545 The Confluence of the North and South and Beginning to Break the Array

Su Li left, but life continued, and that grand event of the human world wasmethodically pushed forward. To speak truthfully, it was precisely because Su Li left that this grand eventhad a chance of success, that it could continue. On the seventeenth day after Xu Yourong and the group from Holy Maiden Peakarrived in the capital, the Qiushan clan head, representing the various nobleclans of the south, also entered the borders of the Great Zhou. The LongevitySect had closed up its sect for three years, but those sects and monasteriesnominally attached to it had sent out able representatives. As time passed, more and more representatives of the various factions of thesouth began to take their seats in the negotiating room. The confluence of the north and south was no longer a name that only existedin ancient records and the imagination. It was getting closer and closer toreality. To the southerners, the greatest problem facing them was that after thedeparture of Su Li and the Holy Maiden, they possessed no expert of the DivineDomain. No matter if it was at the negotiation table or at some other place,the drinking table for instance, they couldn't help but feel lacking inconfidence. Unexpectedly, neither the Imperial Court nor the Orthodoxy took advantage ofthis difference in strength to suggest any sort of unreasonable demand. On thecontrary, they displayed a rarely seen generosity and open-mindedness, making aseries of guarantees and oaths for the benefit of the south's future. Only the truly wise could see the crossing of swords concealed behind, ortaking place before, this negotiation. This was the crossing of swords between Su Li and the Tianhai Divine Empressand the Pope. With unimaginable wisdom and courage, he renounced his right to take revengeon those that had pursued him on his journey back south. When he departedtogether with the Holy Maiden, the south straight away lost all of itsconfidence, thus preventing negotiations from once more miring themselves inthe mud as had happened countless times before. Then the Divine Empress and the Pope had to give him sufficient return, togive the south abnormally generous conditions. In the details of this negotiation, these returns, this generous treatment,was this: after the confluence of the north and south, the south would preserveas much of its independence as possible. This independence already surpassed the wildest dreams of the powers from thesouth. They didn't need to alter the prefectures, to redraw the provinces orcounties. They were free to select their own local officials without requiringthe approval of the Ministry of Appointments in the capital, and only needed tohave them examined in the capital once within three years. Taxation was alsoextremely favorable, and in terms of payments from the state treasury, it waseven more inclined towards the relatively poor prefectures of the south. Besides this, the south obtained many other benefits, especially with regardsto the Grand Examination and the Imperial Examination. From now on, they nolonger needed to take a portion of the capital's allotment, but were treatedlike the rest of the provinces and counties, calculating a quota from thenumber of people on the official census. With the performance of the south inthe recent years, they would obtain a massive advantage in the GrandExamination. Of course, the southerners could not obtain benefits without paying anything.Long before the negotiations were concluded, several items were alreadyconfirmed. These were that in the future, the army and foreign affairs wouldboth be administered from the capital. The greatest change involved the tenthousand li of unbroken border in the north with the snowy plains. In the past,the sects and noble clans of the south would also send experts to garrison thenorthern forts and resist the great army of the demons. However, these expertswere all honored guests, listening to suggestions, but not orders. Now,however, these experts would all be directly inserted into the army. Coupledwith the changes occurring in logistics and other such aspects, it could beassumed that the human army would quickly make a huge leap in strength.Moreover, this had always been the most important, even sole, goal of theconfluence of north and south. As the negotiations over the confluence of the north and south slowly headedtowards success, the experts and soldiers of the human world strengthened theirwatch over the north. The supply wagons from the south carried an unendingstream of rations and fodder to the eleven critical border passes. They wereprepared at any time to clash head-on with the demon cavalry riding south,because it was very obvious that the demons could not helplessly stand by asthe human world succeeded in the confluence of the north and the south. Theywould definitely do something, especially that absolutely treacherous MilitaryAdvisor, Black Robe. Perhaps he had already put his crafty schemes into motion. The situation up north was rather tense, and the two sides of the negotiationtable were also rather tense, but these were two different types of tension. Inthese negotiations, Xu Yourong played an extremely important role. It couldeven be said that from a psychological perspective, she was the most importantrepresentative because she was both a person of Zhou and the Holy Maiden of thesouth at the same time. Naturally, her days became very busy, constantlycalling upon the various representatives from the south while at the same timecommunicating with the Great Zhou Imperial Court. Fortunately, she lived in theImperial Palace and so it was very easy for her to meet with the Divine Empress. Chen Changsheng had already not seen her for ten-odd days and was somewhatconcerned, but he knew that she was doing something extremely important, so hewould naturally not complain. As a person who valued time above all else, hedid not waste his days on longing and waiting. He borrowed the chill of thedeep winter to hone his mind, comprehend the five stone pearls, and silentlyrecite the Halving Blade Style. Occasionally, he would give a lesson to the newstudents of the Orthodox Academy, but he would spend more of his time endlesslystudying. Of course, he did not forget a few other important things. On a certain normal winter day of snow and wind, he purchased a large amountof food and little knick-knacks from the market. Under the Yellow PaperUmbrella, he avoided the countless eyes around the Orthodox Academy and, underthe gazes of the Imperial Guards, reached that tree outside the palace walls.Then, availing himself of a great wind and sweeping snow that confused theeyes, he leaped into that well of New North Bridge. The most oil-absorbent bamboo paper took up a space on the ground about halfthe size of a house, and countless hot and piping foodstuffs were tidilyarranged upon it, releasing steam and all sorts of different aromas. There wassteamed deer tail, roast goose, roast duck, and even a dozen or so sticky ricedumplings, but this time, there was no steamed bear paw…because of Xuanyuan Po,there was no one in the Orthodox Academy that currently ate that dish. Chen Changsheng used two fingers to take out a clean handkerchief from hissleeve. After carefully wiping his hands clean of oil, he raised his head up tothe Black Dragon and said, "Tang Tang made Clear Lake Restaurant the cafeteriaof the Orthodox Academy…I forgot to tell you…but besides blue lobster, I boughta few more things from the outside. I feel they might taste even better." At the very center of all the food was a small mountain of blue lobster. Chen Changsheng was smiling as he spoke, his smile very clean and containing ajoy that came from the heart. To get so many fine foods for the Black Dragon to eat, he truly felt verysatisfied. The Black Dragon's mountainous body slowly descended. A cold and icy aura hardto describe with words instantly pressed down on the steam rising up from thefood. Chen Changsheng hurriedly pulled out his sword and slashed down, and a swordintent faintly suffused with a fiery light rose up. The food was instantlywarmed back up and was not frozen into chunks of ice. He had used the Burning Heaven Sword. On that night several days ago, he had comprehended the sword intent in thatletter for a very long time. Afterwards, he saw the battle between Su Li'sBurning Heaven Sword and the Divine Empress's Ebony Phoenix Hairpin and madesome gains. Although he could not be said to have reached great heights on the path of thesword, at his current cultivation, he could already be counted as beingcompletely integrated with the sword. Except that…to use the incredibly difficult-to-comprehend Burning Heaven Swordto heat food was inappropriate no matter how one looked at it. The Black Dragon did not believe this; she felt it extremely appropriate. She was very satisfied with Chen Changsheng’s painstaking preparations to layout this floor of food and mountain of blue lobster, and she was even moresatisfied with his way of heating food by using the Burning Heaven Sword. Thiswas because it indicated that in his eyes, her eating fresh and hot food wasmore important than preserving any of the so-called dignity of the path of thesword. She decided to forgive him for the fact that it had already been a month sincehe had last visited. A dignified and remote, simple yet complex, dragon cry resounded through thecold and gloomy space. Chen Changsheng was a little taken aback, not understanding why the BlackDragon was in no rush to eat and instead wanted to do his dragon languagelessons first. Then he suddenly recalled that he had brought the Black Dragonfood so many times, but he had seemingly never seen her eat in front of him. "Ah…" "Uh…" "Ee…" "Woo…" "Shu…" The cavernous space would occasionally resound with the Black Dragon's low anddignified dragon cries while Chen Changsheng would clumsily and seriously learnthe tones of the language. Chen Changsheng learned with single-minded devotion, all the way until hisvoice was hoarse, his sea of consciousness blank, and his body extremelyfeeble. Yet he did not forget to slash down with the Burning Heaven Sword atcertain intervals, assisting the roast goose and roast duck in maintainingtheir original fragrance at the most appropriate temperature. The whiskers of the Black Dragon would occasionally drift upwards, spillingpieces of snow over that small mountain of blue lobster, producing a verybeautiful picture. After a long time had passed, today's dragon language lesson finallyconcluded. The Black Dragon gently puffed a breath of air onto his face,instantly covering it in a layer of frost. He used his hand to wipe the frostoff and felt that with this sudden chill, he felt refreshed and his exhaustionhad instantly vanished. "I'm going over there to take a look." Chen Changsheng did not forget the most important matter. Rushing over to theback, he saw those two chains, the other ends of the chains attached to a stonewall and held in the hands of those two legendary generals. Compared to themassive body of the Black Dragon, these two chains were like two fine threads,but they tightly imprisoned the Black Dragon. It could be assumed that in the past few centuries, the Black Dragon hadattempted countless times to snap these two chains, yet it had never succeeded. Chen Changsheng had spent the greater part of the year after returning to thecapital from the Garden of Zhou thinking of a way to break these chains, but hehad also failed. The array that Wang Zhice had laid on this stone wall was too complex andwondrous, like the sea of stars itself. The two Divine Generals Yu Gong and Qin Zhong had left a strand of theirspiritual sense on the stone wall. They were far too powerful, like bolts oflightning. The previous generation of blooming flowers was already separated from thepresent by close to a thousand years, but those legends were still legends.Even when they were just strands of heroic souls, they were still not somethinghe could oppose, or even a domain that he could touch—this domain was calledDivine. Chen Changsheng sat beneath the stone wall. Under the attentive gazes of theselegends, he quietly read a book in his hand. The book he was reading was rather old, its name "A Sheyang Daoist Master'sIllustrated Collection of Arrays". No one knew the specifics of Wang Zhice's teacher. In those times, when he wasan ordinary lecturer at the Heavenly Dao Academy, in his middle age, hesuddenly bathed the capital in the radiance of the stars and shook thecontinent, but no one knew who his teacher was. Chen Changsheng had searchedthrough several hundred books in the library of the Orthodox Academy. In WangZhice's hometown, he discovered an ordinary Daoist with the surname Wu. Wang Zhice's hometown was Sheyang. This Daoist surnamed Wu was the Daoist Master from Sheyang. ……