Chapter Sixteen: Master and Disciple

This would be a futile struggle, a path straight to death. Su Ziye looked at Liu Ru and said calmly, “Because it is plain enough: no one can contend with a sage unless he is one himself.”

“In the beginning, the tale should have ended there. Yue Yi should have slain his most beloved disciple and gone on preserving the order of the sages, tending the common people of the world.”

“But the problem is, Yue Yi chose not to do that.”

“He did not?” Liu Ru found this strange. “Then what did the sage do?”

“He did nothing.” Su Ziye smiled faintly. “Ye Ye Academy continued to function with complete stability during that period. The annual third trial still began as usual. The sage remained seated atop the Ye Tower. Everything seemed untouched, still wearing that same calm and placid expression.”

“But during that same time, the other two sages also left the academy one after another and resumed their own paths, and the grand spectacle of the three sages gathered together disappeared forever.”

“And beyond Ye Ye City, everything was changing rapidly amid rising storms.”

“Ye Xuan Yin took the students of Ye Ye Academy as the backbone and organized the first formidable army, beginning to attempt the active conquest and unification of the city-states scattered across this vast plain. During this period, the first Emperor of Taizhen displayed exceptionally high political and military ability. Through alliances and maneuvering, he very quickly came close to unifying this land. Of course, because of that, he also left behind the fatal flaw of the Lan surname.”

“The flaw?” Liu Ru was curious.

“You do not know where the Lan surname came from?” Su Ziye said with a smile.

Liu Ru shook her head. “I do not.”

“The Lan surname belongs to the masters of the Lan Ye Empire, and that is no empty claim. Even before the empire was founded, these people already ruled this land,” Su Ziye explained quietly, looking at Liu Ru.

“The Lan surname is divided into six houses. The first consists of the descendants of Lan Ying, the founding marshal of the Lan Ye Empire. The second comes from the royal descendants of the strongest city-state on this land before then. They accepted Ye Xuan Yin’s terms and submitted of their own accord, but they also cut themselves the largest share of the future feast.”

“As for the third house of the Lan surname, it is the priestly family that has, for generations, overseen the worship of ghosts and gods upon this land. The fourth belongs to the collective royal families of the small kingdoms that surrendered one after another after seeing the tide of history turn and finding themselves powerless to reverse it.”

“The next two, the fifth and sixth houses, are somewhat special. The fifth consists of those meritorious officials who performed great service during the long founding of the state and were therefore granted the Lan surname.”

“As for the sixth house, it was at the time by far the largest family. They shared one common name: the Lan Ye Royal Guard Knight Order.”

“The sixth house has one greatest distinguishing feature: its original members were all students of Ye Ye Academy. After the founding of the Lan Ye Empire, the prerequisite for inheriting a place in the knight order was to pass the third trial and become a student of Ye Ye.”

After Su Ziye finished all this, he looked at Liu Ru. “After hearing that, how do you feel?”

“Emperor Taizhen brought together the largest consortium of vested interests and made it his base,” Liu Ru said with a sigh, lowering her head.

Among these six Lan families were military powerhouses, remnants of the old dynasty, religious forces, and meritorious and core supporters. The shared surname bound them with incomparable collective interest, until in the end they had no choice but to pinch their noses and unite beneath the banner of the Lan Ye Empire, working together to preserve its existence, because only in that way could their interests be maximized.

“But why is that a flaw?” Liu Ru could not help asking.

It should be said that this was an extremely wise decision. After all, it created in the shortest possible time a powerful and stable alliance, and it was this alliance that gave birth to the future Lan Ye Empire.

“Because the power of the Lan surname was simply too great,” Su Ziye said with a smile. “The Lan Ye Empire, with Lan first and Ye second. Even to this day, the power of the Emperor of Lan Ye is still heavily constrained by these Lan families. What is more, when the empire was founded, the composition of the Lan surname was a chaotic mix. Everyone harbored their own schemes. Though there were indeed die-hard loyalists to the empire among them, political opportunists and profit-seekers unquestionably made up a far larger number. Over the nearly hundred years since the establishment of the Lan Ye Empire, the Lan surname has never ceased gnawing at imperial authority, steadily expanding its own influence through it. By today, it has already developed the signs of becoming unwieldy and impossible to rein in. If one day the Lan Ye Empire were to collapse, the existence of the Lan surname would surely be its greatest internal bomb.”

“Still, that is straying a bit too far,” Su Ziye continued, looking at Liu Ru. “In short, you only need to know this: with his overwhelmingly formidable strength and superb methods, Ye Xuan Yin, under the tacit approval of Sage Yue Yi, very quickly unified the city-states spread around the three great lakes, nearly forming a brand-new empire. Afterward, Ye Xuan Yin also established his capital in the sacred city of Lan Lan. The Lan Ye Empire was practically a fetus about to be born; no one could have possibly restrained it.”

“But.” Su Ziye said the word but with quiet emphasis.

“Everyone clearly understood that unless one problem was resolved, the Lan Ye Empire could never truly be established.”

“And that problem was Ye Ye City, only one hundred and twenty kilometers from the sacred city of Lan Lan.”

“In that city stood Ye Ye Academy, and within it, a sage.”

“But weren’t they master and disciple?” Liu Ru said instinctively.

What problem could not be solved by a good talk between master and disciple?

“If talking could solve it, then Ye Xuan Yin would not have raised the banner of rebellion against his own teacher in the first place,” Su Ziye said with a smile, looking at Liu Ru. “Besides, if you were Sage Yue Yi, what would you do?”

“I…” Liu Ru had only just begun to speak when she stopped, pressing her lips shut.

If Liu Ru were that sage, faced with this traitorous disciple who had betrayed both master and ancestor, she might have reached out and destroyed him at the very first moment.

And after that, where would there have been all these later troubles?

“Why could Sage Yue Yi not simply abandon his position?” Liu Ru said unconsciously.

Even if it proved that everything she had done before was wrong, at least it would not have come to such a tragic end.

“Because back then, the sages still did not understand what limitations this world would impose upon them,” Su Ziye said with a sigh. “The first to become a sage was the Hero, but after he attained sagehood, he fell into despair. He merely had his wife bring the chaos of the Hundred Kings to an end, while he himself nearly vanished from the world. Yue Yi, however, was the first terrifying existence to forcefully carve a new division into the history of all humankind with the Ten Heavenly Calamities and name it the Era of the Sages.”

“Only at the time, Yue Yi did not know what this meant.”

“But now, he already understood.”

“This era was his fortune and his life.”

“The moment his era ended, his life would also be declared over.”

“That is what everyone came to know and unanimously recognize after the curtain fell on the Era of the Sages.”

“The sages do not interfere with the mortal world.”

“The moment they do, they pay a price more dreadful than death.”