Ye Que spent three entire days and nights to consolidate all of the gangs in the entire Luoyang City under his wing. It was not huge news, but it did not go under the radar either. Some people or organizations were bound to find out, such as the Court of Judicial Review.
The ruffians were originally under the jurisdiction of the Court of Judicial Review. It would allocate those sort of tasks that were unspeakable or did not require any technical expertise to them, and in turn, they would be somewhat protected by it if they stayed within the law.
However, overnight, 80 percent of them had switched allegiance to another faction, and the Court of Judicial Review was paying considerable attention to the matter now.
They felt as if someone had pulled the rug out from underneath their feet.
Of course, the entire matter was settled very quickly. That very afternoon, Qian Shuxiao brought taels of silver to the Court to smooth things over with them. The officials received 10,000, 1,000 or 100 taels of silver in accordance with their importance to the investigation, and he covered his tracks well after that.
Naturally, with the help of the payments, things were settled much more quickly. The ruffians were originally vagrants without any sect to lead them, and they were a nuisance but also useful in certain ways. Now that someone was willing to take them in, and since that somebody was also wise in the ways of the world, it was a win-win situation for the Court of Judicial Review.
Everyone had their good and bad points. Ye Que trusted Qian Shuxiao enough to hand the hooligans over to him, and after all, he had to do something if he wanted to be known as the first elder of the sect.
After a month of observation, Ye Que realized that Qian Shuxiao was not particularly focused on training, and he seemed to only desire the effect of immortality. He took quickly to the task of organizing the ruffians, however. This probably had something to do with his ident.i.ty. After all, he was going to inherit the Qian family in future.
Rather, it was Qian Shuhua that surprised Ye Que.
There were not many women who learned to use a spear, and there were even fewer like Qian Shuhua who wielded one with such poise and a total lack of shyness. She behaved more like a chivalric hero than the first young lady of a huge family.
Perhaps Lin Mei"er had really triggered something within Qian Shuhua. She trained like crazy, and everything she did was ruthless. She chose the most ruthless spear techniques, wielded her spear ruthlessly and was ruthless in pushing herself during training. There were times when even Ye Que began to think if teaching her the Sutra of Womanly Grace was a wrong decision.
"Is there anyway to improve my skill level as quickly as possible?" she asked Ye Que seriously.
"Taking merely one month to enter the Pre-celestial Realm is already quick enough," Ye Que replied as he toyed with the 13 swords; it was something he would do when free. One by one, the swords appeared, from the Zhizheng Sword to the Chengren Sword. It looked like he was fooling around, but he was actually using the sword formation to concentrate the Divine Energy in his body. To Ye Que, he had already absorbed his training into his soul. "One cannot be too hasty during training, and it"s best to take it one step at a time," he said.
"That said, I want my progress to be even faster than this. Maybe you can help add more damaging power to my spear technique. Let me tell you first that I won"t learn those fanciful but useless skills," Qian Shuhua said stubbornly.
"I didn"t teach you anything fancy and useless. Also, you used the skill to kill someone," replied Ye Que indifferently.
"Someone that just stood still for me to hit was more target board than human," Qian Shuhua said. Her voice was not too huge, but it sounded very resolute.
"Are you really in such a hurry?" Ye Que asked.
"Someone is going to get married soon, and there"s something I have to do before that happens," Qian Shuhua said. Anyone who heard her would know that the "someone" she was referring to Ye Yunhai, and the "thing she had to do" was to beat Lin Mei"er up, even though she was not being specific.
Ye Que"s mouth twisted as he listened to her. He did not reply and went away for a while, eventually returning with a long spear that was entirely black. He tossed it in front of Qian Shuhua and said, "Lift the spear with both of your arms. For the next six hours, the tip of your spear cannot slant, the shaft of your spear cannot tilt and you cannot use your True Energy. Come and look for me after you"ve managed to do that."
"Right, the net weight of the spear is 50 kilograms."
"Do your best."
Before Ye Que could finish speaking, Qian Shuhua gave out a great shout and raised the spear. She kept her arms level and her gaze straight.
It was now noon, the hottest part of the day.
Luckily, Qian Shuhua"s physique had been refined by the medicinal pool and the Sutra of Womanly Grace. Otherwise, there was no way she could have stood in this pose for 15 minutes, much less six hours. Even so, it was a challenge that was seemingly insurmountable.
In the end.
She really remained in that position for six hours, until the sun had completely disappeared from the mountain. She finally fainted when the stars and moon were appearing in the sky.
Ye Que managed to catch sight of her collapse just as he returned to his residence. Even the usually unemotional and calm youth was stunned by the girl.
However, on the next day, Ye Que did not impart any profound or powerful skill to Qian Shuhua when she came looking for him. He only taught her an extremely simple movement and told her to repeat it continuously everyday.
She was to stab the s.p.a.ce in front of her!
She had to perform the movement 3000 times in the morning, noon and afternoon respectively.
"This is the devastating spear technique that you"re going to teach me?" Qian Shuhua asked, a look of disbelief on her face. She felt that she had been tricked.
"There are 12 movements to all spear techniques in this world, and they are unpredictable. They can also be grouped into six variations."
Ye Que walked slowly toward the 50KG heavy black lance as he spoke. "To me, however, there"s only one type of spear technique that was created for killing. Its attacks are like lightning strikes."
After speaking, he raised the lance level above his head and stabbed northward.
There was a whistling sound as the spear moved faster than wind, and a decorative mountain within the manor, which was 100 meters away from them, cracked apart. There was the imprint of the spear"s tip at the center of the crack, such was the power of the attack.
"This spear is named Virile Perforation."
"With it, you"ll be able to conquer anything in this world."
In truth, a real master would not have made such matters so clear. Normally, he would leave his student to her own comprehension. If she got it, it would be due to her talent. If not, it was also part of her training. Ye Que, however, had no time for that. He was most afraid of trouble, and the thing that could give the most trouble in the entire world was women. Making things clear with them would not mean the matter would be settled, and if one did not, it could end up backfiring spectacularly.
Ye Que thought that Qian Shuhua would not persist with her training, just like he predicted Qian Shuxiao would come looking for his a.s.sistance.
He was badly mistaken this time.
Every day at dawn, Qian Shuhua would appear in the small yard punctually and begin training her piercing strike. She would only leave when it was dark and quiet, and even then she would return back to her room to practice the Sutra of Womanly Grace.
She did this everyday, and she persisted with her training.
As for Qian Shuxiao, he chose a completely different path. After Ye Que subdued all of the ruffians in Luoyang City and threw them to him, the youth seemed to take an instant interest to the task. The Firebird"s Nest was kept at a corner, and he would only allocate some free time at night to practice the Great Tao Sutra.
Within a few days, Qian Shuxiao had put in place a set of strict regulations, and they were stricter than that of ordinary sects.
It covered everything—from how the ruffians could increase in rank, how tasks were being allocated, how they could receive tasks, how they could earn the rewards of silver and manuals from the Divine Set, how their level of training would be observed to how disciples of the inner circle would be chosen. He seemed to have a unique and natural obsession for management, and he was extremely gifted at it.
Three days ago, Qian Shuxiao had hosted and convened the first secret meeting of the Divine Sect as the first elder. Ye Que, as the sect leader, listened from the side, and there were a total of 78 ruffians present.
It was said that when they ruffians left, all of them looked red in the face and they were in high spirits and extremely excited, as if they had been infused with chicken blood.