Qishan Mausoleum, Flowers in the Mirror, Moon in the Water

East Ping Prefecture, Qishan County.

Qishan Mountain was the mausoleum of Emperor Su of the Yu Dynasty. Construction had begun at the start of Emperor Su's reign, and it took over four hundred years to complete the Yu Su Mausoleum, which occupied the entirety of Qishan Mountain.

By this time, all the land around Qishan Mountain had been incorporated into the mausoleum grounds, guarded by Emperor Su's subjects who had relocated to Qishan County.

The blazing sun hung high, and wisps of cloud and mist drifted sparsely through the sky. Jiang Sheng concealed himself within the mist and looked down at the mausoleum below.

Viewed from above alone, Qishan Mountain was incomparably magnificent. Its rolling ranges resembled a crouching dragon, as though a true dragon lay coiled amid the wild mountains, naturally carrying an aura of imperial majesty.

Jiang Sheng pointed at the mausoleum below, then looked toward Shen Yao, Anping, and the others. "Whenever the emperors of the Yu Dynasty built mausoleums, they squeezed dry the people and resources of an entire prefecture. The more powerful the ghost-and-god clans of that prefecture were, the more they had to exhaust themselves repairing the mausoleum. Thus, the powerful clans of those prefectures and commanderies would never recover after that."

"Furthermore, in order to strengthen the trunk and weaken the branches, the Yu emperors would take the ghost-and-god clans of that prefecture as their subjects and drag their ghosts and gods into the Netherworld. Who knew how many once-prosperous clans had fallen to second-rate, third-rate, or even below the ranks?"

"Though five hundred years of exploitation had left this land desolate and withered, the other prefectures and commanderies had recovered and flourished, becoming prosperous places from which the Yu emperors could continue selecting suitable sites. The entire Yu Dynasty simply kept repeating