As a Daoist—and one belonging to the most powerful Daoist force under heaven—Fan Qingmeng naturally had her own sources of information.
Indeed, throughout every dynasty, the imperial court had been wary of Daoists to the utmost degree. Yet Daoists always found ways to build their own power. It was not that the court did not wish to wipe them out root and branch; it simply could not do so.
Many Daoists built their influence by bestowing favors upon insignificant people. Once those people rose to prominence, their power base would follow.
Take Fan Qingmeng, for instance. Though she was still young, she had already earned a reputation as a living bodhisattva. She distributed porridge and medicine to disaster victims in the Two Rivers region. Without the support of local gentry behind it all, such efforts would have been difficult to carry through.
"More curious than that, though, is the strange turn of events in the mountains. Earlier, I received a message from my sect saying that a Heaven-Answering General had emerged in the Linked Mountains. He bore the mandate of Yellow Heaven; Yellow Heaven entered his dreams and guided him, and he gathered comrades in the mountains. After that, another village in the Linked Mountains had its people repeatedly visited in dreams by their ancestors, who told them that a man of Heavenly Mandate would soon arrive. Then, after a great rainstorm, they dug up a stone statue from a collapsed temple, with the words 'Yellow Heaven Answers the Mandate' carved upon its back. And that was not the end of it. Over the following days, foxes spoke and ghosts whispered. In the end, a hunter from the village cut open a wild beast's belly and found a bright yellow piece of silk inside, bearing the words: 'Yellow Heaven answers