The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 643

The officers moved through Qingshui at noon. They carried thick rolls of paper. Hammers rang against posts and walls.

Proclamations unfurled in bold black ink across every gate, every market square, every information board.

One officer climbed the steps of the central plaza. He unrolled the last sheet.

“By order of City Lord Bai. Being poor is now a sin. All poor, all homeless, all in the slum districts—report at once. You will serve rehabilitation time in Wudang’s special realm. Reform your poor mindset. Failure brings harsher punishment.”

Citizens gathered in small knots near the central square. They kept their voices low.

No one spoke at first. Then whispers rose—sharp, quick, disbelieving.

A stout merchant leaned close to his neighbor. “If being poor is a sin,” he said, “don’t you think City Lord Bai will soon declare that being ugly is a sin too? And then all the plain-faced among us will vanish into the mountain by morning.”

His companion pressed a finger to his lips, face twisting in mock terror. “Shh! Silence. Don’t speak nonsense. Or the City Lord will decide speaking nonsense itself is a sin. Then we’ll all disappear one by one for opening our mouths.”

Night came.

Black drones descended silently from the night sky, gliding over the slum like shadows.

Figures stirred in doorways and along the cramped streets—then suddenly stilled. Bodies slumped gently to the ground. By dawn, every shack stood empty. Laundry still fluttered on sagging lines.

A thin dog nosed an abandoned bowl. Nothing else moved. The narrow streets lay silent and swept clean, as though the poor had simply dissolved into the mountain mist.

Rich households woke to the change.

Servants no longer waited at back doors for copper coins and scraps of work. Laundry piled untouched.

Floors stayed unswept. Gardens grew wild at the edges. Merchants who once paid pennies for porters now found their warehouses half-loaded at dusk.

They grumbled, then opened their purses wider.

Wages climbed—fast, almost frantic. Work that once belonged to the desperate now went to anyone willing, at prices once unthinkable.

Qingshui City accepted no slaves. Every chained soul who crossed the gates belonged to Lord Bai.

His agents moved through neighboring towns with heavy coin purses. They bought quietly, steadily.

The slaves vanished into the mountain the same night they arrived.

The city stayed clean.

Days passed.

Merchants carried the first rumors along trade roads.

“Qingshui buys slaves by the hundred,” one said, leaning close. “Yet not one walks those streets. They must free them. Turn them into citizens. I swear it.”

Another nodded, eyes bright. “Gold lies on the pavement there. People walk past it. Too rich to stoop. The city sparkles like a treasure vault left open on purpose.”

A third merchant laughed softly, almost reverent. “No thieves anymore. Not one. The City Lord is kind. Wise. Rich beyond counting. He loves his people the way a father loves sons.”

The stories spread mouth to mouth, faster than riders. Refugees heard them in distant cities.

Families with nothing packed small bundles. Eyes turned toward Qingshui with a hunger that was half hope, half dream.

The city had become legend—bright, a heaven on earth.

After that, the gates of Qingshui never closed.

Refugees streamed through them from sunrise until the last light died. Families trudged in dusty columns. Old men leaned on sticks.

Mothers carried infants wrapped in rags. Carts creaked under meager possessions. The wide avenues narrowed into slow rivers of people.

Alex stood on the high balcony of the city lord’s mansion. He watched the flood below.

“Zhuge Liang explain all of this.”

Zhuge Liang nodded once. His gaze swept across the crowded streets, where paper lanterns already waged a flickering war against the encroaching darkness.

“Xia is vast,” he said. “The Han Dynasty still sits upon the throne, yet the emperor is a boy in name only. Eunuchs tug every string from behind the curtains.”

“True power belongs to the eighteen warlords—provincial governors who swear loyalty with their tongues and plot treason with their blades. Each claims to serve the throne. Each secretly dreams of claiming the crown for himself and turning the boy into a puppet.”

“Because the emperor is weak and the warlords are consumed with slaughtering one another, rebels have risen from the shadows. They are led by demonic sects that thrive on chaos—stirring famine and fire across the realm. They burn villages, poison wells, and drive entire populations from their homes so they may later devour the ruins. That is why refugees now flood every city in the province.”

Alex’s eyes widened in realization. “So what about our governor?”

Zhuge Liang continued without hesitation. “Qingshui and its seven neighboring cities lie within Qing Province, under the rule of Governor Qiao Mao. He is the weakest of the eighteen warlords. His borders bleed from endless incursions, and his armies are pitifully thin. The others circle him like wolves scenting a lame deer.”

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