Among them,
those recognized by the Great Xuan Court and granted a place on the "Prefecture Official" register were the most respected.
Prefecture Official was a title of Merit and Fame, unrelated to any specific position.
Within the Great Xuan’s system of governance,
whether one was a Noble or from a True Sect School, to distinguish one’s social standing, one had to be listed in the "Six Great Xuan Registers."
These six registers represented one’s identity and rank in the social hierarchy. The Merit and Fame of a "Prefecture Official" was the lowest of these ranks!
Only those recorded in the registers were considered true members of the elite class within the states, prefectures, and counties of the Great Xuan.
Ordinary citizens and those on the Military Registry could not be entered into these registers.
Only those who entered a Mansion Courtyard, earned the right to take the Martial Examination, and secured a rank in the grand test could obtain the Merit and Fame of a "Prefecture Official," the lowest rank in the six registers.
The states and prefectures of the Great Xuan were vast and boundless, each with its own unique customs and culture.
The masses were as numerous as cattle, horses, or blades of grass—an uncountable multitude.
But...
Some were treated like cattle and horses.
Others became Dragon Elephants.
Once one obtained the Merit and Fame of a "Prefecture Official," they were given official status and gloriously ascended to the "Six Great Xuan Registers."
As the common saying goes, "The people do not fight with officials."
In Jiangyin Prefecture, those who kept the various Government Offices and Affairs Bureaus running and dealt with the Hundred Trades and Livelihoods... were not the titled officials, but rather the "Officials."
A Prefecture Official represented status.
The Officials of the prefecture, however, were the foot soldiers responsible for the operations below.
From this, their transcendent status was clear.
Within a prefecture, a Prefecture Official had the authority to recommend Prefecture and County Officials. They were only a step below the Prefecture Lord and the Garrison Commander—existences with even higher ranks in the Six Great Xuan Registers.
As for the others, even the powerful gentry of the prefecture from the Thirty-Six Professions or the great Scholarly Clans, with their complex assets and vast underlying influence...
as long as they still operated within the prefecture, they had to curry favor and be polite when facing a "Prefecture Official"!
...
Jiangyin Prefecture. A residence meant exclusively for "Prefecture Officials."
Within a cool, quiet courtyard with a vermilion gate and upturned eaves.
As night fell, a thin mist breathed over the glazed tiles. The bamboo forest rustled, and leaves whispered as they fell.
Ye Luan, a "Jiangyin Prefecture Official," was dressed in silk robes embroidered with a Cloud Crane. Beneath her wide sleeve, she held a rapier, her wrist turning.
In an instant, streams of invisible True Qi of varying sizes surged forth with the sword, crisscrossing through the bamboo forest!
SWISH!
A large patch of bamboo leaves was sliced in half, startling a flurry of hurried footsteps.
Ye Luan glanced coolly toward the source of the sound.
On her lovely, well-preserved face, her willow-like brows furrowed slightly as she looked at the carefree young woman holding a sword in a reverse grip:
"Ningzhi, why aren’t you sleeping in the middle of the night? What are you doing here, coming to see your master?"
The young woman’s eyes shone. Seeing the neatly sliced and scattered bamboo leaves, she couldn’t help but gasp and clap her small hands.
"Master, your Secret Martial Dao, ’Startled Swan from the Sleeve,’ has improved again!"
"I wonder if I could..."
Ye Ningzhi rubbed her hands together, her mind racing with calculations.
Her Bone Tempering had already reached the stage of ’Mercury Blood Silver Marrow,’ and her Nourishing Stance Technique had cultivated a ’True Stance.’ Logically speaking, she had already reached the threshold to inherit a ’Secret Martial Dao.’
But looking at her master, Ye Luan, it seemed she had no intention of easily passing this Secret Inheritance on to her.
Just as she thought, Ye Luan’s brow furrowed upon hearing this, and she said irritably:
"Startled Swan from the Sleeve is a Secret Inheritance of our School. How could I pass it to you so easily, without you undergoing countless trials?"
"Never mind me. Back in the day, that man Duan, in order to beg his master for a ’Secret Inheritance,’ dared to pilot a sampan into Chaotic Heaven Lake when he had barely reached the Skin Refining realm..."
Seeing her master was about to start rambling again, Ye Ningzhi quickly covered her ears.
"See, Master, you’re starting to ramble again. Aren’t you two enemies?"
"That man Duan didn’t die back then. The news reached Jiangyin Prefecture just yesterday. After hearing it, so many people are baring their teeth and sharpening their knives. If he dares to come back, they’re ready to send him to his grave!"
"And I heard he used you as a ’whetstone’ the whole time. Until you earned the Merit and Fame of a ’Prefecture Official’ and became a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster, you never once beat him. You lost forty-seven times, big and small..."
"The way I see it, it was all because those old fossils in the School back then were so inflexible."
"If they had just let you comprehend the Secret Sword Dao ’Startled Swan from the Sleeve’ earlier, you would have shattered his blade the first time you saw him. Then none of this other stuff would have happened."
The young woman, who looked to be seventeen or eighteen, muttered to herself before her tone suddenly shifted:
"But then again, I heard that guy made a big, high-profile show of taking a disciple in Anning County, right under Jiangyin Prefecture’s nose. He really showed off his might!"
"In the end, even the County Magistrate had to show him respect. Life there must be much more comfortable than his days in the Prefecture City."
"He’s missing an arm now. No matter how strong he is, his power must be greatly diminished. But Master, you have the Merit and Fame of a ’Prefecture Official’ and you’re a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster. Wouldn’t it be easy for you to deal with him now?"
"If I were you, I’d kick him while he’s down, give him a vicious beating, and get revenge for what happened back then..."
Ye Ningzhi rolled up her sleeves, revealing smooth, delicate skin and bones that faintly shone with gold. Her eyes were fierce.
Her words made Ye Luan choke, and she stared at her, speechless for a long moment.
"Sometimes I really feel I should tell your father to make you read more books. The proper Fourth Miss Ye of the Embroidery Lineage’s main branch, acting like a wild brat who just jumped out of a bandit’s den..."
As she spoke, she mentioned that name, and her eyes flickered. After a moment, she caressed her sword and snorted.
"Practicing the Martial Dao isn’t about fighting over a momentary fit of pique. The one who can walk the path to the very end is the true winner."
"Take now, for example. I have the Merit and Fame of a ’Prefecture Official’ and have become a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster. Between Duan Chenzhou and me, there is now a mountain that clearly separates us."