Chapter 370: The thousand dao city 39.

Su Lian laughed. "That is not what the other disciples say."

"They are wrong."

"One of them said you made her repeat one stance two hundred times."

"Her stance was still wrong."

"And you wonder why they fear you."

Ji Ruyan sighed.

Su Lian walked over and handed her a formation plate.

"Here."

Ji Ruyan took it.

"What is this?"

"Something I designed last night."

Ji Ruyan looked at the plate.

It was small and ugly, with several lines crossing each other in a pattern that looked more like spilled ink than a serious formation.

"What does it do?"

"It sends a warning if someone crosses the outer wall."

Ji Ruyan studied it.

"The energy flow is messy."

Su Lian crossed her arms. "I know."

"You could simplify the second channel."

"I know."

"And the fourth seal is too weak."

"I know."

Ji Ruyan looked at her.

"Then why did you make it like this?"

Su Lian smiled.

"So you would have something to complain about."

Ji Ruyan stared.

Then she smiled despite herself.

"You are ridiculous."

Su Lian stepped closer.

"But you love me."

Ji Ruyan’s expression became softer.

"Yes."

The answer came quietly.

Several nearby disciples pretended not to hear.

None of them succeeded.

That evening, Su Yubing sat with Ye Qinglan again.

They were in the sect’s library, surrounded by old records. The place had been searched repeatedly by Battle Maiden elders, but Su Yubing wanted to understand the history of their agreements with the other sects rather than merely search for evidence of forgery.

Ye Qinglan pulled out an old scroll.

"This is the original resource agreement."

Su Yubing opened it carefully.

The document was more than a century old.

It described a system through which several major sects shared access to a massive spirit vein beneath the central plains. The Battle Maiden Sect had been granted a fixed percentage of the output in return for maintaining several defense formations and protecting traveling cultivators in the area.

Su Yubing read the terms.

"Your sect actually receives less than some of the others."

Ye Qinglan nodded.

"We used to receive more."

"What happened?"

"Several revisions."

Ye Qinglan pointed to the margins.

"Every few decades, someone proposed a minor adjustment. A slightly lower share here. An extra maintenance cost there. A different requirement for defense. Nothing looked serious on its own. But after one hundred years, the total reduction became substantial."

Su Yubing frowned.

"That is deliberate too."

"We suspect it is."

"And nobody challenged it?"

Ye Qinglan gave a tired smile.

"Some did. But when a sect is slowly losing resources, the first thing it loses is the ability to fight over paperwork."

Su Yubing looked down at the scroll.

That sentence stayed with her.

A sect could be destroyed without a single dramatic attack.

Sometimes destruction looked like a thousand small decisions that always went against you.

Mo Yuxin came into the library.

She was carrying two cups of tea.

Su Yubing looked up.

"You brought tea."

"Yes."

Mo Yuxin put one cup in front of her wife.

Ye Qinglan smiled.

"You are very attentive."

Mo Yuxin nodded. "She forgets to drink when she is reading."

Su Yubing looked at her.

"How do you know?"

"Because you have done it for years."

Ye Qinglan watched them quietly.

After a moment, she said, "I understand."

Mo Yuxin looked at her.

"Understand what?"

"Why she trusts you so much."

Mo Yuxin smiled.

"I trust her too."

Su Yubing reached across the table and squeezed Mo Yuxin’s hand.

"That is enough."

Another important discovery came from Bai Ruxue.

She had spent two nights comparing merchant records and had found that several supposedly independent companies shared the same financial backer. Their names were different. Their registered owners were different. Their headquarters were in different districts. But their spirit stone accounts all connected to the same hidden investment house.

Bai Ruxue put the information on the table in front of Ye Qinglan.

"This is where the money goes."

Ye Qinglan studied it.

"Do you recognize the house?"

Bai Ruxue nodded.

"A private investment company controlled by an elder affiliated with Golden Mountain Sect."

Mu Qingru frowned.

"Then Golden Mountain really is involved."

Bai Ruxue shook her head.

"One elder is involved. That does not mean the entire sect knows."

Su Yubing nodded.

"That distinction is important."

Mo Yuxin looked at the chart.

"The same thing may be happening in the other sects."

"Exactly," Bai Ruxue said. "The conspiracy is probably being run by a small group of people who use the reputation of their sects as protection."

That made the situation more difficult and more interesting.

If an entire sect was corrupt, the answer would be simple.

Fight the sect.

But if the conspiracy involved a handful of elders inside otherwise legitimate organizations, then attacking the entire sect would only create exactly the conflict the conspirators wanted.

Mo Yuxin leaned back.

"So we need to separate the people from the organizations."

Su Yubing nodded.

"Yes."

Ye Qinglan looked relieved to hear someone say it.

She had no desire to destroy the Heavenly Sword Sect or Golden Mountain Sect simply because a few of their members were acting against her.

The sects themselves contained thousands of people who probably knew nothing about the plan.

Many ordinary disciples from those organizations had even respected Battle Maiden Sect for generations.

The next morning brought proof of that.

A young male disciple from Heavenly Sword Sect arrived at the Battle Maiden gate alone.

He carried a medical box.

The guards almost refused to let him in.

He immediately raised both hands.

"I am not here to fight."

Ji Ruyan personally went outside.

"Why are you here?"

The young man bowed.

"My name is Chen Zhaoran. I am a disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect. My master heard about the wounded cultivators. He sent medicine."

Ji Ruyan looked suspiciously at the box.

"Why would he help us?"

Chen Zhaoran smiled awkwardly.

"He says because sect politics are sect politics, but injured people are still injured people."

TO BE CONTINUED.