Where Immortals Once Walked

Meng Shan might have needed time to recuperate, but opponents were never in short supply at the Martial Review Hall. Tall or short, fat or thin, cautious or crafty, every type of fighter could be found there.

Seeing He Lingchuan appear every day, those itching for a bout would often challenge him outright. He even ran into two veterans from the Gale Army.

Thankfully, not everyone fought like Meng Shan and tried to beat him half to death every round, so whether He Lingchuan won or lost, he could face half a dozen opponents in a single dream session.

His strength, skill, and reflexes all improved through constant battle.

Another person profiting from this was Skinny, the bookie who managed the arena’s side wagers. Ever since He Lingchuan had begun frequenting the hall, the man’s income had skyrocketed. Rumor had it that he had nearly saved enough to pay his nephew’s school tuition.

* * *

The sun was three poles high.

On his way past home, He Chunhua stopped by to fetch a few documents. The moment he stepped into the side hall, he found his wife and eldest son sitting together at the table, leisurely enjoying pastries and tea.

A bite of cake, a sip of tea—both were smiling, chatting pleasantly.

When did these two become so cordial?

Madame Ying looked up and, delighted to see him, rose to her feet. “Oh my, you’re back already?”

“Just here to pick up two reports. I left them in the study last night.” He Chunhua’s gaze drifted to the table. There were rows of delicate pastries, each shaped like a flower. “What’s all this?”

“Water lily crisps, peppermint cakes, and these pretzels are the best of the lot,” said Madame Ying, beaming. “All of them are specialties from your son’s restaurant.”

He Lingchuan offered his father one of the biscuits. “How else could it be called Hesu Tower[1]?”

He Chunhua popped it into his mouth. Hmm, not bad. Then he frowned at his son’s lazy posture. “Still free today?” He and He Yue had been running themselves ragged at the provincial government office.

In the past, Madame Ying would have scolded such idleness, but now she simply sat there smiling.

“I’m waiting for someone.”

He Chunhua did not bother to ask who. The boy had gathered quite a crowd around himself lately.

“The task I gave you two days ago still isn’t done, is it?” he reminded him. “The records officer came to nag me again this morning. The township steward[2] surnamed Zhou in Xin Township has been waiting for your arrival.”

“I’ll go.”

“When?” He Chunhua’s tone sharpened. If his subordinates were not all already buried in work, he would never have asked his son to handle it in the first place.

“Father, your subordinate messed things up himself. Now he can’t clean it up, so he’s calling for me to fix it.” He Lingchuan lazily lifted his teacup. “Don’t I need to prepare first?”

“Just keep the matter contained,” He Chunhua told him. “Don’t let it blow up. Xin Township’s troops are among the best in the Dunyu area, and many families of military merit reside there. We’re recruiting right now, don’t ruin relations with them.”

He Lingchuan’s brow furrowed. “If that’s the case, why not shelve the dispute until the war’s over?”

“This war won’t be over any time soon.”

At those words, even Madame Ying could not help but sigh. Indeed, peace was still a long way off for Xia Province.

“Spring’s almost here. If the ownership of those fields isn’t settled before planting, it’ll only get messier later. Xin Township isn’t the only one watching; everyone’s waiting to see how we handle it.”

He Lingchuan drained his cup of tea. “Understood. I’ll go soon.”

Madame Ying then asked the question that had been on her mind, “I heard that before we arrived, the provincial treasury was so empty they couldn’t even find two strings of coppers. How have you managed to send so much grain and materiel to the front lines lately?”

She truly admired her husband. To take over a province in ruins and somehow make it run this smoothly was no small feat.

He Chunhua smiled faintly. “We owe it all to the noble families in the surrounding counties.”

He Lingchuan answered for him, tone light, “When the rumors were at their worst, even the four great families lost their nerve. They thought the Xun Province army would be at Dunyu’s gates any day. Father must have used that little window to arrange a few things.”

In truth, Ding Zuodong had already reported every fluctuation inside the city to him.

“At that time, everyone was panicking. I persuaded the gentry and landowners that we were all grasshoppers tied to the same rope. If Xia Province ran out of food, Nian Zanli would butcher them like fat pigs the moment he arrived. There was no room for wishful thinking.” He Chunhua smiled faintly. “They found that reasoning sound and voluntarily lent the government grain and money to aid in the war.”

He had stressed the word “lent.”

Madame Ying, who knew how worn and thin her husband had grown in recent weeks, realized just how much haggling and arm-twisting that simple sentence must have entailed.

He Lingchuan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by lent?”

“Do you remember the rotten accounts in the provincial granaries before I took office?”

“The ones led by the four great families, trading for grain and leaving nothing but empty records? Yeah, I remember.”

“I had Yue’er reconcile the accounts, then asked those same nobles to deliver grain to fill the shortfall,” explained He Chunhua. “The deficit’s enormous, and there’s no fixing that overnight, but what they’ve delivered so far will keep us supplied for a while.”

He Lingchuan slapped the table, half-laughing. “Father, you’re incredible. You actually made them cough up what they’d swallowed!”

Both He Chunhua and Madame Ying gave him matching looks of disgust at the metaphor.

“Why don’t they just move away?”

“Without official migration permits bearing the provincial seal, commoners who relocate on their own are considered fugitives,” He Chunhua explained. Household registration in Great Yuan was strict. Normally, anyone wishing to move had to obtain written authorization from their place of origin.

These days, though, enforcement varied. Some regions had grown lax about permanent residents.

A powerful family, such as the Zhan Family, had already secured transfer permits long before He Chunhua took office, allowing them to move legally. The commoners who accompanied them as refugees had no such papers; they were simply hoping that the Zhan Family would be kind enough to shelter them at the new site.

“Besides, their foundations are here. To move is to tear out their own bones and sinews. Unless forced, they won’t go. Look at the Zhan Family; they fled too soon and for nothing. Decades of hard-built assets, all sold off at bargain prices. This misstep will cripple them for years.”

He Lingchuan smirked. Through Ding Zuodong’s maneuvering, he too had reaped a share of the massive discounts that had come up during that time.

And he had only gotten crumbs; the real windfall had gone to the provincial government itself.

Yes, He Chunhua had taken the silver he had “borrowed” from the local noble families and used it to buy up half the city’s properties during the panic two days ago, when the Zhan Family fled in haste. He had personally gone out to direct the purchases, snatching prime estates for a pittance.

Those holdings, once private, were now public assets—state-owned, or rather, province-owned.

One family’s bloodletting had become everyone else’s feast.

He Lingchuan grinned. “The provincial government must’ve printed a mountain of IOUs again.”

“What choice do we have?” He Chunhua rubbed his temple. “It wasn’t long ago that the Li Family had fifteen thousand taels of their debt written off, and the Shu Family another three thousand. Naturally, the rest followed suit. Yet before I could even catch my breath, we had to borrow more.”

For years, Xia Province had spent more than it earned, living from one loan to the next. The provincial government owed money to almost every noble family in Dunyu. The cumulative debt now exceeded nine hundred thousand taels.

Put simply, all four great families were He Chunhua’s creditors.

If not for the looming war and the leverage he still held over the Li Family, he never could have pried open those misers’ purses again.

He sighed. “New debts to pay the old ones. That’s where we stand.”

He Lingchuan knew his father well enough to guess that when he said they had to borrow more, the number must be frightening, though He Chunhua declined to name it.

“You dissolved all their private armies, yet they still lent you money. That’s really remarkably generous of them.”

After the incident where the Li Family’s troops had attacked the Zhan Family, He Chunhua had seized the chance to issue a strict decree banning all private forces. Those already under arms had to disband immediately. Each household could retain no more than a hundred personal guards, on pain of severe punishment.

The lesson had been vivid. One of the four great families was humiliated by another’s private army. If that climate spread unchecked, especially with war clouds gathering, every noble family would soon be hoarding soldiers, and common men of fighting age would vanish from military recruitment.

That ran counter to everything He Chunhua was working toward.

“The Li Family cooperated readily. With their example set, the others stopped resisting.”

He Lingchuan could not help laughing. “Old Li Zhao’s timing to die was impeccable.”

Had Li Zhao still been alive, he would have been the toughest obstacle in his father’s way.

Without him, the Li Family was soft as cake dough, no match for He Chunhua’s firm hand.

Madame Ying tapped her son’s forehead. “Mind your tongue, child.”

He Chunhua had barely managed to sip a second cup of tea and eat another pastry before duty called again. A messenger from the provincial government office arrived, bowing low.

“Lord Governor-General, an expert from the Cloud-Piercing Pavilion is at the provincial government office and has requested to meet you.”

“Cloud-Piercing Pavilion?” He Chunhua looked up in surprise, set down his teacup, brushed the crumbs from his robe, and stood. “I’ll see to it. I’ll be home for dinner tonight.”

Madame Ying smiled and promised to wait, sending him off at the gate.

He Lingchuan frowned. The name Cloud-Piercing Pavilion sounded familiar.

After a moment’s thought, he remembered that it was a Daoist sect of considerable influence in Xia Province. He Yue had once suggested that he become a disciple of this very sect, but their father had deftly stalled the idea until it quietly vanished.

Still, for a sect that powerful, maintaining ties with the new governor-general was inevitable.

Just then, Old Steward Mo came in to announce that Ding Zuodong had arrived—by the back door, as usual.

The man had been in and out of the He Residence so often that the servants no longer blinked. He Lingchuan immediately ushered him inside and shut the door behind them.

Madame Ying could only shake her head. Father and son were always whispering behind closed doors.

Half an hour later, another messenger from the provincial government office came rushing in, barely stopping to bow before blurting,

“The governor-general orders Young Master He to depart for Xin Township immediately! The matter must be settled before sunset. No delay permitted!”

Word for word, the man relayed the command exactly as it had been spoken.

He Lingchuan emerged from his study, startled. “What happened?”

“I... I don’t know, sir.”

He Lingchuan narrowed his eyes. “Then tell me what the scene was like when you left.”

“The lord was meeting with Elder Liang of the Cloud-Piercing Pavilion. Midway through their talk, he stepped out to change robes and ordered me to ride here at once with the message. He also said that he will host a grand luncheon for Elder Liang to buy you a bit more time.”

1. The su in Hesu can be translated as pastry or crisps. ☜

2. The word used here was 啬夫, which is typically translated to miser in modern times. However, do note that in Imperial China, this was actually a title for those who were basically stewards of a certain area. One of the more accurate translations for this would be historical bailiffs who were their lord’s representative on a manor, managing the estate, overseeing crops and livestock, collecting rents, and accounting for the lord’s income. ☜