Chapter 65: Using Man as an Oyster, Harvesting Pearls and Searching Souls

Hearing Wang Cheng’s questions, Xie He’s pupils contracted instantly—he was even more shocked than when he’d just learned that Wang Cheng had not only escaped unscathed, but had turned the tables on the Wufeng Banner’s Wind Sail warship.

“There’s a mole! We have a traitor among us!

Otherwise, how could this boy know so many secrets that only insiders are privy to?

Or did the Sealing Talisman ‘Tight-Lipped’ accidentally malfunction?”

It took Xie He quite some time to calm his violently pounding heart before he managed to keep up his stubborn front and replied, “I really don’t know anything about what you’re saying. The Xie family has always been legitimate merchants.

Lord Wang, you’d better think this through. The Shanhai Society and the Office of the Yearly Magistrate have always maintained strict neutrality. If you lay a hand on me, you’re breaking a major taboo.

If this affair blows up and the prefectural officials come calling, the Shanhai Society may not be able to protect you.

Let me and my old servant go at once. I, Xie He, can swear to Heaven that I will not hold you accountable for anything you do today.”

Xie He, after all, was born into an official’s family and knew well that as long as he kept his mouth shut, there was still room to bargain. If he confessed, he would be sent straight to the afterlife.

Whether it was this Wang Fugui, or the ruthless Pu Shouying, neither would ever let him go.

More importantly, he didn’t know how the other moles had relayed information, but bound as he was by the ‘Tight-Lipped’ talisman, even if he wanted to speak, he could not.

Xie He was deeply shaken; so was Axiao.

She had once inadvertently discovered that the reason behind the successive deaths of the great ship captains of the East Sea was anything but simple—she suspected someone coveted the residual dragon energy surrounding the sea gods’ cults.

Later, she’d found indirect confirmation when Xie He’s group captured her temple’s attendant and tortured him for information about the true form of the flood dragon.

But she’d only noticed something was amiss because she’d personally survived the harrowing massacre of the Southern Pearl harvest.

She’d also stood watch at the mouth of the Jiulong River—a place of great significance to her—and witnessed, with her own eyes, each of those great captains being sacrificed to the Sea’s Eye.

Yet this Wang Fugui, a young scholar who’d only returned to Yue Harbor two months ago, somehow knew even more than she did.

Why should he care so much about these matters, and with such fervor—more so than herself?

Simply having a magistrate as a mentor could not explain it.

If someone could truly be so selfless and devoted to public duty, she would have to remark: “Truly a Heaven-chosen magistrate!”

“And besides, I can’t shake the feeling there’s something special about him. Though we’ve only met twice, he feels like an old acquaintance I’ve known for years.

I didn’t notice it before, but now that we’re in the same room, it’s especially clear.”

With her striking, cold, mismatched eyes, Axiao studied ‘Wang Fugui’ intently.

He seemed shrouded in layers of mist, unfathomable, which only deepened her urge to probe his mysteries.

At the side, seeing that Xie He still refused to yield—clinging stubbornly to his secrets—the Zhang brothers, Zhang Wen and Zhang Wu, hefted their axes, saws, and mallets, ready to make him bleed a little and open his eyes.

Axiao raised her hand to stop them.

“Let me handle this. The Pearl Diver’s skills are perfect for stubborn mouths like his.”

She ordered Zhang Wen to fetch another basin of water and set it beside Xie He, so the reflection showed his anxious, uneasy face.

Then she extended a slender, almost translucent white hand, reaching into the basin as if to grasp something invisible.

Xie He immediately began to tremble violently, his face turning as pale as death.

As the Pearl Diver worked her art, she explained to Wang Cheng and the Zhang brothers: “The Pearl Diver’s appointed omen is the second phase of Cold Dew: ‘The sparrow enters the great water and becomes a clam.’

‘Sparrow’ refers to a small bird, here the yellow sparrow; ‘great water’ means the sea; ‘clam’ is of the mussel family, a small one.

As the ancient text says: ‘When sparrows enter the sea, they become clams. In the bleak cold winds, many birds enter the sea and are transformed into clams—thus, the flying becomes the submerged.’

Of course, birds cannot truly become clams. This so-called transformation is the turning of yang to yin.

The spiritual omen bestowed upon us Pearl Divers is called ‘Yin Transformation.’ Every technique and art in our craft derives from this fundamental spiritual omen.”

The Zhang brothers listened, baffled, but Wang Cheng’s foundation in cultivation was solid.

He knew that in nature, things are mostly opposed as yin and yang—with distinctions of large and small, long and short, up and down, left and right, outward and inward; the large, long, up, left, and outward are yang, while the small, short, down, right, and inward are yin.

This ‘Yin Transformation’ thus signifies all changes of the yin attribute.

The most representative skill, ‘Pearl Diving,’ is a direct manifestation.

A pair of deft hands can pluck a pearl that wards off poison or a hundred-herb pill from yin-aspect wood like vines or grass; draw a bead of yin fire from ding-fire, such as phosphorus or lamp flames; or extract a black-water thunder bead from yin water like dew or rain…

But nothing can be taken from yang-aspect wood like towering trees, yang fire like the sun, or yang earth like mountains…

Now, Axiao was treating Xie He like a living mussel, regarding his intangible spirit and memories as pearls, and extracting a ‘pearl’ straight from his mind.

“Mercy, I’ll talk, I’ll tell you everything…”

Xie He, shaking all over, realized his doom and tried to beg for mercy, hoping to buy time, but it was already too late.

With a dull thud, he toppled to the ground, lifeless.

His loyal servant, Qiu Zhushui, had long since exhausted his ‘Butcher’s Dissection’ ability and, lacking the elixir to repair his liver, was already at death’s door. Now, seeing Xie He fall, he struggled violently twice, but it was futile.

Axiao opened her pale palm, revealing a multicolored pearl resting within.

She placed it inside a simple straw doll.

Within, Xie He’s self-awareness had already collapsed, leaving only sluggish memories and reflexes. In theory, whatever was asked, he would answer.

But the very first question made Wang Cheng and Axiao realize something was wrong.

“I do not know the true identity of the Honored One. Among the Gentry Faction, only *** knows, and he alone maintains contact.

But any order from the Honored One is always carried out by the local officials, so we never doubted his promises of rank and title.”

When asked about minor details, the answers came freely. But as soon as a person’s name was needed, it was automatically skipped—clearly, someone had preemptively set a curse to block him from speaking the forbidden.

Wang Cheng silently filled in Pu Shouying’s name.

He deeply admired how meticulous this smiling tiger was—so that even if the bait was caught, the information gained would be minimal.

If not for his own accidental discovery of a ‘Dragon Scion’ of the Yunmeng Empire, he’d never have gotten close to the core secrets of their plan.

“But Xie He says the officials obey the Honored One’s commands without question? That, at least, is a useful piece of evidence.”

At first, Wang Cheng’s suspicions had focused on those Han princes of the imperial house closely related to Emperor Shaozhi; otherwise, the local officials and gentry could not possibly cooperate so fully.

But after learning that the spiritual omen of a ‘Dragon Scion’ in the Celestial Bureau was called ‘Mandate,’ the scope of suspects broadened dramatically. As long as the Honored One’s official rank was high enough, he could achieve the same effect.

While the central court accepted the Wang family’s allegiance, the local authorities could sabotage from within, making an ambush perfectly plausible.

Wang Cheng also shared the information about the ‘Dragon Scion’ with Axiao.

He added, somewhat ruefully, “I only inherited part of a broken legacy.

It’s a pity—only descendants of the flood dragon or the Land Deity are eligible to hold the post. Otherwise, this would be one of the most powerful offices in the world. What a shame, truly.”

He failed to notice the flicker of emotion in Axiao’s eyes.

He continued questioning Xie He: “Tell me more about the uses of the dragon energy.”

This time, the straw doll opened its mouth but could not utter a sound. It seemed another forbidden zone had been touched—he could not speak a single word.

Even Axiao was powerless; her rank could not suppress the ‘Tight-Lipped’ talisman.

“Let me try,” said Wang Cheng, stepping forward. He had already used his unique insight to see Xie He’s short-term obsession:

“Take Yue Harbor, capture the heir of the Sea-Calming Prince as a sacrificial offering, help the Honored One collect all the flood dragon energy, and complete the ritual.”

And his fundamental desire: “Achieve great deeds and bring honor to my ancestors.”

So Wang Cheng quietly followed that desire, saying:

“Reveal your secrets, and I promise you will bring glory to your family, just like your ancestor, Lord Xie Wenzheng.

The bargain is struck and cannot be broken.”

Here, it was a contest between two powers: the ‘Four Seas Exchange’ transaction versus the ‘Tight-Lipped’ curse.

When the two conflicted, it came down to whose talisman was of a higher order!

As for ‘bringing glory to the family’—that was no empty promise.

Was not the Xie patriarch posthumously titled ‘Wenzheng’? Wenzheng is the most illustrious of all posthumous titles; throughout the history of the Divine Realm, there have been only thirty-two such honors.

Wang Cheng planned to spread word that Xie He, after witnessing the deeds of the ancestor Lord Xie Wenzheng, came to his senses and turned over a new leaf—making him a model for the age.

He would earn a reputation for the Xie clan—who had seized the riches of maritime trade, encroached on imperial tax bases, coerced officials, and colluded with pirates—as paragons unsullied by mud, prodigal sons who returned and were worth their weight in gold.

Let the Gentry Faction tear themselves apart with suspicion.

When the time came, Wang Cheng would not even need to trouble himself with the Xie family—Pu Shouying, that smiling tiger, would gladly do the job himself, and ensure that they all lived up to their newfound reputation!