Scripture of Days Past

Chapter 90: Account Books

Chu Qiguang forced the scammer to confess how he had deceived Granny Sun, then extorted ten taels of silver from him.

As the scammer begged for mercy, Chu Qiguang asked with a disappointed expression, ”You don’t have any backers? No senior brothers or masters that I can extor—I mean, speak to?”

”I don’t! I swear!” the scammer wailed. ”I’ve given you all of my money! I have nothing left!”

”In that case, I’ll write up a debt slip for you to sign. You still owe me a thousand taels of silver,” Chu Qiguang said.

Even after the scammer’s deception was exposed, Granny Sun still refused to accept reality. She accused Chu Qiguang of making false accusations, then cried and begged him to let the scammer continue the ritual.

Chu Qiguang was so exasperated that all he could do was laugh. He knew that some people were simply beyond saving once they became too invested in their superstitious beliefs, and Granny Sun had clearly already gone beyond the point of no return.

Granny Sun continued to weep as she recounted how she had done everything in her power over the eight years of her grandson’s life to improve his health. During the day, she cooked and washed clothes for others, then took on odd jobs at night for extra income. Most of the silver she had earned over the years had been offered to the Daoist temple in the hope that the Profound Origin Dao Lord would bless her sickly grandson.

According to Granny Sun, her perseverance and devout worship had moved the Profound Origin Dao Lord. Starting two years ago, Daoist Master Azure Spirit of the Azure Sun Daoist Temple began regularly prescribing pills to improve Sun Xian’s condition. However, over the past few months, Daoist Master Azure Spirit had frequently gone out to investigate the corpse reanimation case, so Sun Xian’s treatment had been put on hold.

As Granny Sun continued to rant and complain, Chu Qiguang completely lost interest in speaking to her. There was no getting through to her anyway, so why bother? Meanwhile, Wang Cailiang warned Chu Qiguang that the scammer knew people from the Imperial Heavenly Dao, and cautioned him not to make an enemy of that notorious cult.

Qiao Zhi had told Chu Qiguang about the Imperial Heavenly Dao before. Just like the Immortal Dao, it was considered a cult in the Great Han Empire. However, the Imperial Heavenly Dao wasn’t as depraved as the Immortal Dao. They believed in the Imperial High God, and had rapidly gained followers over the years by treating the sick and giving food to the needy in Yong Province.They also possessed two of the twenty-five orthodox arts: the Book of Humans and the Five Lightning Orthodox Mantra.

According to Qiao Zhi, those who cultivated the Five Lightning Orthodox Mantra to the Dao Comprehension state could summon and wield lightning with their bare hands, while the Book of Humans granted one the ability to make talismanic water to treat the ill.

After moving into the Wu Manor, Chu Qiguang relied on Chen Gang to communicate with the dog and cat fiends and stay connected to the outside world.

In the Wu Manor, he spent most of his time cultivating and meditating, or chatting with Wu Wei and his children to deepen his bond with them.

Eight days later, Chu Qiguang was finally able to send his qi and blood to all four of his extremities, thereby reaching the third state.

The next day, Qiao Zhi returned to Azure Sun County with a bountiful haul of over ten account books.

***

”The fiends of the Great Qian Empire treated me like an honored guest!” Qiao Zhi bragged. ”They know that the Great Han Empire wants to establish trade relations, and that the Ding Clan is trying to thwart those plans. Once they learned that I wanted to bring down the Ding Clan, they made copies of the account books for me and even told me to be careful. There really are a ton of fiends over there!”

Although the wolf fiends were the dominant race in the northwestern grasslands, they ruled over many other fiend races, and there were even many cat and dog fiends migrating to the grasslands every year.

”The quality of life isn’t great over there though, right?” Chu Qiguang asked.

Qiao Zhi nodded in confirmation. The fiend race had never been as skillful as humans, and there were severe shortages of all kinds of everyday necessities. As a result, the fiend race had never been able to expand its population and gain more power.

Hence, it was no exaggeration to say that the majority of the fiends in the Great Qian Empire wanted to establish trade relations with the Great Han Empire. In Chu Qiguang’s eyes, the Great Qian Empire was still transitioning from slavery to feudalism, so it was behind even the Great Han Empire.

As he read through the account books, the more he saw, the more astonished he became. The account books contained records of the illegal trade between the northern fiends and the south spanning nearly ten years. There were five powerful local clans like the Ding Clan involved, and all of them had the backing of powerful officials. The nine border military bases were also involved, and even weaponry and rations were being traded.

The border military bases are even more corrupt than I thought.

They had essentially become independent nations of their own, and they were too powerful to cut off and too corrupt to fix.

Chu Qiguang shook his head in dismay, then sent all of the dozen or so account books to Wu Wei. After that, he called upon Daoist Master Law Origin to employ the services of the Daoist temple to send the account books to Wu Siqi in the capital.

Li Changqing had already been released from the Daoist temple. He was still recovering after being starved for seven days, but his men had begun targeting the Hao and Wu Clans again.

Chu Qiguang and Wu Wei had no real use for the account books. The nine border military bases had to be colluding with powerful officials in the imperial court to act so brazenly. Even with such incriminating evidence, the Wu and Hao Clans didn’t have the power to do anything.

By this point, Wu Wei had already become very dependent on Chu Qiguang, and the acquisition of these account books only impressed him even more.

”I’m certain Father won’t make these account books public,” Wu Wei said. ”In fact, he most likely won’t even present them to His Majesty through the usual channels. Otherwise, things could easily escalate. If the border military bases stage an uprising, the entire empire will be in great peril. Instead, it’s much better to keep these account books as leverage and only use them when it suits us.”

Of course, the best course of action for Wu Siqi was to hold onto the account books, but that wasn’t what Chu Qiguang wanted to see, nor did it necessarily align with Wu Wei’s interests.

By now, Chu Qiguang had a clear understanding of Wu Wei’s character. He was greedy and incompetent, and far too ambitious for his own good. He never thought about the long term and was, instead, a short-sighted money-grabber.

With that in mind, Chu Qiguang said, ”It’s definitely over for the Ding Clan. I wonder how much money they’ve made from all these years of illegal trade.”

As expected, this immediately piqued Wu Wei’s interest, and he was so excited just thinking about it that his breathing became a little heavier.

”It’s a pity that all of their assets will be seized by the imperial court,” Chu Qiguang sighed.

Wu Wei echoed Chu Qiguang’s forlorn sigh, and he wanted nothing more than to be able to go to the Ding Manor at that very moment and seize all of their assets.

”The Ding Clan destroyed spirit veins and colluded with fiends; they’re traitors to the empire!” Chu Qiguang continued. ”If you ask me, we should rally the entire county and capture them in the name of justice!”