Chapter 550: Ancient Secrets (Part 2)

Chapter 550 -466: Ancient Secrets (Part 2)

He needed to be faster.

The next day.

Ji Feng left Xiangzhou with Shi Yan.

They headed straight for the Dragon Tiger Sect.

Perhaps the next time they met, Ji Feng would already be a Divinity Grandmaster.

…

The situation in Xuan Yang had grown delicate.

Tianyu, Zhenyuan, and the rebel army no longer dared to rashly make a move. Instead, they focused on managing their existing territories.

In the end, war was a battle of resources.

After years of constant warfare, the coffers of all three factions were nearly empty. Even if the Sealed Ones hadn’t appeared, they would have reached the current stalemate within five years, so long as no clear victor emerged.

The appearance of the Sealed Ones merely accelerated this process.

In the blink of an eye.

Half a year passed.

Bai Yuan received a letter from Ling Province and quietly left Xiangzhou.

When he arrived at Shenfu Mountain, Dong Wanjun, Lu Yu, Fang Wan, and his three disciples were already standing at the door.

“How is she?”

Bai Yuan’s voice was laced with anxiety.

“No trouble.”

Fang Wan smiled faintly.

A Martial Artist’s constitution was strong enough that difficult births were nearly impossible. This was even more true for Xiao Qiaoniang, who was a Sensing Powerhouse.

Not even a Divine Weapon could injure her, so childbirth was a minor affair.

That’s right, Bai Yuan’s second child was finally about to be born.

Bai Yuan and the others waited at the door until nightfall.

Finally, a baby’s cry pierced the heavens.

“So loud.”

Lu Yu’s expression turned odd.

It wasn’t that he’d never seen a birth before, but Bai Yuan’s child was truly something else. Its cries were more robust and full of vigor than even a common Martial Artist’s.

‘Did he really do it?’

He had once coveted the Divine Mansion Sect precisely because he’d noticed the Murong Family of Shenfu Mountain produced exceptional talents generation after generation.

But he never imagined Bai Yuan’s descendants would be even more terrifying.

The first son, Bai An, was a prodigy whose innate talent put the other geniuses of the world to shame.

It seemed the second child would be no different.

Finally, the door CREAKED open.

Several midwives came out, followed by Xiao Qiaoniang.

Unlike ordinary women who were bedridden and weak after giving birth, Xiao Qiaoniang was a Martial Artist and didn’t have so many concerns.

She was holding a swaddled baby in her arms.

“Brother Yuan, it’s a girl.”

Bai Yuan was overjoyed and strode forward.

‘Hmph, so ugly.’

‘Well, I’ve finally got a son and a daughter now.’

Watching the happy family, Lu Yu and Fang Wan both had envious looks in their eyes.

They also wanted children.

But because Fang Wan was a Heavenly Repairer and a Martial Artist, conceiving a child was even more difficult for her than for an ordinary Martial Artist.

Thus, they remained childless even after many years of marriage.

This was their greatest regret.

Old Dong gazed at his disciple’s daughter, immensely pleased, and burst out laughing.

He had never married in his life.

He didn’t even dally with women.

Naturally, he had no children of his own, but he considered his disciple’s offspring to be his descendants, so he was overjoyed.

Bai Yuan named his second daughter Bai Ling.

Just like her elder brother Bai An, Bai Ling’s birth was extraordinary. While it wasn’t as exaggerated as causing celestial phenomena, she was more spiritually aware and lively than any ordinary newborn.

It went without saying.

When Bai Ling grew up, she too would undoubtedly be remarkable.

There was no helping it. With Bai Yuan’s blood flowing in her veins, it would be difficult for her to be a failure even if she tried.

With his second daughter born and the war in the Northern Territory slowing down, Bai Yuan decided to simply live on Shenfu Mountain.

His second daughter, Bai Ling, was much quieter than his first son, Bai An.

Of course.

Bai Yuan figured it was mainly because Bai Ling wasn’t yet able to move on her own that she was so well-behaved.

A son, a daughter, and his wife by his side.

It was a life an immortal wouldn’t trade.

…

The days passed one by one.

Peace reigned on Shenfu Mountain.

In the blink of an eye, several months went by.

Xuan Yang had fallen into a strange equilibrium, with no faction willing to make a move.

As for Li Dai and Li Kang, who had fought each other most fiercely, the two brothers found themselves unable to defeat the other. With an unknown number of the Sealed Ones lurking, rashly starting a major war would be a lose-lose situation.

Although neither of the two had any intention of carving up the land to become kings, forced by the circumstances, they had no choice but to start stockpiling resources, becoming de facto Dukes.

Perhaps the only thing that brought the two brothers some comfort was that the Grand Ancestor Emperor hadn’t actually left them an Imperial Ancestor to deal with; otherwise, the situation would be even more out of control.

Unlike these two emperors from the Li Family, the other factions’ plans were much clearer.

It could be summed up in one word: stall.

As long as they could stall until their Sealed Ones broke through to Divinity Grandmaster, a major sect like Xuankong Temple would possess three Divinity Grandmasters simultaneously, making their power unprecedented.

It wouldn’t be too late to make a move then.

After all, it was only a matter of two or three years.

They could afford to wait.

Bai Yuan was more than happy to see this happen.

Similar to the two emperors of the Li Family, he also controlled vast territories and even held the right to mint currency.

Without war, the Northern Territory was recovering far faster than imagined.

Under Lu Yu’s management, the tax revenue collected in the Northern Territory repeatedly exceeded expectations.

It wasn’t because the tax rates were higher, but because the refugees hiding deep in the mountains saw that the world was at peace and began to come down.

In addition, more and more merchants were coming to the Northern Territory to do business.

The growth in customs duties was also extremely fast.

What Bai Yuan hadn’t expected was that, without his intervention, Lu Yu had begun to reform the tax laws.

To put it simply, he consolidated the land tax, corvée labor, and other miscellaneous levies into a single payment, collected in silver taels and calculated by the acre, which greatly reduced opportunities for middlemen to profit.

The common people were able to breathe.

This move was bound to offend many people.

It wasn’t that no official had proposed it before, but their proposals were always intercepted before they could even reach the Emperor’s desk.

Those officials would then inexplicably end up either drowning or falling to their deaths.

In any case, the Government Office would hastily close the case, and no one dared to investigate further.

The ultimate reason was that it affected the interests of too many people.

But this was the Northern Territory.

And Bai Yuan was its undisputed king.

Among the Prefects of the Northern Thirteen States, not a single one dared to disobey Bai Yuan.

It wasn’t because of some personal charisma or mastery of the Emperor’s Heart Technique; it was simply because he was ruthless enough.

He was a peerless monster capable of slaying a Mingxin Grandmaster.

In the Northern Territory, aside from the old ancestor of the Celestial Profound Sect, he had virtually no rivals.

Moreover, Bai Yuan had the backing of both the Zhenxi Army and the Northern Garrison Army.

Judging from his past actions, if someone displeased him, he truly dared to kill them.

He wasn’t concerned with his posthumous reputation anyway, so it didn’t matter how many people he killed.

Faced with such a hardened rogue, the local powers had no choice but to submit.

With more money, the Northern Garrison Army and Zhenxi Army were well-supplied and well-equipped, having become one of the rare elite forces in the world.

With the backing of a powerful military, business in the Northern Territory naturally became more stable.

Ultimately, however, Bai Yuan was able to push this through so easily because there were no deeply entrenched major sects in the Northern Territory to cause trouble; otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to succeed on his own.

The home front was stable. But two months after his second daughter, Bai Ling, was born, Bai Yuan descended the mountain and returned to Xiangzhou.

The Demon Sect wasn’t looking for trouble with him, but Bai Yuan had no intention of letting the Demon Sect go.

Otherwise, how could he justify the right to mint currency that he had taken from Li Dai and Li Kang?

Besides, he had tasted the sweet benefits of war.

His enhancement points skyrocketed with every major battle.

Moreover, for an army to become a true force of tigers and wolves, it must constantly experience real combat.

An army built on equipment and silver coins alone would be nothing more than an embroidered pillow—beautiful but useless, collapsing at the first touch.

Bai Yuan was perfectly clear on this point.

He personally led his troops across the Great Wall to hunt down and fight the Demon Sect.

His enhancement points continued to soar.

A year passed in this state of constant campaigning.

…

「Shenfu Mountain.」

“Daddy.”

Bai Ling said in her childish voice.

Her genes, modified by Bai Yuan’s Divine Mansion Technique, were not just powerful in terms of innate talent but were superior in every aspect.

At only one year old, Bai Ling could already converse with people like a three-year-old.

Bai Yuan, dressed in his military attire, scooped up his daughter.

“Brother Yuan, you’re back.”

“Yes.”

Bai Yuan nodded. For the past year, he had returned to Shenfu Mountain once every month.

Just then, he saw Dong Wanjun approaching.

“Master.”

Dong Wanjun nodded, then looked at Bai Yuan with a grave expression. “The Sealed One from Xuankong Temple has broken through.”