Rise of the Wang Clan: Starting with a Portable Farm

Chapter 188: Ten-Year Development Plan

“Junior Sister!”

Another cultivator from the Qingyuan Sect approached. Wang Hao looked over and recognized Chen Qing.

Chen Qing gave Wang Hao a look, and he understood that she did not want to acknowledge their acquaintance.

“Junior Sister Mu,” Chen Qing said, “I grieve for Senior Brother He too, but we cannot bring him back. The sect has much to do, and we need to stand together. Our enemy is the Burning Heaven Sect, not the clan cultivators under us.”

She looked at Wang Hao’s group. “They answered the sect’s call and came to help. How can you accuse them and chill their hearts?”

At Chen Qing’s words, the woman stopped questioning them. She asked where Elder He had died, then flew off with reddened eyes once the four indicated the direction.

“Junior Sister Mu and Senior Brother He were to become Dao companions,” Chen Qing explained apologetically. “She lost control when she learned of his death. Please don’t take it to heart.”

“Not at all,” Qian Jiatao said quickly.

Chen Qing turned to Wang Hao and spoke by voice transmission. “Brother Wang, are you here to settle your contributions?”

Wang Hao nodded. “We intercepted several cultivators from the Burning Heaven Sect and Boundless Palace. We also gathered bodies and Storage Bags of fallen fellow cultivators. We want to ask how the sect will handle them.”

“Describe the fighting and submit evidence. After the sect checks it, you’ll receive the appropriate contribution credit. But with our losses, you won’t be able to exchange it for resources soon,” Chen Qing said.

“I don’t know when exchanges will resume. As for what you’ve collected, keep it yourselves. If you hand it to the sect, I fear it won’t be returned to the fallen cultivators’ families.”

Wang Hao had expected the shortage. It seemed the sect would be unable to settle its debt to them anytime soon.

He explained to Qian Jiatao and the others. The four agreed to report the fighting and turn over the enemy bodies as evidence, splitting the contribution credit equally.

Wang Hao had killed several attackers during their earlier breakout but had no bodies to prove it. Trying to claim those kills with his magical artifacts as proof would be pointless. Without evidence, the sect was unlikely to recognize them.

Still, after dividing their gains, each of the four received at least 150,000 Spirit Stones’ worth of goods.

Qingyuan’s disciples soon killed the remaining Burning Heaven Sect and Boundless Palace cultivators. Jin Heng himself found and captured a few who had evaded them.

He had dressed Du Guangchao’s body in his usual clothing and placed it on a high platform before the square.

Looking over thousands of disciples, Jin Heng waved a hand.

Several Qingyuan disciples led out more than a dozen bruised Burning Heaven Sect captives.

They kicked the captives behind the knees, forcing them to kneel before Du Guangchao. Other disciples stood behind them holding broad-bladed swords.

“Today your blood will honor Senior Brother Du. One day, I will attack the Burning Heaven Sect’s own mountain gate,” Jin Heng said.

He brought his hand down.

“Execute them!”

More than a dozen heads fell, and blood stained the square.

Jin Heng led the disciples in bowing to Du Guangchao’s body. Wang Hao and the others followed.

Then Jin Heng addressed the crowd.

“By my order, Qingyuan Mountain will close in five days and remain sealed for ten years. No one may enter or leave. Clan cultivators and independent cultivators should return to their own spirit mountains. The customary tribute remains unchanged.”

He looked toward Canghai Sanren.

Canghai Sanren nodded. “Fellow Daoist Jin’s orders will stand. I am only a guest and won’t interfere in Qingyuan’s affairs.”

Canghai was at the peak of Golden Core and might reach Nascent Soul, so no one could ignore him. Seeing that he did not intend to seize control, Jin Heng was quietly relieved; competing claims to authority might throw the sect into disorder.

“Understood!” thousands of disciples answered.

“Go. Put the mountain gate in order and prepare to seal it,” Jin Heng said.

Qingyuan’s disciples departed on flying swords, magical artifacts and spirit beasts for their assigned duties.

Wang Hao and his companions exchanged glances and flew down the mountain.

Jin Heng’s order was meant to give Qingyuan time to recover. Officials had been killed or wounded and their duties had to be reassigned. Many disciples had died too, leaving the sect in need of new talent.

Ten years was long enough for the sect to regain its footing.

Qingyuan Market lay outside the mountain and would stay open. It was a transport hub for the Leizhou Peninsula and home to hundreds of thousands of independent cultivators. Closing it would cost the sect Spirit Stones and create many other problems.

Without supplies from the sect, however, the market would likely be much less prosperous for the next ten years. That was beyond Wang Hao’s concern.

The matter affecting him directly was the secret expedition Chen Qing and the others had invited him on. War had delayed it, and the ten-year closure meant it had to wait longer.

After the battle, the region began returning to its former state.

The Burning Heaven Sect would have to give back the lands it had taken. Only one of its Golden Core cultivators remained, badly wounded. Its spirit beast survived, but could not manage territory. Its subordinate families would likely withdraw from Qingyuan’s lands once they heard what had happened.

The two sects had not made peace. Even if Qingyuan did not attack those who lingered, the families they had bullied might. Any family that stayed for the spoils would be in danger.

The captured spirit mountains might be recovered, but the clans destroyed in the war could not be brought back.

There were many independent cultivators who wanted to establish clans. Some would pay Qingyuan for those empty spirit mountains. In a few hundred years, the region might flourish again.

The next ten years mattered to the Wang Clan too.

Since Wang Hao encouraged childbirth, many cultivators of the Wen generation had been born. They were younger and still had ambitions, unlike some of the older Yan generation, who had taken numerous concubines.

The Yan generation numbered thirty-nine, ten of whom had been born after the policy. Six of those ten were the children of one elderly grand-uncle of the Long generation; the other four came from elsewhere in the clan.

That grand-uncle had achieved little in ninety years of cultivation, and his earlier children and grandchildren had only middling aptitude. After the policy, at the age of ninety, he took more than twenty concubines.

In a few years he fathered more than seventy children. Six had Spiritual Roots; two of those had three Spiritual Roots.

The Wen generation exceeded seventy members for the first time, reaching seventy-four. Thirty-nine had been added after the policy.

The Wu generation had more than fifty. Wang Wenxin alone had six children with Spiritual Roots. Unlike the grand-uncle, he had only five wives and concubines, but their children had Spiritual Roots with remarkable frequency.

The clan also paid more attention to pregnant women in its mortal towns, giving them spirit rice and other spiritual foods. More children with Spiritual Roots were born there.

In the past, the towns might produce one such child every few years. Now they produced one or two a year. Thirteen of the Wu generation’s fifty-odd cultivators came from those towns.