Fish 032: Trust the Dragon

You said it yourself, all those who rebel against dragons die.

“What happened?”

The smell of blood was so heavy, indicating that more than one person died.

Mo Li found sword traces on the walls of nearby houses, rotten vegetable leaves, and some blood-stained stones on the ground.

Meng Qi suddenly said: “There’s someone here.”

As he said that, he walked to a house with damaged doors and windows, lifted a pile of debris, and found a man dressed as a servant.

Mo Li took a look and found that this man was covered with shoe prints and there was blood on his lips.

“He was hit several times, his ribs were broken and his internal organs were severely injured.” Mo Li directly poured spirit energy into this person. The latter’s eyelids moved, followed by coughing up blood.

Meng Qi didn’t understand medicine, but people who knew martial arts knew some treatments for trauma and internal injuries. Looking at this young man, it’s obviously not enough.

“Who are you, why are you here, what happened to QingHu Town?”

Mo Li gave another dose of spiritual energy to relieve the pain of the other party.

The young man was pale and trembling, then his face was suddenly full of tears.

Death is a mysterious state. Sometimes, even if the physician didn’t say it, they could feel that it was coming.

No one wants to die.

The young man burst into tears, which affected his injuries, and the pain made his vision blacken.

“…I don’t want to come…I said I didn’t want to come…”

He repeated these two sentences over and over again, filled with remorse and resentment.

Mo Li winked at Meng Qi, who understood, and went to the ZiWei XingJun temple to check the situation.

At this time, Xiao Si finally recovered. He grabbed Mo Li’s hand and said with certainty: “You are not from QingHu Town!”

Mo Li nodded and then heard the young man intermittently recount what had just happened.

QingHu Town used to be very lively and was the largest town nearby with many shops and wealthy citizens but the good times didn’t last long. Ten years ago, the government imposed heavy taxes on the merchants here. The merchants found it unprofitable so they slowly left. Only some old shops that have been in QingHu Town for generations were still operating.

But because of the heavy taxes, the things sold in QingHu Town were always more expensive than in other places.

Over time, the resentment grew.

Xiao Si didn’t understand, the government levying heavy taxes was the cause and this was something everyone knew. They all watched QingHu Town slowly decline but why do the townspeople hate the merchants? Shouldn’t things have a source? Why don’t these people talk about the reason? They could only see the money that the shops overcharged, but don’t know where that money went.

The shopkeepers sighed and said that if they moved to Pingzhou Prefecture, then maybe the days will be better.

However, they couldn’t wait for the day to get better.

Two years ago, people from the Holy Lotus Shrine came to preach. In the beginning, they just babbled some things and gave the townspeople some favors. But suddenly one day, they took the townspeople and smashed all the shops, looting the goods.

“…the shopkeeper is dead, and I escaped by luck.” The young man said in tears, “They didn’t think it was enough to kill people, so they went to the shopkeeper’s home and killed all their families, saying that they were looking for ill-gotten gains. The shopkeeper was kind to others all his life, and he gave alms when he encounters beggars. Although there’s some surplus wealth in the family, it has been saved by his ancestors for generations while living in QingHu Town. Since the government raised the tax, although the price of the goods had been higher than the ten-wen copper plate, the extra tax on a piece of cloth is more than ten-wen…so the earnings were much less than before. If it weren’t for his ancestors’ hard work, he would have stopped doing this long ago. Just didn’t expect that…I went to the county officer but no one paid any attention to it. Later, I desperately inquired and only then did the county officer tell me that the martial arts of the Holy Lotus Shrine’s Master Xiang were very powerful, so they can’t come just to die…”

He said this long string of words and was already out of energy.

At this time, Meng Qi came back and told Mo Li: “A group of people from Jianghu entered QingHu Town, preparing to punish the traitors and eliminate the evil, but their strength was inadequate. Most are dead or injured, and the people still alive are all tied up in front of the ZiWei XingJun temple. The Holy Lotus Shrine gathered all the people in town and prepared to burn them there.”

Xiao Si listened and struggled to get up but Mo Li quickly held him down.

“They are not heroes…” The young man panted and bitterly said, “don’t know where they heard about QingHu Town…but they found me and said they’d help me avenge the shopkeeper…they forced me to come over and didn’t listen to what I said.”

Thinking that he was dying, Xiao Si couldn’t care about anything anymore and scolded him.

It’s just that his voice was getting lower and lower. He couldn’t catch his breath, black blood kept flowing from the corners of his mouth and his whole body kept convulsing.

Mo Li lowered his eyes and the palm covering the heart of the young man shook slightly.

Xiao Si immediately went silent.

Mo Li took a broken reed mat from the debris and covered the body.

Mo Li slowly straightened up, and the wind passed through the broken doors and windows, making the house chilly.

“…this is the way the world is today, Physician.”

Meng Qi stood behind Mo Li, who had killing intent in his eyes, with an ironic smile on his lips, “those who want to live can’t live and except for those who make trouble, there are fools who are blindly angry and heroes who want to help but have no brains. So what if the entire QingHu Town was completely erased? If you want to completely solve it, you could only change this world.”

Physician Mo was silent for a while then suddenly asked in a low voice, “So you went to assist Li Yuanze to settle the chaos in the world and create a prosperous world?”

Meng Qi was stunned when he heard those words.

“Only when the people have no worries, the road is safe to walk on, and the land under heaven is free to the public, this is the foundation of a prosperous age…”

Who did he hear this from?

That person’s face was vague, but he stood in front of him, and there seemed to be many people around.

He stood side by side with that man, toasting on the day of his ascent.

“I vow to the border, to level XiLiang, smash the pirates, and eliminate evil, return the world to a bright future!”

“Set up the heart for the heaven and earth, make a life for the people, for the sacred and inherited learning, and for the peace of all generations!”

Meng Qi’s eyes shook uncontrollably, his vision darkening and he couldn’t stand up so he held the wall with one hand.

His fingers gripped so hard that they plunged deeply into the masonry.

Seeing that the situation wasn’t good, Mo Li quickly grabbed Meng Qi’s wrist. The latter didn’t reject it and let Mo Li input spiritual energy to regulate his chaotic inner qi.

Mo Li said that sentence only because of his feelings, and he also wanted to understand some things. He didn’t expect to trigger the onset of Meng Qi’s illness.

Meng Qi’s eyes were red, his sanity collapsing.

It’s just that this time, he didn’t yell or kill, but muttered something in a low voice.

Physician Mo leaned closer to listen.

“…‘If you take care of your own elders, the common people will do the same for their elders. If you are kind to your young, the common people will be kind to their young—you will hold the kingdom in the palm of your hand’. It’s so ridiculous. You were born humans and it’s just a book written by your sages, but I believed it, encouraging others with you, but in the end, it was all for nothing.

“Why must a King speak of profit when there’s humaneness and fairness…how ironic. To establish Imperial power in ten years, rule the world for fifteen years and then get fifteen years of prosperity and peace in the world. In Li Yuanze’s eyes, only the interests of his family and one surname were left, and he had forgotten what benevolence and justice are.

“If Heaven wished for peace, who is there beside me to bring it about? Haha, who besides me?”

Meng Qi’s eyebrows were full of hostility and the chaotic inner qi was like a huge wave on a vast sea. Mo Li’s hand was abruptly shaken, but fortunately, his eyes and hands were quick, so he grabbed it again.

Only then did Meng Qi “see” Mo Li.

He slowly pulled away his palm from the wall and the internal force flowing out of his fingertips destroyed a layer of masonry.

“Meng Qi!”

Mo Li tried to awaken the person in front of him, but he couldn’t spare a hand to grab the Ningshen Pill, so he could only hold the other person tightly.

Meng Qi didn’t mean to break free. He was dazed for a while, his inner qi becoming more and more disordered, and Mo Li was about to lose control of him. When he was sweating profusely, he suddenly heard Meng Qi whisper:

“I couldn’t kill him…”

“Meng Qi?”

“…Li Yuanze lied to me, as soon as I left the Great Capital, he took advantage and moved his hands. Marquis Jingyuan left me a letter, if the King dies, what will the Chu dynasty do? What will the world become? Can an Emperor who only deals with veterans without changing the others be regarded as the monarch leading tens of thousands of people? They said it counts.”

Meng Qi laughed, his laughter distorted and he broke the wall as soon as he raised his hand.

Mo Li was shaken. He knew what happened next because Qin Lu made it clear when he taught him history.

Emperor Chu Yuan treated the people graciously and repeatedly performed benevolent governance during his 30 years of reign. He worked hard all his life and was supported by virtuous officials. It was originally a story about the Emperor and his ministers, but when he got old, Emperor Chu Yuan suddenly became muddle-headed. Fearing that he’ll lose power after death, he killed three Dukes and nine Marquis in a row, causing the people to panic. To protect themselves, the officials subconsciously opposed the imperial power.

When Emperor Chu Yuan died, the successor to the throne, Chu Ling, couldn’t control the officials at all. Therefore, young courtiers were promoted wildly to fight against the original courtiers. The two factions fought against each other.

The young courtiers were inexperienced and not sophisticated so they could only rely on the Emperor’s favor.

The more they fought, the more the Emperor and his officials were distracted. Of course, among the young officials, there were people who were loyal to the Emperor but there are more who are ambitious and profit-seeking villains.

In the end, the two factions produced bitter results, and Emperor Chu Ling believed in a person he shouldn’t have. He kept giving that person military power and promoted him to fight against the old faction with Marquis JingYuan’s lineage, that person was General Lu Zhang.

During the change in dynasty, the corpses of the Chu Dynasty’s clan were everywhere, and the courtiers who refused to surrender were also beheaded, making blood flow like a river in the Great Capital.

Among those standing on behalf of Chu, the wealthy families, and officials surrendered on the surface, but in reality, they were only giving lip service; the three Dukes of the Chu Dynasty, whose fiefs were in the South, set up their own banners to fight against Lu Zhang, but they didn’t want to restore the country and only fought in the name of orthodoxy.

The scene of the prosperous age became empty in the blink of an eye.

“The first mistake I made was that I didn’t kill Li Yuanze, and the second mistake was that I left in a hurry and didn’t stay in the court…”

“It’s useless for you to kill him since Li Yuanze’s already dead! It’s useless for you to stay since people’s minds are uncontrollable. How can one more person or one less person change anything?”

Although Mo Li felt that if he was Meng Qi, he wouldn’t let go of it and wouldn’t be as good as Meng Qi, Meng Qi’s situation is wrong right now so he could only swear aggressively, hoping that he’d wake up.

However, little effect was achieved. Physician Mo’s arm became numb and he took three steps back. When he stabilized his body, he could only see Meng Qi’s back.

“Boom!”

The well at the entrance of the street was destroyed, and water spewed out.

Meng Qi couldn’t discern his direction and smashed several holes in the ruins.

“Meng Qi!” Mo Li stopped in front of him. The latter paused and was then sprayed by the water.

“…”

Meng Qi blinked, “Physician, what’s wrong with me?”

Mo Li looked at the water filling the pit and suddenly got an idea.

At this time, Master Xiang of the Holy Lotus Shrine was instructing his men to collect firewood and pile it at the feet of the people from Jianghu.

“You villains must die!” The young hero still cursed even when shedding blood.

The companions around him were different. Before fainting, the sober people would sneer again and again.

“Luo Bin! Didn’t you brag about how good your swordsmanship is, why can’t you even match Holy Lotus Shrine’s Master Xiang?”

“Those who fool the world will usurp a good name!”

The young man named Luo Bin was very angry when he heard that, but thought that he did lose with one move. He couldn’t help but wonder if his martial arts were really ordinary. Could it be that the Jianghu swordsmen he defeated before were all weak?

When the Holy Lotus Shrine’s Master Xiang heard these people scold each other, he was very disdainful. He picked up Luo Bin’s sword, took a closer look, and smiled gloomily: “Jin Feng Sword, it turned out to be the descendant of the Old Golden Sword of the Qingcheng Sect, what a narrow road.”

Luo Bin stilled. Only then did he see the blue mole on the forehead of Master Xiang?

This Holy Lotus Shrine’s Master Xiang has a white face, but the blue mole on his forehead was very abrupt.

“You, you are…the blue-faced ghost master of Hidden Killing Sect!” Luo Bin was shocked as he blurted out, “the Hidden Killing Sect has been annihilated for many years, so you were hiding here!”

Master Xiang threw the long sword aside, grabbed Luo Bin’s hair, and said with a weird smile: “Yeah, I took refuge in the Holy Lotus Shrine incognito, becoming a small and unobtrusive Master Xiang. Aren’t there always heroes like you who just hurried over to die when they heard I’m just an incense master?”

After speaking, he slapped Luo Bin’s dantian, and the latter vomited blood.

However, the incense master grabbed Luo Bin’s wrist and unscrupulously absorbed his broken internal force.

“You disciples who are well-known and decent, one generation is inferior to the previous one. Your foundations are all so frivolous.”

The incense master sucked up Luo Bin’s internal force and threw him on the piled-up wood. As if not having enough, he looked at the others.

The people who came with Luo Bin were all trembling, lest the demon do anything to them.

However, the incense master looked down on them, turned and walked up the steps, then said to the townspeople: “They killed people in town so they have to pay it back ten times! Those who had their hands and feet chopped off with their swords could cut these people’s hands and feet into ten pieces. If there’s a dead person in your family, these people could be divided. There’s a real dragon under ZiWei XingJun and that dragon lives in the lake outside the town. This is the good fortune of QingHu Town!”

The townspeople became excited. The incense master said that QingHu Town is different.

The dragon is in the water and water is the source of money. QingHu Town was originally so wealthy and it was all the government officials and profiteers who ruined the good fortune of this place!

“Kill them, burn them! Get rid of the ominousness caused by those villains!”

The townspeople with people “who died of illness” in their families screamed loudly, their eyes full of hatred.

The incense master waved his hand leisurely, his voice not loud but everyone could hear him: “ZiWei XingJun is here, so those who believe in the dragon will live, and those who rebel against the dragon will die…”

The ground suddenly shook and he paused, vigilantly looking around.

The townspeople were too excited to notice.

“Incense master?” The Holy Lotus Shrine cultists suspiciously asked.

At this time, there was a flurry of ash flying from not far away, mixed with bricks and rocks, as if someone was demolishing a house.

“What happened?” The incense master frowned and asked. He quickly thought of the two strange people who appeared this morning.

The cultists of the Holy Lotus Shrine didn’t have time to check the situation when they saw the whirlwind of flying sand and rocks moving from east to west at a very fast speed, passing half a circle in their field of vision in the blink of an eye.

“My house!” At this moment, some townspeople screamed and wanted to go back.

They heard a rumbling sound as if there was an endless stream of water.

The incense master’s expression changed drastically, and he jumped into the air without saying a word, ready to flee for his life.

He did a good job and was on the edge of the crowd in the blink of an eye. Many houses were demolished when the temple was built, and many vacant houses were requisitioned around it so that the townspeople could live and stay together. After the outbreak of the epidemic, they were allowed to go home separately. Now, those houses were all gone and the ground was sinking into potholes.

Amidst the smoke and dust, someone faintly shook a palm across the air, destroying a house and the ground.

There was a constant stream of water gushing out of the pothole.

The incense master didn’t dare to look again, and was about to run for his life on the few remaining houses, but met Mo Li in front.

“Go away!” The incense master was furious.

Mo Li didn’t answer and the two palms met each other. The incense master felt blood surge in his chest and flew out staggeringly.

An extra layer of weird cyan power was on Mo Li’s palm.

The incense master was shocked. Who is this person and how could he have such a deep inner qi? Seeing the difference in Mo Li’s hands again, he suddenly smiled: “This junior is looking for death! I’ll let you taste the feeling of bone-eroding poison!”

Mo Li shook his hand and chased him as if he was all right.

The incense master was horrified and couldn’t understand what was going on. He hurriedly ran away with his internal injuries but in a short while, he was overtaken by Mo Li.

He threw a hidden weapon but Mo Li avoided it.

He drew a poisoned dagger and used his special skill but in less than ten rounds, Mo Li broke his wrist and he fell heavily among the ruins.

Mo Li didn’t give him another chance to struggle, and directly smashed the incense master’s dantian with a palm, abolishing his martial arts.

The incense master stilled. Wrinkles suddenly appeared on his face, and he looked twenty years older.

Mo Li picked him up and jumped to the roof, avoiding the area that Meng Qi demolished, and went straight to the temple.

“Boom.”

The incense master was thrown in front of the crowd, vomiting blood, and not getting up even after a long while.

The congregation of the Holy Lotus Shrine and the townspeople were first frightened by the sound, and then saw the incense master, who was blessed by ZiWei XiangJun, thrown on the ground half-dead. Even though they were angry, they couldn’t help taking a step back in the face of Mo Li falling from the sky.

They couldn’t walk away even if they wanted to because the temple was surrounded by potholes. The underground current was cut out so the water level skyrocketed and the entire ZiWei XiangJun temple seemed to have become an isolated island. Unless they could fly like the incense master or this strange demon, they can’t pass.

The townspeople were terrified, but Luo Bin and the others were overjoyed.

“Senior, please help!”

“The Holy Lotus Shrine have disregarded human life and the townspeople in this place were bewitched by them, death cannot wipe out their crimes!”

Luo Bin struggled, pointed at the incense master, and said with grief and indignation: “This person is a remnant from Hidden Killing Sect many years ago. He joined the Holy Lotus Shrine and continued to harm people, inducing righteous martial artists to take the bait and suck their internal force…”

“Where is the person you brought into QingHu Town?” Mo Li interrupted him.

Luo Bin was taken aback for a moment and looked at his companions as if he had only then thought of the young man, then angrily said: “That young man must have run away when he saw the situation. I had the good intention to avenge him but he didn’t appreciate it!”

Mo Li looked at him steadily and reminded him: “Did he tell you that the Holy Lotus Shrine’s incense master’s martial arts is strong? The townspeople here believed in him so the others didn’t go in directly to die. You should at least investigate, right?”

Luo Bin and the others immediately stagnated. It took a long time for someone to say: “He is greedy for life and afraid of death…how can we believe what he said?”

“What about now?” Mo Li didn’t untie them and just looked down at them.

Luo Bin was full of resentment because of the abolition of his martial arts. Now that Mo Li said that it was his fault for this disaster, he suddenly couldn’t bear it.

“I am a direct disciple of the Golden Sword from Qingcheng Sect. I was ordered to go down the mountain to punish evil and eliminate violence. Who are you?”

Mo Li looked at him thoughtfully: “Since your martial arts have also been abolished, it’s just right.”

After speaking, Meng Qi, who was still in a rage, raised his palm and injected ten percent of his inner qi, directly blasting a hole in the temple gates. Then he lifted the incense master in one hand, and Luo Bin with the other while loosening his ropes and threw both of them into the pit.

“Fight.” Mo Li faintly said, as if he would let go of whoever wins.

The incense master was still thinking about Mo Li’s origin, while Luo Bin couldn’t wait to tear the incense master, so he rushed over with a wild roar.

Even with their martial arts abolished, their skills could still be used.

The two scuffled into a ball. The pit was narrow so they rolled into the mud without a care for their image.

Mo Li turned his head to look at the townspeople, their eyes full of hostility.

Suddenly, the Holy Lotus Shrine cultists called for ZiWei XiangJun’s blessing and then rushed over with Luo Bin’s sharp sword.

This was the case for these people. Even if they were somewhat afraid, when they got together, another leader would rush over, and suddenly, they weren’t afraid anymore. It’s not that they’re not afraid of death, but that they don’t believe they’ll die at all or that others can kill them.

Since they won’t die, of course, it’s someone else who’ll die.

Mo Li raised his hand and was about to make them all fly, but someone did it for him.

The Holy Lotus Shrine cultists and the townsfolk fell to the ground in all directions, taking a long time before they fell.

There was a person standing on the roof of the main hall of ZiWei XingJun temple, with his long hair rising with the wind, his face was compelling, like a god.

“It’s Lord ZiWei XingJun, it must be him!”

“The dragon is in the water, and the real dragon is here!”

Some other townspeople recognized this as the person who appeared in QingHu Town with Mo Li this morning, and they hesitated. They tried to stop the people around them from cheering and shouting when——

“Boom!”

Meng Qi stepped on the roof and demolished the beams of the temple, pushing down the statue of ZiWei XingJun directly.

“…”

After shouting, the townspeople were full of horror, as if a catastrophe was imminent the next moment. Some people hugged their heads and wailed, while there were countless people who knelt down and bowed their heads.

But nothing happened. The sky didn’t turn black, and the ground didn’t collapse. Lord ZiWei XingJun didn’t get angry and brought disaster.

Meng Qi kicked the statue again and it rolled onto the steps in front of the temple, the townspeople dodging in shock.

“Whoever scolds this ZiWei XingJun or stepped on it at least once can leave.” Meng Qi lazily said, “Swear until I’m satisfied, if not…you might not be afraid of death and believe that you’ll be blessed by ZiWei XingJun after you die, but I can let you die, just like your incense master.”

The few people from Jianghu who were tied to the side were overjoyed at hearing those words and were about to speak.

“By the way, you guys don’t need to scold. Go and dig a grave outside the town. It must be deep enough and the sides of the grave should be smooth enough. Cut a tree to make a coffin and make sure it doesn’t have a single whisker. If anyone didn’t do well, the coffin and grave will belong to them.”

The author has something to say:

“Set up the heart for the heaven and earth, make the life for the people, for the sacred and inherited learning, and for the peace for all generations!”–Northern Song Dynasty’s Zhang Zhai

————

If you take care of your own elders, the common people will do the same for their elders. If you are kind to your young, the common people will be kind to their young—you will hold the kingdom in the palm of your hand.

Why must a King speak of profit when there’s humaneness and fairness?

If Heaven wished for peace, who is there beside me to bring it about?

–from [Mencius]

——————

So now is the time for political questions.

What was the reason for the failure of the political ambition of the founding hero of the Chu Dynasty?

Answer: In the feudal society of “one family dominates the whole nation”, Li Yuanze’s behavior represents the Emperor’s rights and interests, so failure is inevitable… erm, the State Teacher is here, so I won’t answer the question anymore, everyone, run.

Translator’s Note:

I’m sorry. This is double the usual chapter and has more terms and quotes from old sages. If you don’t know Chinese like I do, it’s hard searching for the official translations of these quotes and poems, so I’m mostly skimming through them and just mixing and matching various translations to make them readable. There are also various unfamiliar terms and titles. You can tell how some words are changed halfway and mixed up. That just shows how I don’t know if they’re calling out titles or names, like Master Xiang = incense master. 

The next translations will probably be like this and I’m totally not qualified to translate this, but if you’re still willing to bear with it, I’ll continue translating it like this. If not, then please learn Chinese and read them in the original language, or wait for a better and more qualified translator to pick this up.

Sorry for the rant. Just muddle-headed since I’m translating after a while. Had a new job in RL and it took half a year to adjust my schedule to be stable. Hopefully, it won’t change again.