The next day.
The Xihe Tribe outside the city did not attack again.
Instead, they dispersed their forces and set up camps in all four directions around Poyang County, forming a siege.
If they could not take the city by storm, surrounding it was naturally useless as well.
Besiege the enemy but leave an escape route—leave the enemy a way out and force them to abandon the city and flee. That was the classic tactic in siege warfare.
The barbarians' relentless pressure would only force those within the city into a trapped beast's desperate struggle.
Yet at this critical moment, Xiang Tingchun, Poyang City's Main General, vanished.
"Lord Chen, y-you... what do you think happened?!"
Ji Guangxian paced back and forth with his hands behind his back. "How could a perfectly healthy living man simply vanish?"
At his side, an old servant at the Organ Tempering realm stood silently on guard.
"I do not know."
Chen Sanshi had his own guess.
There was an eighty or ninety percent chance that the matter of the immortal treasure had been exposed.
Lord Xiang was most likely doomed.
But someone like him had never cared about other people's lives, so there was no need to mourn him.
"My lord, we found out!"
Yuan Danzhi hurried up the city wall. "At midnight last night, someone opened the small southern gate under cover of darkness and fled. Xiang Tingchun rode alone in pursuit, only to encounter a barbarian ambush outside the city. Lord Xiang died in battle. Only Commander Luo returned with several surviving riders not long ago."
Luo Dongquan?
That bastard had been involved too, yet he had returned alive?
A stab in the back?
Good. The man was not merely sinister—he was a traitor as well.
Chen Sanshi sneered inwardly.
He clenched his