Stealing The Heavens

After bidding farewell to King Bai Shan, Liu Bang happily returned to his Changle Palace, together with casts of wine, boxes of gold, silver, jewelry, precious artifacts, and beautiful girls. He was in a good mood, but when he suddenly saw the man standing in front of his palace, his face turned extremely unsightly. It was like a beautiful girl walking out of the door in expensive boots she just bought and stepping right on a pile of dog shit.

The good mood crumbled like a sand castle, and Liu Bang nearly jumped to his feet to curse.

And his heart was filled with a towering killing intent when he saw a grove of fragrance trees a thousand feet from the front gate of his palace was completely cut down, and a large group of builders from Great Yu’s imperial workshops was busy constructing buildings there.

Earlier, while Liu Bang was having fun in King Bai Shan’s mansion and making some secret deals, Wu Qi had arrived in Liangzhu, riding on Ao Buzun and bringing with him Gold Horn, Silver Horn, Gold Feather, and Silver Feather, the two pairs of dragon python couples. With the jade medallion Xuanyuan gave him, he entered Great Yu’s imperial palace without obstruction and was immediately granted an audience with Emperor Haozun.

They met in that same ancient and primitive great hall, and Emperor Haozun was still wearing the same costume. The emperor was sitting on his throne, with plumes of purple mist and streams of dazzling starlight pouring down into him from the ceiling up high. Energy surged around him like a bottomless abyss. The great hall and even the whole palace was shrouded in his aura.

Emperor Haozun looked very different now than he did during the ceremony when Wu Qi was conferred the title of Marquis. At that time, in the presence of all the civil and military officials, his aura was extremely reserved, and he looked harmless. But since today Wu Qi was the only one who came to see him, he did nothing to conceal his aura. It was as unfathomable as a bottomless abyss, and as threatening as the blazing sun. Sitting loftily on the throne, his body exuded a mighty aura that made no one could look straight at him. It was as if a real sun had appeared in front of Wu Qi.

Wu Qi bowed respectfully to Emperor Haozun and showed him the jade medallion Xuanyuan had given him.

The emperor nodded slightly and said in a low voice, “The Sacred Emperor has sent a messenger to tell me about what had happened. I already know what is the purpose of your visit. Do what you have to do. In You Xiong Plain, no one can stop you from your mission.”

After a moment of consideration, Emperor Haozun said faintly, “That Liu Bang has a unique identity. He is actually the incarnation of the Celestial Emperor’s son, and now the Heaven’s Celestial Ambassador to Great Yu, who is responsible to coordinate everything between us and the Heaven. It will be unwise if you hurt him.”

Wu Qi bowed, then made several requests to Emperor Haozun. The emperor granted all his requests without hesitation. Immediately thousands of jade medallions representing the identity of Great Yu’s court officials were handed over to Wu Qi, and the emperor even sent a large group of builders from the imperial workshops to construct a mansion for him in front of Liu Bang’s Changle Palace outside of Liangzhu.

Later, Emperor Haozun issued a decree that was rather baffling: ‘Because of his proficiency in rice hybridization technology, the Marquis of Dong Hai Province, Tan Lang, is ordered to stay in Liangzhu, to pass the technology to the Agriculture Court, so that the production of Great Yu’s food can be increased.’

It was a decree that confused all civil and military officials. Rice hybridization technology? What the hell was that? The function of Agriculture Court had been limited to urging the people to plant and harvest their crops on time, and managing all the granaries. Since when did they start to involve in technological improvements?

The land of Pangu Continent was very fertile, and the endless natural energy here allowed the crops to be harvested several times a year. The common people could expect a great harvest in a month or two if they were willing to throw seeds into the fields. In general, Great Yu had a huge surplus of rice, so the so-called ‘rice hybridization technology’ and ‘increase the production of rice’ were utterly meaningless.

But since this was Emperor Haozun’s decree, all the officials could only keep their doubts in their hearts. In any case, with this decree, Wu Qi was able to stay in Liangzhu openly. As a foreign subject, he was not entitled to live in You Xiong Plain for long by Great Yu’s rules, but since Emperor Haozun had decreed him to pass the Agriculture Court the rice hybridization technology, he could stay in Liangzhu until those officials learned the technology.

As for when the officials at the Agriculture Court would learn the technology, Emperor Haozun did not know, neither did all the civil and military officials. Even Wu Qi himself did not know the answer to this question. Because all he knew was the term ‘rice hybridization technology’, and he had no idea what it was actually. But since it was just an excuse, he simply provided Emperor Haozun one that would make the world cough blood upon hearing it.

After Emperor Haozun granted him permission to leave, Wu Qi left the palace with thousands of imperial builders and went to the scenic White Sand Bay outside the city in high spirits.

Liu Bang did not like the residence of the previous Celestial Ambassador in Liangzhu, so immediately after he became the Heaven’s Celestial Ambassador to Great Yu, he chose White Sand Bay, a scenic place, to build himself a huge Changle Palace. He had kept many beautiful female immortals and cultivators in the palace, and tens of thousands of maidservants for his enjoyment. Every day there was a grand feast in the palace, with fine wine and delicious dishes served endlessly, beautiful dancers and musicians entertaining the guests. It had become one of the most extravagant places in Liangzhu.

Because there were often scantily clad female immortals and cultivators hanging around Changle Palace, Emperor Haozun had issued a secret decree forbidding the young male descendants of all the powerful clans in Liangzhu to come within a hundred miles of it. Compared with the conservative, closed, ancient, and repressed Liangzhu, Changle Palace was like a naked woman suddenly placed among a group of Buddhist monks who had been living in seclusion for hundreds of years—it looked extremely incongruous.

White Sand Bay was a bay which had been washed out by the tributary of a large river outside Liangzhu. Measured about hundreds of miles across, the bay was full of white, thumb-sized jade of the finest quality. Under the bright sunlight, these rounded jade stone glittered brilliantly, creating a rare spectacle outside the city. There was a grove of fragrance trees growing on the bank. Each of the trees was so huge that it took a dozen men to encircle with outreach arms. They were a rare species that naturally emitted a subtle scent most efficient of repelling insects and all kinds of poisonous things.

Wu Qi came straight to Changle Palace with thousands of builders. Casting all caution to the wind, he ordered them to cut down the thousands of acres of fragrance trees in front of the palace and clear out a large open field. After that, they dug a deep trench around the clearing and planted triple layers of tall fences, using the trees that they had just cut down.

These builders from Great Yu’s imperial workshop were experts in their trade, and each had the overall strength not weaker than that of a first-tier Heaven Immortal. Given that all of Great Yu’s palaces were built of huge blocks of stone, they all had amazing strength, otherwise, they would not be able to move huge stone blocks that weighed millions of kilograms each.

With such strength, these builders were constructing Wu Qi’s mansion at an incredible speed.

It took them only ten minutes to dig out the trench that stretched ten miles on each side of the field, a hundred feet wide and a thousand feet deep. Then, after just another fifteen minutes, the triple layers of fences, each of which stood a thousand feet tall, were erected as well. Afterward, instead of constructing the main buildings, they went ahead with the construction of five watchtowers, one in the center and four in each corner.

The bases of these towers were three hundred and sixty feet long and wide, and all of them stood three miles tall. From the top, one could easily glimpse everything within Changle Palace. Wu Qi only had to post a few Oracles who had mastered all kinds of divine abilities related to eyes on them, and he could learn everything in the palace, even including which female immortal’s room had Liu Bang moved out from in the middle of the night, and to which female cultivator’s room had he moved into.

Actually, with the prowess of the people around Liu Bang, they could easily cover the whole palace with all kinds of restrictive spells. That would well stop all the furtive glances. But still, it could not ease the resentment that choked his heart. Who would have felt good, when someone had erected five three-miles-tall watchtowers just less than a thousand feet from the front gate of his residence? The towers Wu Qi asked the builders to construct were ridiculously high. Since Pangu created the universe, no one had ever seen a watchtower as high as three miles.

Even the builders who constructed them were grinning, thinking that this Marquis of Dong Hai Province must be purposely upsetting Liu Bang.

That was why when Liu Bang returned to his Changle Palace, he saw Wu Qi standing there, smiling at him, with Ao Buzun laying atop his head, tail swaying back and forth like a snake, and the dragon python couples perched atop his shoulders, gold to his left and silver to his right.

He rubbed his eyes, staring at Wu Qi for a while, then turned to look at the five watchtowers that stood not far away from his palace. His fair face darkened abruptly. Fuming with rage, he threw down a red pearl the size of a fist he was fiddling with and jumped thirty feet into the air, pointing a finger at Wu Qi and growling, “What the fu*k are you doing in front of my palace, Marquis of Dong Hai Province?! Damn you, who would build his watchtowers to such an insane height?!”

Smiling, Wu Qi pulled the decree Emperor Haozun had given him and threw it to Liu Bang. “King of Han, I’ll be your neighbor from now on. Please take care of me!” he said with a bow. “There is a saying that distant relatives are not as close as neighbors, well, since fate has brought us so close, we must visit each other more often in the future!”

Liu Bang took the decree and read it. At length, he looked over his shoulder at Zhang Liang, Han Xin, Xiao He, and Fan Kuai in a puzzle and asked, “Rice hybridization technology? What the hell is that? Is there a food shortage in Great Yu recently? I thought there are countless sacks of rice become rotten every year and are used as fuel? So, why do they need to increase rice production?”

All four of them stared at Liu Bang blankly, then turned to look at Wu Qi together.

Wu Qi was smiling at them, and his smile was so bright and warm that they felt a chill rising in their hearts.