“But how?” Elder Bai said. “Making money isn’t easy. You know that.”
“By changing the world,” Wang Jun whispered softly. “This world currently revolves around strong cultivators. They keep us safe, and they contain chaos. The lower class is nothing but a machine that pumps out the occasional cultivator. These cultivators grow into meaningful citizens while the others make up the dregs of society.” He shook his head. “When I returned home last night, I had a dream. I dreamed of a world with no cultivators, and do you know what I saw?”
Elder Bai shook his head.
“I saw success. I saw power. Tell me, Elder Bai, what would happen if cultivators weren’t a minority, but rather the norm?”
The older man’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”
“It wasn’t possible before, but now it is,” Wang Jun said. “Using Mo Tianshen’s pills, what used to be the privilege of a few will become the right of the many. With so many weak cultivators popping up, new industries will be born. I can’t begin to speculate what will come to pass. One thing I can say for sure, however, is that those newly ascended cultivators, the huge lower class, will no longer be content with their lot in life. They’ll work hard to carve out a piece in this world to call their own. They’ll aim for a better life, but what will they need to achieve that?”
“Weapons,” Elder Bai whispered. “Cheap ones. And cheap herbs, medicines, and potions.”
“And artifice to complement their weak abilities,” Wang Jun said. “They’ll need jobs, and many of them will likely go to mercenary companies. Farming cheap spirit herbs and making weak concoctions as apothecaries will be their go-to occupations. Fire cultivators will be instrumental in casting the cheap metals they’ll need in abundance.
“In Quicksilver, they’re operating trains with the weak cultivators who have just started training. What else can they do? The transportation industry will boom because of artifice, and likely many other industries will change as well. Then, with their growing wealth, they’ll snap up increasingly expensive plots of land, and the consumption of cheap goods will skyrocket. Demand for lower-ranked goods will spike for decades and only settle once an equilibrium is reached.”
“Madness,” Elder Bai said, shaking his head. “You’d change the very continent’s foundation just to compete with your brother for the family’s leadership?”
“No, I would do much, much more,” Wang Jun said with teary eyes. “I would overturn kingdoms and shed rivers of blood. I’d trample the heavens if that’s what it took. But not just for the family leadership, my friend, my mentor. I want Wang Ling to regret he was ever born. I want him to see what true talent is and how laughable it was for him to envy my sister and me, and how worthless he was for growing jealous of her talent and killing her. I want to show him that he miscalculated and should have killed both of us when he had the chance.
“I had so much more talent than her, Elder Bai, but I was still content to let her lead. Yet a small fry like him dared to do the unthinkable because he wasn’t satisfied in serving her? I want to show him that it was his actions that motivated me, his actions that fueled my desire for vengeance, and his actions that caused his fall. Only then will I kill him, Elder Bai. I’ll make him watch as the last of his blood seeps out from his lifeless corpse, his soul shackled to rot for all eternity, forever a failure.”
Chapter 16: A Night to Remember
The clock in Hong Xin’s study ticked away as Bai Ling, Ji Bingxue, and Mistress Huang looked over the two jade slips. Their expressions contorted as they witnessed the grisly footage. Mistress Huang and Bai Ling were able to maintain their composure throughout the entire recording, but Hong Xin wasn’t worried about them. She was worried about Ji Bingxue. She used her dousing arts to regulate the woman’s mood as she reviewed the contents, and she poured hot drinks for each of them as they finally looked up from the two slips. They accepted the soothing medicinal tea with shaky hands.
“I’ve seen a lot in my days, but nothing as dark as this,” Mistress Huang said. “Not even in my field days.”
“Apparently those who perform such deeds are bound by a confidentiality contract with the Spirit Temple,” Hong Xin said. “Whatever that means.”
“It’s likely very strict if even Miss Icicle here never heard a whisper,” Bai Ling said.
“Who are you calling an icicle?” Mistress Huang quipped back. “I’d break my fist on your frozen heart.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Hong Xin said. She didn’t want to deal with bickering now of all times. “We’ve been dealt a bad hand. Unfortunately, this is real life, and we still need to play.”
They both nodded and closed their eyes to think.
“How could any of our sisters even do such a thing?” Ji Bingxue said. She’d started crying halfway through the recording.
“I don’t know,” Hong Xin said softly. “But this is exactly why we’re here. They’re incapable of empathy, so it only follows that they’re ideal for performing such tasks.”
“Lack of empathy isn’t sufficient,” Mistress Huang said. “One also needs proper motivation for committing to such risky, socially unacceptable acts. I’m sure a great deal of profit was involved.”
“Or other benefits,” Bai Ling said. “I must applaud Mu Feilong and his ilk. This is open intrigue at its finest.”
“Open intrigue?” Ji Bingxue asked.
“It means they’ve laid their cards down on the table, and we’re backed into a corner either way,” Hong Xin said. “The ball is completely in their court.”
Bai Ling nodded. “By giving us this information, we’re left with three options, all unfavorable to us but favorable for them. The soul trade is considered a dangerous trade for a reason—if the Church of Justice even suspects someone of carrying it out, they’ll uproot their entire organization and
