6.38 - Rebellion

He Yu didn’t allow himself to fully let go of his mounting worry until the walls of Iron Gate City came into view over the horizon. Relief replaced the apprehension he’d felt the entire trip as he laid eyes on the sturdy walls of the fortress city once again. As it had guarded the Western Passage for a thousand years, it stood fit guard for a thousand more.

The ground raced by below as he surged forward on the Sky Dragon’s Flight. When he drew within several hundred li of the walls, two achingly familiar presences rose from the citadel to greet him. One, a snowy moonlit field, and the other, a solid and indomitable mountain. The last wisps of worry he’d still clung to faded like smoke in the wind as Li Heng and Chen Fei approached, each atop a flying treasure.

He Yu brought himself to a stop and drew up for a salute. He’d only half completed the gesture when Chen Fei arrived and launched herself off her bronze disk with a flying leap. For a moment, the winds cradled them both before Li Heng cleared his throat and brought them both back to the present moment.

“It’s been a while,” he said. Although the words carried distinct notes of relief, his voice was also strained with concern.

He Yu looked up from where he’d not yet fully disentangled himself from Chen Fei. “How long?” he asked. It was, in his estimation, probably the most important of the many questions he had.

“I was afraid you’d ask something like that, what with the rumors,” Li Heng said. His features eased a little as he spoke. Despite his relief, the twin silver streaks in his hair running back from either of his temples combined with his lingering concern to make him look older than he ought to. “It’s been just over twenty years since you left.”

“What rumors?” Yi Xiurong asked from beside him. He Yu was more than content to let her take over for the time being. As relieved as he was that the full forty years he’d experienced hadn’t truly passed, twenty was still a long time to be gone.

“That you’re all dead,” Chen Fei said as she settled back onto her disk. “A proclamation went out declaring the outlaws He Yu and Zhang Lifen slain by agents of the Empress, and that the last remaining disciples of the Shrouded Peaks Sect had been captured and executed. Yan Shirong couldn’t verify it, but the longer you were gone, the harder it got to believe you still lived.”

“I’m sorry,” He Yu said, mostly for her benefit. “We weren’t exactly in a position to get in touch.”

“So it seems,” Li Heng said. “It also seems we’ve a lot of things to discuss. It’s best we get inside. While there’s little risk of a raid with all six of us out here, it would still be best not to attract undue attention. Especially for the four of you. You’re all supposed to be dead, after all. There’s got to be some way to use that.”

“How very like Yan Shirong of you,” He Yu said just a moment before he realized the potential implications. “He’s not—”

Li Heng gave him a dismissive wave as they headed back toward Iron Gate City. “He’s fine. Twenty years is a long time to sit in the heart of the Ministry of Information. He had plenty of warning about the attack on Plum Blossom City.”

“What about the people, then?” As well as he knew Yan Shirong, he didn’t want to believe he would only save himself.

“He tried to order an evacuation. The difficulty was getting people out without tipping his hand. Of course, people will do as they always do. Most outright refused to leave. Between his vague warnings and the lack of any immanent threat, most believed they’d be safer in the city than on the roads. Under normal circumstances, they’d have been right.”

“I take it there’s more to your comment about ‘normal circumstances’ than you’re letting on,” He Yu said. He hadn’t missed the sour note in Li Heng’s voice.

Chen Fei answered him. “Things are bad, and they’ve been getting worse.”

“We should talk in the city,” Li Heng repeated.

The news of their return arrived at the Li estates shortly before they did—once they arrived in the central hall, everyone else had already gathered. Most everyone present wore grim but determined expressions, despite the obvious relief at He Yu and the others’ return. He was pleased to see that his friends hadn’t been standing still in his absence. Yan Shirong was firmly in the middle stage of Divine Body Attainment, having broken through about ten years prior. Sitting in the Ministry of Information and managing a spy network, it seemed, was wholly consistent with his Dao of Secrets.

Tan Xiaoling and Li Heng had both been working on their own advancements through the Seventh Realm when He Yu and Zhang Lifen had left, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that by now they were both approaching the late stages of Divine Body Attainment.

Chen Fei, too, it seemed, had been busy. She’d broken through with the help of Abbot Liao, and then spent more time with her parents refining her art. She’d further advanced the Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols by taking over the maintenance of Iron Gate City’s formation script upon her return, and now stood in the late stage of Divine Body Attainment.

Li Renshu took charge of things once they’d finished finding their places, and set to filling He Yu in on what the last twenty years had brought. It turned out that Yan Shirong’s plan to usurp control of the Ministry’s operations in the west had gone far better than anyone could have hoped. Not only had he fully seized control from his position in Plum Blossom City, but he’d also remained undetected until very recently. He’d quickly begun feeding misinformation back to the Ministry headquarters in Jiankang while also turning the network in the west to the purposes of the Li rebellion.

Then, he’d gotten word of growing discontent in the east. Using Ministry channels, he spread rumors intended to stoke discontent among the old, entrenched nobility that still chafed under Jin Xifeng’s rule. The plan worked. With nobles and officials at all levels of the empire becoming increasingly recalcitrant, the sense of her authority progressively weakened. While this alone didn’t push other clans into open rebellion, it did raise questions as to the future of her rule.

That was when the combined forces of the Western Passage and the Jade Kingdom struck. Mostly raids, at first. Followed by larger moves. Tan Zihao wisely didn’t seek to hold territory—their forces weren’t enough for that, and to do so would be to abandon a strong defensive position against a stronger foe. But as news of the raids spread, stubborn disobedience turned to open defiance among the nobles of the east.

Shortly after the first noble clan openly questioned Jin Xifeng’s legitimacy—claiming she’d lost the mandate of heaven, and using the Li uprising as evidence—the rumors had begun to circulate. Yan Shirong learned of them through his co-opted spy network in the Ministry of Information. In those first months following the claims of He Yu and the others’ deaths at the hands of Long Tingguang, there had been a great deal of debate among those remaining in Iron Gate City.

Li Heng and Chen Fei, of course, were quick to voice their doubts. While Tan Xiaoling was a touch more credulous, she wasn’t entirely convinced either. Unable to confirm their truth, Li Renshu and Tan Zihao both agreed it would be wisest to stay their course. As time went on, both of the older experts became more inclined to believe the claims, despite Li Heng and Chen Fei just as stubbornly holding on to their hope.

In the end, the truth mattered little. As the sparks of defiance lit sporadic flames of rebellion in the east, the forces of the Western Passage and the Jade Kingdom continued to harass the west, while more openly asserting their independence. Crackdowns became more common in the east as the years went by, but shockingly little reprisal made it as far as the provinces immediately bordering the Western Passage.

“Why not?” He Yu asked as Li Renshu finished filling him in.

“It’s hard to say,” the old expert admitted. “At first we thought it was due to a fear of losing control. Any moves toward one clan would simply expose the capital’s back to another. Jin Xifeng herself rarely leaves the capital of Jiankang. Only slightly more frequently does she permit Long Tingguang to address uprisings. It’s a stark contrast to how she dealt with the Yi clan.” Then he bowed over a clasped fist to Yi Xiurong. “Apologies if my words were insensitive, Duchess Yi.”

Yi Xiurong waved him off. “There’s nothing for it. And while I appreciate the use of what, by rights, is my title, please simply refer to me by name. At least until formal ranks can be reestablished.”

“It’s strange,” Tan Zihao said. “She has a strong core of loyalists in and around the capital. Given what you’ve told me of her techniques, He Yu, I’d expect she would want to make use of them. If there was any time an imperiled ruler would want the benefit of thousands of fanatically loyal cultivators, it’s after decades of unrest.”

“If she’s not using the loyalists she’s shared her Immaculate Monarch’s Boon with, then who?” He Yu asked. His initial instinct was to agree with Tan Zihao. Why would Jin Xifeng hold back her most loyal forces when the broader empire seemed to be slowly turning against her? Something told him there was a reason, and if he could find it, he just might have a path to follow forward.

“Typically she sends out core users,” Yan Shirong said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting had properly begun. “Not Long Tingguang, though, as Patriarch Li mentioned. The ones she sends out are young, so to speak. New to their power. While they may be fairly advanced, they have poor control over their cores.”

“She’s trying to advance,” He Yu said. “And she can’t do it without sacrificing core users to gain their cultivation base.”

“But why?” Tan Zihao asked. “Jin Xifeng can’t be defeated by a single expert, you said as much yourself. Her servant, Long Tingguang, is easily a match for the remaining heads of the ducal clans. Any that he couldn’t crush himself, the empress could easily destroy on her own.” His words carried a tone of scholarly curiosity rather than doubt. Obviously, this was a solution he’d already thought through himself, but discarded.

“The ducal clans,” He Yu began, “have no Ninth Realm experts among them, correct?”

“It’s been a long time,” Yi Xiurong answered, “but my family’s patriarch was at Divine Soul Apotheosis stage. Long Tingguang crushed us on his own. There may have been one or two other clans with middle or late stage Eighth Realm heads, but none of the Ninth.”

“The clans don’t know what Elder Cai told me,” He Yu explained. “Their defiance says as much. Jin Xifeng has to think that if she advanced, it will cause them to finally fall in line.”

“Why can’t she just destroy them?” Tan Xiaoling asked. She stood next to her father, arms folded over her chest in a posture reminiscent of his. With her advancement to Divine Body Attainment, her wild hair and golden eyes made her resemble him even more than she had before. “It’s what I would do.”

“And why would you do that?” He Yu asked.

“The strong rule,” she said, heat rising in her voice alongside her words. “Those who challenge the strong either prevail or are swept aside. Prove yourself in battle, and let iron and steel determine whose cause is the better.”

“Fitting for one who follows the Dao of Strife. But that is not Jin Xifeng’s Dao. Thus, her actions follow a different course.”

“What Dao does Empress Jin follow, then?” Li Renshu asked, leaning forward as he spoke. Likewise, Tan Zihao’s attention piqued, too. The both of them, it seemed, had caught on to He Yu’s line of thought.

“Hers is the Dao of Sovereignty. She told me as much herself. She wishes to rule, as I’ve said before. Not destroy.”

“Why not make an example of the dissenters, then?” Li Heng asked.

“That’s what she did,” He Yu said. “With the Yi.”

“But that was what, fifty years ago, at least? I’d already returned here, to Iron Gate City, when that happened. You and Chen Fei were still in the mountain shrine. Tan Xiaoling was still in the wilderness of the Jade Mountains, and Yan Shirong working for his family in Plum Blossom City. Half a mortal lifetime ago.”

“What’s a mortal lifetime to someone who was old a thousand years ago?” He Yu asked. “Think about the time we’ve spent gathering out strength, then count how long it’s all taken. We’ve spent tens of years at a time simply training and cultivating. A year hardly feels like a year to us anymore. At least that’s how it feels to me. Fifty years ago may as well be yesterday to someone like Jin Xifeng.”

“Wait, so you’re saying she’d not acting because she’s just… old?” Chen Fei asked. It was clear she didn’t believe him, and he couldn’t blame her, if that’s how she saw it.

“Not just that. It’s a piece though. The first part is her Dao, as I’ve said. She has no desire to rule over ruins. Because she’s lived for so long, a sixty-year cycle is practically meaningless to her. So she feels no need to move swiftly. As far as she’s concerned, she’ll live for another thousand years, anyway. Time isn’t something she’s short on.

“She creates more pacts with the demon cores, then sends those experts out. She benefits regardless of whether they succeed. If they put down any rebellions or soothe discontent, her rule strengthens. If they’re killed, she gets closer to the Ninth Realm. Should she reach the Ninth Realm, she’ll be utterly unstoppable. No clan or sect would dare defy her. But if she moves too swiftly, she risks destroying the very thing she most wants. The empire itself. In her eyes, her eventual victory is assured, so long as she doesn’t take up the fight herself.”

“What about her loyalists, though?” Tan Zihao asked. “She has an army inside the capital.”

“They’re the ultimate source of her power. The Monarch of Sky’s Throne told me how she became so powerful. I’ve had, from my perspective, forty years to puzzle through it and I think I’ve found the solution.”

A silence fell over the meeting. All eyes in the room turned to He Yu, asking a single question. He steeled himself for what he was about to say, because he’d turned over the implications for decades. As far as he could tell, it was the only way.

“I know how we can defeat her and restore the empire,” he said. But they weren’t going to like it.