Three
Ash rubbed a hand at his brow and then shook his head.
They’d arrived in Anyi this morning after a long and slow trek this way.
One of the reasons they hadn’t been pushing themselves was honestly, they weren’t in a rush.
There was no reason to push themselves too hard right now. The Emperor was absent, the realm would likely find out just how absent soon, and right now, Ash and his people were still recovering from the Emissary, Eira’s countrymen who pushed for war, and even the modern world.
There were a great many recovery pain points and there wasn’t a need to rush right into a new one.
“Sisui has requested you visit again,” Locke reported, sounding rather displeased.
Looking away from the long-line to meet the City Lord and to Locke instead, Ash was grateful for the better view. Though not the news.
Despite the fact that Locke had taken the body of a dead woman and fashioned it into the form she wished, there was no denying it was now Locke’s body. She’d spent a lot of time in it, forcefully adhering her presence, her sense of self, her very soul, into the physical frame.
It’d started with great looks, but Locke had polished it to a point that she rivaled Ren and Siu.
Additionally, her very well-endowed figure, narrow waist, wide hips, and delicate brown hair, gave her an etheral ‘perfection’ feel to Ash. Even if the rest of the realm didn’t quite like the ‘heavy up-top’ type of woman that Ash did, Locke was nearly his ideal.
It didn’t hurt that much like Ren, Hui, and Siu, she was a bit more ‘mature’ at times. Ash couldn’t deny he had a bit of a thing for them in that regard. Mei herself had been leaning into that as of late as well.
Her perfectly green throughout eyes that glittered like crystals were watching him.
No sooner than his feelings had shown up from looking at her, than he felt her echoing feelings come back toward him through their shared bond, as well as the Hall.
“It’s fine… she and I have stated our positions and we understand each other now,” Locke murmured and waved a hand back and forth in front of herself as if it were nothing.
“She’s the Divine Bridal Lord, I’m a Bridal Commander. Siu and I are at the top of the Bridal hiarchy and we have general oversight of Sisui’s branch. She technically doesn’t report to us, she reports to you, but… if we give her a command she’s now required to listen so long as it doesn’t go against their own directives.”
“Is that a good thing? It sounds like you just got had the Airforce show up and demand you turn over all your aircraft to them,” Ash offered with a grin and the line shifted forward. He, Locke, Mei, Jia, Na, and Siu, all shifted forward.
Siu reached out and gently prodded at Ash’s hip with her fan and he felt the sexual tension that’d been building, get pulled clean out of him.
Given that they couldn’t dress in their Bride uniforms, much to all of their annoyance, they were all in simple martial artists robes.
Which didn’t do much for anyone at all, though somehow, Siu still managed to be somewhat of a sex-icon even with that. Her black hair was in a loose style behind her and it fluttered lightly with the passing of anyone nearby, or even a breeze.
The pink bubble of her Qi and Dao that surrounded her always encompassed him and him alone if she could manage it. This was one of those times that he was being included into it.
Her dark-brown eyes were watching everything and anything around them. Though as he watched her, she raised up one of her fans, unfurled it, and covered the bottom part of her eerily pretty face.
Yet even then he could tell she was smiling. Aware of his attention on her.
Ever the beauty with a mature woman’s grace added to a great deal of mystery and mirth.
Ash had a hard time with Siu. Almost as hard a time as he did with Xiuying, who as of yet, wished to remain apart from Ash. He didn’t know why but he would trust it to her. She always did what she felt was best in all things, for all of them.
“It’s a good thing,” Siu stated. “I tend to drag Hui along with me if I need to speak wit Sisui. It’s now apparent to her that I speak for Hui and Na when I come to her, and that I always aim for your betterment, dear Husband.”
Once again the line moved up.
“I’m having fun,” Mei reported suddenly, then laughed, pushing up into Ash’s side. She grabbed his arm, pulled it down around herself, and plopped his hand right atop her breast. “I’m with my husband, my friends, and my sisters. Even as we face danger and clamber upward. This… this is the ideal Cultivator life.”
“Yes,” Jia said with wide eyed and absolute conviction.
Locke and Na were both eagerly nodding their heads.
Siu slowly dipped her head after a long pause.
“It was hard to get here,” Siu began cautiously, her words sounding hard to speak. “But… it was worth being here at this time. My aunt is marrying Master Gen tomorrow. Apparently the fact that she asked him to marry her before he became the Realm Lord really settled things for her.
“I… think… I’ll have a niece or nephew in a year. There will be two different bloodlines from my family in the Sheng. I find that quite pleasing.
“Though I do find it horribly embarrassing when I remember my aunt throwing me headfirst into Ash’s bed. Just about selling me to him.”
Ash couldn’t deny that regardless of how beautiful Siu became, or how she carried herself, he would always see the shy young woman who had been placed in front of him like a sacrifice.
Even now he wanted to protect her.
“Oh me, oh my… stop it, darling,” Siu whispered, what he could see of her face over the fan turning a deep and dark red color. She reached out with her free hand and prodded at him with her second fan.
“Is he thinking about you being dropped in front of him like a wounded princess to protect?” Mei asked with a laugh, as the line slipped forward again.
“He is,” Locke confirmed.
Siu clicked her tongue loudly, the corners of her eyes scrunching up as she glared at Locke and Mei both.
“I’ll have you kno—”
“The City Lord has seen enough citizens and under-Awakened ranked visitors. You may all leave the line,” announced a rather thin looking man at the door.
“What?” Jia asked quietly.
Almost the entirety of the line turned away from the manse and left. There was nobody in front of Ash at all.
“Well then,” Ash whispered and then moved straight up to the front of the line and met the thin man’s face. “I meet your requirements. I am here to petition the City lord.”
The thin man’s eyebrows rose up slowly. Watching Ash like an unexpected bug appearing on the table-top.
“I see,” the man said as if he were trying to keep the words from coming out. “Follow me, please. The City Lord will of course see an Awakened.
“Please be on your best behavior, City Lord Ping has been dealing with far too much lately.”
Ash nodded his head to that and looked to his group.
Siu, Mei, and Locke had already moved away with one another.
Jia and Na had decided to remain with Ash and to enter the large mansion with him.
No sooner than they’d entered then Ash had the feeling that this man was strange. He had a great deal of wealth on display, but it was also wealth that had a bent to it.
A martial artist bent.
Arms, armor, materials, and artwork. Except the artwork was entirely to do with cultviation and cultivators.
Is that my in?
Or… is it something I shouldn’t mention.
Was this decorated by someone else, or are they trophies of people he’s broken?
I can’t tell.
Ash blinked upon the realization that he’d been brought into a large open room with several tables and a multitude of chairs. Sat at one of the tables was a man that looked to be in his middle age. Lanky brown hair and washed out features with hard-set brown eyes was what greeted Ash.
There was no smile, no grimace. No joy, no loss.
Just a flat look that had the appearance of a very tired man.
“Yes?” asked the man in a very no-nonsense manner. “Actually, who are you? I don’t know you. I know all the Awakened in my city.”
Ash smiled, took a seat, and adjusted his clothes. Jia and Mei had both drilled it into him that he shouldn’t be pulling seats out for women. It would be a show of them being stronger than him.
Deference and face.
Jia and Na took up the seats on either side of him.
“My name is Ash Sheng. I’m the head of my family in this realm,” he said and dipped his head to the City Lord. Technically the man hadn’t given Ash his name. “I was the first to be sent to this realm to prepare the way for the rest, but as you know the portal is no longer operable. My task remains the same despite them not joinjing me.
“I would ask your permission to set up a sect on the outskirts of Anyi. I would be looking to purchase three-thousand mu, give or take. I’m afraid my family sent me ahead with Spirit Stones as well as a different type of Stone, but no Awakened Stones.”
Ash pulled out a Sheng stone and a Spirit stone, setting both down on the table.
“I know the conversion rate for Spirit stones is low but I have a large number of them,” Ash finished and then sighed. “That was the extent of the reason I wished to see you today, City Lord.”
“I have questions,” the man said after he reached out and picked up the Spirit stone and the Sheng stone. He paused while holding the Sheng stone. Bouncing it in his palm twice, he set it down, then picked up the Spirit stone.
Only to immediately set it down and pick up the Sheng stone.
“First, what is this?” he asked, holding up the Sheng stone.
“New form of currency in the lower realm. More power than the Spirit stone. It’s pure and has no attachment,” Ash explained.
The City Lord grunted at that, and flicked the stone to the table.
“Spirit stones aren’t worth anything. Sorry. With the lower realm closed as well as the upper realm, everyone’s moving toward Awakened stones or Immortal stones. Good or ill,” he stated. “The amount of land you’re requesting is expensive. Easily twenty-thousand Awakened stones.”
“I have a very large quantity of Spirit-stones,” Ash began. “As well as that new currency. Happy to pay them to you as a bad rate on my part.
“Establishing this sect is something I absolutely must do. I know the exchange rate was already bad for Spirit stones but I’d be more than happy to go beyond that if you’re willing to take the currency.
“There’s a young Cultivator who could use spirit stones of that denomination, right? It’s not like you can break an Awakened stone apart.”
The City Lord was already shaking his head.
He picked up the Sheng stone and tapped it against his palm.
“No Spirit stones,” he said firmly. “But we can make a deal in these. I would accept these. They’re relatively close to the Awakened stones and I could hand them out as personal gifts. A novelty.
“Give me thirty-thousand of them and I’ll consider the deal complete. You may have your land.”
Ripping me off isn’t he.
“Badly. He’s not just giving you a hair-cut but scalping you.
“Except… except everywhere I listened in the market, here, and elsewhere, Spirit stones aren’t wanted. They take up space, offer little, and generally aren’t worth accepting. If you remember, it took you a while to convert stones to Qi. It’s very inefficient at that amount.
“Some people were trading in them in small quantities but nothing large. Nothing anywhere near the value we’re talking about for the land.”
“Deal,” Ash muttered, shook his head, and then sighed. “That’s all you need from me? No other questions?”
“No,” the man said without much care. He didn’t seem interested in Ash opening a sect at all. In fact, he seemed almost bored with Ash now that the deal had been worked out. “You’ll just need to pick the land you want.”
The man lifted a hand and snapped his fingers twice in rapid succession.
A young woman came out from a doorway and came over to the City Lord.
“City map,” the man said and patted the young woman on the rear end. He shifted around in his seat as she scurried off. Unbothered by the man’s wandering hand on her.
“I… it could be fun if you patted me like that and dismissed me? I think it could be fun? Maybe? I suddenly have a yearning itch to be treated badly by you and you alone?”
Really, dear?
Really?
“I mean, come on Darling, I’ve had you do worse to me? Tee hee? Punish me if you don’t like it. But I’d like that anyways.”
The young woman returned almost immediately and began unrolling a rather large sheet of animal skin out on the table. It was easily six foot by three foot and took up most of the wood’s surface.
“The areas that are available for sale that fit your needs are… here,” the City Lord said and stood up. He gestured at the map, then again, and again. There were three choices.
Ash didn’t really care about where the sect went as it would mostly be a point of control and logistics for them. It was also why he wanted something on the outskirts. It would be easier for him to hide things outside of the city center.
“Why are the Foothills of Xi Cao for sale?” Jia asked and indicated a point. “I heard the name from a friend who visited several years ago. They said it had the most beautiful scenic views. That the Luo family would never give them up.”
“Dispute with their neighbor. The Nie family,” the City Lord answered and looked deeply troubled. As if he were thinking about something related, yet unrelated. “Even the Huzhi family got involved. I took the land at the end of the day, as well as the disputed areas from the other two families, and consolidated it.
“I’ll sell the entirety of the Foothills and the bits I took away to you for sixty-thousand of those stones of yours.”
He wants us to take the heat of owning the land off his hands. Because as a City Lord, his backing is now entirely at the leisure of the families. The Emperor won’t be arriving to back him up.
Though the Realm Lord might arrive. We haven’t heard anything about him at all.
I could be reading this wrong.
“I don’t think you are. I think he wants to pass the buck on the family problems and let us deal with it. There could very well still be a Realm Lord that’s keeping the City Lord safe, but there’s no way to tell without waiting to see what happens.”
In other words… rather than test it, he’s going to pass off the hot-potato and make money off us.
And for us we get the land, a great deal of land, and can set ourselves up as a very large sect.
“That’s about the gist of it.”
Well, after we kick a few families into the dirt when they try to tell us to give them the land back. Which I’m sure they will.
What was Ji’s surname by the way? I never asked.
“Fu. It’s Fu. You… didn’t know? Oh my gosh you didn’t know. You’ve laid with her in bed that many times and didn’t know her surname? After all the things you’ve done to her and with her and you—”
Her surname is Sheng.
“I-you-that-hm. Yes. A valid point.”
“We will take the Foothills of Xi Cao,” Jia stated with a nod of her head.
“Your price is fine,” Ash added. “Though we’d ask you to please transfer the appropriate documents at the same time we make the purchase. If possible, please include which lands belonged to who, originally. It’s likely those families involved will come to trouble us.”
The City Lord blinked once, then a cold smile slid over his face.
“Of course,” he answered, clearly understanding in this moment that Ash was well aware of what the City Lord was doing. What he was doing, and still wanted the land. “That won’t be a problem.”
***
Ash looked out at the odd plains in front of him.
All around him.
They were in the newly purchased land.
It’d been called foothills by name, but those were very small. Small and not much more than small mounds. This was more akin to a plain with a lot of rocky outcroppings and trees. There were also more than a few small streams moving around here and there.
“Well,” began Ash, then sighed. “This’ll be the starting point for the Sheng here in this realm. I suppose I should start building out the structure.
“Locke, would you be a dear heart and bring out all those architects? They’ve been working on the new sect design for a while, right?”
“They sure have,” replied Locke as she appeared in front of him. “They were told to build an education center that doubles as a fortress against air-attacks and land-attacks. I told them to assume similar things to tanks and bombs from the forties. It’s a good starting point.
“You can add all the carvings, foundational scrivenings, and transference defenses once they’ve got it all up with the help of the Earth Brides. I think we’ll have it mostly done by tomorrow night. Finished two days after that. There’s a lot of internal bits that we need to build in for defenses and safety.”
Ash thought on that, then snorted.
“It’s going to look like a star-fort isn’t it,” he guessed. “A star-fort up top with an entire military installation below ground.”
“Yep!” Locke agreed and then laughed, waving a hand at him. “Because realistically speaking, your reinforcements, using updated materials, and an endless supply of Brides wanting to protect their husband with shields, a star-fort would work out quite well and give us a very large surface area for the sect.
“Then we just build formations all across our land below the surface and hide it.
“Directly beneath our sect, we’ll have honeycombed tunnels and rooms. With also… lots of silly defenses.
“Will it stop a determined attacker from getting at us? No. Will it give us more than enough time whichever approach they take, so we can respond? Yes! And then some.”
“And if it’s a massed citizen army… they’ll get flattened because you probably purchased machine guns and have told the architects to put in emplacements,” Ash finished. He had talked out a lot of this previously with her, but he had guessed at her doing ever more.
“Si’Sha may have successfully talked the Joseon into giving us artillery pieces and machine guns in exchange for video footage of the Kingdoms,” confirmed Locke with a laugh and a wave of her hand. “Liu and a few others will be wearing cameras to film things.”
“Uh huh. When does the reality show start for the Outworlder brides? I don’t have a doubt in my mind that they’ll be doing reality tv-shows or segments, hell maybe even streaming, since half of their world swore obeisance to me.”
“Definitely happening. All the realm lords are going to stream, too,” Locke agreed excitedly. “Ren’s puppet making will be one of the streams. People figured it out after the fact that she was a Bride but they wanted more of her. Si’Sha is doing fitness. Liu decided she wanted to do guided meditation.”
“You didn’t mention Eira,” Ash pointed out.
“Yes. Because… I think… her form of power might work on that realm,” confessed Locke. “So we need to make sure Eira and her people don’t get recognized. It’d likely be problematic if they figured out how to combat us in that way.
“I’m taking extreme measures to separate Eira and her people from that realm.”
“Oh. Shit. That’s a surprise,” muttered Ash and looked over.
Mei and Jia were eagerly talking to Siu and Moira. It was obvious they were very excited to form a sect.
“A carrier went with all of our outgoing letters,” Locke offered suddenly. “They went and took with them all the invitations. All families will receive one as we discussed.”
“That’s good,” Ash allowed with a small nod of his head. “Did we invite the Realm Lord’s Cultivator and City Lord as well? Every Sect head in Anyi, too?”
“Yes, those were all sent. As well as… well… Jia sent a letter to her family,” Locke deadpanned.
“It seems I’ll be meeting the in-laws sooner rather than later. Come on Jia, let’s go plan our family’s new home,” responded Ash. Then he walked over to join Jia, Mei, Siu, and Moira.