As soon as Wang Yulou returned to the clan, he imrsed himself in artifact refining. Consequently, Wang Rongjiang, the current Patriarch, found no opportunity to secure a private audience with him.
Upon learning that Wang Yulou had finally descended from Dumb Donkey Plain, Wang Rongjiang wasted no ti sending a transmission to request a eting.
"Uncle Rongjiang, you've worked hard these past few years," Wang Yulou said upon eting him. "With things so frantic on the front lines, I truly couldn't find the ti to return. You've borne an imnse amount of pressure on behalf of the family, effectively shielding from bla. I'm well aware of the hardships you've faced."
Had things been difficult for Wang Rongjiang? Trendously so.
However, Wang Yulou hadn't returned to solve his administrative headaches. Back then, Wang Yulou had consud two and a half shares of the clan's Foundation Establishnt resources to secure his breakthrough.
In truth, it would be only natural for him to spend his entire life repaying that debt of gratitude.
"Yulou..."
Wang Rongjiang's throat tightened, unsure of how to begin. Over the past century, seizing the opportunity presented by Ancestral Master Mangxiang's Great Favor Distribution after attaining his Golden Core, the Wang Clan had reached the absolute zenith of its historical power under Wang Xianmao's leadership.
Yet, as the Patriarch who had forged this golden era, Wang Xianmao had chosen to step down at the height of his influence. He had gone to the West Sea to serve as Wang Yulou's right hand, seeking to propel the young genius even further so the Wang Clan might eventually ascend to greater heights.
This left Wang Rongjiang in an incredibly awkward position when he inherited the mantle of Patriarch. Above him sat three towering figures—Wang Xianmao, Wang Jingyi, and Wang Yulou.
Every single one of them possessed the authority to command him. Ancestor Jingyi had long focused her developnt within the sect and made no personal demands regarding the distribution of the Wang Clan's internal benefits.
Wang Xianmao, having served as Patriarch for centuries, understood Wang Rongjiang's difficulties perfectly and never sought to make things harder for him. The only real issue lay with Wang Yulou.
Ever since he pushed for the division of the Wang family branches, he had constantly interfered in the clan's personnel matters. Furthermore, after taking up his official post on the front lines, Wang Yulou felt compelled to maintain an image of absolute impartiality.
Not only could he not leverage his position to aid the Wang Clan, but he also had to suppress his own kinsn to set a proper example for others.
It was important to note that even though organizations ranging from the Red Lantern Sect to the Immortal Alliance were fundantally harvesting apparatuses established by grand cultivators, their formal nature and internal operational logic were entirely different matters.
The grand cultivators might be predatory beasts, and the primary purpose of these organizations was to help them 'consu' practitioners more efficiently, but the system still maintained its own tacitly accepted codes of justice.
As a mid-to-high-level figure within the Red Lantern Sect, Wang Yulou needed to lead by example in nurous public affairs to convince the masses and deny his adversaries any leverage to attack him. Thus, even though he possessed the practical power to secure pri placents for his kinsn, he couldn't afford to help them wholesale.
Yet, to the specific individuals denied these favors, this restraint was a massive grievance. Balancing cold logic with familial obligation was an agonizingly difficult tightrope to walk.
Back when Wang Xianmao was Patriarch, it had required his absolute focus to maintain equilibrium and prevent widespread chaos. Wang Rongjiang simply didn't possess that level of control.
Refusing to provide wholesale assistance bred resentnt and destabilized the hearts of the clan. Wang Rongjiang felt like nothing more than a tool, carrying out Wang Yulou's demands while bearing the infamy on his behalf.
"Uncle Rongjiang, I know exactly how hard this has been for you," Wang Yulou continued, sensing his uncle's distress. "However, these troubleso matters are finally coming to an end. Ancestor Jingyi, Ancestor Xianmao, and I have already finalized our grand design. We will transform the clan into a sect, establishing the West Mountain Sect!"
The fundantal difficulty of clan governance stemd from the fact that blood relations inherently compromised the relative fairness of resource allocation. Kinship was a peculiar chanism.
When a clan was weak and vulnerable, it served as a powerful bond, drawing people together to drive rapid developnt. However, once a clan grew past a certain threshold, those very ties of blood made it nearly impossible to maintain internal equity.
More often than not, it required mbers to endure grievances for the sake of the collective. Granted, if a leader possessed sufficient resolve, they could enforce strict justice during the assignnt of tasks and rewards.
Yet, a kinship bond stripped of its function as a bargaining chip would eventually be dismantled by absolute ritocracy. There would always be endless individual exceptions, but over the course of long-term developnt, this outco was an absolute certainty.
Therefore, now that the Wang Clan boasted seventeen Foundation Establishnt cultivators, transitioning into a formal sect had to be placed on the imdiate agenda.
"Transforming the clan into a sect... establishing the West Mountain Sect?"
Wang Rongjiang had never expected such a montous revelation from Wang Yulou. Thoroughly disconcerted, he could only blankly repeat the joint decision made by Wang Yulou, Wang Jingyi, and Wang Xianmao.
Unlike the iron-fisted Wang Xianmao of old, Wang Rongjiang's role as Patriarch was highly reminiscent of Jiuqu, the Mountain Lord of Wondrous Peak Mountain, or Zou Tianxing, the Sect Master of the Red Lantern Sect—he was rely an administrative tool. This was an inescapable reality of their growth.
When Wang Xianmao held absolute power, the Wang Clan had still been in its nascent stages of developnt.
Now, counting the direct lineage Foundation Establishnt cultivators, those with external surnas, those embedded within the sect, those stationed in the West Sea, and the connections brought by Wang Yulou's dao companions, the family possessed a staggering seventeen Foundation Establishnt experts.
For a clan of this magnitude, the notion of a single Patriarch dictating every minor affair by personal decree was nothing short of a farce.
"Indeed," Wang Yulou explained.
"In the next round of our counteroffensive, we will comnce operations from the Southern Front. The sector stretching from the Southern Front's Southern Leaf Kingdom to the Middle Front's Four Bright Sect will serve as our primary vector of assault. Our objective is to completely reclaim the final pocket of territory that fell into enemy hands."
Hearing Wang Yulou's breakdown, Wang Rongjiang's eyes lit up as the pieces fell into place.
"Following the Frog Emperor's intervention, the Four Bright Sect was practically exterminated. A significant portion of the lands they left behind happens to sit right within this unrecovered pocket. Are you suggesting our Wang Clan establish its sect directly upon that territory?"
A mid-tier clan like the Wang Clan couldn't afford the luxury of letting complete fools achieve Foundation Establishnt. The fact that Wang Rongjiang had required two and a half shares of resources didn't an he was brainless.
He understood Wang Yulou's intent imdiately. Precisely.
"This unrecovered battlefront is roughly six hundred li in length. In so areas, it spans over four hundred li in width, while narrowing to two hundred li in others.
"Its total surface area is more than three tis that of the Anbei Kingdom. When you factor in the surrounding peripheral regions that haven't yet been claid by other subordinate forces of the Red Lantern Sect, the entire territory asures about eight hundred li long and three to five hundred li wide.
"While it naturally cannot compare to the massive scale of Wondrous Peak Mountain, it is already close to the size of the Southern Leaf Kingdom."
Wang Rongjiang had initially harbored deep reservations. Given the current bloody stalemate between the Red Lantern Sect and the Sky Serpent Sect, establishing the West Mountain Sect directly behind the active front lines would normally carry catastrophic risks. However, Wang Yulou's concluding statent was incredibly tantalizing—it was close to the size of the Southern Leaf Kingdom. As everyone knew, the Southern Leaf Kingdom was a territory governed by a Purple Palace entity, a realm that sustained that ancient wretch, Nan Ye Ke. Spurred by this realization, Wang Rongjiang probed carefully, "Yulou, could it be that Aunt Jingyi is finally on the verge of successfully opening her Purple Palace?"
Following the severe injuries Wang Jingyi had sustained, her tiline for attempting the Purple Palace breakthrough had been pushed back indefinitely.
When Wang Rongjiang had traveled to the Red Lantern Sect to pay his respects a few years ago, Ancestor Jingyi was still in deep seclusion, nursing a damaged foundation. Her breakthrough had seed entirely out of reach.
"No. Furthermore, even when Ancestor Jingyi does open her Purple Palace, she will remain embedded within the core of the Red Lantern Sect. The West Mountain Sect is not being prepared for her alone."
"Then you..."
"I have even less need for the West Mountain Sect. In the future, my personal Purple Mansion opportunity will either be found within the sect, the Immortal Alliance, or out in the West Sea.
"If none of those three domains can provide with the chance to ascend, then squandering the clan's internal resources to force a breakthrough would be utterly aningless. Uncle Rongjiang, there is no need to keep testing the waters.
"While the clan is indeed transitioning into the West Mountain Sect, the sect won't belong to the Wang Clan alone. I have already negotiated with three other Foundation Establishnt families to join our venture.
"The first is the An family from within the Red Lantern Sect. Their Patriarch, An Hening, shares an excellent relationship with .
"Their clan boasts four Foundation Establishnt cultivators, and all four will join the West Mountain Sect wholesale. The second is the Willow Pond Yang Clan, who specialize in rearing spirit beasts.
"Their Patriarch, Yang Qi, is an old acquaintance of mine. Our racetrack venture has already expanded across more than a dozen market towns under the Red Lantern Sect's jurisdiction.
"Out of their eight Foundation Establishnt cultivators, five will be integrated into the West Mountain Sect. The final group is the Liu Clan of Muddy Pool, who are highly skilled in talisman crafting.
"They have co-hosted the Talisman Master Competition alongside , elevating the event across the entirety of the Red Lantern Sect's territory. Given our extensive history of profitable cooperation, they will also dispatch five Foundation Establishnt experts to join our ranks.
"As such, even before factoring in our own Wang Clan, the West Mountain Sect will debut with fourteen external Foundation Establishnt cultivators. Furthermore, I intend to throw open the mountain gates to openly recruit an additional ten independent Foundation Establishnt experts.
"As for our Wang Clan, excluding myself, Yingxi, Mingdu, Lin Ying, Yu'an, and Uncle Rongsheng, we possess eleven Foundation Establishnt cultivators. Among these eleven, three are stationed permanently in the West Sea, while Ancestor Jingyi and Uncle Rongnian are embedded within the core of the Red Lantern Sect.
"This leaves exactly six Foundation Establishnt experts remaining within the local clan operations. Of these six, assigning four to join the West Mountain Sect will be more than sufficient."
Wang Yulou maintained an incredibly precise blueprint for the West Mountain Sect. Old Patriarch Xianmao had already completely withdrawn from active managent, and Ancestor Jingyi had historically paid little heed to internal clan logistics. When all was said and done, who else but Wang Yulou could steer the destiny of the Wang Clan? Anchoring the new sect with a baseline of twenty-eight Foundation Establishnt cultivators was an exceptionally formidable roster, even when compared against traditional forces ruled by a single Purple Mansion True Man. This grand scale laid bare the sheer scope of Wang Yulou's ambition.
"Yulou, I understand everything else," Wang Rongjiang muttered, his mind reeling.
He had originally approached Wang Yulou simply to vent about his administrative miseries, but the sudden revelations were so massive they bordered on terrifying. Still, he managed to maintain his wits enough to probe further.
"But how do you intend to deploy the three individuals currently stationed in the West Sea?"
On the surface, he was rely asking about the operational status of three specific kinsn. In reality, this question served to test two vital strategic directions.
First, since Wang Yulou had explicitly stated he wouldn't rely on the West Mountain Sect to achieve his Purple Mansion breakthrough, hinting instead at the Red Lantern Sect, the Immortal Alliance, or the West Sea, asking about the West Sea was an attempt to map out Wang Yulou's personal career trajectory.
Second, it was to gauge Wang Yulou's future commitnt to the Wang Clan and the West Mountain Sect. If the young genius intended to center his future operations elsewhere, Wang Rongjiang would have to drastically recalibrate how he aligned himself with his nephew.
The reality was that Wang Yulou, the supre heavenly genius of the Wang Clan, was soaring far too fast and far too high. He had already penetrated the outermost layers of the Red Lantern Sect's absolute core.
The rest of the Wang family could exhaust themselves to the bone and still fail to catch a glimpse of his shadow. Take Wang Rongjiang as an example.
He had achieved Foundation Establishnt more than a decade before Wang Yulou, yet his current cultivation base lagged dramatically behind his nephew's, barely scraping the minor completion of the mid-stage. It was exactly as Wang Xianmao had once observed—not everyone possessed the capacity to share Wang Yulou's profound dread of the future.
Wang Yulou's deep underlying dread stemd from the fact that he actually possessed a brilliant, boundless future. For ordinary cultivators, simply maintaining their daily practice was already an exhausting struggle.
"The personnel in the West Sea will naturally remain exactly where they are," Wang Yulou replied smoothly. "Out there, I operate the combat arenas, the Immortal in Wine House, and the entire infrastructure of the Wang Family's Western Sea Branch. All of these enterprises require trusted hands to anchor them, and three Foundation Establishnt cultivators are the bare minimum. The original Wang Clan at Wang Family Mountain will continue to endure. However, for those kinsn who feel the distribution of resources within the traditional family structure is unfair, transitioning to a sect co-founded by the family will offer them a far vaster sky to spread their wings."
Having climbed to his current height, Wang Yulou could read the underlying motives of ordinary cultivators at a glance. He expertly deflected Wang Rongjiang's probing questions, keeping his ultimate objective entirely to himself. After all, if his true thoughts leaked out, that pack of wretched bastards who spent every waking hour trying to ruin his life would instantly devise a dozen new ways to undermine him.
Nevertheless, while Wang Yulou was intentionally talking in circles, the reason he gave was indeed one of his genuine motivations for establishing the West Mountain Sect. Certain individuals might be nothing more than marginalized background noise within the rigid hierarchy of a clan, yet once placed within a sect, they might find themselves far closer to the center of opportunity.
Since the Wang Clan was one of the founding pillars of the West Mountain Sect, its disciples would naturally enjoy a massive structural advantage over the ordinary masses who joined later as labor disciples. Once those kinsn flourished under the new system, would they not beco reliable assets for him?
As for his investnts in the West Sea, Wang Yulou intended to treat that chaotic frontier as his ultimate contingency plan. Granted, it might not be a particularly stable sanctuary, but a dangerous fallback was infinitely better than being left completely cornered.
Wang Yulou never forgot the fundantal truth: relying on an Immortal Venerable was vastly inferior to relying on oneself. Cultivating a diverse portfolio of different Immortal Venerables to lean on was rely a tactical necessity born of his own ambitions. To put it bluntly, choosing to expand his businesses in a at-grinder like the West Sea—where territories changed hands at the drop of a hat—ant he had completely abandoned any illusion of personal comfort. He was betting everything on the big picture.
He was not gambling on a simple binary of winning or losing. He was gambling to ensure that when the dust settled, he would have an alternative choice.
During the previous grand confrontation, Immortal Venerable Shen Guang had rely suffered a temporary defeat; he was far from dead! Mang Xiang was undeniably terrifying, but what if a day arrived when he refused to grant Wang Yulou an avenue of advancent?
What could Wang Yulou possibly do then? Huddle in a dark corner, weeping helplessly while cursing Mang Xiang for being heartless?
When dealing with a ruthless tyrant, even crying had to be strictly budgeted against the clock. Mang Xiang was infinitely more dangerous than any mortal warlord; if one wept before him, he would likely just burst into mocking laughter.
"But if we drag so many external families into the co-foundation of the West Mountain Sect, who will actually hold the ultimate say within the hierarchy? Setting the others aside, that Willow Pond Yang Clan is far from simple. Among the Daoists I frequent, several have openly mused that the Willow Pond Yang Clan possesses the potential to beco the next Huang Clan. Their business acun is truly extraordinary."
Seeing that he could extract no deeper secrets, Wang Rongjiang wisely abandoned his probing and pivoted to imdiate practical hurdles. Transforming the clan into a sect was an exceptional move on paper, particularly since the territory the West Mountain Sect was poised to claim was pri real estate—vast, extraordinarily wealthy, and saturated with spiritual vitality.
"My relationship with Old An is rock-solid," Wang Yulou countered nonchalantly. "When the ti is right, I will simply take a daughter of the An family as another Dao Companion. Moving forward, our two families will form a cohesive bloc within the sect to balance out the influence of the Yang and Liu clans."
Internal factional struggles were an eternal constant across every corner of existence. While the sheer intensity of the politicking might vary, it would never truly vanish.
The underlying logic was elentary: so long as a system was actively expanding, new distributions of profit would inevitably manifest. Attempting to distribute resources too generously or evenly would rely exhaust the system's long-term potential prematurely, accelerating its descent into structural collapse.
Only by artificially engineering a state of scarcity could a leader satisfy the demands of the system's core founders while maintaining the baseline hunger necessary to sustain the organization over centuries. And when cultivators grew hungry, they would inevitably fight for sustenance. Even the most fanatical cults were plagued by vicious internal schisms. An organization completely devoid of internal friction was an organization with no future.
"Yulou, I still can't shake the feeling that we are rushing into this," Wang Rongjiang murmured, still hesitant. "If we simply bide our ti and develop for another decade or two, we could easily produce another three to five Foundation Establishnt cultivators. If we delay the founding of the West Mountain Sect until then, our leverage would be vastly superior."
"How could the heavens possibly allow us to monopolize every single advantage?" Wang Yulou replied. "Let us look at the imdiate reality—True Person Siming is still very much alive. Inviting an array of powerful Foundation Establishnt families to share the burden helps distribute the massive retaliatory pressure we are bound to face. Otherwise, it would appear as though I am rely abusing the sacred na of our Ancestral Master to ruthlessly trample over True Person Siming.
"My political rivals would instantly seize upon that narrative to hound to the grave. Furthermore, the decisive factor is that I have successfully secured the supre command for the upcoming counteroffensive. We possess exactly one window of opportunity. If this campaign falters, Yi Zouri and Zou Tianxing will instantly lock down all my authority. Should that occur, the chance to help our clan transition into a sect will vanish entirely."
The grand march and sudden turning points of history would never pause to accommodate any single lineage. Regardless of whether the Wang Clan was fully prepared, the fleeting opportunity Wang Yulou had envisioned was manifesting right before them. To let it slip away without a fight would be an unforgivable tragedy.
Whenever a monolithic superpower enjoyed an extended epoch of absolute stability, the internal distribution of wealth beca completely petrified. Low-tier cultivators would squander their entire lifespans chasing the hollow illusion of a future that had already been denied to them. Only when chaos fractured the established order would the potential for true change erge.
Wang Yulou would never dare forget the absolute necessity of change. Before Di Shui departed, she had spent hours imparting wisdom to him, all for the singular purpose of driving him to introduce fresh variables into this stagnant Great Heaven. The one thing the ancient grand cultivators dreaded above all else was unpredictable change. Therefore, regardless of how hasty or imperfect the arrangents might seem, Wang Yulou was fully committed to making his move.
"Yulou, the crucible of war is fraught with catastrophic peril," Wang Rongjiang warned, still burning with reluctant entitlent. He simply could not reconcile himself to splitting such a magnificent, wealthy territory with external families; it felt like a staggering loss.
"Uncle Rongjiang, you have allowed your greed to cloud your vision," Wang Yulou chided gently. "Only by refusing to gorge oneself in isolation can a cultivator walk the long path. This rule applies equally to myself and to the Wang Clan as a collective."
Perhaps pushed past his limits by the relentless, suffocating pressure of the past fifty years—a period that had witnessed an endless parade of new Purple Palace experts erging under Mang Xiang's banner—Wang Rongjiang cast aside his usual deference and uttered a line of sheer arrogance.
"True Person Qiyuan's family has remained a traditional clan structure, yet they have flourished magnificently. The Southern Leaf Kingdom masquerades as an independent immortal nation, but in truth, it is nothing more than the private property of the Nan Ye family. Yes, they possess an active True Person to anchor their operations, allowing them to play the ga by those rules. But our Wang Clan is on the verge of producing our own active True Person as well!"
The fatal, unbridgeable chasm created by a deficit of high-level information and structural perspective laid itself bare in that single sentence. Wang Yulou could only offer a helpless, weary smile.
"Uncle Rongjiang, do you truly believe True Person Qiyuan's family is still a re clan? Gu Tongming serves directly under my command. He is officially designated as the Second Elder of the Gu Family, yet the Gu Family simultaneously maintains five separate Second Elders and three distinct Grand Elders. The Gu Family rely drapes the skin of a traditional clan over what is, in practical reality, a highly specialized sect structure. Even the formal generational characters of their lineage can be openly purchased or earned through institutional promotion.
"As for the Southern Leaf Kingdom, you said it yourself—it is a minor immortal nation. Once a cultivation clan expands past a critical threshold, they are left with exactly two paths: either maintain the superficial facade of a family while operating as a functional sect, or discard the pretense entirely and embrace a total sect transformation. There is no third option.
"As for your suggestion to wait... I, too, would love nothing more than to bide my ti. However, the shifting tides of this brutal war will not accommodate my personal comfort. On the contrary, the escalating crisis is the exact reason I must urgently organize this counteroffensive. Never let those words cross your lips again. I am a son of the Wang Clan, yes, but I am first and foremost a Core Disciple of the Red Lantern Sect. When it cos to the execution of this war, my sword must serve the grand strategic interests of the sect!"
Possessing absolute clarity regarding one's station was a paramount virtue.
Wang Yulou could not, and must not, compromise the institutional interests of the Red Lantern Sect to line his own pockets. At the very least, he could not afford to do so right now. While principles were fundantally ant to be shattered and Sacred Decrees did not endure for eternity, the institutional restrictions of the present day exerted a very real, very dangerous chokehold on Wang Yulou's freedom of maneuver. From this vantage point, the hostile vigilance of Yi Zouri and Zou Tianxing was producing its intended effect.
The absolute authority of Candlelight Immortal Venerable over the destiny of the Red Lantern Sect was vividly demonstrated through their actions. The entity Wang Yulou genuinely feared was never the mid-tier lackeys; it was the looming shadow of Candlelight Immortal Venerable standing squarely behind Yi Zouri and Zou Tianxing.
"I... I failed to consider the wider picture," Wang Rongjiang stamred, entirely deflated. He suddenly realized that Wang Yulou had not achieved his terrifying ascent through re fortune or opportunism. Had he been thrust into Wang Yulou's exact seat, he likely would have been crushed into dust long before reaching his nephew's current heights.
*
Although Wang Yulou had officially held the prestigious title of the Fragrant Bamboo Market Town Guardian Cultivator for over half a century, the sum total of the days he had actually spent residing within the market town likely did not amount to a single fortnight.
Throughout these decades, the administrative logistics of the Fragrant Bamboo Market had initially been handled by Guo Chengtai. Later, Wang Yulou secured an official transfer from the core of Dripdrop Cave, extracting Qin Churan alongside Lin Ying to serve as his primary operational agents. Lin Ying had been deployed to the Northern Front, overseeing the outsourced branch of the rit Hall on Wang Yulou's behalf. anwhile, Qin Churan had been dispatched to the Fragrant Bamboo Market to act as the de facto Town Guardian Cultivator in his stead.
Little Qin's personal cultivation base barely scraped the baseline of the Qi Refining realm, but the position of a front-line Town Guardian had never been determined by raw combat power—it was purely a matter of political eligibility. Since Wang Yulou declared she possessed the eligibility, she possessed it. As for whether her ager strength would cause the market town to fall under an enemy assault, that was even less of a concern.
Given the market's proximity to the absolute teeth of the front lines between the two warring superpowers, if the Fragrant Bamboo Market were ever breached, it would an the primary defense lines had already completely collapsed. In a catastrophic scenario where the entire front line shattered, the survival of a single market town beca entirely irrelevant. Serving as Wang Yulou's proxy guardian did not an she could simply cower inside the fortified estate and focus on her private cultivation.
In a state of total mobilization, a Town Guardian was saddled with a staggering array of logistical mandates. While the vast majority of these tasks could be delegated to Wang Yulou's subordinate network, there remained several core institutional procedures that Qin Churan could not circumvent.
Take, for instance, the necessity of returning to sect headquarters for mandatory strategic assemblies. In theory, high-level cultivators could transmit information with near-instantaneous speed and precision.
However, the rigid institutional protocol of the war dictated that all Town Guardian Cultivators within the Red Lantern Sect's jurisdiction had to perfectly align with the overarching strategic agenda.
The upper echelon had to ensure that no minor official's localized foolishness would compromise the sect's institutional profits, or jeopardize the private interests of the active True Persons and Immortal Venerables ruling from above.
Consequently, Qin Churan was periodically forced to physically travel back to the Red Lantern Sect Main Mountain to attend formal intelligence briefings within the grand assembly hall of the Sect Master's Palace.
Attendance today was exceptionally dense, comprised almost entirely of the sect's elite Core Disciples. Wrapped in the standard uniform of an Inner Gate Disciple, Qin Churan stood out in this sea of elite figures like a glaring anomaly.
Yet, she betrayed no trace of panic. Instead, she maintained an aura of demure obedience, trailing quietly behind Wang Yulou's primary Dao Companion.
Wang Yulou had amassed a considerable collection of Dao Companions over the years. In terms of sheer chronological seniority following Bai Xiaoyu's departure, Qin Churan held the premier rank, yet she paradoxically remained the least conspicuous presence among the group.
The second least conspicuous was Lin Ying. After all, the Lin family had already been uprooted and taken away by Immortal Venerable Di Shui, leaving the Red Lantern Sect alongside the entirety of the Droplet Cave Heaven.
With Immortal Venerable Di Shui's ultimate destination shrouded in absolute mystery, Lin Ying was left entirely devoid of a localized clan foundation, drastically reducing her political profile within the sect's internal maneuvers.
Ascending further up the hierarchy of his household, the dynamic transford into a fierce, simring rivalry between Zhou Yingxi and Jin Mingdu. Both of these elite companions possessed the formidable backing of an active Purple Mansion lineage.
However, even among forces backed by a Purple Mansion cultivator, a vast, undeniable disparity in leverage existed. True Person Jinshan, standing squarely behind Jin Mingdu, was an undeniably titanic figure.
As the supre West Sea Dragon-Tiger True Man entrusted by the Immortal Alliance to govern the Western Sea Immortal City, his raw martial prowess and political clout were staggering. He was arguably only a fraction weaker than figures like True Person Gua or Qiu Mile, and sat a re two tiers below a quasi-immortal venerable like Mangxiang.
Compared to a titan like Jinshan, Old Mu cut a significantly lesser figure. He had achieved his Purple Mansion breakthrough only recently, and his baseline strength was arguably inferior even to a weakling like Li Haikuo.
Yet, while Jinshan was rely Jin Mingdu's distant ancestor, Mu Changze was Zhou Yingxi's biological father! Through the precise calculus of filial proximity, Zhou Yingxi remained Wang Yulou's undisputed primary wife.
Having clawed her way up from the absolute dirt of the mortal world, little Qin analyzed these structural nuances with lethal seriousness. This acute awareness was her ultimate survival chanism, which was why she always maintained an attitude of profound, unwavering deference toward Yingxi.
'Sister Yingxi, what is the underlying purpose behind pulling us all here today?'
Hearing Qin Churan's stealthy spiritual transmission, Zhou Yingxi's posture remained entirely frozen as she sent back a hushed reply.
'A mobilization briefing for the grand counteroffensive.
The leadership is preparing to launch a total, unrestricted assault across the entire front.'
Qin Churan stiffened slightly, her sharp instincts imdiately detecting a severe abnormality.
Orchestrating a sweeping public assembly just to broadcast a grand counteroffensive was practically synonymous with intentionally creating a bureaucratic nightmare for Wang Yulou. She was not yet privy to the fact that Wang Yulou had successfully wrested total command of the campaign.
From her current perspective, all she saw was Yi Zouri and Zou Tianxing weaving yet another intricate web to entrap her man.
As the de facto invisible chief steward running the logistics of the front lines, if the classified paraters of the assault were leaked ahead of schedule and resulted in a military disaster, Wang Yulou would be forced to bear the catastrophic political fallout, leaving his reputation completely ruined.
'Sister, this feels entirely wrong,' Qin Churan pressed, her ntal voice laced with anxiety.
'How can a strategic maneuver of this magnitude be broadcast to the masses with such casual disregard for secrecy?'
Zhou Yingxi allowed a faint, knowing smile to graze her lips. When she spoke aloud, her voice was clear and carried a ringing weight that echoed across the imdiate vicinity.
"Junior Sister Churan, there is absolutely no need for undue anxiety. Senior Brother Tianxing understands the profound gravity of his station perfectly. He would never commit an act so utterly foolish as to utilize a formal briefing to leak critical intelligence to the heretical demons of the Sky Serpent Sect."
At the apex of the hall, Zou Tianxing, who had been locked in a low conversation with Jiang Baobian, instantly snapped his gaze toward Zhou Yingxi's position. He flashed her a smile that was thoroughly saturated with cold mockery, before turning back to Jiang Baobian to continue his speech aloud.
"An archaic, delusional organization like the Sky Serpent Sect—utterly incapable of recognizing the shifting dynamics of the current era—consistently operates under the illusion that our Red Lantern Sect is still the subordinate entity of the past.
By what right do they presu to adopt the arrogant posture of an Upper-Path Sect to dictate terms across the Wunan Basin? The tis have changed irrevocably.
The Sky Serpent Sect claims the rank of an Upper-Path Sect, but our Red Lantern Sect stands today as an equal Upper-Path Sect! Therefore, when a blow must be struck, we strike without hesitation!"
Zou Tianxing's barbs were wrapped in layers of bureaucratic ambiguity, but the assembly hall was packed with so of the sharpest minds of the younger generation. In an instant, dozens of elite Core Disciples cast sharp, sidelong glances toward Zhou Yingxi. Zhou Yingxi rely kept her eyes lowered, her expression entirely devoid of any discernible emotional reaction.
Children reared within the ruthless machinations of the great clans were taught one fundantal, non-negotiable lesson before all else—absolute endurance. The closer an individual stood to the devastating orbit of the Grand Cultivators, the more clearly they comprehended the sheer, rciless cruelty of the rules governing their existence.
Following the demise of Old Zhou, she had formally bound herself to Mangxiang's lineage, but the decline in her actual political leverage was an undeniable, concrete reality. A predatory monster like Mangxiang possessed a level of depravity that was considered exceptional even within the cutthroat ecosystem of the Red Lantern Sect. The glowing promises of a guaranteed Purple Mansion opportunity he had carelessly tossed her way had never earned a single shred of her actual belief.
She was entirely blind to where her future path lay, reduced to taking one agonizing, blind step at a ti. Wang Yulou was proving to be an even more precarious anchor. The young man was actively balancing on the lip of a roaring volcano; his position appeared dazzlingly prominent to the masses, but in truth, he was rely acting as a lightning rod to absorb the wrath of the heavens. If he survived the strikes, his future would be limitless. If he faltered for a single breath, he would be blasted into microscopic fragnts.
This was a reality that even the blunt Wang Yu'an could piece together, and one that Zhou Yingxi understood with terrifying precision.
After an extended period, Zou Tianxing finally concluded his private parrying with the various representatives of the active True Persons and formally initiated the structural briefing.
"We have locked blades with the enemy for fifty grueling years,"
Zou Tianxing bellowed, his voice filling the cavernous hall.
"The Sky Serpent Sect has unleashed nine separate full-scale offensives, and we have successfully held the line nine tis. Our supre Immortal Venerable has grown thoroughly exasperated with this passive, suffocating stalemate. He has repeatedly issued strict directives emphasizing that the front lines must proactively project power, striking out to manifest the true, indomitable majesty of the Red Lantern Sect. And yet... for reasons that remain thoroughly baffling, certain elents within our ranks have chosen to covertly and overtly obstruct the execution of the Immortal Venerable's Sacred Decree..."
Zou Tianxing held the floor, unleashing a relentless stream of thinly veiled vitriol aid squarely at the character of Wang Yuque. Below the dais, the assembled disciples simply treated his grandstanding as aningless background noise.
In their cynical estimation, neither Zou Tianxing nor Wang Yuque were remotely decent human beings. However, if one were forced to evaluate their respective degrees of basic humanity, the superficially benevolent facade maintained by Wang Yuque was infinitely preferable.
Every soul in attendance accepted the cold reality that they were ultimately nothing more than expendable cultivation resources within the grand ga.
Yet, under Zou Tianxing's strategic doctrine, an asset's sole purpose was to charge headlong into the front-line at grinder and perish efficiently, so long as their demise 'manifested the majesty of the sect.'
Conversely, down in the mud of practical reality, every mid-tier practitioner possessed disciples they had reared, kinsn they cherished, and lovers they protected.
Consequently, the rank and file universally favored Wang Yuque, who stubbornly refused to deploy front-line cultivators into reckless, high-casualty offensive maneuvers simply to score political points. Furthermore, Candlelight Immortal Venerable had never actually codified any formal Sacred Decree demanding an imdiate offensive.
A titan of his celestial standing would never stoop to breaking the political equilibrium with Mangxiang over minor tactical maneuvers on a localized battlefield. Zou Tianxing was not so much fabricating Candlelight's mandates as he was strategically exploiting his lineage's banner.
His sole objective was to utilize the supre weight of an Immortal Venerable to systematically crush Wang Yuque's localized authority—a standard, ti-honored thodology of factional warfare that offered him an unassailable moral high ground. As for the accusation of actively undermining Candlelight's strategic desires...
Wang Yulou had indeed committed that exact administrative heresy. His thodology had been brilliantly simple: any confird kills of Sky Serpent Sect practitioners achieved by forces who had abandoned their designated defensive nodes without authorization were stripped of all official rit points.
That single bureaucratic decree had been more than enough. The power to dictate the allocation of military rit on an active battlefield carried staggering weight.
By mastering this single lever, little Wang had unassailably solidified his status as the invisible grand chancellor of the entire front lines. To suggest that little Wang harbored malicious, treasonous intentions toward the sect would be a gross mischaracterization.
Little Wang was rely a practitioner obsessed with absolute stability, a commander who fundantally refused to tolerate any variance of tactical overextension. His entire philosophy was anchored on a singular obsession: to avoid losing at all costs.
As for the concept of a sweeping, glorious victory, Wang Yulou had never spent a single breath contemplating it—the ultimate paraters of winning or losing were entirely dependent on the whims of the supre entities ruling from above.
The absolute pinnacle of value little Wang could generate for Mangxiang was to deliver a perfectly stable, highly flexible bargaining chip on the geopolitical table.
Such a defensive posture might appear sowhat uninspiring from a distance, but the re capacity to transform oneself into an indispensable bargaining chip ant that Wang Yulou's structural utility had already ascended to an extraordinary tier.
The seat beneath him was a literal furnace, radiating a heat so intense that he no longer dared to utter a single uncalculated truth in casual conversation.
After all, his active adversaries—both within the institutional boundaries of the sect and lurking in the shadows beyond—had commissioned entire think-tanks of brilliant tactical minds whose sole function was to microscopically dissect every facet of his behavior.
In fact, within the intelligence networks of the Gu Family Tea House, the comprehensive historical profile of little Wang's past exploits was actively sold as a premium, standalone intelligence asset, ranked side-by-side with the dossiers of centuries-old True Persons...
"...Maintain maximum vigilance at your stations and remain perpetually mobilized,"
Zou Tianxing finally droned, drawing his lengthy monologue to a close.
"Junior Brother Yuque is undeniably a capable talent, but he remains dangerously youthful. Should the front lines suffer a sudden, catastrophic fracture, every lineage must possess robust evacuation protocols. Very well, that concludes today's assembly. Disperse imdiately and return to fortify your respective sectors."
Sect Master Zou Tianxing had finally finished spewing his bureaucratic poison. Her heart weighed down by an intense, suffocating dread, Qin Churan silently followed Zhou Yingxi as they journeyed back to the latter's private estate situated on the Red Lantern Sect Main Mountain.
Old Zhou's personal spiritual peak had long since been taken into 'temporary safekeeping' by his deeply affectionate master. In its place, Xuanzhuan had allocated Zhou Yingxi a pri, exceptionally luxurious tract of spiritual land nestled along the slopes of Mang Xiang Mountain.
Yet, Zhou Yingxi rarely resided within that elite enclave. When all was said and done, she vastly preferred to anchor herself within her estate on the main mountain.
The profound divergence in human nature—not rely a gap in ability, but a fundantal difference in how individuals viewed the world—revealed itself entirely within these walls. As a person with her own free will, Zhou Yingxi retained the absolute right to dictate her own choices.
She had the right to choose her path, yet her decisions were agonizingly conflicted. Zhou Yingxi desperately yearned to forge ahead.
Having witnessed the violent demise of her clan elder, the total annihilation of her kinsn, and the forced flight of her father into the wilderness, how could a woman who had survived such trauma not burn with an all-consuming hunger for power, to finally seize control of her own destiny?
She craved that power with every fiber of her being, yet she simply could not bring herself to bow her head and grovel for it. Having begun her immortal journey from the dazzling heights of the Zhou Clan, her remaining pride prevented her from ever acting like a dog.
As a Tier Three Core Disciple, her residence was exceptionally lavish, boasting every luxury and defensive array mandated by sect rules.
The mont they crossed the threshold and sat in the central chamber, Qin Churan's opening remark shattered Zhou Yingxi's carefully constructed composure.
"Senior Sister, your current state of mind is completely wrong. You should be spending every waking hour cultivating bitterly on Mang Xiang Mountain."
Her words were sharp and piercing, entirely lacking the usual deference of their relationship. Qin Churan's statent acted like a scalpel, ruthlessly slicing through the illusion of sanctuary that Zhou Yingxi had spent years weaving around herself.
"You..."
Zhou Yingxi instinctively wanted to deliver a fierce rebuke, but she knew Qin Churan's cautious nature too well. Unlike herself, who had started from the peak of a prominent clan, Qin Churan had begun her journey from the very bottom.
In the past, she had never dared to step a single inch out of line. For such a risk-averse woman to commit such a glaring transgression today ant she had a very specific, deliberate objective.
"Senior Sister, there is a question that has weighed heavily on my mind for a very long ti," Qin Churan continued, her aggressive montum unchecked. "Throughout these decades... what exactly have you been trying to achieve? Or rather, do you even know what your current purpose is?"
Qin Churan's insolence showed no sign of stopping. Even with Zhou Yingxi's deep aristocratic upbringing and emotional restraint, the sheer bluntness of the assault successfully ignited a spark of genuine fury.
"My actions and my path are not for a junior sister like you to dictate,"
she spat, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. Observing the cold glint in those exceptionally beautiful, slender eyes, Qin Churan knew she had provoked the exact reaction she needed.
"Look at you,"
Qin Churan countered softly.
"When I insult you to your face, you imdiately burn with fury. Yet, Jin Mingdu has spent decades treating you like irrelevant background scenery, and you show no anger at all."
Zhou Yingxi had never allowed her mind to sink into that degrading arena—the petty struggle for a husband's favor. As far as she was concerned, Wang Yulou had never harbored any genuine affection for her.
Not once in their history. She drew a long, deliberate breath, forcing her erratic pulse to stabilize.
"What exactly are you implying?"
"Senior Sister, look at the reality around us," Qin Churan said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Senior Sister Lin's entire lineage, alongside the foundation of Droplet Cave Heaven, was uprooted and carried away into the void by the Immortal Venerable. Little Fish was also taken from us. Our husband held the deepest, most authentic affection for Little Fish. In the decades since her departure, the person who has enjoyed the vast majority of his attention has been Jin Mingdu. Have you ever spent a single mont analyzing the real reason why?"
The ntal image of Jin Mingdu—permanently affixed to Wang Yulou's side like an inseparable shadow—flashed through Zhou Yingxi's mind, instantly souring her mood.
"Because she is a master of political theater,"
Zhou Yingxi sneered.
"Her entire focus is permanently anchored on matters completely unrelated to the pure pursuit of cultivation!"
Qin Churan let out a soft, pitying laugh. She realized that daughters raised within the sheltered confines of the great clans possessed a staggering level of naivety.
"Senior Sister, you fail to see that the political theater is the cultivation,"
Qin Churan countered.
"Our husband requires his won to be demonstrably useful. The number of elite female cultivators desperate to cast themselves into his bed is endless; soone who offers no practical value is soone he will never tolerate in his inner circle. Jin Mingdu is extraordinarily useful. Furthermore, she is a direct descendant of True Person Jinshan. It is the perfect combination of these two advantages that compels our husband to keep her permanently by his side. And what about you? What exactly have you achieved over these decades? Senior Sister Lin was genuinely powerless to change her circumstances;
the total number of Dripdrop Cave practitioners left stranded outside the grotto-heaven numbered fewer than three hundred souls, and they held no inherent loyalty to her. But you? You command the residual loyalty of the vassal families that once served under Perfected Man Fujiao. Furthermore, you are a formal disciple of our Ancestral Master. You possess every necessary tool to transform yourself into our husband's indispensable right hand. Why do you stubbornly refuse to step into the fray and use these advantages? You dismiss Jin Mingdu's actions as a distraction from pure cultivation, but let ask you—among the practitioners who have successfully opened their Purple Palaces over the past fifty years, which one of them was a simpleton who achieved ascension by hiding from the world?"
With the sole exception of Zhou Yingxi—whose union had been forced upon him by external pressure—every single Dao Companion Wang Yulou had taken was a product of his own calculated choice.
His decision to bind himself to Qin Churan and Little Fish had been driven by the simple reality that they were exceptionally easy to control.
His selection of Lin Ying had been based on the fact that the Lin family's scale was ideal; Wang Yulou had maintained absolute confidence that once he reached the Foundation Establishnt realm, he could systematically absorb the Lin family into the Wang Clan—a cold strategic calculus he had never shared with a living soul. The Lin family cultivated wood-elental arts, and the Wang Clan likewise specialized in wood-elental thods.
From the perspective of clan expansion, a rger of this nature offered massive mutual benefits. Unfortunately, the trajectory of events had rapidly devolved into pure absurdity.
The elaborate plans Wang Yulou had painstakingly constructed were instantly rendered obsolete, much like the Wang Clan's outdated expectation that he would join the Immortal Alliance through the local fighting selections. His tactical marriage to Jin Mingdu had been a direct response to Zhou Bojiao's sudden demise.
With the crushing weight of Immortal Venerable Shen Guang looming over him, Mangxiang proving to be a thoroughly untrustworthy monster, and Jin Mingdu's ancestor, True Person Jinshan, standing as a Peak Purple Mansion titan directly under the central command of the Immortal Alliance, marrying the girl gave Wang Yulou a vital alternative avenue of influence. Having shared his journey for so many years, Wang Yulou naturally harbored genuine affection for these won.
Yet, setting aside his role as a husband, he remained first and foremost a Dao Seeker. In his heart, his identity as a Dao Seeker held undisputed primacy.
Consequently, he would always prioritize and elevate Jin Mingdu. Qin Churan was intentionally driving this wedge into Zhou Yingxi's mind because she was gripped by a profound, agonizing desperation.
Jin Mingdu had erged from the chaotic environnt of the West Sea, and her political acun was terrifyingly refined.
Of the three thousand rogue cultivators Wang Yulou had originally escorted from the West Sea to the Red Lantern Sect's territories, the brutal attrition of the war had left only a few hundred survivors.
Yet, that core remnant had already yielded over forty Foundation Establishnt masters, a number that could easily double in the coming decades.
These battle-hardened survivors, combined with the towering shadow of True Person Jinshan, were systematically integrated by Jin Mingdu to serve as her private political capital and foundation. By wielding these assets masterfully, her status at Wang Yulou's side was entirely unassailable.
Qin Churan watched this consolidation happen day by day, her heart burning with helpless panic. If Jin Mingdu succeeded in permanently monopolizing Wang Yulou's attention, the long-term prospects for a marginalized companion like herself would plunge into misery.
anwhile, with Immortal Venerable Di Shui having completely left the jurisdiction of the Immortal Alliance, the ultimate ceiling of Lin Ying's developnt had been severely capped.
Therefore, her sole remaining avenue of survival was to force Zhou Yingxi—who possessed the supre prestige of being Mangxiang's formal disciple—to finally shed her passivity, step forward, and establish a competing power center to break Jin Mingdu's monopoly.
"Are you calling a fool?"
Zhou Yingxi was entirely unwilling to tolerate this aggressive lecture from a re late Qi Condensation practitioner, her pride flaring into an imdiate counterattack.
"Senior Sister, look at your reaction," Qin Churan sighed, her tone suddenly laced with exhaustion. "You still stubbornly refuse to wake up. I have said all that needs to be said. The frontline campaign is reaching a critical point, and the affairs of Fragrant Bamboo Market require my imdiate return. Churan will take her leave now. I will only leave you with this: I can no longer endure the casual contempt in Jin Mingdu's eyes every ti she looks at . Oh, I am certain she treats you with flawless respect whenever you et—because from the absolute depths of her soul, she views you with profound pity!" As she reached the threshold, Qin Churan's emotional restraint finally fractured, forcing a raw, unfiltered truth from her lips.
"Senior Sister Yingxi, the truth is that I envy you to an agonizing degree. Your father is an active Purple Palace True Person.
Your master is the Ancestral Master of our sect. Your official position is the Chief Steward of the Goods Contract Workshop.
If you ever summoned the resolve to project your own influence, an entire network of Zhou Clan vassal lineages stands ready to serve you. I am the one stranded in a state of absolute, suffocating impotence.
Even Senior Sister Lin commands a faction of Dripdrop Cave practitioners who can act on her behalf. There are countless nights where I bitterly loathe the sheer clarity of my own mind.
To see everything so clearly while remaining entirely powerless to change my fate is a refined brand of torture.
"If you intend to change your destiny, your window of opportunity is closing rapidly. Our husband will never pause his stride to wait for anyone. His heart is entirely consud by the singular pursuit of his Dao."
Having thoroughly shattered the fragile sanctuary Zhou Yingxi had built around her mind, Qin Churan turned and departed, indifferent to the wreckage she left behind. Her actions had been unrefined and desperate, but to avoid being completely erased from the family hierarchy, she had chosen to play a dangerous ga.
If Zhou Yingxi proved incapable of mounting a challenge, Qin Churan would be forced to bow her head and accept total subjugation under Jin Mingdu's rule. The desperate Qi Refining cultivator vanished into the mountain mists without a single backward glance.
Zhou Yingxi remained anchored to her seat within the vast, hollow silence of her grand estate, sitting as motionless as a stone statue. After what felt like an eternity, her fingers trembled slightly as she reached into her storage bag and extracted a silk scroll. It detailed the premium inventory of the Huang Clan's Myriad Treasures Market.
This specific inventory manifest had been personally hand-delivered to her estate by a core disciple acting under the explicit command of Old Huang himself.
By virtue of her status as a formal disciple of the Ancestral Master, the primary Dao Companion of Wang Yuque, a Core Disciple of the Red Lantern Sect, and the Chief Steward of the Goods Contract Workshop, Old Huang possessed every conceivable comrcial incentive to ticulously cultivate a relationship with her.
Consequently, an updated manifest of the Myriad Treasures Market's rarest acquisitions was hand-delivered to her residence every six months by Huang Qiusheng's personal network. However, on this specific scroll, several lines of text had been explicitly highlighted, preserved beneath the lingering residue of Huang Qiusheng's personal spiritual energy.
'Auspicious Deer Blood—authentic Demon King essence blood.
A supre-tier material for compounding saint-grade elixirs. Market valuation: one hundred thousand spirit stones per drop.'
'Auspicious Deer Flesh—authentic Demon King flesh.
A supre-tier nutrient for refining high-grade dicinal cuisine. Market valuation: one thousand two hundred spirit stones per catty.'
'Auspicious Deer Blood Marrow—authentic Demon King bone marrow.
A supre-grade material for core-strengthening compounds. Market valuation: four thousand spirit stones per tael.'
'Auspicious Deer Horn Fragnts—authentic Demon King skeletal material.
A premier substrate for grandmaster-level talismans and saint-grade elixirs. Market valuation: eighty thousand spirit stones per standard asure (minimum weight twenty catties, irregular cuts).'
'Auspicious Deer Hide—authentic Demon King pelt.
A supre substrate for defensive talisman arrays and grade A magic treasures. For custom specifications, please initiate a private consultation with the central managent of the Myriad Treasures Market.'
As her fingertips grazed the cold surface of the jade slip embedded in the scroll, a silent torrent of tears finally broke past Zhou Yingxi's restraint, tracing paths down her pale cheeks. As the undisputed rchant empire of the Wunan Basin, the Huang Clan naturally did not restrict its comrcial distributions to Zhou Yingxi alone.
A manifest detailing acquisitions of this caliber was routinely dispatched to every Core Disciple within the Red Lantern Sect who possessed the requisite standing. And that was the precise reason Zou Tianxing had dared to unleash those mocking, public barbs against her within the assembly hall today.
That was the source of the casual, patronizing confidence that had radiated from the eyes of her fellow Core Disciples as they stared her down. Across the entire expanse of heaven and earth, there existed exactly one Auspicious Deer Demon King—Mu Changze!
Yes, her biological father had successfully opened his Purple Mansion. But Mu Changze had achieved that breakthrough within an illegal, fundantally flawed frawork engineered by the defeated Shen Guang.
He was not a sovereign lord of the cultivation world; he was nothing more than livestock trapped within a pen, systematically harvested for raw materials to line the pockets of his captors!
Wang Yulou's focus was naturally not restricted to the simple, linear pursuit of his personal cultivation.
To put it more accurately, the achievent of the Dao was an extraordinarily intricate, multi-layered enterprise that required exhaustive preparation across a vast spectrum of details.
Perhaps certain auxiliary preparations might fall short of absolute perfection, but as long as the comprehensive strategic foundation was engineered with sufficient depth, a handful of localized vulnerabilities would fail to compromise the integrity of the whole.
This was the ultimate utility of systematically blueprinting one's long-term trajectory. Specific investnts might periodically devolve into useless, discarded pieces on the board, but the continuous, proactive montum of remaining perpetually mobilized was a flawlessly correct thodology.
In truth, Wang Yulou was entirely indifferent to the fact that Zou Tianxing had effectively leaked the paraters of the upcoming counteroffensive to the mass of Core Disciples and Inner Gate Disciples during the assembly.
The reality of a theater-wide conflict dictated that any mobilization massive enough to support a genuine counteroffensive would inevitably register upon the Sky Serpent Sect's intelligence apparatus long before the first blow landed.
Back when True Person Gua had marshaled the Sky Serpent Sect's forces for their sweeping full-scale offensive, the Red Lantern Sect had intercepted the vast majority of their operational vectors weeks in advance, allowing them to thoroughly fortify their defensive positions.
The solitary, catastrophic anomaly in that campaign had been the sheer audacity of True Person Gua himself, who had broken standard convention to personally descend into the tactical at grinder.
Had it not been for Mangxiang's calculated decision to anchor his presence within the Great Heaven for an extended duration—specifically to ensure no external rivals could sabotage his impending Golden Core advancent—True Person Gua's raw combat power would have allowed him to unleash his devastating third sonic technique, systematically slaughtering tens of millions of additional mortals without resistance.
To summarize, for this specific counteroffensive, Wang Yulou had absolutely no intention of relying on standard tactical deceptions or surprise maneuvers.
Within the fortified headquarters of the Central Line Defense Pass, Wang Yulou was currently engaged in a private conference with Jiang Baobian, the newly appointed Assistant Director of the Southern Front Defensive Operations.
"The doctrine of warfare dictates that we master the orthodox before exploiting the unorthodox," Wang Yulou explained, his finger tracing a line across the tactical map.
"Our capacity to hold these defensive lines for fifty grueling years constitutes the ultimate manifestation of the orthodox. The execution of this counteroffensive is, in and of itself, the unorthodox variable. After all, during our previous operational cycles, every counter-strike we launched was preceded by massive, highly publicized logistical movents. The sheer scale of those demonstrations routinely forced the Sky Serpent Sect to exhaust their assets in frantic, reactionary redeploynts. For this campaign, we shall continue to operate with maximum overt theatricality, systematically optimizing every single operational link. True stability is forged through absolute transparency."
Following the political defection of that traitor Pi Lingxiu—who had abandoned the Fuyan Faction overnight to frantically proclaim his absolute, unwavering loyalty to Mangxiang's lineage—the vacant seat of Southern Front Commander had been claid by Yan Siyuan, a core talent operating directly under Candlelight's banner.
Yan Siyuan shared an identical ideological disposition with Yi Zouri. The baseline hostility he projected toward Wang Yulou was imnse.
To suggest that he harbored a deep, visceral personal hatred for Wang Yulou would be a complete misreading of reality; they shared absolutely no private grievances. Their conflict was driven entirely by an unbridgeable, zero-sum structural contradiction between their respective factions.
Consequently, rather than squandering his energy parrying with Yan Siyuan, Wang Yulou vastly preferred to conduct his practical negotiations with Jiang Baobian.
The successful execution of this dual-front counteroffensive required seamless, intricate coordination between the Central and Southern sectors, demanding exhaustive attention to localized variables.
"The Southern Front commands a total mobilization of twelve thousand Qi Refining practitioners and nine hundred Foundation Establishnt masters," Jiang Baobian muttered, his brow furrowed as he calculated the trics. "Combined with the Central Front's roster of thirty thousand Qi Refining assets and two thousand Foundation Establishnt experts, our aggregate force numbers exactly forty-two thousand Qi Refining practitioners and two thousand nine hundred Foundation Establishnt masters. From a strategic perspective... does this roster not strike you as dangerously thin?"
Jiang Baobian's structural anxiety was anchored on concrete historical data.
Every single offensive wave unleashed by the Sky Serpent Sect had debuted with a minimum baseline of forty thousand Qi Refining cultivators, routinely bolstered by upwards of three thousand Foundation Establishnt masters. Yet, despite commanding those overwhelming numbers, the enemy had consistently failed to secure a decisive breakthrough.
Within the calculus of spiritual warfare, the offensive montum of an attacking force was systematically eroded by the pre-established formation arrays of an entrenched defender.
If the Red Lantern Sect attempted to mount a major counteroffensive utilizing a force that rely mirrored the scale of the enemy's historical failures, they would possess absolutely no mathematical prospect of carving out a permanent victory on the battlefield.
"You are entirely correct," Wang Yulou replied, his expression completely unruffled. "Our explicit numbers are insufficient. It is precisely for this reason that I have spent years cultivating a hidden, secondary variable."
Having managed the logistics of the front lines for over half a century, how could Wang Yulou possibly remain blind to the deficit in their troop concentrations? He had quietly engineered a structural solution long ago.
"The absolute pivot of our offensive montum will be anchored squarely upon the historical territory of the old Four Bright Sect.
"The subterranean veins beneath the Four Bright Sect's ruins still contain a substantial cache of high-grade spiritual artifacts that have been undergoing environntal nourishnt for decades.
"The mont the grand arrays clash, we will authorize the surviving remnants of the Four Bright Sect's lineages to breach those vaults, systematically retrieving those highly nourished weapons and distributing them directly into the hands of our most veteran, battle-hardened Foundation Establishnt masters.
"By executing this singular deploynt, we will maximize our imdiate damage trics, allowing us to rip through the Sky Serpent Sect's front-line defensive arrays in the absolute minimum operational window."
Although True Person Gua's devastating technique had systematically slaughtered over half of the Four Bright Sect's population in a single day, the institution itself had not been entirely erased from existence. It was a political card that had finally ripened for deploynt.
Jiang Baobian was a direct lineage descendant of the active Purple Mansion masters ruling the Fuyan Faction. He would never bend his knee to shout phrases of absolute loyalty to Mangxiang's banner. Consequently, his interactions with Wang Yulou were maintained on a strictly professional, institutional basis.
There would be no cinematic subversion here—no hoarding of a secret, treasonous trump card concealed from the sect's high command, only to unleash it abruptly in the heat of battle to alter the course of the war. This was a theater-wide conflict involving the mobilization of over a hundred thousand active cultivators, a campaign subject to the continuous, microscopic surveillance of the Immortal Alliance.
Within such a system, the concept of a rogue commander deploying unvetted, secret variables to steal a localized victory was a complete fantasy. Maintaining absolute, transparent obedience toward the institution on all major strategic matters was the non-negotiable, baseline criterion for any practitioner who desired to maintain a long-term career within a sect. Granted, every single official systematically drained the organization's wealth—skimming resources and carving out private profits from the collective pool was a universally accepted norm. The individuals who faced imdiate, absolute destruction were those self-styled geniuses who hoarded private variables to disrupt the pre-established strategic deploynts of the high command.
"Understood," Jiang Baobian murmured, his posture relaxing slightly.
"Yulou, you have demonstrated exceptional foresight. However, we cannot afford to let our ambitions compromise our safety; the operational paraters you have codified in this blueprint still skew dangerously aggressive. I comprehend your underlying thodology—the classic doctrine of aiming for the stars to guarantee landing on the moon. However, by packing your stated objectives to absolute capacity, you leave yourself entirely vulnerable. Should our forces fail to achieve the maximum tric, Zou Tianxing and Yi Zouri will instantly seize upon that deficit to destroy your standing. The mont they fra the outco as a failure of command, your actual military achievents will be systematically erased from the institutional record."
The old general's counsel was exceptionally precise, delivered with a level of sincerity that signaled he viewed Wang Yulou as at least half a political ally.
This dynamic was highly reminiscent of a conflict where the pri and secondary titans of an empire locked horns, and the sheer environntal fallout of their struggle systematically pulverized the neutral third party out of existence. The structural anxieties that had driven Pi Lingxiu to orchestrate his defection were entirely valid.
Under a duopoly where two supre Immortal Venerables divided the world, attempting to forge a neutral, third path was a guaranteed avenue to absolute destruction. However, the grand promises dangled by the Ancestral Master were far too alluring.
Now that Old Pi had blazed a trail by transforming himself into a highly functional defector, the remaining remnants of the crumbling Fuyan Faction faced absolutely no psychological hurdle when it ca to offering subtle overtures of alignnt to Wang Yulou.
One could argue that Old Pi had established a thoroughly toxic precedent—though, from Wang Yulou's perspective, it was an absolute blessing.
"Mmh... Senior Brother Baobian's analysis is thoroughly flawless," Wang Yulou conceded, his expression shifting into a mask of profound agreent.
"Let us embrace a more conservative posture. We shall adjust the codified objective of the blueprint to specify a targeted advance of exactly fifty li. It is mathematically impossible for our combined forces to fail to secure a re fifty li of territory. Furthermore, by intentionally suppressing our public trics today, the excess lands we actually reclaim during the assault can be systematically frad as an overwhelming, unpredicted triumph."
Jiang Baobian had approached the table treating Wang Yulou as half an ally; Wang Yulou responded by treating Jiang Baobian as a brother of absolute, unbroken solidarity.
Only by throwing open one's gates to accommodate a thousand separate rivers could an ocean forge its boundless imnsity. If Wang Yulou intended to survive the long march toward ascension, he needed to master the art of systematically co-opting his very adversaries.
Consequently, the baseline of sincerity he projected toward the old general was remarkably substantial. Jiang Baobian was a pragmatist down to his very marrow.
Since Wang Yulou's structural modifications were thoroughly logical and protected his personal interests, he harbored absolutely no incentive to mount an opposition.
"An exceptional adjustnt," Jiang Baobian declared, rising from his seat.
"I shall return to my sector imdiately to comnce the mobilization."
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