[Banished to a Border City] [Incense-Based Divine Path] [City Building and Management] [Political Scheming and Conquest] [Power Fantasy]
The day Lu Heng was banished to a border city, the entire court waited for news of his death.
Branded a criminal and born with crippled meridians, he was handed a city called Dry River, a place of utter despair. Its riverbanks had collapsed, its granaries were empty, and three thousand households were fleeing. The Dragon King Temple, enshrined by the Celestial Court and thriving on incense offerings, could not even save a single starving soul in the city.
When floodwaters burst through the riverbanks, the city's people knelt and begged the Dragon King for mercy.
But Lu Heng tore up the prayer for rain and climbed onto the incense altar himself.
The first strand of faith entered his body, and his life flame was kindled! At first, he built riverbanks only because he wanted the people of the city to survive. Later, everything changed.
He held the riverbanks and made Dry River the most secure granary among the twelve cities. He trained the people and raised the first defense force that could not be broken apart. He united their hearts, turning the three dying incense sticks in a desolate temple into the smoke of ten thousand households.
When the Celestial Court tried to tear down his altar, he called the people together for a public assembly and dragged divine authority down from its lofty heights to the mortal world.
When the empire tried to seize his tax contracts, he made credit notes circulate in all twelve cities and brought about an alliance of the Northern Border.
The nobles in the capital sneered:
How dare a mere criminal official with crippled meridians presume to speak of becoming a god?
