The Six Doors' sweeping cleanup deterred the restless fellows, and Shuofang finally ushered in peaceful days. Of course, this was only true for others. Qin Mu, however, remained vigilant because there was still a restless fellow in Shuofang.
When Li Jing returned with his troops that day, he saw it and learned that Liang Shidu had been swiftly defeated. This was due not only to the unexpected and rapid attack by the Tang Dynasty, but also to internal betrayal. Liang Shidu had surrendered after being beheaded by his cousin, Liang Luoren.
Liang Luoren was very hostile to Qin Qiong at Juyong Pass, and Qin Mu knew this. He was not at ease with a guy who had no principles and even killed his own cousin.
Liang Luoren had recently gone to the border with Li Jing and others to suppress the beast tribes. Now that he has returned, the court has not transferred him away. The main reason is that they still need to rely on these surrendered generals to stabilize the more than 200,000 surrendered soldiers.
Liang Shidu had more than 200,000 soldiers under his command, but after selection, only 50,000 remained, and the rest became ordinary people.
Liang Luoren wielded considerable influence in Shuozhou, which was why the imperial court couldn't afford to leave him idle. Qin Mu took note of this when he learned that Liang Luoren was staying in Shuofang, after all, Liang Luoren was a highly skilled junior general.
Xue Wanjun, the deputy governor of Shuozhou, Liang Luoren, Liu Lan, the chief secretary, Xin Liao'er, the commander of the Shuofang city guard, and Li Zhengbao were the main high-ranking officials of Shuofang, and a large part of them were originally Liang Shidu's group of people.
After Qin Mu pacified Shuofang, the more than 2,000 constables of the Six Doors were dispatched to Yan'an, Diaoyin, and Honghua counties, where Han Chen, Zhang Yi, and Huang Sanjian, three patrol officers, led their men to establish branches.
Qin Mu is currently focusing his energy on improving people's livelihoods. The people are being relocated, and spring plowing is underway. More than 600 local ruffians have been arrested from Shuofang and are also clearing land, but they are truly clearing land and developing barren mountains.
Many people don't understand why, with so much wasteland available, they would choose to develop those barren mountains.
Trees were felled, tree roots were dug up, and grass roots—the wild grasses that had just sprouted green shoots from the ground—were also dug up.
In fact, what Qin Mu was doing was very simple. Because this world had a lot of animal hides and silk, it did not pay much attention to cotton. So what Qin Mu wanted to do was to plant cotton on a large scale and use barren mountains for intercropping cotton and fruit trees.
Cotton was planted in the low, convenient areas, while fruit trees were planted on the hillsides. More than 600 criminals and more than 300 constables were working. This was not because Qin Mu had no one to use, but because he did it on purpose.
Two hundred teenagers and young men recruited from Shuofang have grown rapidly under his tutelage. Through a combination of hypnosis and memory palace training methods, Qin Mu has developed new ideas, which are currently being tested.
They worked during the day, studied at night, and also taught the convicts in labor camps.
Qin Mu remembered watching a movie that said how long it would take to brainwash a group of people? Only five days! That's right, only five days, and then you just need to reinforce their mental suggestions.
Justice! Obedience! These were the values Qin Mu instilled in them. Their duty was to seek justice for the people and uphold righteousness. For these children of humble origins, raised in the harsh environment of Shuozhou, Qin Mu was their savior, not only giving them a new life but also teaching them both literature and martial arts.
Although Qin Mu didn't make them call him "teacher," he was indeed their teacher, enabling these illiterate children to now read and write, and even teaching them martial arts.
From writing on sand tables at the beginning to using snow-white Xuan paper and medicinal herbs to regulate their bodies, these are benefits they could not have imagined.
Spring rain is as precious as oil! A spring rain arrived as scheduled, bringing smiles to the faces of the people, seemingly a sign that this year would be a year of favorable weather. The anxieties caused by the relocation had also subsided. The imperial court exempted them from taxes and distributed grain seeds, which was much better than before; the idlers in the villages were gone, new families were forming, and villages were being built. Everyone was working together, cultivating the land and doing their part, with each person assigned tasks within their abilities. This gave everyone hope for the future.
In the distance, there are thatched huts with piles of mud bricks underneath, waiting to dry before they can be fired to build a new home for them.
The sounds of wind, rain, and reading fill the air, a phrase that is profoundly embodied here. The labor camp inmates, sheltering from the rain indoors, felt much calmer. After more than a month of hard work, many of them had undergone significant changes, and it seemed that labor was not an unacceptable thing after all.
In the pouring rain, a group of men dressed in black, wearing raincoats and carrying weapons, rushed swiftly toward the place where the sound of reading was coming from.
"Enemy attack!" a sharp shout rang out.
"Clang clang clang!" With a sharp shout, a series of rapid gong sounds rang out.
The men in black seemed not to hear anything and continued charging forward without uttering a sound, only their pace quickened.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!" Footsteps pounded into the rain, and dozens of constables dressed in flying fish uniforms rushed out from the other houses.
Qin Mu, of course, heard the noise. His face darkened, and he ordered, "Close the door, hide, and run if things go wrong."
After Qin Mu finished speaking, he turned and left the house. Outside the door stood a blind man, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!!" The crossbow bolts from the Six Doors were fired at the man in black wearing a straw raincoat.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" The man in black swung his weapon, deflecting the arrows, and continued charging forward. Several men who had been hit by crossbow bolts seemed oblivious to the pain and continued charging forward as well.
Unlike the large armies he had encountered before, Qin Mu glanced at the group of men in black and saw that there were only a little over a hundred of them. However, the fact that they could deflect crossbow bolts showed that they were quite strong.
"Kill!" With a fierce shout, a streak of blood flashed out, cleaving through the rain. Two men in black who were charging ahead were killed on the spot, their blood mixing with the rainwater and flowing towards the low-lying areas.
"Brother Bu, you stay at the door!" Qin Mu instructed.
"Chief Constable, please wait a moment. These are minor matters; let the blind man handle them!" Bu Fang stretched out his arm, stopping Qin Mu.
"No need!" Qin Mu pressed down on Bu Fang's arm. The arrival of these men in black had aroused his murderous intent. He hadn't brought many people here, only fifty ordinary constables, just to prevent the convicts from escaping. Moreover, there were more than two hundred young men he valued, and he couldn't afford to let them get hurt.
Qin Mu waved his hand, and a milky white light appeared, conjuring up more than thirty soldiers. Falcons took off, and hunting dogs pounced on them.
Qin Mu did not stop. A brush appeared in his right hand at some unknown time, and he began to write in the air.
A milky white light flashed repeatedly, like lightning in the rain, and the attacking man in black finally made a sound.
"There are Confucian cultivators! Ignore those illusions, kill them!"
"Hmph!" Qin Mu snorted coldly and waved his hand again. First, a surge of righteous energy formed a platform, blocking the black-clad man's attack route. Then, another surge of righteous energy, like a chain of lightning, was added to the embroidered spring knife in the constable's hand.
"Amazing!" One of the men in black flew up and pounced on Qin Mu. While in the air, he waved his hands, and rain arrows shot towards Qin Mu from the rain curtain.
Qin Mu frowned slightly, clapped his hands, and a surge of righteous energy met the rain of arrows.
"Pfft pfft pfft!" The rain arrows kept colliding with the righteous energy, and both sides turned into the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, dissipating into the air.
"I never imagined that the eldest son of the Qin family would be a Grand Scholar. If it weren't for my arrival today, we would have truly been caught off guard and capsized in the gutter." The man in black landed ten meters in front of Qin Mu and said in a somewhat hoarse voice.
The face beneath the black-clad man's cloak was obscured, but he wasn't wearing a raincoat, and raindrops fell around him—this was his protective spiritual energy. This spiritual energy could form a protective shield three feet away from his body, indicating that he was quite powerful, likely a True Lord level figure.
"How dare you! You actually dare to assassinate a court official. Do you dare to state your name?" Qin Mu asked coldly.
"Hehe! I don't want to invite the Duke of Yi's revenge. Young Master Qin, why don't you surrender? I'll guarantee your life." The black-clad man's hoarse voice rang out again, his laughter somewhat grating, making one feel as if their ears were being plugged.
"Ugly as you are, but you think too highly of yourself! Bring it on if you dare!" Qin Mu said coldly, twirling his brush in his hand. He didn't believe a word the man in black said. How could someone who dared to go to such lengths to assassinate him possibly let him go, especially with so many of his men here?
"You're asking for trouble!" the man in black said coldly. He was trying to persuade Qin Mu to surrender, but he wanted to win without a fight. After all, he was confident that he could win against a Grand Scholar, but it would still take a lot of effort.
After saying that, the man in black produced a sword and slashed at Qin Mu.
Qin Mu pointed with his left hand, sending a burst of energy to meet the attack. At the same time, the brush in his right hand transformed into a bronze sword, and a sword light carrying a righteous aura met the cyan sword light.
The two fought at an extremely fast pace, their sword energy crisscrossing and constantly colliding, scattering the raindrops everywhere.
"The chief constable is amazing!"
"We must make an effort; we can't just stand by and watch without being able to help each time."
"Ugh! This feeling of wanting to kill the enemy but being powerless to change the situation is awful!"
Inside the house, watching the battle outside, the teenagers discussed it with righteous indignation. Being young, seeing their comrades fighting had already stirred their blood and filled them with excitement.
With a loud "bang," the spiritual energy collided, and Qin Mu was sent flying several meters backward, his foot slamming heavily into the muddy water. The mud splashed everywhere, staining his white clothes with many spots.
"Truly, heroes emerge from among the young. If it were a few more years, I might not be a match for you. What a pity! I can't let you leave alive today." The man in black sighed. From the mud on Qin Mu's clothes, he was certain that Qin Mu's aura of righteousness was much weaker than his own spiritual energy.
As a veteran True Lord-level spiritual cultivator with abundant spiritual energy, he was quite confident, but a feeling of jealousy arose in his heart.
"Hmph!" Qin Mu ignored him, flicked his bronze sword, and once again exuded a righteous aura, forcing away the rain.
In the battle just now, the final clash of spiritual energy shattered my own righteous energy, while my opponent remained unaffected, clearly indicating a significant increase in strength.
However, Qin Mu felt no fear; instead, his fighting spirit ignited.
The two remained silent, ignoring the surrounding crowd engaged in combat, and focused their spiritual energy on their opponent.
"Pfft!" With a stomp of their feet, rainwater splashed, and the two clashed again.
As the two clashed, not only were their swords imbued with spiritual energy, but their left hands were also constantly engaged. Qin Mu's Qi Finger technique always managed to launch attacks at the man in black. In turn, the man in black would make hand seals with his left hand, and arrows made of water would inexplicably shoot towards Qin Mu.
"Whoosh!" Qin Mu's chest heaved, and the aura of righteousness on the bronze sword flickered like a candle flame in the wind, about to be extinguished.
"Tsk tsk! Killing a young genius, how exciting!" the man in black exclaimed.
Qin Mu did not speak, but silently channeled his righteous energy into the bronze sword.
Seeing Qin Mu's body already soaked by the rain, it was clear that he lacked sufficient spiritual energy to protect himself and was trying to make a final struggle. The man in black whispered, "Die!"
With a "poof!" sound, the spiritual energy collided, and the aura of Qin Mu's bronze sword finally dissipated completely. The man in black lifted his cloak, revealing a gaunt face with high cheekbones. He smiled maliciously, stepped forward, and swung his sword, imbued with spiritual energy, toward Qin Mu's neck.
Qin Mu closed his eyes as if awaiting death, then suddenly opened them wide.
The man in black was taken aback when he saw Qin Mu's sharp eyes. Then, he felt a blur before his eyes and sensed a huge python with a pair of wings rushing towards him.
"Not good! This is a mental attack!" the man in black thought to himself, then quickly gathered his mental energy to protect his mind.
The man in black felt as if his head had been struck by a hammer. His vision went black for a moment, and his brain was torn apart with pain. Fortunately, his mental strength was not bad, and although it was painful, he managed to defend himself.
The man in black opened his eyes and looked at Qin Mu. He realized he had underestimated Qin Mu. He never expected that Qin Mu's mental power would be so solid and that he would have a method of mental power attack.
With a "thud," the man in black fell to the ground. The last thing he saw was a bronze sword gleaming with a clear light.
"He also cultivates both Confucianism and Taoism." The last thought flashed through the black-clad man's mind before his consciousness plunged into darkness.
It turned out that Qin Mu had just used the Tengshe Reality Technique to ambush the man in black, and the bronze sword in his hand, imbued with spiritual energy, had severed the man in black's neck.
The man in black focused his mental energy on defense, which slowed down his movements, and he couldn't stop Qin Mu at all.
Qin Mu didn't use the Tengshe Reality Technique at the beginning because his cultivation time was too short, and the Tengshe was only a phantom. If he used it to attack an enemy, it might cause a backlash. Just now, the Tengshe almost fell apart. If the Tengshe had fallen apart, he would have suffered mental damage instead.
Therefore, Qin Mu only resorted to desperate measures when he was at his wit's end. This was also a wise move on his part; he had not yet opened all twelve meridians, and his spiritual energy was no match for his opponent's. This feigned weakness proved effective.
70
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com