Just a Little Bit

Just a Little Bit

What the heck, this guy could actually talk.

Luo Qingqing pursed her lips. She had thought he would stammer for ages without managing to explain himself, leaving her to step in and save the situation.

Still, it was strange when she thought about it. Why could a Sanmen disciple from a small county remain so composed before everyone?

She herself had trained for a long time before overcoming her stage fright.

And although the speech sounded somewhat grandiose, it at least had both objectives and methods, with a fairly clear structure. That alone was something most people could not manage.

And those crabs...

He said they had nothing to do with this matter, but bringing over such an unexpected meal at night was probably his way of proving that he had the means to establish himself in Qingshan Town even after supplies were cut off, wasn't it?

Xia Fan... what kind of person was he, exactly?

Luo Qingqing shifted her gaze toward the crowd, which was still digesting the information.

Compared with their previous restlessness, the atmosphere of whispered discussion had now changed. Clearly, what had struck everyone the hardest was not unity or facing Great Desolation Evil Night head-on, but the fact that "everyone had a chance to pass the examination."

Moreover, the plan to turn the town into a city had also eased the candidates' panic. People liked to follow the crowd, and the more people there were, the more so. Whether the plan would work or not, simply having both the noble families and Sanmen remain in one place was already an enormous reassurance to them.

For now, the plan could be said to be proceeding smoothly in every respect.

"Luo Qingqing, what did you mean by this!?"

Suddenly, an angry demand shattered her train of thought.

She turned to see Fang Xiandao striding over with fury written across his face. "I just heard that your Luo Family drove all the men I stationed there out of the mine tunnels and sealed the entrance? Since you couldn't secure a good spot yourself, you want to drag everyone else down to die with you?"

"Brother Fang, you overstate the matter. This little woman had no choice but to do so for everyone's safety." Luo Qingqing dipped slightly in a bow. "Last night, disciples reported finding several animal carcasses deep in the tunnels. Once Evil Night arrives, they too will become part of the Evil Spirits. Since there are many corners in the tunnels that are difficult to explore, sealing them off is the safest course."

"This was clearly a necessary risk!" Fang Xiandao did not believe a word of that nonsense. "Even if there are a few carcasses, they would have to come at us one by one. For noble families, it would only mean sending one or two more people to deal with them! Now that the tunnels are gone, how do you plan to withstand Great Desolation Evil Night?"

"An excellent question. That is precisely what we are discussing. Luo Changtian!"

"I'm here," Luo Changtian answered.

"Please explain our new countermeasure to Fang Xiandao. If he has any further questions, he can come find me again."

"Understood. Brother Fang, please come with me."

"What new countermeasure? This is clearly retaliation! Wait, don't drag me... Hey, stop..."

Watching Fang Xiandao get dragged away by her senior brother, Luo You'er happily pulled a face at him.

"Hmph, serves you right. You stole our spot and even came over just to provoke us."

Luo Qingqing revealed a faint smile as well. She remembered her discussion with Xia Fan the night before.

"I understand. Your plan is workable, but what about the Fang family? They have the ability to hold the mine tunnels and don't need to listen to you."

"It's simple. Make it so they have no choice, just like the Sanmen."

"Aren't you afraid they'll hold a grudge against you?"

"If everyone can pass the examination, what hatred can't be resolved? At worst, I'll treat them to fried crabs too."

"How about you leave these crabs for the Luo Family? As for making them have no choice, I'll do that for you. How does that sound?"

"Oh? You don't like the Fang family?"

"I'm merely returning courtesy for courtesy."

I have to admit, this feeling was quite nice...

"Luo Qingqing, are you sure it's all right to cooperate with Xia Fan?" Luo Tang asked worriedly. "Eldest Senior Brother seems extremely dissatisfied. He believes you should make the arson public and have Xia Fan bear all responsibility, while we continue searching for a new hiding place according to the original plan. He said that by doing this, you're handing all the credit to someone else. Once word gets out, the Luo Family will likely become the laughingstock of the other noble families."

Luo Qingqing comfortingly patted her shoulder. "Maintaining order in the world is the duty of Bureau of Military Affairs sorcerers. Yet in the process, one inevitably encounters a problem: which kind of order should one uphold?"

"Which kind... of order?"

"Is it one you proposed yourself, or one proposed by another? If the latter is worse than the former, there is naturally no need to consider it. But what if the latter is better?"

Luo Tang opened her mouth, but could not give an answer.

"This is not an easy question to answer, and everyone's thoughts will surely differ. There is nothing wrong with choosing the order one has established oneself, because there is no need to adapt to it, and it benefits oneself the most." Luo Qingqing spoke evenly. "But I would choose the better one. Organizing the candidates' evacuation was also because it was better than ignoring the Sanmen and watching chaos spread."

"Just as the Bureau of Military Affairs rose above the Six Ministries and put an end to the Evil Spirit incidents that sprang up everywhere after Yong State's collapse, so long as we keep choosing better orders, the newly emerging order will become better and better. And as the guardians of these new orders, we will never become a laughingstock." She let out a soft breath. "When I heard his plan, I truly felt unwilling to accept it. But that does not prevent me from cooperating with him. I hope you understand: it was not Xia Fan that I chose, but the better order."

"These are the medicinal ingredients newly collected by the Logistics Team. They're yours."

"Has the Drafting Paper been made into Talismans?"

"Wait a moment. It'll be ready shortly."

"I'll go first. Gen Technique is Ox, Longshan Creation!"

As a candidate performed Sorcery Art, the ground between two houses began to bulge upward, crawling little by little along the walls until it stopped near the top of the first floor.

"Whew... I can't go on. I've used up all my qi for today." The moment he stopped casting, he collapsed onto the ground, gasping heavily.

Someone immediately stepped forward to measure the height of the raised ground. "It rose a total of nine and a half feet. Not bad—better than the previous group."

"Who's next?"

"Let me give it a try." Another sorcerer accepted a bag of medicine and stood before the houses.

"Looks like progress is moving quite quickly." Luo Qingqing paused to watch for a while, then said to Xia Fan beside her, "It's hard to believe these people were still scheming against each other and fighting tooth and nail two days ago."

From the time the plan was announced until that afternoon, the center of Qingshan Town had already turned into a noisy construction site. Every Sanmen candidate had been mobilized and thrown into this vigorous transformation. The Outer Demolition Team progressed the fastest of all. The Demolition Squad, composed of more than forty people, stripped the houses along the outer ring of the grid clean in barely two hours. Any tool that might possibly be useful—pots, cauldrons, door panels, hoes—was gathered in front of the teahouse.

Next came the Leak-Sealing Team. It had the largest number of people, close to sixty, and also the highest proportion of noble-family disciples. When it came to the techniques of Sorcery Art, noble families indeed possessed an advantage that Sanmen could hardly match. Using Gen Technique and Kun Technique, they sealed every gap between the buildings, then used lumber to construct simple defensive structures such as fences and platforms.

In only half a day, the town's appearance had changed beyond recognition. The formerly smooth bluestone streets had been pried into a pockmarked mess, with great numbers of bricks used as construction materials. The two-story houses along the inner ring had been linked together by crude earthen walls. Due to poor control, many of those walls had even intruded into the buildings themselves. At first glance, they gave off the sense of something coming alive—ugly and unsettling. Yet compared to the original Qingshan Town, it now resembled a fortress far more.

Of course, not everyone had been so enthusiastic from the start. Even with the Luo Family backing the plan, quite a few candidates still questioned it. Their main concern was not whether they could withstand Great Desolation Evil Night, but whether so many people could hunt enough prey in time to last through the final two days of the examination.

A sorcerer's only weakness probably lay in consumption. Once they could not fill their stomachs, their efficiency at drawing qi would plummet, leaving them little different from ordinary people.

Thus, the first group to achieve results and set the entire effort in motion was neither the Demolition Squad nor the Leak-Sealing Team, but the Hunting Squad. Following the directions, they caught large numbers of crabs in Huo Creek on the Back Mountain in only half an hour. Even if there was not enough to fill everyone's stomachs, for candidates who had gone hungry for a day, it was undoubtedly a shot in the arm. It could be said that only after the feast of fried crabs did everything truly get on track.

"They fought because of benefits, and now they cooperate for the same reason." Xia Fan chuckled. "Outside, there is the pressure of survival brought by Great Desolation Evil Night. Inside, there is the temptation of passing the examination. So long as it isn't a hatred that cannot exist beneath the same sky, they should all be able to endure it. This isn't resolving the conflict, merely suppressing it. Given enough time, it may erupt, but fortunately, we only need to hold on for two days."

"Oh? I thought you would praise yourself for your wise decisions and exceptional ability to rally people with a speech."

"So in your eyes, I'm someone with so little self-awareness?"

"You certainly looked like it when you came knocking last night." Luo Qingqing walked forward with her hands clasped behind her back. "By the way, where exactly did you learn all this? Not only are you good at arranging manpower, your division into groups is quite interesting too. Leak-Sealing Team, measurement teams... carrying things out while reviewing and improving them at the same time. It's as if you know exactly what you're doing, as though this isn't your first time handling something like this. Don't tell me you learned it from books. Books don't teach these things."

"Of course books wouldn't contain them, just as books wouldn't record the tricks of jianghu gangs." Xia Fan slowly followed after her. "My master and I wandered for more than ten years. I learned a few tricks here and there."

"Is that so?" She tilted her head to glance at him, disbelief written all over her eyes. "It's fine if you refuse to reveal it, but it would be best if you mention your past less in the future. For a sorcerer with a bright future who will serve beneath the Son of Heaven in the Capital Region, humble origins are not credentials worth talking about."

Xia Fan could not help freezing. "What did you say? Me?"

"Who else could I mean?" Luo Qingqing said as if he were making a fuss over nothing. "As long as you successfully endure Evil Night, with the decisions you made, you will surely be the top choice. And the top three in the Scholar Examination are all assigned to the Capital Region's great cities. From then on, they rise in a single step to the heavens, standing above tens of thousands. What is wrong with calling that a bright future?"

For a moment, he did not know what to say. It was something he had never considered. To Xia Fan, the sole purpose of taking the Scholar Examination was to make it easier to access everything related to Sorcery Art. As for rising smoothly through the ranks, he had truly never thought about it.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Luo Qingqing misunderstood his expression. She turned around and smiled brilliantly at him. "I thought we would have no further connection after the examination ended. It seems I was mistaken. We may very well serve in the same bureau in the future, so please guide me well when that time comes."