Chapter 720: Beyond the Frontier

Of the eight people who assassinated Bai Lang, three were dead and five were injured. The injured felt as if their chests and abdomens had been struck by heavy hammers, feeling extremely stifled, their blood flow reversed, and their cultivation completely scattered—they wouldn't be able to gather it back for three to five years. As for internal injuries, if these people couldn't enter the Innate realm and didn't obtain any holy healing medicine, they might not be able to heal themselves even in ten or twenty years. Fortunately, it was just a matter of physical weakness and lingering on a sickbed; if they had money, they could still enjoy their natural lifespan.

Or they could just be dragged out and beheaded; there was no need to worry about whether they had internal injuries or not.

There are only a few people left on Black Wood Cliff, not even a Cult Leader—the various rudder masters and incense masters, including Tong Baixiong, could not reach an agreement and have now all run off to their own spheres of influence, leaving Black Wood Cliff abandoned on the side. "A Cult Leader that everyone looks forward to truly cannot be chosen—once anyone has experienced the presence of the Innate Expert Cult Leader Dongfang Bubai, they really cannot look down upon other goods that are about the same as themselves."

Bai Lang felt that the hearts of the people here were scattered, and the Ming Cult's team was indeed hard to lead, so he would just use these few unlucky souls left on Black Wood Cliff to make up the numbers, escort them back to the Capital's Ministry of Justice for trial, and then have them take a blade at the Fourth Archway. It was also Bai Lang's own fault; if he hadn't captured Xiang Wentian back then, today's merit would have been much greater—capturing the Ming Cult leader Xiang Wentian instead of the previous beheading of the Ming Cult Left Envoy Xiang Wentian.

Clearing Black Wood Cliff took one day, and after that, he just sat in command for three days, letting the local government send people up to confiscate the property and dismantle the buildings—the valuable things were dismantled, and the local officials said the main structure of the buildings would be sold to Taoists. It was said that the Quanzhen Sect was interested in buying a Taoist temple here—building a Taoist temple on Black Wood Cliff suited them quite well, but it was also said that the temple had to pay for the stone stairs to be chiseled for going up and down; they were not allowed to use the basket.

All the criminals were escorted to the Capital, and Bai Lang went directly to Datong. In this godforsaken place of Datong, there were many officials; above the Prefect, there were mothers-in-law like the Governor and the Viceroy, and there was also a Regional Commander who was not under his jurisdiction. "They should have given me a Viceroy position when they sent me here, or at least a Governor position. Instead, they gave me a Prefect position. These guys don't like me." Bai Lang muttered to himself. A guy like him who had climbed to the fourth rank in just a few years since entering office—among his peers, the decent ones were still wasting time in the Hanlin Academy, and the not-so-decent ones were spinning around in sixth or seventh-rank official positions.

Only he was high above, with Innate Expert status and military merit, making this fellow far ahead of the others. Later, he would be surpassed by those in the Hanlin Academy. According to the unwritten rules, Bai Lang was afraid he would never enter the Cabinet in his life; the title of Grand Secretary would not fall on him. Bai Lang took over as the Prefect of Datong, and his first trouble was the Mongols outside the pass. Dongfang Bubai's whereabouts were unknown, and Linghu had followed Feng to the south—when Bai Lang left, he heard that the two of them had found a merchant ship themselves and didn't know where they went; it seemed they were heading north.

The Five Mountain Sword Sects were becoming more and more unseemly. It was fine that the Huashan Sect had become an academy, but the Huashan Sword Sect said it had nothing to do with the Five Mountain Sword Sects. The Five Mountain Alliance Leader Zuo Lengchan didn't even dare to let out a fart and spontaneously and consciously "forgot" about the Huashan Sect. And the nuns of the Hengshan Sect recently heard that they no longer attended the sword sect meetings; they said they were going to practice and become monks, and would not participate in Jianghu activities. The Taoists of the Taishan Sect also climbed up to the Taoist officials of the imperial court, saying they wanted to practice Taoism properly and strengthen cooperation with the Mansion of the Most Holy Sage.

Only the Hengshan Sect still had people who would hold meetings with the Songshan Sect; since they weren't close, they would just hold one meeting a year. From Bai Lang's perspective, Zuo Lengchan was probably disheartened, and the plan for the Five Mountain Sword Sects to unite was completely finished. He estimated that he should also put his mind into breaking through to the Innate realm. Alas, how difficult that was; so far, there was no news of Zuo Lengchan breaking through to the Innate realm. Shaolin still didn't have an Innate Expert on the surface, and neither did Wudang, which surprised Bai Lang a little.

Counting the Innate Experts Bai Lang knew, it seemed he could count them on two hands—Dongfang Bubai was one, Feng Qingyang was one, several eunuchs in the Inner Court, at least the Factory Director of the Eastern Depot was an Innate Expert, and he himself was one... "If it's not good, I might be able to count them on one hand." Bai Lang thought. If that were really the case, the situation in the world shouldn't be like this. In short, there should at least be two handfuls of Innate Experts in the world for it to be normal.

After taking office, Bai Lang collected the regular silver—unfortunately, this silver couldn't be used to raise troops because he wasn't a Governor or a Viceroy; by custom, a Prefect only had yamen runners. Armor certainly couldn't be equipped; unlike Europe now, the Great Ming still had rules. As a Prefect, it wasn't easy for him to privately store armor, though weapons didn't matter. After cutting down the Wokou last time, the edge of his three-pointed double-edged spear hadn't been damaged. Bai Lang touched it; at most, it needed to be sharpened again, as it had become a bit dull from cutting people.

Bai Xu Shi and Ren Yingying and the others had already arrived in Datong and moved into the Prefect's yamen. Bai Lang didn't care about the official not repairing the yamen; he directly threw out silver and asked people to renovate the inner courtyard for him. As for the broken yamen outside, let it be. Although this Innate Expert was only the number three figure in Xuan-Da, no one dared to regard him as the number three figure—they should weigh who could defeat this person in martial arts. Moreover, there was no lack of people in the city who had personally seen this Bai Huayin charge into the formation.

The ferocity of that charge and the intensity of the slaughter were such that even the tens of thousands of iron cavalry of Altan Khan couldn't stop his impact and could only skirmish around. This Prefect Bai had no match before his horse, but the Innate realm still had its limits in human power; after all, he couldn't kill tens of thousands of iron cavalry. In the battle formation, the momentum was tragic and fierce, and Innate Experts couldn't easily borrow the energy of the weather and the world, and there was even the ability to suppress Qi Gong—this was the killing aura of the military formation.

It seemed that Innate Experts like Dongfang Bubai, in such a head-on confrontation in a military formation, might not be able to exert even three out of ten of their power. Even if they unfolded their skirmishing like lightning, they would eventually be surrounded by iron cavalry and at most kill a hundred or so cavalry before being cut down—this was still Dongfang Bubai wearing armor; if he didn't wear armor, his body would be faster, but he would probably die faster. Only Innate Experts like Bai Lang could exert ten out of ten of their martial arts to charge into the formation; this was the fundamental difference in martial arts.

In a one-on-one contest, the current Bai Lang was only a notch stronger than Dongfang Bubai, but on the battlefield, the difference was like heaven and earth.

Therefore, in Datong Prefecture, no one dared to be disrespectful to Bai Lang. Even the Xuan-Da Viceroy had to call him "Brother Bai" when meeting him. Bai Lang had already sold the warhorses he bought in Zhejiang, losing quite a bit of capital—when this thing was bought, it was at a high price, and when it was sold, almost no one wanted it. There were no generals in Zhejiang who would buy such warhorses, so in the end, he only sold it at a relatively low price. These hateful guys didn't even know how to flatter Bai Lang and buy it at a high price.

This time in Datong, Bai Lang also had tall horses, and he would often ride out of the city to inspect—completely reasonable and legal. As the Prefect of Datong, he didn't just manage one place in Datong City. This person now found the Xuan-Da Viceroy and asked him for troops, "What great thing has Bai Yuzhu done?", "Nothing else, just raiding for grass and grain." ===== CHAPTER 721 =====