After a round of questioning...
"Hou Niao, a criminal investigator from Fufeng City, Sanjiang Prefecture, Anhe Kingdom? You were offered as a sacrifice? So you came to our Quanzhen Sect for comfort because you couldn't swallow your resentment?
I'm warning you, if you tell us so much as one lie, don't blame us for showing no mercy!"
The fat man stared at him appraisingly. Judging by the fellow's behavior, his story was probably true. Such cases were common. Just as the Daoist Sect accepted disciples regardless of their origins, the Quanzhen Sect recruited without regard for background. People from any country on the continent were welcome. As long as they came, they had a chance.
The thin man spoke with ill intent. "I'm Bamboo Pole? And they're Fat Pig, Bear, and Bookworm? I don't remember us introducing ourselves that way."
Hou Niao had no answer. Giving people nicknames at random was indeed unkind. He could hardly explain that he had only spoken so viciously to vent his anger for a moment. Without saying anything more, he simply handed over the white scholar's robe he was holding.
"I had nothing to wear when I went down, so..."
The scholar frowned in disgust. He was a fastidious man. "I don't want it anymore!"
The fat man was thorough. "Where did you get those talismans, pills, and Daoist books?"
A set of ten talismans covering all five elements; an unopened bottle of twenty pills; three volumes of Daoist texts, each containing profound meaning. These were not things a rogue cultivator should have on him. Such cultivators generally carried three talismans and a couple of pills, all jumbled together. How could their possessions be so neatly organized?
Hou Niao kept his expression unchanged. "The Anhe Daoist Sect gave them to me. They said they were compensation for my sacrifice at the altar. I haven't had time to use them. Well, even now, using them would be a stretch."
The fat man nodded. He was only asking a routine question. The Demonic Sect and the Daoist Sect planted spies among each other, and even the various internal factions engaged in their own intrigues. Such things were commonplace in the cultivation world, nothing to marvel at.
At a realm like Qi Gathering, what could he find out even if he really was a spy? Only the most trivial matters at the very bottom, still a hundred and eight thousand miles removed from the sect's secrets.
Besides, cultivation was such that once someone became fully immersed in a system, even as they infiltrated it, the system gradually changed them as well. It was a reciprocal relationship. Take this fool, for instance. How many years had he cultivated the Dao? If he really spent ten or several dozen years undercover in Quanzhen, would his feelings run deeper for the Daoist Sect or the Demonic Sect?
Without even noticing, he would be changed, brainwashed... that was the charm of cultivation.
"My surname is Pang. I'm Master Pang! This one's surname is Lu, and he's Second Master Lu. The scholar's surname is Luo, and the big fellow's is Liang. They're the Third and Fourth Masters. The four of us run Right River Town. Remember that, and don't go shooting your mouth off and calling us whatever you like when you're out. Don't sully our good names for nothing!"
Hou Niao settled into the Sword Abode. In truth, apart from not being allowed to take wing and fly far away, he was as free as anyone else in every respect. No one came to restrain him, discipline him, or order him about. His days were quite leisurely.
Taking advantage of this rare stretch of time, Hou Niao explored every corner of Right River Town when he was not cultivating, gradually learning about its social structure, how it operated, and its cultivation forces.
The Shan Kingdom still had a secular monarchy, but the ties between imperial authority and cultivation sects were closer. In other words, its royal family, ministers, and officials were essentially all cultivators. This differed from the Anhe Kingdom, where the Daoist Sect had almost entirely withdrawn from governing the secular world.
This was also a clash between the philosophies of the Daoist Sect and the Demonic Sect. The Daoist Sect favored withdrawing from the world, while the Demonic Sect placed more emphasis on engaging with it. In fact, their aims were the same: to let the common people live in peace and pursue their livelihoods contentedly.
The Great Wind Plains, for instance, was equivalent in nature to a province in the Anhe Kingdom. Its seat of power lay in its largest-and only-city, Jincheng, where a provincial governor presided. In practice, he was the most powerful cultivator in the region.
In the Demonic Sect, strength reigned supreme. Everything else came second.
Beneath the Great Wind Plains were many towns of various sizes like Right River Town, equivalent in nature to Fufeng City in the Anhe Kingdom. Each also had its own garrison commander, responsible for matters ranging from people's livelihoods and public safety to military affairs.
Of course, the emphasis remained on military affairs. In particular, eliminating monsters was their foremost duty. Civil affairs were handled separately by mortals. After all, cultivators were scarce, and most lower-level positions could only be left to mortals.
These four masters constituted Right River Town's office dedicated to dealing with monsters beyond the town, known as the Territorial Patrol Guard. On this point, the Anhe Kingdom could not compare. Fufeng City, for instance, had never had a Daoist genuinely stationed there, only an inspection once every few years.
There were many reasons for this difference. The Daoist Sect and the Demonic Sect differed in philosophy, and Daoists preferred roaming among mountains and great rivers. Most importantly, because of its geography, the Anhe Kingdom's monsters were mostly concentrated in a few rivers, making them relatively easy to control.
In most countries, however, monsters were scattered throughout the countryside. Without cultivators on the front lines, once disaster struck, relief could easily prove inadequate, the whip too short to reach.
Four people were rather few, but considering cultivators' formidable strength, perhaps it was perfectly normal?
Right River Town's garrison commander was its strongest combatant, but Hou Niao had not had the opportunity to meet him. His realm was still too limited and his abilities too meager for the man to bother with him. Right River Town lay right next to Liuyang City in Anhe, and plenty of cultivators traveled back and forth between the two. A mere Qi Gathering cultivator like him did not merit notice.
Hou Niao understood quite clearly that he was basically safe now. Since they had not killed him back in White Poplar Forest, they would not make things difficult for him afterward either, provided he had not deliberately deceived them.
The reason he was confined here was probably that they had sent someone to investigate his background. The distance he had spent nearly two months running might take a true cultivator no more than a day. Or even less.
He only needed to wait here for news. Once everything had been verified, he would set off for Jincheng. That was his true destination.
...The Territorial Patrol Guard sounded imposing, but like the Sword Abode and Tiger Hill, its name did not match the reality.
Tiger Hill was merely an earthen slope a hundred zhang across and no more than twenty zhang high. The Sword Abode was just a stone house that let drafts in from every direction, with nothing inside. The Territorial Patrol Guard was likewise an empty shell of an office, without a gatekeeper, clerk, servant, or kitchen...
Four authorized positions, four actual personnel. One radish for each hole.
Yet Hou Niao saw something different in it: a vigorous, upward-striving vitality!
Did they truly lack the money to build a more luxurious house? Were they truly incapable of choosing better surroundings? Could they really not find servants to pour their tea and fetch their water?
Not necessarily.
It was like the Quanzhen Sect's sword, without tassels to hinder it, without any of the trappings of splendor. Only a keen edge!
The four patrol masters spent their days away from home, generally returning only at night, and sometimes not returning all night;
Being covered in the dust of their travels was the norm, and blood on their bodies was no rare sight either. It made him silently click his tongue.
This was entirely different from the Anhe Daoist Sect's air of drifting clouds and gentle breezes. It was almost as though they practiced two different kinds of cultivation.
Even at night, they kept at it!
In the ground-floor hall of the Sword Abode, the clash of swords never ceased. One man practiced his swordplay, two traded blows, three fought in a melee, four brawled together...
Where did Sword Qi surge in the depths of night? In Tiger Hill's stone chamber, all night long. By Duo Duo, author of The Sword Was Originally Demonic.