortals, it will be a violation of heavenly laws?"
"IF IT'S A VIOLATION THEN SO BE IT!" Xie Lian cried.
Hearing this, all the faces of the officials present dropped. There had never been any
heavenly officials who dared to speak such words with such gusto and confidence. No
matter how highly Jun Wu regarded this young, early ascended Prince of Xianle, it was
still an act of daring arrogance.
Soon after, Xie Lian bent to bow, "Pray my lord let me go this once; just give me a little
time. Since the fighting has started, casualties are unavoidable, but if I could stop this
and reduce the number of dead, minimize the conflict, then after the fighting ends I will
for sure return willingly to repent, and have my lord sentence me as see fit. Whether if I
shall be sealed under a mountain for a hundred years, a thousand years, a hundred
thousand years! – I WILL NOT REGRET!"
After having had his say, he remained in the bowing posture and stood down, leaving
the great hall.
"Xian Le!" Jun Wu called.
Xie Lian's feet paused in his step. Jun Wu watched him then sighed, "You can't save
everyone."
Xie Lian slowly straightened up, "Whether if I can I won't know until I've tried. Even if the
heavens say I must die, if that sword doesn't pierce my heart and nail me dead on the
ground, then I am still alive, and til my last breath I will struggle to the end!"
Returning to the mortal realm for the first time in solid form was unlike all the previous
times he descended. Xie Lian felt like something had been thrown away. He was both
somewhat light and at the same time, somewhat heavy. His first step was to return to
the palace immediately.
The king and the queen were in the chamber behind the royal bureau, whispering
between themselves, their expressions solemn and exhausted. Xie Lian came to the
door and was anxious at first, but then he calmed his nerves, raised the beaded curtain,
and walked in. "Father."
The king and the queen both looked back at the same time and was stunned. A moment
later, it was the queen who stood up first, crying joyously, "My son!"
She extended both her hands and came forward to welcome him. Xie Lian caught her
arms, accepting the gesture. But before the smiles went away, he suddenly saw the
king's growing dark expression, demanding, "Why have you descended?"
Xie Lian's smile froze.
Before when he heard his parents talk behind his back, Xie Lian had felt maybe his
father did still miss him, and wasn't as opinionated against him as he made it seem. He
had thought that the king would at least show some degree of pleasure in seeing his
return, and if that was the case, then surely he would return the affection. But who knew
the king would react this way, so full of scorn, and so Xie Lian's own temper flared up.
He replied sharply, "Why have I descended? Isn't it all because of you?! That the
situation with Yong'an had come to this, shouldn't you ask yourselves whether if you're
responsible?"
The king's expression completely changed, and he countered harshly, "My
responsibility? Is that something you can say to me?!"
His fury had made him forget to refer to his own title, and the queen teared up, "The
situation has already come to this, so why are you two still arguing?"
"We're not arguing," Xie Lian said, "We're talking about sense. Even if you are the king,
my father, if you are the responsible, why can I not say anything? Why didn't you work
harder to fundraise? If the funds were all swallowed by government checkpoints, why
didn't you punish the corrupt officials? If you were tough like thunder and fast like
lightning, catch one jail one, then would there still be so many corrupt parasites who'd
dare steal? Wouldn't the situation be better than it is now?"
Veins popped on the king's forehead, and he banged on his bureau desk, "QUIET! Do
you take the royal treasury for a bottomless well that can fix any hole that leaks?! Catch
one jail one, if it was that easy, if by just one order from this king and it'd work fast like
lightning, tough as thunder, then why has history never had a dynasty untouched by
corruption? WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND? YOU IGNORANT CHILD DARE SPEAK
POLITICS WITH ME!"
"Fine." Xie Lian acquiesced, "I don't understand. Then even if the royal capital had no
room for the victims to settle and expulsion was inevitable, why not provide more
expenses for them? Why not provide more comfort and security and have an army
escort their journey eastward?"
The king's eyes bulged with rage and pointed to the sky, "SCRAM. GET OUT OF
HERE! GET BACK TO THE HEAVENS! JUST LOOKING AT YOU ANNOYS ME!
DON'T EVER APPEAR AGAIN!"
Xie Lian had descended with a heart full of fervor, yet the first encounter with his
parents was his father yelling for him to scram back to the heavens. Without a word, Xie
Lian bowed to him, and stood down to leave. The queen chased after him out of the
bureau and pulled him to a stop. "My son!"
Xie Lian said gently, "Mother, don't worry. I'm just going to go make a round around the
royal capital and check on the situation."
The queen shook her head, "My son, I don't understand those political matters, but I
understand your father. Throughout the years, I've seen how he is as a king. You can
think from the bottom of your heart that he isn't competent, and sometimes I think so
too, I just don't say it out loud. But you can't say that to his face. He's your father after
all. If you tell him straight on that he's no good, it really kills the heart."
Xie Lian opened and closed his mouth. The queen added, "You might have been the
Crown Prince, but you had never been king. Politics isn't like cultivation. When you first
entered the Royal Holy Pavilion, the Guoshi had said cultivation only concerns the
heart, isn't that right?"
Xie Lian nodded slowly, and the queen clutched his hands, "But, there are many other
things in this world that by just having the heart isn't enough. You must be capable too;
and not just you, but your subordinates must be capable as well; and not just ability,
they must share the same heart as you."
Xie Lian remained silent. A while later he asked, "Is the royal treasury suffering? I don't
need temples; tell him to stop building so many temples for me. Those golden statues
can go."
The queen replied miserably, "My child... Of course there's some of your father's
partialness in building temples, he wanted to give you the best, and have you look
impressive in the heavens. But, do you know just how many of those eight thousand
temples were actually built by your father? You don't know, do you?"
Xie Lian really didn't know, and he gave it a thought, "...half?"
"If your father really used funds from the royal treasury to build four thousand temples,
we needn't wait for the Yong'an refugees to start anything, the royal capital would revolt
first." The queen said. "So if the royal treasury is empty, where did all that money come
from? Your father built maybe twenty some temples, and others followed suit, masses of
them wanting to build too to get on his good side, to get on your good side, so is that
counted on your father's head too?"
"I..." Xie Lian was stumped.
The queen said softly, "Your father isn't the greatest king, but... he's done his best. Only,
in this world, just doing your best isn't good enough."
After a pause she added, "Right now you feel sympathy for those Yong'an refugees so
you blame your father. But they're all his people, do you think we're the ones bullying
them? In truth..."
Halfway through her words, the enraged voice of the king rang from within the bureau,
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING SAYING SO MUCH USELESS THINGS TO HIM? MAKE
HIM LEAVE AND GO BACK TO THE HEAVENS!"
The queen turned her head back and sighed, "My son, don't... don't descend for this.
Go back."
After leaving the palace, Xie Lian followed down an alleyway by the Martial Deity
Avenue, and as he walked, Feng Xin and Mu Qing appeared in a hurry. The moment Mu
Qing approached he questioned in disbelief, "Your Highness! You requested to descend
into the mortal realm? You went and spoke to the Heavenly Emperor??"
"Yes." Xie Lian answered.
"Why didn't you tell me first?" Mu Qing demanded.
Feng Xin was puzzled, "What do you mean? Does His Highness have to report to
anyone what he wants to do?"
However, Mu Qing appeared to be losing it, "Why not? We're his subordinates, and right
now we're all tied together. His every action affects us so is there something wrong in
me wanting to know what he plans on doing?"
"We'd have to follow His Highness no matter what he does anyway? Heaven or earth he
has his plans, what are you afraid of?" Feng Xin said.
"You!" Mu Qing shouted, "I'm not afraid! I'm only..."
Xie Lian raised his hand, "Enough. Stop arguing!"
Feng Xin and Mu Qing quieted immediately. Just then, a long line of demonstrating
crowd paraded down the main street, and thousands of citizens were hollering: "THERE
WILL BE NO PEACE IN THE KINGDOM UNTIL YONG'AN IS EXTERMINATED!"
"THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR IN CREATING DISORDER! THEY'RE CANCEROUS!"
The people of Xianle had never been so aggressive towards anything, and such a
roaring protest demonstration too. Xie Lian couldn't help but think something amiss.
Feng Xin on the other hand frowned, "How come there's a woman in there?"
Sure enough, in that parading crowd, a young woman was leading the forefront. That
young woman was slender, her skin snow white, her eyes bright and black, her cheeks
flushed not from shyness but from rage; a catching sight. By then Mu Qing had calmed
himself down and said coldly, "His Highness doesn't recognize her?"
"No." Xie Lian replied.
Feng Xin knitted his brows, "Looks familiar?"
"She's one of the catalysts." Mu Qing said.
"What catalyst?" Xie Lian asked.
"The catalyst for the standoff." Mu Qing replied, "Before, because there were more and
more Yong'an refugees in the royal capital and some would even go around causing
issues, not quietly minding their own business, so the parliament was discussing the
matter of expulsion, and words of it were spreading. There was a Yong'an refugee who
wanted to stay and not be expelled, so he decided to take a risk. One night, he snuck
into the house of a wealthy family, and kidnapped their daughter."
Hearing this, Xie Lian couldn't wrap his head around it, "Why would he kidnap a rich
family's daughter if he didn't want to leave?"
Mu Qing gave him a look, "To marry her. It's just that if it wasn't through forcible means,
no daughter of a good standing family in the royal capital would marry a person of
Yong'an."
He didn't say it plainly but Xie Lian understood.
He had never thought that it was something that could be done – that there were
actually people in this world like that. That something like this actually happened, a
sudden desire to get sick rolled up from his chest. Feng Xin angrily cursed on the spot,
"Despicable!"
Just then, a group of aunties rushed over, grabbing and pulling at that young woman. By
the looks of it, she had come out when her family wasn't paying attention. That young
woman wouldn't yield, yelling: "I'm not afraid! I've nothing to be embarrassed about, I
wasn't in the wrong!"
Feng Xin was amazed, "That chick's pretty spunky."
"Yes." Mu Qing said, "Because she didn't come from a commoner background. Her
father is a high ranking official, and her mother came from a family of wealthy
merchants in the royal capital. They refused to suffer this shame quietly, and definitely
wouldn't marry off their daughter like that for the sake of shame, so they beat that
Yong'an man to death. Soon after, all the wealthy merchants and gentleman of renown
in the capital signed a petition, listing all the crimes the Yong'an refugees had committed
since entering the capital, and bade the king to jail all of them to be punished severely.
There's no need to speak on where the government officials all stand on this."
After a pause, he said with a casual air, "I hear that girl's father had once wanted her to
enter the harem and fight for the position of the Prince's Consort. Your Highness
must've seen her face a few times a long time ago, yet you don't recognize her."
Xie Lian finally realized that everything was much more complicated than he had
imagined.
Two sides of a tumultuous standoff had long been formed within and outside the city. All
the peoples were enraged, wishing to kill off the other. If the king's decree was partial to
Yong'an, wouldn't that be slapping his own people's faces? When at last the decision
was made to distribute some travel expenses to the Yong'an refugees from the royal
treasury, there were probably also a large number of residents who were displeased.
What's even more frightening than a displeased enemy was the dissatisfaction of a
kingdom's own people. Although technically everyone was of Xianle, but now, there
were probably very few who'd think so.
Xie Lian had been standing from high up and had long not known the matters of the
mortal realm, but his father was still in the mortal realm. As a king, he needed money,
he needed people, and in his position, the stress, the pressure, the compromise he
needed to make between people and issues were not of the same caliber as he. Just
like how when the Yong'an refugees arrived they took over land, created noise, stole
and robbed, etc., to a martial god sitting in a temple, they were all small matters.
However, to the residents of the royal capital, they were all very real, unchasable,
intolerable tortures; a crisis waiting to erupt. To think this a simple, trivial matter was
only because he wasn't the one situated within.
Xie Lian couldn't help but recall that the king's two moustaches were even whiter than
the last time he had seen him. Last time the king said he was going to dye it, but he
probably didn't have the energy to care anymore.
When Xie Lian was younger, he firmly believed his father was the world's greatest king.
But the older he got, the more he realized that wasn't the case. His father, although
king, couldn't be said to be wise and competent, and was even a little corrupt, making
mistakes often. Taking away his prestigious status, he was no more than a common
man.
The more he realized this the more disappointed he became, and the king had also
noticed his disappointment. Thus, the more the king couldn't accept every disagreeing
look, every disagreeing word from Xie Lian. What he couldn't accept the most however,
was have Xie Lian see his failure.
No father in the world wished to have their son see their failures. Every father wished
that before their sons, they would always be the greatest. Yet Xie Lian appeared before
him at such a time to berate his own father: You're making a mess of things! So much
so that I had to descend to help you out – as both a king and a father, how could he
have withstood it hearing that?
That young woman was finally taken away by her servant ladies, and the remaining
hundreds of demonstrating residents continued their protest, waving signs and hollering.
They were only crying for one thing: "KILL THEM! START THE BATTLE! SHOW
THOSE YONG'AN REFUGEES OUTSIDE THE CITY WALLS!"
A moment later, Mu Qing spoke up, "Your Highness, it's best if you go back and
apologize to the Heavenly Emperor. At this point, fortune, time, and place, are all lost.
There is no helping."
Just as Jun Wu had told him at the Great Martial Hall: The universe has its own rhythm.
It was like telling him: The Kingdom of Xianle's time has come, let it go.
Even the queen, his mother, who wished day and night if only to have a glimpse of him,
who when she finally saw him, asked him to leave with tears in her eyes. How could Xie
Lian not know that they simply didn't want him to go through this difficult trial, and would
rather he watch from afar, taking a good care of himself instead?
But, how could he possibly?
"..."
Xie Lian said gravely, "No!"
And he strode out.