v4c49: The Plans of Mortals

Bai Huizhong, Lord Director of Spiritual Ascension Affairs, stared out the window of his study, his knuckles white, feeling like he was going to throw up. To say he was stressed would be an understatement. The Auditor beside him looked equally as pale. The man had an unfortunate, weasel-like face, and was wearing the full courtly regalia of an Imperial Auditor: a bright yellow robe and large black hat. Normally, they were filled with nothing but spite for one another, but for the moment, they were united.

“What in the heavens’ name was that?!” the weasley looking man whispered to himself as sweat dripped down his brow.

They were both still reeling from what they had felt—they had been informed of the arrival and budding confrontation between Cai Xiulan and the Patriarch of the Grand Ravine Sect—but Huizhong hadn’t expected the intensity. The pair had felt the outpouring of intent and Qi from their place in the mountain. Even this far away, and used to the bouts of intent from battling cultivators, Huizhong had nearly fallen to his knees.

And now they were moving towards them.

Huizhong swallowed. “Just cultivator things.” he replied, his legs shaking.

The year had actually started out well, despite the… incident. True to Master Rou’s words, whatever altercation had been brewing, fizzled out. The Shrouded Mountain Sect had retreated, and things had calmed down again… mostly.

Not that there had not been consequences.

The mountain itself had been… difficult. Yes, difficult. Doors would open randomly. Lights would flash and start playing what sounded like recordings of past events. Systems that had been dead for centuries occasionally turned on of their own accord before just as mysteriously shutting off.

It was like there was a ghost walking the halls of the Dueling Peaks.

At least Bao Wen, the newly appointed Director of Dueling Peaks Reconstruction, was doing his job well. The cultivators had appointed him, and he seemed determined to do all he could to keep things under control. A wave of his maintenance rod and a flashing light or screaming crystal would quiet. The kid was taking his new duties seriously, and Huizhong made sure to always be a reasonable ear when the lad wanted to vent, as much to keep abreast of the situation as out of any altruism.

And with that in fairly good hands—or at least not being Huizhong’s own responsibility—he was able to put one problem out of his mind as the snows began to fall..

The winter had been absolutely glorious. The aid package he had requested from the capital, ostensibly for building repairs from damages suffered during the tournament, had arrived. But there was no damage left to repair. The cultivators had already fixed the town. And it had been so much money…

Of course, there were some obligations he had to see to, like setting up Bao Wen’s new Department for Dueling Peaks Reconstruction like the cultivators had wanted. Then, with nothing else to actually use it on, he had taken half for himself and his staff to hand out bonuses and spent the rest on parties. He had even thrown the commoners a bone: the New Year’s bash he had held would be spoken of for decades to come. The sky had turned to day with the number of fireworks that he had set off, they had gorged on Silver Grade Rice, and the amount of alcohol consumed had been truly epic.

Hells, he woke up the next day to a statue of himself in the square built out of snow and a cheering populace.

From there he had coasted, enjoying his wine, his assistant Cho’s shapely rear, and the steady rise of numbers in his books.

The doll sales were absolutely through the roof, even with the small amount he had to set aside for Rou Tigu’s royalties. They had even added another workshop to keep up with demand!

He stared down at the approaching cultivators and swallowed. Hopefully… hopefully they never put together just who was selling those dolls. Especially Cai. She really didn’t need to know what some people would pay for high quality, anatomically accurate dolls—in fact, he should probably shut down that entire division. No matter how discrete the customers were, he wasn’t going to be touching that any longer.

He grimaced.

Life had been going great. He should have known it wouldn’t last.

Sourly he looked at the man who had started the downward slide.

The Auditor. The man was still in shock. He wouldn’t have lasted a day in Huizhong’s job. He was soft.

He wasn’t the Auditor-General Huizhong was more familiar with. That man was like a grim executioner and had a face like a battle-axe. This was the new Auditor-General. He had a weasley little face that Huizhong took an instant dislike to. The man had smiled with a smug, vindictive little grin, and then he had requested Huizhong’s records.

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All of them.

And the worst part was that the bastard took over the main office while he worked, going over things line by line!

Now, Huizhong liked to think he was good at hiding things, but even he couldn’t cook his books perfectly. And the Auditor knew that, delighting in calling Huizhong in to tell him about the ‘minor discrepancies’ he had noticed.

Huizhong could have taken it. He had enough friends and allies at court that he would be able to weather things as long as the big, important stuff stayed hidden… and then he got a private transmission from said court.

“The incident is of great concern to the Court,” the voice on the other end had said. “Any information you can give might make certain things… go away.”

Of course, the entire thing turned out to be about the incident. This could only be the nobles poking around. The Lord Magistrate had at least understood him when he wanted to keep things quiet, but apparently the nobles wanted all the juicy gossip and thought to poke at him to get it.

Were Huizhong an idiot, he would have just told them then and there. But the cultivators wanted this quiet, and Huizhong was very inclined to agree. Airing dirty laundry—especially when that dirty laundry belonged to the Shrouded Mountain Sect—was certainly a good way to commit suicide.

Huizhong wanted to be alive to appreciate his wealth, thank you very much. And If the fuckers in Pale Moon Lake wanted to declare war on him for his decision, then war they’d get. So in the next meeting he had with several Sect representatives he mentioned his… problems.

The next time he met the Auditor the man was quite a bit less smug. They had a bit of an understanding after that, but the asshole was still setting the fines too fucking high.

And then, in the middle of all that, he had been politely informed of the meeting.

A meeting that would have every Sect in the Hills in attendance. The Dueling Peaks had always played host to tournaments, but it had never held as many cultivators as were about to arrive.

And he had just seen Cai Xiulan square off against a cultivator in the Spiritual Realm, who was so powerful Huizhong had seen him start to impose his will on the very world itself!

Cultivators in the Azure Hills shouldn’t have been able to do that.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t just wait here and sob to himself. He would have liked that. He wondered if he should resign. He had enough money to live large for the rest of his days…

Huizhong carefully unclenched his hands from the windowsill and then straightened his robes.