Jiao Liqiao 4
Now, news of Jiao Liqiao had suddenly surfaced again. Although they knew how dangerous the witch was, for their senior brother's sake, they had no choice but to take the risk.
Unfortunately, after bathing the Women's Residence on Fragrant Mountain in blood, Jiao Liqiao had vanished without a trace again.
Jiao Liqiao, who had vanished without a trace, had recalled the First-Rank Tomb from Jiao Liqiao's memories after Jin Mantang presented the Luomo Heavenly Ice.
Previously, Jiao Liqiao had been waiting for the right opportunity because she had not found a suitable expert to break through the mechanisms in the First-Rank Tomb. But now that a different soul inhabited her body, Jiao Liqiao was well versed in everything from the five elements and eight trigrams to astronomy and geography, so she naturally had the confidence to explore the First-Rank Tomb.
Thus, she gathered supplies as she made her way to the First-Rank Tomb. Once inside, she saw why the original Jiao Liqiao had not dared rashly send people in: not only would it have been a pointless waste of lives, but they could easily have triggered the mechanisms and caused the tomb to seal itself completely.
Jiao Liqiao did not hesitate, sweeping all the gold, silver, and treasures in the tomb into the Chaos Pearl. These could also be considered property of Nanyin, so Jiao Liqiao did not intend to keep them for herself. Once she was out, she planned to exchange them all for supplies and send them back to the Outer Realm, putting them to use for the people.
The First-Rank Tomb was indeed worthy of having been built by Nanyin craftsmen. Besides the Luomo Ding, the goal of Jiao Liqiao's trip, the main burial chamber held Asura Grass, a Nanyin specialty. She even found Guanyin's Tear, a rare divine medicine, in Consort Xuan's mouth.
All in all, she had reaped a bountiful harvest.
Jiao Liqiao also brought Consort Xuan's body out of the First-Rank Tomb, intending to take her back to the Outer Realm for a separate burial. It was also a good way to win the people's hearts.
As for Prince Fangji, he was naturally left where he was to enjoy the special treatment his imperial father had given him.
After leaving the First-Rank Tomb, Jiao Liqiao found a deserted place and took out Consort Xuan's coffin and the treasures from the tomb, setting them in place. Only then did she send a signal to notify the Nanyin Cult members who had remained in Great Xi to come exchange the valuables for supplies and transport them to Nanyin. As for Consort Xuan's remains, Jiao Liqiao picked several skilled fighters to escort them personally back to the Nanyin Cult.
Upon receiving Jiao Liqiao's message, Feng Qing had already taken people to select an auspicious site and begun building a tomb. He had also chosen an auspicious day based on when it would be completed, preparing to relocate Consort Xuan's grave.
Word that Jiao Liqiao had brought back the Nanyin princess had also long since spread. This princess held great prestige in the hearts of Nanyin's surviving people, so Jiao Liqiao's action had indeed won over many hearts.
To avoid burdening the people and draining their wealth, most of the labor for Consort Xuan's tomb was provided by slaves captured during earlier bandit extermination campaigns, with many mechanical tools used to assist them. As a result, construction did not take long: Consort Xuan's tomb was completed in just one year.
Jiao Liqiao then led all the people of Nanyin in a solemn ceremony, after which they laid Consort Xuan-no, she should be called the Nanyin princess-to rest once more.
From then on, the Nanyin Cult had won the people's hearts. After several years of research, many machines beneficial to the nation and its people had been invented alongside a number of luxury goods. Although efforts to increase crop yields had yet to bear fruit, they had discovered that cotton was best suited to the bitterly cold lands of the Outer Realm. Besides being made into cotton cloth, cotton was highly effective at keeping out the winter cold when made into padded jackets or bedding.
Moreover, because of the bitter cold in the Outer Realm, someone had invented a heated kang, ideally suited for keeping out the winter cold. With the coal produced by the mines discovered there, it could burn for a long time.
Many other things beneficial to the people also spread to Great Xi through Nanyin, greatly improving everyone's quality of life. Heated kangs and cotton in particular were both good and inexpensive, affordable even to many ordinary people. As a result, the survival rate of children in winter rose considerably.
Since most of Great Xi was made up of plains, and most of its land was planted with grain, the cotton grown there was made into cloth. Relatively little was used to make padded jackets and bedding.
The Outer Realm, on the other hand, was bitterly cold, and only plants capable of withstanding severe cold could be grown there. Cotton was one of them, and as it became plentiful, many uses for it were discovered by chance. After it spread to Great Xi, the prices of both cotton cloth and padded jackets fell considerably.
In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed since the great battle at the Eastern Sea.
The Nanyin Cult in the Outer Realm had now invented many things beneficial to the nation and its people, and had even developed higher-yielding rice and wheat, all of which it sold at fair prices to neighboring countries, including Great Xi. As a result, the Nanyin Cult enjoyed an excellent reputation. Although it had expanded over the years to the size of a small country, its neighbors had maintained friendly trade relations with it.
This was because, first, aside from weapons of immense power, the Nanyin Cult did not keep its inventions to itself; they all became goods traded with other countries. Second, although Nanyin had unified the Outer Realm, it had no intention of invading other countries. The Nanyin Cult was especially strong in martial might: besides everyone practicing martial arts, it possessed many immensely powerful weapons of war. Thus, when they could trade with one another and coexist peacefully, no one was willing to stir up trouble by provoking the Nanyin Cult.
After all, although the Nanyin Cult had an excellent reputation, its leader and holy maiden, Jiao Liqiao, was not someone to be trifled with. Leaving aside how vicious and deranged she had been during her time in the Golden Mandarin Duck Alliance, even after she had journeyed to the Outer Realm and founded the Nanyin Cult, seemingly no longer slaughtering innocents, the souls of the dead on her hands were no fewer.
Whether they were mountain bandits and mounted robbers from the Outer Realm or evildoers of the Central Plains' martial world, Jiao Liqiao had killed every last one of them over the years.
To put it this way, although the martial world had lost Li Xiangyi over the years, its order had actually improved because of Jiao Liqiao. She was more ruthless than Li Xiangyi and even less reasonable. Even if the evildoers belonged to the Hundred Rivers Courtyard or the Golden Mandarin Duck Alliance, Jiao Liqiao killed them all the same once she had verified their crimes, giving face to no one.
Everyone in the martial world who harbored evil intentions or had committed evil in the past lived in fear and trepidation.
Over the years, the Nanyin Cult had continued to draw talented people from the Great Xi dynasty who were skilled in the various crafts but had been unable to fulfill their ambitions.
The Divine Weapon Valley, for example, had now relocated to the Outer Realm. After all, its people excelled at making weapons, a taboo in the Great Xi dynasty. Even as a martial-world sect, they had lived in constant fear. But after arriving in the Outer Realm, they were like bees dropped into honey, living happily every day.
The Nanyin Cult neither prohibited any of their research, nor used its martial strength to seize their patents, nor restricted their purchase of any mineral resources. The only condition was that weapons they developed with excessive destructive power could be sold only to the Nanyin Cult, but the prices were fair. This had been agreed upon before they came to the Outer Realm.
The Great Xi court was also quite happy, apart from the emperor.
Great Xi was a traditional feudal dynasty founded chiefly on Confucianism and had always viewed other schools of thought with wariness. Therefore, for the sake of their own positions and interests, they did not prohibit talented people from other schools from leaving either.