Lin Mu continued to listen to Tie Niu and learned more of the happenings of the empire.

The emperor continued to get sick, and now he was in a critical state. The empress was pushing for her son, the crown prince, to be made the emperor as soon as possible while the other concubines tried to put obstacles.

The biggest claim they had was the fact that the current crown prince was weak and only had a cultivation base at the peak stage of the core condensation realm. 

'Oh, I remember him… back then he was the youngest person to have broken through to the Core condensation realm at twenty.' Lin Mu recalled.

Since that day, about nine years had passed and with the crown prince had reached the peak stage of the core condensation realm. This was a great increase compared to even a lot of top sect disciples.

But at the same time, Lin Mu could only imagine how many resources it would have needed for him to speed ahead of others. 

'Though he is a crown prince, so has no lack of fortune.' Lin Mu thought to himself, completely forgetting how much he had consumed or how fast he had progressed.

The crown prince had recently turned thirty years old and if he became the emperor, he would be the youngest one to have become an emperor. While there had been a few emperors before him, the youngest one to become an emperor was still over one fifty years old.

The crown prince was breaking that record, and if he truly became an emperor, he would also be the one with the lowest cultivation base. Earlier, the weakest one to become an emperor was at the Child soul stage of the nascent soul realm.

The current emperor who was sick, was said to be at the Dao Shell realm, but only at the shell initiation stage. Compared to the earlier emperors, he was said to be the weakest ones, but now his son might take that stage.

Though Lin Mu still found it strange that they never managed to stop the emperor from being poisoned.

"Doesn't the imperial family have support from the rainbow pill sect? Then how is the emperor still so sick?" Lin Mu questioned Tie Niu.

"You don't know what happened?" Tie Niu questioned, feeling bewildered.

"What?" Lin Mu asked, having a bad feeling.

"The Rainbow pill sect and the Emperor had a falling out. The emperor found out that he was being poisoned and accused the rainbow pill sect of that. The empress was very upset with it all and tried to plead to the sect, but they did not accept it all. 

They ended up cutting off contact. Though the empress is still said to be in contact with them." Tie Niu answered.

"Dammit… seems like the Long Cloud sect couldn't get the information to the emperor on time." Lin Mu muttered to himself.

"Or it could be that the emperor is already too deranged to understand. It would make sense if the poison wasn't just affecting his body, but his mind too. That would be a smart move to do too. 

After all, if your mind is still functioning well, you can think of ways to heal, but if that is sick too then even with a good body you are nothing." Xukong chimed in.

Listening to this, Lin Mu found senior Xukong's words to be logical. Though he still wondered why the Long Cloud alliance was unable to rectify the situation. If it was between Gu Yao and the Rainbow Pill sect having an influence on the Imperial court, Lin Mu would much rather have it be the Rainbow Pill sect.

An hour passed like this as Tie Niu continued to tell Lin Mu whatever he asked about. And when he was finally finished, Lin Mu had another question.

"What about the babies? Why are there so many of them in the city?" Lin Mu questioned.

He had already understood the reason for less number of cultivators in the city, since Tie Niu and his people had sent quite a lot to be sacrificed under the guise of being recruited for many jobs.

It was a clever way to keep the masses calm and yet make use of them. And when they asked where they were after a few months or years, Tie Niu could simply make up a conflict and tell the families that they died there.

It wasn't like there was a lack of conflicts these days anyway. 

"Oh, the infants… yeah that has nothing to do with me." Tie Niu answered, surprising Lin Mu.

"Huh? They why is it so that nearly every woman that can give birth has given birth in the recent time in your city?" Lin Mu asked, finding it strange.

"That… might just be due to the increased rations and lesser taxes." Tie Niu replied.

"What do you mean by that?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Well… since the number of cultivators we had on our payroll decreased by over 90% we had a lot of fortune saved up. Then there was the additional profits coming from the businesses and Lord Gu Yao.

I also knew that since a lot of families will lose their members that were cultivators, their income might reduce. This would lead them to be displeased and they may ask unpleasant questions in the future.

Thus, I just reduced the tax while increasing the rations that were sold. Also, the price of goods went down recently since we started hunting down cultivators, which included a lot of the bandits in the nearby regions.

This allowed more merchants to come here safely, with lesser losses. This then reduced their prices even more." Tie Niu explained.

Hearing this, Lin Mu was truly dumbstruck.

'This man he… he fixed the lives for commoners in a really roundabout way… a bad way but still it fixed it.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

"Plus, I still needed more people in the future so the commoners will continue to fill the ranks." Tie Niu added.

Lin Mu didn't know what to think of Tie Niu for what he had done. Overall, he really was a bad man, but he had done something good unintentional.. Though it could also be said that it was to serve his own goals in the end.

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