Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 804: The Original Owner’s Obsession

The moment He Lingchuan turned away, the smile vanished from his face.

The previous night, he had released the nightmare into Steward Wu’s dream and managed to pry out some information. Everything had gone smoothly.

It seemed the person who also knew how to use nightmares to kill was not Steward Wu, but He Chunhua. The old man from the Li Family in Dunyu had most likely been killed by his cheap father.

With He Chunhua away at the moment, it was the perfect time for He Lingchuan to act.

He had now learned several things:

First, Steward Wu did not know Sun Hongye’s whereabouts, nor did he know about the Collected Commentary on the Jade Blossoms.

Does that mean He Chunhua is equally unaware? Did Sun Hongye truly leave on a sudden whim, entirely of his own accord?

Second, He Chunhua had indeed performed a rite of divine recompense, and he had indeed offered up his eldest son as the price for summoning Naluotian!

With Steward Wu’s testimony, everything was finally clear.

A strange surge of resentment and anger welled up inside him, and He Lingchuan instinctively pressed a hand to his chest.

The fury of betrayal, the unwillingness to accept it, the disbelief—he could distinguish all those restless emotions, but by the time they reached his mind, they had already weakened considerably, as though separated from him by a thick pane of frosted glass.

These emotions belonged to the original owner.

They were the instinctive reaction of the original owner upon hearing with his own ears what the father he had loved and admired had once done to him.

He Lingchuan had not expected that even as his control over this body grew increasingly complete, the tiny remnants of the original owner’s instincts had still not vanished entirely and that they could still react to the outside world.

“You should just reconcile yourself,” He Lingchuan murmured. “You were nothing more than a sacrifice. Even if you hadn’t died when you fell from that cliff, one day you still would have been offered up. Rest in peace.”

A long sigh seemed to echo through his mind, and another feeling washed over him: utter despair.

He stopped walking without realizing it.

Shan Youjun looked puzzled. “Young Master?”

Qiu Hu, standing nearby, softly hissed, “Don’t disturb him!”

He could sense the currents of energy shifting around He Lingchuan’s body, scattered rather than focused, while his eyes had suddenly gone blank. Clearly, his consciousness had sunk into his spiritual sea.

For men like Qiu Hu and He Lingchuan, whose souls were both highly condensed, such vacant moments were exceedingly rare.

In layman’s terms, he had zoned out.

However, this state was very different from an ordinary person simply losing focus.

Fortunately, they had yet to leave the He Residence. Whatever Eldest Young Master He chose to do in his own home could hardly be called improper.

Shan Youjun glanced at Qiu Hu and said nothing.

The side garden suddenly fell silent, as though even the wind blowing through had softened.

A dozen breaths later, He Lingchuan finally let out a long breath. The energy around him settled, and life returned to his eyes.

Under the constant trials of Panlong City, his soul had grown increasingly powerful. Just now, when he turned his spiritual sense inward, he had actually caught hold of the tiny remnant of instinct left behind by the original owner.

Or rather, a lingering knot in his heart.

The original owner could not accept it. He could not understand how his own biological father had been willing to sacrifice him.

And the original owner still harbored another obsession, or perhaps contradiction. He hoped He Lingchuan would spare He Chunhua’s life and refrain from dealing him a killing blow.

After all, He Chunhua had still raised and cared for him for more than ten years.

Unless this knot in the heart was untangled, this body could not truly be considered entirely under He Lingchuan’s control.

If this obsession and unease remained buried in his heart, they could sink into his subconscious and perhaps even damage his rationality, influencing his future judgments.

What was the subconscious?

It was when a thought surfaced naturally, yet you could no longer trace where it came from.

If matters ever reached that point, He Lingchuan might no longer be able to tell whether a future decision came from his own transmigrated soul or from the original owner’s obsession.

That would be far too dangerous.

The path of cultivation was rugged and perilous. A single mistake could prove fatal.

He had to find a way to resolve this problem, and the simplest, most effective method was to satisfy that lingering obsession and dissolve it.

Once He Lingchuan understood this, he was not worried. Instead, he was delighted.

Ever since that grand battle at Mount Xu, whenever he looked back on the ordeal, he had felt that despite his many gains, something was still missing. His cultivation had remained stuck, unable to advance.

He had clearly been only one step away, yet day after day he had been unable to find the door.

Now he finally understood. At this stage of cultivation, what he lacked most was the “completeness” of his foundation.

It was a deficiency of the heart and soul, as if the vessel of his spirit were sailing across the spiritual sea while missing one piece of ballast.

It was mystical and difficult to explain, yet undeniably real.

Now that he had identified the root of the problem, his next steps had a direction.

This is a good thing.

“Come on, come on! We’re going to Gathering Fragrance Tower!” Eldest Young Master He was suddenly full of energy and in an excellent mood. “Order whatever you want. Don’t you dare try to save me money!”

* * *

Twenty-five days passed in the blink of an eye.

He Lingchuan remained in the capital, overseeing the flow of funds and the allocation of supplies. Every expenditure involving the grain and provisions subsequently sent by Rongshan, as well as the supplies purchased with the borrowed funds, had to pass before the Rongshan special envoy.

Hu Qin, He Lingchuan’s deputy in charge of administration, rejected more than a dozen expenditures. Some accounts had been disguised as military expenses, with a little money shifted here, another item appropriated there, all scattered across the books.

He Lingchuan was unfamiliar with such tricks, while his subordinates were already working themselves ragged, so he simply dragged his younger brother He Yue in to help.

He Yue had spent years assisting their father, and what he handled most often were accounts and itemized expenditures. He knew every trick in the book. The moment he looked over the records, he laughed. “Child’s play! Just wait. I’ll drag every one of them out into the light.”

He Lingchuan slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make his younger brother grimace. “I’m counting on you.”

“Just don’t tell anyone I helped, or everyone above me will hate me to death!”

“Relax. I might screw over anyone else, but I wouldn’t screw you over.”

As it turned out, the very first suspicious expenditure He Yue uncovered was the salaries of officials in Shihuan City.

Any questionable expense that was discovered was submitted directly to the ruler of Yuan.

The next day, County Magistrate Wu of Shihuan City came straight to see He Lingchuan, a broad smile plastered across his face. “Special Envoy, every salary expense in Shihuan is clearly itemized. Not one has been exaggerated or fabricated.”

“County Magistrate Wu is an honest man. Deputy Envoy Hu has already audited these expenses, and there really is no exaggeration.”

Hu Qin sat to the side and nodded repeatedly. “The problem is that your expenses are simply too large. Your little county office alone has four salary grades and eighty-seven employees!”

Simply put, too many people lived off the government payroll.

He Lingchuan added, “Back when Governor-General He served in Xia Province, the entire provincial administration had barely more than twenty people.”

County Magistrate Wu replied, “Ah, but Shihuan is the secondary capital. Many officials’ families and members of the royal family live there, so naturally there are more affairs to handle. Without additional manpower...” Privately, however, he grumbled: He Chunhua’s Xia Province administration had only a little over twenty people? How could that possibly be considered normal? What prefectural or county office doesn’t accumulate more and more staff the longer it exists? Give Xia Province another seven or eight years and see whether its administration still has fewer than two hundred people.

Shihuan City had been an established county for decades and was also the secondary capital. How could it possibly have only a small staff?

He Lingchuan picked up the register, glanced through it twice, and cut him off. “Why does your county office need to maintain three carriages and four coachmen? Aside from you, who else needs a carriage every time they come and go? Are their legs broken?”

County Magistrate Wu stammered, “One of the coachmen is a former battlefield veteran. He lost a leg and had difficulty finding work, so the county office arranged a position for him...”

He Lingchuan held out his hand. “Did you bring the county office’s personnel register?”