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Chapter 508: Unearthed

She stayed in the Land of Fragrance with complicated feelings. She felt self-pity about her homelessness, but she still harboured some vague hope. Since she was here, she hoped to do something for the people, no matter what.

She had never seen herself as the ruler of the Land of Fragrance. She felt it was like a child that someone had entrusted her to take care of at the last minute. It required dedicated care, but it had to be returned eventually.

At first, her work was simple. She set an example by leading the noble women and slaves to work together and invited the female slaves to take turns joining in the family gatherings. This approach was different from that of the Dragon King’s — she hoped to break the barriers between the slaves and nobility.

Early on, things went smoothly. The Land of Fragrance even transformed into the picture of peace, like a paradise. Very soon, she understood that this scene was unrealistic, and, as if by an undercurrent, most of her efforts were destroyed.

The greatest resistance that Shangguan Ru met was not from the noble women — their status was not that high — but from the aristocrats.

There were about a hundred aristocrats. They were too old to be enlisted into the army. Their numbers were not high, but they had great influence. They were also the most stubborn. They governed the women of their own houses and secretly gave orders to the slaves. The slaves who had interacted with the nobility were all punished. They were sent to kneel for a long time at the altar in the suburbs.

Shangguan Ru learned from the new scars on some of the female slaves that she could take stronger measures. The Dragon King’s remaining army in the Land of Fragrance was small, but there were still a few hundred of them left. It was still the biggest force within the country and could easily defeat the stubborn aristocrats.

However, those old men were not afraid of death. Sometimes, they had even volunteered to take punishments. Moreover, many women, nobles and slaves were fiercely loyal to their old masters. No matter how badly they had been treated, they would never betray their masters.

Governing the Land of Fragrance was a random job at first, but now it seemed complicated.

Shangguan Ru had a headache.

Just then, a few women who were in charge of planting flowers discovered a “treasure”.

In order to get rid of Old Man Mu, the Dragon King had set fire to the last Flower Soul Forest in the deserted Royal Palace. This left the earth there black and scorched. Some people found it a shame and planted all kinds of flowers in the ground, according to the country’s traditions. They no longer created a maze, but let the plants grow freely.

Planting flowers did not require digging deep holes, so not many of the flower girls had discovered the treasures buried underground. However, these treasures were truly extraordinary and expanded slowly day by day. At first, they just looked different from the surrounding ground. On the second day, they had grown half a foot high. And on the third day, they had already risen a foot above the ground, like a small tomb.

The flower girls were afraid at first, but soon their fear gave way to reverence as they thought this was some kind of Flower God deity. They knelt down and attentively cared for the flowers, watering them day and night, clearing the blackened soil on the surface, and waiting for an extraordinary Flower God deity to grow out of the ground.

The drum kits grew day by day, but no seeds ever germinated.

When Shangguan Ru heard about this strange incident, she decided to check it out for herself. She glanced at it once and ordered the digging to start. She was completely focused, and she would not relent.

There was a giant “seed” inside the earthen bag. It was covered with a shiny, metallic exterior — a huge surprise to many of the local women who had rarely seen metal.

“The Flower God’s seed is a gift from the Gods to the Master,” the flower girls said, insisting on calling Shangguan Ru “Master”.

“This is a man, not a deity,” Shangguan Ru said. She knew what they were really digging up.

Old Man Mu’s body, however, was not found. After two weeks, he miraculously appeared out of the ground as a seed. The “seed” was huge but still small, compared to the size of a human.

Very soon, the truth was revealed. One of the flower girls turned the “seed” over carefully with her spade. The outer shell was only half of the seed, and the remaining was Old Man Mu, clothed in rags and dying.

Old Man Mu was a highly skilled kung fu master. However, he was still very careful and wore an impenetrable soft armor. When he was captured, no one dared to talk to him. The 30-centimeters-long soft armour did not fit a regular-sized man, and so he was allowed to keep it and wore it all the time.

The Flower Soul Forest had been set on fire. Old Man Mu could not protect himself from above and could only sink deeper and deeper, seven feet into the ground. He leaned on his soft armour and used both hands to dig a hole in the ground. Using his Internal Strength, he shook the loose earth and buried himself before the great fire came. Using turtle breath, he controlled his breathing, but he did not have the strength to come back out of the ground.

After the fire, all traces of him had disappeared. Later rescue groups had not come to this area for their digs, nor had they dug so deeply.

Old Man Mu was buried alive.

Being able to live underground for over two weeks and then slowly rise up from under the earth made people revere him like a deity.

Shangguan Ru faced a difficult choice again. She did not want to kill anyone. The last time, Old Man Mu was “burned to death” because he fell for her trap. She did not want to kill him again, but letting this old devil get away scot-free was unimaginable.

She ordered her men to send Old Man Mu into an underground prison, where nobles held disobedient slaves. There were only three iron prisons in the Land of Fragrance.

Food and water were placed before Old Man Mu, and he was left alone to die.

That was all Shangguan Ru could do. She did not even know whether she, herself, wanted him dead or alive.

Old Man Mu proved how tenacious he was yet again. After three days, he faintly said, “I’m hungry…”

The food had already been taken away.

Once he had recovered his physical strength, the old man started to rant. Sometimes, the guards got sick of hearing it and walked far away. He continued speaking confidently anyway, saying, “Chew the grass roots, eat the worms, and hide in the dark. Ah, I understand it now. I understand the real mystery.”

When Shangguan Ru heard the watch guards’ reports, she felt remorseful. Not killing him, but letting him suffer a fate worse than death, seemed more cruel.

She decided to visit Old Man Mu.

Old Man Mu appeared changed. He looked smaller, like a wrinkled baby. His expression seemed clearer. He did not look proud of his martial arts skills, nor as if he had lost them. He looked like someone who had been through a lot and had finally achieved enlightenment.

“Good girl, I’m very happy to see you again,” he said, not seeming to be bothered by these ten days of imprisonment. He sounded calm and smiled faintly.

“Sorry I’ve hurt you, but I can’t let you kill anyone,” said Shangguan Ru.

“I know. I kill people in your name. It’s unreasonable, and it is self-deception. Every single drop of blood and every life that I’ve taken contributes to my own sin, and I will not pin that on anyone else,” he replied.

Shangguan Ru had seen Old Man Mu’s skills of deception before. Hence, she would not believe his words now. “This place is your home. I will not kill you. I will let people deliver food to you, but I won’t free you from here,” she explained.

“I would like to stay here, good girl, as a form of repentance for my past actions,” Old Man Mu agreed.

Shangguan Ru left, still not believing his words.

The rumor of the Flower God died down after awhile, and few knew that Old Man Mu was alive again.

Shangguan Ru went to visit Old Man Mu occasionally. This was done in order to safeguard the secret and also to have conversations with him. She had no friends here — the soldiers and slaves treated her like a high-ranking ruler and did not speak to her. Meanwhile, the nobility watched her carefully.

Old Man Mu was as talkative as before. Even if it was to put on show, he was a good performer, and they got along well. He even advised Shangguan Ru to teach some kung fu skills to the female slaves as the first step to building an army.

“The problem of the Land of Fragrance is that the slaves do not want to resist. It has been the culture of the slaves for the past hundred years, so it is deep-seated. But if we were to try to counter it by teaching them kung fu skills and giving them a sense of their own strength, we could stir defiance in them — as long as they didn’t train too hard and get off-track,” he said.

Shangguan Ru smiled but did not agree. However, two things that happened later caused her to consider Old Man Mu’s proposal seriously.

The first thing involved a fight between two slave women. They grabbed, punched and kicked each other, fighting almost to the point of death.

The cause of the fight made Shangguan Ru blush — they had actually been jealous of each other over a soldier.

The soldier was initially a swordsman under Tuo Nengya. Because he was old and his body frail, he stayed behind in the Land of Fragrance. Here, he became a “ladies’ man” and got into relationships with ten different women. However, he was not the only one, as most of the other soldiers also enjoyed the attention of the women.

Shangguan Ru was not a child anymore, but she could not understand such a thing. Old Man Mu had a wealth of life experience and could immediately diagnose the problem: “Men need women, and women need men. It’s natural. The people in the Land of Fragrance have too much free time, so this kind of thing is common here.”

Indeed, the Land of Fragrance was rich from its trade and the population was sparse. Most crops did not require too much attention, and the primary job of the slaves was to tend to the flowers and grasses. These were the goods that the country traded with the outside world, and they did not require much attention to care for.

Learning martial skills to kill time seemed like a good idea.

Then, a more pressing thing happened.

The Dragon King had brought hundreds of savages out of the big forest on the northwest side of the Land of Fragrance. Some of them had continued to follow him into the Western Region, while others had returned to the forest. Those who had returned home described the Land of Fragrance to be like a kingdom in heaven, encouraging the barbarian villagers to invade.

The nobility of the Land of Fragrance had once relied on playing tricks to keep barbarians from invading. This time, this strategy did not seem to be working.

Fortunately, the number of barbarians was low. The villages had very little contact with each other, as well. Dozens of these people came and targeted the food, lifestock and women as their plunder.

Relying only on a few hundred soldiers obviously could not stave off the savages in the forest. Shangguan Ru therefore decided to establish a women’s army.

After all, women had a disadvantage in terms of their physical ability, and the Land of Fragrance did not have many troops or weapons. Shangguan Ru remembered the story of “Liuhua the Silencer”. Bows and arrows seemed to be the best weapon for these physically weak female soldiers.

Shangguan Ru maintained correspondence with the Dragon King. Their exchanges were basically official, and even after the Dragon King’s grand wedding, their connection had remained. Sometimes, it was just a word or a schedule, informing him that the supplies had arrived. The Dragon King’s replies indicated that they had been received.

Naturally, the establishment of the women’s army was communicated to the Dragon King in a letter.

Like the reactions of most of the people, Gu Shenwei did not value this army very much at first. He saw them as a plaything of Shangguan Ru, feeling that she just wanted to recover her status as the Tenth Young Master.

However, a month later, Gu Shenwei finally changed his attitude. He began encouraging Shangguan Ru to expand the women’s army, even sending fifty savage guard troops skilled at the longbow to serve as instructors.

At that time, Gu Shenwei had not thought about a surprise attack on the seaside slope. He only thought that as long as he had a hidden reserve force (no matter how weak it was), it would come in handy sooner or later.

Shangguan Yun went to the Land of Fragrance to persuade his sister and found out this secret.