White (Side Story for s彳豕文s刂宁亍s’s Silver Alliance)

“Dong dong dong. Dong dong dong.” The drumbeat rang out in a steady rhythm.

“…Mount the Heaven Plate and Heaven turns, mount the Earth Plate and Earth spins. Below, a black fish carries the land; above, nether-force holds the sky. The black fish carries the land and the land can move; the nether-force holds the sky and the sky can turn. Then the stars are mounted one by one—”

Amid Bai Lingmiao’s drumming, the smoke from the incense sticks planted in the four corners of the room began to spin rapidly around the dying infant on the bed.

As the white smoke entered the baby’s seven orifices, Yang Na took out a pair of scissors and directly cut open the baby’s left palm.

Four hands pulled apart the wound. A dark yellow, semi-coagulated substance wrapped in white smoke was squeezed out from inside.

As the still-wriggling thing was expelled, the infant’s face rapidly regained color. Within moments, he began to wail from the pain.

Hearing the child’s strong cry, the elderly man beside him was so moved that tears streamed down his face. “My son lives! The Zhao family will not die out after all!”

Grateful beyond measure, he led his entire household to kneel and kowtow to Bai Lingmiao. “Saintly Maiden, you have saved our family! For the great cause of the White Lotus, I donate! I donate everything!”

“From today on, our whole family believes in the White Lotus!”

Bai Lingmiao walked out of the courtyard and watched as chest after chest of gold and silver were sealed with White Lotus strips and hauled away by White Lotus believers on single-wheeled carts.

“Is this… really alright?” Bai Lingmiao had barely finished speaking when the voice of the Er Shen rang out in her mind.

“At a time like this, you’re still worried about ‘alright’?”

“Think about what that man has done in the past. This is already going easy on him. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t just use his son for a honey trap—I’d lead people right in to ransack his house!”

Bai Lingmiao glanced at the porridge stall nearby, where beggars were gulping down large bowls of gruel. She said nothing more.

The realm was in chaos now. There was no room for hesitation. All that silver could buy grain and save many lives.

The stingy old landowner only kept his wealth at home to rot, doing nothing useful with it.

Besides, with the war on, fewer people were planting grain, and food prices were soaring.

Bai Lingmiao walked beyond the city walls and saw White Lotus believers working in the fields. Spotting her arrival, the overseer rushed over and prostrated himself.

“Your servant, Qian Caoqing, greets the Saintly Maiden.”

“How are the crops doing?”

A trace of difficulty showed on Qian Caoqing’s mud-flecked face, but in the end he decided to tell the truth.

“Saintly Maiden, truth is, it’s not good. The times have changed—every day is missing several hours. The lunar calendar is useless now. I can’t even read the seasons anymore.”

“If it were just that, I’d manage, but the weather has been terrible the past few years too.”

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao looked up at the clouds. The drifting clouds above were strange—sometimes gathering, sometimes dispersing, as if something was fighting inside them.

“The sky either refuses to rain at all—drought to death—or it pours so hard it floods. Truly, Saintly Maiden, I’ve farmed for over forty years, and these recent years are just… haunted.”

“Our White Lotus Sacred Sect has plenty of people, and we can work them like oxen, but no matter how hard I push, the yield is only half of what it used to be. And that’s better than most other places.”

“Do not worry. Man proposes, Heaven disposes. Wusheng Laomu will protect us.”

As she spoke, the white lotus on her forehead glowed faintly. Qian Caoqing’s face lit up as if he had found a treasure. Grinning happily, he nodded repeatedly and ran back to continue farming.

This was Bai Lingmiao’s idea: if some people lacked the aptitude to learn divine powers, let them all grow grain.

As long as it helped in the fight against the Fa Sect, White Lotus believers would do anything now.

The White Lotus Society had become a giant rear base for the armies of various states, making the best use of every single person.

It had greatly eased the military’s grain supply—transporting provisions from Liang all the way to Siqi would consume nine-tenths of it just en route.

But growing grain, simple as it seemed, was not as easy as it looked.

“Even Wusheng Laomu can’t make the harvest abundant?” the Er Shen said with malicious glee.

Bai Lingmiao shook her head gently. “The immortals can’t either. I specifically sent people to ask around. It seems there is no god anywhere who can make the land bountiful.”

“Tch. When it comes to helping, they’re useless. Hurting others—they’re top-notch.”

“We need to find a way. Who knows how long this war will last.”

“Instead of trying to stockpile more grain, why not just wipe out the Fa Sect quickly and take their granaries? Then you won’t need to plant at all.”

Bai Lingmiao offered no objection. She continued walking and soon arrived at the military camp. Unlike everywhere else, this camp was marked with a white donkey and a white lotus.

As she entered, Bai Lingmiao saw rows of fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boys, bare-chested, standing at attention. They stared at the master on the platform, who had become invulnerable as knives and spears through Spirit Invocation, their eyes full of longing.

These were the best potential recruits selected from among White Lotus believers—high comprehension, strong bodies.

If you had enough people, you could pick whatever you wanted. The problem now was that the sect was expanding too fast, and they didn’t have enough masters.

Altars and paintings of Wusheng Laomu were everywhere. The camp was more a mix of temple and barracks than anything else.

It wasn’t just men—the White Lotus Society treated everyone equally. Women with good comprehension were accepted too. Soon, Bai Lingmiao spotted a familiar face on the platform: Chun Xiaoman.

She taught with extreme seriousness and severity. Combined with the black hair all over her body, it made everyone cower in fear.

“You are women! If you want to survive, you train! Don’t stop until your throats are hoarse! If you lose on the battlefield, you’ll end up worse than dead!”

“I only chose those whose families are gone! If you can’t hold on, think about how the Fa Sect killed your family! Think about how you swore to avenge them!”

At her shout, a row of women with red dots painted on their foreheads began to stomp their feet and chant, performing Spirit Invocation.

Shouting the incantations excitedly, they walked barefoot into the large area of burning fire pits.

Most came out unscathed. Of course, some whose skills were lacking screamed as they caught fire and rolled out.

People standing by with buckets of sand immediately poured sand over them. These were the ones who had been eliminated.

Bai Lingmiao felt a pang of pity, but she did not call a halt. If the Fa Sect won, even more people would be hurt or killed.

Now that she was truly in charge, Bai Lingmiao had come to realize that there was no perfect solution for everything—only choices with relatively smaller costs.

Bai Lingmiao had always felt that her personality was unsuited for this kind of work. But whenever she remembered the emperor of Siqi’s cold mention of 1.8 million, she found the strength to keep going.

She was no longer doing this just for herself. She was doing it for everyone in the White Lotus Society.

She remembered the words she had once spoken: she wanted to make sure that fewer people lost their families, that the suffering she had endured would not be repeated for others.

And now she was working toward that goal every day.

Just as Bai Lingmiao was conducting her inspection, a paper crane flew through the air.

She gently caught it and unfolded it. She almost thought she had misread: Xuanpin was summoning her for a discussion of important matters.