However, those with a soul vessel to shelter them were an exception.
For instance, the resentful souls and heroic spirits of Panlong City relied on the Dafang Pot, allowing them to wander freely across the Panlong Desert. Such divine artifacts were nearly impossible to come by, so He Lingchuan assumed Hong Xiangqian possessed nothing of that caliber. Lu Yao, then, had likely needed to find a new host without delay after Hong Xiangqian's weapon liberation, relocating the man's origin soul.
Well, thinking too much only brought on a headache. Best leave the worrying to his father.
Returning to his quarters while He Yue was away, He Lingchuan closed the door tight before pulling a dozen items from his robes and laying them side by side on the bed.
These were Lu Yao's personal effects, filched right from under Commandant Zhao's nose. Out of respect for He Lingchuan's noble lineage, the Garrison Command had swallowed their annoyance at him snatching the spoils right out of their mouths, saying nothing in the end.
A few ingots of gold and silver, some medicinal pills, two archer thumb rings, and a scattering of minor knickknacks.
And of course, the Ghost Eye Bow he had been longing for.
No one had mentioned that when dormant, this powerful bow shrank to the size of a palm, wrapped by Lu Yao in gray cloth and tucked against his chest. If it had appeared in all its murderous glory, Commandant Zhao would never have let it slip through his fingers.
He Lingchuan took up the Ghost Eye Bow and channeled a sliver of spiritual power into it. It instantly expanded to its true size. The grip felt icy to the touch, and the ambient temperature dropped four or five degrees at once, as if forcing the archer into a cold, focused calm.
He Lingchuan felt an eerie chill raise the hairs on his back. Whispers of ghosts drifted into his ears, urging him over and over to sacrifice his life force in exchange for the bow's mighty triple-shot technique.
He had no intention of falling for ghost talk.
And if he made no sacrifice? He Lingchuan drew the string to test it. It remained an exceptional weapon; the technique was merely an added property that would never trigger unless paid for.
He fiddled with the Ghost Eye Bow for a while until the divine bone necklace began to warm against his skin, reminding him of his unfinished business.
The necklace was growing impatient.
He picked up the remaining knickknacks and brought them near the divine bone one by one.
The first few drew no reaction, until he took up two black talismans.
After Pei Xinyong shattered his breastbone with that hammer blow, Lu Yao had immediately shoved a black talisman into his mouth and chewed it down. He Lingchuan had seen it with his own eyes. Lu Yao had clearly pinned great hopes on the talisman, trusting it as a life-saving measure capable of carrying him off the battlefield.
Alas, fate had decreed otherwise.
Apart from their unusual color, these two black talismans looked ordinary enough. He Lingchuan turned them over in his hands, sensing no distinct fluctuation of spiritual power. All he could say was that the crimson glyphs drawn across them differed from any he had seen before.
As for the exact difference, he was no expert in talismans.
Yet the moment he brought one near the divine bone necklace, an anomaly occurred.
The black talisman instantly dissolved into fine powder, drawn into the bone's central hollow as if caught in a miniature whirlwind.
He Lingchuan reached out his hand, but felt no draft at all.
*Fair enough. I'll just call this opening the eye of the storm.*
Within a few blinks, the black talisman had been devoured whole, leaving not a speck of residue behind. The divine bone necklace reverted to its usual state, unchanged except for a rhythmic pulse of red light that signaled its hunger for the second talisman.
"You don't get this one yet," He Lingchuan muttered. "I need a sample for reference."
What on earth were these black talismans to catch the divine bone's eye? Lu Yao had been a crude brute; He Lingchuan could hardly picture him hunched over a desk, brush in hand, meticulously drawing talismans. The man must have obtained them from someone else.
Who could have drawn them? Only one name came to mind:
"Holy Master" Hong Xiangqian.
After all, Lu Yao had received the Ghost Eye Bow from Hong Xiangqian, so having another item or two from the same source was hardly surprising.
In the court's eyes, Hong Xiangqian was merely a rebel ringleader heading a rabble of insurgents. Why would the divine bone crave these two ugly black slips instead of the Ghost Eye Bow?
He had indeed tested the Ghost Eye Bow earlier, but the necklace had shown no interest whatsoever.
It was so picky, and He Lingchuan had yet to decipher its tastes.
The next day, the Auxiliary Army broke camp and resumed their march north.
Before their departure, the magistrate of Wuliu County personally saw He Chunhua off, delivering a piece of news along the way:
A massive dragnet had been launched against Lu Yao's remnants and Pei Xinyong's rebel force. Scribes and painters had worked through the night to produce wanted posters, which were dispatched to every county and township the previous day, with messengers sent even to remote villages to spread the word.
For Pei Xinyong in particular, anyone providing verified intelligence would receive a hundred taels of silver, while capturing him alive commanded a bounty of a thousand.
Lu Yao was dead, but Pei Xinyong—a top general under Hong Xiangqian—was still alive and well with over a thousand men at his back. How could the local officials sleep soundly?
A hundred taels of silver equated to a hundred thousand copper coins. At current prices, that was enough for a common family of three or four to live comfortably for five or six years, with plenty to spare.
Within days, every village within ten leagues would be buzzing with the news.
He Lingchuan had seen the official notice posted near the market entrance. It laid heavy emphasis on Lu Yao's savagery, proclaiming that although the rebel leader was dead, his men shared an insatiable appetite for human flesh, slaughtering villages and towns on a whim to roast women and infants as drinking snacks. It added that Pei Xinyong was just as bloodstained and thoroughly steeped in evil.
The reputation of a man-eating monster was a double-edged sword. When fortune favored him, it sent foes fleeing at his approach; but when down on his luck and on the run, it made him universally loathed, leaving officials and commoners alike eager to see him dead.
In no time, these rebels would find themselves drowning in an ocean of hostile eyes.
Furthermore, the magistrate of Wuliu County had dispatched urgent dispatches to the surrounding prefectures. Even if the rebels managed to slip beyond Wuliu County's borders, the pursuit would be no less relentless.
After clearing Wuliu County, He Chunhua ordered the column to pick up the pace, reaching Woling Pass five days later.
This was where mountain ridges met the open plain. Having marched through towering peaks and deep ravines for so many days, He Lingchuan was suddenly greeted by an expansive horizon stretching as far as the eye could see. Watching the great river roll eastward through the autumn landscape, he finally understood why Hong Xiangqian and the royal court had fought tooth and nail over Woling Pass:
Once past Woling Pass, the plains flanked by hills and rivers offered no natural barriers to mount a defense.
Woling Pass consisted of the gatehouse and an auxiliary fortress behind it, standing roughly three zhang high with ramparts three chi thick—a solid, imposing bastion. Yet after witnessing the grandeur and solemnity of the ancient Panlong City, He Lingchuan looked at Woling Pass and could not help feeling the comparison was that of a dwarf beside a giant.
Entering the pass with the Auxiliary Army, He Yue looked around constantly. Seeing the scars, arrow holes, and blood-soaked stones along the walls, he drew a sharp breath. "How many men must have died here?"
"Those craters were made by catapults," He Lingchuan said, pointing to the wall's hollows. "They missed their mark; otherwise, the boulders would have come crashing down directly over the gatehouse."
He then pointed toward another streak of dark yellow grime that had run down from the parapets, long since crusted dry. "That one probably hit its mark. Do you know what that is?"
The young scholar had an innate thirst for knowledge and stared intently, yet had no idea what it could be. Seeing Zeng Feixiong trying to stifle a laugh, he snapped, "You know?"
Zeng Feixiong cleared his throat loudly. "Second Young Master, that's golden soup!"
"What golden soup?" He Yue remained baffled. "As in 'impregnable as metal ramparts and a boiling moat'?"
The surrounding soldiers burst into laughter.
"Right words, wrong meaning. And here I thought you were well-read," He Lingchuan said, struggling to keep a straight face. "You should know that traveling ten thousand li teaches more than reading ten thousand scrolls!"
Maotao chimed in loudly, "Second Young Master, golden soup is just boiled excrement—human waste works best! When the enemy sets up siege ladders to charge the walls, the defenders dump the golden broth right over their heads. Stinks to high heaven, but it works wonders!"
He Yue's expression froze instantly, and an imaginary stench seemed to drift into his nostrils.
Morale was everything in an assault, but no warrior, no matter how fearless, could stomach the humiliation of being drenched in boiling feces. Worse still, wounds scalded by the soup quickly turned festering and gangrenous. At best, flesh had to be gouged out; at worst, limbs were lost or lives cut short. It struck a devastating blow to both body and spirit.
He Yue glanced around and suddenly pointed toward the left. "Are those assault carts?"
A section of the left wall had collapsed, leaving a massive breach. Two curiously shaped wagons rested tight against the base of the wall, their roofs half-shattered by falling boulders and dirt.
Each cart measured nearly two zhang in length, with thick barricades on all four sides made of alternating layers of iron and timber, though the front panel was missing. The roof was built equally solid, shielding anyone inside from overhead attacks, whether flaming stones, arrows, or golden soup.
Yet these carts were not horse-drawn; they were shoved forward entirely by men.
He Yue had read about them in books. Such carts had two primary functions. One was mounting a heavy battering ram to smash through gates; the other was fitting them with a sturdy roof and rolling them to the foot of enemy walls, allowing sappers inside to take up picks and undermine the foundations.
As the saying went, dig the foundation well, and no wall will stand.
Woling Pass had evidently suffered from this tactic, falling when the government forces breached its walls from below.
He Lingchuan stared at the two carts in bemusement. "Did the rebels not use mystical arts to reinforce the pass?"
"They did," Wu Shaoyi answered from behind. The others turned to see his impassive expression. "Only later, a detachment mutinied and tore up the Holy Master's talisman array from the inside, nullifying the reinforcement. Only then could the government troops exploit the breach."
With one of the men who had lived through it standing right before them, the others fell awkwardly silent.
He Yue murmured, "So it's true: the most impregnable fortresses are always breached from within."
He Lingchuan looked at the gaping breach in the wall. "Now that Woling Pass has been reclaimed, why hasn't the local administration repaired it?"
It was plain to see that ever since the pass fell, the site had been left utterly neglected.
The strategic importance of Woling Pass had been laid bare over the months of fighting. Had he been the local governor, he would have made haste to rebuild it. Otherwise, should another wave of rebellion surge, the capital would be left exposed once more.
No one picked up the thread.
After a long pause, He Chunhua remarked offhandedly, "The war has dragged on too long. Perhaps they simply can't afford the repairs."
He then dispatched scouts to examine a secret chamber in the southeast corner of the auxiliary fortress, where Hong Xiangqian had met his "demise."
Walking deeper into Woling Pass, traces of war's devastation lingered at every turn. The grounds had changed hands repeatedly and burned multiple times. Abandoned carts, ruined buildings, and supply depots sat uncleared. Even in late autumn, tender green shoots of grass were already pushing through broken wooden wheels and the cracked seams along the walls.
Chapter 151