Chapter 544 – The Confluence of the North and South and Beginning to Break the Array
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Su Li left, but life continued, and that grand event of the human world was methodically pushed forward.
To speak truthfully, it was precisely because Su Li left that this grand event had a chance of success, that it could continue.
On the seventeenth day after Xu Yourong and the group from Holy Maiden Peak arrived in the capital, the Qiushan clan head, representing the various noble clans of the south, also entered the borders of the Great Zhou. The Longevity Sect had closed up its sect for three years, but those sects and monasteries nominally attached to it had sent out able representatives.
As time passed, more and more representatives of the various factions of the south began to take their seats in the negotiating room.
The confluence of the north and south was no longer a name that only existed in ancient records and the imagination. It was getting closer and closer to reality.
To the southerners, the greatest problem facing them was that after the departure of Su Li and the Holy Maiden, they possessed no expert of the Divine Domain. No matter if it was at the negotiation table or at some other place, the drinking table for instance, they couldn't help but feel lacking in confidence.
Unexpectedly, neither the Imperial Court nor the Orthodoxy took advantage of this difference in strength to suggest any sort of unreasonable demand. On the contrary, they displayed a rarely seen generosity and open-mindedness, making a series of guarantees and oaths for the benefit of the south's future.
Only the truly wise could see the crossing of swords concealed behind, or taking place before, this negotiation.
This was the crossing of swords between Su Li and the Tianhai Divine Empress and the Pope.
With unimaginable wisdom and courage, he renounced his right to take revenge on those that had pursued him on his journey back south. When he departed together with the Holy Maiden, the south straight away lost all of its confidence, thus preventing negotiations from once more miring themselves in the mud as had happened countless times before.
Then the Divine Empress and the Pope had to give him sufficient return, to give the south abnormally generous conditions.
In the details of this negotiation, these returns, this generous treatment, was this: after the confluence of the north and south, the south would preserve as much of its independence as possible.
This independence already surpassed the wildest dreams of the powers from the south.
They didn't need to alter the prefectures, to redraw the provinces or counties. They were free to select their own local officials without requiring the approval of the Ministry of Appointments in the capital, and only needed to have them examined in the capital once within three years. Taxation was also extremely favorable, and in terms of payments from the state treasury, it was even more inclined towards the relatively poor prefectures of the south.
Besides this, the south obtained many other benefits, especially with regards to the Grand Examination and the Imperial Examination. From now on, they no longer needed to take a portion of the capital's allotment, but were treated like the rest of the provinces and counties, calculating a quota from the number of people on the official census. With the performance of the south in the recent years, they would obtain a massive advantage in the Grand Examination.
Of course, the southerners could not obtain benefits without paying anything. Long before the negotiations were concluded, several items were already confirmed. These were that in the future, the army and foreign affairs would both be administered from the capital. The greatest change involved the ten thousand li of unbroken border in the north with the snowy plains. In the past, the sects and noble clans of the south would also send experts to garrison the northern forts and resist the great army of the demons. However, these experts were all honored guests, listening to suggestions, but not orders. Now, however, these experts would all be directly inserted into the army. Coupled with the changes occurring in logistics and other such aspects, it could be assumed that the human army would quickly make a huge leap in strength. Moreover, this had always been the most important, even sole, goal of the confluence of north and south.
As the negotiations over the confluence of the north and south slowly headed towards success, the experts and soldiers of the human world strengthened their watch over the north. The supply wagons from the south carried an unending stream of rations and fodder to the eleven critical border passes. They were prepared at any time to clash head-on with the demon cavalry riding south, because it was very obvious that the demons could not helplessly stand by as the human world succeeded in the confluence of the north and the south. They would definitely do something, especially that absolutely treacherous Military Advisor, Black Robe. Perhaps he had already put his crafty schemes into motion.
The situation up north was rather tense, and the two sides of the negotiation table were also rather tense, but these were two different types of tension. In these negotiations, Xu Yourong played an extremely important role. It could even be said that from a psychological perspective, she was the most important representative because she was both a person of Zhou and the Holy Maiden of the south at the same time. Naturally, her days became very busy, constantly calling upon the various representatives from the south while at the same time communicating with the Great Zhou Imperial Court. Fortunately, she lived in the Imperial Palace and so it was very easy for her to meet with the Divine Empress.
Chen Changsheng had already not seen her for ten-odd days and was somewhat concerned, but he knew that she was doing something extremely important, so he would naturally not complain. As a person who valued time above all else, he did not waste his days on longing and waiting. He borrowed the chill of the deep winter to hone his mind, comprehend the five stone pearls, and silently recite the Halving Blade Style. Occasionally, he would give a lesson to the new students of the Orthodox Academy, but he would spend more of his time endlessly studying. Of course, he did not forget a few other important things.
On a certain normal winter day of snow and wind, he purchased a large amount of food and little knick-knacks from the market. Under the Yellow Paper Umbrella, he avoided the countless eyes around the Orthodox Academy and, under the gazes of the Imperial Guards, reached that tree outside the palace walls. Then, availing himself of a great wind and sweeping snow that confused the eyes, he leaped into that well of New North Bridge.
The most oil-absorbent bamboo paper took up a space on the ground about half the size of a house, and countless hot and piping foodstuffs were tidily arranged upon it, releasing steam and all sorts of different aromas. There was steamed deer tail, roast goose, roast duck, and even a dozen or so sticky rice dumplings, but this time, there was no steamed bear paw…because of Xuanyuan Po, there was no one in the Orthodox Academy that currently ate that dish.
Chen Changsheng used two fingers to take out a clean handkerchief from his sleeve. After carefully wiping his hands clean of oil, he raised his head up to the Black Dragon and said, "Tang Tang made Clear Lake Restaurant the cafeteria of the Orthodox Academy…I forgot to tell you…but besides blue lobster, I bought a few more things from the outside. I feel they might taste even better."
At the very center of all the food was a small mountain of blue lobster.
Chen Changsheng was smiling as he spoke, his smile very clean and containing a joy that came from the heart.
To get so many fine foods for the Black Dragon to eat, he truly felt very satisfied.
The Black Dragon's mountainous body slowly descended. A cold and icy aura hard to describe with words instantly pressed down on the steam rising up from the food.
Chen Changsheng hurriedly pulled out his sword and slashed down, and a sword intent faintly suffused with a fiery light rose up. The food was instantly warmed back up and was not frozen into chunks of ice.
He had used the Burning Heaven Sword.
On that night several days ago, he had comprehended the sword intent in that letter for a very long time. Afterwards, he saw the battle between Su Li's Burning Heaven Sword and the Divine Empress's Ebony Phoenix Hairpin and made some gains.
Although he could not be said to have reached great heights on the path of the sword, at his current cultivation, he could already be counted as being completely integrated with the sword.
Except that…to use the incredibly difficult-to-comprehend Burning Heaven Sword to heat food was inappropriate no matter how one looked at it.
The Black Dragon did not believe this; she felt it extremely appropriate.
She was very satisfied with Chen Changsheng’s painstaking preparations to lay out this floor of food and mountain of blue lobster, and she was even more satisfied with his way of heating food by using the Burning Heaven Sword. This was because it indicated that in his eyes, her eating fresh and hot food was more important than preserving any of the so-called dignity of the path of the sword.
She decided to forgive him for the fact that it had already been a month since he had last visited.
A dignified and remote, simple yet complex, dragon cry resounded through the cold and gloomy space.
Chen Changsheng was a little taken aback, not understanding why the Black Dragon was in no rush to eat and instead wanted to do his dragon language lessons first. Then he suddenly recalled that he had brought the Black Dragon food so many times, but he had seemingly never seen her eat in front of him.
"Ah…"
"Uh…"
"Ee…"
"Woo…"
"Shu…"
The cavernous space would occasionally resound with the Black Dragon's low and dignified dragon cries while Chen Changsheng would clumsily and seriously learn the tones of the language.
Chen Changsheng learned with single-minded devotion, all the way until his voice was hoarse, his sea of consciousness blank, and his body extremely feeble. Yet he did not forget to slash down with the Burning Heaven Sword at certain intervals, assisting the roast goose and roast duck in maintaining their original fragrance at the most appropriate temperature.
The whiskers of the Black Dragon would occasionally drift upwards, spilling pieces of snow over that small mountain of blue lobster, producing a very beautiful picture.
After a long time had passed, today's dragon language lesson finally concluded. The Black Dragon gently puffed a breath of air onto his face, instantly covering it in a layer of frost. He used his hand to wipe the frost off and felt that with this sudden chill, he felt refreshed and his exhaustion had instantly vanished.
"I'm going over there to take a look."
Chen Changsheng did not forget the most important matter. Rushing over to the back, he saw those two chains, the other ends of the chains attached to a stone wall and held in the hands of those two legendary generals. Compared to the massive body of the Black Dragon, these two chains were like two fine threads, but they tightly imprisoned the Black Dragon.
It could be assumed that in the past few centuries, the Black Dragon had attempted countless times to snap these two chains, yet it had never succeeded.
Chen Changsheng had spent the greater part of the year after returning to the capital from the Garden of Zhou thinking of a way to break these chains, but he had also failed.
The array that Wang Zhice had laid on this stone wall was too complex and wondrous, like the sea of stars itself.
The two Divine Generals Yu Gong and Qin Zhong had left a strand of their spiritual sense on the stone wall. They were far too powerful, like bolts of lightning.
The previous generation of blooming flowers was already separated from the present by close to a thousand years, but those legends were still legends. Even when they were just strands of heroic souls, they were still not something he could oppose, or even a domain that he could touch—this domain was called Divine.
Chen Changsheng sat beneath the stone wall. Under the attentive gazes of these legends, he quietly read a book in his hand.
The book he was reading was rather old, its name "A Sheyang Daoist Master's Illustrated Collection of Arrays".
No one knew the specifics of Wang Zhice's teacher. In those times, when he was an ordinary lecturer at the Heavenly Dao Academy, in his middle age, he suddenly bathed the capital in the radiance of the stars and shook the continent, but no one knew who his teacher was. Chen Changsheng had searched through several hundred books in the library of the Orthodox Academy. In Wang Zhice's hometown, he discovered an ordinary Daoist with the surname Wu.
Wang Zhice's hometown was Sheyang.
This Daoist surnamed Wu was the Daoist Master from Sheyang.
……