The Means to Get Home Safely

He Chunhua said gravely, "There is, but we certainly didn't do it on purpose."

"Human life is precious, but the war in the central region allows no delay. If we can't bring back the Great Square Pot in time, the rebels could descend along the river and bathe the capital in blood!" Sun Fuping let out a long sigh. "How many innocent civilians would die then? Hundreds? Thousands... tens of thousands?"

He Chunhua opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything. On one side was the greater good of the country, and on the other, the lives of people at the border. Which mattered more?

Seeing that he had fallen silent, Nian Songyu also breathed a quiet sigh of relief, secretly relaxing his tense muscles.

If Governor He had been stubbornly backward, he wouldn't have hesitated to draw his blade.

"The Furious Sand Season usually begins around September each year and lasts until February or March of the following year." Sun Fuping knew these records by heart. "But there have been exceptions, haven't there?"

He Chunhua thought it over, then slowly nodded. "There have. According to the official histories of Qiansong Prefecture, the Furious Sand Season arrived at the wrong time in several years, causing heavy casualties among both people and livestock."

"What does it look like when it arrives?"

"First come violent winds and torrential rain, with lightning and thunder. Then the desert howls like a vengeful ghost, while the windblown sand dances like dragons and snakes." That was why it was called the Furious Sand Season. "Anyone who enters the desert at that time will be buried alive within moments. The wind and sand won't let up until the following year."

"I checked the records too. Over the past hundred years or so, the Furious Sand Season in the Coiling Dragon Desert shifted its timing five times. Three times it came early, and twice it came late. The most recent was twenty years ago, when it began early, in mid-May."

He Chunhua remembered it as well. "I'd only recently arrived in Qiansong Prefecture. The locals talked about it for years afterward. Even in the seven years that followed, traffic along the Red Cliff trade route was affected. It only gradually recovered after that."

People took the Red Cliff trade route because it was safe. If the Coiling Dragon Desert's violent temper could flare up at any moment, who would risk their life for that money?

"The curious thing is, I got a lead from Patriarch Zhu Gen. Twenty years ago, he sent a team from the Baling Kingdom to probe Coiling Dragon Ancient City again. He didn't go himself, but by the timing, that team should have reached here sometime in April or May!"

Even Nian Songyu was surprised this time. "You mean... the Furious Sand Season came early that year because someone made it happen?"

"Very likely! The timing certainly fits," Sun Fuping said. "The team was led by the senior disciple's foremost protégé, someone Patriarch Zhu Gen greatly valued. Before they set out, he would surely have instructed them personally. Once they arrived here, they successfully triggered the early onset of the Furious Sand Season."

He Lingchuan's face turned grim. "But did they make it back?"

Sun Fuping sighed and shook his head. "That failure dealt Patriarch Zhu Gen a heavy blow. Afterward, Baling never organized another expedition to Coiling Dragon City."

"Doesn't that prove it's a one-way trip?" He Lingchuan gave a furious laugh. "Then why are we even here?"

"What if I told you that, when the Furious Sand Season descends, the safest place in the entire desert is actually Coiling Dragon Ancient City?" Sun Fuping turned slightly and pointed to the full set of coarse porcelain wine vessels on the counter. "Look at these. Do they seem like things that could withstand a storm? Yet they're just as they were when the allied forces left the Coiling Dragon Ruins."

Everyone's expression shifted, and they couldn't help looking around.

It was true. The tavern was open to the wind on three sides, but the tables and chairs in the front hall and the cooking pots in the kitchen were all neatly in place. From where Situ Han stood, he could even see two earthen jars on the stove, filled with either salt or lard. If the Furious Sand descended here every year, how could any of this have survived? And why hadn't this tavern, the two rows of shops along the street, or the many wooden houses within the city—some of them over a hundred years old—been toppled by the fierce winds and raging sand?

They had walked into the city without giving it a second thought, until Sun Fuping pointed it out.

He Chunhua let out a soft breath. "There's often no wind in the eye of a storm."

So even if the Furious Sand Season began, no matter how sand and stones flew outside, Coiling Dragon City itself remained untouched.

"You could've said so earlier. We wouldn't have gotten the wrong idea." He Lingchuan tossed a carefree laugh toward the sky, stopped needling Nian Songyu, then walked back and sat down to drink some water.

Situ Han muttered under his breath, "But the Furious Sand Season lasts at least four or five months. What are we supposed to eat and drink during that time?"

Everyone had to eat, and they'd brought only enough food and water for a few days.

The men in this group were all strong as oxen and ate like bottomless pits. They weren't cultivators who could go without food.

Before anyone else could speak, He Lingchuan mocked him. "Use your head. If the Great Square Pot gets taken by the Imperial Preceptor, how could it keep generating the Furious Sand Season? Our return trip might even be more peaceful than the journey here."

He Chunhua frowned slightly.

The kid was reckless, but he wasn't wrong. Sun Fuping relaxed a little and stroked his long beard. "Exactly!"

Getting this father and son to follow his plans had taken plenty of explaining. But if he simply killed them, the team would be difficult to manage.

People's hearts were fickle.

When traveling abroad, even local power brokers in backwater places like this could be a handful, no matter how poor their reputation as officials.

But then He Lingchuan turned and asked again, "Imperial Preceptor, you still haven't explained what happens if we summon the Furious Sand Season but fail to get the Great Square Pot. How do we get back?"

That was the real question!

Sun Fuping smiled, serene and unruffled. "Before we set out, His Majesty granted me special permission to draw upon the divine altar's primordial force!"

Everyone brightened and put those worries aside.

Primordial force was the sum of a nation's fortune, the will of its people, and the morale of its army.

It greatly amplified divine powers, could suppress all manner of demons and spirits, and could break enemy divine arts and formations. It was one of a nation's most precious strategic resources, with countless uses.

As a strategic reserve, primordial force was normally sealed within the divine altar, and even high officials couldn't call upon it at will. Fortunately, this was precisely the Imperial Preceptor's domain—and Sun Fuping had also received special permission from the ruler.

With that promise, their odds of making it out of the desert alive increased more than tenfold. Though the Yuan Kingdom's fortune was no longer what it had been in its prime, protecting two hundred people as they left the desert would still be no difficult feat.

By then, He Lingchuan had eaten and drunk his fill. He stood and stretched. "Since that's settled, shall we get to work at dawn?"

Nian Songyu's smile was all teeth. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep." He Lingchuan yawned. "We'll have plenty to do tomorrow, won't we? There are no beauties here to keep me company, and no music to listen to. What else am I supposed to do but sleep?" That guy just loved picking fights with him.

"Who told you you could rest?" Nian Songyu didn't even bother hiding his contempt. "You'll do the job tonight. Right now!"

"What job?" He Lingchuan couldn't stand him. "You?"

Nian Songyu's face darkened as he stepped forward. He Lingchuan retreated two steps and moved beside Zeng Feixiong. "Deputy Captain Zeng, protect me!"

Sun Fuping gave a light cough. "The matter at hand comes first. Bring in the puppets."

Only then did He Lingchuan remember that the Imperial Preceptor had tied up two puppets infested with Three-Corpse Insects on the Walnut Boat and brought them all the way into the city. They were still being kept outside.