But troublemakers didn’t even need Li Chang’an or the Dayan Imperial Court to intervene. The Jianghu people from all over took it upon themselves to capture these scoundrels and send them to the Celestial Prison.
Often, the moment someone started causing trouble, a crowd of Jianghu people would swarm them.
They would surround the perpetrator and subject them to a relentless gauntlet of attacks, with no regard for martial decorum. After such an ordeal, even the most arrogant Martial Artist would be left gasping for breath like an old ox.
After all, not everyone was a Grandmaster, let alone one capable of sweeping away everything with a wave of their hand. For most Martial Artists, being able to fight one against a hundred was enough to be considered a renowned expert in their region.
Likewise, after White Jade City branches opened up everywhere, the Dayan Imperial Court was astonished to find that the Jianghu people who had once been such a headache had suddenly become docile. Public order improved dramatically across the land.
A notorious Jianghu bandit who had evaded capture for decades was delivered to prison within a week.
A serial killer who had rampaged across nearly ten provinces was reported and captured in a tavern for having one too many drinks.
A tyrant who bullied men, abused women, and murdered his own kin was caught mid-flight as he was packing his gold and valuables to flee...
Countless other incidents like these occurred.
In just a few short years, the prisons of Government Offices everywhere were filled to bursting. The lines of heinous Jianghu villains awaiting execution after autumn stretched from the east side of the execution grounds to the west.
The executioners in charge of beheadings had to switch out their blades several times.
They even got blisters on their hands.
The officials finally stopped worrying about the public order in their little jurisdictions and started worrying about having too many prisoners and not enough cells instead...
Watching the Jianghu people, their eyes shining, obediently lining up outside the Government Offices to receive their merits, officials everywhere felt for a moment that they must be dreaming!
’Where are the wild and unruly Jianghu people we were promised?’
’What about living a wild, unrestrained life, cherishing freedom?’
’How in the world are you all resisting the urge to cut in line?’
It wasn’t just the officials who were dumbfounded; even the Jianghu people themselves were dumbfounded.
There was no helping it. Freedom was precious, to be sure, but cultivation techniques were worth even more!
The biggest reason they used to cause trouble everywhere was simply because they were bored out of their minds.
After all, the lack of cultivation techniques had limited their progress on the Martial Dao.
And they weren’t willing to grovel like dogs to the Sects, begging for a few scraps.
With nothing better to do, they naturally fell to brawling, stirring up trouble, and rubbernecking at every incident!
Now that they had a path for advancement and could see a glimmer of hope, the multitude of Jianghu Martial Artists naturally focused all their attention on reaching higher Martial Arts Realms.
Fighting, troublemaking, and brawling naturally decreased. All the Martial Artists in the land were rubbing their hands in anticipation, just waiting for some clueless wanted criminal to deliver themselves to their doorstep!
One could say that the establishment of White Jade City completely overturned the traditional order of the past millennium, where Major Sects monopolized cultivation techniques.
Thousands upon thousands of Jianghu Martial Artists benefited, and they were utterly and completely won over by Li Chang’an, the foremost figure in the Martial Dao!
’This Li Chang’an is no Emperor Dayan!’
’He’s clearly a Martial Arts Saint Monarch sent by the heavens to bless us grassroots Martial Artists!’
’If it weren’t for him, the tens of millions of Jianghu Martial Artists in the world might never have advanced an inch in the Martial Dao their entire lives!’
...
He placed the last cultivation technique collected over the years onto the desk.
Li Chang’an closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and chuckled. "Who says low-Realm Martial Artists have nothing to offer? This group of Third-class Martial Artists is quite interesting, aren’t they? Even I have benefited greatly from their many fantastic and wondrous ideas about the Martial Dao!"
’In this world of myriad connections and countless methods, there’s no such thing as absolute perfection.’
’A Martial Artist cultivates the Martial Dao, but in turn, doesn’t the Martial Dao also change the Martial Artist?’
’There are many things one dares to imagine and attempt when one’s cultivation is low.’
’But once their cultivation is high, they become constrained, their eyes veiled by the complexities of the world.’
’It’s like a newborn baby observing the world. Everything seems vibrant and colorful, and they can find a unique sense of novelty in anything.’
’But once a person grows up, bound by the Laws of the mundane world, they become terribly dull, merely following conventions and doing what others have planned for them.’
The insight Li Chang’an was now gaining from these cultivation techniques was just like that.
After studying so many high-end cultivation techniques, he was surprisingly finding a wealth of unique inspiration from a group of grassroots newbies who weren’t even Third-class Martial Artists.
—To put it simply, the newbies were responsible for the wild ideas, and Li Chang’an used his Heaven-defying Comprehension to test and implement them.
The more wild ideas there were, and the more he tested them, the more likely one or two would bring Li Chang’an an unexpected, pleasant surprise.
Even the Jianghu Martial Artists who provided these ideas probably never imagined that many of their fantastical suggestions were actually being partially realized by Li Chang’an, who followed the very blueprints they had drawn up!
Sensing he was on the right track, Li Chang’an felt encouraged and began to invest even more resources and energy into White Jade City.
As a result, it was as if the Martial Artists across the land had been transplanted into a whole new environment for growth.
In just three short years, waves of rising stars emerged, and the entire Jianghu was thriving.
...
「Time rolled on like a long river.」
In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed since Li Chang’an ascended the throne as Emperor and implemented White Jade City. He was now nearly forty years old.
Over the past decade, he had returned to the newly constructed Library Pavilion. He would sit on the top floor, cultivating while simultaneously reorganizing the various cultivation techniques he had collected from the Jianghu Martial Artists.
If, among today’s greatest martial experts, those at the peak of the Grandmaster Realm could be considered in a league of their own, then Li Chang’an would have to be in a separate league entirely—one that transcended the Grandmaster Realm altogether.