The Terror of Taicheng

Where had all the salt in Taicheng gone?

It was a mystery.

But who was pulling the strings from behind the scenes?

For Zhu Yuanzhang, the answer seemed obvious.

"Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan."

"To move all the salt in Taicheng outside the city as if it had vanished into thin air... That kind of power is truly..."

No, wait.

He thought of the refugees from Jiankang who had recently moved into Taicheng, suffering from severe abdominal distention and swelling.

That couldn't have been caused by going without salt for just a few days.

Under normal circumstances, chronic salt deficiency took several weeks to set in.

The symptoms ranged from persistent fatigue and unsteady walking to muscle spasms and abdominal swelling... Unless someone engaged in strenuous exercise for a long time, the loss of salt from the body was bound to be a slow process.

Yet the refugees from Jiankang seemed as if something had snatched all the salt from their bodies in an instant.

"Does this make any sense? Is this still the Northern and Southern Dynasties?"

"Physics doesn't exist anymore!"

Unable to make sense of it, Zhu Yuanzhang dropped the bag of grain in his hands and put on his tiger-skin monk robe.

He searched through the ruins of the three meditation huts, looking for any weapon he could use.

He would need one to face Consort Ding in Hualin Garden and the enormous black eye that had taken Prince Xiao Dong of Yuzhang.

In Zen Master Faming's hut, Zhu Yuanzhang found a monk's staff.

It was seven chi and nine cun long, gilded from end to end, and covered in cloud-and-dragon patterns.

Zhu Yuanzhang tried swinging it with one hand. It was heavy—at least seventy or eighty jin.

He could barely control it with one hand.

He would probably need both hands to wield it properly.

"Mountain-Shrinking Fist!"

Zhu Yuanzhang murmured.

Then he switched into his Deep One form.

This time, when Zhu Yuanzhang swung the staff with one hand, it moved as easily as an extension of his arm.

"Good."

Zhu Yuanzhang returned to his normal form.

Then he used two strips of cloth to strap the monk's staff across his back.

By the light of the moon, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at his palm.

Although he had already left his Deep One form,

his right index finger was still a grayish blue.

It oozed viscous oil, and the nail had turned into an ugly mix of black scales and webbing.

Zhu Yuanzhang tried to undo the change in his finger.

But nothing worked.

The transformation was irreversible.

This was bad.

Looking at his little finger, now completely transformed into that of a Deep One, Zhu Yuanzhang's heart sank.

He suddenly realized something.

The seemingly harmless Mountain-Shrinking Fist

was probably even more dangerous than Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire.

Without the profound power of the Great Wisdom Zen Technique as a foundation,

it was all but certain that Mountain-Shrinking Fist would turn him into a Deep One.

And the speed! He feared it would be much faster than having his lifespan burned away by Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire!

"To be safe, I have to prioritize improving the Great Wisdom Zen Technique in the real world."

"Everything else can wait."

Zhu Yuanzhang made up his mind.

Then he strode toward Jiankang Palace.

He had to find Fu Qi.

Then he would try once more to see if he could successfully bring Prince Xiao Dong of Yuzhang to Grand Marshal Gate this time.

He left Jiankang Palace.

But he had only taken a few steps

when Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stopped.

"Wait. Something's wrong."

His mind raced back to the times he had met Fu Qi and Yang Kan.

"If Xiao Yan cast some kind of spell to erase all the salt in Taicheng,"

"why did Yang Kan seem completely unaffected?"

"And Fu Qi was barely affected at all."

"He really did seem like an old man who'd gone three days without salt and was a little weak."

A frightening thought suddenly surfaced in Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

"Could it be that the people whose salt was taken from their bodies had been chosen in advance?"

"The princes and ministers have to keep the city stable, so they were affected very little."

"And the defenders of Taicheng have to face Hou Jing's siege, so they weren't affected at all."

At this thought,

Zhu Yuanzhang took a deep breath.

He looked up at Jiankang Palace again.

Even in Taicheng, where supplies were scarce and firewood was in desperately short supply, Jiankang Palace remained brightly lit.

It stood in the darkness like a lighthouse.

But it could no longer offer Zhu Yuanzhang any warmth.

Instead, it sent a chill through him.

After all, if his guess was right,

then from the very beginning,

the fate of everyone in Taicheng had already been quietly sealed.

"Ordinary people in Jiankang will die one after another in misery from hunger, cold, and disease."

"The princes and ministers will suffer the same fate, just a little later."

"Once the common people are dead, these officials won't be of any use either."

"They'll just be liabilities."

"Meanwhile, the soldiers and generals will fight to the death against the Xianbei, the Zahu Barbarians, and the slave soldiers Hou Jing seized from Huainan, all while Hou Jing's army lays siege to the city."

"With the princes outside the city standing by and watching, the defenders inside have no way out, whether they surrender to Hou Jing or refuse to yield and fight to the death."

"Either way, they'll die."

"The only difference is"

"whether they'll die at the hands of Hou Jing's troops before Taicheng falls,"

"or in the mass purge that follows Hou Jing's defeat, when the princes seek to prove their loyalty to Xiao Yan"

"by executing all those who surrendered."

"What a fucking court. What a fucking emperor."

"Absurd. This is so damn absurd!"

"No matter what the people inside Taicheng do, they can't escape death!"

Zhu Yuanzhang's mind settled.

[Name: Zhu Yuanzhang (Monk Minghe)]

[Occupation: Investigator, Tongtai Temple monks (undercover)]

[Status: Plagued by bad luck, certain to die]

[Skills: Great Wisdom Zen Technique (first stage, perfected), Mountain-Shrinking Fist (second stage), Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Technique (first stage), Sangqiwo Jataka Sutra (incomplete), Buddha Speaks of the Soapberry Sutra (incomplete)]

[Equipment: Tiger-Skin Monk Robe, Demon-Subduing Vajra Pestle]

[Note: Green Silk White Horse Comes to Shouyang!]

Looking at the [certain to die] in the status bar,

Zhu Yuanzhang began to understand why the system's evaluation rated Taicheng, defended by a large army and historically holding out for more than a hundred days before it fell, as more dangerous than Yinglong Temple.

And besides,

looking at the system's display of [Buddha Speaks of the Soapberry Sutra (incomplete)] and [Sangqiwo Jataka Sutra (incomplete)],

Zhu Yuanzhang looked thoughtful.

The system hadn't displayed "Buddha-Spoken Soapberry Secret Mantra."

And he had only learned "Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra" and "Buddha-Spoken Soapberry Secret Mantra."

He hadn't practiced either sutra.

Yet according to the system,

he had learned fragments of both sutras.

In other words, the system didn't consider the secret mantras to be proper cultivation techniques.

They were merely parts of the functions inherent to those sutras.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked thoughtful.

Did that mean that if he perfected his practice of the secret mantras,

he could master the fundamental techniques of these Buddhist teachings outright?

But what good would that do?

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and decided to stop thinking about it.

Right now, the most urgent thing was to meet up with Fu Qi.

It was already the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month.

There were only three days left until the first day of the eleventh month, when Xiao Zhengde would usurp the throne with Hou Jing's help and the mission would end.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't have much time left.

He had to act quickly.