Daily life of a cultivation judge

Shen Mu quickly showed why his testimony was worth being spared execution. Tan Lafen's assumption had been right. Shen Mu's crimes were as bad as they could get. Though in terms of bad, while they were irredeemable, they were not to the point of no return like it would have been had he been a blood fiend cultivator.

If evidence had shown that Shen Mu sacrificed people like blood fiend cultivators did, to try and improve his cultivation, then no matter what he offered up, he would still be tortured for a decade for all the information he had, specifically, ties to a blood fiend cult, and then after they had gotten everything they had on him, he would be burned in the chaos yang river of retribution. The river was a saint-grade natural dao treasure that had the purest yang flames Yang Qing had ever seen, even purer than what he produced.

Those flames were the absolute bane of everything touched with yin energy, and it was especially, ruthless against blood-fiend cultivators who were covered in resentment and all manner of baleful qi. That river would cleanse them into nothingness, and that cleansing was slow, subjecting them to the most unimaginable pain they could ever imagine.

The tenth finger of the Scarlet Blood Ghost Hands syndicate who was captured by the Order didn't flinch at anything the special inquisitors did to him, but the moment he was dipped into the chaos yang river of retribution, he resisted for a month before he started spilling and this was a hardened middle stage domain level expert who had experienced the winds and rains of the earth, but even he, could not endure the baptism of the chaos yang river.

Shen Mu was spared that fate for two reasons, his crimes though atrocious, he was flirting just at the extreme edge of that line, and the other reason was the sincerity in his willingness to divulge anything.

After the beating, they didn't even need to threaten him or promise him that much to get him to agree, he volunteered it, and it wasn't just his testimony that he volunteered, the paranoid person that he was, he went to extreme lengths to record everything. Every deal he made was recorded; every conversation he had, was recorded; every meeting he had was recorded; every trade was recorded; anything and everything that could be recorded was recorded by him both visually and auditory.

Considering who he was dealing with, his lack of clear backing, and even though those he dealt with didn't explicitly tell him what those kids he supplied them with over the years were for, as the leader of a nefarious organization, he had educated guesses that were not far off the mark.

He spent a fortune in getting talismans and artifacts to get those recordings undetected. Even with his strength and reputation, considering the dealings he had with those parties, in his mind, he felt it was only a matter of time before they decided he was a liability they could not afford to keep around, and when that day came, he had expected to use those recordings as bargaining chips or tools of causing chaos as he made his getaway.

While the recordings weren't exactly his escape ticket, they did in some way do what they were purposed for which was to preserve his life.

Using the recordings, he fingered every person he dealt with as he provided damning evidence to accompany it.

Of the four counties, Blacktear County was the one that had the highest dealings with Shen Mu.

Spiritwood County and Misty Caldera County were strategically important to the Chen Clan because they were originally part of the territory under the direct control of the red maple spirit and were thus of significant quality, however, when it came to size, the Blacktear County was the largest county amongst all counties under their control. It was four times the size of both Spiritwood and Misty Caldera County combined, and the bulk of their produce for sale came from Blacktear County which had a lot of farms.

Despite how profitable it was, from the information provided, the clan patriarch had little oversight and control of it, and it wasn't out of choice but rather he couldn't. Like most large clans, the Chen Clan wasn't without its fair share of feuds and internal competition and one of the largest competitors to Chen Zian for the post of clan patriarch was one of the elders who happened to have heavy influence over the county. That elder's name was Chen Bo.

Be it in terms of aptitude and cultivation realm, Chen Bo and Chen Zian were neck and neck, and ultimately what gave Chen Zian a leg up over Chen Bo came from the support of their grand elders which could be considered their trump cards. Chen Clan had three grand elders, each a quasi-palace realm expert. Chen Zian got the support of two of them, with the last one supporting Chen Bo.

In the end, the numbers favored Chen Zian but despite being the clan patriarch, Chen Zian had little influence in Blacktear County, which was Chen Bo's backyard.

Though evidence showed Chen Bo was uninvolved, on account that he had been in deep seclusion for the past 600 years in an obstinate attempt to try and break through to the palace realm, the Blacktear County had the highest number of pill slaves and human cauldrons. It also had the largest number of people who had dealings with Shen Mo. Seven elders had dealt with him and of those seven, one of them was Chen Bo's son, who was in disbelief when Shen Mo played a recording of a deal they had, in which he had Shen Mo continuously supply him with more children.

Even though the recordings showed him avoid saying what those children were for when Shen Mo tried to sneakily broach the subject, the visual recordings showed the images of those children and some of them matched the pill slaves and human cauldrons who were just in the courtroom.

The recordings even showed Chen Bo's son, Chen Lai advice Shen Mo to massacre a few villages from the territory controlled by the Gui family, if he was running out of places to source it.

Shen Mo ignored that advice of course, even with Chen Lai's promise to help him cover his tracks and even his willingness to pay more if the children came from there. No matter how much wealth or promises he offered, Shen Mo wasn't willing to draw the ire of powerful noble families like the Gui family who were just as powerful as the Chen family.

Doing as Chen Lai wanted was a surefire way of coming under the thumb of Chen Lai, which was likely what he was after. If he did the deed, Chen Lai would have likely held it over his head or even used it as a bargaining chip with the Gui family to try and gain their cooperation in something.

This was entirely possible, as from what Shen Mo knew, Chen Lai and those from Blacktear County hated Chen Zian's guts and were constantly seeking ways to oust him which even included seeking alliances with other powers. To him, Chen Lai was more than likely using him as a chip in gaining one of those alliances.

Other than sourcing for pill slaves and human cauldrons, Shen Mo had murdered and stolen at the behest of some of those elders, and those reasons were more personal, such as killing an alchemist who outbid one of the Chen elders for a recipe he desperately needed or threatening families that had children that showed some talent in cultivation. Those elders didn't want those children to nurture them but as practice dummies for their children, in which those practice sessions almost ended either in crippling or death of the children of those threatened families.

Shen Mo had done a lot of heinous things for them and he recorded each one, which he expertly presented in court, damning all those elders.

Following Blacktear County, Cherry Blossom County followed in the number of elders Shen Mu dealt with, the county's number being four, but when it came to Spiritwood County and Misty Caldera County, Shen Mu never had any direct dealings with anyone from those two counties with only an indirect involvement being showed when he showed the images of the children he had sourced for the Chen family over the years.

Both counties had the least number of pill slaves and human cauldrons, with Misty Caldera spotting the lowest with two pill slaves and one human cauldron, while Spiritwood had four pill slaves and three human cauldrons. Other than the two elders present in Chen Gutian and Chen Zholan, no other elders were involved, unlike the previous two counties.

When he was done with the elders, his gaze moved to the store owner of the Red Flaming Lotus Alchemy Pavilion.

"I only dealt with Owner Song Ba once, and the deal was the assassination of a clan member from the Chen family, someone by the name of Chen Xue.."

"Whaaaaaaaat?!!! Xue'er WAS....."

A thunderous roar instantly exploded in the courtroom.