"Spit it out!"
The glutton merely stared at him, its jaws chewing without pause.
Only when the hornbill swooped down, perched upon its horns, and croaked twice did the savage bull reluctantly spit out a wad of half-masticated leaf pulp.
Over yonder, the wutong tree finally stopped growing.
"As expected, the wutong can hold out for longer," Lingguang said, gathering a few leaves of each color and setting them together with some bark.
"Hold out for longer?" He Lingchuan frowned. "What were you experimenting on before?"
Even as they spoke, the colossal wutong began shuddering violently once more.
This time, it was contracting inward.
As if twisted and crushed by a pair of invisible hands, it was wrung like a wet towel.
Amid crisp cracking sounds, branches snapped one after another, twisting and gnarling into grotesque postures.
The onlookers shuddered. Though it was merely a tree, they all felt as if it were enduring agonizing torment, stretching out desperate arms to beg humankind for help.
No one knew how to save it.
And so the wutong soon ceased its self-mutilating fractures, but immediately afterward, its foliage began to wither.
Amid the shower of falling leaves, nothing was left of the tree but bare branches.
Its bark turned from purple to gray, and dense clumps of dark-brown powder spilled from its gaping fissures. The surrounding soldiers began coughing and quickly backed away again.
The entire camp fell dead silent, everyone waiting for what would happen next.
For a long while, the giant tree showed no further movement.
Only then did Lingguang step forward, scooping some of the brown powder into a vial. "It's dead."
"What happened?" Anyone with eyes could see that the great tree was dead.
From sprouting to towering height, from towering height to monstrous deformity, and finally from decay to death, barely a quarter of an hour had elapsed from start to finish.
Anyone with eyes was also fixing their gaze on Lingguang's every move.
"Diluting the medicine a hundredfold can stimulate rapid growth in living organisms, but the direction of that growth is beyond control—or rather, it diverges from the parent stock," Lingguang explained. "Take this wutong: once stimulated, it mutated into something entirely different from its innate form."
"This is already mild! Last time, I tested it on four rabbits. One grew three rumps; another had its skin turn inside out, dripping with blood all over; a third grew teeth longer than its ears; and the last exploded into a cloud of blood mist the moment it took the medicine. Of course, all of them died in the end, lasting no more than fifty breaths from start to finish." Lingguang ticked off the fingers of his paw like a human. "Seen this way, the wutong seed can hold far more vital force, so it endured the medicine's potency for longer."
The listeners fell silent for a long moment before He Lingchuan snapped in exasperation, "So the four live rabbits I caught the day before yesterday were stolen by you?"
Zhao Pan stepped forward and kicked the dead tree. "This thing won't cause any more trouble?"
"No."
"Then what are you all still staring at? Get back to your posts, all of you!" Zhao Pan glared around at the men. The officers and soldiers turned around and sluggishly ambled back to their duty stations.
Just then, the Xunzhou camp across the river sent someone rowing across to inquire.
Zhao Pan brushed him off with a few perfunctory words and was just about to send him packing when gasps erupted from behind, accompanied by someone shouting, "General, watch out!"
Startled, Zhao Pan felt a gust of wind rushing up from behind. Without daring to hesitate, he leapt sideways.
With a whoosh, a hulking black mass swept past him.
Before the messenger from Xunzhou camp could even make sense of what was happening, he was tossed high into the sky, leaving behind only a frantic, fading shriek: "Aaaah—!"
At the sight, three words flashed through the minds of both father and son:
*We're completely doomed.*
The charging beast was a savage bull.
The very bull that had been chewing on the wutong leaves like betel nut moments ago.
Anyone with functioning eyes could tell the tree was abnormal, yet the brute had actually stuffed it into its maw anyway.
Though it had spat out the fibrous pulp when the hornbill stopped it, a trickle of the leaf sap had already washed down its throat into its stomach.
Everyone else had been focused on the giant tree, never expecting the bull to erupt so suddenly.
After tossing the man, the bull rampaged blindly through the camp with bloodshot eyes, plumes of white steam snorting from its nostrils clearly visible in the night air.
Seeing the bulldozing juggernaut barreling toward them, the soldiers ahead scrambled desperately out of the way.
It plowed through three tents in succession. The canvas caught over its face, but far from calming it down, being blinded only doubled its fury.
Torches were knocked over, igniting the canvas; the fire licking right at the bull's snout sent its madness soaring off the charts.
The once orderly camp was thrown into sheer pandemonium. Officers barked orders, but when every man feared for his own skin, their shouts were useless.
This was one of their own—no, one of their own bulls! Who would dare spear or slash it with weapons?
Fortunately, the canvas was long and unwieldy as foot-binding cloth, wrapping around half the bull's body and severely dragging down its speed. It even tripped and slipped on the trailing cloth several times.
Face pale with rage, Zhao Pan barked out commands. Several soldiers hoisted mallets to smash against the camp's palisade stakes, dislodging a massive log three chi in diameter.
A Chuanyun Pavilion disciple appeared out of nowhere, chanting under his breath to summon a blue-turban construct, then whistled shrilly at the savage bull.
Such constructs were summoned entities divided into numerous grades. The blue-turban variety was the lowest tier, capable only of crude heavy labor. The talisman used to conjure it was colloquially known as a "straw-effigy talisman."
The whistle was piercingly shrill. To the bull, it sounded like an overt provocation. Though blinded, it mustered its strength and charged straight toward the sound.
Dust billowed beneath its hooves. Just as it was about to collide, the construct swung the heavy log in a sweeping blow, slamming it squarely against the bull's skull!
With a deafening thud, wood splinters flew in all directions.
The construct could not even keep its own balance; it stumbled back more than a zhang before collapsing with a snap into a straw effigy barely the size of a palm, tumbling to the dirt.
The bull fared even worse. Its head knocked askew, its balance failed completely. It went sliding across the ground on its haunches like a bowling ball, crashing right into the camp gate.
The gate collapsed with a thunderous roar. The savage bull was knocked unconscious, lying motionless.
The soldiers swarmed forward and bound its four hooves.
The bull had turned the military camp upside down, but that was not the greatest problem.
The Xunzhou messenger who had been tossed skyward had landed in the river with a loud splash.
None of this racket could be hidden from the opposite bank. The Xunzhou camp fell into an uproar as well. Their soldiers rushed down to the riverbank and saw that the Yuan army had actually thrown their envoy into the river! How could they tolerate such an outrage? The men began shouting and clamoring.
Seeing the fellow bobbing up and down in the water—probably injured by the bull's horns and unable to swim ashore himself—Zhao Pan hurriedly sent men to fish him out.
Unfortunately, the Xunzhou commander across the water had the exact same idea. By the time Zhao Pan's men rowed out, three Xunzhou soldiers had already jumped into the water and were swimming toward their comrade.
Heaven knew what the other side was thinking, but two arrows suddenly whistled through the air. One thunked into the bow of the boat, while the other sank into the boatman's arm.
Seeing him slump down from the hit, the Yuan camp erupted as well, soldiers clamoring for battle.
Across the river, the Xunzhou men saw flames soaring into the night sky over the Yuan camp as if something major had occurred, followed by the camp gate crashing down and a savage bull bursting out, wobbling for two steps before collapsing.
Something was amiss on the opposite bank—should they seize the opportunity to attack?
The thought circled endlessly in the minds of the Xunzhou troops.
Zhao Pan knew full well that the opposite bank had witnessed the turmoil in his camp. Sometimes victory or defeat hinged on the most trivial factor. Tense and wary, he ordered his troops to arm themselves and prepare for battle.
The two opposing camps, which had maintained an uneasy peace until moments ago, were suddenly on the verge of open warfare. Blood had been drawn, weapons had been discharged, and all that was missing was an all-out melee.
He Chunhua glared at his son and the ape, fire practically leaping from his eyes. "Look at the fine mess you two made!"
Stirring up trouble on their very first night at the front line!
He certainly did not want the fuse of this conflict to be lit by his eldest son. If an investigation assigned blame later, could his boy withstand the consequences?
He Lingchuan hung his head contritely, grabbing Lingguang with one hand just as the ape tried to slip away. "My fault, my fault! Who could have guessed a single drop of that medicine would pack such a punch!"
"One drop?" He Chunhua's anger was momentarily derailed. "It took only one drop to grow such a monstrous tree?"
"That's all it was!"
Across the water, the Yuan and Xun armies faced each other across the river. The atmosphere was so thick and tense it seemed ready to drip water, and the clamoring soldiers had quieted down into grim silence.
Zhao Pan was desperately trying to salvage the situation. "What in the world just happened?"
He Chunhua sighed and explained the whole affair before adding, "This brat has caused a catastrophe. General Zhao, please punish him as you see fit—slash him or slay him, it's entirely your call!"
Zhao Pan cast a grim look at He Lingchuan.
The camp hadn't gone hungry recently all thanks to He Chunhua. Could he really execute the newly appointed Governor-General's son?
At that moment, a whistling arrow shot out from the Xunzhou camp, arcing across the river and embedding itself in a palisade post on the Yuan side.
The device whistled shrilly as it flew, serving as a warning for everyone to clear the way; its purpose was solely to deliver a message, carrying no hostile intent.
A personal guard untied the note from the tail of the arrow and handed it over. Zhao Pan scanned it and said, "Nian Zanli is asking me what happened."
*Nian Zanli!*
Father and son shuddered inward at the name.
Was this arch-nemesis, whom they had never met face to face, finally about to step onto the stage?
He Chunhua's eyes flickered. "Are you going to meet?"
"Meet for what?" Zhao Pan sneered. "Just tell them the lads were horsing around in camp and accidentally sent the messenger flying. The fellow isn't dead anyway, so that settles it."
With that, he had someone write a reply, tied it to the whistling arrow, and had it shot back.
Evidently, the other side accepted his explanation, for the soldiers lined along the riverbank soon withdrew into their fort, and the gate was lowered.
The standoff ended abruptly, as if everything had returned to how it was half an hour ago.
Clearly, neither side was ready to wage war yet.
Zhao Pan also ordered his men to return to camp on high alert, then remarked to He Lingchuan, "Young Master He, things certainly got lively the moment you arrived!"
He was blunt and never held back his grievances.
He Chunhua apologized profusely.
Zhao Pan let it drop after venting a few words; he wasn't truly going to punish the Governor-General's son. Just then, movement stirred in the trees once more, and massive figures shoved their way through the foliage.
The herd of savage bulls had arrived.
Seeing their comrade trussed up by all four hooves and cast on the ground, several demon bulls took offense.
When they grew angry, the entire herd grew restless in turn, pawing and stomping as if to pulverize the earth beneath them.
The warhorses nearby grew skittish and panicked.
Zhao Pan dreaded further chaos breaking out in the camp, which had only just settled down. These bulls were stubborn to a fault and impossible to talk down. A single bull had already raised utter havoc; if all three hundred-odd rampaged together, there would be no need for Xunzhou to lift a finger—the Yuan camp would destroy itself.
He hissed through clenched teeth at He Lingchuan, "Figure out something fast! Cure that bull!"
He Lingchuan whipped around and seized Lingguang. "Cure that bull!"
Chapter 276