Before Wei Yuan's arrival, Fang Hetong had relied entirely on the village walls for a desperate defense, firing cold arrows from powerful bows and crossbows to force the Liao into abandoning their horses and engaging in close combat inside the village. Without their mounts, the Liao Clan's combat power was cut in half straightaway. Compounded by the timely blessing of the Service Chapter, the militiamen could briefly match the combat prowess of regular border troops. Bolstered by every man fighting to the death, they had managed time and again to slaughter and drive back the Liao intruders.
Tonight, with Wei Yuan's surprise ambush swiftly killing seven or eight scouts and inadvertently slaying their squad leader, they had achieved the feat of annihilating the entire raiding party.
This was Wei Yuan's first time truly battling an alien race. The Mountain Folk giant he had faced during the minor examination back then was merely a crippled version, and sect elders had watched over him from the side; there had been no danger to his life whatsoever, and naturally none of the pressure he felt now.
Although the Palace of Grand Beginning had laid a tight defensive web across both commanderies, the Liao Clan were no marionettes to dance obediently to strings. They came and went like the wind, attacking wherever they pleased. The Palace's defensive system could only guarantee that no dharma idol-level enemies could charge in and slaughter unchecked; those at the Dao Foundation realm could appear at any moment, and it was entirely possible to be unfortunate enough to encounter a formidable foe in the late stage of Dao Foundation. If one truly crossed paths with such an enemy, all one could do was hold fast, send up a distress signal, and await mobile palace cultivators to rush to the rescue.
Having caught his breath, Fang Hetong took out a bottle of pills. After hesitating for a long while, he poured out a single pill and swallowed it, looking utterly pained by the expense. He called over several burly men with normal night vision and sent them outside to haul back the corpses of the Liao scouts. Once riderless, the Liao warhorses would return on their own, leaving only the carcasses of two horses outside the wall.
The militiamen shuttled back and forth carrying the dead while Fang Hetong and Wei Yuan kept watch atop the wall. Hauling corpses was in truth exceptionally perilous work; had another band of Liao scouts suddenly charged out, whether they would shoot the guards on the wall first or butcher the corpse-haulers outside to vent their rage depended purely on their mood at that instant. Yet every man Fang Hetong selected willingly went out of the village, without a single complaint.
It took eight men to carry back the two warhorses and four men to haul a single Liao corpse. Only with great effort did the dozen or so men bring all the bodies back into the village.
By then, the darkness in the distance had ceased churning and quietly receded; Wei Yuan could see fifty li away once more.
Sensing the change, Fang Hetong remarked, "It seems the Liao will not return tonight. With me watching over this place, why not take some rest first, worthy brother?"
Wei Yuan also recalled something. "As it happens, I must set up a formation. I leave this to you, Master Fang."
Plagued by constant matters ever since arriving at Shayang Village, Wei Yuan had nearly forgotten to lay a feng shui formation to pray for blessings.
Stepping down from the wall, Wei Yuan first made a circuit around the village, inspecting every corner. He then returned to the ancestral hall and, according to what he had learned in the Theory of Heaven and Earth, determined that this was the feng shui node for the area around Shayang Village.
When Dao Foundation disciples of the Palace of Grand Beginning deployed to battle, there was a standard procedure, and modifying the battlefield's feng shui to pray for blessings and dispel calamities was one of the requirements.
Wei Yuan slid open the incense altar in the ancestral hall and retrieved a small box from the military supply pack issued before the war. From it, he produced several talisman sheets and five-element spiritual items, beneath which lay several array plates at the bottom of the box. Joined together, they formed an intricate, miniature feng shui formation. Wei Yuan arranged the array plates, placed each five-element spiritual item in its proper direction according to his training, and affixed the talisman sheets across various spots in the room. Finally, he channeled Dao power to activate it, bringing the miniature feng shui formation into being.
Activating his Qi-Gazing Technique, Wei Yuan saw a thin beam of pure, clear light shoot up from the array plate into the sky. Ripples of invisible waves surged outward continuously, and the grayish-black qi invisible to the naked eye slowly receded where the clear light shone. Wei Yuan nodded to himself, knowing the formation was complete.
Had Wei Yuan's cultivation been higher, allowing him to gaze down from on high with the Heavenly Eye, he would have seen hundreds of points of clear light rising across the two commanderies of Ganning and Bianning. Like clusters of stars joined into a single tapestry, their starlight shone upon one another, illuminating heaven and earth around them and driving the brownish-yellow and grayish-black qi that previously lingered here dozens of li away.
All array plates, talisman sheets, and spiritual items came from the Hall of Heavenly Secrets, and establishing feng shui formations had initially been mandated by them as well. A feng shui formation certainly had an effect on the battlefield, though just how much was hard to say. At first, this had not been a mandatory procedure for disciples heading to war. Over time, however, disciples discovered that if everyone around you laid a feng shui formation while you did not, a feng shui depression formed in your area, and misfortune was very likely to strike.
Taking Wei Yuan's current battlefield as an example, had he not set up a feng shui formation, he might have encountered a formidable enemy—perhaps not a squad leader with accomplished Body Casting, but a centurion at the Dao Foundation realm, or even a powerhouse among centurions. Although everyone setting up a feng shui formation amounted to no one setting one up, as long as others around him did, Wei Yuan had no choice but to do so as well.
This was the conclusion reached by the Perfected Persons of the Hall of Heavenly Secrets after studying numerous battlefield cases, leading them to simply add establishing feng shui formations to the mandatory battlefield regulations, requiring every disciple to comply.
Shortly after this protocol was instituted, other sects noticed that their disciples' casualty rates rose noticeably whenever they deployed alongside the Palace of Grand Beginning. The sect leaders and elders of various sects were no fools either; with slight investigation, they uncovered the subtle mechanics of the Palace's feng shui formation, and consequently ordered their own disciples to set up feng shui formations on the battlefield as well.
With the widespread adoption of feng shui formations, the talisman sheets, array plates, and spiritual items produced by the Hall of Heavenly Secrets were in short supply ever since, their prices soaring. The Hall of Heavenly Secrets grew fabulously wealthy along the way, its money-making prowess rivaling that of the Monastery of Creation—whose orders were backed up for three hundred years—and firmly surpassing the Hall of Heavenly Craft.
Regardless, having laid the feng shui formation, Wei Yuan felt inexplicably much more at ease. It seemed that encountering a squad of Liao scouts tonight had been partly due to forgetting to set up the formation; previously, the Liao came in groups of seven or eight at most, yet this time twenty cavalry had arrived all at once, with a squad leader among them to boot.
Naturally, there were also formidable prodigies who intentionally refrained from laying feng shui formations in order to lure fierce enemies to hone themselves. Quite a few people used to do this, until a batch of them died in battle, after which such behavior became far rarer.
Wei Yuan leapt onto the wall and gazed toward the north. With the feng shui formation in place, the darkness had receded another ten li, allowing him to see sixty li out.
By now, torches were lit throughout the village, and many men were woken from their sleep to process the Liao barbarians' corpses by firelight. The armor and garments were stripped from the corpses, bows, arrows, and weapons sorted and set aside, and all personal belongings turned out; in the blink of an eye, the nineteen Liao riders' corpses were stripped down to their loincloths.
The two warhorses were butchered for meat, their saddles and gear set aside. These two horses would suffice to feed three hundred people for ten days.
Wei Yuan casually lifted a saddle and found it remarkably heavy in hand. Built with beast bone as its base and iron edging, the saddle was padded with thick hide, flanked on both sides by horse belly armor also backed by beast hide with iron plates riveted onto it. This armored saddle alone weighed three to four hundred jin; human warhorses could hardly bear such a load, but Liao steeds could.
The saddle was useless to humans and worth little, so it could only be dismantled to sell for materials. Wei Yuan then picked up a quiver and examined the sharp arrows within in detail.
Chapter 70