Zi Tianjun walked over to Bao Gu and Wang Ding and asked,
“Is Shadow City safe?”
The grief-stricken Wang Ding nodded heavily.
Zi Tianjun said, “Cangdu City is too close to the Archaic Mountain Range. It’s not a place to linger. This is the capital of Yue Kingdom. It’s neither Xuantian Sect’s headquarters nor Kan Gang’s main hall. Neither Kan Gang nor Xuantian Sect should be staying here long. If anyone plans to withdraw, they should do it sooner rather than later. To stay here and live or die with Cangdu City… there’s no need.”
Bao Gu said, “I promised Si Ruo that if Yue Kingdom was ever in trouble, I would never just stand by and watch.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“Send the wounded disciples of Xuantian Sect and Kan Gang back to Shadow City first.”
“Chief—!”
A Kan Gang guard rushed up to Bao Gu, cupped his fists, and reported urgently,
“All the cultivators in Cangdu City are flooding toward the branch hall. We can barely hold the front gate!”
Wang Ding’s expression changed.
“What happened?”
Cold sweat was pouring off that Kan Gang guard.
“Word’s spreading outside that, at a time like this, only if you join Kan Gang can you get healing medicine and have a chance to live…”
Wang Ding shot Bao Gu a long, deep look. Then he decisively ordered men to reinforce and block the gate, and hurried toward the front entrance at a brisk pace.
Bao Gu also rushed over. Outside the Kan Gang branch hall, she saw a surging sea of people. Cultivators were crammed together, shoving desperately, trying to force their way inside. The guards at the gate braced heavy tower shields and formed a wall more than ten feet thick, straining with everything they had to hold back the cultivators charging the hall.
She looked up. The plaza and streets outside Kan Gang were packed solid. People pressed against people, waves pushing forward. Many were knocked down and trampled to death on the spot. Many severely wounded had their injuries worsened in the crush, and simply stopped breathing…
So many cultivators. So many injured. If they all forced their way into Kan Gang, they could crush the whole place to rubble.
Bao Gu knew very well: with Kan Gang’s resources, they could feed a million troops with ease. But saving the entire cultivation world? Even if Kan Gang emptied itself out, it still wouldn’t be enough.
Doing good and accumulating virtue was something you did when you had strength to spare—not something you did by throwing your own life away.
She decisively ordered, “Wang Ding, close the gate. Notify all Kan Gang inner hall disciples outside that the route to the Cangdu branch is blocked. Tell them to return to Kan Gang by other ways. And start arranging for people to withdraw to Shadow City, step by step.”
Hearing this, Wang Ding finally let out a long breath of relief and immediately shouted,
“Close the gate!”
Cultivators all had sharp ears. The moment they heard Wang Ding’s order and saw the gate guards at Kan Gang starting to pull back, the crowd erupted like a collapsing mountain and roaring sea, shoving forward in a mad frenzy.
“Kan Gang’s closing the gate!”
“Kan Gang’s pulling out—!”
Shouts rose and fell everywhere.
Just as the Kan Gang branch gate was about to close, Bao Gu flashed forward like a phantom, slipping out of the hall.
She rose into the air above the entrance and pushed the sword qi of the Xuantian Sword to its very limit.
A boundless sword might surged from her body straight into the heavens. Brilliant multicolored radiance coiled around her, tearing through the dim, blood-red sky.
That terrifying power made every heart quake. The once-raging tide of people fell silent in an instant. Everyone froze in place, stunned by sheer dread. No one doubted that if a sword aura like that actually fell, none of them would survive.
Under that pressure, nobody dared move. Their fear was so intense they even forgot to breathe.
Bao Gu’s cold gaze swept across the crowd. Her voice rang out, icy and sharp:
“Anyone who knows what’s going on might think you’re here to beg Kan Gang for help. Anyone who doesn’t would think you’re here to storm Kan Gang and rob it!”
She lifted a hand and pointed toward the city walls.
“Look outside. Ba fiends are raging across the land. Now look at yourselves. What are you doing? Over scraps of benefit, you trample your own people half to death. But in front of an external enemy, you panic, you flee, and you shove your way under someone else’s wings.
“Kan Gang doesn’t owe the cultivation world a single favor. I, Bao Gu, don’t owe any of you anything. But the cultivation world—owes me, owes Xuantian Sect, an explanation!
“You want me to save you. On what grounds?
“I wanted to open the Ascension Path, to let the people of this world ascend to the upper realm. I took out the Ascension Map. And what did I get in return? The entire cultivation world forced Xuantian Sect into a corner until we blew up the Two Realms Mountain sect grounds and died together with Wanxian Sect’s hundred-thousand-strong army!
“The Archaic Mountain Range seals the ba fiends. After weighing it again and again, Xuantian Sect chose to make the Archaic Mountain Range its foundation and suppress the ba fiends for the world. And what did we get for that? A coalition of cultivation powers, bringing eight hundred thousand troops to destroy us!
“Why are you storming the Kan Gang branch now? Because I couldn’t bear to watch people die in front of me, so I took out medicine to heal them.
“You tell me—do the kind-hearted never come to a good end?
“If those who do good don’t meet good ends, why should I save you?
“If those who do good do meet good ends, then what exactly are you doing right now? Forcing me to exhaust everything I have to save you? Or getting ready to charge into Kan Gang and loot the place?”
Down in the tightly packed crowd, more badly wounded cultivators collapsed, and those nearby were indifferent.
No one reached out to help the gravely injured. They just let them fall, and then, unaware, stepped on them when they moved.
Bao Gu said, “I want to save you. But I’m just a small cultivator who’s been in this world for less than twenty years. My combat strength is barely at the Void Tearing stage. I don’t have the power to suppress mountains and rivers with one hand. I don’t have the ability to slap the ba fiends to death and save all living things.
“All I know is this: if things go on like this, you’ll all die at one another’s hands.
“The ba fiend disaster is spreading. In the future, many more places will need medicine. But as the ba fiends rampage, medicine gardens and fields will be destroyed. Spirit herbs will grow scarcer and scarcer. Restaurants and taverns will stop selling spirit wine. Apothecaries will stop buying pills. In the face of this catastrophe, pills and spirit wine will become unimaginably precious.
“But in my eyes, the most precious thing is being alive. It’s hope.
“My senior sister told me: there are no immortals in this era. We can’t deal with the ba fiends. But what about a hundred years from now? A thousand?
“I don’t want to die. I want to live until the ba disaster ends. I believe you feel the same. Yet if everyone only cares about themselves, we all know very well what the outcome will be, without me spelling it out.”
She drew back her sword aura and raised her voice,
“If you still have the strength to fight, you can go to Yue Kingdom’s recruiting officers or to the Kan Gang inn to enlist. Join the army and fight the ba fiends together. If for nothing else, then because in an army—with a unified command and a single goal—your chance of surviving is much greater than fighting alone.”
A cultivator called out,
“Is Kan Gang still recruiting?”
“Kan Gang is recruiting,” Bao Gu answered, “always recruiting. But we don’t accept trash. We don’t accept freeloaders waiting around to die.
“When you go, line up properly. Don’t swarm all at once and scare the recruitment officers off.”
In the crowd, a large number of cultivators squeezed their way out, rose on flying artifacts, rode the wind, or used lightfoot techniques to leave. In an instant, over half the mass vanished. The suffocating press of bodies eased, leaving behind mostly the wounded who had no strength to move.
Bao Gu took a deep breath.
“Please help bring those whose injuries are severe enough to threaten their lives up to the front. Those gravely injured and on the verge of death—carry them to the plaza outside the Kan Gang branch.
“If you see anyone like that elsewhere, I’m asking you to bring them here. I’ll arrange for people to treat them.
“As for those whose injuries aren’t life-threatening, with your cultivation, you should be able to treat yourselves by circulating your qi.
“The ba disaster has just begun. It’s caught everyone off guard. Everything is chaos right now. But neither Kan Gang nor Yue Kingdom will stand by and ignore this. Measures will be put into place very soon.
“Please clear a path and bring the seriously wounded through.”
When she finished speaking, she landed on the ground.
Those crowding the gate of the Kan Gang branch backed away and opened up a passage.
As they moved, bodies lying in pools of blood were revealed one after another.
Bao Gu took out a sound-transmission jade talisman and contacted Wang Ding, telling him to open the branch hall’s gate and send a team outside.
She saw several people wearing Kan Gang inner hall robes lift the gravely wounded and carry them over to her.
“Chief, where do we put them?”
Bao Gu rummaged through her storage bag and pulled out monster hides that had been sitting in Kan Gang’s treasury for years as unused refining material.
“Spread the hides out and lay them on top.”
Then she took out healing pills and spirit wine from the pill room, handed them to the inner hall disciples beside her, and instructed them to treat the wounded.
A cultivator missing his right arm used his left to scoop up a youth of about fifteen or sixteen, who was barely clinging to life. He slung the boy’s arm over his neck and carried him to Bao Gu.
The Kan Gang disciple beside her had sharp eyes. He immediately took the youth, laid him on the prepared hide, and fed him a healing pill and spirit wine.
The Kan Gang branch gate opened.
Kan Gang physicians came out to diagnose and treat the seriously injured.
Inner hall disciples split into two groups: one to clear away corpses outside the branch, and one to assist with treatment.
Other inner hall disciples carried out box after box of healing pills and spirit wine, stacking them in the Kan Gang plaza. A squad of elite guards was posted to watch over them.
The pile of pills and wine rose higher than a two-story building. The sight alone calmed many of the panicked wounded. The terror in their eyes faded. Those who could still move got up of their own accord, carried the gravely injured to the monster hides, and handed them over to Kan Gang’s people for treatment.
Over the years, Xuantian Sect had accumulated a great deal as well. Zi Tianjun brought out even more pills than Kan Gang. He not only sent a hundred Xuantian disciples to save people in Xuantian Plaza, he also ordered his disciples to scour all of Cangdu City, helping wherever they could. If they found anyone gravely wounded, they carried them back to the Kan Gang branch.
Yu Mi brought out the monster meat she had collected when she went to the Hidden Dragon Abyss, set up a great cauldron, tossed in spirit herbs, and began to cook.
Though these beasts had died long ago and had lost much of their vitality and spiritual power, they had all been God Transformation Stage beasts. For Foundation Establishment and Golden Core cultivators, this was an incomparable tonic—better than healing pills, and excellent for helping injuries recover.
She arranged for Xuantian Sect disciples to ladle out soup, one bowl per seriously wounded person. Those who were injured but not in mortal danger and had no pills could also line up and help themselves.
Yu Mi sat cross-legged nearby, personally overseeing things.
Two cultivators, their bodies smeared in blood to fake injuries when they actually had none, tried to sneak over and score a few bowls of soup. Yu Mi yanked them out, hoisted them up on two tall poles, and hung them there like banners.
She made them shout nonstop,
“The spiritual meat soup in the cauldron is for the wounded. Cherish yourselves! Don’t be greedy and steal. If you’re not hurt or sick, don’t come. Don’t be like us, trying to fish in troubled water and getting caught and hung up here in shame! Firestorm Dragon said—anyone else who comes to make trouble will be cut down on the spot, no mercy!”
The two of them didn’t want to shout. They didn’t want to lose face. But Yu Mi gave them two options: shout, or die.
With piles of spirit herbs and wine out in the open, people assigned to treat the wounded, and squads of Kan Gang elite guards keeping order, the rescue operation outside the branch hall soon became orderly—though it also began to resemble a refugee camp.
So many gravely injured cultivators lay everywhere that those who could still move felt embarrassed to compete with the half-dead for space. At most, those whose injuries were serious but not fatal, and who had no medicine, would quietly take a pill or drink a bowl of meat soup, then slip away.
The number of wounded in Cangdu City was simply too great. The area outside the Kan Gang branch couldn’t hold them all. Even with many leaving, it was still packed, and they had to open up yet another area as a recuperation zone.
Empress Si Ruo of Yue Kingdom personally issued decrees, assigning personnel and healing medicine, designating sites to shelter and treat the wounded, and deploying large numbers of imperial guards to maintain order. At last, the chaos in Cangdu City came under control.
Bao Gu had just gotten the situation outside the Kan Gang branch stabilized when another Kan Gang disciple came to report that the Kan Gang inn had fallen into chaos again.
She rubbed her temples.
“What now?”
The inner hall disciple cupped his fists.
“According to Kan Gang rules, we only recruit cultivators at mid–Golden Core and above. A lot of Foundation Establishment and early Golden Core cultivators have gathered at the Kan Gang inn, saying you personally promised that Kan Gang is always recruiting.”
Bao Gu waved a hand.
“I understand.”
She took out a sound-transmission jade and contacted Wang Ding.
“From now on, when Kan Gang recruits, we won’t limit by aptitude, talent, or cultivation realm. But there’s one condition. After they join, they have to work. They must obey Kan Gang’s arrangements.”
Wang Ding sounded a bit puzzled.
“Chief, this move is…?”
“If we don’t want to die,” Bao Gu said, “we’ll have to fight the ba fiends. How many years do you think this war will last?”
“Your subordinate doesn’t know.”
“Many cities have been wiped out. Medicine gardens and fields destroyed. Vast lands turned into dead zones. Sun Dilong’s business ventures are probably finished as well.
“Kan Gang commands hundreds of thousands of troops now, doesn’t it? What are we going to feed them with?
“Before, we relied on Sun Dilong’s trading and war profits. In the future?
“With the ba fiends ravaging the land, every extra person means an extra bit of strength. Save as many as we can—not out of pity, but to save ourselves.”
Wang Ding pondered briefly, then replied,
“Cangdu City can’t hold this many people. I’ll find a way to resettle them. Chief, Cangdu City is too close to the Archaic Mountains. You should leave as soon as possible.”
“Cangdu City can’t be abandoned,” Bao Gu said.
Hearing the absolute finality in her tone, Wang Ding said no more.
Even though the tide of cultivators flooding into Cangdu City had completely packed it full—so much so that the broadest avenue, wide enough for eight wagons to drive side by side, had been squeezed down to where only one vehicle could pass, and the alleys were so crammed that people could barely put their feet down—under the watchful eyes of Yue’s imperial guards, almost no one dared grow so bold as to loot and cause trouble.
After a whole night of frantic effort, Cangdu City finally settled back into order.
Bao Gu let out a breath and went to find Yu Mi, who was still sitting cross-legged by the great cauldron outside the Kan Gang branch.
“Senior Sister, let’s go back,” she said. “There are people watching here. It won’t get out of hand.”
Yu Mi stood up, lowered the two rascals hanging from the poles, and waved her hand.
“Let’s go.”
The two men bowed repeatedly as they backed away, then bolted.
Yu Mi took Bao Gu’s hand.
“Tired yourself out, didn’t you?”
Bao Gu shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
The one actually handling Kan Gang’s affairs and juggling all the logistics wasn’t her, but Wang Ding.
They had just stepped into the Kan Gang branch when the sound of horns suddenly rang out.
Bao Gu froze for a second, then turned her head and asked Yu Mi,
“You hear that horn?”
Yu Mi rolled her eyes.
“I’m not deaf.”
“Where’s it coming from?” Bao Gu asked.
Yu Mi laughed.
“The city walls, of course.”
Bao Gu was already hearing it clearly now. The horns were sounding from the ramparts all around Cangdu City—the four directions at once. From the sound of it, it was as if Cangdu City had come under siege.
At a time when the ba fiend disaster was ravaging the land, who would attack Cangdu City? The cultivation factions? Impossible. The Archaic Mountain Range?
The thought made Bao Gu instinctively feel it couldn’t be the creatures from the Archaic Mountains. Their advance shouldn’t be so fast; they shouldn’t have reached Cangdu City this quickly. But at the same time, she couldn’t think of any other force that would choose now to attack.
As these thoughts flashed through her mind, Cangdu City’s protective formation suddenly sent out a powerful pulse and then rose fully, sealing the city in a tight defensive barrier.
Bao Gu hesitated for a moment.
“Let’s go take a look at the city walls,” she said. “Whoever’s attacking Cangdu City right now—we’ll know the moment we see them.”
