Chapter 305 — Let Them Starve Politely

CHAPTER 305

Let Them Starve Politely

In the great hall of Martial Palace, a letter of congratulation lay unopened on the long table, with a red ribbon around it.

“I wrote it myself,” Wei Chengyuan said. “Elder Shen delivered it. It was very correct.”

He stood at the head of the hall with his hands behind his back. He wore the dark gold robe of a Martial Palace elder, and his hair was a perfect silver. The late Golden Core qi in the room pressed gently on everyone present, as it always did when he was displeased.

“It was returned unread,” Elder Shen Tuo said.

“By whom?” Wei Chengyuan said.

“A man with a broom, Elder. He said the sect master was busy sweeping,” Shen Tuo said.

Nobody in the hall laughed. Tuoba Hong, the Palace's chief disciple, folded his arms and looked at the floor. Yuan Kuang stood behind him with his jaw set.

“Tell me what you saw,” Wei Chengyuan said. “All of it. Start with the bolts.”

“Nine,” Elder Shen Tuo said. “I counted twice, and so did the other three elders. The first six were an ordinary Golden Core tribulation, only thicker. The seventh and eighth were not ordinary.” His mouth tightened. “I've seen a Nascent Soul tribulation once, from a distance. Those two were the same.”

“Foundation Establishment,” Tuoba Hong said, without looking up. “Drawing that. It's a lie.”

“I saw the bolts,” Shen Tuo said, irritated by the dismissal. “I’m reporting what happened, not asking whether you like it.”

“Then it's a trick,” Tuoba Hong said.

“Heaven doesn't do tricks, Chief Disciple,” Wei Chengyuan said. “Go on, Shen Tuo.”

“After the ninth, the clouds opened. There was a darker layer behind them.” Elder Shen Tuo stopped. For a moment he looked older than his years. “Elder Wei, I've never felt anything look at me from so far away. It wasn't looking at me. It was looking at the boy. I was only standing in the way.”

“And your junior?” Wei Chengyuan said.

“He lost his sight at the fourth bolt. Ten li from the cliff. He fell off his rock with blood on his face, and for three days he couldn't see or feel his own meridians. The physician says it'll return. It wasn't the lightning. Lightning burns. This was… cut,” Shen Tuo said.

The hall was silent.

“Cut by what?” Yuan Kuang asked.

“I don't know,” Shen Tuo said.

“Artificer Hall's sect master,” Tuoba Hong said, at last raising his head. “Everyone knows he's the strongest in the region. Perhaps he did it.”

“From a cliff, at ten li, while holding back a tribulation?” Wei Chengyuan asked. “And while keeping up his sweeping?”

“I'm only saying—” Tuoba Hong said.

“We’ve all said Li Changyuan is strong for decades,” Wei Chengyuan said. “Yet nobody’s seen him prove how strong. Beyond the sky there is another sky, and beyond people there are other people. I won't solve that question by sending you against his gate. He has walls to defend, and we have other ways to reach what’s behind them.”

Tuoba Hong flushed. “Then give me the order, Elder. I'm early Nascent Soul. I can be at their gate by dawn and bring the boy's head back.”

“Which head?” Wei Chengyuan asked. “The one that survived nine bolts? Or the one that signed Gongsun Ce's name to my last protest?”

Yuan Kuang winced. Tuoba Hong said nothing.

“Look at what head-on bought us,” Wei Chengyuan said quietly. “An elder with a cracked core. Medical invoices sent to our own hall. We challenged them and received a thank-you note in a clerk’s hand. That’s enough.”

He walked to the table, picked up the unopened letter and set it down again.

“Artificer Hall needs ore and herbs,” Wei Chengyuan said. “Its tributary towns need the iron it sells them. Leave the gate alone. We’ll touch the edges until the sect can’t feed what it’s taken in.”

Elder Shen Tuo's eyes sharpened. “Which edges?”

“The ore first. The Wujin shipment is already sitting at our border post. Keep it there. Keep inspecting. Let the Qiao merchant house buy every ingot it can find in the region and sell none of it to the Hall. Pay the smiths in notes, if they must be paid,” Wei Chengyuan said.

“The Qiao house will want a guarantee,” Yuan Kuang said.

“They'll have it from the Palace's name,” Wei Chengyuan said.

“And the river?” Yuan Kuang said.

“Iron Fist Gate holds the ferries. I want their toll raised on every Artificer Hall caravan. The Hall's tributary towns live on that river, and I want the towns to know who raised it.” Wei Chengyuan's eyes moved to the shadows at the back of the hall, where a clerk had been standing so still that no one had noticed him. “And the third edge?”

“The steward in the Hall's Outer Affairs office, Elder,” the clerk said quietly. “He's been on our payroll for two years. He has the tribute ledgers. He can be told to lose a page at the right time.”

“Tell him the right time is soon,” Wei Chengyuan said.

The clerk bowed and backed away.

“It'll take months,” Tuoba Hong said, with disappointment.

“Haste won't let you eat hot tofu. It takes months to starve anyone,” Wei Chengyuan said. “That's the point. I would like it done politely.”

“Politely?” Tuoba Hong said.

“No blood. No shouting. No Palace seal on anything that can't be denied.” Wei Chengyuan's mouth curved, thin and cold. “Let the weakest sect starve politely. And let the boy watch it happen, from a core he cannot yet fill.”

The hall fell silent. Tuoba Hong disliked waiting, but the plan gave him nothing he could strike at. Wei Chengyuan’s patience made him more dangerous than the chief disciple’s anger.