"In other words, all we need to do is get rid of the nuisance that is Hong Chenglüe?"
Zhao Pan nodded. "That would be an enormous help to me!"
As he spoke, the hornbill perched on his shoulder suddenly took flight, swooping down into the distance more than a hundred zhang behind them.
Warhorses were grazing in the woods. Tender green shoots were sprouting along the riverbank in the late spring, just to their liking; after gnawing on lichen all winter, it was time for a change of flavor.
Yet He Lingchuan seemed to spot other massive beasts mingled among the trees, likewise grazing with their heads down.
They were far larger and sturdier than the warhorses.
A herd of black savage bulls.
Their shoulder height was at least six chi. Every single one had a sleek, glossy coat and ropy, corded muscles rippling across its frame.
The hornbill landed squarely upon the head of the largest, mightiest bull of all.
Its thick, forward-curving horns were jet-black and gleaming; straightened out, they would span at least seven chi. Whoever took a thrust from those would lose half their life at best.
Perched on its horns, the hornbill gave a pair of calls. The bull looked up at the newcomers, flicked its ears, and paid them no further mind.
Gathered together, they formed an impenetrable wall, monopolizing the lushest grass and water. Even the warhorses had to swallow their resentment and yield the ground.
A few colossal specimens stood out among them.
He Chunhua drew in a sharp breath as he looked at them. "Is this the demon bull herd?"
"Indeed. They are our vanguard charge," Zhao Pan said with a smile. "Once armored and unleashed on the open plains, nothing can withstand them. This breed of savage bull is born an exotic variant, but only those few massive brutes are true demons. They lead the whole herd."
"And that hornbill?"
"The herald," Zhao Pan explained. "Otherwise, when these behemoths get running, no one can get near them."
"A savage bull formation." He Chunhua clapped his hands. "I seem to have heard of such tactics somewhere before."
Zhao Pan chuckled. "General Nan Ke's half-volume treatise on the art of war."
"Right, right! General Nan Ke."
"General Nan Ke? General Nan Ke of Panlong City?" He Lingchuan hadn't expected to hear that name here and now, blurting out in surprise, "He wrote a military treatise?"
Zhao Pan replied casually, "He did. His tactics were all remarkably practical. What a pity he died young and only finished half of it."
A flicker of curiosity stirred in He Lingchuan's chest. "How did he die?"
Caught off guard by the question, Zhao Pan pondered for a moment before answering, "Supposedly he was escorting a caravan and fell into an ambush. It happened in the Panlong Desert—Lord He should know far more about that than I do."
He Chunhua nodded. "Yes. The place was called the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. Relying on the spider demons nesting within the stone forest, the Baling forces dealt a crushing blow to Panlong City's army, and General Nan Ke fell in battle on the spot. Even so, his forces pinned down the enemy's main host, allowing the Gale Army to seize the opportunity and take Weicheng to the north."
He Lingchuan murmured, "So that was it." Yet turbulent waves surged within his heart.
In the Panlong dreamscape he had experienced, that very battle in the Ghost Needle Stone Forest had taken place. But because he had successfully blown up Zhu Erniang's lair, the great demon had rushed back to her subterranean hollow in a frenzy. As a result, the Panlong army's strength was largely preserved, preventing the enemy waiting outside the forest from picking them off.
Naturally, General Nan Ke had returned alive to Panlong City, and had even tried to recruit He Lingchuan afterward.
The exact same battle, yet because He Lingchuan had joined it, its outcome had diverged completely from historical reality.
He Lingchuan had realized his presence would inevitably affect the dreamscape.
Yet only now did he clearly recognize that it was he who had altered the outcome of that local battle in the Panlong dreamscape—and altered the fates of many people along with it.
In that world, he could accomplish real things.
Then, if he grew stronger and attained higher rank, could he change Panlong City's final fate as well?
The moment the thought surfaced, He Lingchuan's heart skipped several beats.
"Chuan'er, what is it?" He Chunhua asked, noticing his glazed stare.
"Nothing, nothing!" He Lingchuan covered swiftly. "These bulls are exceptionally well-kept."
*I wonder what the meat tastes like.*
"All that ferocity comes at the cost of monstrous appetites," Zhao Pan said. "The fodder you escorted here will go to them first. Fortunately, the harshest winter days are behind us, and fresh grass is growing along the riverbank now. Besides, they aren't picky about greens or meat—if fodder runs out, they eat meat just fine. Otherwise, we really couldn't afford to keep them."
Once Zhao Pan finished guiding them through the front lines, both father and son had a clear picture of the situation.
By the time they returned to camp, the moon had already begun to sink toward the west. The rock wolf said to He Lingchuan, "The monkey is looking for you."
...
Returning to his tent, He Lingchuan was immediately approached by Lingguang the medicine ape. "That medicine is extraordinary!"
"What medicine?" He Lingchuan's mind was still consumed by the battle in the Ghost Needle Stone Forest.
"The medicine you gave me a few days ago, Boss!" Lingguang produced a small glass vial containing half a vial of red liquid. "The one you took off Dong Rui."
How could he have forgotten about that? "Did you figure something out?"
"There are at least ten herbs in it, but after days of testing, I still can't break down the primary ingredient. It doesn't belong to any medicinal substance I know," Lingguang said. "A single drop can wipe out every plant and flower within a mu."
He Lingchuan stared. "You're kidding. It's a deadly poison?"
He had seen clearly: when Dong Rui pulled out the glass vial, it was to save the ghost ape.
Could it be Dong Rui saw its injuries were fatal and intended to euthanize it?
No, impossible.
"Later, I split a single drop into ten parts and tested them on a pig and a horse. Without exception, the moment they swallowed it, they twitched twice and dropped dead. Utterly lethal."
He Lingchuan yawned, unable to hide his disappointment. "Then it's nothing more than pure poison. Does it work through blood or ingestion? Can it be coated on weapons?"
"Hey, hear me out!" As a future supreme grandmaster alchemist, Lingguang was far less prone to giving up. "I tried diluting it step by step. In the end, I discovered that when diluted a hundredfold—"
It directed He Lingchuan to haul a large bucket of water from the corner, then led him out of the tent, past the perimeter of the main camp, and came to a stop at the edge of the woods.
Squatting down, the monkey poked a hole in the earth, dropped a round seed inside, and covered it with soil.
The seed was brown and slightly larger than a soybean.
"What kind of plant is that?"
"A parasol seed—the seed of a wutong tree." Lingguang pointed at the little mound. "Water it."
This squat melon of a monkey was ordering him around? Who was the boss here?
Rolling his eyes, He Lingchuan poured the water from the bucket evenly over the freshly buried seed.
A mere few breaths later, the earth stirred.
Lingguang hurriedly grabbed him and pulled him back, retreating more than three zhang without stopping.
A vivid green shoot burst violently through the soil and shot up at breakneck speed.
He Lingchuan had barely recognized it as a tender sprout when it bolted upward—two chi, five chi, a zhang...
Branches and leaves scrambled to burst forth.
He Lingchuan's gaze shifted from looking down to looking straight, and then to craning his neck upward.
In scarcely half an incense stick's time, it had grown into a massive tree over five zhang tall—some sixteen meters!
He Lingchuan stared transfixed, asking the monkey, "You call this a parasol tree?"
He knew parasol trees. The trunk, branches, and leaf shapes of the tree before him indeed looked no different from an ordinary wutong, except for one thing:
There was far too much of everything.
In their old home in Blackwater City, there was also a large parasol tree: trunk straight and tall, bark greenish-gray, crowned with a graceful canopy.
Yet this tree before their eyes grew branches from its trunk, and the ends of those branches grew swollen until they resembled trunks themselves, sprouting yet more branches...
Even the leaves grew in the same manic fashion.
Continuing in this fashion, the entire tree had turned into an irregular, sprawling thicket, its mass expanding outward relentlessly.
Worse still, the color of its boughs shifted from pale green to light blue, with the outermost layers turning a brownish-red.
As for the leaves, half were lush green, half were golden-yellow, and yet another half was pitch-black.
Leaves of pure black were something He Lingchuan had never seen in his life, lightning strikes and fire scorches aside.
Such a tree possessed not a shred of aesthetic beauty.
Looking up at it, He Lingchuan felt as though seventeen or eighteen parasol trees had been grafted together and mashed into a single tangled clump—grotesque and deformed.
No wonder Lingguang had insisted on planting it outside the camp; otherwise, He Lingchuan's tent would have been obliterated in two breaths.
Naturally, the commotion drew soldiers from the camp. Crowding around, they pointed and gossiped.
He Lingchuan had to order them to fall back, because although the bizarre arboreal monstrosity had slowed down, it was still growing—from five zhang to seven, and then to ten...
Expanding outward as it rose, it pushed past the forest edge and crushed five or six tents.
The entire canopy writhed and trembled, as if some monster were concealed inside.
In reality, this was merely because the branches and leaves were growing so fast.
Soldiers scrambled out of the collapsed tents to gape at the spectacle.
He Chunhua and various officers, including Wu Shaoyi and the others, were alarmed and hurried over one after another.
Even the Xunzhou camp across the Han River took note of the strange disturbance. Torches flared up across their encampment in sudden proliferation, likely suspecting the Yuan army was up to some nefarious trick.
He Chunhua parted the crowd and stepped through. Spotting his eldest son, he thought to himself, *Just as I expected.*
Who else but his son could stir up such a massive commotion on their very first night arriving at the front?
"Chuan'er, what is going on here?"
"Lingguang and I were testing a new medicine." He Lingchuan scratched his head. "The potion I took from Dong Rui."
Dong Rui's potion? He Chunhua understood at once. What good could ever come from something concocted by that demon puppet master?
"How do we clean this up?"
He Lingchuan looked at Lingguang, who spread both paws. "Squeak?"
Playing dumb now? He Lingchuan grumbled, "All we can do is wait. It looks like the medicinal effect is nearing its end."
Just then, Zhao Pan arrived after hearing the news and gazed up at the giant parasol tree. "What in the world is this? Could it be the work of the Xun army?"
As commanding general, his first instinct was to connect any anomaly in camp to the enemy across the river, and he immediately ordered the men on high alert.
He Chunhua had barely explained a few sentences when Zhao Pan spotted a dark, hulking figure shambling toward the tree, craning its neck to munch on the leaves.
It was one of the savage bulls.
Lured over by the giant tree, it couldn't resist the lush foliage.
"No! Don't eat that!" Casting aside all decorum, Zhao Pan lunged forward in a single stride and shoved its massive head away.
Too late. The bull had already chomped down several leaves, chewing vigorously without pause.
Chapter 275