The Shamans retreated. Wei Yuan did not pursue them; he merely ordered a unit to trail slowly and keep watch, then set everyone who could still move to digging out Xuanwei Six.
Corpse after corpse was carried out, both human and Shaman, though the Shamans were far more numerous.
He did not know how much time had passed when someone came to report that the lowest level had been fully excavated. Wei Yuan roused as if waking from a dream and went over to look.
The bottom level was completely cleared. Several hundred human corpses lay here; it was evident that half had been severely injured and died in the small antechamber before the escape tunnel. The rest were scattered across the floor, surrounded on all sides by Shaman corpses.
The Hall of Heavenly Craft disciple overseeing the excavation spoke in a voice heavy with sorrow. "They buried gunpowder at the support pillars on every level. When it detonated, it blew apart all the supports and brought down the entire structure. And before that, the escape tunnel had already been blown up."
Wei Yuan listened, his gaze falling upon two corpses.
Beneath was Yun Feifei; above her lay an aristocratic young master. He had thrown himself over Yun Feifei, trying to shield her from the falling earth and stone. But how could he withstand the crushing weight of earth measured in millions of jin? His elbows and knees had shattered, and the two had perished together nonetheless.
This noble scion was one of the sixteen aristocratic youths who had accompanied Cui Yu, having volunteered before the battle to defend Xuanwei Six. Wei Yuan had originally intended to disperse these young lords and ladies across the various units. After surviving multiple bloody battles, their spoiled demeanor had washed away, and they were capable of holding their own.
Yun Feifei, needless to say, possessed cultivation, cunning, and ruthless resourcefulness in equal measure; even before meeting Wei Yuan, she had been a formidable figure. That was why Wei Yuan had entrusted her with overseeing the battlefield at Xuanwei Six—a post of paramount importance. In the past, she had escaped countless life-and-death crises, eluding even the Xu family's grasp for years on end. Wei Yuan had never truly believed anything would happen to her.
The two bodies were separated and carried up to the surface. A noble youth dying in battle required an explanation to his family, a matter naturally left to Cui Yu.
Yet looking upon Yun Feifei's face, Wei Yuan could not shake a sense of unreality.
She had buried explosives at the pillars of every level?
She had destroyed the escape tunnel first?
She had detonated the explosives herself?
This chain of questions lingered in Wei Yuan's mind, making him feel as though he had never truly understood Yun Feifei—or perhaps that the person he had known was another Yun Feifei entirely.
Had those ten thousand-plus elites been allowed to return to the surface, the consequences would have been unimaginable. At that time, Qingming's surface forces had reached their absolute limit, locked in a massive, brutal war of attrition where pieces were traded for pieces. If those ten thousand-plus enemy elites had joined the fray, Qingming would very likely have collapsed first. Moreover, had they not died, there was no telling when Yanxin would have entered the field—and without his intervention, this battle would never have ended.
Wei Yuan suddenly felt an inexplicable exhaustion—a deep fatigue from the inside out—and a small piece of his heart seemed to have gone hollow.
If only he had held a few more troops in reserve. If only he could have sent three thousand more elites underground, if only they had a few more fire guns...
If only he had been given just a little more time...
Yet there were no "ifs" in this world, just as there was no turning back on the immortal path. Once stepped upon, one had to walk it to the end, until one perished. Some who departed might be met again, but others were gone never to return—like Fang Hetong, like the demon horse. And of those who remained now, none could say when they too would depart.
Wei Yuan reached out to wipe the soil from Yun Feifei's face. Looking at that beautiful countenance, still vivid and spirited like an elf, he wondered whether she harbored any regrets when she passed.
Surely... there were none?
Within the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, a chilly wind blew once more. Hollow-eyed Shamans appeared everywhere, marching in columns and crowds toward Jade Mountain.
The black water bubbled as countless black particles rose from the surface. Then a tree emerged from the water, growing steadily taller. It was pitch-black throughout, dark beyond fathom, leaving one unable to tell whether that blackness was an all-devouring void or simply the color of its wood.
A doorway was embedded into its trunk, its gates tightly shut at present, bearing an indecipherable symbol above. The tree bore only a few branches hung with a handful of solitary leaves, swaying without wind, as if ready to wither and fall at any moment.
Black mist continuously wafted from the full moon, ultimately coalescing into eighteen strands of advanced otherworldly fortune. It was hard to tell whether this was a reward for the emergence of that strange black tree, or an attempt to soothe Wei Yuan's still-bleeding heart.
The people from Yong'an and other cities had already arrived. They were mortals; even with the blessing of Ephemeral Multitude, they possessed little combat strength. Wei Yuan had deliberately timed their arrival on the battlefield: if they too were forced to take up arms, it would mean the domain had exhausted everything, the hour when jade and stone burned alike.
Now that Wei Yuan had enough Body Casting cultivators under his command, he no longer sent mortals to the battlefield so lightly. In earlier battles, even armed with fire guns and fighting underground, it still took three or four mortals to trade their lives for a single Shaman.
Upon arriving, the crowd began clearing the battlefield and tending to the wounded. They had done this many times before and were well-practiced now.
Yet on the faces of some, Wei Yuan saw a different expression.
Wei Yuan walked over to a youth, watching as he deftly retrieved personal belongings from fallen human warriors, verified their identities, and entered them into the ledger.
After watching for a while, Wei Yuan suddenly asked, "What are you thinking?"
The youth turned to see Wei Yuan. Startled, he hurriedly bowed, but remained silent at Wei Yuan's question.
"Speak. It doesn't matter."
The youth gritted his teeth, his expression suddenly twisting into a fierce grimace. Pointing at Wei Yuan, he shouted, "We fight every single day! Every day! Ever since this damned domain appeared, not a day goes by without fighting! My mother and father, my sister, and both my older brothers are all dead—killed in battle! It's all your fault! If not for you, we would still be living peacefully in Quliu Town!"
Nearby, Cui Yu kicked the youth off his feet and cursed, "You call that living? In Quliu Town, you lived worse than pigs and dogs!"
The youth climbed back to his feet and said stubbornly, "Even if it was worse than pigs and dogs, we were still alive!"
"You call that being alive?" Cui Yu laughed out of sheer fury.
Throwing caution to the wind, the youth shouted, "We were born in the muck! We had no choice! Does being born in the mud mean we don't deserve to live? Is it wrong for us to just want to live? If I were born into a great clan like you, I wouldn't necessarily be worse than you! You only get to stand there lecturing me because you were born lucky!"
Even Cui Yu, normally so articulate, was left speechless with rage. He reached for his sword, but felt it inappropriate.
*Slap!* An elderly mortal nearby slapped the youth hard across the face, then fell to his knees and kowtowed repeatedly, babbling, "This boy isn't bad at heart, he just lost his parents and brothers and lacks discipline! This old man is willing to adopt him and will surely discipline him strictly from now on!"
In Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness, azure qi continued to mount, yet among the more than a thousand newly gained strands, several vanished once more.
Wei Yuan walked up to the youth, looked straight into his eyes, and said coldly, "The war here is not meaningless, and those who died did not die in vain! Whether you understand it or not, the meaning is there. Men!"
Wei Yuan pointed at the youth. "Disrupting military morale. Send him to the penal battalion. If he survives three major battles, he shall be pardoned."
The penal battalion had originally been established by Xiaoyu and Cui Yu to punish offenders. Those in the penal battalion performed hard labor in ordinary times and were conscripted into the army in wartime, fighting in the most perilous sectors. If one survived three battles, their guilt was expiated and they were freed. Furthermore, any military merits earned in the penal battalion were tallied as usual and bestowed upon their families.
The guards dragged the youth away.
Wei Yuan remained silent for a while before saying to Cui Yu, "You see? I'm not one to go softhearted. On the contrary, it was you who hesitated."
Cui Yu sighed. "I feel some of what he said wasn't wrong."
Wei Yuan looked out over the boundless expanse of corpses and said slowly, "'What-ifs' and 'supposes' are meaningless. We are born as we are, and that cannot be changed; each of us can only stand where our feet are planted and keep moving forward. What he said might not be wrong, but it is devoid of meaning. Some are content to live worse than pigs and dogs, while others are not. If I could do it all over again, I would still relocate everyone from Quliu Town to the domain. Even if I had to do it a thousand times, it would be the same!"
Cui Yu nodded and said in a heavy voice, "It is good that you can think this way."
The wind howled fiercely through the domain. Night had not yet passed, and tonight's wind was extraordinarily biting, bearing a chill that seeped into the marrow.
Countless living souls walked among the dead, unaware of when they too might fall, becoming one of those lying on the ground, waiting for someone else to record their names into the registry.
Wei Yuan did not think the youth was in the wrong. It was just that in this era, in an era where humanity was still fighting merely to survive and reproduce, simply not being wrong was not enough.
During the time since establishing Qingming and standing on the front lines against the foreign races, Wei Yuan had come to truly understand humanity's plight. Behind the apparent splendor and roaring prosperity lay the reality of defeats that could collapse like mountains at any moment, the reality of countless people still being sacrificed, slaughtered, and arranged into morbid spectacles.
A mere 3,700 years ago, four Immortal Monarchs of the Palace of Grand Beginning had fallen in battle one after another. There had been righteous duty behind it, but perhaps also the helpless necessity of having no other choice.
Wei Yuan did not hate the Liao Clan, nor did he hate the Shamans. Both sides were born to this, fighting for their own kind. If Wei Yuan had been born a Shaman, he too would have fought bloody battles to the death for his people.
Yet now, hatred burned in Wei Yuan's heart!
From the moment he saw Yun Feifei's corpse, Wei Yuan had kept thinking: if only he had held a few more troops in hand. Not many—even five thousand, or just three thousand—and she would not have had to die. Many people would not have had to die.
Yet not far away stood an army of over a hundred thousand, the closest of whom could have arrived within half an hour! But they had simply sat on their hands and held their forces back!
For the first time in his life, the hatred in Wei Yuan's heart was so intense, so clear, and so relentlessly surging!
Nor had he ever imagined that the object of his deepest hatred would be humans.
Chapter 239