Do You Want to Be a Star?

With no way to know whether Xue Qingqiu was spying on them, Xue Mu really wasn't in the mood to do that. And even if Xue Qingqiu didn't mind sending him women, he still didn't want her to think he'd casually sleep with female disciples. That would be extremely inappropriate.

Then they got absorbed in their studies.

Xue Qingqiu had long ago promised to let Xue Mu look through the Star Moon Sect's records as he pleased. Although the main archives weren't in the Capital City, the Capital City had its own records, and Meng Lan had the authority to access them.

Meng Lan was very considerate. She went out to fetch the records, neither showing disappointment nor trying to flirt with him further. She quietly sat beside him, tending the oil lamp so Xue Mu could ask her questions whenever he needed.

She was so considerate that Xue Mu couldn't help admiring her. She knew when to let go, could take a risk, and had the patience to hold steady. She certainly had the qualities needed to shoulder greater responsibilities. The Star Moon Sect had indeed let her talents go to waste before. If she hadn't thought she was about to be pushed out to sell her smiles, she probably wouldn't have lost her composure and rushed to flirt with him.

After looking through the records, Xue Mu finally gained a clearer understanding of the Hundred Flowers Garden.

On the surface, it was called the Hundred Flowers Garden. Within the sect, however, it was known as the Capital Branch. Its branch leader, Zhuo Qingqing, was of the same generation as Xue Qingqiu, and was more than half a year older. She wasn't a core disciple, though, but an inner sect disciple. The Star Moon Sect's inner sect selection was strict, so Zhuo Qingqing already held a very high status. Aside from the sect's elders and the stewards of its various halls, people like her were the sect's backbone.

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There was also a deputy branch leader, but she had been assigned elsewhere recently and wasn't in the Capital City, so Xue Mu hadn't met her. The branch had twenty-four outer sect disciples under its command. Meng Lan was one of them, and Zhuo Qingqing relied on her more than most. That was why Meng Lan had stood at Zhuo Qingqing's side to welcome the Sect Master that day.

These twenty-odd disciples, together with the guards and other people they had recruited, made up the branch's entire strength. Their main responsibilities were several: running and protecting the Hundred Flowers Garden, gathering and transmitting intelligence, and scouting promising talent.

They were all terrible at running a business. After all, they'd all trained in martial arts since childhood, and none of them had ever learned any of this nonsense. Every last one of them got a headache when it came to balancing the books, so how were they supposed to run a business? They had been assigned to manage things because their martial arts aptitude was insufficient and they had little hope of breaking through. At least they'd picked up a few tricks while doing the job.

For them, the most important work was still gathering intelligence and finding promising talent.

Here lay a contradiction. The Capital City was the only place where the Star Moon Sect could operate openly. Both inside and outside the palace, across the court and the countryside, people and factions mingled in a tangled crowd. It should have required a great deal of manpower. Yet the Non-Violation Array kept the sects in check, and most of them didn't want to send many people to the Capital City. Anyone who died there would be a loss, and they didn't send a single expert. As a result, the Capital Branch actually had the fewest people of any branch. The other sects were much the same.

That deputy branch leader had been temporarily loaned to the Lezhou Seven-Mysteries Branch a while ago... The Seven-Mysteries Branch had a full hundred people and had still borrowed staff from the Capital Branch, with Xue Qingqiu's approval... It was clear enough that the Capital Branch had more or less given up. It wasn't going to accomplish anything worthwhile anyway.

Yet Xue Qingqiu didn't seem to care much about it... That could only mean she had another, far more comprehensive channel for gathering intelligence within the palace—one much more useful than the Hundred Flowers Garden. She maintained the Hundred Flowers Garden because it allowed her to associate openly with the Imperial Court, which mattered for her long-term plans. That was why she was so eager for Xue Mu to turn the Hundred Flowers Garden around.

Once he had sorted through all this information, Xue Mu ran it through his mind and realized how important it was to Xue Qingqiu that he had brought the Six Fan Gates onto their side. It was a foothold that let her bring her long-term plans into the present—in other words, it saved her ten years of struggle.

He also noticed a serious flaw in the Star Moon Sect's intelligence network.

He had mentioned earlier that the Joyous Union Sect had already reached into the beds of the powerful. Xue Qingqiu had seemed contemptuous, but she was doing the same thing herself. It would be strange if the Demon Sect's seductresses didn't try to lure the powerful. They weren't just doing it in the Capital City; the branches everywhere were doing the same. The records showed that of the Capital Branch's twenty-four outer sect disciples, three had become concubines to powerful men, and one had even become a wife. By the same logic, disciples of Righteous Path sects might have married Star Moon Sect members too. It was a true design upon the entire world.

Their methods differed from the Joyous Union Sect's. Their principles were one reason; another was that the Star Moon Sect's techniques could conceal their origins. Moon-Illusion Star-Concealment, after all. As long as they took care to hide themselves, it was hard for anyone to tell where they came from. This meant the Star Moon Sect preferred to plant hidden agents rather than reveal their identities. They would "happen" to meet someone in the martial world, or fall in love with him—methods with a touch more refinement. The benefits were obvious: those few Star Moon Sect women held high positions in their households, and their husbands didn't even know they came from the Demon Sect...

But the flaws were just as obvious. It was far too slow. This operation had already been underway for several years, yet they had made so little progress. The other places were probably much the same. When would this really start to pay off? Was it another plan that would take ten years, or even a century?

That was why Xue Qingqiu had said that some things simply couldn't be achieved within the next few generations. It was nothing but Yu Gong moving mountains.

Xue Mu sighed and closed his eyes, deep in thought.

The Star Moon Sect had such deep foundations. Xue Qingqiu was indeed a great leader who had revitalized the sect in her generation. Her many plans had already laid an incredibly solid groundwork, so whatever Xue Mu wanted to do now had a foundation to build on. It was ten thousand times easier than starting from scratch.

Where Xue Mu mainly surpassed her was in having plenty of ways to drastically shorten the time her plans would take. Take the situation at hand: who knew how many people wanted to buy Qianqian's freedom? If he could make one Qianqian famous, he could make a second one famous too. It wouldn't be hard to send dozens of girls, or even all the outer sect disciples, out into the world. But he didn't want to rely on that in the long term. Mainly because, in his mind, brothels were just too low-class... He really didn't want to look back on what he'd done after crossing into this world and find that his first grand achievement had been becoming a brothel keeper.

The Star Moon Sect should completely separate itself from the Joyous Union Sect and leave the flesh-selling to them. The Star Moon Sect could take the high-end route—in other words, the star route.

It would be best to absorb the Joyous Union Sect. Then they'd have people for the high-end route and people for selling flesh, giving them a monopoly over the industry. At the very least, they needed to beat the Joyous Union Sect into submission, make them share their resources, and get them to follow basic orders. That had to be the Star Moon Sect's first key objective in the near future.

Although the Joyous Union Sect was one of the great Demon Sect powers and had competed with the Star Moon Sect for a thousand years, it hadn't produced a Void-Piercing Realm expert for two or three generations. It was only holding on to its high-end strength with some dual-cultivation techniques. That was why its members had grown more and more debauched over the years—they were desperate. In the past, they'd at least been particular about whom they preyed on. Now they were simply too hungry to be choosy...

This was an opportunity. If he could find a way to make them suffer a few more heavy losses, then have Xue Qingqiu show up and intimidate them before offering them a few sweet dates, it was entirely possible to bring them to heel.

While mulling it over, he asked casually, "Meng Lan, would you like to be a star?"

Meng Lan blinked. "What does 'star' mean?"

"Uh... Someone like Qianqian, for example..."

Before he could finish, Meng Lan's face turned deathly pale. "Young Master, you..."

Xue Mu immediately realized how that sounded and hurried to explain. "That's not what I meant. Uh, let me use a different example. Someone like Mu Jianli. Would you want that?"

Meng Lan breathed a sigh of relief, a sheen of sweat still visible on her forehead. "Young Master, you scared me to death... Mu Jianli is a once-in-a-generation talent. How could we compare?"

"So... why does someone have to practice martial arts to become famous?" Xue Mu tried another approach, coaxing her along. "Look at these past few days. Is Three-Good Scholar Xue famous?"

Meng Lan immediately began flattering him. "Speaking of that, Young Master has been the talk of the Capital City lately. Even Qianqian can't compare. Do you know? There have always been many writers who were looked down on and frustrated for years. But recently, your name has spread far and wide. Even the emperor praised your stories. Many writers have begun to see you as a pioneer and guide. I hear all sorts of strange articles have suddenly started appearing lately..."

Xue Mu hadn't expected to cause such a reaction. He thought it over, then suddenly laughed. "All right, I'll see what's out there in the market one of these days. Perhaps being a guide could have some unexpected uses. The Hundred Schools, after all—why shouldn't the Novelists be one of them?"

Meng Lan smiled. "You aren't going to make me write stories too, are you? I don't have that kind of talent."

Xue Mu ran his finger over the records describing Meng Lan. "You've trained your body and cultivated your qi to good effect, reaching the Form-Manifestation Stage, but you've been stuck there for two years without making any progress. There's little hope of reaching the Soul-Entwining Realm... Hmm... You learned the zither as a child, and you're quite skilled?"

Meng Lan looked a little embarrassed. "My martial arts aptitude is only so-so, but I'm decent at the zither."

"Hmm... Martial arts aptitude isn't important..." Xue Mu stroked his chin, thinking. "Zither Immortal Meng Lan. That has a nice ring to it."

Meng Lan was completely baffled. Could someone really be given the title of Zither Immortal just like that?

She was about to ask when a strange sound suddenly came from outside the Bamboo Pavilion. It sounded as if someone had fallen to the ground, followed by a stifled cry.

Meng Lan sprang to her feet. "An assassin!"