The Secret in the City Wall

Which of the people he knew could be in Lingxu City? Hong Chenglüe? Li Qingge said nothing more, only winking at him. "Good night." He Lingchuan opened his eyes and noticed the sun was already past midday, due to sink below the horizon in another four hours. He couldn't help a slight start. He had returned to the realm of souls. Mounted on horseback, he saw majestic city walls to his front left, but this was not Panlong City. Looking around, he saw all the members of the Broken Saber squad were present, accompanied by more than thirty Gale Army warriors. Directly ahead was a fiery red cloak. General Red? They were following behind General Red? Collecting his thoughts, He Lingchuan realized the wall they were passing was strikingly familiar: This was the palace city of Xiji! Earlier, it had taken the Panlong Army only half a day to breach Xiji's capital, but seizing the palace city had required over ten more days of siege—trapping the ruler and soldiers inside until their provisions and ammunition were exhausted, forcing an eventual surrender without a final assault. Thus He Lingchuan had a deep impression of the palace city's exterior, though only the exterior. As for the interior, this was his first time setting foot inside. During the siege, over ten thousand common soldiers had crammed inside, leaving a foul stench everywhere. Fortunately, the filth had long since been cleaned up. As far as He Lingchuan could see, the palace compounds connected seamlessly end to end, impeccably planned and exquisite in appearance. Behind him, Door Plank looked around as he rode. "Looks like during our siege, even with those ten thousand-odd troops crammed in here with Huyan Zhao, it wasn't crowded in the least. Everyone had a place to stay." Willow spat. "The common folk starved outside while carved beams and painted pillars flourished inside. Serves Xiji right that it fell!" He Lingchuan whispered, "Are we still heading back east or not?" Willow shrugged. A'luo glanced left and right and murmured, "Word hasn't come from Panlong City yet. General Red brought us here to handle some business first." They followed General Red all the way to the western inner wall of the palace city. The farther west they went, the sparser the buildings became, but the crowd grew denser. These were civilian artisans who had erected scaffolding against the inner palace wall. Over two hundred people clattered and banged away with tools, chipping at the stone. A huge section of the wall had already been chiseled away, leaving a gaping breach visible from the outside. The squad members were just as baffled. During the siege, the palace city of Xiji had remained virtually unscathed and barely attacked; why tear it apart now? General Nan Ke appeared to be acting as overseer. Seeing General Red arrive, he walked up to greet her. "The artisans are complaining that the wall is astonishingly hard. It took the better part of a day just to chisel out this opening. Countless chisels and stone hammers have already been broken." He Lingchuan and the others exchanged glances. Xiji's city wall looked tall and thick, but how could it possibly be this hard? It had taken artisans dedicating themselves to chiseling the better part of a day. In wartime, how could soldiers ever find such a calm setting to slowly hollow out a wall? Breaching it would cost mountains of lives. General Red scrutinized the wall. "Are you sure this is the right spot to excavate?" "Ancient records state that when Bei City fell back in the day, this was the only breach ever broken through." General Nan Ke waved over an elderly palace attendant. "This fellow took part in building the Xiji royal palace years ago; he's a living map." The attendant bowed low to General Red with great deference. "This... this humble servant's surname is Chang. I've served in the palace for over ten years. Your Generalship need only command!" General Red pointed, and Attendant Chang nodded repeatedly. "Right here, precisely here! The Xiji palace city was built atop the ruins of Bei City. The palace walls largely made use of Bei City's old walls, widened, thickened, and raised higher to become what you see today." Bei City? He Lingchuan hadn't heard of it, but A'luo whispered, "So this place was Bei City?" He Lingchuan glanced around and saw Door Plank and Willow looking equally perplexed. Good, good—he wasn't the only clueless student here. Seeing their expressions, A'luo knew it was time for a brief history lesson. In a hushed voice, he explained, "Over a thousand years ago, a city was built here named Bei City. Later, it was invaded by foreign tribes and destroyed. I'd heard legends about it, but I never imagined the Xiji royal palace was built right on top of Bei City's ruins." Door Plank dryly muttered, "Looks like the feng shui here isn't great." Bei City was invaded by foreigners and perished. Xiji built its palace upon it, was invaded by Panlong City, and perished. A millennium apart, history had come full circle. Over on that side, Attendant Chang continued, "And that's just chiseling from the inner side. The exterior of the palace wall is utterly immune to cannon fire and magical bombardments, nor does it fear battering rams or earth-burrowing wagons." Door Plank muttered in a muffled rumble, "Sounds like the defensive formations must be extraordinary." Attendant Chang picked up right on cue: "The most remarkable thing is that the wall doesn't even need defensive formations laid down to achieve such an effect." The Gale Army soldiers were all rather surprised. No active formation meant energy conservation. Warfare was a contest of attrition; with the wall itself being this sturdy, any opponent would face a nightmare. "I heard that back then, the enemy assaulted it for over four months and threw away twenty to thirty thousand lives just to force open that single gap," Attendant Chang said. "The ruler—er, the Huyan clan took a fancy to this very advantage and used it as the foundation for the palace city. Though they sealed the gap afterward, it was never as hard as the other sections of the old wall." And this was the weakest section? He Lingchuan drew a sharp, silent breath. No wonder General Red had earlier ordered the Panlong Army to besiege without attacking, preferring to spend precious time waging a war of attrition. She must have known this history in advance. Otherwise, the Gale Army would have had to test the hardness of Bei City's ruins with their own lives. General Red scoffed dismissively. "What does it matter how solid a wall is? Did I not take the Xiji royal palace in the end without expending a single soldier?" Strong walls and sharp cannons meant nothing when the master of the palace was a coward who eventually opened the gates to surrender in person. Winning or losing a war was never just a matter of external conditions. Attendant Chang offered a flattering smile. "Yes, yes! General Red's wisdom and might know no bounds!" As they spoke, several artisans on the scaffolding cried out, "There's something here! There's something embedded inside the wall!" Before anyone's eyes could track her, General Red was already standing on the scaffolding twenty feet above the ground, right beside the artisan. Startled, the artisan jerked backward. General Red seized his shoulder with one hand while thrusting her other hand straight into the wall, gouging away. Dust and chunks of mortar tumbled down in a shower. Her bare hand seemed more effective than any chisel. General Nan Ke and the others gathered below to watch, seeing something emerge from the masonry—thick and solid, yet unlike ordinary stone. At least its shape did not resemble rock. General Red stopped and let out a sharp puff of breath. A gust of strange wind swept past, blowing away the loose dust from the wall and revealing what lay beneath. General Nan Ke gasped, "This, this... these are bones?" The object embedded in the wall was only half exposed. It possessed the hue of jade, yet faintly glinted with a metallic luster in the sunlight. When struck with an iron tool, it rang out like a bronze bell or chime stone, lingering with resonant overtones. Yet no one could mistake the shape. It was a bone, with at least three feet exposed outside and an unknown length still buried within. Door Plank muttered, "That's no human bone." No bone in a human body was that long. Another artisan pointed higher up the palace wall. "There's one up there too!" Looking up, everyone indeed spotted another bone gleaming with jade-white luster some four feet higher. The outer layer added by Xiji had long been breached; what the artisans were chipping at now was Bei City's ancient wall. Did that mean the ancient walls of Bei City were built around countless white bones? Willow shuddered, while He Lingchuan thought of a legend from his old homeland. Wearing a mask, General Red's expression was concealed from view, but her voice remained calm and even: "This is the secret behind the extraordinary hardness of Bei City's ancient wall." In other words, the wall's hardness depended on these bones? She casually drew a dagger and struck the bone twice. Sure enough, it didn't leave a scratch. General Red then produced a small vial and poured its liquid over the thick bone. With several soft hissing sounds, white smoke rose from the bone. Those with sharp senses of smell like Willow and He Lingchuan even caught a strange, acrid odor. General Red continued pouring the acid. Soon, foam trickled down from the bone, though nothing happened when it splashed onto the earthen wall. Before long, a small hole was corroded into the bone. General Red took a pickaxe and poked the pointed pick into the small hole, scraping inside. Some black substance seemed to cling to the tip of the pick. General Red examined it closely, and He Lingchuan suspected she even sniffed it. Then, she leapt down from the scaffolding and said regretfully, "Its vitality is gone; none of it can be used anymore. There's no need to dig into this wall further." General Nan Ke was still eyeing the bones in the wall. "What on earth are these?" "Divine remains," General Red said, clapping her hands clean. "In antiquity, many gods fell to the mortal realm. These are their remains." A chill ran through all who heard her. Ancient Bei City had actually used the bones of gods to build its walls? Yet it made sense; wherever there was war, there were corpses. Considering how catastrophic the ancient war that nearly destroyed the world had been, it was hardly surprising that the remains of gods fell upon the earth. Most of the artisans here were Xiji locals. Hearing her words, they backed away immediately, not daring to strike the wall another blow. Some even prostrated themselves on the ground, whispering prayers to beg the gods' forgiveness for their sacrilege. "Their graveyard was likely nearby, and the people of Bei City simply made use of local materials." Who wouldn't want indestructible walls? "For the people of Bei City to obtain their remains so easily, either the gods died suddenly here and were never buried, or the seals on their tombs had been broken or lost their efficacy." General Red turned to Attendant Chang. "Do you know where the gods' tombs lie?" Attendant Chang had also been staring dumbstruck earlier. Now he quickly shook his head. "No, the ancient records never mentioned any graveyard of the gods, General!" "What a pity. The bones built into these walls have lost their vitality; aside from being somewhat harder, they are no different from stone." General Red questioned him, "Think carefully: is there anywhere in the palace city where flowers and plants stay evergreen all year round, defying severe cold and sweltering heat?" "Evergreen flowers and plants?" Attendant Chang blurted out without a second thought, "Ah, there really is such a place! When the entire capital is covered in snow, it's still lush and blooming! The former queen's favorite orchids could bloom year-round when kept there, without even needing much tending. Oh, it's in the palace's Western Garden, no more than four hundred paces from here!" "Lead the way." Attendant Chang's estimate was remarkably accurate—four hundred paces meant four hundred paces, with scarcely any error. The group stepped into an imperial garden filled with rare flowers and exotic plants arranged in elegant disarray, where scarcely a withered blade of grass or yellow leaf could be seen.