Diagonally across the street stood a gray-brick residence with a black roof and a tall lintel. The front facade was neat and stately, with clumps of green bamboo leaning out over the high wall, bearing the air of a prominent household. Above the lintel were two characters: "Runyuan."
Soldiers of the Gale Army stood guard at the entrance.
Naturally, He Lingchuan passed through without impediment. Carrying an earthenware pot, he entered this grand, four-courtyard mansion, passing through halls and corridors, then cutting through the side garden to reach the dining hall.
The garden had once featured rockeries and flowing streams, red maples and exotic flora, but now that winter had arrived and all things withered, the garden's theme had shifted from vigorous life to bleak desolation.
He passed the dining hall without entering, for it was vast, cavernous, and devoid of warmth or human presence.
At last, He Lingchuan made his way into the main courtyard. It was brightly lit, with Gale Army guards posted at the courtyard gate, their faces expressionless no matter who approached.
A gust of wind swept across the courtyard, carrying the scent of wine along with faint bursts of laughter.
He walked into the courtyard, stepping over the year's first snow, and within a few strides stepped inside the room.
"The sobering decoction is here."
Only two people were inside: Zhong Shengguang and Shao Jian. The dishes on the table were more than half finished, but there was plenty of wine to go around.
Zhong Shengguang had been delayed handling business outside and had only just returned to Panlong City, yet Shao Jian was scheduled to depart tomorrow morning.
Thus, Zhong Shengguang had to host a farewell dinner for him.
The two old friends had known each other for some twenty years. Once youthful wanderers in Lingxu City, they now met with graying hair in Panlong City, reminiscing about the past and discussing the present with boundless emotion.
Wine was a broom that swept away sorrow, and before they knew it, they had both had too much to drink.
This was the first time He Lingchuan had ever seen Zhong Shengguang red-faced and thick-necked, a world apart from the calm, composed Commander he usually was.
Yet Shao Jian had an even lower tolerance; having already thrown up once, he could barely keep his head propped up with one hand.
He Lingchuan had been forced to go out and buy sobering decoction.
This remedy promoted urination and detoxified the body, clearing heat and purging fire. He poured Shao Jian only a small half-bowl—barely two mouthfuls. "It's cold out. Have just a little first."
Half-drunk, Shao Jian raised no objection. He gulped it down in one go, tossed the bowl aside, and wiped his face.
Earlier, as he and Zhong Shengguang talked about what they had been through over the past decade or more, they had touched upon all the bitterness and sweetness of life, sorrows that even two jars of wine could not soothe.
In truth, for Shao Jian, there was only one thing that counted as "sweet":
His daughter.
"After Xiaoyan was born, I realized the first twenty-odd years of my life had been lived in vain. She's so adorable! Every time I go home and see her, my heart just melts!" Shao Jian looked at Zhong Shengguang, and He Lingchuan immediately sensed trouble. Sure enough, Shao Jian's very next words were:
"Brother Zhong, how could you... Sigh, your heart is truly made of stone!"
Ordinarily, of course, he would never have dared utter such words, but now, emboldened by alcohol, he blurted out what was in his heart without realizing it.
Zhong Shengguang's hand holding the bowl froze, but he said nothing, merely throwing his head back and draining the remaining half-bowl of wine.
"Back when Wuhan was little, I visited Panlong City. How old was she then? Five? Six?"
Zhong Shengguang's face remained grim. "Six."
"I remember she plucked a leaf at random to use as a flute and played me a little tune—that song 'Liuyi' you composed in Lingxu City." Shao Jian gave a thumbs-up. "Only six years old, yet she didn't miss a single note! Far more talented than my little Xiaoyan. No matter how I teach her, even now Xiaoyan can't play an entire tune, let alone stay on pitch."
"Her mother passed away early, and Wuhan matured at a young age. She never gave me cause to worry, and in fact..." Zhong Shengguang choked on a sip of wine. "...she even helped me a great deal."
Shao Jian stared at him. "Do you regret it?"
He Lingchuan secretly marveled. Was this guy really that bold when drunk?
All three people present knew what he was asking: did Zhong Shengguang regret offering his own daughter as a deity blood sacrifice?
"Regret?" Zhong Shengguang's face darkened. "Is regret of any use? Can regret save the people from misery?"
His voice rose, and he slammed the table with a loud bang:
"Would regret stop me from doing it? If I didn't do it, who else would?"
With his hand propped on the table, Shao Jian jumped in fright.
Alarmed by the loud crash, the Gale Army soldiers guarding the courtyard rushed in.
Zhong Shengguang waved a hand, dismissing them.
"All right, all right, let's not bring it up!" That fright worked better on Shao Jian than any sobering decoction, and he hurriedly changed the subject. "By the way, did you know that an upstart family has risen to prominence in Lingxu City in recent years?"
Zhong Shengguang slowly sat back down and rubbed his face. "In Lingxu City, upstarts are more numerous than grains of rice."
It had been that way for centuries; what was so special about it?
"No, no. This family made quite an entrance right from the start, and that old loach Wusun even rewarded them with a profound crystal vein!" Shao Jian grabbed a strip of jerky and gnawed on it with gnashing teeth. "The merman clan had some grievance with them and tried to cause trouble, but ended up suffering a loss themselves instead."
Strictly speaking, this jerky was also military rations. He Lingchuan always kept a few jin of it in his pouch; it was very filling, but terribly tough and a trial on the teeth.
There were several dishes on the table, yet Shao Jian chose this stuff. He Lingchuan suspected that whatever he wanted to chew to pieces wasn't actually the jerky.
"A profound crystal vein?" Zhong Shengguang was also somewhat surprised. "Just how great a merit did they achieve to receive such a reward?"
"It's that fellow surnamed Ke—Ke Zhaolun!" Shao Jian bit into a tough gristle and spat it out. "Betraying my King didn't bring heavenly retribution upon him; instead, he soared straight up through the ranks. Heaven must be fucking blind!"
He Lingchuan thought to himself: *Here it comes.*
This was precisely what he wanted to hear.
Zhong Shengguang tapped his knuckles on the table with two hollow thuds. "Given Wusun's nature, he wouldn't easily bestow a profound crystal vein as a reward. Did the celestial gods intervene?"
"That's my guess as well." Shao Jian ground his teeth in fury. "If that bastard hadn't tipped off Lingxu City back then and disrupted my royal uncle's plans, the Yuan Kingdom wouldn't have had to launch its uprising so hastily. If we had only been able to prepare for a few more years, perhaps everything would have turned out differently."
"Such a golden opportunity." Zhong Shengguang also let out a long sigh. "What a pity."
Had the King of Yuan succeeded in his uprising, Zhong Shengguang's own fortunes in life would surely have been rewritten.
Would he still have needed to remain trapped defending an isolated city?
"My royal uncle truly treated him well—he had even risen to the post of Prime Minister!" Shao Jian said with deep resentment. "No one could have ever foreseen this."
*Oh, so Ke Zhaolun was once the Prime Minister of the Yuan Kingdom?* He Lingchuan committed this to memory.
The Prime Minister was the deputy to the Chancellor; it was indeed a high office.
Zhong Shengguang frowned. "Merely for acting as an informant, Ke Zhaolun gets to enjoy such wealth and glory?"
Informing was dishonorable, and rulers generally detested two-faced traitors who served multiple masters. Lingxu City was teeming with talent; when that fellow Ke defected, granting him an idle title and tossing him into a corner should have sufficed.
Much like Nian Zanli, who defected with troops yet received little favor from Lingxu City, still sitting on a cold bench in He Lingchuan's era.
Why had the Ke family received such generous treatment from the Demon Emperor?
The people of Lingxu City were resentful of it, and even over a century later, prestigious clans still looked down on the Ke family.
Shao Jian fell silent for a moment before speaking. "Over these years, I've inquired repeatedly, pulling many strings and spending plenty of coin. Right before the New Year, I finally pried out a piece of intelligence. Before the trouble befell my former homeland, Ke Zhaolun obtained a divine object and presented it to the celestial gods. Heh, the gods were overjoyed."
"Furthermore—" He stressed each word, "to the celestial gods, that thing was also proof that my royal uncle intended to revolt!"
"Proof?"
"That object can resonate with the Dafang Pot across great distances!" Shao Jian said solemnly. "With it, the celestial gods knew the Dafang Pot was in the Yuan Kingdom, in my royal uncle's hands!"
He Lingchuan's breath caught, a wave of shock surging through his heart.
He happened to be leaning against an osmanthus tree, and his hands resting behind his back clenched into fists reflexively, snapping two osmanthus twigs with a sharp crack.
*What?*
*If that divine object can detect the Dafang Pot, isn't he completely finished?*
*He was right in Lingxu City, directly under the celestial gods' noses!*
*If they wanted to seize him, wouldn't it be as easy as reaching into a pocket? At that thought, cold sweat broke out across his back.*
*No, wait, that's not right!*
He Lingchuan instinctively tightened his grip on Fusheng's hilt, forcing himself to calm down. He had been in Lingxu City for over half a month, and a celestial god had even intruded into his sea of consciousness without seeing through him.
Fortunately, Zhong Shengguang was even more shocked than he was and paid no heed to the faint noise.
"Explain it clearly to me. What exactly happened?!"
"The treasure the Ke family offered to the celestial gods might be able to detect the whereabouts of the Dafang Pot. As soon as I caught wind of this news, I rushed to Panlong City," Shao Jian said seriously. "I don't know whether my royal uncle realized it, but he managed to procure a divine bone for you. Sigh, you know the efficacy of a divine bone; with it masking things, it would be difficult for that divine object to work again."
"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" This fellow hadn't just arrived in Panlong City today!
"I barely said hello to you when I arrived before you took off! Who could I have spoken to all these days?" Shao Jian spat. "You're a busy man, Commander Zhong. Catching you alone in private isn't easy! Besides—"
He paused briefly. "I think Lady Mitian very likely knows as well. Last time she gave out the Dragon-Torture Pillars, she said several of them were tainted with the aura of the Dafang Pot to divert Lingxu City's attention."
He Lingchuan had also heard those words at the time, and they had left a deep impression on him.
*So that was the deeper meaning behind them.*
Zhong Shengguang pondered as he slowly nodded. "Mm, you're right. She very likely knows."
After all, she was a celestial god.
"Actually, I've had my doubts for a long time."
Listening from the side, He Lingchuan immediately sensed that Zhong Shengguang and Mitian had not laid bare their entire hearts to each other; both held reservations.
Though they cooperated, they were by no means without guard.
Considering Zhong Shengguang's character and Mitian's identity as a celestial god, this was only natural.
"What exactly is this divine object?"
"The lid of the Dafang Pot."
He Lingchuan's ears pricked up immediately.
*The Dafang Pot had a lid?*
*Come to think of it, every pot comes with a lid; why would the Dafang Pot be an exception?*
"During the Great Cataclysm, legend has it that the Black Dragon struck the Tianluo Star, sacrificing its life for the Dao," Shao Jian said slowly. "The fragments knocked down from it were refined by several immortals working together over more than a century to forge the Dafang Pot. But later, the pot's lid was lost and its whereabouts became unknown. Who knows where that fellow Ke scavenged it from before presenting it to the celestial gods, bringing ruin upon all the subjects of my kingdom!"
His words reeked heavily of alcohol, but every syllable carried immense weight. He Lingchuan committed them to memory with great care, not daring to miss a single detail.
*Tonight has truly yielded a rich harvest.*
The news was so momentous that even Zhong Shengguang could not sit still; he rose and paced two rounds.
"You mean the celestial gods found the lid of the Dafang Pot and used the connection between the divine artifacts to confirm that the Dafang Pot was in the Yuan Kingdom, which was why..."
Shao Jian nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean!"
"Yet they still cannot trace it to Panlong City." Zhong Shengguang murmured in thought. "Evidently, Mitian understands this matter all too well. Isn't the divine bone made from its little finger bone, after all?"
Chapter 597