Chapter 77: Lucky Encounter In Lucky City
In the 32nd year of the Shu Tian Calendar, April, south of Ling River entered the rainy season, and the newly opened rice paddies were nourished by the rainwater.
In the first year of fully stationing troops in the Southern Border, Wu Fei did not return north with the main army. Instead, to seek stability, he stayed at the four fortresses in southern Ling River. But San Gu returned to the interior first.
The reason was simple; in March, after the Wu Family learned that San Gu was pregnant, they immediately sent someone to pick her up. And the person sent by the Wu Family was no ordinary one; she was a female disciple of Qinghua Sect from within the clan, namely Wu Fei’s cousin.
…Immortal sword soaring through the air dividing line…
This female sword immortal flew to the Southern Border fortress and had a very strange expression upon seeing Wu Fei at first glance.
Then, upon seeing San Gu, she unhesitatingly and murderously grabbed San Gu’s wrist, using spiritual energy to probe, as if she had caught a criminal. San Gu, who also possessed magic power, was not annoyed at all and very proactively guided her magic power into her own abdomen to sense the fetus’s pulse and the authenticity of the bloodline.
San Gu smiled as she watched this sister-in-law until she gradually relaxed her grip on her hand.
This female sword immortal named Wu Xiang, after confirming that San Gu’s bloodline indeed carried the Wu Family aura, showed a puzzled expression. But thinking of the many other Wu Family disciples in Wu Fei’s army, she darted over to pinch Wu Fei’s vital pulse. Of course, Wu Fei did not let her have her way; after exchanging a few moves, killing intent triggered, scattering her spiritual energy, and her sword fell into Wu Fei’s hands.
Wu Fei, who had seized the sword barehanded, smugly twirled a sword flower, and the more the spiritual sword resisted, the more excitedly Wu Fei gripped it.
Afterward, once Wu Fei confirmed she wanted to check his pulse, he immediately apologized. However, when he felt her spiritual energy follow his meridians all the way down to his lower three roads, probing below the navel, Wu Fei immediately flung her hand away.
Then, the cousin explained her “confusion” to Wu Fei, and Wu Fei endured the discomfort, letting her spiritual energy probe to confirm bloodline inheritance (Xuan Chong: Does this world also have paternity test projects? Of course he has to cooperate).
Oh, this strand of spiritual energy was directly burned clean by spiritual fire when it touched meridians it shouldn’t.
The result was that this cousin’s expression turned into “I don’t understand, but I’m greatly shocked.” She then pulled San Gu aside to whisper.
Wu Fei overheard something like: “One of you has primal yang undissipated, the other is a virgin conception—how exactly did you conceive?”
Wu Fei shook his head and walked away, muttering: “Don’t ask; asking means forty-first century, new technology, new concepts.”
…The other side of the main camp…
The mysterious Feather Tribe daoist priest Cang Meng gazed at San Gu being taken away far by the immortal sword and prophesied in a divine stick tone: “The child possessing Vermilion Bird and Bi Fang bloodlines will ultimately inherit Heaven’s Mandate.”
At this moment, beneath his feet, gemstones were arranged in a constellation pattern, several corresponding to the Southern Seven Mansions. Through the southern constellations, Cang Meng raised his head toward the direction of the blue Evil Moon in the sky.
Cang Meng solemnly warned the sky: “You gods of this lineage, what you did in Haotian Realm—if you try to replicate it on planets under Xi clan’s jurisdiction, there’s absolutely no chance of success! The Heaven’s Mandate bearer you want to corrupt is different from the sons of destiny in Haotian Realm. If you really want to fight, your chips aren’t enough.”
Cang Meng’s tone was very confident because compared to those four bizarre evil powers from beyond the heavens, the outer god he believed in was even more powerful and ancient.
And now, the favored one projected by this outer god—he had already found.
Cang Meng gazed toward Wu Fei and whispered: “Next, just guide the person of destiny to meet their loyal partner and obtain the weapon of destiny.”
…Perspective shifts from stationery to students…
In the 32nd year of the Shu Tian Calendar, May, as the fields on the southern bank of Ling River showed very promising growth, the soldiers in various fortresses and stockades had fully adapted to the local water and soil, and Wu Fei’s suspended heart finally settled completely.
Wu Fei: Historical summary—all colonial downfalls were not directly determined by a single unequal treaty, but by their original internal politics, economy, and diplomacy being gradually infiltrated and replaced by external systems. After Li Huo Sect’s demise, a vacuum in order appeared, and Wu Family Army filled it; currently, every step is very stable.
Economically, in the first half of year 32, Yongji Pass opened again. But this time, the resources mobilized by Wu Family Army militarily were very few! Only eight hundred troops were mobilized from the interior. Mainly as the trump card force to adjudicate contradictions between tribes on the north bank of Ling River.
The truly large-scale mobilized troops were instead around five thousand local vassal troops, used to ensure merchant caravan safety and sweep newly emerging bandits!
What, there are still mountain bandits? Yes, in groups of less than ten people, mostly two- or three-man gangs committing crimes.
Even in the best-policed modern era, in highway areas lacking police presence, there would still be carjacking bandits. Wu Family Army hasn’t installed cameras on every road in Southern Border—how could they eradicate mountain bandits completely.
Wu Fei gained the following understanding from reports by his slave-capturing faction subordinates:
The refresh mechanism for Southern Border mountain bandits is simple: just like in the animal world, when a lion pride exceeds a certain size, it expels some to form a new pride; when tribes lack food, they expel a batch of young and strong men to find food.
In the past, under such circumstances, the mountains had many such micro-tribes born less than three or four years ago; they roamed the mountain paths, just like those unreasonable rogue cultivators in the Cultivation World digging for opportunities everywhere, raiding for supplies everywhere.
Wu Fei tentatively believed the content of this report and formulated measures based on its intelligence.
Of course, this year Wu Family Army governed this situation very hegemonically: large tribes were converted to tusi, and every tusi tribe was issued special travel permits. Any Southern Border people caught wandering main roads without reason and without a permit were all captured to become slaves, sent to southern Ling River as labor.
The various enfeoffed tusi collectively covenanted with Wu Family: new order emerged, and the locally appointed vassal army by Wu Family Army became the pillar of the new order.
According to a 21st-century stance that is overly radical, the travel permit system firmly binds native aboriginals to the land, preventing population flow—this is unfree, wrong, and should be overthrown.
But Wu Fei now only recognizes one thing: how to eradicate raiding for supplies! How to maintain stable commercial exchange order between farming production units. Wu Fei: If I can find a replacement for travel permits at this stage, I’ll change immediately.
…Wu Fei wished to the System and it didn’t succeed; he won’t accept others’ wishes either…
In the first half of year 32, those eight hundred exiting military forces arrived at the four Ling River fortresses within a month and completed the handover with the local garrison troops.
As these merchants exiting with the garrison troops crossed Ling River and offered incense to the tamed beast elephants on both sides of the bridge, they sighed: once upon a time, roads that took the army months to traverse cautiously now only needed an escort agency with a dozen escorts to complete in just one month.
In May, merchants found the north bank of Ling River too desolate, so under Wu Family’s internal lead, merchants established a permanent camp on the north bank opposite the four Jiangnan fortresses; this camp was for better transshipping slaves and supplies.
This camp, compared to the previous militarized garrison camps, was a freely open commercial camp. If order persists, this commercial camp would develop into a commercial city.
Thus, the invited Wu Fei, who came to lay the foundation, named it Lucky City ahead of time.
…In the minutiae…
Not everyone likes peace.
June 4th, in Lucky City, soldiers escorting food and grass from the north bank arrived here and soon entered the tavern. Not out of disdain for high-end consumption areas like the Hundred Charms Tower, but because the soldiers had no money.
In the tavern, as alcohol brewed from sugarcane waste poured into their bellies, soldier Sun Aoling cursed: “Fuck, I trained a body of fine martial arts to serve a hero, but damn it, there’s no fighting left!” As he cursed, someone started picking fights.
Bai Ya: “Boss, your booze, booze, is— is it watered?!”—From this drunken state, the alcohol doesn’t intoxicate; people intoxicate themselves.
The boss naturally wouldn’t tolerate such unreasonable troublemaking, so he sent the waiter to the street to find the patrolling military police.
Seeing the boss snitching, Wang Feihao, drunk and hot-headed, shouted: “Fuck this shady merchant dead!” A jar flew over.
Then the brawl started but quickly subsided. The soldiers were locked in the military law department, personally tried by Wu Fei.
After the trial, the military law department decided to execute by law, but Wu Fei activated suspended sentencing.
After reading all interrogation reports, Wu Fei muttered to himself: “I think I was wrong!”
According to propaganda from his previous life, the old era was “the era of slaves and the era of those who wanted to be slaves but couldn’t,” leading Wu Fei to perceive that ancient people suffered and tended toward stable days.
But the current situation tells Wu Fei this isn’t entirely right; at least a considerable portion of those enlisting under him aren’t seeking stable days.
Wu Fei: Makes sense—not everyone is like me; if military career fails, they can go home to live as a young master lying flat and inherit the family business. These people came to start ventures.
Over the years Wu Fei has commanded the army, one thing is famous: rewards and punishments are extremely fair; those who truly risked their lives get promotions. And now with the non-commissioned officer system emerging, he’s inadvertently created a “military noble class.”
Xuan Chong hopes to create a military noble group similar to the Junkers.
Right, in the past half year, Wu Fei has promoted reforms in the army: to ensure smooth communication channels among non-commissioned officers, he gives them timed military lectures and holds small banquets for them to bond—this ensures good relations among non-commissioned officers. But undoubtedly, it created a stratum envied by lower soldiers.
This stratum can speak, and after speaking, Wu Fei listens and records; as the saying goes, a scholar dies for a bosom friend—this is exactly the scholar’s realm. So now many soldiers in the army have strong ambition.
The problem is, Wu Xiao Que is extremely fair on military merit blood rewards, but on the other hand, very stingy.
Wu Fei is extremely strict on merits! Very generous on hard work, giving extra money, but extremely stingy on blood labor—only those who risk life get it.
Now Wu Xiao Que is not as good as Liu Bei or Erzhu Rong; he can’t spot talent from a crowd at a glance, have candlelit night talks, then entrust heavy responsibilities.
Talent selection and employment is still relatively inexperienced, so those soldiers trying to gain Wu Fei’s favor and then die loyally are now very frustrated.
In the “lord” profession, Wu Fei is so inexperienced he can’t even judge by appearance—total social anxiety.
With Wu Fei, no merits means no closeness or meetings. He maintains military hierarchy by the book; besides fixed meetings, subordinates can’t skip levels to report upward.
Of course, that’s fine; these ambitious ones: at worst, earn merits then bare their hearts to Wu Fei properly.
But now, suddenly Southern Border fighting is done, and the merit book is temporarily closed.
Wu Fei stipulates: first-class merits can only be earned in high-danger zones.
Currently, the entire north of Ling River risk level has dropped to blue; blue level just means several times the wages—only yellow level earns merit points.
As for yellow areas south of Ling River, Wu Fei dislikes using main core troops, instead cutting costs by directly using vassal troops.
Stingy Wu Fei doesn’t give vassal troops Da Yao internal staffing quota, just local Southern Border staffing quota. Since the last chance to enter via “blood labor” is gone, this frustrates some interior soldiers following Wu Fei.
And this group finally grabbed this exit chance, only to find it’s still just running a trip for extra wages—so frustrated, they got drunk and depressed, then fought.
…Forever pursuing every point on paper…
Mention here: Wu Fei currently shows no slack, not dazzled by the stable base; upon encountering army issues, he personally investigated and interrogated, confirming the above situation.
If directly military law, he really wouldn’t know his army has such an ambitious group. Delaying this ambition means no chance to harness it later.
After understanding, Wu Fei paced several laps in the office.
“Wanting to risk life isn’t hard?” As a military strategist, Wu Fei never refuses those willing to risk life.
Thus, Wu Family Army issued the following verdict.
Each fighter must pay twenty silver leaves, or accept tattooing and toe amputation and other corporal punishments.
In the solitary confinement room, after the military law department’s verdict, these people who messed up after drinking showed varied expressions: some dejected, some dead pig not fearing boiling water, just like high schoolers after a fight, lined against the wall defiantly.
In the past, Wu Fei who dominated campus felt nothing, but now leading troops, he finds these young men’s sharpness quite cute!
After the verdict, since the young men were sulking, no one appealed. This made Wu Fei even more tolerant toward these boys who suffer in silence.
Wu Fei looked at these guys, tsk-tsking: “Not bad, not bad, all emotional—this makes it easier to handle.”
Because the more emotional hotheads are, the easier to move. In his previous life, many such boys were easily manipulated by cunning women.
The night before execution prep.
In the prison cell.
Wang Feihao: “Hey, tomorrow face gets tattooed—where you heading?”
Sun Aoling: “Anywhere; anyway, worthless life! Anyway, I’m not going home—under heaven is vast, I roam free!”
Then in the cell, Bai Ya: “I thought mutilation was chopping feet; turns out it’s cutting toes—what bullshit!”
They started laughing and cursing one by one.
At this moment, the prison cell door opened; Wu Fei walked in, looked at these young men, said nothing in the standoff, and told the prison guard: “Release them all; I’ll talk to them.”
Prison guard: “General, this—” Clearly these twenty-seven hotheads are quite dangerous.
Wu Fei casually reassured the prison guard to leave: “No big deal, just talk.”
In the prison cell, Wu Fei looked at these silent people, slowly took out a box, then a list: “This is your fine; of course, each also gets ten silver leaves. Tomorrow pay the fine and go home see your old mother.”
The prison cell was very quiet, only seeing the shiny silver leaves in the box.
After a while, Wang Feihao asked: “General, you’re letting us go back?”
Wu Fei educated like a big brother: “You lads are immature; beating the tavern boss and guests is one thing, but street-fighting military police? You actually did it? So military rules are strict—must punish! But you’re too young; body and skin come from parents—ruin them so young…”
Wu Fei shook his head here, very earnestly shook his head, then put down the silver leaves and slowly walked out of the prison cell.
As Wu Fei turned and silently counted “one, two,…” someone gruffly said: “Lord, we came to serve, not take money.” (Wu Fei inwardly bloomed with joy—just waiting for this line. If a woman said it, ‘for love’ not money, Wu Fei wouldn’t believe a word.)
Wu Fei turned back: “Serve? No serving opportunities here?”
Wang Feihao, unhappy at the scolding, glanced at the brothers holding their breath, raised his head to argue strongly: “You use foreign troops, not native troops—this is big trouble.”
Wu Fei looked at him: “The foreign troops serving me now—their lands were plowed by interior troops. Today you reach Southern Border; those Clawed People, Horned People treat you with utmost respect—that’s what I killed out. You can’t even hold the scene, yet say I court disaster.”
Killing intent released; all soldiers wanted to argue but dared not speak.
Wu Fei: “I know you’re unhappy, feel unrecognized; I’ll give you a chance now!”
Wu Fei tossed out a military treatise, “Three months from now, Yongji Pass has an exam—let’s bet!”
Wu Fei looked at these soldiers: “Pass to win, fail to lose. Lose the bet, accept corporal punishment, honestly garrison Southern Border for twenty years; win, and I acknowledge your ability.”
The many soldiers exchanged glances and all agreed to bet.
Wu Fei kept a taut face, maintaining superior arrogance poise, nodded, and left.
The lead Wang Feihao: “Lord, your money.”
Wu Fei: “Exam asks the mister; daily full meals cost money—keep it to spend.”
When Wu Fei left the prison cell, the dejection vanished; soldiers started whispering excitedly. Wang Feihao, whose face was to be tattooed, told his fellow sufferers: “The general is a venture lord.”
…Shiny silver money scattered in the prison cell like dirt…
Actually, Wu Fei’s “to catch with release” trick—these prison soldiers later figured it out?
They scouted all paths in the main camp, studied all non-commissioned officer promotion routes—just take heads at frontline, then get recognized.
Now Wu Fei comes to the prison saying there’s an exam route! Isn’t that lying.
But that’s not important; between lord and vassal, if truly “one wants to employ, the other to serve,” the lord playing little face-saving tricks is nothing.
Lord-vassal recognition is like lovers; if truly soulmates, “tsundere” is just flirtation. But without “meet too late” foundation, no amount of “seeking talent humbly” tricks will close the gap.
…Venture’s most important task is never forget to discover…
After leaving the prison cell, Wu Fei gritted his teeth, continuing his self-memo: “Blood labor for blood reward. For those wanting blood labor, arrange bloody reward work.”
These troublemaking soldiers reminded Wu Fei: with under heaven about to be tumultuous, he must stay true, always persist in discovering talent from the rank-and-file. If he can’t embrace all rivers—not to mention all, even his own subordinates’ talents will flow to other forces.
Non-commissioned officer system must form—not fully rely on old officers’ initiative, but introduce external evolution. These eager youths precisely connect Wu Fei to history’s “youth fellow students.” Use well, they drive the era; stupidly suppress, he’ll regret someday.
Wu Fei expectantly glanced at the prison cell again: As long as you have ability, I can lead you to merits—merits aren’t hard, hmm?
