Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
"This is the Palace of Heaven, huh… It’s indeed worthy to be the City of Harmonious Heaven, it already has a bit of demon king fortress atmosphere."
Standing outside the Palace of Heaven, Wang Lu voiced out his sincere feeling for this one of the top ten largest cities of Heavenly Earth.
The Palace of Heaven was enormous. From the outskirts of the city to the city center, it had a radius of at least over fifty kilometers. The population was even in the order of tens of millions. It was one of the largest cities in the vicinity. However, the core of the Palace of Heaven was a floating castle with a radius of around two kilometers. The castle was built above the center of the city and was known as Moon Capital. Every night, the Moon Capital would gather all the moonlight within the whole area of the Palace of Heaven, thus not even the least bit of moonlight arrived within the city walls. And this was because of the personal preference of Moonless Harmonious Heaven, the master of the local Temple of Heaven of Palace of Heaven.
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She was called Moonless, so she didn’t want the people under her to see the moon in the night. This was a simple and crude logic, which also made Wang Lu have a pessimistic expectation for this meeting with her.
After staying in the Heavenly Earth for a while, he now had a more detailed understanding of this place. In his opinion, this Temple of Heaven was undoubtedly the undisputed hegemon of the land. However, for various reasons, it did not let this dominance to be obvious. For example, each city in the Heavenly Earth all have the corresponding city master who was in charge of the city, and the person in charge usually could not hold a concurrent post as the local temple leader. For example, the master of the Palace of Heaven was not Moonless.
However, there was a problem with this setup. Since a city had both city master and Temple of Heaven, who had the final say then?
The answer was the Temple of Heaven, which, although nominally the ruler of the city was the city master, had the right to control the city master and, if necessary, could participate in major matters in city management. It was the absolute force of the Temple of Heaven that sustained this wonderful power structure. The master of Palace of Heaven was a Yuanying Stage expert, but Moonless Harmonious Heaven was a Daoist Master of Deity Stage, so how could it be easy for city master to speak louder than Moonless?
Of course, with how vast and populous Heavenly Earth was, there were always exceptions. For example, Li Yan of Gorgeous Town did not like to participate in ordinary people’s affairs. The city management was completely relegated to the city master, while she only stayed in the temple. As a matter of fact, this should be the original intention of the Temple of Heaven. That it was enough for the clergy to serve the Heaven and manage their own cultivation, while secular matters belonged to secular people.
However, this reason was obviously impractical in the Palace of Heaven, where the omnipresent Moon Capital had fully reflected the absolute strength of the Temple of Heaven here—it was important to know that just underneath Moon City was the official residence of the master of Palace of Heaven! Not to mention that the moonlight could not be seen at night, even during the day, the sun had been blocked by it, which was basically the same as being trampled under the foot, and thus Moonless’ style of action could also be seen.
Dealing with such people was really an art. Therefore, Wang Lu had done a lot of homework in advance. Not only he made a detour to Sky City, he also meticulously prepared several gifts, in hopes that this preparation would enable him to get what he wanted.
This Moonless Harmonious Heaven was once a fierce general who fought in the front line during the battle with the lower realm. The number of generals from the chaotic world that she personally slew were in the hundreds. During the calamity time, she did not even hesitate to sacrifice half of her body to permanently crush a passage to the lower realm. Because of this meritorious deed, the Temple of Heaven made an exception and promoted her to be the true master of Palace of Heaven and lived permanently in town as if she was the vassal monarch. No matter how domineering such a person in other aspects, at least on the topic of the chaotic world as well as the subject of war, she was an undisputed expert. And Wang Lu had many questions about the chaotic world.
Previously at the banquet with Li Yan, Wang Lu had too many thoughts and doubts.
After entering the city, with the introduction letter from Li Yan, Wang Lu and Liu Li were soon led into Moon Capital by the Moon Capital Guards. However, Moonless did not immediately meet them. The guards led them into a lounge where no fewer than a hundred people were waiting there. The spacious lounge was so crowded that Wang Lu and Liu Li could not even find a place to sit.
"… Moon Capital, what a city!" Wang Lu softly sighed with emotion. The people waiting all aimed to meet with Moonless, either for business or personal affairs. And most of these people were not weak. Among them, twenty people were already in Jindan Stage, and even two of them were of Yuanying Stage. Although they just passed the threshold of Yuanying Stage recently, they were still Yuanying Stage after all. Yet they were still crammed in this crowded lounge along with the others. From this, it could be seen how busy Moon Capital was. Before entering Moon Capital, Wang Lu once sensed the official residence of the master of Palace of Heaven located underneath Moon Capital using his primordial spirit and found that the number of people there was pitiful.
"Are you two also here to see Master Moonless?"
Wang Lu and Liu Li had just found their spots to stand when they heard someone beside them talk.
"Uh-huh." Wang Lu nodded."
"Where are you from? I am Hua Qingshan, a wandering clergy from Graceful Cloud Mountain Temple."
Wang Lu turned his head and saw a girl with a bright smile and an even brighter dress. It was a coarse cloth with matching the sleeveless short jacket and fluffy trousers. On her clothes, there were a certain number of densely packed patches, which appeared to be like a mosaic. This seemed like a dress of ordinary poor people, but every patch on her dress was all brilliant, which perhaps was woven from the expensive material of five-planet spirit silk.
This kind of gorgeous patch was really rare, even in the fashion capital of Nine Regions. Seeing it, Wang Lu couldn’t help but become lost in thought.
Hua Qingshan smiled and said, "Good, isn’t it? I designed it myself. This time, seeing Lady Moonless, is in the hope that she would approve me to promote this set of clothes in the nearby area."
Wang Lu could not help but ask, "Why would you want to promote it?"
"Because the original design is really not attractive." Hua Qingshan wryly sighed and then took out a set of clothes—it was the same coarse plain trouser, densely packed with patches, yet looked extremely shabby.
"According to the original rule of Temple of Heaven, we wandering cleric are responsible for walking in the secular world and evangelizing. During the period, our standard uniform is like this. The intention is to let the wandering cleric, during the wandering time, could manifest out the high character and integrity of Temple of Heaven, so that more people have confidence in us. But when people look at us in such a shabby dress, they couldn’t help but avoid us… In some places, the clerics are too much, they don’t even pay attention to the personal hygiene, thus ruining the reputation of Temple of Heaven!"
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Wang Lu thought to himself, "You, wandering clerics, are supposed to be poor. Wandering cultivators wearing such expensive clothes are the ones who give the bad reputation to the temple… However, thinking of this sky blotting Moon City, what of mere expensive clothes?"
"Actually, us people below have petitioned to the above people for many times, but they have always refused to consider it, saying that this violates the fundamental tenet of the Temple of Heaven… Alas, so we have to think of ways to reform and innovate. Well, this is the result of my innovation." Hua Qingshan proudly strutted out her chest. "Although it’s different from the standard model, it doesn’t violate the standard rules. In any case, the Heaven Book of Rites only specifies the material of the clothes, but it doesn’t specify the material of the patches. I believe that if it could be carried out in a trial by the Palace of Heaven, it would be very popular."
"… I wish you good luck."
"Hehe." Hua Qingshan chuckled. "Speaking of which, I have several trial sets with me, do you want to try it? I think you have a good temperament, so you should be a temple head somewhere, right?"
With that, Hua Qingshan began to promote her own products, which Wang Lu simply declined politely.
However, after this dialogue, Wang Lu felt more and more that the Temple of Heaven seemed very similar to a certain organization. Of course, this was not a problem. In any case, he was not a local resident and thus did not care about the political structure of others. The problem was that his intention to come here to ask academic questions was for the purpose of learning, but among those who visited Moonless, there were very few people who came for the purpose of learning, but many more for policies. And for him, it would not be a good thing to mingle with this group of people.
Moreover, the master of a highly politicized Temple of Heaven might have lost interest in asking or learning things for a long time. He didn’t know how many years ago Li Yan still had a friendly relation with Moonless, and she still thought that Moonless was still the same person in the past, a cultivator who yearned for the immortal path, but she did not know that unexpectedly, the blue sea had turned into mulberry fields 1 .
Thinking of this, Wang Lu even considered giving up this chance. In any case, this Heavenly Earth was vast, and the plotline was not only through Li Yan or Moonless alone. However, right at this time, the door of the lounge was suddenly opened and a young girl in a luxurious white dress and cold face came in and looked at Wang Lu.
"Lady Moonless summon you two to meet her."
"We?" Wang Lu was quite surprised.
The other people were also shocked, thinking that this woman actually jumped the queue! Moreover, it was Lady Moonless who respectfully asked her to cut in line? What was their relationship with Lady Moonless? Here there were still two Daoist Masters of Yuanying Stage who were waiting patiently. In theory, they should be summoned in three days, and most of the waiting time for the newly arrived was at least a week or more. So how could she?
Unfortunately, that white-dressed maid had frowned impatiently. "Hurry up, Lady Moonless’ time is precious."
—
Under the guidance of the maid, Wang Lu left the lounge and went deeper into the core position of Moon Palace. However, not long after following the maid, Wang Lu felt something was wrong because they had already passed the reception room, but the maid still continued to go forward.
"Huh, aren’t we going to the reception room?"
The white dressed woman turned around and glared at Wang Lu. "Shut your mouth and just follow me!"
Wang Lu couldn’t help but sigh. "What a fierce family dog."
"You!" The veins in the white-dressed woman’s forehead popped, and her murderous aura was slightly revealed.
Wang Lu, however, remained unceremonious. He looked at her condescendingly and said, "Tsk, one black, two yellow, three variegated, and four white 2 . For the most inferior thing, not understanding etiquette is also excusable since they are of the lowest rank and thus okay to not have manners 3 ."
The maid in white stared at Wang Lu for a long time but, in the end, was finally able to press down her anger with great difficulty. "Be careful of what you say and do! This is the residence of Lady Harmonious Heaven, no one is allowed to speak freely without permission!"
And then she hurriedly walked forward and led the way. After a while, they passed the range of the personal dwelling of Moonless. Thus, Wang Lu immediately realized that the location where Moonless chose to accept visitors was in her bedroom.
… Looks like she has a deep friendship with Li Yan. With a single introduction letter, it could let Moonless have a personal meeting with people.
Not long after that, the white-dressed maid took Wang Lu to the bedroom door, which was opened by two black-dressed maid. Wang Lu then finally saw the well-known Lady of the Moonless Harmonious Heaven.
A living dead person whose half body had become bones of the dead.
…
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