Chapter 496: Wei Qingqing Is Hurt

"Both of you."

"If that's the case, then we'll meet again another day."

Jiang Ding nodded, and his figure vanished.

Staying this long with Han Lin as he was now, and with that residual soul of Shen He whose background was unknown, was honestly something he wasn't quite used to; there was a faint sense of unease.

Concealing his form, no longer under anyone's gaze, his heart immediately felt much more at ease, and he flew swiftly toward the distance.

"Farewell, Little Martial Uncle!"

Han Lin respectfully bade farewell, maintaining a bowed posture the whole time.

Only after nearly several dozen breaths, judging that the other party had already gone far away, did he straighten up and let out a breath of relief.

In this utterly weakened state, his divine soul and divine sense had been taut the entire time; only now did they relax a little.

After some thought,

he also cast a concealment spell and casually picked a direction to leave.

"Your concealment spell is too poor."

The aged voice seemed to shake its head slightly: "I'm afraid any Foundation Establishment cultivator searching carefully with divine sense could pick up one or two clues, let alone Jin Dan or Nascent Soul cultivators—it's practically useless."

"Quite right."

"I still need to find a superior concealment spell."

Han Lin sighed as well.

A superior concealment spell was not easy to find.

Such spells were already rare to begin with, and the superior ones were the prized core inheritances of the major powers; outsiders could hardly obtain them no matter the price, and virtually none circulated outside.

This was the helplessness of a loose cultivator—everything had to be fought for bit by bit on one's own, scraped together from here and there.

It wasn't that he disliked quiet cultivation and insisted on fighting for his life all over the place.

Elsewhere,

Jiang Ding spent some time extracting the memories of the two peak-Jin Dan cultivators of the General Heishi, then placed their residual souls in an extremely deep cavern tens of thousands of li away, setting up an array set to detonate and destroy them after several years.

If an accident occurred—if it was triggered early by people or animals, or by a volcanic eruption or earthquake—it would also detonate automatically.

"Mm, in the future, when I run into anyone with a background, I'll handle it this way for now."

Jiang Ding nodded, took out a jade slip, and recorded the process of what he had done—the cause and effect, what detonation array was used, what monitoring array, the placement location, the detonation time, and other data.

"If problems arise in the future, I'll improve and refine it then."

With this matter done, his transparent escape light swayed, and he flew toward the direction of the Wei family of Tuling Guard.

For the next stretch of time, he would gradually take control of the Wei family from top to bottom, making it part of his own tentacles.

Added to Gong Gong Caiyu and the undercover maidservants of the Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Four Divisions scattered across the Northern Plains, who from time to time sent back intelligence, he would roughly have a general understanding of the Northern Plains and wouldn't be completely blind.

Along the way, cultivators were fighting and killing from time to time.

The General Heishi name wasn't even much use—along just this one route, he had seen several collateral General Heishi disciples at the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining stages die at the hands of loose cultivators' plundering—

Compared to Jin Dan cultivators, Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators had very short lifespans, so they were relatively short-sighted, focused on the present, and extremely bold—as long as they could win, they'd dare to strike at anyone, even the Heavenly King himself.

Telling them about the future, about deep backgrounds, was completely like playing the lute to a cow.

The bold ones extended their lives by several hundred years; the timid ones died when their lifespans ran out, or more often perished in all manner of wars—the prairie cultivators were ferocious, and there were plenty of death-defying ruthless ones.

"Heh, even Zhenjun Shen Ya Master Dinghai Zhenjun has run into a tough nut."

Jiang Ding said gleefully at another's misfortune.

If one was talking about Jin Dan cultivators committing crimes, Zhenjun Shen Ya Master Dinghai Zhenjun could sweep them clean once every several or ten-odd years and intimidate things for a period.

But these enormous numbers of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators, spread across the vast prairie—plundering and fighting at the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining levels happened almost every single moment, and it was nearly impossible to stop.

Was he supposed to call on this old ancestor of the General Heishi every single time?

These Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators sprouted up in fresh batches every ten-odd years, an endless stream—could you possibly kill them all?

Even if Zhenjun Shen Ya Master Dinghai Zhenjun could split into dozens of bodies, he couldn't do it.

"Without strength, one cannot control the various regions."

Jiang Ding Zi murmured.

"The name of a Nascent Soul clan cannot intimidate forever, cannot make the many poor Jin Dan cultivators acknowledge that third-tier spirit veins and mines are occupied by General Heishi Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators—even if those Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators style themselves noble-born of the prairie, born with the right to rule."

"Such rhetoric can fool mortals, but Jin Dan cultivators won't buy it."

"In this situation, if one wants the General Heishi's rule to continue, there are essentially two paths."

Jiang Ding put himself in Zhenjun Shen Ya Master Dinghai Zhenjun's position and slowly reasoned it out: "One, support outside surnames, recruit outside-surname Jin Dan cultivators, acknowledge their status, let them manage a region on one's behalf, hand over part of their spirit stones and heavenly materials and earthly treasures, and additionally, when necessary, obey the General Heishi's conscription to fight."

"Just like what I did in Master Tushan Xiancheng—the General Heishi territories would quickly settle down, and there would be many relatively loyal hired fists to boot."

"The drawback is that it lets many outside-surname clans and sects grow powerful; with more peak-Jin Dan cultivators, under various coincidences over hundreds or thousands of years, it isn't impossible for a Nascent Soul cultivator to appear."

"If that happens, the General Heishi would be in danger."

"This is why the General Heishi have been unable to make up their minds for so long, preferring to let chaos run rampant in their territories."

Jiang Ding's eyes flashed.

Problems of this grand trend weren't hard to guess.

At this very moment, across the great prairie, there were probably large numbers of outside-surname Jin Dan cultivators hiding in the shadows, having formed loose organizations, waiting eagerly, and from time to time would strike unexpectedly at the General Heishi's Jin Dan cultivators to weaken the main branch's strength.

The General Heishi were, of course, supreme.

But to rule the prairie, they had to compromise with them to a certain degree!

That was their proposition.

Otherwise, this chaos would go on forever.

Jin Dan cultivators without territory, without resources, whose cultivation couldn't be sustained, with no retreat, would absolutely fight to the death without regard for their lives—the reputation of a Nascent Soul ancestor couldn't frighten them off.

"The second is to support the collateral branches. Over all these years, the General Heishi have had numerous collateral descendants, and quite a few talents have emerged among them—they're usable, but it causes great internal chaos and requires time to adjust."

Over ten days,

Jiang Ding returned to the Wei family of Tuling once more.

With a sweep of his divine sense, a hint of surprise appeared on his face.

He sat cross-legged beside the ancestral hall, at the place where the spiritual veins were most abundant.

"Father."

Wei Wei Qingqing came forward to greet a middle-aged Jin Dan cultivator with a simple, honest appearance.

A scar marred her face, and her meridians within her body appeared severely injured, as if the injuries had occurred only recently.

"You are injured."

Jiang Ding said calmly.

Before he had taken control of another hidden Jin Dan-level faction, the Wei family of Tuling still held some importance to him.

"I went to the Beast Spirit Master Tushan Xiancheng to pay homage to the direct line of General General Heishi, Zhangwaidiandian Hei Hei Tianlan. On my return to the family, I was ambushed," Wei Wei Qingqing said in a low voice. "The enemy had a Jin Dan Zhong Qi cultivator and a Jin Dan Chu Qi cultivator. I fought desperately to escape back here."

"Do you have any guesses?"

Jiang Ding asked.

"It must be the Yu family and the Shi family, who have always been against us."

Wei Wei Qingqing said in a low voice: "Although they disguised their aura and appearance, I could sense it. Moreover, the enemy seemed to deliberately hold back in the end, not yet determined to deal a killing blow, likely to avoid triggering an investigation by the Beast Spirit Master Tushan Xiancheng. They want the Wei family to realize the difficulty and retreat, voluntarily moving to the front lines and yielding this third-grade mid-tier spiritual vein where the ancestral tomb is located."

(End of this chapter)