Chapter 230: The Agreement

The contents of the letter were extremely important. It elaborated on two matters.

The first was an order for the old beggar to make preparations. The enforcement troops of Yunyang Prefecture had frequently entered the mountain region to conduct searches in recent days, seriously interfering with their plans. In retaliation, the Rising Dragon Army and the Heavenly Saint Cult had gathered a group of experts. They were planning to find an opportunity to infiltrate Yunyang Prefecture and use the new-style gunpowder to blow up the City God Temple.

The second matter concerned Li Yan and the others. The letter did not mention The Classic of Lightning and Fire. Instead, it said that a spy inside the Yichang's Military Surveillance Department had provided intelligence that the Zhushan Sect, Yichang's local lineage, would dispatch experts starting tomorrow to perform rites and exterminate the river monster.

The orthodox mystic sects and various lineages all possessed specialized rituals for suppressing and killing spirits and monsters, but such rites would last at least three days. They would also summon spirit troops and cast an inescapable net around the area. When the time came, the Military Surveillance Department would send a boat to retrieve Captain Yuan as well.

If they wanted to strike, this very night had been their only chance!

Captain Yuan had released a hawk to carry a message back to the commander, yet unexpectedly, the first people it had drawn were the Rising Dragon Army.

Li Yan shook his head. "Captain Yuan, I think you should put thoughts of earning merit aside for now. A great battle is approaching. If you can't root out the mole, I'm afraid all of you are going to suffer."

"More than just suffer." Captain Yuan's expression darkened as he growled, "The brothers we planted inside the cities had spent years dealing with the natives. Their speech and customs were indistinguishable from theirs. Now more than half of them have been lost. Someone must have leaked their identities as well!"

His voice then grew dispirited as he continued, "The other party's position definitely isn't low. This mission has already gone so badly for me that I'll probably be held accountable once I return."

"Not necessarily." Li Yan said calmly, "There are so many elite Rising Dragon Army soldiers lying dead outside, together with several wanted evil cultivators. Surely that's enough to offset your failures with some merit.

"Now there's this intelligence. If preparations are made in advance, not only can the City God Temple in Yunyang Prefecture avoid disaster, you might even capture a few more wanted criminals."

Captain Yuan froze at first. Then, after remaining silent for a long time, he asked, "Young Hero Li... What do you want?"

The meaning behind Li Yan's words was obvious. He wanted Captain Yuan to claim all the credit for this victory and use it to turn his situation around. With those achievements, coupled with catching the mole, he might not only escape punishment but even rise another step in rank.

However, their relationship was only average, and Li Yan was hardly some benevolent fool. If he was being so generous, he was obviously asking for something in return.

Li Yan did not answer immediately, merely glancing to the side.

The boatmaster was also a shrewd man. Seeing this, he immediately ushered the boatmen elsewhere. This was the kind of conversation they did not even dare overhear.

Only when they were gone did Li Yan speak solemnly. "Captain Yuan, we've been through life and death together now, so there's no need to hide certain things from one another. The new-style gunpowder is no longer a secret. You saw it yourself. Even rebels and evil cultivators have weapons using it. If we run into them, they're extremely difficult for us to deal with..."

Captain Yuan's expression changed slightly, and he hurriedly shook his head. "That is strictly forbidden by the imperial court. The Yichang Prefecture's garrison has only two Divine Fire Arquebuses. Every time ammunition is used, it has to be registered and approved by the seal-holding commander. My rank is too low. There's no way I can get you something like that."

Li Yan remained calm as he replied, "Captain Yuan, you must be joking. To tell you the truth, I've received some information. It isn't just the rebels. Some jianghu factions and even great aristocratic clans are secretly manufacturing this stuff. This cannot be stopped. There are plenty of clever men among the great officials of the imperial court. I imagine they've already thought of a solution."

Captain Yuan's pupils contracted slightly. "What solution?"

To be truthful, he was curious as well. How the hell did Li Yan have even more information and connections than he did?

Li Yan said indifferently, "They're planning to control the spiritual materials used to make the gunpowder!"

Back in Chang'an, the treasure-hunter Zhao Luzi had once given him a piece of coal essence, and mentioned that the Li Clan and imperial troops had already sealed off the coal mines in northern Shanxi.

It was precisely where coal essence was most abundant.

At the time, Li Yan had not thought much of it. But after everything that had happened, he now understood that the imperial court had long known it could not stop the spread of the technology. Instead, it had tightened control over the necessary spiritual materials in advance.

Producing the new-style gunpowder required coal essence and red saltpeter. The imperial court had probably already secretly dispatched people to search for both.

"Control the spiritual materials?" Captain Yuan nodded in approval. "That is indeed a solution. The Divine Fire Arquebus is powerful, but it can only really serve as a deterrent or be used against experts. Without gunpowder, it becomes useless."

But, at that thought, he frowned. "I can't obtain any of those things either. Young Hero Li, what exactly do you want?"

Li Yan replied solemnly, "Those aristocratic clans and great families who acquire firearms, aside from protecting themselves, most likely intend to use them for overseas expeditions. But under imperial law, privately possessing such weapons is a serious crime equivalent to rebellion, much less using them on a large scale. Do you think those people will allow such leverage to remain hanging over their heads forever?"

Captain Yuan was a clever man and immediately understood. "Those people possess considerable influence in the imperial court. They'll certainly push for the court to grant exemptions."

As he finished, he fully understood Li Yan's intention. He couldn't help but mutter softly, "Young Hero Li wants the same privilege? I'm afraid that isn't something I have the ability to arrange."

"There's no hurry." Li Yan smiled. "Captain Yuan only needs to keep an eye on the matter. Once the imperial court makes a move, we can figure something out. Sometimes, once a single opening is made, the wind starts leaking through everywhere."

Captain Yuan agreed without the slightest hesitation. "Alright!"

He understood the imperial court far better than Li Yan did, and knew that Li Yan was right. There was simply no way to completely stop something like that from happening. A single written prohibition could never restrain those great clans. Once some factions received permission, the others would follow.

The Military Surveillance Department answered directly to the emperor. How could it possibly be left behind? When the time came, doing Li Yan's group a small favor would not be difficult.

When he saw that Li Yan had successfully reached an agreement with the captain, Sha Lifei was undoubtedly the happiest. Grinning from ear to ear, he cupped his fists and said, "Then we'll have to trouble Captain Yuan with this matter..."

He lightly slapped his own mouth. "Look at me, saying the wrong thing again. I should be calling you Lord Commander!"

Captain Yuan froze for a moment, then solemnly cupped his fists. "Many thanks, everyone!"

With the agreement settled, both sides were in considerably better spirits.

Li Yan also felt somewhat emotional. The Military Surveillance Department monitored the jianghu with the aim of keeping it stable and preventing situations where someone could issue a single call and gather a mob to revolt. Naturally, they employed ruthless methods, but exchanges of interests were equally unavoidable.

The Divine Fist Association, for example, was itself a product of such an exchange. At the very least, martial guilds and escort agencies throughout the realm could not conduct business peacefully without official recognition from the imperial court.

But even such exchanges depended on who one was dealing with.

Back at the mass grave outside Xianyang, they had given Chang Xuan important intelligence that had allowed him to rise to a commander, yet he had merely dismissed them with some silver. In Shangjin City, Huang Wenzhong, Commander of the Yunyang garrison, had initially tried to suppress them with his official authority. It was only after Li Yan refused to yield an inch that he had finally helped clear Lu San's wanted status.

Now, they could have Captain Yuan help them obtain the right to use firearms.

It was the same with the Taixuan Orthodox Sect. They had gone from standing high above them to now needing to borrow their strength. Step by step, as their own strength increased, they had finally gained the qualifications to negotiate with others on equal terms!

Naturally, Captain Yuan had no idea what Li Yan was thinking. Holding the letter beneath the firelight, he repeatedly examined it from different angles, sometimes frowning deeply and sometimes sinking into thought. Clearly, he was considering how best to use this intelligence to break out of his predicament.

Li Yan and the others, meanwhile, continued sorting through their spoils.

Lu San took a liking to the old beggar's erhu. He had learned to play it for a couple of days back at Manchuan Pass, so he claimed it as his own spiritual artifact. The instrument was somewhat similar to Li Yan's Thundercloud Divine Drum in that it could also use sound to unleash the mystic arts. The difference was that the erhu's sound was far better suited to communicating with spirits.

That was why, back at the Yan Family's residence, the old beggar had played the erhu to drive venomous snakes into attacking. It would only be more powerful in Lu San's hands. In addition, a treasured sword was concealed inside the erhu's long neck. It was sharp and durable, and possessed a small amount of evil-suppression power as well.

The old Daoist who had controlled the human-skin puppets carried nothing but assorted worthless odds and ends. Most likely, the majority of his wealth had been invested in those human-skin puppets.

Sha Lifei, however, chuckled and put away the gong. "Brother Yan has a drum, Brother Lu San has an erhu, and I can bang this gong. When we roam the jianghu, we can pass ourselves off as a little music troupe."

Li Yan could not help laughing. Then, seeing Sha Lifei about to rummage through the old Confucian scholar's bamboo-and-wood case, he hurriedly stopped him. "Don't touch that carelessly! It's full of Gu insects and Gu poison!"

Sha Lifei's face went pale, and he immediately pulled his hand back.

"Brother Lu San, get ready."

Li Yan placed the bamboo-and-wood case near the cave entrance. Lu San understood at once and patted the Demon Gourd.

Given what had happened that night, the Demon Gourd should originally have had a perfect opportunity to display its power. But with the violent wind and torrential rain outside, even if the swarm of venomous hornets had been released, they would barely have been able to stay airborne, so he had simply chosen not to use it.

As it turned out, the Gu insects and Gu poison were perfect food for the Demon Gourd.

Bzzzz!

Li Yan casually swung his blade, splitting open the bottom of the bamboo-and-wood case. Dense swarms of venomous hornets immediately surged out, along with all kinds of bizarre insects. Some resembled spiders, but had scorpion tails. Some were as small as grains of rice and bounced wildly across the ground. Others looked like horsehair worms, twisting themselves into knots the moment they emerged.

The swarm of venomous hornets immediately descended, devouring every gu insect clean. They even burrowed into the wooden case and smashed open the lids of bottles that had yet to be opened.

Whether the contents were insects or poisonous powder, everything was completely consumed. Li Yan and the others knew nothing about Gu arts, so they could only deal with them through such a crude method. At least, it also increased the toxicity of the venomous hornets.

The old Confucian scholar had clearly been a cunning and vicious person. He had even hidden Gu insects between the pages of his books, but those too were completely cleared out.

Only after everything had been thoroughly cleaned did Li Yan pick up the books.

There were three in total.

The first was titled Classic of a Thousand Herbs and a Hundred Insects. It was an inheritance from the Gu lineage of western Hunan. Not only did it contain methods for refining and deploying Gu poison or Gu insects, it also recorded extensive knowledge of medicinal herbs and insects.

Gu arts were inseparable from their environment. They were especially prevalent in places such as the forests of western Hunan; the lands and vast mountain ranges of Lingnan, Yunnan and Guizhou; and the Southern Seas.

Not only did one need a teacher, one also had to begin learning from childhood.

Li Yan and the others were already overwhelmed by their own inheritances, so naturally they had no intention of studying Gu arts. Still, casually reading through the book in their spare time could broaden their horizons.

The second book was more interesting. It was titled Discussions of the Mysterious and Profound. It had been written during the Song Dynasty by a member of the Confucian mystic path tradition. It was a collection of numerous strange tales concerning the mystic path. Some were factual, while others were exceedingly bizarre. Even practitioners like them found some of the stories absurd.

The final item was a book with no title. Li Yan flipped through a few pages, and his expression immediately became grave. It contained a secret method originating from the Immortal Longevity Treasury!

This technique was called the Plague God Longevity Art. It required using one's own body as a Gu vessel, refining forty-nine different kinds of vicious Gu insects and placing them inside oneself, then hiding in a damp and shadowy place like a corpse.

Then, the practitioner had to worship a demonic god called Wen Jiu every morning and evening. On the first and fifteenth days of each lunar month, they had to leave their hiding place and drink human blood to feed the Gu insects inside their body.

Of course, there was also a faster method, human sacrifice and licentious worship!

The booklet even depicted the appearance of the demonic god Wen Jiu for visualization and worship. Its body resembled a human's, dressed in red and barefoot, but its head looked like that of a camel.

It was unmistakably some kind of demon. This longevity method was accompanied by several other vicious techniques, all cruel Gu arts. The methods described were enough to send chills down Li Yan's back.

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Yan informed Sha Lifei and the others, then threw the booklet directly into the bonfire and burned it. He was not afraid of killing, but even he found the techniques recorded inside horrifying. No wonder the mystic path had banned such things. Something like this should never have existed in the world.

Watching the booklet burn to ash, Li Yan felt no joy. The booklet was old, but judging from its condition, it was only a little more than ten years old. It seemed that the Immortal Longevity Treasury was still being secretly passed down among the people from generation to generation. No one could say how many fragmentary copies had been transcribed.

Captain Yuan cupped his fists solemnly.

"Everyone, take care on the road!"

***

The torrential rain stopped before dawn the next day. Li Yan did not have time to wait for river traffic to resume, so he planned to follow the mountain road to Zigui County.

As for Captain Yuan, he had his own future to plan.

The boatmen, meanwhile, kept their eyes lowered and avoided looking around. They were all locals, and Li Yan had originally wanted to hire one of them as a guide. He had been worried that once they arrived, they might not understand the villagers' local dialect. But after witnessing what he had done the previous night, who would dare follow them around?

They would have to hire someone after reaching Zigui County.

Sha Lifei raised his brows and cupped his fists. "Commander Yuan, may you achieve success!"

A surge of ambition rose in Yuan Kejian's heart as well, and he no longer bothered hiding it.

"Hahaha! That's easy enough!"

He watched Li Yan and the others gradually disappear into the mountain forest. Only then did Yuan Kejian turn toward the boatmen, his expression becoming cold and stern. "Everyone, I'm sure you heard some things you shouldn't have. You no longer have a choice. Either become wanted by the imperial court and wander the jianghu as fugitives, or follow me and gamble on a life of wealth and status!"

***

The rain had only just cleared, and the mountain roads were extremely difficult to travel. Not only was the ground muddy, but some paths had been destroyed by landslides and mudflows, forcing them to climb along the cliffs.

The journey from Yichang to Zigui took less than half a day by boat. But traveling along the mountain ridges took the group a full day and a half. Of course, the scenery along the way was breathtaking.

After climbing over one slope, the group saw a massive rock standing beside the river on the opposite side, dozens of zhang high, sheer as a towering wall. The setting sun shone from the west, framed by evening clouds. From a distance, the rock resembled an astonishingly lifelike figure projected onto the screen of a shadow-puppet performance.

This was the famous Dengying Gorge.

After passing Dengying Gorge, they saw a line of steep stone cliffs rising high above the surrounding peaks, overlooking the moonlit rapids below. Beneath the sheer cliffs, nine mountain ridges descended like nine dragons entering the water, majestic and magnificent.

This was the famous Yellow Ox Gorge.

At that moment, the moon had risen above the mountains. Moonlight shattered into glittering fragments across the river, while on a dark mountaintop in the distance, faint points of spiritual light could actually be seen flickering.

Sha Lifei's eyes immediately lit up. "Treasure!"

Lu San released his hawk. After circling the area once, it returned and chirped beside his ear.

Lu San's expression became strange as well. "It really is treasure. It's coal essence!"

The moment Sha Lifei heard that, his interest surged.

"There's coal essence here?!"

The group quickened their pace and entered the forest near Yellow Ox Gorge to investigate. Several points of spiritual light like fireflies were darting between the cracks in the huge rocks, leaving a faint buzz in the air. Each was the size of a fist, but moved so quickly that they left afterimages.

Sha Lifei asked quietly, but urgently, "What do we do?"

"Nothing." Li Yan shook his head. "Those things aren't easy to catch. Without the methods of treasure-hunters, we had better be careful not to get ourselves blown to death. Besides, there aren't many of them. It's not worth the trouble."

He understood immediately. Yellow Ox Gorge did not look like it contained coal deposits, but there were probably ancient trilobite fossils in the area. Although coal essence was dangerous, it was also extremely timid. Seemingly sensing their approach, the glowing objects shot away with a whoosh and burrowed into the stone wall, disappearing without a trace.

Sha Lifei was not the only one disappointed. Even Wang Daoxuan looked regretful, stroking his beard as he shook his head. "Techniques for looking for treasure are enormously varied, and the methods differ from place to place. Learning them properly would take at least a dozen years of study.

“But for something like coal essence, the method of retrieving it is fixed. If we could learn that particular technique, then the next time we encounter such a thing, we wouldn't have to stand around helplessly."

"That was my mistake." Li Yan regretted it as well. "I forgot to ask Brother Zhao Luzi back then. Once we return to Yichang City, I'll see if I can find him."

Traveling through the mountains at night, they inevitably encountered wild beasts and wandering ghosts.

From time to time, Li Yan cast the Northern Emperor Protection. Whenever he did, wild beasts fled in all directions, while lonely ghosts and wandering spirits hid beneath the ground.

Finally, in the early hours of another morning, they climbed to the top of a slope. Amid the morning light and mist, an earthen-walled city stood tall on the plain below.