Very quickly, all the various factions realized that compared to Yu Mi, Bao Gu was practically a grim reaper come to collect lives.
Yu Mi’s cleanup of the Kan Gang focused almost entirely on people inside the gang. Her goal was to dig out internal “nails” and “tumors” and reclaim losses. If the stolen assets couldn’t be recovered, she would punish the culprits harshly—at worst, dragging them to the public square and taking their heads.
The cases Bao Gu took over were different. She investigated them to the very root, even dragging out the forces lurking behind the culprits. Those factions that had planned to sacrifice their own plants in the Kan Gang to protect their existing benefits, once they received the evidence and loss statements Bao Gu’s people delivered, soon found enforcers from the Kan Gang’s Punishment Hall at their doors to collect what was owed.
If the Punishment Hall’s envoys failed to get the money back, they didn’t argue or haggle. They just turned around and left.
The next day, Jade Shura arrived with assassins from the Shadow Pavilion and the Golden Armor Army, piloting the Great Luo Redgold Fleet to encircle those sects’ mountain gates. She gave them half a day.
If there was no answer, she would attack the mountain.
That meant open war.
One hundred thousand Golden Armor troops and a thousand Great Luo Redgold warships ranging from thirty to three hundred feet long lined up outside their mountain gate. The show of force stunned everyone!
The Kan Gang was really going to start a war over a matter of a few hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones?
The sect master of Changqing Palace, blocked in by Jade Shura’s army, rushed to the gate and called up:
“Vice Hall Master Yu, what is the meaning of this?”
Standing at the prow of a hundred-foot Redgold battleship, Jade Shura smiled faintly.
“Obviously, I’m here to collect a debt. Palace Master Jin, forcing the Kan Gang to go to war over a few hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones—don’t you feel the slightest bit embarrassed?”
The Changqing Palace Master nearly choked. Who was really the shameless one here?
Over a few hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones and you bring out a force like this? Just getting all these warships moving costs more than that, doesn’t it?
Changqing Palace was a small sect with fewer than two thousand people total, most of them at Foundation Establishment and Golden Core. The palace master immediately forced a smile and said obsequiously:
“Vice Hall Master Yu, I already explained to your envoy yesterday, this matter has nothing to do with Changqing Palace. It was all done by Geng Jieming. Geng Jieming is no longer a disciple of our Changqing Palace.”
Jade Shura said lightly:
“But the spirit stones Geng Jieming embezzled from the mine ended up in Changqing Palace, didn’t they?
“I’m not here to waste words. If by noon today you can’t cough up the Kan Gang’s spirit stones that you swallowed, plus the cost of mobilizing these one hundred thousand troops and one thousand Great Luo Redgold warships, then we’ll just blast your mountain gate open and slowly liquidate Changqing Palace’s assets afterward.
“By then, the cost of war, the compensation for casualties, the military merits paid out for Kan Gang disciples taking heads—every last coin goes on Changqing Palace’s tab. I’m guessing even if you sell every last thing you own, it still won’t be enough, will it?”
The Changqing Palace Master trembled all over and roared:
“Jade Shura, this is going too far!”
Jade Shura snorted.
“Geng Jieming was your personal disciple, wasn’t he? For the sake of a mere few hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones, you abandoned him completely and sent him to the chopping block.
“And now you want to drag Changqing Palace’s foundation down with him?
“You know very well what really happened. I’m not going to stand here arguing with you, and you’d better not waste my time either. I still have to go to the next house to collect.”
Geng Jieming had been the steward in charge of a spirit stone mine. Using his position, he’d lined his own pockets and sent the stolen spirit stones back to Changqing Palace. It wasn’t the worst crime in the world, but it wasn’t small either.
If he’d fallen into Yu Mi’s hands, he would have been forced to return what he stole, pay an additional ransom, then be expelled from the Kan Gang. That would have been the end of it.
Instead, he had the misfortune of having a “master” like a stingy iron rooster—Bao Gu—handling the case.
His master took the spirit stones and refused to spit them back out. Once everything came to light, he simply kicked Geng Jieming out of the sect, cleanly severing their relationship.
After that, Bao Gu took over the matter. She had the Punishment Hall use soul-searching arts on Geng Jieming, fully investigating the truth. Then they dug out the account book and dragged Geng Jieming to the public square to cut off his head.
That day, Bao Gu had gone there on Siruo’s request to collect his soul. She saw that seven-foot-tall man crying so miserably she almost couldn’t bear to watch. Right up until his death, he kept asking, over and over:
“Master, why?”
His “master” never appeared. He didn’t even send anyone to collect the corpse.
The account book Geng Jieming left behind was copied three times—one for Bao Gu, one for the Punishment Hall, and one that was delivered back to Changqing Palace yesterday.
And even like that, this Palace Master Jin still wanted to deny everything, forcing Bao Gu, as the debt collector, to bring an army to block his gate.
Right then, Changqing Palace’s elders and a few high-level experts came out. The looks they gave the palace master were strange. Someone even directly asked:
“Palace Master, what is going on? Didn’t you say the envoy from the Kan Gang yesterday was just a misunderstanding?
“Now that an army like this is sitting in front of us, is it still a misunderstanding?”
That person sneered.
“Palace Master, this ‘misunderstanding’ seems a bit too big, doesn’t it?”
Seeing Changqing Palace starting to argue among themselves at this critical moment, Jade Shura couldn’t be bothered to listen. She ordered the Great Luo Redgold fleet to unfold a domain-sealing formation, locking down the entire region’s space, and said:
“If I don’t give the order to withdraw, once it hits noon, you don’t need to ask me anything. Just attack directly.”
The people of Changqing Palace turned pale on the spot and shouted again and again:
“Young Pavilion Master Yu, Vice Hall Master Yu, please wait, please slow down—”
Jade Shura waved her hand without looking back.
“Calling out to me is useless. Bringing out the spirit stones is what works.”
Then she suddenly remembered something, turned back, and tossed over a jade slip.
“Take a good look. This is the bill for this military operation. We’ll settle everything in one go. If you can’t, then forget it—I’ll settle it for you.”
She finished speaking and went back to the hundred-foot Redgold battleship to drink tea.
The elder who had called out to her caught the “bill,” glanced through it, and his face went from green, to ashen, to trembling.
Those around him extended their divine sense to read the bill as well, and their expressions became indescribably ugly.
The cost of mobilizing the army, the fees for using teleportation domain gates, the cost of running the Great Luo Redgold warships—added together, it came to a full five hundred thousand mid-grade spirit stones. Add that to what Geng Jieming had embezzled before, which converted to over seven hundred thousand mid-grade stones, and the total was more than 1.2 million mid-grade spirit stones.
One point two million.
For dirt-poor Changqing Palace, how were they supposed to come up with such a massive sum all at once?
Looking at Jade Shura’s posture, if they couldn’t produce it, there would definitely be a war.
And once a war started, whether Changqing Palace would even exist in the future was a big question.
With disaster looming overhead, Changqing Palace could only try every possible way to scrape that amount together.
In less than two hours, they came out again, carrying out chest after chest.
They couldn’t produce 1.2 million in mid-grade spirit stones in pure currency, so they hauled out every material, magical artifact, and treasure they had. They even put up their land deeds as collateral, barely managing to make up the value of 1.2 million mid-grade spirit stones.
Jade Shura had her people check and count. Once they confirmed the amount was correct, she flipped open the debt scroll in her hand, gave it a glance, and said:
“Next stop, Lake Dragon Gate.”
She reported Lake Dragon Gate’s coordinates and ordered the army to move out.
News that the Kan Gang had sent Jade Shura leading one hundred thousand Golden Armor soldiers and one thousand Great Luo Redgold warships to collect debts spread through the cultivation world with terrifying speed.
The entire cultivation world shook.
Many people didn’t believe it and rushed to verify. When they heard that Jade Shura had already led her army to Changqing Palace and collected a debt of 1.2 million, the small factions were scared stupid, while the great powers almost spat blood and fainted.
One point two million mid-grade spirit stones was a heaven-defying number for a small sect, but for a major power, it was only worth about one hundred and twenty supreme-grade spirit stones.
Rumor had it the Saber Warden of the Kan Gang used several supreme-grade spirit stones just to infuse his tea water each time he drank, not to mention the ninth-rank sacred tea leaves he added in. If he skipped a few cups of tea, that would already be worth more than this debt.
And yet he sent out an army of a hundred thousand to collect it?
The small factions were in a panic.
The major powers ranked in the upper tiers of the cultivation world, on the other hand, adopted a wait-and-see attitude. They wanted to see what exactly the Kan Gang planned to do.
After all, the Kan Gang’s businesses practically covered the entire cultivation world, and this was a cleanup of old accounts going back hundreds of years. Almost every power had dipped its fingers in somewhere.
Could Bao Gu really go to war with the entire cultivation world over “a bit of profit”?
Was she insane?
Everyone knew the Kan Gang’s armies had just been reorganized. The more than one million troops once commanded by Wang Ding, the Mad Demon, and Sun Dilong had all been broken up and restructured. Even their military formations hadn’t been fully recomposed yet, so they couldn’t form real large-scale combat power. Only the Golden Armor Army could fight properly right now.
What was she going to use to fight?
Her three hundred thousand Nascent Soul–level Golden Armor troops?
Three hundred thousand might be enough to intimidate small factions, but among the top twenty powers in the cultivation world, which of them couldn’t field a force of two to three hundred thousand Nascent Soul-level cultivators?
The top ten could pull out armies of Soul Transformation cultivators. Any one of the top five could easily muster a million-strong army.
Thinking of how difficult the Saber Warden was to deal with, many factions still didn’t actually want to go to war with Bao Gu. But who wanted to spit out meat already in their mouths? It wasn’t as if they alone had been eating.
The Kan Gang’s net had been spread across their territories for ages. Kan Gang inns were everywhere on their land. How could they not take a cut off the Kan Gang here and there?
Some factions whose involvement was shallow and whose “debts” were small, and who were also afraid of offending the Kan Gang, had already quietly paid back what they owed.
Others were… less willing.
Take spirit stone mines, for example. The output was enormous. Sure, the Kan Gang’s people might have been the ones to discover them, and the Kan Gang might have opened them first. But the mines were on their land. The Kan Gang had already withdrawn their people. Now the mines were theirs. Why should they give them back?
As for spirit herb gardens—so what if they’d been bought at a low price? The sellers had been looking for someone to take them off their hands and had named a low sum themselves. Why should they now be forced to return them?
Evidence? You say it’s evidence, so that makes it evidence? The people involved had been dead for decades, even centuries. What use were those “proofs” now?
Quite a few allied powers met in secret, planning to first placate Jade Shura, then join hands to pressure the Kan Gang. They also sent people to find Zi Tianjun and Yu Mi to persuade them to settle this matter internally, not to drag it outside and throw the entire cultivation world into chaos.
Zi Tianjun received the message and really did go to see Bao Gu, acting as a messenger while he was at it.
Soon, the Kan Gang had Bao Gu’s official reply:
“If you took my things, then return them exactly the way you took them.”
At first, Jade Shura’s debt collection went very smoothly. Huge amounts of spirit stones, materials, and other cultivation resources were shipped back to the Kan Gang.
On the eighth day, when she arrived at the Flame Saint Sect, which currently ranked ninth in the cultivation world, things finally blew up.
The Kan Gang went to war with the Flame Saint Sect.
Several forces allied with the Flame Saint Sect moved as well, gathering nearly four hundred thousand troops to surround Jade Shura’s army.
In terms of cultivation level, the Golden Armor Army couldn’t match the Flame Saint Sect’s troops. In numbers, they were outmatched as well. Their only advantages were armor, weapons, and warships.
But the other side had numbers and terrain. They had their sect-protection grand formation, and cities all around to fall back on. They could attack or defend at will.
Whenever Jade Shura counterattacked, they would retreat behind their sect’s defenses. Whenever Jade Shura tried to catch her breath, they’d launch another offensive.
Jade Shura wanted to collect the debt and couldn’t easily withdraw, yet couldn’t crush them either. She was stuck in an awful stalemate.
She wasn’t a natural commander, and her officers only knew how to follow orders. They had some grasp of basic tactics, but not much beyond that. After several engagements, Jade Shura had taken the worst of it every time, suffering significant losses and casualties.
The person in the Kan Gang best at leading troops was the Mad Demon, followed by the famed generals under his command. Now, the Mad Demon and his entire cadre of top officers had all been exiled into the void.
When the news returned to the Kan Gang, Yu Mi immediately wanted to lead reinforcements to rescue Jade Shura. She went to Bao Gu for permission.
Bao Gu thought for a moment, then handed over the Great Luo Redgold main battleship to Yu Mi.
“Tell Jade Shura to pull the whole army back into the main ship. Then you use the main ship to blast them.”
She added, “Go easy on it. By my estimate, if the main ship fires at full power, it could flatten a city the size of Youzhou City.”
Yu Mi asked:
“Even if there’s a city-protection formation?”
Bao Gu said:
“If they have upper-realm immortal artifacts, then you can slowly grind them down. If they don’t, then you can fire as you please. Any formation not powered by immortal tools from the upper realm can’t withstand a full-power strike from this main ship. Not even sacred artifacts can block it.”
A Great Luo Redgold main ship the size of Shadow City could flatten a city just by ramming it under its own power. Let alone this world—even in the Barbarian Realm where Earth Immortals existed, among barbarian clans strong enough to have an Earth Immortal sitting in town, the sight of a Great Luo Redgold battleship was enough to make them keep their mouths shut.
Yu Mi thought it over and, unusually cautious, asked:
“Exactly how strong is this ‘full-power strike’ of the main ship?”
Bao Gu shook her head slightly.
“I don’t know.
“When I built this main ship, it was out of fear for my own survival. I designed it to be as complete as possible in every respect. If we ignore the cost of transporting it into dangerous areas and assume it has enough fuel and materials, the main ship can perform domain-breaking teleportation a thousand times in a row without stopping.
“The main ship’s full-power strike uses the entire ship’s formation system as a single array…
“Put it this way: just treat the whole main ship as a single Great Luo Redgold artifact the size of a city, forged by me leading more than two hundred thousand cultivators over fifty years.”
Yu Mi remembered how terrifying Bao Gu’s formation skills had already been in the past. Then she thought of Bao Gu hugging those Five Elements Immortal Stones, studying the runes and Dao imprints on them for two years.
Add that level of mastery in formations to a Great Luo Redgold artifact this size, that doubled as a formation platform…
Just thinking about it made Yu Mi’s scalp crawl.
Before this, she had worried that sending Jade Shura out with an army to squeeze debts might push the Kan Gang into a crisis, maybe even collapse it.
Now that she’d seen this Great Luo Redgold main ship—
Don’t provoke Bao Gu.
Don’t owe Bao Gu money.
It was too terrifying.
Yu Mi took the command token for operating the Great Luo Redgold main ship, then quietly left.
When Bao Gu ordered Jade Shura to go collecting, she had already known things would develop this way.
She hadn’t actually wanted to bully the entire world with overwhelming force, but if she didn’t, the Kan Gang wouldn’t be able to recover much of their losses.
And she was desperately short on money to build the realm-breaking gate.
If she waited until construction began and they suddenly ran out of funds, every faction involved would take the opportunity to open their lion’s mouth wide. By then, the realm-breaking gate she had poured her heart and blood into wouldn’t necessarily still be under her control.
Once it connected this realm to the outside, people from here could go out freely, and people from outside could come in freely. Her master’s wife’s whereabouts, Qingying’s whereabouts—news of them would quickly reach the upper realm.
Once the immortal and demon domains of the upper realm sent experts down to kill them…
Even if those upper realm experts had their cultivation realms suppressed, they had too many immortal treasures. If one of them came down with an Emperor Artifact in hand to hunt her…
The consequences would be unthinkable.
She absolutely would not let the tragedy that had befallen the Xuantian Sect and the Xuantian Patriarch repeat itself on her own head.
