Why had the two cultivators of the Justice Enforcement Bureau appeared here, and why had they carried beast cages, trapping so many wild beasts? Their purpose no longer needed guessing.
Jiang Chen looked at the other beast cage, the one not yet opened, and a surge arose in his heart to cut it to shreds.
How many cultivators had died at Jade Balance Peak? How much had been sacrificed? It was all still vivid in his memory.
So the fierce beasts had not come as a natural disaster — but as a man-made calamity!
Then what meaning was left in all those efforts, all those sacrifices — the elder senior brother who inscribing his own merits before death, the city lord who planted himself atop Upright Brush Peak and skinned his own body to deal with the Killer Rock Bees, the woman who severed her own path and broke through all five palaces... what meaning was there in any of it?
"Don't move." White Lotus rested a hand lightly on Jiang Chen's shoulder, sensing the tremble he could hardly suppress, and said softly: "This time I have truly laid an eye-covering illusion."
In the valley, the transformation from wild beast into fierce beast was at last complete. Because of their brutal natures, many fierce beasts began to slaughter one another on the spot, and for a time the roars did not cease and flesh and blood flew in every direction.
"Is this wave of beasts so few?"
Even as this dissatisfied voice sounded, a cultivator in the robe of the Justice Enforcement Bureau stepped across the air and came.
Jiang Chen instinctively held his breath. To tread the void and walk upon nothing — that was at least the cultivation of the Soaring Dragon realm!
This man's mouth was full of complaint, yet he did not pursue the matter. He hovered still above the valley, struck a hand-seal with both hands, and a sheet of the mountain wall rumbled open, revealing a wide gorge.
From Jiang Chen's angle, he could not see what lay joined beyond the gorge.
Then the seal of the Justice Enforcement Bureau cultivator changed again. Jiang Chen noticed that across the valley floor within his line of sight, faint blood-red array runes flashed and vanished. But arrays and formation matters — the academy taught only foundational knowledge of these. He could not recognize what those array runes signified.
But the newly "born" fierce beasts stopped their slaughter at that. As if controlled by some hand, together they charged into the gorge.
Where would these fierce beasts run to? Which village, which little town? How much grain would they ruin, how many innocent common folk would they swallow?
At the thought, Jiang Chen could not help a murderous intent rising in him.
It was the first time he had felt murderous intent toward the men of the Justice Enforcement Bureau — toward cultivators who, to a degree, represented the Zhuang court.
Understand, for the disciples of a Dao Academy, the Ministry of War, the Justice Enforcement Bureau... these were among the places that were their future haunts.
Granted, to enter the Zhuang court directly after achieving cultivation, to be granted office and title, was the highest pursuit. But not a few found that a more fitting path suited them better, while many others had dreamed, from childhood, of the Justice Enforcement Bureau.
It was an important transcendent force for hunting down criminals, punishing wickedness, and safeguarding the peace of the State of Zhuang.
And these cultivators of the Justice Enforcement Bureau on Jade Balance Peak — what were they doing?
"He must not be killed." White Lotus sensed something and said at once: "If any one of these people died, the Zhuang court would know of it immediately. The reason the guards here are not tight is precisely that the lives of these men are themselves the finest alarm. For the strong one in charge of this matter has a divine skill like a step to the ends of the earth. Once alarmed, he would appear here in an instant. Then even I could not flee."
Jiang Chen could not help a bitter smile. What skill had he, after all, to kill a powerful one of at least the Soaring Dragon realm?
But he did understand one thing. When White Lotus, outside the cave, had failed to kill the two cultivators of the Justice Enforcement Bureau — how could that have been out of regard for his feelings? Plainly, she had not dared.
Now the powerful one of the Justice Enforcement Bureau had departed, and the gorge was rumbling shut.
"What lies beyond that gorge?" Jiang Chen asked.
"I can't take you across." White Lotus shook her head: "That place is not like here. It is laid with a true grand array, and even I dare not venture deep. At most I can tell you my guess."
"What guess?"
"You should know that the chief material of the Meridian-Opening Pill is the Dao meridian of demon beasts. But have you considered — among the many vassal states, the human race numbers tens of hundreds of millions! How vast is the demand for Meridian-Opening Pills? With all those demon beasts, if you killed them to the last, could they breed fast enough? I suspect that the reason demon beasts can go on without end has much to do with these fierce beasts."
This guess had every chance of being true — especially with those fierce beasts before one's eyes, transformed from wild beasts. Then, through some unknown means, transformed into demon beasts born with natural Dao meridians could not be impossible either. After all, there were already special fierce beasts that could wield some sorcery, different from demon beasts only in their lack of sentience.
If this were true, then in a certain sense Jade Balance Peak was one of the Zhuang court's resource bases. It was also the guarantee of the State of Zhuang's development. And it was the very source of the Meridian-Opening Pills required for the cultivation of Dao-gate disciples like Jiang Chen and Ling Chuan.
But...
Those ordinary folk who had died before the fierce beasts.
Those people who, to the very death, stood before the common folk and faced the fierce beasts to fight.
Those people kept in the dark — including Jiang Chen himself.
What, in the end, were they worth?
"If it is so, then why must it be hidden from everyone? Why calmly watch the cultivators of every city domain keep pouring lives into it?" Jiang Chen's voice was low and hoarse; his view of life had received an enormous shock.
"You must understand, all caged demon beasts lose their natural Dao meridian in the next generation." Plainly White Lotus was not entirely certain either; she gazed thoughtful and said: "I think wildness is a necessary element for demon beasts, and slaughter is a certain necessary process. There is in this some hidden secret I do not know, but it decides this outcome. And so this matter must never become widely known; it can only be grasped in the hands of the few, because no one is willing to die without meaning."
Her gaze turned teasing: "Or else, when you become a high official in Xin'an, go ask Zhuang Gaoxian in person?"
When you become a high official, go ask the sovereign of the State of Zhuang.
That was only an ordinary jest.
But it was a sentence that frightened Jiang Chen in particular.
It was not that he had never let his imagination unfurl, imagining that knowing such a thing, how he would act in the future. He firmly believed that whatever reason lay behind the rearing of these fierce beasts, he would stand before those innocent dead and put a stop to such a thing.
But White Lotus's question made him think:
Among those great men in Xin'an, a very large part had risen step by step in cultivation from every city domain. They must have lived through or felt the suffering wrought by rampaging fierce beasts. Among them there must certainly be some who, from childhood, cherished the ideal of guarding the land and reassuring the people, who harbored the ambition of relieving the suffering of all under heaven.
Yet nothing.
In the three hundred-odd years since the founding of the State of Zhuang, everything about fierce beasts still kept the great majority in the dark.
Every youth who had once sworn to change the world had, in the end, been changed by the world!
And not only the State of Zhuang. The State of Yong was so, and all under heaven was so!
Was this not terrible?
How frightening this was!
...
"So — do you want to destroy this place?"
White Lotus deliberately leaned close to his ear, her breath like orchid, and said: "On one side is the Zhuang court you will one day serve, are the Meridian-Opening Pills that cannot be counted. On the other side is the poor common folk of Three Mountain City domain — mm, they don't seem to hold much value after all..."
Jiang Chen had already cut her off: "I want to."
In that moment he did not let his mind think, but handed the decision to instinct, to the generosity and pity at the deepest, most undeniable heart of human nature.
White Lotus looked at him a while, then said: "This is the first thing I would have you do."