Chapter 950: Grasping the Heart Demon

The Pei-Xian Workshop was originally established by Chuhe the Daoist to produce fertilizer for immortal plants. After more than a year of operation, its scale has grown substantially, and it has hired over three thousand Daoji cultivators. The number of Pei-Xian cultivators now ranks second only to the Tian-Gong cultivators of the Forging Workshop, making it the second-largest industry in Qingming.

Despite the Daoist’s utmost efforts, demand for fertilizer is endless; Qingming can currently provide saturated fertilization to only ten million mu of land, less than one-third of its total cultivated area. But fertilizer output is limited by the number of cultivators, and production can never keep pace with land expansion.

Fortunately, human labor aids the process, and mathematics is deeply ingrained. Chuhe the Daoist calculated that with current fertilizer output, allocating sufficient fertilizer to five million mu and only one-fifth to the remaining twenty-five million mu yields the maximum total grain output. The latest harvest has surpassed ten billion jin.

But the more grain Qingming produces, the more its population grows; the more the population grows, the faster it expands; the faster it expands, the more land becomes available; the more land there is, the more fertilizer is needed—and the cycle repeats.

Moreover, Chuhe the Daoist discovered that the land he had tilled and fertilized had developed a faint karmic connection with him, granting him a trace of fortune. Though the fortune per mu was negligible—even Yu Jing the True Person could not detect it—the sheer number of mu in Qingming made the total significant.

Lately, Chuhe the True Person has clearly felt his Dharma Form change: vast clearings have appeared within his forest, transformed into fields, and the Treasure-Seeking Rat now rides immortal swords daily to plant and fertilize. As the crops grow, Chuhe the Daoist’s cultivation base increases slightly with each step.

Since the Tai-Chu Palace’s founding, no cultivator had ever formed a connection with even a few million mu of land. Chuhe the True Person is the first—and with thirty million mu. This path rivals that of the Immortal Chicken!

Thus, Chuhe the Daoist has devoted himself entirely to fertilizer production, seeking every possible way to increase output.

Indeed, when any endeavor grows large enough, unforeseen changes arise. The Pei-Xian Workshop suffered a sudden explosion, killing or injuring over a hundred Pei-Xian cultivators and over a thousand civilian laborers. The Daoist was instantly burdened with overwhelming karmic debt.

When Xiang Weiyuan arrived, Chuhe the True Person had already sealed the site and rescued the critically injured. Sun Yu led a large group of beautiful disciples to the scene and began immediate medical aid.

Xiang Weiyuan entered the explosion site and saw several cultivators, guided by Bao Yun and Xiang Xiaoyu, had already set up arrays and were striving to reconstruct the scene of the blast.

The explosion’s epicenter was a warehouse in the Pei-Xian Workshop, storing hundreds of thousands of jin of fertilizer. The blast not only flattened the massive warehouse—dozens of zhang in diameter—but also leveled all structures within a li radius, with effects felt even dozens of li away.

Fortunately, the explosion was purely mundane in force, with minimal spiritual energy; otherwise, only Immortals could have reconstructed the scene. Under Bao Yun and Xiang Xiaoyu’s combined efforts, the moment was barely restored: inside the warehouse, a basket of prepared fertilizer had inexplicably changed color and solidified into lumps.

Several Pei-Xian cultivators did not know how to handle it, so someone suggested smashing and grinding the lumps, then mixing them into normal fertilizer. All agreed it was feasible, so they selected a strong, robust man to swing a massive hammer and strike it with full force—then half the Pei-Xian Workshop vanished.

After viewing the vision, all cultivators fell silent. When they looked toward the warehouse, piled high with hundreds of thousands of jin of fertilizer, Chuhe the Daoist’s face turned pale.

Xiang Weiyuan’s expression changed instantly. He flew over, sealed the warehouse, evacuated all Pei-Xian cultivators, then entered alone and scanned the entire warehouse with his spiritual sense. He indeed found over a dozen crates of spoiled fertilizer.

Some of the fertilizer had hardened into lumps; others were mixed with sulfur, oil, and other impurities. When tested, each one exploded upon a single strike. Xiang Weiyuan, seeing Yu Zhizhuo’s strange expression, asked: “How does this compare to our current explosives?”

Yu Zhizhuo replied: “Slightly weaker than Spiritwood-fiber explosives. But the output is vastly greater…”

Fertilizer explosives are mundane matter. Spiritwood, when broken into fine fibers and soaked in ash-stone, makes powerful explosives—but since it requires spiritwood as raw material, production is inherently limited. Though accumulated over time, current reserves stand at several million jin, nowhere near the fertilizer workshop’s daily output of ten to twenty thousand jin.

Xiang Weiyuan immediately ordered ten thousand jin of fertilizer taken to the Forging Workshop and the Two Academies for study. The rest—compensation, relief, and related matters—were handed to subordinate officials.

Chuhe the True Person accumulated considerable karmic debt from this, but his vast fortune shielded him; the consequences were not dire. Xiang Weiyuan then used the Red Lotus Bodhi to transfer most of the karmic debt away.

Since fertilizer production could not be halted but its explosive nature was now known, the next step was to redesign every stage of storage and transport to ensure safety.

Xiang Weiyuan pulled Chuhe the True Person aside and carefully examined him again, confirming the remaining karmic debt was within the Daoist’s tolerance, before relaxing. The Immortal Chicken also sensed the gravity of the situation and sent a fragment of its spiritual essence to cling to Chuhe, ensuring timely rescue if the karmic debt activated.

These months spent with Chuhe were the happiest of the Flame God Chicken’s life. It could not let this multi-functional human pet die.

After handling all matters, Xiang Weiyuan could not help wondering: Chuhe the Daoist, through indirect negligence, caused the deaths of a group of Daoji cultivators—and bore immense karmic debt and resentment. Yet under the rule of those in power, nations suffer famine, their people starve to death—why do they not bear any karmic debt?

This question had no answer; no book recorded it. Xiang Weiyuan could only ponder it.

But Chuhe the True Person’s plight served as a warning to Xiang Weiyuan: should he ever act against the Dao, his own fate might not be better.

This accident, however, granted Xiang Weiyuan an unexpected bounty of explosives, allowing many past ideas to be brought to the agenda. Qingming’s military expansion has been too rapid; gunpowder is insufficient. Previously, explosives were used sparingly for civilian purposes, mostly relying on Daoji cultivators for manual labor. After all, Qingming has no shortage of template Daoji cultivators.