Make the Immortal Sect Great Again

After a bout of cursing, Wang Ping obediently sat back down.

'Looks like I'll have to be more careful from now on.'

He didn't plan on returning to the Immortal Gate World anytime soon. After all, the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag was currently in the hands of that young Qi Refining practitioner.

If he crossed over now, the other party would instantly realize something was wrong.

Then everything would be completely ruined.

'Right, time to head back to Great Shun.'

At least compared to the Immortal Gate, whose scale spanned the universe and involved casual interstellar travel, the Great Shun Imperial Court's Divine Armament Martial Dao seemed far more harmless.

'Sure enough, I was born a martial artist. Even after cultivating the Immortal Dao, my martial heart hasn't changed in the slightest.'

He still loved crushing weaklings.

Thinking of this, Wang Ping looked back at the scripture scroll of the Outer Heavenly Demon.

[Current Identity: Constable (Petty Official).]

[Current Luck: 7 (Local Hero)]

[Consume luck to exchange for a new identity?]

'Exchange it.'

Wang Ping nodded slightly. He had squeezed almost all the value out of the constable identity. If possible, he naturally wanted to start with a better one.

To his surprise, even though his luck was a full seven times higher than the single point he had last time, the actual identity grade upon exchange remained [Petty Official]. There was no qualitative transformation; only a trace of cyan and red appeared within the profound light.

'Zero luck means a commoner, and one through ten are all petty officials?'

A flash of realization crossed Wang Ping's mind. Then, he watched the text on the scripture scroll rapidly shift. Various identities rotated before slowly locking onto one.

[Gold-Bearing Brocade Guard].

'Why is it an official again?'

Wang Ping frowned slightly. Information about the Gold-Bearing Brocade Guard quickly flashed through his mind. They seemed to be under the direct command of the Capital's imperial guards, an identity akin to the Emperor's personal retinue.

It was a bit like the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

From this perspective, there was still a difference between a luck of one and a luck of seven. The former only let him be a constable in a county town, while the latter placed him among the imperial guards in the Capital.

Next, Wang Ping looked toward the other side of the high platform.

There, densely packed medicinal pills were piled up like a small mountain. Within his spiritual sense, their terrifying life essence felt like a vast ocean.

This was the life essence he had embezzled within the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag, stolen using the Life-Stealing Thief. A third of it came from the corpses of those bandit cultivators, while the remaining two-thirds had been generously gifted by You Xuexin. Its sheer quality was breathtaking.

'I can finally feast to my heart's content this time.'

Thinking of this, Wang Ping felt immense anticipation, wondering how much he would grow once he returned to Great Shun and digested all this life essence.

The next second, he stepped forward and walked into the Great Shun Celestial Dynasty within the scripture scroll, letting the towering book before him bloom with light and swallow him whole.

...

Wang Ping opened his eyes once more.

An unfamiliar ceiling filled his vision. Dressed in a tight-fitting martial outfit, he seemed to have been resting on a bed. He immediately rolled over and checked his physical condition.

A moment later, he breathed a sigh of relief.

'...No changes.'

His reborn body perfectly retained the martial arts of his life before last. The Heavenly Roc Force roared within him, and his Microcosmic Orbit Physique was at its absolute peak.

'It's a pity I didn't bring back the immortal cultivation results from my previous life. Is it because I was refined into an artifact spirit...? Oh well, it doesn't matter. Even if I brought them back, it would just be a defective spiritual root and of little use. The Life-Stealing Thief and the life essence are what truly matter.'

Wang Ping quickly leveled his mindset.

Right after, he walked over to the bronze mirror in the room. As expected, the handsome face reflected in the bronze was still his own.

Moreover, compared to his life before last, even his age hadn't changed much.

'This won't do.'

Wang Ping frowned deeply. Showing up once or twice was fine, but appearing again and again with the same face under different identities would make even a fool realize something was wrong.

Recalling that fleeting glimpse inside the Taiping Sutra, where the descending Qi Refining practitioner reversed time to directly resurrect You Xuexin, Wang Ping couldn't help but sigh. The resurrection mechanism of the Taiping Sutra just wasn't broken enough. Why couldn't it rewind time?

'Looks like I need to find a disguise martial art.'

Wang Ping calculated in his heart. It wouldn't be hard to find a martial art like that, but the real issue lay in hiding all flaws after applying the disguise. That wouldn't be easy.

Right at that moment, memories suddenly surfaced.

'Here we go again.'

Wang Ping massaged his temples and began digesting the predecessor's memories. By now, he vaguely understood the true nature of these memories.

Rather than calling them the memories of a predecessor, they were more like background settings.

Most of them related to his new identity, lacking any mundane details like eating, sleeping, or using the latrine.

Soon, Wang Ping's brow furrowed.

In the memories, he was a Gold-Bearing Brocade Guard directly under the Capital's imperial guards. This time, he had received military orders to travel to Longxing County in the Changle Commandery to serve as the military supervisor of the Xuanjia Camp.

'Why Longxing County again?'

Wang Ping almost suspected Longxing County was some sort of anomaly. Once or twice could be called a coincidence, but all three of his respawns were tied to it.

There had to be a conspiracy, someone pulling the strings.

Wang Ping continued digging through the memories:

'At this point in time, about four months have passed since my rampage in the County Yamen. Because the yamen was heavily damaged, the imperial court's foundation in Longxing County has been shaken.'

'After that, it seems someone pulled strings at the Changle Commandery office. In the end, the governor of the Changle Commandery overruled all opposition and dispatched a military camp to station in Longxing County, claiming it was to help the yamen maintain stability. Only then did he report to the Capital and request a military supervisor... That's acting first and reporting later. Where did the commandery governor get the nerve?'

Mobilizing troops without authorization, interfering in county government affairs, and overstepping bounds.

'According to the news from the Capital, a vastly influential noblewoman apparently spoke up, facilitating this rule-breaking move by the Changle Commandery office.'

As for exactly who she was, Wang Ping had no idea.

'Regardless, the Xuanjia Camp is already in Longxing County, and I am the military supervisor sent by the court. My public duty is to assist the magistrate in maintaining stability...'

In secret, however, he had received another order.

Thinking of this, Wang Ping reached into his robes and pulled out a piece of bright yellow silk brocade. Cloud patterns were woven into the fabric, and it was wrapped around a black rhinoceros-horn roller.

This was an imperial edict.

More accurately, it was a secret edict. Stamped with the Emperor's seal, it ordered him to covertly support civilian uprisings upon his arrival in Longxing County and facilitate the rebel forces in breaching the town!

Along with the edict was a bronze Military Tally capable of mobilizing any battalion-level military force, clearly granting him the authority to act independently if necessary.

Seeing this, Wang Ping was stunned.

Why?

If the Emperor's seal on the edict hadn't been absolutely genuine, he would have suspected he read it wrong. Was the court digging up its own foundations?

'...Things are definitely strange.' Wang Ping became even more certain of Longxing County's uniqueness, but he quickly set those thoughts aside. He was no longer the same person he used to be. As long as he digested the life essence stored within the Great Peace Mortuary, he was confident he could crush that corrupt official Xu Bingzheng directly into the dirt!

'I still need to practice martial arts.'

Although he could now be considered half an immortal cultivator, he hadn't received a True Transmission. At best, he was essentially an independent cultivator: he had a cultivation base but lacked the arts to protect his path.

In the early stages, martial arts could cover this flaw.

As for his own martial path, Wang Ping also had a completely new idea. If it was feasible, he would walk a road no one else had ever taken.

...

Longxing County, outside the city.

Unlike a few months ago, this place—which used to be nothing but empty wilderness—now housed a towering military camp bustling with smoke and activity.

The military system of the Great Shun Dynasty consisted of five hundred men per battalion, divided into fifty tents with ten men each. Therefore, there were five centurions, one hundred five-man squad leaders, and fifty ten-man squad leaders. A single commander oversaw the entire situation. All members were full-time soldiers supported by the imperial court, lacking neither martial arts nor weapons. Their status was even higher than that of constables.

This was especially true for a titled battalion like the Xuanjia Camp.

Across the entire Changle Commandery, they were the elite among elites. If the five hundred men joined forces, their combat strength was enough to overwhelm most Titled Martial Masters ranked on the Armament Manual.

Yet right now.

As the commander of the Xuanjia Camp, Wu Xintai was gazing with a massive headache at a beautiful woman. Her face was cold as ice, and she looked entirely determined not to rest until she achieved her goal.

"Commander Wu, are you going to deploy your troops or not?"

The beautiful woman demanded in a deep voice.

"Madam Su, it's not that I don't want to deploy troops; I truly cannot... That is the county town. Pitching my camp here is already breaking the rules..."

Hearing this, Madam Su's expression turned even colder. But seeing Wu Xintai's subservient yet resolute attitude, she couldn't help but feel powerless.

The experiences of the past four months surfaced in her mind one by one.

After she got back in touch with her main clan in the Capital, an old childhood friend—a sworn sister—had gone out of her way to secure the deployment of the Xuanjia Camp from the Changle Commandery office specifically for her.

Because she refused to leave just like that.

That young constable, whose single promise weighed a thousand pieces of gold, had been missing for four months—dead without a body. She wanted to avenge him and kill the corrupt official hiding in the County Yamen.

'Mother of God...'

Looking at Madam Su in front of him, Wu Xintai couldn't help but lament inwardly, 'This woman is probably crazy. I have no idea how the Longxing magistrate offended her.'

She was actually pressuring him to deploy troops to kill a magistrate.

Was she joking? Deploying troops meant inciting chaos; killing an official meant rebellion! He was perfectly fine being a commander; there was no way he would willingly destroy his own future like this.

Not to mention, stationing the Xuanjia Camp here was already breaking the rules. The higher-ups had bent the law, allowing him to move first and receive orders later. If he deployed his troops without official orders and publicly executed a magistrate, he could kiss his command goodbye. He might as well just slit his own throat and be buried alongside the Longxing magistrate.

Wu Xintai had a bellyful of words he wanted to spill.

But in the end, he swallowed them back down—there was nothing he could do. Although the woman in front of him was crazy and didn't know martial arts, he couldn't afford to provoke her.

Because he had asked around.

On her own, she wasn't much of a threat. Although she used to be a noble lady of the Capital Su Family, her name had long been struck from their registers. She had been exiled to the countryside and wasn't considered powerful.

The problem was the close childhood friend she had from her youth—a cousin she had a great relationship with.

That cousin was completely different. Chosen by the Fangxian Dao back in the day, she had spent the passing years becoming an extraordinary person, and an outstanding one at that!

Years ago, when this Lady Su suffered her misfortune, her cousin was in the middle of cultivating in the Fangxian Dao. Now that she had returned, she heard the news about Lady Su and immediately rushed to the Changle Commandery office, single-handedly orchestrating the mobilization of the Xuanjia Camp. Her reach was truly vast, her background frighteningly solid.

'It's a pity, though.'

'If that cousin hadn't suddenly left due to an emergency, I could have deployed my troops with her taking the blame. If the magistrate dies, he dies.'

But doing it on his own was another matter entirely.

Regardless, Wu Xintai absolutely refused to stick his neck out. He would rather do nothing than make a fatal mistake, having firmly decided to hold his forces back without official orders.

Seeing this, Madam Su grew even more furious.

"That magistrate is abusing his power for personal gain, and the Changle Commandery officials are protecting each other! Liu Ye has already been arrested! Even if you won't deploy troops to kill him, you could at least save Liu Ye..."

This was the real reason she couldn't wait any longer.

Originally, her good sister had told her that she would only be leaving temporarily and would return to deal with that corrupt official who preyed on the people once her matters were settled.

Madam Su had also made arrangements for Liu Ye, who had previously delivered the warning to her. She had intended to send him to another commandery, but Liu Ye refused to leave his homeland. Consequently, he had chosen to stay in the Changle Commandery. Unfortunately, Xu Bingzheng had connections there, and upon learning the news, he immediately laid a trap for Liu Ye.

As a result, Liu Ye was arrested under the charge of "disrespecting a superior."

The entire process was carried out strictly according to the Great Shun Legal Code. Liu Ye was stripped of his position, sent back to his hometown as a commoner, and returned directly to Longxing County. The very same day, he was thrown into the County Yamen's dungeon.

Madam Su's primary reason for seeking out Wu Xintai this time was to save him.

Yet Wu Xintai shook his head again. "I am truly sorry. A military camp cannot move without orders."

He knew about Liu Ye's situation, but to him, this was undeniably the work of another faction within the imperial court—one that wasn't necessarily weaker than Madam Su's good sister.

How could a lowly commander like him involve himself in a clash between such powerful figures?

After thinking it over repeatedly, he felt the only thing he could do was strictly adhere to his duties. That way, even if the sky fell, the blame wouldn't land on his head.

"..."

Madam Su felt utterly desperate.

It wasn't just about Liu Ye. In her eyes, both Liu Ye and herself had been protected at the cost of that young constable's life.

Yet in the end, Liu Ye was still doomed.

It had all been for nothing.

Didn't this mean the young man had died in vain? Whenever she thought of this, Madam Su felt it was deeply unjust, her heart filling with anger and helplessness.

Right at that moment.

"Lord Commander, they're here! They're finally here!"

The tent flap was suddenly pulled open. A centurion of the Xuanjia Camp rushed in, shouting, "The military supervisor sent by the imperial court has arrived! He is waiting outside the camp..."

"Calm down."

Wu Xintai shook his head, looking exasperated. "Keep your composure when things happen. That is the mark of a true general. How many times have I taught you this?"

"It's just a military supervisor. You're acting like you've never seen one before."

"To put it bluntly, they're just a bunch of ball-less pale-skins. We saw enough of them when we rotated to the northern defenses. Have you gone so long without seeing a woman that..."

"That's not it, my lord!"

The centurion hurriedly shook his head and emphasized, "The one who came this time isn't a palace eunuch! He's a Brocade Guard! A Gold-Bearing Brocade Guard directly from the imperial guards!"

"...A Brocade Guard?"

Wu Xintai was stunned. "The Emperor's personal guards?"

The centurion nodded vigorously.

"Fuck! Why didn't you say something so important sooner?"

The very next second, Wu Xintai—who had just preached about 'keeping composure'—jumped up as if electrocuted, sprinting out of the tent without a moment's pause.

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