Chapter 13: Bloodshed Beneath Prosperity
Due to Wu Fei’s diligent management, Yongji Pass rapidly transformed from its original “ragged and tattered” “barely adequate” state into a prosperous and orderly place within a mere half year.
However, the more prosperous it became, the stronger the resulting corrosion. As the saying goes, it’s not poverty but inequality that troubles people, and conversely, the more wealth created, the greater the wealth gap. The original order’s exploitation of the lowest strata also intensified.
Exploitation breeds rebellion, so what could be done? Wu Fei: Only suppression.
In the military camp, a massive guillotine blade was erected, and as it fell, one head after another rolled down. These heads with eyes wide open in death rolled from the platform to below, while blood-stained soldiers watched this “beheading” process with delight on their faces, as if they were watching a show.
…The terrifying violence machine was becoming more powerful under the stimulation of wealth…
From the perspective of warriors like Zhao Tu in the military camp, after the slave trade office was taken over by the Young General, it was because the Young General was kind-hearted, taking over the right to care for slaves inside the checkpoint from all merchants and unifying their custody. In this process, the slaves were given far better treatment than under private slave traders. But this “lenient” prison cell wouldn’t earn the slaves’ gratitude; loose bindings only gave them more space to pick locks. And the daily full meals merely gave the “yearning for freedom” conspiracies more strength.
In the 24th year of the Shu Tian Calendar, August, during a torrential downpour, over a hundred slaves staged a jailbreak at Yongji Pass. Not only did these slaves cause Yongji Pass to compensate the slave traders for deposit losses during their escape, but some also set fires, damaging parts of the city facilities, with the pulley systems of two drawbridge-style gates destroyed in the blaze.
The slaves destroyed these key passage facilities to escape, but this alerted Wu Fei, because in wartime, this would be a major problem. Oh, the terrified city defense officer later explained to Wu Fei that the west market had barriers, their garrison was at the barriers, and there was also a barbican, so the slave rebellion could at most flee south out of the pass and couldn’t impact the northern barbican.
Yongji Pass’s garrison reacted swiftly during the rebellion, suppressing this small-scale slave uprising within just five hours.
Slaves without ironware, relying only on clubs with nails as resistance weapons, couldn’t withstand the armored, shield-bearing soldiers. These robust Southern Border foreign race slaves, who had displayed their strength on the trading platforms, faced spear thrusts from the shield formation during the rebellion and didn’t enact Hollywood liberal protagonists’ invincible muscle scenes; the human wave against the iron armor rocks only resulted in blood splattering everywhere.
The stone bricks and wooden barrels the slaves threw at such a military formation were like ants shaking a tree.
On the suppressing garrison side led by Zhao Tu, who had previously only tested their skills on live pigs, this was also their first time in real killing. During the slaughter, the soldiers were completely immersed in their own killing shouts, their attention focused on the spear blades in their hands piercing into flesh, then swiftly withdrawn with a slurp, along with the impacts of shattered bones and torn meat. As for the screams and pleas of the killed, they went unheard.
From a third-party perspective, under the sounds of soldiers’ footsteps and armor friction on the streets, the screams were drowned out, with blood flowing like rivers. The blood-red atmosphere of brutality spread like river water flooding in.
Wu Fei, commanding and observing from the city battlement, was such a third party: he could feel that the Wu Family Army’s new soldier recruits were initially tense, but after confirming their battle formation was in an “invincible” state, they began to turn bloodthirsty.
This shift from “timidity” to “turns out I’m actually very heroic” was just like elementary school kids excitedly opening a group in an online game and encountering noobs for the first time.
After the suppression, Zhao Xian Zhong, to live up to the “courtesy name” Wu Fei had given him, prepared to offer loyalty by beheading all captives, but Wu Fei’s final order was the “one in eight” killing method.
That is, an eight-sided die; the unlucky one rolling an eight goes to the guillotine platform.
A few days later, the bloodstains in the city were washed clean with water, and the bloody order was inscribed in every crack of the street bricks and tiles; prosperity returned.
…In prosperity, besides killing, there was also pleasure…
In Yongji Pass’s commercial district, there was originally only one brothel to satisfy the soldiers’ needs. But now, as the soldiers in the city were disciplined and their military pay was fully guaranteed, allowing them to save money, their spending in this area decreased, yet the influx of passing peddlers expanded this industry dozens of times over.
Horse cart drivers and hired escorts entering the Southern Border for profit ventured into the poisonous insects and miasma. — Their level of adventure was similar to sailors during the Age of Discovery, hence the need for stress relief.
In this era, there were no games, and wine was a luxury that could lead to mistakes. So it was only natural to demand that the stopover city satisfy such needs.
The System conducted historical teaching: The Netherlands’ red-light district industry wasn’t abolished until the 23rd century (due to fierce competition from intelligent bionic robots), and tracing its origins back to when the Dutch were still the “carriers of the sea,” the red-light districts were a necessity for sailors. No matter how many Age of Discovery movies and games later altered it, the fact remained: sailors went ashore to find women; if they couldn’t, they caused trouble. During voyages, encountering villages, tribes, or societies with insufficient civilization in places without regular armies to maintain order, these guys released from the ship cabins fully unleashed their “primal instincts.”
Oh, later United States soldiers still retained this “primal instinct” from their predecessors hundreds of years ago, and after a certain island nation could no longer resist militarily, it could only create a “Shibuya district” to control the destructive power as much as possible and prevent disorderly spread.
…And right now, Yongji Pass was such a land shipping lane node…
In Yongji Pass, while other areas enforced nighttime light curfews, only the Flower Immortal Tower in the commercial district was brightly lit all night. The boss inside the Flower Immortal Tower was a woman, oh, it was Xiao Qing.
As for this Snake Woman, after the Battle of Crimson Serpent Mountain, she was in a state of being used up by Wu Fei. — After Wu Fei politely dismissed her from the military tent, he had no intention of managing her. His original plan was for her to take the generous reward of a hundred taels of gold earned from her “spy” work and return to her hometown.
But for this Snake Woman, she no longer had a home. Based on her self-definition of selling herself to the Wu Family as a maidservant, she quickly found her value: collecting intelligence.
Speaking of which, this “job” wasn’t assigned by Wu Fei; she developed it herself. In this matter, she fully utilized her identity as the Young General’s maidservant, perfectly investing her initial capital of a hundred taels of gold in the commercial district. Of course, a hundred taels of gold wasn’t much; her greatest asset was her so-called “Young Master Wu’s maidservant” identity. As long as Wu Fei didn’t deny it for a day, she was unshakable in that industry at Yongji Pass.
Wu Fei didn’t manage her but also didn’t deny her fox-borrowing-tiger-might. After all, the intelligence she provided was quite important, helping him understand the increasingly complex underground force distribution in Yongji Pass’s commercial city.
Merchants in the lights and revelry would inadvertently reveal this trip’s goods profits and price fluctuations in various places. And these “useful intelligence” pieces would only be noticed by the female slaves who had stayed in the main camp. This turned into “value” that Wu Fei couldn’t refuse.
As for the various novel “playstyles” in the Flower Immortal Tower? They could drain a person’s willpower and temperament. — Hence, Wu Fei never set foot there.
He only overheard the escorts discussing before entering the pass: Horned People are tight, Webbed People are slick, Clawed People are hot, Snake People are ice-cold.
……
Yongji Pass was about to develop into a medium-sized fortified village with four to five thousand people, yet blood and whips spread here.
For Wu Fei from modern civilization, such development was quite dark. But eradicating this darkness was like fixing bugs in shit mountain code; shit mountain code relied on bugs to function.
Wu Fei had thought about developing workshop industry, but workshop industry required population and roads to transport materials for processing, right? This was a border pass. Without those conditions, the current population increase here wasn’t enough for workshops to absorb; only after the population further reached ten thousand and accumulated wealth increased could Yongji Pass’s economic industry components be upgraded.
Yongji Pass’s core task right now was as a military fortress, serving the border garrison troops.
For a border garrison troop, what was most crucial? Combat effectiveness. Without combat effectiveness, when enemy raiders invaded, they’d be fish on the chopping block, and all principles would be empty talk.
This world wasn’t Earth; battlefields had witchcraft and monsters. Soldiers densely formed thorny city walls with halberds. For what? For the people behind them? For the Da Yao Dynasty? Spare me; those grand principles were endlessly preached by Confucians, but Confucians themselves never went to battlefields. What could make these soldiers willingly fight to the death was only blood reward.
What is “blood reward”? It meant those who paid “blood labor” had more power over those who didn’t.
More bluntly, right now in Yongji Pass, those soldiers who followed Wu Fei in bloody battles outside the pass, if they accidentally killed someone in a street conflict, would only compensate with goods, be imprisoned and exiled, but not put to death.
Unless it involved the ten unpardonable evils, the penalty for killing could be reduced; this wasn’t Wu Fei showing favoritism but the internal group’s default principle. If Wu Fei didn’t adhere to it, it would be unfair handling, and the soldiers wouldn’t decisively obey orders on the battlefield.
Thus, when Wu Fei previously banned alcohol, why did those seasoned soldiers dare to clamor! To the point that when Wu Hanluan handled it, he had to first confine Wu Fei before secretly dealing with the troublemakers?
Because Wu Fei previously had no blood labor; even with the Young General title, it was useless. Those veteran soldiers still called him “little sparrow” behind his back, while following Wu Hanluan on the southern expedition, fighting hard battles, and paying blood labor made him the Young General.
Being punished for enforcing the alcohol ban had a profound impact on Xuan Chong (Wu Fei), namely, in this military environment, when doing things, never trust a mere appointment paper in your hand; these knife-licking-blood people only recognized a boss who also wielded a knife.
From Zhao Tu and others, it was clear this army’s style was “bloodthirsty.”
At the foremost frontline against foreign races, without heads rolling like gourds, where would the farmland for home farming come from? Without the might backed by the sword, how to highlight benevolence?
Now in the slave marketplace, the rebel slaves’ heads were all properly cured and piled into a Jing Guan. And those slaves who survived the one-in-eight killing, after passing this Jing Guan, all obediently returned to their cages and crouched quietly, not daring to speak loudly anymore; this was far more effective than Wu Fei improving their meals several months ago.
Xuan Chong set a small goal for himself (Wu Fei): in this world, fight wars without massacring cities as the baseline.
…Two days later…
Wu Fei gazed at that Jing Guan; most people in the city were already accustomed to this terrifying head tower.
Most people had no reaction to the Jing Guan, but Wu Fei sensed a reaction. Xuan Chong raised his hand, and an aura lifted the cup, suspending the wine cup in his palm. This aura was under his control; the cup solidified by the aura felt like it was “held” by him, and with effort, this aura could crush the cup.
But even lightly holding the cup, Wu Fei felt the aura on him was violent; the cup developed fine cracks in the aura, emitting creaking sounds, just like a glass cup cracking from uneven heating.
This had nothing to do with the intensity of his aura; the aura’s inherent property was destructive to everything it touched, like touching the nearby table, where the wood grain slowly bulged as if sun-damaged and aging.
Wu Fei felt this “aura” came from that Jing Guan. — And Wu Fei could sense Zhao Xian Zhong had the same aura.
After inquiring, he learned it was killing intent.
Wu Fei remembered, upon returning to the main camp, Wu Hanluan had once slapped at him from afar, and at that time he was terrified in two battles.
Now, he had this thing too! It seemed he had created too much killing karma.
From then on, Wu Fei understood he was thoroughly without immortal cultivation fate. Because killing intent corresponded oppositely to spiritual energy. Spiritual energy was drawn from heaven and earth’s essence in remote uninhabited places; in the Human Realm, Confucians, Legalists, and Military Strategists all had their own auras. As a Military Strategist, he had military killing intent, which would generate after battles.
Once military generals had killing intent on them, it could block blades and arrows and also intimidate morale in the military camp.
Wu Fei had previously worried about what to do if he encountered fierce experts or monsters charging the formation to his central army in the future. Um, running from the central army would shake the flag and doom the whole army, but hard resisting? The things charging to the central army in this world weren’t just cavalry but also monsters. But now with killing intent, um, at least he could hold out for a few seconds.
With a crack, the cup permeated by killing intent shattered completely, exploding into countless fragments like a firecracker, and with a casual flick from Wu Fei, the fragments shot like from a slingshot, hitting the wall bricks and sparking slightly.
But then thinking of something, he asked the System: “Does this killing intent affect me?”
System: “No effect currently.”
However, before Xuan Chong could relax.
System: “This is because you had already restrained the emotional influence before the killing intent entered your body.”
Xuan Chong was slightly stunned, recalling that when previously watching soldiers behead people, he had strenuously kept his mind clear during reflections on the situation, once restraining that “whatever, just destroy it all” thought.
Xuan Chong carefully asked: “System, what if I had been heartless then? (If no longer vigilant, directly fully indulging in the upgrade enjoyment)”
The System said meaningfully: “Then” deliberately pausing and dragging half a second “who knows!”
Xuan Chong paused, looking at Zhao Xian Zhong, who for days circled the Jing Guan with lingering relish, and couldn’t help feeling chilled.
He then remembered the opening outline from a certain Immortal Family manual he had seen: cultivating spiritual energy requires a clear and desireless mind, while cultivating killing intent leads to insatiable desires.
Xuan Chong began practicing climbing, scaling the ten-zhang-high city wall, nothing else—just to test if his “physical test instrument” could function normally.
……
However, half an incense stick later, when Wu Fei climbed to the city battlement, he unexpectedly met Yao San Gu.
Yao San Gu stared at him, then said: “General, your complexion looks good today.”
Wu Fei: “Where? This is my morning exercise.”
Yao San Gu smiled mysteriously: “General, are you still troubled by the method of ‘condensing killing intent’?”
Wu Fei paused slightly: “What guidance does the immortal have?”
Yao San Gu took out a book, oh, a jade slip named “Manual”; after so long transmigrating, Wu Fei had only seen bamboo slips, never paper, and this was a book.
However, when Wu Fei took this book, he paused slightly, because the texture of this book was? Leather.
Yao San Gu smiled mysteriously, “General, why not give it a try.”
When Yao San Gu descended the city battlement, Xuan Chong opened the jade slip, and what met his eyes was “tadpole script.” The way to read tadpole script was to focus the gaze, then wait until the eyes no longer converge, each eye looking separately; the tadpole script would misalign and form normal text.
When Xuan Chong tried crossing his eyes, the tadpole script flew into his eyes; Xuan Chong didn’t know that after the tadpole script entered, his eyes flickered with blue light.
However, at that moment, the System popped up: “Do you need ‘translation software’?”
Xuan Chong paused: “Nonsense, of course.”
Then, Xuan Chong saw familiar “Sinicization group-style annotations” appear in his view. Xuan Chong rubbed his eyes, which had just become “wise” from reading tadpole script by crossing them; the originally blue light in his crossed eyes turned into eye gunk, splat, falling from the corner.
……
San Gu descending the city battlement had her smile suddenly freeze on her lips, raised her head to look at the city wall, and after a long while, stomped her foot in anger and left.
