"Your Highness, what took you so long?" Mu Qing asked.
Xie Lian was taken aback. "Was I really gone that long?"
Traveling all over the heavens and earth, scooping up lake water, mounting clouds and making rain, all without care for day or night, Xie Lian hadn't realized just how much time had passed.
"It's been days!" Mu Qing exclaimed. "There's a mountain of backed-up prayers from devotees at the Temple of the Crown Prince."
Just then, Xie Lian felt the rain fading and extended a hand. "Did I not leave instructions for the two of you to handle the important ones first?"
"Of course we handled what we could," Mu Qing replied. "But…but there are too many prayers that we don't have the authority to manage. That's why I asked Your Highness not to make them wait too long and to hurry back."
As he finished speaking, the rain stopped. The rainstorm was much shorter than Xie Lian had expected, and he felt his heart sinking. As the clouds dispersed, the green bamboo hat came fluttering down, and Xie Lian caught it with both hands.
"But do you see this situation? I can't pull myself away from here either."
Mu Qing frowned. "Your Highness, did you manage to borrow the Rain Master's spiritual device? Where did the water come from?"
"From the Kingdom of Yushi in the south," Xie Lian replied.
"That far?" Mu Qing exclaimed. "How much power did it take to move water just once? And if you're determined to keep watering Yong'an with these sparse storms, how will you keep up with your followers' prayers?"
Even if he hadn't said it aloud, Xie Lian understood. He was a martial god, and the devotees to the Temple of the Crown Prince were his foundation, the source of his spiritual power. His actions now were essentially abandoning that foundation, and if he wasn't careful, both sides would suffer. But what else could he do?
"I know," Xie Lian said. "But if things go on like this and a riot breaks out in Yong'an, the Temple of the Crown Prince will be affected sooner or later."
"That's already happened!" Mu Qing exclaimed.
Xie Lian was shocked. "What?!"
At that, Xie Lian rushed back to the imperial capital of Xianle. When he arrived at the Grand Avenue of Divine Might, a band of imperial soldiers clad in armor and wielding sharp weapons were marching a line of detained men down the road. The prisoners were unkempt, with their hands and head locked in cangues. Citizens crowded both sides of the road, fury evident on every one of their faces. Feng Xin tensely gripped his black bow as if preparing for a riot at any moment.
"Feng Xin!" Xie Lian demanded sharply. "Who are those detainees? What crime did they commit? Where are they taking them?"
Hearing his voice, Feng Xin hurried over. "Your Highness! They're all people of Yong'an."
There were dozens of men in that line, all tall and gaunt, their skin tanned and dark from the sun. Behind the soldiers trailed several old men and a number of stricken women and children.
"The ones following behind are as well?" Xie Lian questioned.
"All of them," Mu Qing confirmed.
Over the past several months, at the height of the drought, Yong'an residents uprooted their lives and fled to the east in droves. When it was only a few dozen people it wasn't obvious, but the flow kept coming, and by now there were more than five hundred of them. When a massive, dense crowd like that gathered, it became quite the spectacle.
The people of Yong'an were strangers to this land with nothing to their names, and the moment they opened their mouths their dialects gave them away, so when they arrived at this strange, bustling city they naturally stuck together for comfort. After searching all over, they finally found an uninhabited green meadow within the imperial capital. Overjoyed, they built sheds and huts as temporary shelters.
Unfortunately, although the field was uninhabited, it was very dear to those of the imperial capital. The culture of Xianle was quite indulgent, and residents of the imperial capital were leaders in that lifestyle. Citizens would gather at that field to stroll, dance, sing poetry, paint, practice the art of the sword, and so on. Yong'an, on the other hand, had always been poor, so the temperament and culture of the citizens of this western land were completely opposite to those of the east. Because of this, citizens of the imperial capital often believed that they had the purest Xianle blood. And now, their elegant city had been overtaken by a large number of refugees, who filled the air with their strange smells and sounds—the constant disruption of laundry and campfires, the stench of stewing herbs and leftovers and sweat, the unending weeping. It made many nearby residents recoil with disgust, and their complaints were endless.
Some of the elder Yong'an leaders understood their predicament and wanted to move elsewhere, yet the imperial capital was already heavily populated. No matter where they went, it was crowded with people, and there wasn't anywhere else that could settle so many. Furthermore, they had wounded people, sick people, old folks, and children, which made it infeasible to move frequently. They had no choice but to shamelessly yet cautiously cling to that meadow. As much as it displeased the people of the imperial capital, the refugees were still citizens of the same country; in light of the ongoing disaster, they tolerated the strangers' presence.
Xie Lian had heard up to that point in the situation report when the band of soldiers arrived at the mouth of the marketplace with the Yong'an men in tow. The soldiers bellowed, "Kneel!"
Every one of the men looked indignant, but with blades at their throats, they had no choice but to kneel. When the crowd of capital citizens saw the men drop to their knees, some sighed, but others clearly felt vindicated.
"According to your report, both sides have tolerated each other thus far. So what happened today?" Xie Lian asked.
Before Feng Xin or Mu Qing could answer, a woman started wailing and crying from the crowd.
"You barbaric thieves! Never mind your sticky fingers—you beat my husband so badly that he can't get up! If he doesn't recover, I'll make you pay!"
Next to her a number of people rushed to comfort her, and some pointed their fingers in reproach.
"Don't you know how to behave when you're living in other people's territory?!"
"Yeah! You're guests in our home, but you've made yourselves real comfortable, haven't you? Thieves!"
One of the bound young men finally couldn't take it anymore. "We already told you we didn't steal anything!" he argued. "We didn't throw the first punch either! Besides, we've got wounded people on our side too…"
"Stop talking!" a Yong'an elder admonished him.
The young man shut his mouth angrily.
"A dog went missing in the imperial capital," Feng Xin explained.
"There was an incident earlier where a Yong'an child stole and ate someone's duck out of extreme hunger, so there were rumors that the dog was stolen and eaten by the Yong'an refugees too. A mob went to interrogate and then started a brawl when the 'interrogation' went south."
Xie Lian was incredulous. "A riot over a dog? And they detained this many people?"
"Yes, over a dog," Feng Xin said. "It blew up this badly because both sides have been putting up with each other for too long. Even petty things can become a big deal. Both sides swear that the other side started it, that it's the other's fault, and this nonsensical scuffle just got bigger and bigger."
"Violent rioters shall see severe punishment!" a high-ranking soldier announced. "You are all sentenced to the cangue for public condemnation! Any further crimes are forbidden!"
After the sentencing, he stood down—and the next second, some of the crowd started hurling lettuce leaves and rotten eggs at the men of Yong'an. The old men who trailed behind started bowing to the crowd, crying for mercy.
"We apologize, everyone! We apologize!"
"Please have mercy, have mercy!"
Xie Lian thought this whole thing was absolutely absurd—making a mountain out of a molehill—but he could also understand the feelings on both sides. "So did they really steal anything? Did they find that dog?"
Feng Xin shook his head. "Who knows? If the bones were stripped and thrown away, who could prove anything? But judging by their faces, I don't think they did it."
But of course the soldiers of the imperial capital would favor the capital's citizens when handing down their judgment. Whether anything had been stolen or not, there had been a riot, and so the fault must lie with those from Yong'an. Furthermore, while the men of the imperial capital loved to strut around, they weren't as tough as the men of Yong'an; they must've been utterly humiliated in that brawl, and that complete loss of face only created a greater feud between the two groups. Xie Lian shook his head.
As his gaze swept over the crowd, he suddenly noticed a familiar-looking young man at the middle of that row of Yong'an prisoners, with his head hung low. It was that man from the woods, Lang Ying.
Xie Lian was stunned. Just then, someone nearby complained.
"It seems like more and more of these Yong'an people have been showing up in the past few months. And now they've started to pick fights?"
"They're not all coming here, are they?"
A man who appeared to be a merchant gestured wildly. "His Majesty the King won't allow it! My house was robbed by Yong'an thieves just the other day. If they all came here, there'd be hell!"
Lang Ying had kept his head low all this time, letting the groceries hit him freely. But at those words, he suddenly looked up.
"Did you see it?"
The merchant hadn't expected a response and replied without thinking, "What?"
"Yong'an thieves robbing your house. Did you see them with your own eyes?"
"I-I didn't see them myself, but it's always been peaceful here before —I was only robbed after you all showed up! So how can you say it has nothing to do with you?!" the merchant argued.
Lang Ying nodded. "I get it. Before we came here, your people were the ones stealing, but once we arrived, we became the thieves…"
A rotten persimmon came flying at him before he could finish and smashed into the side of his mouth, looking like he'd vomited a splatter of blood. The merchant burst out laughing, and Lang Ying's eyes dimmed. He closed his mouth and stopped talking.
Xie Lian dissolved the sharp rocks that were thrown at the young men, ensuring that they wouldn't be severely injured. This public humiliation continued until evening, and only after the onlooking citizens finally dispersed did the soldiers decide it was enough. Only then did they unlock the cangues and warn the men not to cause any more trouble, otherwise they'd be severely punished, and so on, and so on. The elders bowed deeply over and over with apologetic smiles, promising to never violate the rules ever again—but Lang Ying, looking apathetic, walked away all alone. Xie Lian watched that lone figure depart, then caught the right moment to appear in a flash from behind a tree and block his path.
The moment he appeared, the young man's eyes sharpened, and in that instant it looked like he was going to choke Xie Lian dead. He took a second to process who was standing before him and withdrew the hand that was so ready to attack.
"It's you."
Xie Lian had transformed back into the form of that young cultivator. Lang Ying had almost managed to seize him, which startled Xie Lian even as he thought, This man is a little impressive.
"I gave you that pearl," he said, "so why didn't you take it back to Yong'an?"
Lang Ying regarded him. "My son is here. I'm here too." After a brief pause, he took the coral pearl from his belt. "Do you want it back? Here."
The hand he held out still had marks from the cangue. After a moment of silence, Xie Lian didn't take it.
"Go back. It rained at the Bay of Lang-Er today." He pointed to the sky. "Tomorrow! There will be rain again, I promise. It's certain to be so."
But Lang Ying shook his head. "It doesn't matter if it rains or not. There's no going back."
Watching his back as he walked away, Xie Lian was left dumbfounded. He only felt endless frustration.
Before he ascended, it was like he hadn't a cloud of worry in his skies. He could do whatever he wanted. Who could've known that after ascension, he would suddenly be surrounded by incessant worries—both the worries of others and his own? Had it always been this hard to get something done? He had never felt so lacking, so powerless. Xie Lian sighed and turned to leave as well. There was a mountain of prayers waiting to be addressed by him at the Temple of the Crown Prince.
Yet he wasn't the most troubled of all. That title went to the king, for the worries of the King of Xianle had become reality—those five-hundred-some Yong'an refugees were only the beginning.
With the borrowed Rain Master's Hat in hand, Xie Lian ran unceasingly back and forth between the north and the south, creating rain by his own power. Yet every little rainstorm used up an immense amount of spiritual power and five to six days' worth of his time. There may not have been another god besides him who could keep up such a draining duty besides Jun Wu, of course. However, the Heavenly Emperor ruled over a far vaster land than he, and the number of devotees and domains he attended to was significantly greater than Xianle. How could Xie Lian possibly distract Jun Wu by asking for his help? And still, each rainstorm could only wet a small area of Yong'an and lasted but a short while. Even if they caused some relief, they couldn't fix the root of the problem.
After a month of this, the people of Yong'an began their exodus to the east in droves. Before, it was groups of dozens at a time. Now, it was hundreds, thousands, massive hordes that flocked together, streaming like a river.
After another month, the King of Xianle issued a new decree.
"Due to the endless disputes and incessant scuffles of recent months, for the sake of peace within the imperial capital, all Yong'an refugees are to leave the city immediately. Every refugee shall be given a set travel fund to assist in their settlement elsewhere."
And with that, the grand gates to the imperial capital of Xianle closed before the massive, teeming horde of Yong'an refugees.
"Open the gates!"
"Let us in!"
The soldiers retreated into the city and pushed the thousand-ton gates shut. The people who had been driven out by the soldiers went rushing back toward the entrance like a tide of black water to pound on the massive doors. Atop the towers, the soldiers roared.
"Get away! Leave! Collect your travel fund and head east—don't mill around!"
But the Yong'an refugees had turned their backs on their homes, fled their lands, and arrived at the closest city—the imperial capital. With the gates to the city now closed to them, if they wanted to survive, they would have to walk an even longer distance around its perimeter to cities further east.
The journey to the imperial capital had already been massively perilous, with countless injured or dead. How could they possibly have any more energy to continue on? Even with the travel funds, rations, and water, how many more days could they endure on the road?
Their faces were ashen. Some dragged their household's goods behind them, some carried babies on their backs, some carried stretchers. Some held each other up, some could stand no more and lay or sat on the ground. Acres and acres of them stayed there, outside the city walls. Some younger men still had the energy to be enraged, and they pounded the doors with their fists as they yelled.
"You can't do this! You've written off our lives!"
"We're all citizens of Xianle! You can't just kill us off like this!"
One of the men yelled until his voice was hoarse. "You can kick us out, that's fine, I won't stay, but at least take my wife and children! Please?!"
They were like ants trying to shake a tree; the city gates remained unmoved.
Xie Lian stood on top of the tower, white robes flapping in the wind, and he crossed the parapet to look down below. Outside the imperial capital were endless heads, black and squirming, dense and tightly knit, very much like the swarms of ants he used to see in the imperial gardens when he played there in his younger years. Back then he'd peered at them curiously and surreptitiously extended a finger to poke at them, but immediately an attendant had cried out, "Your Highness! Those things are dirty, you can't touch! Don't touch!"
Then she rushed over, skirt lifted, and squashed all the ants under her foot.
When those ants were alive, there was hardly anything worth looking at in their dense, roiling swarm. Once they were squashed into mush, there was even less to look at.
Within the capital walls, lights twinkled magnificently in myriads of homes, and the sound of music wafted in the air. This one city wall separated two completely different worlds.
It wasn't just that new Yong'an refugees were being refused, but even the ones that were already settled in the city had been expelled. It was harsh, but with the mounting friction between the Yong'an refugees and the capital residents in recent months, Xie Lian could somewhat understand. If they allowed any Yong'an citizen to remain inside the city walls, they could collude with those outside the walls and cause havoc.
However, there was one area he felt should be up for negotiation. He said absently, "Why must the women and the vulnerable be expelled too? There are some who can't walk much further."
Feng Xin and Mu Qing stood right behind him.
"If they must be expelled, they must all be expelled," Mu Qing replied. "Everyone must be treated equally; there mustn't be any favoritism, lest people be provoked into asking, 'Why can they stay when I can't?'"
"You think too much," Feng Xin commented.
"There are absolutely people who would think like that," Mu Qing said flatly. "Besides, if the wives and children remain, then the men won't want to go far. They'll return sooner or later. To keep people in the city is to keep future problems."
The Yong'an refugees refused to leave, so the soldiers on the towers couldn't leave either.
"Hmph! Suit yourselves!"
The king himself gave the command, so did they think just sitting there loitering would do anything? They might be able to hang around for a day or two, but not a month or two, or a year or two, or so the soldiers and residents of the imperial capital believed.
Some Yong'an refugees hopelessly accepted their fate and decided to gamble on traveling further eastward, but their numbers were few. Most still sat stubbornly by the city gates, hoping the imperial capital would open its doors to them, or at the very least give them somewhere to rest before they journeyed onwards. Newly arrived refugees were disappointed to see the city gates firmly shut, but when they saw so many waiting there, they joined the masses.
Several days later, the crowd gathered outside the city gates was still only growing. Tens of thousands of people had evidently decided to settle there, and they built impressive rows of temporary shelters. They had the rations and water given by the king to sustain themselves, but the people were almost at their limit.
That limit was breached on the fifth day.
Over that time, Xie Lian had divided each day into three: one third dedicated to the devotees at the Temple of the Crown Prince, one third for moving water and creating rain, and one third for caring for the Yong'an citizens outside the city walls. But even with Feng Xin and Mu Qing helping, Xie Lian still felt the burden of these responsibilities. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.
By coincidence, it happened during a time when Xie Lian wasn't standing guard outside the city walls. Under the scorching sun, a shriek was suddenly heard outside the gates.
The cry came from a couple cradling their child in their arms. Many went over to see.
"What's wrong with the child?"
"Hungry, thirsty…?"
And soon, a shout, "Everyone come share some water here! This kid's not looking good!"
The woman sobbed as she gave water to her red-faced child, but the child just vomited it back up.
"I don't know what's wrong," the father said. "He's sick. A doctor! We need a doctor!"
Carrying his son, he ran to the gates and started slapping on the doors. "Open up! Help! Someone's dying! My son is dying!"
It was only natural that the soldiers inside didn't dare to open the gates. Whether or not someone was actually dying, there were tens of thousands outside—if they opened those gates up, there'd be no closing them. Instead, they reported to the officers higher up. The weather had been hot over the past few days, and the heat was making the soldiers standing watch cranky.
"Give him some food and water," the officer said dismissively.
They hung food and water on a rope and lowered it down.
"Thank you, thank you, My Lords and brothers, but we don't want food and water. Can you help us find a doctor?" the man pleaded.
This made things difficult. They couldn't let him in to find a doctor, and they certainly couldn't lower a doctor from the city walls—heavens knew what those starving refugees might do once the doctor got outside.
"Forget it," the high-ranking officers replied. "Ignore them, they're not dying. If they ask again, tell them their message has been sent to the king for a response."
Over recent weeks, the king had been deeply troubled by the Yong'an issue and was easily angered, so of course no one would actually dare to bother him with such a trivial matter. The soldiers responded as directed, and that Yong'an man, feeling greatly relieved, thanked them profusely, thanked His Majesty, and knelt to kowtow multiple times. Yet hours upon hours passed, shadows from the scorching sun moved from one end of the earth to the other, and the requested doctor still hadn't appeared as the child in their arms got hotter and hotter.
The couple cradled their child in arms that trembled nonstop. The man was covered in cold sweat, mumbling, "Is anyone coming? Is anyone opening the gates for me?"
At last they couldn't wait any longer, and he yelled to the towers, "Officers! My apologies, but I need to ask…where's the doctor?"
A soldier responded, "We're waiting for a formal response from the king. Just wait a while longer."
Some citizens below couldn't sit still anymore. "They said that four hours ago! Why isn't there a response yet?!"
The soldiers heeded their superiors' command and ignored them after that. The crowd surrounding the walls was furious, forlorn, and distressed. They surrounded the child and began to speculate.
"Did they actually pass on the message to His Majesty? They're not lying to us, are they?"
The father of that child couldn't wait any longer. He steeled himself, tied the child to his back, and turned to his wife to say a few last words. The woman removed a protection charm from around her neck and put it around her husband's. Then, the man ran toward the city wall to try to scale it.
The city wall was smooth, built to make climbing difficult; he grabbed at it a few times but didn't make any progress. The rest of the men called out "Let us help!" and pushed him up. A crowd of over a dozen men stacked themselves into a human pyramid and helped bring him higher. From the top, the man managed to grab onto the rope that had been used to lower water and food and used it to continue his climb. At the bottom, tens of thousands watched anxiously, not daring to cheer for him, scared they might be discovered.
The soldiers on top of the towers had been there for many days and the Yong'an refugees hadn't started anything, so they were fairly lax in their watch. It wasn't until the man had reached the halfway point that they noticed that someone was scaling the wall.
"What are you doing?!" they barked. "No climbing! Climbers will be killed without mercy! Do you hear me?! Climbers will be killed without mercy!"
Faced with such a threat, the man shouted back, "I don't have any ill intentions! I just want to bring my child to the doctor—I won't do anything else!"
He kept climbing as he called out.
One of the superior officers was just having his meal, and upon hearing of this he became vexed to the extreme. If that man were to scale the wall safely, wouldn't countless more Yong'an refugees follow his example and attempt the same? He had to be stopped!
Thus, he strode out and shouted down the parapet, "Do you not value your life?! Go back down this instant! If you don't, you'll be sorry!"
But the man had already climbed high, past halfway, and with just one more push he'd reach the top—naturally, he wouldn't stop now. Never in his life had that superior officer been disobeyed like this; his word was law. Those who disobeyed him were easy enough to take care of, however. He approached the parapet, pulled his sword, and struck. The rope snapped in two.
The man plunged downward, snapped rope in hand. Awash in the screams of thousands, he crashed heavily on the hard ground before the city gates.
That was the moment Xie Lian arrived.
The man had fallen on his back, and on his back was his child. Whomp, and the child was crushed into ground meat, splattering blood for dozens of meters. The man's neck was broken, his eyes bulging out of his skull. Around his twisted neck there dangled a charm with the words "Xianle" embroidered in golden thread—a protection charm from the Temple of the Crown Prince.
Right before he had started to climb, the man and his wife both clutched that protection charm in their hands and silently prayed for the blessings of His Highness the Crown Prince; Xie Lian had heard their voices and rushed over. But he was not a hero from the legends written in books. He couldn't appear right before the executioner dropped the axe every single time, to save lives menaced by the blade.
The woman didn't even have the courage to flip her husband's dead body to check on the condition of her son. She covered her face and screamed, and without looking, she made a crazed dash forward to bash her head into the wall. Crack, and she dropped on the spot, her body limp.
Right before Xie Lian's eyes, in the flash of a second, three dead bodies were sprawled before the city gates of the royal capital!
He hadn't even had the time to react before the crowd outside the city gates was whipped into a frenzy, unable to hold back any longer.
"Dead! A family of three, all dead!" someone yelled. "Look, that's the good ol' officer working for His Majesty! He won't save us, but he sure will kill us!"
"You won't let us in, but you won't let anyone out either! So what were we supposed to do?! Three bloody lives are on your hands!"
"You said to expel all Yong'an refugees from the imperial capital, but how come I don't see any of the rich ones out here? So it's only the poor and powerless that deserve to die? I can see through you!"
"I can't stand it anymore…I just can't. Year after year we paid our taxes, but now that there's a disaster, where did all that money go?!"
"Did all the money go to parasites and building more temples for your son, instead of aid for disaster victims?! Just a meager bit of food to shut us up—what do you take us for?! Useless king! Incompetent king!"
The soldiers on the towers yelled down at the crowd for them to stop, but the superior officer had seen much in his lifetime and didn't take any of this seriously. Yet the situation was spiraling out of control. Thousands and tens of thousands pushed furiously against the gates, some even using their own heads and bodies as battering rams, and this time, it wasn't mere ants on trees.
The gates moved—in fact, the entire city wall and its towers shook faintly!
Xie Lian had never witnessed anything like this in his life. All the people he'd ever met had been kind, peaceful, happy, satisfied, and endearing. Those twisted faces, crying and screaming, forced him to enter a completely foreign world, and he couldn't help but feel chilled to his very bones. Even against the most horrifying ghosts and demons, he had never felt this way.
Just then, there was an angry roar from above.
He whipped his head around and saw a tall, gaunt figure choking the officer who had cut the rope and caused the three deaths outside the city walls. With a loud, clear crack, the officer's neck was snapped.
The other soldiers had no idea how that man had suddenly appeared. Pale with shock, they rushed forward to surround him, brandishing their swords.
"Who are you?!"
"How did you get up here?!"
Xie Lian immediately noticed the man's hands—the flesh was ripped to bits and smeared with blood. This man had scaled that smooth wall with only his bare hands!
When the figure turned around, he saw that it was Lang Ying!
Lang Ying was calm and collected even when surrounded by soldiers. He crossed the parapet and threw the corpse of the officer down. Then he jumped off, using the corpse as a stepping-stone to break his fall.
The moment he jumped, he looked straight at Xie Lian. But the man wasn't truly looking at Xie Lian. Instead, he looked right through him to gaze at the imperial palace that towered at the center of the capital.
From that day onward, all of the Kingdom of Xianle was thrown into chaos.