Chapter Seventy: The Siege of the Mountain Beyond Reach

And now, as an official of the rural commune, Wang Zhenling stood within the system and could see clearly the Great Cheng Dynasty’s formidable grasp over the lowest levels of society, and the sheer force of its mobilization.

The state ruled downward through villages, pavilions, communes, and counties in layer upon layer of control, reaching all the way to the smallest administrative unit and binding itself to the humblest commoner.

For that very reason, in just a few days, the modest Guangyang Commune had summoned three hundred sturdy young men who had received basic military training.

This was also the truest reason in his former life for the saying that the Han rose to power through strength and fell by the same means.

Just as the armies of the imperial government began converging beneath Wuji Mountain, deep within that mountain, atop He Yao Peak, Lian Yishan was drawing in and expelling the vital mist of heaven and earth, refining it into the finest blood-qi within his body.

As he continued to work through and assimilate that inner energy, it gathered more and more densely, until it was like a reservoir nearing the brim.

Lian Yishan pressed on, breathing in and out with renewed effort. Suddenly, he drew in a stream of spiritual vitality; before it had even been fully refined, the accumulated force overflowed like water bursting a reservoir and surging into every channel and ditch, pouring through his meridians.

With a thunderous roar, he seemed to hear a crack of lightning beside his ear, and inner energy filled his entire body, circulating without end.

At that moment, the meridians within Lian Yishan’s body were fully connected, like rivers and streams joined into a single flow.

Reaching this realm meant entering the descending-qi stage of breath cultivation.

Descending-qi meant that the qi now moved downward through the body.

On the surface, it sounded like merely opening the meridians leading to the lower body, but in truth it referred to what Zhuangzi described: the breath sinking deep, the breath of the perfected man reaching the heels.

In other words, all the body’s channels had been opened, and a single breath of inner energy could circulate throughout the whole frame.

Just as Lian Yishan was now, he had truly reached the descending-qi level.

The breath of the perfected man reaches the heels; it can nourish life and prolong years.

At this level, even his breathing and heartbeat were far slower than those of ordinary people, yet far more powerful.

If, from this point onward, he avoided injury and serious illness, and kept his body well cared for, living eight or ten hundred years would not be out of the question.

In truth, for an ordinary cultivator, reaching this stage of health cultivation and breath refinement already counted as attaining mastery.

But of course, Lian Yishan’s ambitions were not so simple as merely preserving his life and extending his years. He wanted far more.

For though his inner energy now filled his body, warding off evil influences, making disease rare, and granting longevity, this qi was still only refined blood-qi.

It had to be further transformed into true qi before it could be projected outward, before it could be used in spellcasting.

Yet how, exactly, was inner energy to be transformed into true qi?

He did not know.

This was the misery of having no master to teach him any complete method. When faced with a difficult point, he could only puzzle it out by himself.

At this moment, amid his joy, a note of melancholy also rose within him.

There was no helping it. The daoist arts he had learned in his former life had reached a dead end here. Having attained this level, he could only continue to grope forward on his own.

He Yao Peak was a major spiritual vein within Wuji Mountain, and precisely because of that, no one could claim it entirely.

Dozens of cultivators each opened caves along the spiritual vein of He Yao Peak and lived there in cultivation.

This was the norm within Wuji Mountain: cultivators gathered in one place to practice.

Lian Yishan had originally been a scholar, born into a great clan. By chance, he had come into contact with the path of cultivation, and his heart had been stirred by its ideals, leading him to forsake the ordinary world and pursue the dao.

After drifting through many places, he had finally come to Wuji Mountain, where he gathered with a group of like-minded companions to cultivate together.

The cultivation arts of the Eastern Dawn World had been brought here by transmigrators, yet they were often incomplete and lacking in profound techniques.

They existed chiefly to disrupt the order of this world and draw more people into cultivation.

Thus, on He Yao Peak, not only Lian Yishan but all the other cultivators were the same: none possessed a complete inheritance.

Lian Yishan had cultivated for seven or eight years, and even now had only broken through to the descending-qi stage.

Still, among the many cultivators of He Yao Peak, he was already considered a master.

In fact, without coming to He Yao Peak, without the assistance of its spiritual vein and the chance to exchange insights with so many fellow practitioners, he would never have reached even this far.

Indeed, once he had reached the stage of extending qi, he had already no idea how to cultivate further.

Only after arriving at He Yao Peak, following the guidance of a few senior breath-refiners, had he begun directly accumulating true qi. After three or four years, his dantian at last filled like a reservoir, and with a single surge he broke through the barriers of the whole body and attained the descending-qi realm.

If Wang Zhenling had been there, he would likely have laughed at the method.

For if one understood the meridians, one could simply assail and circulate them one by one. Why resort to such a clumsy approach?

Lian Yishan knew nothing of this. At that moment he was both delighted and regretful.

Then, just then, someone came running up in great haste.

“Brother Li, it’s you? Excellent. I was just about to tell you—”

Lian Yishan had barely begun to share his joy with the newcomer before the breath-refiner called Li He cut him off.

“Fellow daoist, this is bad. The imperial troops are coming!”

“What?”

Lian Yishan, who had been full of happiness only a moment ago, froze at once.

“The government has come?”

The entire Wuji Mountain was thrown into turmoil.

With such a massive disturbance by the authorities, who among the mountain’s inhabitants, apart from those who had shut themselves away in long retreat, could possibly remain unaware?

Moreover, it was not only the cultivators of Mist Valley who had forces arranged beneath the mountain. In general, the various schools and lineages within Wuji Mountain all had their own people and strength stationed below.

But now that the government had acted, many of those forces were being uprooted one after another.

Still, before long, all the cultivators in Wuji Mountain had learned of the imperial encirclement.

They had even discovered the reason for it.

It turned out that the cultivators of Mist Valley had gone out of their way to provoke the authorities, repeatedly assassinating patrol officers and the county magistrate, and thus enraged the government into sending in a large army.

Had it not been for the fact that the Mist Valley cultivators were all extraordinarily powerful, and Mist Valley itself had long been sealed off by miasma like a natural fortress, the other cultivators who had been dragged into this affair would likely already have seized those bastards and handed them over to the authorities to appease the imperial wrath.

But now that path was closed. They could only make separate plans and prepare to meet the government’s encirclement.

Were it not for their unwillingness to abandon the hard-won spiritual veins they occupied, most of the cultivators of the various factions would already have fled before the government could even surround the mountain.

They had prior experience of this. Whenever the government came up the mountain, in order to cut down the weeds and uproot the roots, to leave no hidden danger behind, it would even destroy the spiritual veins.

A spiritual vein might be innate to the land, and even if damaged, it could still be restored.

But that was not something accomplished in a short time. At the very least it would take more than ten years, and in some cases several decades.

Yet the mountain’s spiritual veins were limited, while the cultivators were numerous, and every vein had to be fought for before it could be won.

At this point, Lian Yishan forced down his unease and asked, “Then what should we do now?”

“A few Immortal Forefathers have already decided to strike first and seize the Mist Valley people, then hand them over to the imperial soldiers. If the troops agree to withdraw, that would be best. If they refuse, then at worst we’ll retreat into the deep mountains...” Li He said.