Chapter 1240: Young Lord of the Tribute Map

On the march, dust billowed in rolling clouds.

Mo Hua rode the new barbarian horse that the Chasing Cloud Tribe had tamed for him, and Seeing Dan Zhu also rode a horse, following behind him.

Along the way, Seeing Dan Zhu couldn't help glancing at Mo Hua's back, lost in thought. After riding for a while, Seeing Dan Zhu finally couldn't hold back and said:

"Mr...."

Mo Hua turned to look at Seeing Dan Zhu.

Seeing Dan Zhu thought for a moment, then said slowly, "Mr., about the matter of the Chasing Cloud Tribe—were you trying to remind me of something?"

Mo Hua's heart gave a start, and he understood at once.

The Chasing Cloud Tribe's chief had three sons.

Seeing Dan Zhu's father was also a chief, and he too had three sons.

Mo Hua had Chifeng cut off the Chasing Cloud chief's neck and kill him, then used words to "beguile" Red Colt, backing Red Colt into power.

And Seeing Dan Zhu was also the third son of the great chief of the Dan Sparrow Tribe.

In a certain sense, he too was being "beguiled" by him.

The Dan Sparrow Tribe was far stronger than the Chasing Cloud Tribe, and far more complicated; the two couldn't be mentioned in the same breath, but the question set before Seeing Dan Zhu was the same as Red Colt's.

Seeing Dan Zhu was kind-hearted, but also very sensitive—an extremely intelligent person.

Perhaps he had instinctively seen his own shadow in Red Colt.

Perhaps he had also felt that, in a certain sense, he too was nothing but... a "chess piece" being beguiled by Mo Hua.

Only, his chess piece was far more important than Red Colt's.

Mo Hua sighed softly in his heart.

This "disciple" of his, Seeing Dan Zhu, really was too inwardly refined, too clever. His goodness made him delicate in thought, and gave him an intuition and comprehension that ordinary people found hard to detect.

And this, too, was one of the drawbacks of planting demons in the Dao heart.

Intent forced upon another person would, one day, be perceived by that person.

Against someone truly clever and gifted, you could beguile them for a time, but not for a lifetime.

Unless you directly crushed their divine sense and independent will, turning them into a puppet.

Mo Hua looked calmly at Seeing Dan Zhu, his gaze clear and gentle, and asked, "Do you still remember those questions I asked you at the very beginning?"

Seeing Dan Zhu gave a start.

Mo Hua said slowly, "You told me you had once secretly made a great vow—to offer up everything, so that the Dan Sparrow Tribe would forever prosper and grow strong, and its people would forever live in plenty and joy…"

"But, suppose…" Mo Hua's tone dropped a little, "the Dan Sparrow Tribe's prosperity had to be built on massacring large numbers of barbarian cultivators, on oppressing, exploiting, plundering, even enslaving countless innocent people…"

"And the strength of the Dan Sparrow Tribe's upper echelons required the lower clansmen to 'donate blood'…"

"Would you still be willing to accept that kind of 'prosperity'?"

Seeing Dan Zhu's expression fell silent.

This was a question Mo Hua had raised with him the very first time they met.

For all this long while since, he had buried the question at the bottom of his heart, unwilling to recall it—because the question was too sharp.

Sharp enough to pierce through all those beautiful vows of his, and leave him feeling a cold, bitter pain.

"If all of this were real…"

Mo Hua looked at Seeing Dan Zhu and said, "Then it would mean that, if you want to change the Dan Sparrow Tribe, if you want it to be truly strong, you must start from the top—which means going against your father, your elder brothers, and the interests of the elders who value you, bearing the reputation of being cold and unfeeling, enduring the pain of not being understood…"

"Can you bring yourself to do these things?"

Seeing Dan Zhu's face went pale, and a clear look of pain surfaced.

Deep down he could feel that nothing Mo Hua had said was beguilement—it all came from the heart, every word true.

But precisely because it was true, it was unbearably painful.

Mo Hua's tone was flat: "A person spends a whole life chasing a beautiful vision, yet never reaches it, because reaching that beautiful vision means facing very sharp and very painful questions."

"People only long for the beautiful, and flee from contradiction and pain."

"So most people can only spend their whole lives 'longing,' and in the end gain nothing at all."

"Do you want to live inside the vision, or do you want to realize it—even if it means walking into thorns and hell…"

Seeing Dan Zhu fell into a long silence.

Mo Hua's gaze softened a little. "Before, I didn't bring these questions up with you again because it was still early—some questions you need to think over slowly. But now there's no time… the great calamity is about to be settled. On the road ahead, once we run into people of the Dan Sparrow Tribe—your father and your elder brothers—for you it will be both a reunion with family and a moment of fateful choice."

"In extreme circumstances, you may even have to draw a blade against your father and brothers, to the point of fighting to the death."

"Stick to your own path, even if it means kin slaying kin."

"Or, for the sake of a moment's harmony, give up what you've chosen to hold to."

"How you choose is entirely up to you."

Seeing Dan Zhu's heart was racked by an inner war, contradictions tangling together, and for a long time he could not calm down.

After a moment, Seeing Dan Zhu raised his head, looked at Mo Hua, and asked in a low voice:

"Mr., you won't… one of these days, sneak up and kill my father too, will you?"

Mo Hua was taken aback, and felt a touch of helplessness inside.

Your father is late-stage Jin Dan—I'd have to be able to kill him in the first place…

Mo Hua assured him, "I won't."

Only then did Seeing Dan Zhu quietly let out a breath of relief.

Although "Mr." was only late-stage Foundation Establishment, after everything that had happened and all the uncanny "miracles" he had witnessed, Seeing Dan Zhu couldn't help feeling that even though his father was late-stage Jin Dan, if Mr. truly wanted to kill him, perhaps it wasn't impossible.

So now, having received Mo Hua's assurance and secured a life for his father, Seeing Dan Zhu felt a great weight lift from his heart.

As long as Mr. doesn't strike the killing blow, that's enough; the rest of the contradictions, he could only work through himself.

Seeing Dan Zhu silently reflected within, then said earnestly to Mo Hua, "Mr., I still don't know what to do, but I will think it over carefully."

Mo Hua's eyes showed relief, and he nodded: "Good."

……

In the half month that followed, Mo Hua swallowed up several more small and medium tribes.

Among them, one or two tribes acted rather savagely and refused to submit to control.

But they were no match for the Chasing Cloud Tribe, possessing no especially unusual abilities, so Mo Hua was hardly polite either. He directly employed a bit of small force, killed a few ringleaders, and they quieted down.

A few days later, another incident occurred.

A barbarian soldier came to report to Mo Hua, saying one person had died, and another had escaped.

The one who died was that beautiful concubine of the Gongtu Young Master.

The one who escaped was precisely that Young Master of the Gongtu Tribe.

Mo Hua went to the scene to look, and discovered the Gongtu Young Master's beautiful concubine, her clothes half undone, a dagger plunged into her chest, fresh blood staining half her skirt, terror lingering on her face.

Mo Hua's expression darkened slightly with anger.

He had once issued strict orders, forbidding the tribe's barbarian soldiers from wantonly insulting women, on pain of severe punishment.

But after investigating all around, the facts left Mo Hua somewhat surprised.

It was not that some barbarian soldier had grown greedy, coveted the beauty of the Gongtu Young Master's concubine, tried to rape her and failed, then killed her to silence her.

The Gongtu Young Master and his companion were Mo Hua's "guests," and no one dared lay a hand on them.

The one who killed this beautiful concubine was none other than the Gongtu Young Master himself.

Mo Hua frowned, thought for a moment, and roughly understood.

This was a pair of "wealth-and-status" husband and wife.

When the Gongtu Young Master was still a young master, he was young and handsome, of high status, with abundant wealth and generous spending.

This beautiful concubine naturally devoted herself wholeheartedly, enjoying the glory and riches the Gongtu Young Master gave her.

But now, the Gongtu Young Master had fallen on hard times. His family fortune had been plundered, his guards were gone, and he was living under Mo Hua's roof, utterly destitute — naturally just another face in the crowd.

He must have felt unwilling and furious inside.

Even more unwilling than him was his beautiful concubine.

Once she had been the "bright pearl" the tribe's young master treasured, deeply cherished. Now she was merely the "concubine" of a fallen young master, with coarse clothing and simple meals.

The more beautiful a person is, and the more they have grown accustomed to wealth through their beauty, the less they can endure mediocrity.

Moreover, she had also seen a far more outstanding person:

Seeing Dan Zhu.

This Jin Dan prodigy Seeing Dan Zhu — noble in status, outstanding in talent, perfect in looks — was not just a little better than that Gongtu Young Master who lived off his tribe's blessings.

Needless to say, Seeing Dan Zhu had even shown her a "life-saving" kindness.

"When no object of desire is seen, the heart does not go astray."

People fear comparison most of all.

And they also fear hearts that soar higher than the heavens.

This beautiful concubine must have been thinking of Seeing Dan Zhu day after day, and felt no more affection for the Gongtu Young Master.

The Gongtu Young Master's heart was filled with fury and jealousy, long-simmering resentment finally bursting forth — he raised his hand against the woman he had once loved most.

He personally drove the dagger into the chest of the beautiful concubine he had treasured like a jewel.

Then by the time he came to his senses, it was probably already too late. Impulsiveness paired with fear of consequences was the habitual pattern of such wastrels.

Fearing punishment or blame, he fled on his own.

Originally, even though he was a "guest," Mo Hua had not kept him confined. For him to find some excuse and slip away was no difficult matter.

That things would develop this way…

Mo Hua felt an inexplicable pang of emotion in his heart.

But he did not dwell on it for long, because disaster loomed. He had to manage the livelihoods of tens of thousands of barbarian cultivators, while simultaneously deducing the heavenly secrets and life-and-death situation of the entire Great Wilderness. His divine sense was on the verge of exhaustion every day, and he simply did not have so much time to brood over such trivial matters of love.

In the end, everyone was just a chance acquaintance, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Mo Hua temporarily put this matter out of his mind.

Until several days later, when he saw the Gongtu Young Master's corpse again.

The Gongtu Young Master was also dead.

He had killed his beloved concubine, fled beyond the reach of Mo Hua's power, and in the end still could not escape the killing tribulation — he died by the roadside of a barren mountain.

Everything on his body had been plundered. Even his skin had been flayed, and his corpse was left drying by the roadside like a stray dog.

If Mo Hua had not been skilled in heavenly secrets and familiar with his aura, he would never have imagined that the lump of rotten flesh by the roadside was that Gongtu Young Master who had once embraced beauties and strutted about smugly.

Mo Hua was somewhat stunned, and could not help sighing at the impermanence of worldly affairs.

Being born a young master was perhaps his fortune.

But being born into troubled times was his misfortune.

Fate's cruelty treats everyone equally.

In peaceful times, a young master like him could enjoy every luxury, but in a year of disaster, apart from being a "young master," he was useless. Without barbarian soldiers to rely on, and unable to endure the torment of an ordinary heart, he could only perish in the wilderness, unmourned by anyone.

In the face of true calamity, beauty and wealth are both so fragile as to be hair-raising.

Mo Hua sighed softly, then ordered Zhong Mingren to bury the Gongtu Young Master and erect a simple gravestone.

Afterwards, he used his divination arts to trace the cause and effect, and found the murderers of the Gongtu Young Master.

They were several barbarian cultivators from wandering tribes who had banded together in these troubled times, roaming about, killing anyone they met and looting anything they saw.

Mo Hua ordered them killed, which could be considered avenging the Gongtu Young Master.

And among the stolen goods they had plundered, Mo Hua found the bundle belonging to the Young Master of the Gongtu Tribe.

The food in the bundle had all been eaten, and other items had all been ruined — only a single token remained.

This seemed to be the Young Master's token of the Tribute Diagram Department.

Mo Hua didn't know what use this token had, so he tossed it into his storage bag for the time being and paid it no further attention.

……

Afterwards, Mo Hua's forces grew further, all the way to a full forty thousand people.

In terms of barbaric cultivator numbers, this was only the level of a large tribe's branch division.

But in terms of military strength, even without counting Lord Lugu of the late Jin Dan stage, it was already on par with the main division of an ordinary third grade great tribe.

Of course, that was the military strength of a third grade barbaric main division after the Wang Ting had already drawn troops from it.

The Wang Ting of the Great Wilderness, in preparation for the decisive battle with the Dao Court, had already drawn a portion of elite troops from every tribe.

The current forces of the Great Wilderness were incomplete, equivalent to having been cut around once like a patch of "leeks."

And having reached this point, Mo Hua had no choice but to consider temporarily choosing a place to settle the barbaric cultivators.

There were many hard battles to fight ahead, and many even more difficult formations to lay; he needed to first establish a base, settle down, and then seek further development.

But the place he was currently in lay south of the Hengduan Mountain Range, adjacent to the Famine Lands, and was not suitable as a rear base.

Mo Hua thought it over and felt he could only find a way to push north of the Hengduan Mountain Range.

Although by observing the heavens at night and sensing the qi of heaven and earth, he could tell that the north was a place of slaughter, a place where the great tribes contended, and even more perilous.

But now the "small fish" all around had already been eaten up; if he wanted to keep developing, he still had to find a way to expand northward.

Mo Hua then led his people and marched north.

After traveling for some days like this, they approached the Zhu Que Mountain Range and the Hengduan mountain region — steep and towering, as if heaven and earth had cleaved them down with a single blade.

Ahead, within the heavenly mechanisms, a red light flickered faintly.

Mo Hua could sense that once they crossed the mountain range, they would reach a land of bloody slaughter.

He had everyone first encamp outside the Hengduan Mountains, intending to go over himself first to see how things stood.

Because this journey was dangerous, Mo Hua was very cautious and brought Lord Lugu and Chifeng — the two Jin Dan cultivators with the highest cultivation.

The three of them, cloaked in night, set out toward the Hengduan Mountains.

But before they had crossed the Hengduan Mountains, while passing by some small tribes nearby, Mo Hua detected a trace of something off.

He could smell a faint whiff of blood in the air.

And within that smell of blood, there was also hidden a faint, obscure and unpleasant… aura of evil thoughts.

"Evil thoughts?"

Mo Hua's gaze hardened slightly, and then he said to Lord Lugu and Chifeng: "Something's not right."

Lord Lugu and Chifeng exchanged a glance, and both furrowed their brows.

Mo Hua said: "Put on the concealment robes I gave you."

Chifeng did as told; Lord Lugu was not too willing, but he also did as told.

Mo Hua also went through the motions, draping a concealment robe over himself, and then led Lord Lugu and Chifeng, hidden in the darkness, toward a nearby small tribe.

As they approached the tribe, Mo Hua's gaze grew slightly heavy.

It was a perfectly normal small tribe.

But soon, they would no longer be normal.

Because drifting in the air was a wisp of an evil god's thought-force, and within that thought-force lurked a desire to "devour" people, stirring up an almost irresistible impulse.

And this thought-force seemed to be growing stronger still.

Mo Hua frowned, released his divine sense, and after a moment, following the guidance of his divine sense, walked to a large square in the tribe.

In the square stood a crude idol.

It was the dead of night, and before the idol, there was a black-robed figure who had melted into the night, crouching on the ground, drawing something unknown.

Mo Hua quietly walked up behind him, craned his head, and watched him draw.

This black-robed man was drawing very intently, but his state seemed off as well — as if he had fallen into some kind of madness. His eyes glowed red, and dipping his finger in blood, as if controlled by someone, he traced one after another wondrous and blood-soaked formation on the ground.

His expression was utterly focused, one might even say solemn.

Just as he was drawing, a clear yet gentle voice suddenly sounded by his ear:

"Who taught you to draw formations like this?"

(End of this chapter)