In the end, the two chose to go on foot.
There was no other reason.
Riding horses through Taicheng at night would have been far too conspicuous.
"Commander Fu."
They had barely gone a few steps when Zhu Yuanzhang saw Fu Qi's face turn pale and his legs start trembling.
He stopped and asked with concern.
"Are you feeling unwell?"
Zhu Yuanzhang's concern was genuine.
After all, the man before him was key to whether he could leave Taicheng.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes, Fu Qi's life was even more important than Minghe's.
"It's nothing. I just haven't had any salt for five or six days."
Fu Qi stood where he was, took several deep breaths, then managed a wry smile.
"Let's go. I'm fine. I can keep going."
The roads were eerily quiet. Even the eunuchs making their rounds and the patrolling guards were seldom seen.
As they left the Southern Secretariat and headed farther north, the moonlight grew sparser, and the scenery along the way grew darker.
From the darkness came the weak, labored breaths of one person after another.
The people of Jiankang, old and young, had fled the Hou Jing Rebellion and taken refuge inside Taicheng. Clad in thin clothes, they lay along both sides of the road.
Some already had visibly swollen bodies.
When the ragged crowd saw the two of them, they silently made way.
Now and then, Zhu Yuanzhang heard a few Buddhist invocations from the crowd in the darkness around them.
It seemed they were praying for Xiao Liang, and for their own fate.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked away.
"No wonder no one has dealt with what happened at Tongtai Temple."
"Taicheng has taken in so many people from Jiankang. The governing system must have already collapsed."
"Just managing to keep the city's defenses intact is a miracle."
"But what exactly is Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, trying to do?"
"Even with all the supplies Taicheng has stored, how many days can they last after taking in so many refugees?"
Thinking of how Taicheng would be flooded several times in the future, leaving fewer than one in ten defenders and civilians alive, Zhu Yuanzhang felt a chill creep over him.
He walked in front, with Fu Qi following behind.
The road grew darker and darker, but to Zhu Yuanzhang, whose night vision was enhanced by the Deep One, it was as bright as day.
Yet the more he saw, the deeper the chill in his heart grew.
Heaps upon heaps of grain, and refugees without end.
Taicheng was the inner city, with no sizable woods. To cook over fires and keep warm, people were tearing down houses by the swath, using the little wood they had to survive.
"When did the salt run out?"
Zhu Yuanzhang asked as if it were a casual question.
Beneath his monk's robes, the gills on his chest exhaled a long breath, steadying his troubled heart.
"Just these past few days, since Hou Jing laid siege to the city... The court said the powerful nobles of Xiao Liang wanted to transport more of their valuables and jewelry, so they left the carts carrying the salt outside the palace."
As Fu Qi spoke, hatred flashed in his eyes.
"Those parasites! They deserve to die!"
"Is it really that simple?"
Zhu Yuanzhang remained silent.
The chill in his heart deepened.
The main road from the Southern Secretariat to Hualin Garden was packed with people in tattered clothes.
It was late autumn, with winter just around the corner.
Yet everyone in Jiankang had to do the same thing, from ordinary residents to the princes and ministers of Taicheng, even the imperial family.
They had to brave the cold wind, tear down houses, and chop the wood into firewood.
Then they would cook a pot of food without salt.
Without salt, everyone inside the city was doomed to die once the siege dragged on.
But the city still had plenty of grain, and countless houses yet to be torn down.
So they were bound to survive for a while longer—a long, miserable while.
During that time, many would freeze to death after tearing down their own homes for firewood.
To replenish their salt, people would resort to eating raw meat and drinking blood.
All morality, law, and civilization would vanish beneath the most primitive urge to survive.
"Taicheng is practically one enormous concentration camp now."
Looking at the flickering lights of the imperial gardens before him, Zhu Yuanzhang could not stop a chill from rising within him.
"We're here."
Fu Qi's voice held a note of delight.
He hurried forward.
Taking a deep-blue jade pendant from his robes, he slipped it into the hand of the eunuch on night watch.
"I am Commander Fu Qi. I have urgent business with the Prince of Yuzhang."
The young eunuch picked up the pendant and examined it from every side by the candlelight.
After a moment, a smile appeared on his face.
He seemed quite pleased with Fu Qi's gift.
Nodding to the two of them, he handed Fu Qi his lantern, indicating that Fu Qi should take his place on watch, then hurried off into the depths of Hualin Garden.
"It looks like we're halfway there."
Fu Qi's voice was full of excitement, with a hint of grim resolve.
"Once we meet the Prince of Yuzhang, please take His Highness with you and hurry to Sima Gate."
Along the way, Fu Qi had also seen that the monk had extraordinary stamina.
Though Fu Qi himself was panting and drenched in sweat, the other man seemed completely unaffected.
He did not even have a drop of sweat on him.
"..."
Zhu Yuanzhang circulated the Great Wisdom Zen Technique and drew the pair of fins on his back back into his shoulder blades.
Once everything was in place and he was certain the Prince of Yuzhang, Xiao Dong, would not notice anything amiss, he said, "Don't worry, Commander Fu. I'll keep the Prince of Yuzhang safe."
"I'm grateful for your help."
Fu Qi thanked him sincerely.
Without Zhu Yuanzhang, getting the Prince of Yuzhang to Sima Gate to meet up with the commander of the guards, Yang Kan, would indeed have been a problem.
But a quarter of an hour passed.
As he stared at the still-empty path through Hualin Garden, the composure gradually drained from Fu Qi's face.
"How long does it take to get here from the Prince of Yuzhang's quarters?"
Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the white lanterns hanging in the trees on both sides of the road and asked.
"Less than half a quarter of an hour there and back."
Fu Qi's expression grew grim.
There was no doubt about it: something had gone wrong.
"Let's go—"
Without the slightest hesitation, Zhu Yuanzhang strode into the imperial garden before him.
Behind him, Fu Qi gritted his teeth and stepped into the garden as well.
Suddenly, the white lanterns hanging from the trees on both sides of the road blazed with white light.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes, the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire flickered.
It seemed ready to pierce the endless darkness before him.
Something was wrong!
Zhu Yuanzhang studied the snowy-white lanterns on both sides, his gaze sharpening.
It was not so much that the lanterns had grown brighter.
Rather, the scenery inside Hualin Garden had grown darker.
And...
Zhu Yuanzhang stopped as he looked at the desolation before him.
The imperial garden, which had looked so well-kept and magnificent from outside, now seemed utterly desolate.
Weeds grew thick among the withered woods and ancient trees.
The branches were bare, without a single leaf.
There was not a single birdcall, either.
Everything lay in dead silence.
"That's Hualin Park... How can this be?"
When he saw the dilapidated complex at the end of the road, with a third of its buildings collapsed from the passage of time, Fu Qi cried out in shock.
His face was stricken with horror.
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