Longzang

Chapter 171 Dingding the Western Territory
Xiaoyu never imagined that one day she would be so tormented by the fact that mortals defecate.

This one item is enough; Xiaoyu can't care about anything else.

Upon assuming office, Xiao Yu naturally sought to understand the people's conditions, so he immediately went to inspect the city. At present, the so-called Yong'an City consisted of only a small area of ​​wooden buildings and vast shantytowns.

As soon as they entered the shantytown, a strong smell immediately hit them. At the same time, the sword cultivator's powerful senses immediately locked onto the source of the smell. One, two, three, four... a total of eleven puddles, located on the street corners, under trees, behind houses, and even one right in the middle of the road, right in front of Xiaoyu!
For the first time, Xiaoyu wished that her senses weren't as sharp and her spiritual awareness wasn't as quick.

To avoid causing a stir, Xiaoyu went incognito this time, walking into the shantytown.

The roads in the shantytown are very narrow and winding, encroached upon by the extensions of the shantyhouses. The roads are muddy and full of puddles, naturally teeming with all sorts of filth.

The power of the Azure Netherworld can purify the poison in the Witch Domain, but it cannot purify the products of tens of thousands of people's vaginas.

The deeper you go into the shantytowns, the more filth you find. At first, the piles of filth stood alone, but later they formed large groups, even stretching out in patches, indistinguishable from one another.

Xiao Yu found it increasingly difficult to find a place to step, and he almost stepped on a rock. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore, soared into the sky, and fled back to the main peak as if his life depended on it.

Xiaoyu couldn't understand how the city had changed so much in just a few days.

In fact, if he had taken a stroll through the northern part of Quliu Town like Wei Yuan, he would have found that Yong'an City was already quite clean. The people living in the shantytowns of Quliu Town were like walking corpses, and many simply relieved themselves inside the shantytowns.

But as the city lord, no matter how unwilling she was, Xiaoyu felt she had to solve these problems. The simplest solution was naturally to build more latrines, but a whole series of questions arose with this idea: who would build them, where would they be built, where would the waste be transported, where would the water come from, and so on. Each question could become a specialized field, which in turn led to a series of other problems.

Xiaoyu then realized that coming up with an idea was easy, but turning that idea into reality was extremely difficult.

Upon returning to the main peak, Xiaoyu took out a map and drew the terrain around Yong'an City and the current distribution of residential buildings on paper. Then she began to plan the location of the outhouses, the sewage treatment sites, the routes of the water diversion ditches, how many new streets needed to be opened, which old streets needed to be widened now, and so on.

Gradually, more and more maps were drawn, and the details became more and more detailed. Xiaoyu unknowingly began to re-plan the entire city.

He originally only intended to build a few latrines.

Xiao Yu wasn't the only one overwhelmed. Cui Yu was in charge of the city guard, and everything from selecting and building the camp to selecting team members, equipping them with gear, and training them had to be done from scratch.

Even though he had been leading troops for several years, he was still overwhelmed. In the past, Cui Yu was leading troops into battle, but now he was raising and training troops, which was a completely different matter. However, there was nothing he could do about it. There were too many capable fighters in Qingming now, and Cui Yu, a mere celestial being, couldn't hold his head high anywhere.

Now I can't even show off in front of those fair-weather friends, since everyone has some kind of innate talent these days, no matter how they got it.

Yun Feifei was put in charge of managing all the necessary supplies and resources within the city, while Xu Wan'er was responsible for matters concerning criminal justice. Both women were extremely busy.

Wei Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, watching dozens of cultivators work together to erect a memorial archway, feeling that he was too busy to do anything else.

This memorial archway, ten zhang tall and supported by four massive pillars, stands at the south gate of the city. The two large characters 'Yong'an' are inscribed on the archway, written by Zhang Sheng himself.

The location where this archway stands is the future site of the south gate of Yong'an City.

Yong'an faces south, bordered by a lake to the west and a flat grassland to the east, where future farmland will be cultivated. A small river flows through the city, emptying into the lake, and another river flows away on the other side of the lake. To the north of the city, a road winds its way towards the center of the territory. This road has been worn down by the passage of people, horses, and vehicles. Not far to the north of the city lies a dense forest, at the edge of which is a camp containing three thousand sacrificial offerings.

There's nothing in the city yet, just endless rows of shantytowns. There's no other way; too many mortals have arrived in such a rush. Almost everyone who received the news abandoned everything and walked here step by step. There are already nearly 50,000 people in the city, and more are still arriving.

The archway had already been erected, and the ground had been softened by Taoist magic, so the four giant pillars were easily buried in the soil. Then, the cultivators continuously cast Taoist spells to harden the ground into stone, while also imbuing the archway itself with Taoist magic to strengthen its material and repel insects.

As the archway was erected, Wei Yuan sensed a slight change in the world, and the realm itself trembled slightly. Had he not been so perceptive, he would have almost missed it.

At this moment, Bao Yun appeared beside Wei Yuan and said, "We have found another tribe of the Wuyu clan, with about three thousand people."

"Go, take it down!" Wei Yuan ordered, and his followers sounded horns, and hundreds of knights gathered at the edge of the realm from various places.

A flash of red, and a massive, blood-red horse arrived like the wind, stopping before Wei Yuan. This horse now had long feathers growing from all four hooves, as if it had wings. Two small slits appeared above its eyes on its head, revealing two new eyes.

The horse and Wei Yuan were now somewhat in sync. After Wei Yuan mounted the horse, it galloped towards the gathering place on its own.

A moment later, a cavalry unit rushed out of the boundary to sweep through the surrounding strongholds of the Wu tribe. The intelligence on the Wu tribe strongholds that had come from various channels in recent days had all been gathered by Bao Yun. She would then investigate and verify each one, and once confirmed, she would return to summon Wei Yuan to fight, uprooting each Wu tribe stronghold.

In truth, Bao Yun could easily wipe out those small tribes of a few thousand people on her own. However, such slaughter would incur extremely heavy karmic consequences. If Wei Yuan dared to let Bao Yun return burdened with the resentment of countless living beings, it's likely that the Bao family would send a few old monsters the very next day to overthrow Qingming.

The Wu tribe's army had long since retreated two thousand miles away, and the small tribes within the Shattered Domain were also beginning to flee one after another. If they didn't escape, they would face annihilation.

The fact that the Wu tribe could alter the natural environment through normal life was something Wei Yuan could not tolerate. Initially, when he raided the tribes, Wei Yuan would intentionally let some Wu tribe members escape, but after annihilating several small tribes, he no longer intentionally tolerated them; those who managed to escape did so through their own abilities.

After Wei Yuan completely annihilated a small tribe, it seemed that all the Wu tribes had received the news and began to migrate en masse. Now, there are fewer and fewer Wu tribes in the Shattered Lands, and caravans are rarely seen.

If viewed from above, one could see a bright, pale green patch suddenly appearing amidst the deep, almost inky green earth, like a gemstone embedded in the poisonous fog-shrouded landscape.

People were constantly migrating to this place, and groups of humans moved slowly across the land like ants, heading towards hope.

A month ago, no one could have imagined that this newly opened realm would gather some of the strongest young generation of the Taichu Palace. Subsequently, a series of bloody battles ensued, and within half a month, five Dharma Aspects, hundreds of Foundation Establishments, and more than 60,000 Wu Clan soldiers died on this land, with civilian casualties numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Nourished by the blood of his enemies, Qingming finally took root in this land of tigers and wolves.

Within the vast landscape, Wei Yuan was about to pull out a withered branch to see if it had taken root and sprouted when his fingers just touched the branch. Suddenly, the bark of the withered branch cracked open with a snap, and a cool, frost-like white-gold light shone out from within.

The light, like water, gathered into a small pool at the edge of the branches, shrouded in mist, within which tiny white-gold osmanthus blossoms bloom and fade, appearing and disappearing intermittently.

Volume Two: The Poor Man's Expedition is complete.

(End of this chapter)