Lin Pingzhi stared at him in astonishment, and Lin Zhennan blushed. After all, martial arts manuals were highly confidential, core secrets of every sect in this era.
Lin Pingzhi had always been an earnest young man with a strong sense of righteousness. What Lin Zhennan had just asked was like asking his son, who was currently serving in the military, to reveal the name and exact location of his army group—an invisible five hundred thousand in sensitive information.
The fact that Lin Pingzhi hadn't immediately run to Wang Jingyuan's room to report his own father already spoke volumes about his filial devotion.
Lin Zhennan hurriedly explained, "I'm not asking you to recite the whole thing, just the first few lines. What happened today was simply too bizarre. I'm starting to suspect those two..."
Lin Pingzhi nodded. After a moment's thought, he recited the first two lines of the Mount Hua internal cultivation manual. Lin Zhennan was a martial artist himself, after all. From those two lines alone, he could tell that the technique was balanced and upright, with lofty principles.
Once he confirmed that the two really were disciples of the Mount Hua Sect, Lin Zhennan immediately instructed his servants to book out the largest restaurant in Fuzhou. He planned to host a grand banquet that day and publicly announce Lin Pingzhi's entry into the Mount Hua Sect.
As for Lin Zhennan himself, he took his wife to the family's old residence on Xiangyang Alley, saying he wanted to report the good news to their ancestors at the ancestral hall.
In his room, Wang Jingyuan sat at the table, munching on fruit. Fruit in this era really didn't taste good. He was just chewing it to pass the time.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door. "Junior Disciple Brother, are you decent?"
Yue Lingshan had never knocked before when she came to see Wang Jingyuan. But after all the unexpected mishaps on their journey, she had finally picked up the good habit of knocking before entering.
Wang Jingyuan set down the fruit pit in his hand. "I'm dressed. Come in."
Yue Lingshan pushed open the door. "Junior Disciple Brother, who did you learn today's apprenticeship ceremony from? Why was it so strange? And why were you in such a hurry to take Junior Disciple Brother into your branch? Was it Father's instruction?"
Wang Jingyuan replied casually, "No, I decided on my own."
Yue Lingshan was startled. She hurried over and whispered, "When you say you decided on your own, do you mean the ceremony, or the whole matter of taking him as a disciple on behalf of our master?"
"Both."
Yue Lingshan stared at him in shock. "Are you crazy?! How dare you make that kind of decision on your own?"
"Before I left, Master told me to make my own decisions when things came up. This was the decision I made. When I joined the sect, Master asked me to help him restore Mount Hua to its former glory, and I agreed. I took on a task that difficult, so having a little leeway to act as I see fit isn't unreasonable.
"Taking Lin Pingzhi in is the first step toward restoring Mount Hua. In my opinion, Lin Pingzhi, as a disciple of the Mount Hua Sect, is more useful than every other disciple on Mount Hua."
Yue Lingshan didn't get angry. She simply narrowed her eyes at Wang Jingyuan. "Including you?"
Wang Jingyuan looked at her in disbelief. "Why are you people comparing a partner like me to a bunch of workhorses? Obviously, I don't count."
"You asked for it!"
"I'm out of here!"
"Where can you go in a room this small?"
"Keep chasing me and I'll call for help!"
"Rogue!"
"Just admit it works!"
Yue Lingshan sulkily sat back down at the table, took a pear from the fruit bowl, and bit into it viciously, as if she were chewing on Wang Jingyuan. With her mouth full, she asked, "Why do you think Junior Disciple Brother is the most useful disciple?"
Wang Jingyuan sat across from Yue Lingshan. "Answer me: what does Mount Hua need to regain its former glory?"
Yue Lingshan paused. Wang Jingyuan had stumped her. Though she was the daughter of the Mount Hua Sect's leader, she spent her days thinking about how to slack off and sneak away to have fun. She had never considered such a weighty question.
Wang Jingyuan could see that Yue Lingshan was an intellectual wasteland as far as the Mount Hua Sect was concerned. He didn't bother building suspense and got straight to the point. "Making it in this world is all about strength and connections. In plain terms, that means money and power. Given the martial arts setting here, we can break it down further into martial strength, financial resources, and political power.
"Martial strength usually takes the longest to build up. But Mount Hua has a valuable legacy left behind by our predecessors. With a little development, it could be quite impressive.
"Financial resources are what I'm working on now. We can't get anywhere by collecting rent from the farmland at the foot of the mountain. Besides, Master has the 'Gentleman Sword' label hanging over his head like a shackle. In a bad harvest year, we'd have to support the farmers, and we'd end up collecting next to nothing.
"But things are different if we take Lin Pingzhi in. He's the heir to the Fuwei Escort Agency. Our Mount Hua Sect has martial strength to spare, but we lack both a management team and rank-and-file employees. The Fuwei Escort Agency has the opposite problem.
"Our two families can complement each other's weaknesses and form a joint venture. We can grow the Fuwei branch of the Mount Hua Group into a thriving business and achieve even greater success. The income and jobs that would generate would far surpass what we'd make as landlords holed up in one corner of the world.
"As for political power... In this era, only the imperial court deserves that name. There's no other contender. If we want to go down that road, Mount Hua has a unique advantage.
"Just look at the leaders of the other Five Great Sword Sects. What a sorry bunch. Only our beloved Master has the qualifications of a licentiate. A young man can be pushed to study, and an old man can be pushed to study too. If I really put some effort into pushing Master, don't you think the old man might even pass the provincial exam?
"Once he passes, he'll be addressed as Lord Yue. Whether he gets an official post doesn't matter; the title of provincial graduate is what counts. With money and a reputation, we can establish schools.
"There are so many clever people in this world who can't afford an education. The Hengshan Sect is a music academy, so why can't Mount Hua be a school for preparing students for the imperial examinations?
"Other schools are too expensive for ordinary people. But the Mount Hua Sect's school can waive tuition and fees, provide room and board, and even offer stipends. We'd select students based only on their talent and hard work.
"In a few years, we could train a batch of licentiates, then another batch of provincial graduates. If one of them got lucky and passed the metropolitan examination, we'd have the connections we needed.
"By then, the Five Great Sword Sects' banners wouldn't mean a damn thing. One proclamation against bandits could reach the emperor's desk, and three thousand armored soldiers would be enough to wipe out an entire sect. When that day comes, the Mount Hua Academy might be far more renowned than the Mount Hua Sect..."
Yue Lingshan hadn't understood much of what he'd said, but she grasped the general idea. Wang Jingyuan had rattled on at length, and only when he started drinking tea to rest did she lift her head in confusion and ask, "It's really that simple?"
"Once we gain some influence, other civil officials will try to block us at every turn. But my task is to restore Mount Hua to its former glory, not to control the imperial court. If we know when to stop, dealing with these nobodies in the jianghu will be a piece of cake. It'll be like bringing a sledgehammer down on a nutshell."
"Why haven't the Mount Hua predecessors or the other sects tried this?"
Wang Jingyuan shook his head dismissively. "If they knew how to think, they wouldn't be people of the jianghu. Take the Fuwei Escort Agency, for instance. It only took me a few words to convince the heir to join the Mount Hua Sect.
"Truth is, they could've easily dealt with the threat from the Qingcheng Sect on their own, even without us. Their brains just probably wouldn't have come up with it."
Yue Lingshan pressed him. "What should they have done?"
"If they're being harassed by a criminal gang, they can report it to the authorities."
"Huh?!"
"Sure, people say jianghu affairs should be settled in the jianghu, and the authorities don't intervene unless someone files a complaint. But Fuzhou is such a prosperous city. If the victims reported the crime and the Qingcheng Sect still dared to massacre their entire family, wouldn't that amount to rebellion?
"This isn't the end of a dynasty or some chaotic age. The Ming Dynasty is at the height of its power. If the Qingcheng Sect really dared to do something like that, it wouldn't be long before they were surrounded and wiped out.
"Besides, what's the Fuwei Escort Agency's advantage? Money! Even our Mount Hua Sect can't compete with them, let alone the even more pathetic Qingcheng Sect.
"With money, they could buy favors and bribe officials. As long as they were willing to stuff enough silver into people's pockets, the local authorities would have no choice but to do their jobs. And this region is along the coast, where Japanese pirates often raid.
"With enough silver greasing the wheels, it wouldn't be impossible to cooperate with the authorities to form a local militia. Then all the escort agency's guards could serve in it. What ordinary jianghu figure would dare lay a finger on them?
"Even if they rode on top of the Qingcheng Sect's heads and took a dump, Yu Canghai would have to put up with it. Corruption was part of the Ming Dynasty's political ecosystem, after all. If you don't like it, don't play.
"But Lin Zhennan's ancestors were people of the jianghu. Even after founding an escort agency, he never changed his way of thinking. He still acted like a jianghu man. So if you don't use your head, you'll be a jianghu nobody for life. You'll never make it ashore."
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