Chapter 670: Passing Away in Meditation

At this, Wang Haoxian cut Wang Sen off mid-sentence and asked, curious, "Father, whose daughter is she?"

"The only daughter of Mu Wusheng, the third son of the Mu family — that girl they're calling the Holy Maiden over in Dongchang Prefecture. Mu Shulan, I think her name is. You should have seen her before," Wang Sen said irritably.

"A rough country girl like that would be an eyesore even as a serving maid, let alone marrying into the family. Father, a daughter from a family like the Mu's — even making her my concubine would be elevating her far above her station..."

"Shut your mouth! What do you know? You think those women you buy from brothels are any good? The ones you get from slave traders? What use are that worthless trash? With you this muddled and useless, can you even hold onto the incense halls in Northern Zhili and Shanxi? I fear in a few more years you won't even be able to feed yourself. The way you are, if you went begging in the streets the beggars would beat you to death. I'm arranging this marriage for you precisely so you can keep living."

At this, Wang Sen stopped and drew a deep breath, then said, "I can't count on a worthless wretch like you. If you had a son, with this family foundation and the Mu family behind him, maybe our Wang family would still have a chance to rise again. What sins did I commit in my past life to sire a disgrace like you? I thought our Wang family's legacy would last a thousand generations, and now Xu Hongru has taken it all."

After a few dejected words, Wang Sen's expression and tone turned utterly severe: "Don't think that just because I don't live with you, you can do whatever you please. Two years from now, once the Mu family is fully established, you must go and marry the Mu daughter. Otherwise, I'll make sure you don't get a single copper of the family fortune — you can go preach scriptures and burn incense to earn your own keep. Do you understand?"

In front of his own son, Wang Sen showed not the slightest trace of an immortal sage. After the cowering Wang Haoxian left, Wang Sen sat there for a long time, steadying himself before he finally calmed down. The jailer assigned to tend to his daily needs was already standing in the room, holding a wooden tray.

On the wooden tray sat a cup of warm water and a porcelain dish. In the center of the dish lay a pill the size of a fingertip, pitch black.

Wang Sen looked at the pill, and a relaxed smile spread across his face. Shaking his head, he said, "Twenty days straight — finally, this is the last one. Xiao Guan, once this old man gets out of this prison, I'll arrange for you to go to Henan and serve as the Assembly Master of Weihui Prefecture. That's a good place — plenty of offerings, plenty of women."

"Many thanks for the Cult Leader's great kindness." The jailer Xiao Guan set the wooden tray beside Wang Sen, knelt, and kowtowed, tears of gratitude streaming down his face.

Wang Sen smiled and nodded, then picked up the pill. With a sigh, he remarked, "This is poison, but this poison can also get a man out."

With that, he washed the pill down with water and lay down on the bamboo cot. At this dosage, without any preparation, taking it would mean certain death. But Wang Sen had been regularly taking small doses of the pill. At first, it caused vomiting and diarrhea, but gradually he felt nothing at all — only a deep, unshakeable sleep. And the sleep brought on by this drug was so profound, the breathing so faint, that unless an outsider prodded or tested him, they might even think the sleeping man was dead. Over these twenty days, Wang Sen had gradually increased the dosage. Tonight's dose was the largest. After taking it, Wang Sen would fall into a deathlike slumber for two days. Within those two days, given his privileged treatment in the Ministry of Justice prison and the connections he had already greased in advance, he would be sent out for cremation.

Once he was beyond the prison walls, Wang Sen could escape to freedom. Everyone would think the old immortal had passed away in meditation, and he could use that to vanish without a trace, finding a place to truly live out his remaining years in peace. Though this was a risky gambit, Wang Sen was confident, because the Smelling Incense Sect had done this sort of thing before. Many of those so-called tales of karmic retribution, of believers going to the underworld and being sent back — they were all fabricated using this very method. Everyone was well practiced at it.

Wang Sen lay down and fell asleep. His breathing grew lighter and lighter, his chest and belly barely showing any rise or fall. The jailer Xiao Guan stood quietly at his side. He was the one specifically assigned to stay and keep watch in the prison. The moment the old immortal passed, he was to notify everyone immediately. Immortal or not, in this sweltering heat, a corpse still had to be dealt with promptly — otherwise even the jailers and guards would fall ill.

The room was very quiet. In that silence, Wang Sen's serene and peaceful expression suddenly twisted. His face contorted in extreme agony. His eyes flew open, and his arms flailed as if trying to grab something.

The jailer Xiao Guan at his side pinned him down on the bed at once. Wang Sen was old, after all. Against Xiao Guan, he could not break free at all — he could not even raise his voice to speak. Wang Sen's face had already turned somewhat ashen. He rasped, "The drug... it's not right... it's not right... Xiao Guan, you... you..."

"Of course it's not right. Something was mixed into the drug — it was just swapped out a moment ago. Cult Leader, you're old enough. It's time to go enjoy the blessings of the Pure Land. Go in peace." Xiao Guan pressed down firmly, speaking in a cold voice.

"I have treated you well... save me now, and I... I will give you a thousand taels of gold..." Wang Sen's breathing had grown labored, but before he could finish, Xiao Guan covered his mouth.

Xiao Guan's expression turned savage. Gritting his teeth fiercely, he said, "To serve you, I didn't even go back to see my mother when she died. And how do you treat me? The moment you got out of this prison, the first person you'd silence would be me. You think I don't know?"

The content of those words made Wang Sen's eyes widen. The ashen darkness on his face deepened. His struggles grew weaker and weaker, until at last, unwillingly, he breathed his last. Just before he died, he uttered a single word. The jailer Xiao Guan thought he heard it clearly — it seemed to be "Xu." But at this point, even if he had guessed the truth, what could he do?

On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, at the second quarter of the hour of Xu, just as the old immortal had calculated, he truly passed away in meditation within the prison. The jailer Xiao Guan, his face streaming with tears and overcome with grief, came out and informed everyone of what had happened. Originally, the plan was that the old immortal's body would be sent outside the city — some important figure had already prepared an auspicious burial site to enshrine the old immortal's physical form. But when several head jailers from the Ministry of Justice prison came to take a look, they knew at once that this could not be done. Working in the Ministry of Justice, they were all men of broad experience. They could naturally tell that Wang Sen had died suddenly from poisoning. Some could even identify exactly what poison had been used.

This news absolutely could not get out. So many nobles and officials believed in this old immortal. If they learned he had died of poisoning, there would certainly be two reactions. The first would be to cover up the truth, to prevent anyone from knowing that what they had believed in was no true immortal. That would inevitably mean killing people to silence them — not one of the jailers and guards who had witnessed the state of the corpse would escape. The second would be to assume someone inside the Ministry of Justice prison had done it, which would bring even worse misfortune down on everyone.

The head jailers of the Ministry of Justice prison conferred for a while and quickly came up with a solution. That very night, a great fire blazed up in the Ministry of Justice prison — yet no buildings or such were burned. The next day, everyone learned that after the old immortal passed away in meditation, heavenly fire had descended to consume his body. When the flames were done, not a single trace remained. Truly, he was a figure like a real immortal, a true sage — extraordinary indeed.

Of course, none of those involved would ever speak the truth: that everyone had gathered firewood, even poured large amounts of oil, that the flames had raged with ferocious intensity, and that they had kept adding fuel until the body was completely incinerated. The remaining residue was crushed and thrown into the pond. Not a single trace would be left behind.

Moreover, these guards and jailers of the Ministry of Justice were shrewd men. They knew that the nobles of the capital would not dig for the truth, and that no one would be so tactless as to spoil the mood by investigating what had really happened.

Three days later, the jailer Xiao Guan resigned from his post. But he did not leave the capital region. He bought a large mansion and farmland in Tongzhou and settled into the life of a wealthy gentleman. The jailers at the Ministry of Justice could more or less guess the truth — they knew this Xiao Guan must have gotten some benefit from the old immortal. But that was only to be expected. After that, no one paid him any mind. And so no one ever learned that sometime in the eighth month, Xiao Guan suddenly fell gravely ill and died abruptly in his home...

That the old immortal had calculated the exact time of his own passing, and that strange signs had attended his death — this was the most talked-about subject among the capital's elite. Some even built shrines in the old immortal's image, specially arranging for incense and offerings to be made in his worship. Countless monks, Daoists, lamas, and charlatans took this old immortal as their model, flocking into the capital one after another to swindle and preach.

Amid such an atmosphere, the urgent report that arrived from Liaodong drew remarkably little attention — in fact, many found it only to be expected. After the fall of Kaiyuan in the Liao Garrison, Nurhaci had led the great army of the Jianzhou Jurchens to annihilate the three thousand reinforcements sent from Tieling to relieve Kaiyuan, then pressed straight on to Tieling itself. On the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month, Tieling fell.

With Kaiyuan and Tieling fallen, Shenyang and Liaoyang had no defensible terrain to their east. They had truly become the front line. In these two core cities of the Liao Garrison, and in all the surrounding forts, panic reigned. Commoners, soldiers, and even officials were fleeing in droves. Someone lamented in a memorial to the court that if this continued, defeat would come without a battle ever being fought.

What likewise drew little notice was that, amid this panic, Xiong Tingbi was hurrying toward Liaodong. He reached Liaoyang City at the start of the eighth month. The moment he entered Liaoyang, he began executing deserting generals and soldiers, inspecting the city's defenses, repairing the fortifications, recruiting scattered troops and border refugees, and opening workshops on a grand scale to forge weapons and firearms.

"... The most critical thing Xiong Tingbi did upon reaching Liaoyang was to submit a memorial impeaching the current Tieling Regional Commander, Li Ruzhen. The Li family has entrenched itself in Liaodong for far too long — their branches are many, their roots deep and tangled. No matter whom the court sent to command the troops, they would be sidelined. But after defeat upon defeat, the Li family's foundation is nearly hollowed out. After Li Rubai's suicide, the only one left to hold up the family's gate is this Li Ruzhen. With his dismissal from office, the traces of the Liao Garrison's Li family have been nearly washed clean..."

This time, Zhao Jin stayed in Xuzhou and did not leave. Matters at Qingjiangpu had already been set on the right track. Once those fifteen hundred "trading company guards" were stationed there, the locals would be even less capable of stirring up trouble and would have no choice but to obey obediently. During the hottest part of the eighth month, Dong Bingfeng led the Third Regiment to the new refugee stockade. That place had now been uniformly renamed — it was now called the Zhao Family Estate of Pizhou. Meanwhile, the six companies under Zhang Hubin returned to Xuzhou. Ji Xiang had been eagerly rubbing his hands together, wanting to take command, but unexpectedly, Zhao Jin swapped several of Zhang Hubin's companies with several under Chen Sheng, then dispatched them to the area between Feng County and Pei County north of the Yellow River — still set up as an independent garrison force.

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