"With you handling matters, Governor Mei, I naturally have nothing to worry about." Qing Chen patted his shoulder warmly, quite satisfied with the display.
He then sailed ostentatiously into Suzhou's Pass City with the ceremonial retinues of both the Northwestern Governor-General and the Protector of the Western Regions.
The blue-black fortune of mountains and rivers formed a long dragon that coiled around the warship, while the banners of the Northwestern Circuit-Surveying Governor, the Protector of the Western Regions, and the Azure Abyss Marquis fluttered in the wind.
Along the way, Suzhou's officials, sect cultivators, and aristocratic clan elders all came out of the city to welcome him, all smiles and genial conversation, bowing and scraping. The grandeur nearly surpassed that of an imperial prince arriving at his fief.
Outside the Nian Ancestral Residence, Qing Chen finally met Nian Yao, his predecessor's predecessor.
This former Northwestern Circuit-Surveying Governor was not particularly burly, though his shoulders and back were straight. He had a square face and broad forehead, with some gray already showing at his temples.
He wore an imperially bestowed dark teal python robe, a scarlet gold and jade belt around his waist, and a dark red thumb ring on his right hand.
He had a forceful bearing naturally cultivated through years of commanding troops.
"I am Nian Yao. Governor-General Qing, your great name has long thundered in my ears!"
Nian Yao stepped forward to greet him with a smile. "In the battle outside Yanmen Pass, you defeated Dugu Nine Kills head-on and cowed the armies of the northwest into submission. Even an idler like me, retired for so many years, found it as earth-shattering as stone splitting and the heavens shaking."
"You flatter me, Head of the Nian Household." Qing Chen smiled gently.
"When you governed the northwest, you built