Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Jin Xinyue left the secret room with a series of chuckles, leaving the three big shots of noble sects who had been dominating the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector since the age of the Old Federation staring at each other in silence and feeling the coldness that was emitting from the deepest part from their bones.

…

A long, black, bulletproof shuttle quietly ascended to the top of the private club and moved toward the plaza of the Ministry of Equality and Development like a ghost.

However, Jin Xinyue was not on the shuttle.

It was not until five minutes later that another seemingly plain shuttle flew out of a parking lot not far away from the private club toward the industrial district in the northeast of the capital city.

After zigzagging for half an hour, the shuttle slowly landed in an empty, rusted, and forsaken warehouse that was soon to be rebuilt.

When she got out of the shuttle, Jin Xinyue felt particularly cold. She put on a thick, black leather coat made from the hide of a Horned Camel.

Kada. Kada. Kada.

She walked through the warehouse that was entirely empty. Her high-heeled boots clicked on the ground, uttering crisp and hollow sounds.

When she was about to reach the end of the warehouse, Jin Xinyue stopped and completely took off her black veil, revealing a pale, delicate face.

Opposite her, deep inside the warehouse, Ding Lingdang in a dark red training suit strutted straight toward her and stopped three meters away from her.

For two Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, it was certainly not a friendly distance.

Ding Lingdang and Jin Xinyue, perhaps the two most dangerous women in the Star Glory Federation, confronted each other in silence, three meters away from each other.

Huala! Huala! Huala!

The warehouse could not withstand their raging spiritual energy anymore despite its spaciousness. The broken windows around were all vibrating crazily and screaming in devastating noises.

“Masteress, I did not expect that you would ask me to meet you in such a place.” Jin Xinyue put on a vague smile. “You and I are both celebrities right now and sort of… competitors. If the media learn of our meeting, it will be more than breaking news; it will be a superstorm.

“However, on second thought, how many years has it been since we last had a sincere conversation face to face after master left? Oh. We have never done this before?”

“Cut the nonsense.” Ding Lingdang went to the topic directly. “Are you responsible for the insurgency of the Immortal Cultivators on Firefly? Did Lu Qingchen work for you? Have you been supporting the CFIA in secret?”

Jin Xinyue seemed to have foreseen that Ding Lingdang would ask her those questions. She opened her hands and said, “Masteress, you choose to believe such groundless gossip?”

“It is exactly because I don’t that I have come to you!” Ding Lingdang stepped forward again, shortening the distance between them to two meters. “Jin Xinyue, look me in the eyes and give a straight answer to the question just now! If you dare look me in the eyes and say that you didn’t do any of that, I will believe you!”

Jin Xinyue looked at Ding Lingdang’s eyes, but the infinite brilliance in them quickly forced her to look away. She continued smiling. “Masteress, when you are truly elected as the Supreme Speaker of the Star Glory Federation, of course, I will tell you everything I know, and all the secrets will be disclosed to you. But right now, a lot of things are still classified at the highest level. I cannot tell you, and you are not qualified to hear them!”

Ding Lingdang sniffed. “So, is the exposure from ‘Moonfall’ all true?”

“As the minister of the Ministry of Equality and Development and the president of the Dim Moon Fund, I cannot say a word to you,” Jin Xinyue said. “However, since you are my masteress, if this is just a private, casual chitchat between a masteress and a disciple, I would like to discuss one thing with you. Assuming that the leader of an intelligence agency—let’s call her Jin Xinyue—in a nonexistent country—let’s call it the Star Glory Federation—really did those things, so what? Is there a problem?

“The situation is obvious right now. The expedition army of the Imperium is arriving and will possibly show up right above us any second. But the diehards of the government-in-exile are still hesitating reluctantly, trying to haggle with us. Do we really have the time and energy to negotiate with the government-in-exile?

“An insurgency of the Immortal Cultivators that discovered in advance can point out the threat of the Immortal Cultivators for the leadership of the government-in-exile and help them eradicate the internal ‘pustule’. Two birds, one stone. Why shouldn’t they do it?

“By saying this, I am not implying that I did such a thing. But let’s ‘assume’ that a Jin Xinyue did this some time ago. Was it really so reprehensible?

“At the very least, it ended pretty well. The Immortal Cultivators lurking on Firefly were mostly fished up, and the old Speaker of the government-in-exile asked for full cooperation with us actively in his fear. Tell me about it, Masteress. What makes you so angry about the issue? Or, is it because you think that the job was so marvelously done that it will significantly improve my standing and grant me a final victory?”

“Bullsh*t!” Ding Lingdang narrowed her eyes. “Don’t presume that everybody in the entire world considers the place of the ‘Supreme Speaker’ more important than anything else! Let me tell you, even now, never for one second have I really cared whether or not I am elected as the ‘Supreme Speaker’!

“If you admit that you are responsible for the incident, and it was you who instigated the insurgency of the Immortal Cultivators on Firefly before suppressing it, is it any different from the firefighters who start a fire and then extinguish it later in order to earn credit for themselves? You—you have set foot on the wrong path. You have walked onto Lu Zui’s path! What you are doing right now is no different from what Lu Zui did at all!”

“Then I’m afraid that you are mistaken, masteress.” Faced with the tempest from Ding Lingdang, Jin Xinyue was as tranquil as before. She replied calmly, “First of all, Lu Zui personally planned and carried out the many crimes, including the assassination of the Speaker and the massacre of innocent people. His hands were stained with the blood of his compatriots.

“But for me, assuming—remember, it is just a hypothesis—assuming that I really planned to do something, I wouldn’t have been as stupid as Lu Zui to plan and implement everything actively.

“The most I would do is perhaps delay the intelligence of an upcoming insurgency on Firefly that I ‘happened’ to learn of in order to lure the big fish in the water. Then, I might’ve slowly guided the situation.

“It’s very understandable in intelligence work, isn’t it? Firstly, I had to protect the safety of the intelligence personnel on our side. Secondly, how was I supposed to tell them with the awkward relationship between us and the government-in-exile at that time? Should I simply go to Cui Lingfeng and tell him that his most trusted subordinate whom he regarded as a daughter was joining hands with the third most powerful man on-board to start an insurgency?

“This is how intelligence work is done. If we arrest the lackeys whenever we find that they are up to something, we will never be able to catch the masterminds behind them!

“The Dim Moon Fund does the same. The Secret Sword Bureau, too. Even the police have to crack their cases similarly. Why are you so harsh on me particularly, Masteress?”

“Do not dodge the topic. You know exactly what I meant!” Holding back her anger, Ding Lingdang said coldly, “Thankfully, the insurgency of the Immortal Cultivators was suppressed in time. Otherwise, how many innocent people in Firefly would’ve been killed because you decided to ‘catch the big fish’? Have you ever considered that?”

Jin Xinyue slowly narrowed her eyes, like a starship that was slowly unfolding the defense shield and entering the combat state. “Then, has it ever occurred to you, Masteress, how much trouble the government-in-exile would bring us if the problem on Firefly was not resolved quickly and neatly and if the ‘cancer’ was not completely removed? How many innocent people would have been killed miserably because of the trouble?

“At the very least, if anyone is killed right now, it will be the ordinary people of the government-in-exile!

“But if I am too merciful and blinded by petty kindness, it will be the ordinary people and the compatriots of the Star Glory Federation who are killed! A hundred times more than the victims of the government-in-exile!

“This is the greatest difference between me and Lu Zui. Lu Zui claimed to be a guardian of the federation, but those he killed were all his own compatriots. But blades and claws will only be used to deal with outsiders and to defend the federation! If the sacrifice of some outsiders can save the lives of more compatriots in the federation, I don’t see anything wrong with that!”

Jin Xinyue’s suddenly raised voice and aura even cast Ding Lingdang into a daze.

The human-shaped she-tyrannosaur stared at the saintess of demons carefully and mumbled, “You are truly sinking deeper and deeper into the swirl of power, Jin Xinyue! Although I always knew that you were ambitious and ruthless, I thought that Li Yao must’ve seen that you still had boundaries in your heart that would prevent you from doing the things that disregard all principles when he recruited you as a disciple!

“But he was mistaken!

“Look at what you’ve done in the past hundred years, especially the dirty jobs after you left the Secret Sword Bureau and established an independent ‘Dim Moon Squad’. Also, for the sake of the demons, you bent before the so-called ‘big shots’ of the core worlds and worked as their accomplice willingly! Just think about everything that you have done. Do you not feel that you are slowly sliding from a ‘Cultivator’ into an ‘Immortal Cultivator’?”

Jin Xinyue smiled, apparently not thinking that it was a big deal. She tightened the coat on her body and remarked, “Cultivator or Immortal Cultivator, it is just a title. Is it any different from ‘worker’, ‘farmer’, ‘policeman’, or ‘teacher’? They are not words that are engraved into one’s forehead and can never be removed! I don’t have the time to bother about Cultivators, Immortal Cultivators, and whatnot. I only know that I won’t feel sorry for what I did either in front of my master or in front of the federation.

“What, do you despise me because my methods were too filthy? But would the four new worlds have been conquered so easily without filthy methods? If I hadn’t plucked all the annoying ‘stings’ with my brothers through life and death, how on earth would the rest of them have joined the federation obediently?

“Through the clandestine approaches that the ‘Dim Moon Fund’ adopted, the four new worlds were fully integrated into the federation at least ten years faster. How many resources, military advancements, and combat ability improvements can we accomplish in ten years? How many lives of ordinary people will be saved in the upcoming war because of the improvement? One billion? Two? Five? Ten?

“If my hands can save the lives of another ten billion people at the price of getting slightly ‘dirtier’, then I will have to bear my master’s tutelage in mind and do what I have to do no matter what!”