Chapter 290: The Innocent Commoner

With this, the secret of the Xu family within the grotto-heaven had been uncovered, and Wei Yuan had also learned some secrets of the past from Xu Xu Shiba's perspective.

The grotto-heaven had shattered years ago, and since this place was deep underground, it was difficult to relocate. Ever since the birth of the infant with the innate Eternal Sword Body, the value of this place had plummeted. The tens of thousands of boys and girls were merely living dead, and the Great Treasure Vase Undying Pure Heshan Rebirth Array was irreversible—reversing it meant the souls would scatter—so they could not be moved either.

A mere few tens of thousands of people were, in the eyes of the Xu family, disposable at any time.

Later, the little girl's resentment somehow turned her into a monster, and Xu Xu Shiba's Dharma body certainly wasn't originally in the Star-Dou Array. Judging by the various arrangements left by the cloth-clad swordsman, he could at least recall parts of his past, and he possessed independent consciousness; naturally, he would no longer work for the Xu family.

The monster the little girl had become, together with Xu Xu Shiba's sword-wielding Dharma body, was enough to make even a Fenhai Zhenjun retreat. Furthermore, when the grotto-heaven shattered and the void was exposed, if a Fenhai Zhenjun stayed here too long, they might attract the extremely terrifying monsters from deep within the void; this place could not be lingered in.

Because of all this, the Xu family had to retreat in a hurry, not even having time to destroy the underground altar.

One of the little girl's obsessions before death was the home she shared with her mother—the very earthen house Wei Yuan had inspected. The second was her final burial place. Such yin spirits and ghosts born of obsession and resentment could not leave their place of obsession too far, and thus could not leave the grotto-heaven.

But perhaps she had absorbed the power of the void, or for some other reason, her power was exceptionally strong; ordinary Dharma Form cultivators would find it hard to escape death if they encountered her. Later, the Xu family sent people into the grotto-heaven fragments, perhaps wanting to check the progress of the shattering, but they were all slaughtered by the girl.

The old man of the Xu family outside perhaps believed there was a death trap within the fragments, which was why he tried to goad Wei Yuan into entering.

By now, although some details remained unclear, the basic facts were largely understood.

The most precious thing in the grotto-heaven fragment was the Filthy Earth White Lotus. Although it had just begun to grow, it could already extend one's life by a hundred years. And extending life was only a minor part of its functions.

This object could not leave that pool of dark, filthy water. To take it out, one would need an immortal-grade treasure to collect it, but the usual practice was to leave it in place and build a new, sealed medicinal garden around it to accommodate its growth.

Generally speaking, if a sect or family knew there was a Filthy Earth White Lotus here, they would choose to rescue this grotto-heaven fragment. The common practice was to have a Fenhai Zhenjun connect their Mind-Reflection World to this place to mend the grotto-heaven.

However, there was an additional option now: to move this white lotus into Wei Yuan's Myriad Miles of Heshan, just like the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree and the Red Lotus Honglian Puti.

Wei Yuan needed to set aside a place of ultimate yin within the Myriad Miles of Heshan to allow the white lotus to continue growing. This was easy to handle; the poison spat out by the girl when she turned into a monster was a substance of ultimate yin and filth, and Wei Yuan currently had several scorched patches in his Dao foundation. It was perfect to move them to one place and make use of them.

Transplanting such an immortal object naturally required extreme caution. Wei Yuan also stated that this white lotus belonged to everyone, and how to distribute it would be discussed once they were out. Besides, it had only bloomed once and was far from mature; to divide it now would be a waste of a heavenly treasure.

Wei Yuan only had a basic understanding of pharmacology, so Sun Yu and Old Priest Master Chuhe joined forces to cram him with knowledge of pharmacology and arrays, allowing Wei Yuan to set up an array within the Myriad Miles of Heshan to constrain the power of ultimate yin.

After being heavily infused with knowledge, Wei Yuan learned that there were many restrictions on extending life; extending it by a hundred years was only its theoretical efficacy at this moment. For example, if a cultivator originally had a lifespan of a thousand years but had taken various immortal pills that burned their lifespan to achieve a breakthrough, they might only have three hundred years left. In that case, taking this medicine would only extend their life by thirty years, not a hundred.

After a busy period, Wei Yuan finally moved the Filthy Earth White Lotus into his Dao foundation and settled it properly. The place where it was planted was several hundred miles away from Mount Yushan, and a complete array had been set up around it. The array was complex and meticulous, with flowing light, and its quality was extraordinary.

This was the immortal plant Wei Yuan cared about most. When the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree arrived, he had just stuck it in casually and often pulled it up to see if it had sprouted; when the Red Lotus Honglian Puti arrived, there was a bit more ceremony, but not much, and neither was as delicate as this one. Wei Yuan reflected on whether he had been too dismissive of his immortal plants in the past and decided to treat them better in the future.

At this point, Sun Yu had already scanned all the boys and girls with his spiritual sense. "A total of 47,000 people, ranging in age from twelve to fifteen. However, there will be a lot to teach in the future."

Sun Yu had asked several of the youths; they had lived together since they were small. For the first few years, they learned to read and cultivate, and after preliminary body forging, they were sent underground, after which they knew nothing else.

They were ignorant of the world and had no sense of shame, finding it perfectly normal to be naked, but were very curious about everyone else's clothes. Beyond that, they had an instinctive reliance on and obedience to Wei Yuan. In the years before they lost their memories, they had long ago learned absolute obedience; any companion who dared to resist was severely punished, beaten, and would suddenly disappear.

From Wei Yuan, they felt an instinctive, trembling fear of a powerful force, and they couldn't even begin to think of resisting.

Looking at these tens of thousands of boys and girls, Wei Yuan also felt a lot of pressure. He decided that upon returning, he would exchange for a batch of books related to karma to understand exactly what karma he had taken on, what he could do, and what he couldn't, and it would be best to cultivate one or two secret karmic arts just in case.

All the boys and girls had been reborn through Wei Yuan's Dao foundation, so Wei Yuan knew their soul bodies like the back of his hand. He immediately picked out forty-seven whose soul bodies were clearly strong, each responsible for a small team of one hundred. Wei Yuan didn't have time to name them, so he simply named them by number, from Wei One to Wei Forty-Seven.

After initially dividing the teams, their first task was to dismantle and dig, taking away everything that could be dismantled in the plaza. The plaza floor was made of Azure Jade Ice Stone, which was also a mid-grade array material. Since there were many people now, Wei Yuan had them pry up all the azure jade ice bricks and transport them out one by one.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan had brought a thousand cultivators and had prepared a large amount of tools. He had come with the intention of dismantling the grotto-heaven once over, and now that the array the Xu family had spent at least a hundred years building was intact, it was perfect for the task.

After leaving the grotto-heaven fragment, Wei Yuan set up several more ambushes around the entrance. Sure enough, there were quite a few Xu family scouts; after killing a dozen and capturing five or six, the mountain valley became quiet.

The environmental changes in the small mountain valley all stemmed from the leakage of energy within the grotto-heaven. Now that the yin energy was gone, it would slowly return to its original state.

The workload of dismantling the grotto-heaven was enormous. Wei Yuan urgently mobilized ten thousand people to first widen the roads, then dig waterways to connect the various pools and lakes, allowing flat-bottomed boats to sail.

These boats had a draft of no more than three feet and were quite spacious. However, each azure jade ice brick weighed three or four hundred jin, and a boat couldn't hold many. To transport everything back to the realm, it would likely take several months.

Nearly 50,000 boys and girls worked for a full seven or eight days before all the bricks in the plaza were pried up, but transporting them out was still a massive project. After consulting with Yu Yu Zhizhuo, Wei Yuan used several thousand commoners to replace these newborn youths, taking them back to the realm first. Yu Yu Zhizhuo left a junior brother behind to preside over the site. Next, they would have to lay tracks in the inclined shafts and set up mine carts; it wouldn't work without disciples from the Heavenly Craft Hall.

Using mine carts to transport the azure jade ice bricks would greatly increase efficiency, dozens of times higher than relying solely on human labor.

Thus, on the ninth day after entering the grotto-heaven fragment, Wei Yuan finally led the tens of thousands of boys and girls on the journey back to the realm.

It was their first time seeing the world outside the grotto-heaven, and they were curious about everything. However, obedience remained their top priority; during the journey, no one spoke, and they all walked quickly.

After walking for a distance, Wei Yuan suddenly looked back at the still-gloomy mountain valley.

A family had once lived there, who could have lived happily and peacefully for a lifetime, but they had encountered disaster and lived a life of misery.

If Xu Xu Shiba hadn't been born with innate wisdom, hadn't been the reincarnation of someone, perhaps he wouldn't have experienced all this. Just as is often seen in history books, "an innocent man is guilty of a crime because he holds a jade ring."

But thinking of this, Wei Yuan felt that the people who wrote history were talking nonsense. Why is the innocent man holding the jade ring guilty? Shouldn't it be those who want to snatch his jade ring? It's just that those people have the right to write history, and their pens invert black and white, always trying to make people feel it's the commoner's fault.

Looking back at the long procession following him, Wei Yuan suddenly felt that only when a commoner holds a jade ring and can openly display it, trade it, and exchange it for what they need without worrying about oppression or robbery by the powerful—only then is it a prosperous age!

In the valley, within the grotto-heaven, the little girl had been reburied. Xu Xu Shiba's physical body was destroyed, with only a few remains of the giant sword and hilt left. The demon's corpse on the lotus pillar was also taken down and burned to ash by Old Priest Master Chuhe with true fire, buried together with Xu Xu Shiba's relics and the girl's body.

When the demon's corpse was taken down, the body that had survived tribulations and destruction suddenly turned to ash upon meeting fire, and all obsession and resentment dissipated. At that moment, Wei Yuan's body and Primordial Spirit felt a bit lighter, having resolved some karma.

!.

This family was finally reunited, and in a few days, the grotto-heaven fragment would collapse, and they would disappear forever.

Wei Yuan only hoped they would never enter the cycle of reincarnation again.

The newborn boys and girls all had the cultivation of the Tendon-Muscle Realm and took only half a day to walk the hundred-plus miles and enter the realm.

Wei Yuan had already chosen a place near the north of the main peak to build a new city exclusively for them to live in. Wei Yuan estimated that it would take at least a year or two for them to learn enough knowledge to interact with outsiders, at which point they would slowly integrate into human life.

Over the past few days, Wei Yuan had been so busy he felt like he had shed a layer of skin.

Tens of thousands of people eating, drinking, and relieving themselves—no matter how small the matter, when the quantity was large, it became a major event. Wei Yuan was so busy he hadn't closed his eyes. Although Dao foundation cultivators no longer needed sleep, they still needed to meditate to replenish their spirit, and Wei Yuan didn't even have time for that.

However, after the busyness, Wei Yuan now walked through the new city and saw that at least every boy and girl had an outer robe, there was a dining hall every so often, and every block had at least two toilets.

For the toilets, he had to thank Xiang Xiang Xiaoyu; in the city planning manual he left behind, he had written a whole chapter on toilets—where to build them, how to build them, and how many people should share one—written in extreme detail.

The city hadn't had time to build houses, so they were all wooden sheds, with communal sleeping platforms inside. Some of the boys and girls who were already resting slept neatly; even when sleeping, they were arranged like a military formation.

At this moment, the sunset glow filled the sky, dyeing the world red, and smoke from cooking fires rose everywhere in the city. Although simple, it was full of vitality.

By tomorrow, this city would be better, and the Azure Void Realm would be better too.

Wei Yuan let out a long breath, his tense spirit finally relaxing.

Just then, the Filthy Earth White Lotus stirred, unfolding another petal, and a wisp of clear energy rose into the air.

The Azure Void Realm suddenly shook, thunder rumbled in the clear sky, and a gale rose. All the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth within hundreds of miles manifested and converged toward the center of the realm. In the blink of an eye, a storm formed above the Azure Void Realm!

The Myriad Miles of Heshan shook. With Mount Yushan as the center, the ground surged continuously, and large swaths of fertile soil appeared, extending continuously toward the surroundings. The former wasteland had turned into fertile fields with endless vitality. Without the need for spiritual plants, the fertile fields naturally generated wisps of spiritual energy, and all the spiritual plants grew to varying degrees.

The young sprout atop Mount Yushan put out branches and new leaves, already looking like a small sapling. However, all the branches and leaves were the same—it was still a wondrous treasure tree.

The Moon Laurel Immortal Tree remained unmoved in the storm, but after enduring for only a moment, its bark cracked, and it had to sprout a new branch. A pale red sword energy floated between the branches and leaves.

The Red Lotus Honglian Puti remained steady, only replenishing the fallen leaf and taking no more.

The Myriad Miles of Heshan continuously absorbed the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, and Wei Yuan's Primordial Spirit gradually became clear and complete. After experiencing so much, Wei Yuan finally achieved perfection in his Foundation Establishment, becoming a mid-stage Dao foundation cultivator.

Inside Mount Yushan, above the black water pool, the withered wood had grown a bit more, and the gate had become larger. Wei Yuan suddenly understood the meaning of the words on the gate:

Rebirth of Myriad Realms.

(End of chapter)