Mornings at Shattered Star Pass began with smoke from the incinerators.
Zhao Tieying led the soldiers in pushing the last cart of death qi-contaminated waste inside the pass into the incinerator.
The furnace had burned all night, and by dawn, ashes inside the firebox had piled up to the mouth.
The gray powder was shoveled out, packed into clay jars, sealed with wax, and buried in a deep pit three li beyond the pass.
The bottom of the pit had been layered with lime. After the jars were lowered in, they were covered with another layer of lime before the pit was filled and the earth tamped down solid.
Yun Qingyue scattered a ring of medicinal powder over the filled ground to prevent death qi from seeping out from beneath the earth.
By the time they finished, the sun had risen above the pass walls.
Lu Chen stood atop the wall, looking west.
West of Shattered Star Pass lay a wasteland, yellow earth and shattered stones stretching to the horizon, with the occasional dead poplar standing along the skyline.
Farther away, the border of the Western Wasteland lay hidden in the morning mist—beyond that fog was the direction of the Dead Silence Sand Sea.
On the first Valley Lord's map, the symbol for that tower had been marked at the very center of the sand sea.
He rolled up the map and put it away. Now was not the time to go.
Though the Shadow Council's arrangements in the Capital City had been scattered, the Fourth and Fifth Councilors had yet to show themselves.
He had been away from the Capital City for too long. It was no different from handing Mo Qianqiu and those people on the list over to the Shadow Council.
When he came down from the