Chapter 81: An Ambitious Scholar, Twilight of the Great Qian Dynasty

Lu Yang stood before the bookshelf for a while, thinking about which one to read next.

There were already quite a few books there.

Storybooks, historical records, collections of poetry, classics, military strategies, cultivation world common sense... there were even several books on the Great Qian Dynasty’s laws and administrative systems.

His father had bought them for him to read as he grew up and displayed astonishing comprehension ability, knowing how to read and write properly by the age of three.

Lu Yang glanced at the bookshelf before returning to the window.

He had spent five years in this life, and during those five years, he had gradually come to understand his current identity.

His father was called Lu Shishui, a twenty-nine year old scholar, or more precisely, a Juren.

Lu Shishui possessed extraordinary literary talent since a young age and become a Xiucai at the age of twenty.

After that, he had participated in two Provincial Examinations, once at twenty-three, and once at twenty-six, failing both times.

Only this year had he finally passed and become a Juren, ranking in the top ten, now preparing for the Imperial Examination next year.

If he passed, he would become a Jinshi, and then, he would officially step into the political world of Great Qian.

Lu Yang found this somewhat interesting.

In his previous lives, he had spent most of his time cultivating.

Although he knew that Great Qian had an enormous administrative system, he had never really paid attention to the scholars and civil officials.

To cultivators like him, ordinary scholars were naturally not worth noticing.

However, that did not mean he was completely ignorant of the Great Qian’s administrative system.

After all, the Lu Family also had connections with many civil officials in his past life.

The scholars of Great Qian weren’t ordinary people, most of them cultivated as well.

It wouldn’t be wrong to call them scholars proficient in both civil and martial affairs according to his Earth memories.

Their average cultivation wasn’t particularly high compared to the martial officials or the cultivation world, but their numbers were enormous, and the higher one climbed within the imperial system, the more terrifying the cultivators standing there became.

The top civil officials were basically all Essence Gathering Realm cultivators.

The current Grand Tutor and Prime Minister were even rumored to have reached the Qi Sea Realm. They were the only two known Qi Sea Realm civil officials throughout Great Qian.

Lu Yang initially found this somewhat strange, but after thinking about it carefully, it made sense.

Someone with extraordinary aptitude, instead of joining the military or a cultivation sect, why would they choose to become a civil official who clearly held much less freedom and power compared to the other two?

Perhaps there were only a few such people who either had certain goals and ambitions or just happened to slip through the net.

At the same time, a frail mortal who couldn’t even protect themselves wouldn’t be able to manage state affairs in a cultivation world.

If an ordinary official offended a cultivator, what would happen?

Perhaps against ordinary people, the laws and authority of Great Qian would be able to protect them, but against a cultivator?

A single slap could kill them.

If the cultivator was strong enough, even the dynasty’s laws might not be enough to save them. Therefore, anyone who wanted to become an official had to possess cultivation talent.

Otherwise, forget governing the world, they probably couldn’t even govern their own lives.

Even becoming a Juren required one to reach at least the middle stages of Body Tempering Realm.

And his father, Lu Shishui, was already at the Sixth Stage of Body Tempering Realm at twenty-nine years old.

He even had a decent chance of entering the Spirit Awakening Realm.

In his previous life, he had achieved the Spirit Awakening Realm at twenty-nine years old.

His father’s cultivation wasn’t particularly impressive in the cultivation world he was used to, but among scholars and the bottom rungs of the cultivation world, it was already quite respectable.

Even more importantly, Lu Yang could tell that his father had great ambition.

The moment he thought of Lu Shishui, a faint emotion appeared in his eyes.

That man genuinely wanted to change the world.

He believed that through correct policies and proper virtue, the people could live peacefully beneath the heavens, and if the government was just enough, then there would be fewer crimes, fewer wars, fewer deaths, and much less suffering.

Lu Yang found this somewhat naive, but he didn’t dislike it.

In fact, there was something admirable about it.

A person who knew the world was complicated yet still wanted to make it better through virtue wasn’t necessarily a fool. Perhaps it was simply the path they had chosen.

But there was another reason why his father was so determined:

His mother.

Lu Yang’s mother came from from a distant county town. That county town was also the ancestral hometown of the Lu Family in this life before his great grandfather moved to the Imperial Capital.

Her family was a relatively prominent merchant clan there.

Five years ago, she had been living there temporarily while waiting for him to be born.

At the time, Lu Shishui had just failed his first Provincial Examination.

Rather than remaining in the Imperial Capital and continuing to study in frustration, he had decided to visit his wife, wanting to accompany her during the final months of her pregnancy and clear his mind along the way.

At some point, when out sightseeing not far from the town, they encountered mountain bandits.

Several of those bandits were cultivators at the early stages of Body Tempering Realm, and the leader was even at the Fifth Stage of Body Tempering Realm.

Lu Shishui was the strongest person in their group at the time, also at the Fifth Stage of Body Tempering Realm, but having never participated in a true life or death battle, he couldn’t compare to a bandit leader who lived his life at the edge of a blade at all.

In that chaos, his mother, just an ordinary person, was severely injured.

She was seven months pregnant at that time, having no choice but to give birth prematurely, and by the time Lu Yang was born, she had already breathed her last.

The maid who had been accompanying her managed to save him, and perhaps because he possessed extraordinary talent, the premature birth had basically no effect on him at all.

Lu Shishui survived as well, but his wife and Lu Yang’s mother was gone.

Lu Yang’s expression became somewhat strange.

His first thought was simple when he learned of all those events:

What terrible luck.

Then, he remembered that his Luck attribute had eighty Reincarnation Points put into it.

Was this truly eighty Luck?

His mother had died before he even opened his eyes.

If that was what eighty Luck looked like, he really didn’t want to know what zero Luck would look like.

But after thinking about it carefully, Lu Yang realized something.

His Luck wasn’t necessarily meant to prevent disasters.

Perhaps it merely allowed him to survive them and maybe obtain much better opportunities.

His mother had died, but he and his father had both survived.

And now, he was in the Imperial Capital, a place he had never set foot inside in his previous two lives.

His family background wasn’t ordinary either.

Lu Yang’s grandfather only had one son, Lu Shishui, and his grandfather himself was a Ninth Stage Body Tempering cultivator.

He was one of the four Prison Wardens of the Imperial Prison.

It wasn’t a genuine official position; at most, it could be considered a sub-official position.

However, this was the Imperial Capital. Things were different here.

Even a subordinate position within the Imperial Prison carried considerable authority.

The Imperial Prison was one of the most important organizations beneath the Heavenly Prison. It handled matters such as theft, robbery, disputes, fraud, temporarily detention for officials, and other crimes within the Imperial Capital.

It also served as a transitional location for some serious criminals, and usually only cultivators below the Essence Gathering Realm were imprisoned within.

The Prison Supervisor was a true Ninth-Rank official and a Spirit Awakening cultivator.

Above the Imperial Prison was the Heavenly Prison, and that was where the truly terrifying criminals went.

Death row inmates, powerful officials who committed serious offenses, strong rebels, Essence Gathering cultivators, and anyone else whose crimes or cultivation exceeded the authority of the Imperial Prison.

The Heavenly Prison was directly under the Heavenly Guards, and permanently stationed there was a Qi Sea Realm powerhouse.

Lu Yang’s expression became slightly more thoughtful.

The Heavenly Guards.

That was an organization even more terrifying than ordinary officials could imagine, on par with the Embroidered Uniform Guards, Imperial Guards, and Dark Guards, collectively referred to as the Four Directions Great Guards.

The Heavenly Guards’ leader was a powerful Qi Sea Realm expert, and he had two Qi Sea Realm deputies as well.

Lu Yang’s grandfather in this life, Lu Hai, had a good relationship with the current Prison Supervisor of the Imperial Prison.

Through that connection, there was also the faint backing of the Heavenly Guards.

Even if it was indirect, for an ordinary family in the Imperial Capital, this was already an extremely strong background.

Twenty-two points of Background... perhaps it really was enough.

His father was a Juren with a chance of becoming a Jinshi, his grandfather had an influential position within the Imperial Prison, and his maternal family was a relatively prominent merchant clan.

His background wasn’t extraordinary, but it was stable.

There was no need for him to be born as the successor of an ancient cultivation sect. For now, a stable foundation was enough.

Of course, if he actually had enough Reincarnation Points, he wouldn’t be saying this.

Who would hate a heaven shaking background for themselves?

Unfortunately, with this current situation, he could only do so much with those few points.

Lu Yang quietly stood by the window, his thoughts slowly drifting away.

Mountain bandits, cultivators at that, robbing and killing ordinary people in a remote county far away from the center of Great Qian.

Perhaps one such incident meant nothing, but Lu Yang had lived for three lifetimes.

He understood that major changes rarely started without warning. They emerged from countless small abnormalities like this, one crack after another, until the entire structure eventually collapsed.

Great Qian had existed for around five to six hundred years.

In both of his previous lives, this dynasty had been relatively prosperous. The imperial court was stable, the cultivation world was restrained, and the people lived relatively peacefully.

It could all be seen from his second life right after transmigration when a cultivator had even managed to emerge from his village, that old village chief.

Because the dynasty was strong and people lived in abundancy, it was much easier to cultivator to emerge and even a village chief to be at the Third Stage of Body Tempering Realm.

He had also never heard of any incidents of Rogue Cultivators not only turning to banditry but also looting ordinary mortals.

After all, no one except for his mother and a few servants on that trip knew about his father being a cultivator.

Those bandits saw an ordinary carriage not even carrying any goods and still decided to loot it.

Six hundred years... was already a very long time for a dynasty. Even in a world where cultivation existed, dynastic fortune could not remain at its peak forever.

A dynasty’s luck would rise, reach its peak, and then gradually decline, and when the decline began, the first signs would often appear far from the center, whether it be in corrupt officials, bandits, rebellions, powerful families, disobedient cultivators, increasingly frequent conflicts, and so on.

The Imperial Court might not even notice it at first. After all, Great Qian was simply too enormous.

One county experiencing some banditry or one prefecture having a few corrupt officials wouldn’t matter.

But when these things accumulated enough to be noticed, the situation would have become something else entirely.

Lu Yang’s gaze became distant.

Perhaps... the golden age of the Great Qian Dynasty had already begun to corrode.

Its fortune was running out, and this time, he had been born right at the beginning of that decline.

"Interesting."

A faint smile appeared on Lu Yang’s face as he lowered his eyes, his small hands slowly clenching.

Fifteen points of Talent and fifteen points of Comprehension were enough to push him to the peak of Spirit Awakening Realm, almost allowing him to achieve the Essence Gathering Realm.

Now, he had a hundred points of Talent and eighty points of Comprehension, vastly more than his previous life.

He had no idea what height they could allow him to reach, but he wasn’t in a hurry.

Sooner or later, he would figure it out eventually.