Chương 48: Chapter 47

Even with her family foibles, results were arriving. After a month, the reconstruction was done. The Walled Moonlit Ring was fixed and reinforced. As they had done for tens of millennia, the fortifications loomed over the Plateau like a circle of iron cliffs. The great Night Gates were restored, their great panes of spirit-wood glimmering with binding arrays and spells. The glyph of the Sect, silver and red over black, throned over spiked rampants once more, challenging the world to come and fail again.

Just in time. Fuelled by the Shadow Dragon Vein's emanations, powerful Shadow Beasts had started appearing all over the plateau. Half-corporeal beasts that resembled the sketches of a demented artist, they killed and devoured each other, or basked in the abyssal breath that came from beneath. Already, alphas were emerging from among them, and matriarchs were setting nests among the harsh crags of the plateau's top.

From time to time, the most aggressive ignored the repelling arrays set in the walls and attacked, claws the height of two men raking against black stone as they hungered for the warm flesh huddling behind it. These were horrible monsters, things of boiling shadows and materialized stillness that sometimes walked level with the walls and never ranked beneath Rank 7. Much of what fighting force remained in Yan Luo focused on fighting them off.

Core Formation Gatemasters, grizzled defenders from the Siege, led squads of Formation Establishment Wallkeepers in firing at them from the walls, or threw themselves from the ramparts to engage them in furious duels that filled the air above the Ring with explosions and Qi blasts. In that, they were helped by the medium-sized formations the Ring still possessed. They did a good job.

It wasn't long before the sight of squads of keen-eyed Scavengers rustling among the carcasses littering the base of the walls and the great carts loaded with massive shadow-beast corpses became common.

Beast parts Low-quality: 60 Tons (Effective: 6) / 20 Tons / 50 Tons Medium-quality: 30 Tons (Effective: 2) / 15 Tons / 30 Tons -> Medium-quality: 30 Tons (Effective: 2) / 22 Tons / 38 Tons High-quality: 2 Tons (Effective: 0) / 2 Tons / 4 Tons -> High-quality: 2 Tons (Effective: 0) / 3 Tons / 6 Tons Peak: // The people didn't mind. After the near-constant ruckus of the Siege, this was like a drizzle before a downpour.

If anything, it quickly became a bit of an attraction for the children, especially when a Gatemaster whirled in the sky, slashing a long-legged, tower-sized monster to ribbons. It helped that when everything failed, when something like a Rank 9 started lumbering for the walls and the Gatemasters ordered their soldiers to keep behind the formations, the darkness enfolding the sky thickened like a storm cloud. The colossal beast would have the time to peer above.

Then, there would be a soundless boom, like thunder without lightning, and the Rank 9 would reappear in chunks ready for the stockpiles in the courtyards inside the walls. Even young men, who made fun of the friend who turned toward the Ring during a fight, even adults stopped what they were doing to look. Some bowed toward the sight, offering their respects. Most just nodded at what had become an almost ordinary sight.

"Knocking on the Founder's door," as the increasingly popular saying went, was very, very unwise, but not for those who lived under Her protective shadow. For the first time in decades, they felt safe, and that made them work only harder. That, and the nobles' newfound attention for the mortal population, made fixing and enlarging the production facilities a done thing as well.

The great factories and night-strain field in the Fake Underworld were extended, and a new logging station was established by the Ghost Forest in the Middle Grey Underworld. The clothing factories on the surface also expanded their production, taking over some of the buildings that had been left empty and setting them up with new machinery. The result was self-sufficiency.

The city produced enough food through its fields and farms, enough water through the phantom rivers under the surface, and enough fuel from the Ghost Forest beneath to sustain itself. Monthly expenditure/production/supplies Food: 3. 000 Tons / 3. 000 Tons / 14. 000 Tons Water: 20 Million Liters / 20 Million Liters / 90 Million Liters Clothing: 150 Tons / 150 Tons / 210 Tons Fuel: 15. 000 Tons / 15. 000 Tons / 55. 000 Tons An incredible accomplishment in any world that knew scarcity.

In the Founder's previous existence, wars had been fought to reach it, famine and pestilence had exploded because it wasn't. The whole history of mankind could be traced back to it in one way or the other. Here, where true value lay in rarer things and the lands burst with lifeforce, it was almost a footnote. But not to the mortals and Outer Disciples.

While stews bubbled in pots and meat skewers roasted over fireplaces, they lifted cups, thanking the Founder and their brave soldiers and the lucky Moon for the return of the good old times. Casks of rice wine, once reserved for the military, were brought into taverns, broken open and passed around in toasts and oaths. Even nobles and higher cultivators, who made a show of having left "the corrupting grain" behind, indulged. It wouldn't advance anybody's cultivation. In time, it would even damage it.

But that was a question for tomorrow. Tonight, everybody ate and made merry. With the first cheer from the Siege's end gone, the impromptu parties had been mostly set aside, but that didn't stop the city streets from filling with sounds when the shifts ended. The people of the Night plateau divided their time in Duty, when one worked or advanced, the time for being serious, and Evening, when uniforms came loose and cups filled with rice wine. And they showed their spirit in both.

Serious and dutiful to the point of being grim when on duty, they knew how to let loose when not, especially when among their own. Hundreds of lanterns and torches filled the night with colors and songs of hope for the future and regret for the losses of the past filled it with sounds. The Nightborn were a dutiful people, stern-faced and disciplined. Yet, there was a fire smouldering inside that night, one that emerged in the tavern and the drinking hall.

Whole taverns could turn into songs, just as whole streets may fall to silence, the people engrossed in watching the distant dark above. Friends joined in games or poetry contests, rivals met in shadowy alleys to resolve their problems and new bonds were struck or severed.

Hopelessly idealistic and romantically inclined, the people would gather around poets singing ballads about heroic soldiers who sacrificed their life for the Sect, or watch puppet shows and painted actors telling of great champions and star-crossed lovers divided by family and war. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Evening was the time of feelings, communal and otherwise.

Family and friends gathered for the second dinner, as they called it, not to eat but just to stay together longer.

"The first meal for the body. The second for the heart," as the saying went. It was the time for courtship, when couples strolled together into the shadowed streets, or young people waited, hearts jumping, in the parlours of the Geji. It was the time of life allowed to blossom. Not too much, of course. If you got drunk, how would you stay awake at work the day after? With the rampant Qi and demonic poisoning gone and the slave and mortal quarters repaired, there was little to hold them back.

With the great silos-towers now filled to capacity, there was little reason to think about it. As Evening gave way to Duty, the city came alive with the trundling of carts and of people hard at work. Because even with the reconstruction done and the basic facilities up to snuff, even with the full review, accounting and reordering of all supplies completed, there was a never-ending stream of the latter.

As the Sect moved away from full mobilization in the following few months, people were allowed to return to their old occupations. During the Siege, coupons and slips were allocated to each household for everything, from food to clothes to fuel. Now, under the new administration, printed money – spirit stones were too valuable – started to circulate.

They wouldn't replace the old system for many months yet - in some sectors, it wouldn't ever happen - but the new possibilities that just having it opened meant that many citizens could reopen old activities, or start new ones. From one day to the next, all kinds of smaller activities sprouted up. The Nightborn were too used to being directed to shine with initiative.

Still, that limitation helped here: only a small percentage of the workforce applied to be discharged from factory work entirely and since what remained was enough to meet production quotas, they were mostly met with approval. The majority - mortals and Outer Disciples alike – used the time left to them by the shorter shifts to start side-hustles.

Many houses started to sport vegetable gardens or small hutches for animals, all things the inhabitants could afford because the administration offered lowered prices to small buyers who bought from the Fake Underworld. In turn, the produce from these smaller works was channelled into city markets, or into small stores, giving birth to small merchants.

Watered by the Shadow Dragon Vein, almost all the products that reached these counters were components for cultivation, and the administration started to buy them in bulk, adding them to the Sect's stores.

Spirit Herbs Low-quality: 80 Tons (Effective: 5) / 20 Tons / 50 Tons → 80 Tons (Effective: 5) / 30 Tons / 70 Tons Beast parts Low-quality: 60 Tons (Effective: 6) / 20 Tons / 50 Tons → 60 Tons (Effective: 6) / 30 Tons / 60 Tons In turn, this meant that the people had more money to spend, and, after decades of pulling belt, the pent-up desire to spend it on something different from basic necessities. Artisan shops emerged as a reply, the people picking up old tools or rushing to learn new crafts.

Small schools appeared, those who had the cultures making a living by teaching the Sect's programs. It was a virtuous cycle that set the basis of a new economy and gave the people more time and resources to invest. Of course, the nobles weren't left behind. If the common Nightborn didn't shine with initiative, the noble one did just that, being both a commander and an entrepreneur, both qualities that the long Siege had barely stifled and that now came roaring back.

While many nobles remained in the military – the Hand rejected any degree of demobilization -, just as many threw themselves eagerly in the budding economy. The renegotiation effort that had swept the contract world had hit them hard. No more would the great families be able to rest on the laurels of century-long, supervision-free ownership contracts. Now, the mines, farms and veins they held were kept in the Sect's name, their produce prices fixed by the Sect and their work under the commissioners' keen eye.

But that didn't mean there wasn't money to be had or influence to be found. Nobles invested in artisans' shops and new factories, opened dancing halls and restaurants, set up auction houses and traders' markets. These establishments produced in bulk, using their more complex structures and facilities to produce larger batches of products or goods that were more refined than anything the lower economy could produce. All of them went to satisfy the new hunger for consumer products.

Elegant furniture and inscribed paper lamps; delicate glasswork and spell-enchanted rock slips; they flooded the market and, in turn, provided workplaces to a more specialized workforce, both mortal and cultivator. More than anything, the new economy allowed far more participants in.

Smaller noble clans and families that could never compete with the Great Clans now suddenly found themselves able to, especially because the Sect's administration didn't hesitate to offer them managing contracts all over the Domain or economic support to start their ventures. That in turn reinforced competition, pushing all challengers to reach for quality and better prices not to fall behind.

In the old days, the Clans had a stranglehold over the Sect, trumped only by strong Masters and whatever factions they managed to group around themselves. Suddenly, that stranglehold was broken. But they weren't left disappointed for long. The new administration, enlarged and reinforced, vigorously enlisted from among its ranks.

It did so judiciously, making sure that no family dominated a department, mixing greater and smaller clans among the clerks, a new caste that was supposed to be united only by the duty of service to the Sect. While they lost their economic and societal supremacy, the nobles were compensated with having many of their privileges put to paper and by seeing their influence explode from their singular domains to the whole Sect. The contract system didn't die.

The great Clans like the Chu and the Shi maintained their little fiefdoms – in the food factories and Blackflame Foundry respectively – and the nobles could still appeal for or retain ownership of properties over the plateau. But more often than not, now it was the Sect government that retained exclusive ownership of the land's resources, which it managed through its expanded administration.

The contracts remained, used as a lure to control the nobles and shorten expenditure, but they were diminished in number, and every contractor had to respect the Sect's standards, or face legal repercussions. And amidst this creative chaos, this pulsing, living maze of people, desires and hopes, one sight became common: the red and silver on black of the main branch.

The lords and ladies that could boast direct lineage from the Founder, with their ample paraments, commanding poise and impressive contingents of guards, were an everyday presence as they walked the streets, listened to people and appeals, received gifts, exchanged pleasantries or stared down nobles, and went over scrolls, while owners awaited anxiously. It didn't take long for them to become the object of attention.

The common people learned to love them, and those in power to be wary of the understated pulses of their dense Night Qi, announcing that an inspection was on the way. Nobles courted their favor, children and the elderly begged for a moment's attention. As it was in the Founder's projects, they became the face and conscience of the Sect, the embodiment of its strength and virtue. Which prompted many to ask: what of the Liu? Back in the day, the honored family had been the only defender of the common people.

An outer disciple without patron, a mortal; the only defense they had was that legally they were included in the jurisdiction of the clan. But now, most of those same protections were being diluted or taken away. Many among the people were concerned, no matter how much the Liu patriarch reassured them that the family's aims were being accomplished. But the Sect delivered.

The Liu received an official commendation, signed by the Founder herself, alongside the title of Defender of the People, to be held by the family and passed across its heirs in perpetuity. Their new duties would be to act as mediators and protectors of the new guilds that were to sprout in the future, to organize the labor force. The Liu patriarch wrote a tearful letter of thanks to the Ancestor because of it, and the lower city celebrated. Closed in her office, Wu Zetian watched everything.

She had long decided that keeping a distance from public visibility was the way to go: it kept her appearances and words important, and made her an unknown all power-that-be had to keep looking behind their shoulder for. It kept them honest, and she got to stay away from the crowd. More or less. As the new Owls made their presence known in the city's underbelly, the people started whispering about the shadow warriors of the Founder.

It wasn't long before spectacles depicting owls battling shadow beasts appeared in the theaters. An all-time favorite was about the order's re-foundation, which ran shockingly close to reality. What mattered was that the order's fame was growing, and so was its power. As for the Ancestor, she had become the guardian spirit of the plateau. Seen everywhere but rarely felt, the Immortal was the closest to a God the people of the crater had.

The puppet shows featuring her were always about the great and wise ruler, who protected the city with her sheer might and sent all evildoers running. Children wearing monster costumes ran away while the one covered in a black sheet ran after them. How silly. With that, there was something deeply satisfying in watching over her city as it bloomed, her decisions producing exactly the results she wanted. It was almost enough to make her forget her family worries. There was a line of domino tiles on her table.

She flicked the first, and watched as they fell in quick succession. A mild smile played subtly on her lips. For a start, it was good enough.