Several days later.
Ning Xuan didn't get the marriage alliance he'd been waiting for. Instead, he got his eldest brother emerging from seclusion.
Wangyue Prefecture began receiving refugees from the north. Strange, ghostly incidents started breaking out: chewing sounds in the middle of the night, human skin fluttering in the wind, and people newly buried in the cemetery coming back from the dead. In short, everyone was on edge.
After thinking it over, Ning Xuan realized there was no escaping it. He could only grit his teeth and "open for business."
And so, the three of them set off north along the official road, accompanied by four battalions of government troops and 136 martial artists.
They hadn't brought any Daoist sorcerers. After all, the Daoist sorcerers still had to deal with those "Human Skin Demonic Creatures."
Although Wangyue Prefecture was nowhere near the point of "great chaos," its people, who had been living in comfort, had already begun to get a taste of "demons."
Of the four battalions of government troops, three consisted of ordinary soldiers, while the other was the "Blazing Fire Camp," equipped with barrels of fire oil.
Half of the 136 martial artists came from a gang called the "Hunter Gang."
Wangyue Prefecture had many mountains, and plenty of hunters. Those extra hunters had formed the "Hunter Gang" of their own accord. They roamed the mountains with dogs and hawks in tow, and Ning Xuan had dealt with them plenty of times when he was younger.
This time, they'd recruited men from the Hunter Gang for the trip to Ping'an Prefecture so that their hounds could scout the way and reduce casualties.
Those ghostly things were formless and invisible. They could only be detected after burrowing into their target's body.
But those ghostly things were easy enough to deal with. One blast of flame from the Blazing Fire Camp was enough to kill them.
They would use the hounds to scout. If anything went wrong, the Blazing Fire Camp would move in at once. If that still wasn't enough, Ning Xuan and the others would step in.
This was Ning Xuan's first time leading troops in such an unusual way. He didn't have to manage the soldiers; everyone kept him protected right in the middle of the formation. Even so, he felt a little queasy.
He was truly experiencing what it meant that "war costs money," and what it meant that "damn it, war is all about money."
If nobody died today, that would be fine. But if anyone did, the compensation would make silver pour out like water.
That money would be enough to build him a harem of three hundred beauties.
And if the enemy was vicious enough to wipe out everyone he'd brought today, he could build himself an entire imperial harem.
The key was, the money might look like it belonged to the Prefect, but in reality, it all came from his family.
He looked toward his eldest brother at his side.
This army wasn't one he'd raised. His eldest brother had brought it up.
To keep him safe, his eldest brother had assembled a well-trained army, with the principle that anything that could be solved with money should never be solved with a blade.
Ugly Slave sat astride his horse, watching the advance ahead with an expressionless face.
Feeling Ning Xuan's gaze, Ugly Slave turned his head slightly and asked, "General Ning, what are your orders?"
"Nothing."
The Ning Family needed stability.
If money could buy stability, then so be it.
As for the dead?
Ning Xuan had long understood the principle that "compassion does not make a commander."
Train troops for a thousand days, use them for one.
On the battlefield, those in command were best off seeing everyone as a chess piece and striving to win as much as possible with as few sacrifices as possible, rather than thinking, "These people are going to die," whenever they moved a piece.
Without even that basic understanding, the result would often be the greatest sacrifice ending in the most crushing defeat.
Having the soldiers lead the way while they watched and struck only after seeing what lay ahead—that was the way to minimize casualties.
Immortal Aunt Yaozhen, dressed in a Python Robe, wasn't even riding a horse. She drifted along, her feet never touching the ground, light as a feather. Compared to when she'd first arrived at the Ning Family, she now wore a white veil over her head, so no one could see what she looked like from the outside.
The fact that she could move like this showed that floating along hardly cost her anything at all.
She had seen Ning Xuan's single slash and already knew the boy had the makings of a general. Now he had also become the sole person with whom she shared an "ear-whisper" connection. Between the two of them, a kind of "fated partnership, bound together by imperial authority and responsibility" had taken shape.
At that moment, she was gathering information from the "Celestial Master circle in the Imperial Capital." Its members were scattered far and wide and could provide a great deal of intelligence.
She carefully sifted through it, then moved her lips slightly.
She only needed to speak in the faintest murmur, so soft that even someone beside her listening closely couldn't make out the words, and they would still reach Ning Xuan's ears.
"A mountain that didn't exist before has appeared in northern Ping'an Prefecture.
"It's an ice mountain, covered in hard, sharp ice spires, with many bodies impaled on them.
"The mountain is very strange. Summer is nearly here, but it shows no sign of thawing.
"The demonic disturbances in Ping'an Prefecture may be connected to this mountain."
"In Ping'an Prefecture?"
"No, in northern Ping'an Prefecture."
"Then is it in Ping'an Prefecture or not?"
"It's in the north of Ping'an Prefecture."
"Mm. Then it has nothing to do with us."
"But if you want to become a Divine General, you have to take the initiative to explore places like that. Once you become a Divine General, the resources of the entire nation will be devoted to your cultivation."
"If it's in Ping'an Prefecture, I'll go. If it isn't, forget it," Ning Xuan replied once more.
Immortal Aunt Yaozhen fell silent.
Taking his earlier lecherous behavior into account, she now understood what sort of person the general she'd come to assist was.
She began wondering why she'd left the Imperial Capital and decided to assist this young man in the first place.
Oh.
Now she remembered.
The memorial had said, "At Manfeng Mountain, he slew demons like rolling thunder and crashing lightning, cowing all evil. He even subdued the arrogance of the Great General's personal guards. He also killed a Celestial Master and a demonic, plague-bearing Daoist Boy; all were petty villains secretly plotting mischief."
Immortal Aunt Yaozhen had imagined a valiant general and thought she might not find a better candidate even if she kept waiting. So she'd chosen him, accepted the imperial decree, and come to assist him. Yet upon arriving, she'd been greeted with, "So, I want to sleep with you. Would His Majesty approve?" and "Does it have anything to do with us?"
"Chang Qing Heavenly Venerate, quell my anger."
"Chang Qing Heavenly Venerate, quell my anger."
Immortal Aunt Yaozhen repeated the words silently to herself several times, suppressing the inexplicable flare of irritation.
As they spoke, barking suddenly rang out up ahead.
The lead hound abruptly collapsed. The other hounds surrounded it, barking.
Soldiers from the Blazing Fire Camp rushed forward and unleashed a blaze. Screams rang through the air. Then a cloud of black smoke, like cooking smoke, rose into the sky. The soldiers nearby watched with grim, tense faces.
They looked at the hound, now burned black.
One soldier steeled himself and stepped forward, splitting it open with a single slash. The hound fell into two halves, and a large chunk of its belly was missing, as if it had vanished into thin air.
A powerful chill of dread rose within them.
The army pressed on.
The barking grew more frequent.
Before long, the Hunter Gang's hounds had all been used up.
The closer they got to Ping'an Prefecture, the more numerous those invisible ghostly things became.
That didn't mean Ping'an Prefecture had already fallen. It was simply that Ning Xuan's group was traveling along the northbound road. Thirty li farther on, they could turn right toward Ping'an Prefecture, or continue straight to the ice mountain Immortal Aunt Yaozhen had mentioned. So there was nothing strange about it.
It also confirmed that those ghostly things were very likely connected to the ice mountain.
At the same time, both Immortal Aunt Yaozhen and Ugly Slave had sensed the demonic aura.
It was faint, yet it blotted out the sky and covered the land.
Ning Xuan suddenly stopped his horse.
As soon as he stopped, everyone else did too.
Ning Xuan said, "There's still a long road ahead. Have the soldiers fall back ten li and set up camp."
He was prepared to sacrifice soldiers, but the sacrifices in front of them were meaningless—and the danger had no visible end.
Ugly Slave furrowed his brow.
Ning Xuan suddenly said, "Celestial Master Ugly, you stay behind too."
Ugly Slave was about to speak.
Ning Xuan glanced at the horse he was riding, then at Immortal Aunt Yaozhen floating in midair, and asked, "Celestial Master Ugly, can you do what Yaozhen can?"
Ugly Slave shook his head.
He'd been paying attention for a long time. The Celestial Master from the Imperial Capital had been flying the whole way, and he couldn't do that.
But—
"No. I have to go in with you."
"Celestial Master Ugly, you should stay outside and be ready to back me up. If I run out of strength and make it back out, at least someone out here will be able to help hold them off."
"Then be careful."
Half an hour later.
The Young General walked deeper into the area, the Beast-Slaying Longsword strapped to his back.
He used the Bodhisattva Golden Body to seal off every "aperture" around himself, rendering all the ghostly things utterly useless.
At first, he'd tried to kill them. But as he went deeper on foot, he gave up.
There were too many.
They were packed together like mosquitoes and flies on a summer day.
He glanced at Immortal Aunt Yaozhen beside him.
A shapeless golden sphere of light surrounded Immortal Aunt Yaozhen. Black, smoke-like things constantly rushed into its surface, but no matter how fast they moved outside, they slowed to a crawl as soon as they entered the golden sphere. As Immortal Aunt Yaozhen moved, the sluggish wisps were flung far behind.
Ning Xuan wasn't surprised by this scene.
Before setting out, he'd already discussed it with Immortal Aunt Yaozhen.
He'd learned two things.
First, Celestial Masters were divided into ranks.
The ranking system was strange: First-Rank was the lowest, and there was no known upper limit.
By the usual system for ranking officials, First-Rank should actually have been the highest.
Why was it arranged this way?
Because no one knew what level a "Celestial Master" could reach. So whenever one underwent a qualitative transformation, they were promoted by one rank. Naturally, the lowest rank was First-Rank.
A Celestial Master who could see through mountains to the landscape beyond, move mountains and subdue Divine Souls, burrow several li underground in three breaths, form a Celestial Master Seal and fling it around to knock demons unconscious—that was a First-Rank Celestial Master.
A Celestial Master who could sense the land for more than ten li, establish Yue Zhang, shrink the distance between places so that enemies couldn't move even half a step no matter what they did, burrow underground in an instant, and recover extremely quickly, among other abilities—that was a Second-Rank Celestial Master.
Of course, there were also Third-Rank Celestial Masters.
Immortal Aunt Yaozhen was on the threshold of Third-Rank.
By this system, Ugly Slave was on the threshold of Second-Rank.
There was a whole rank between them, so Ning Xuan naturally hadn't brought his eldest brother.
Second, Golden Body Demonic Creatures were an extremely unusual and troublesome kind of demon, and so far, they were also extremely rare. They weren't very susceptible to Celestial Masters' suppression, yet they could use their Golden Bodies to unleash tremendous physical strength. They were exceedingly difficult to deal with.
Their existence was shrouded in mystery. Other demons came in swarms, but these always traveled alone.
Fortunately, every Golden Body Demonic Creature had an extremely fragile true body. That might have been their only weakness.
Even the strongest Generals had only ever possessed powerful flesh and blood. None had ever possessed a Golden Body.
One could say that Generals were all rational flesh-and-blood demons wearing human skin.
But Ning Xuan was different.
He had both a Golden Body and flesh and blood.
So he thought he could cautiously take a couple of steps forward and see whether that terrifying Stealing Incense Rat had really made its way here.
Before you continue