On the ceiling crossbeam was a large bore-hole, through which a dozen termites crawled in and out head-to-tail, as if up to something illicit. He Lingchuan stared at them for a long while before realizing he had entered the dream again.
Now, there was only one destination in his dreams:
Panlong City.
He tried to get out of bed, but his arms and legs felt stiff and clumsy, like an old clunker trying to start up after sitting idle for five or six years.
Just as He Lingchuan sat up, he noticed a wooden bench in the room had fallen over in an unnatural manner.
After making a round through his small house, he found that all his firewood had been cleared out, and the two fat fish in his rainwater vat were gone as well. He hurried back to the bedroom, pulled aside two bricks in the corner, and took a look.
Fortunately, the medicine and silver hidden there were still intact.
Simply put, his house had been burglarized. The thief who had sneaked in had probably even spat on the floor in disgust, grumbling that his place was utterly destitute with nothing worth stealing.
However, his saber was still leaning conspicuously against the bedside; the petty thief hadn't dared to touch it.
It was clearly military issue, inscribed with characters and a serial number. By the laws of Panlong City, anyone who stole military property had their hand cut off, and a petty thief wouldn't have been able to fence it anyway.
Just as He Lingchuan was scratching his head, the courtyard gate creaked open and Hu Min walked in.
Seeing He Lingchuan standing in the doorway, Hu Min blinked in surprise, then beamed with joy. "You're awake?"
Judging by his expression, He Lingchuan knew there was more to the question than met the eye. He blinked. "I'm awake. What happened to me?"
"You've been unconscious for three days! The army physician treated your wounds and said you had far too much spider venom in you; it'd take three to five days to flush it all out. Just how many times did those burrow spiders bite you?"
He had been poisoned too?
Seeing his bewildered look, Hu Min rubbed his hands together. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Falling into Zhu Erniang's lair," He Lingchuan mumbled vaguely. "I thought I was a goner. How am I still alive?"
"Everyone thought you fell heroically! The Military Merit Division even issued condolence funds, but couldn't find anyone to claim them. Turns out you must've fallen into the underground river inside the spider lair and gotten washed all the way to Baiyang Post. You weren't found until three days ago by a horse herder. Seeing you in Gale Army uniform and clutching a saber for dear life, he rushed to report it. Boss Xiao figured it was you and went in person to bring you back.
"Baiyang Post is twenty to thirty li from the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. If you hadn't washed up on a shallow shoal, no one would've known it was connected to the underground river of the Ghost Needle Stone Forest!" Hu Min clapped him on the shoulder. "Kid, you're blessed with unbelievable luck!"
What could He Lingchuan say? He could only look up to the sky and sigh. "When it isn't your time to die, even the heavens lend a hand."
Deep down, he knew this was merely the Panlong dreamscape covering up the plot holes. The last time he went offline abruptly at the end of the river valley interception battle, the dreamscape had also arranged a waterlogged ending for him.
*Can't you show a little creativity? Can't you come up with a different excuse?* Did he look like someone deficient in the water element?
Hu Min asked, puzzled, "What was that?"
"Nothing!" He Lingchuan brushed it off with a chuckle. "By the way, how did that big battle end?"
"That was eight days ago. Ah, you played a massive part! I heard you burned down the burrow spiders' lair, scaring Zhu Erniang into abandoning the fight and rushing back in a panic. That allowed General Nan Ke's troops to successfully escape the Ghost Needle Stone Forest and, joined by reinforcements from the city, beat back Hua Mucuo."
He Lingchuan knew full well there were two fronts at play. "And what about the other battlefield?"
"While the main force in Weicheng was lured away by General Nan Ke, General Red led us to take Weicheng in a surprise assault. It had plenty of twists and turns, but in the end, Weicheng was brought back into our hands." Hu Min had taken part in the battle for Weicheng, so he shared everything he had seen and heard.
General Red's side of the battle had been no less fraught with twists than the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. He Lingchuan listened intently, then asked instinctively, "Why did the Baling Kingdom suddenly deploy such a massive army to the Panlong Wasteland?"
Over the past fifteen years, Baling and Xianyou had been Panlong City's long-standing adversaries. The pace of war ebbed and flowed, sometimes fast and sometimes slow; often, both sides ceased hostilities, maintaining mutual non-aggression and even conducting trade.
The two kingdoms had grown accustomed to Panlong City being a thorn in their sides. Having failed to pull it out after more than a decade, they had simply left it alone, treating the frequent border skirmishes with deliberate indifference.
Yet He Lingchuan understood by now that such lulls usually occurred because internal problems plagued Baling or Xianyou, making it hard for them to manage both domestic and foreign affairs at once, which led them to slacken their push into the Panlong Wasteland.
Why had Baling suddenly rallied its spirits now and dispatched forty thousand troops in one go?
Hu Min shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that." He was a soldier whose sole duty was to fight; intelligence from the upper echelons took a long time to trickle down.
"Still, after Hua Mucuo gathered Shao Yingyang's remnants, he refused to give up and turned around to assault Weicheng. General Red had us hold our ground inside, and Hua Mucuo had no good options—after all, he had reinforced the city walls with his own hands, so he knew better than anyone how tough it was to crack." At this point, Hu Min laughed heartily. "And then, heavy snow the size of goose feathers fell across the wasteland for three days and three nights, along with hailstones!
"The Baling troops froze half to death. With no food, no warm clothes, and nowhere nearby to take shelter, they were just like wild dogs on the wasteland—truly pitiful! Oh, and one Baling contingent seemed to have slipped away early, probably due to infighting among their high command. That was when General Red sent forces to raid the Baling camp by night, winning a decisive victory. Hua Mucuo stopped putting up a front, abandoned his armor and weapons, and headed home." Hu Min grinned from ear to ear. "They haven't even finished retreating yet. You should see how thoroughly defeated and demoralized they look!"
He Lingchuan smiled as well.
With Weicheng lost, the Baling invaders had no stronghold left in the eastern Panlong Wasteland. How could forty thousand men survive on wind and dew? A full retreat was inevitable.
Over the past half year or so, both sides had engaged in guerrilla warfare. Dictated by the harsh realities of the wasteland, each engagement involved anywhere from several hundred to at most one or two thousand troops, a rhythm both sides had grown accustomed to. When Shao Yingyang arrived, he intended to catch Panlong City off guard by laying a trap, striking with blistering speed, and unleashing an overwhelming force from above to crush Panlong City's smaller detachments.
The crucial element was seizing the window of opportunity to exploit the information gap.
According to his plan, by the time Panlong City realized what was happening, the Gale Army's elite would have been devoured and General Red might have been captured, directly shaking Panlong City's foundations.
Yet such a strategy came with immense risks alongside immense rewards. If you failed to swallow the choice morsel dangled before your mouth, the strain on your supply lines would become glaringly evident at once. Even Weicheng couldn't sustain so many men and horses, let alone now, when forty thousand troops had been reduced to a wandering horde.
Deprived of the heavens' timing, the earth's advantage, and human harmony, the entire Panlong Wasteland turned against them.
"So Weicheng is back in our hands," Hu Min remarked with emotion. "Your home has returned."
Home? He Lingchuan felt nothing toward the notion. "What happened to that Shao fellow?"
"Dead. General Red dispatched him with her own hands."
What occupied He Lingchuan's mind, however, was the information Hu Min had inadvertently let slip.
Those words Shao Yingyang had said to General Red: what did he mean by "the Mitian Niangniang of old," and what was a "divine emissary"?
Mitian was the deity who protected Panlong City; what was the difference between the past and the present?
When it came to deities, the information he possessed was simply too sparse.
A divine emissary was easier to grasp—did it refer to someone who received a "divine descent," or rather, a vessel?
He was deeply curious: did the undefeated General Red obey Mitian's will entirely, or did she retain her own consciousness and thoughts?
In other words, was it Mitian fighting the battles, or General Red herself?
At that moment, Hu Min drew out several ingots of silver and handed them to He Lingchuan. "Here's the money you won."
"Money I won?" How had he no recollection of this?
"Before the fighting began at the Ghost Needle Stone Forest, didn't you place a bet with your squad?" Hu Min laughed. "Your squadmates came by twice while you were out cold. In the end, a skinny fellow asked me to pass the money on to you."
He walked outside to ladle water and wash his hands, glancing into the vat along the way. It was empty. "Huh, you ate the fish?"
He Lingchuan shook his head. "Seems my place was broken into. The fish and firewood were stolen, but the saber is still here."
"No thief, however blind, would dare steal a military saber," Hu Min laughed. "Are you going to report it?"
"Can it be recovered?"
"Honestly, I doubt it," Hu Min replied candidly. "Even though city ordinances punish thieves harshly, you were out cold for three days. Anyone could have walked in. It'd be tough to catch the thief."
Besides, with only a bit of firewood and two fish lost, the amount was so petty that the constables probably wouldn't bother.
"And here I thought Panlong City was an idyllic paradise. Turns out petty thieves and rogues exist everywhere." Such was the aggrieved party's complaint.
"People are people; it's inevitable," Hu Min comforted him. "You've earned major merit again this time, so it's about time you upgraded your quarters. Move to a better neighborhood, and thieves won't come knocking."
He Lingchuan looked around the tiny yard, where a mere three paces took you from the gate to the bedroom. "True enough. I really should get a new place."
Practicing martial arts here had grown increasingly inconvenient. There was hardly room to stretch his limbs, let alone practice archery or throwing.
Stepping out of the courtyard, He Lingchuan froze in surprise.
The area outside his door was packed with items—jars, pots, large bundles, and small packages. There was scarcely anywhere to place his feet.
"What's all this?" He casually picked up a jar, brushed the snow off the mouth, and saw the yellow mud seal was intact and unopened. He leaned in and sniffed. "Smells wonderful. Is it wine?"
The jar held at least thirty jin of wine, and the mud seal bore two characters: "Chuntai."
Hu Min looked over and laughed. "That's Chuntai wine, made by the old wine shop in the south of the city. Goes down very smooth, and it isn't cheap either."
He helped He Lingchuan check several other earthenware pots, pinching his nose the moment he lifted a lid. "Whoa! Why's the smell so strong?"
The jars were all filled with pickled vegetables—pickled melons, cabbage, radishes... Judging by the aroma alone, they had been aging for plenty of months.
If the Chuntai wine had been bought as a gift, these jars of pickled vegetables were clearly homemade.
He Lingchuan pulled back the cloth cover of another basket and found five large fish frozen rock-solid, their eyes startlingly bright. Resting on top of them was a slip of paper reeking of fish, bearing a scrawl of crooked characters:
"My son made it home alive. Thank you."
Signed: "Fat Zhu's family, Five Finger Alley."
Another large bundle of cured bacon was golden and fragrant, wrapped in three inner and three outer layers of oiled paper and tied tightly with straw rope. Directly on the outermost layer of oiled paper was written: "Good deeds bring good rewards. When you finish this, I'll bring more."
Though both messages had been scribbled with charcoal sticks, at least they were notes. Most of the items had no slip of paper or name attached, leaving no clue as to who had sent them, yet the heartfelt sincerity behind them was unmistakable.
Chapter 204