Chapter 653: The Reunified Zhongzhou

The realm had been reunified. The one to seize the Divine Artifact was the Datong Marquisate, though the “Marquisate” had now been dropped, and it was simply called Datong Country.

The Datong Court and the Chu Kingdom Court learned from their ancestors. They first signed a treaty. For the first twenty years, the Chu Country seized the Liangjiang Region, the True Yang Mountain Region, and Jianglin Road, while the Datong Marquisate preemptively occupied Beiyuan Road, the Shangjing Region, and Qingpu Road. Then, from a commanding position, they fought a decisive battle against the Chu Country’s grand army at the Nong River.

On the seventeenth day of the sixth month in the 74th year of the Daoist Palace Calendar, the Datong Marquisate diverted the waters of the Nong River, drowning three hundred thousand of the Chu Country’s elite troops. Afterward, they pushed all the way to True Yang Mountain and buried two hundred thousand surrendered Chu soldiers alive.

However, the Chu Country did not collapse. They quickly organized the Government Soldiers from the Southern Four Roads to resist and even raised an army of the Demon Race, successfully halting the Datong Marquisate’s forces in northern Ningzhou Road.

For the next thirty years, the two countries remained in a stalemate. But perhaps because the south was so prosperous, the ninth emperor of Chu was excessively debauched, leading to instability among the border armies. The Datong Marquisate seized this opportunity to conquer the Liangjiang Region.

Ten years later, in the sixth month of the 114th year of the Daoist Palace Calendar—the second year of the tenth Chu emperor’s reign—the Southeast Navy announced it was joining the Datong Marquisate.

In the tenth month of the same year, the new Chu emperor opened the city gates and surrendered, retaining the title of King of Chu.

It was now the 140th year of the Daoist Palace Calendar. This meant that Datong Country had only ruled a unified realm for twenty-six years, yet dozens of rebellions, both large and small, had already broken out in the lands of Chu.

It is worth mentioning that after Emperor Datong completed the unification, his first act was to ennoble the head of the Zhonghui City Wang Family as the King of Zhonghui, bestowing Zhonghui City and its surrounding areas upon the Wang Family as a fiefdom.

This was a brilliant move. At the very least, it guaranteed stability in the south of Nanlin Road, and this stability ensured the trade routes between the north and south remained open. At the same time, Zhonghui City was meant to guard the south; if rebellions broke out in other southern regions, Zhonghui City would have to dispatch troops and supplies.

Furthermore, as the ancestor of the Wang Family, Wang Ping was immediately given the title of “Saint Emperor” by the Datong Duke when he ascended the throne. An order was also issued for temples to be built throughout the country to worship him.

The Prefecture City of Shang’an Prefecture was now Zhonghui City. The original Prefecture City had been converted into a massive port and transit hub, handling goods from Hu Mountain Country, the Southeast Sea Region, and the north. The value of goods passing through the port daily exceeded ten million taels of silver, making the territory of Shang’an Prefecture incredibly wealthy.

At the former site of Yongshan County, the number of manors had multiplied several times over since Wang Ping entered seclusion. The nearby forests had also grown denser, becoming the preferred location for Entering Cultivators from Qianmu Temple’s Wood Institute to establish their Dao Fields.

As Wang Ping observed all this, he also had to explain it to Yu Lian, who was constantly asking questions beside him.

Before they knew it, the sky began to lighten.

「Dawn broke.」

Wang Ping took a full inventory of his puppets. He had ninety-three remaining. Twelve of them were at the Second Realm, and the rest had, at a minimum, a Foundation Establishment Stage of cultivation. Most were spread across the Southern Cultivation Realm of Zhongzhou, with a few in the Northern Cultivation Realm. As for the puppets sent to the Eastern and Western Continents, they had once again been completely wiped out.

“Now that the whole realm is worshiping you, has your Divine Country gotten bigger?” Yu Lian asked.

Stirred by her words, Wang Ping summoned his Divine Technique Formation. Instantly, a golden beam of light broke through the clouds above the small courtyard, then fell and converged into the formation. This strange phenomenon immediately caused many people in the temple to look up.

The map at the center of the array now covered all of Zhongzhou, and even the Southeast Sea Region and the Northern Yunhai Grassland had outlines. However, it was still not enough to support the next step of his cultivation. Gaining hundreds of millions of believers was not so simple. Currently, even among all the True Monarchs, perhaps only True Monarch Yuan Wu had so many followers.

The divine light gathered in the Divine Technique Formation was already quite dense. With Wang Ping’s current Fourth Realm cultivation, he could use this divine light to unleash Divine Skills on par with the Fourth Realm.

“Whoa, this feels amazing! It’s like the whole realm is at my feet!”

Having connected to Wang Ping’s consciousness and read the thoughts of his believers, Yu Lian couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement. She then giggled nonstop.

Just then, Wang Ping sensed some familiar auras at the garden entrance. He smiled, gently patting Yu Lian’s head to soothe her as he put away the Divine Technique Formation.

The moment the Divine Technique Formation vanished, Wang Ping gently flicked the sleeve of his right robe. An invisible force expanded, clearing away the Spirit Grass that obscured the garden path. The branches of the lush Spirit Wood Trees snapped off, and the broken pieces of Spirit Wood gathered on a gust of wind in an empty space outside the courtyard.

The next moment, the garden gate opened on its own.

Outside, a group was led by Ruan Chunzi and Yuan Zheng, followed by Liu Shuang and Xia Wen Yi. Behind those two were their respective disciples. Further back was Zhao Yu’Er’s disciple, Zhao Mingming, and at the very end were Dongcan and Wu Fu.

At the very front, Ruan Chunzi subconsciously tried to sense the garden’s aura as the gate opened. But when his Primordial Spirit probed inside, it was like encountering a bottomless abyss. His heart skipped a beat. He turned sideways to Liu Shuang and Xia Wen Yi behind him and said, “You two should go first!”

Just as Liu Shuang and Xia Wen Yi were about to say, “We wouldn’t dare,” they heard Wang Ping’s voice in their ears: “Hurry and come in.”

Hearing this, the group no longer dared to be polite and subconsciously walked into the garden. Before long, they arrived at the familiar courtyard.

Upon seeing Wang Ping, Liu Shuang and the others all subconsciously bowed, their chorus of greetings—”Disciple pays respects to Master! Grandmaster! Ancestral Master!”—filling the quiet courtyard with life. Afterward, they raised their heads in confusion.

They didn’t seem to be sure if Wang Ping’s breakthrough had been successful.

Ruan Chunzi and the others, however, did not greet him first, observing silently from the side instead.

Wang Ping looked at the disciples of his lineage. The first one he examined was Liu Shuang. Observing her at such a close distance, he quickly discovered a problem: the vitality of the Spirit Veins in Liu Shuang’s body had been prematurely depleted!

This must have been caused by an error during her advancement. There was nothing Wang Ping could do about it. He could repair some of it with the Wood Spirit in his body, but he wasn’t sure if Liu Shuang’s Primordial Spirit could control the restored Spirit Veins. If not, it would be a disaster; a rampage of her Spirit Veins would be the least of her worries.

Next was Xia Wen Yi. He had already completely fused with the Locust Tree Divine Soul and was currently fusing with a Spirit Communication Talisman. Such a cultivation speed was truly worthy of his naturally good constitution.

Yang Rong’s cultivation was even faster. The vitality of her Spirit Veins was abundant, comparable to that of an average Third Realm Taiyan Cultivator. Moreover, her cultivation speed was nearly catching up to Wang Ping’s own. It was just a pity that she cultivated the “Wood Gathering Skill.”

As for Xia Wen Yi’s apprentice, Xia Yang, he had entered cultivation through the “Taiyan Talisman,” but the Spirit Veins in his body were somewhat listless. It was likely he would be stuck at the First Realm in the future.

Zhao Mingming’s situation surprised Wang Ping slightly. He was actually cultivating the “Three Yang True Inheritance” from the True Yang Sect. Wang Ping figured it must be a Secret Technique that Ruan Chunzi had passed on to him.

“Master, did you break through?”

It was Liu Shuang who asked this; she was the only one present who dared to ask so directly.

Wang Ping smiled and was about to speak when Yu Lian cut in, “Is there any doubt? Your master has successfully broken through to the Fourth Realm. From now on, it won’t be so awkward when people call him a True Man.”

“…”

After she finished speaking, a moment of silence fell over the scene. Then, Dongcan was the first to react, cupping his fist in a salute. “Congratulations, Changqing Zhenren!”

Following him, even Ruan Chunzi, Yuan Zheng, and Wu Fu cupped their fists in salute, addressing him as “True Man.” A string of congratulations followed, making the small courtyard even livelier.

This time, after paying their respects, neither Yuan Zheng nor Ruan Chunzi dared to take the seat opposite Wang Ping.