Found a Breakthrough

If the Coiling Dragon Desert became nothing special, would the Yuan Kingdom's borders still be so peaceful? That was a huge question mark. After all, its neighbors weren't pushovers.

Fortune and misfortune went hand in hand. If the Grand Marshal hadn't offered such generous terms, He Chunhua wouldn't have wanted the Coiling Dragon Desert to disappear.

He fell silent for a moment, then asked quietly, "Chuan'er, do you think Commander Zhong's thirty-two years of steadfast defense were worth it?"

He Lingchuan thought, Since you're asking me, you must already think it wasn't worth it.

"Not worth it." He pretended to speak without thinking. "Coiling Dragon City still fell, and Xiluo still perished. He spent thirty-two extra years and changed nothing."

"For the first twelve years, Xiluo was too weak to advance west and reclaim its lost territory. It didn't even know that a million soldiers and civilians were still holding out on the Coiling Dragon Wilderness. Over the next twenty years, Xiluo tried several times to cede the Coiling Dragon Wilderness to Xianyou in exchange for temporary respite. If I were Zhong Shengguang, I'd have been driven mad with rage by a useless homeland that dragged me down at every turn!"

"Xiluo was once a fearsome power. It lasted two hundred and seventeen years, a rare long-lived kingdom in all the world." Peace was scarce on this continent. The shortest-lived regimes lasted only a few dozen days, and most small kingdoms went through the whole cycle of rise and fall within twenty or thirty years. By that measure, Xiluo had endured remarkably well. "But while Zhong Shengguang defended Coiling Dragon City, Xiluo was beset by troubles at home and abroad. The nobles reveled in song and dance, starving refugees wandered the land, and foreign enemies kept up their relentless assault. The death knell had already begun to toll." He Chunhua said no more, stroking Zhong Shengguang's tombstone with a sigh.

His father had thought of his own situation. He Lingchuan didn't point it out. The Great Yuan of today really was a little too much like Xiluo of old.

At that moment, the clouds parted and the moon emerged, illuminating the desolate city.

"Commander Zhong, it must be dull, keeping watch here all alone. Let me have a couple more drinks with you." He Lingchuan couldn't help pouring Zhong Shengguang another two cups of wine in tribute. "It's a shame I never got to pay my respects to the Red General or behold his heroic bearing!"

Zhong Shengguang and the Red General were both legends. He Lingchuan himself was even more curious about the mysterious Red General.

He asked He Chunhua, "There's a shrine to the Red General in the city, but no tomb. Not even a cenotaph. Is it possible... that he didn't actually die in the final battle?"

"The Xianyou State Preceptor summoned heavenly lightning at the cost of his own life, and the Red General was struck seven times in all. He was reduced to ashes on the spot. Soldiers on both sides witnessed it, so there shouldn't be any mistake. Otherwise, Coiling Dragon City's morale wouldn't have collapsed so suddenly." He Chunhua shook his head. "You're still young. You don't know that human strength has its limits."

Just as He Lingchuan was about to speak, two sharp whooshes suddenly sounded from the northeast.

Two fireworks shot into the sky and burst open.

That was the signal they had agreed on beforehand. He Chunhua glanced over and immediately said, "They found it. Let's go!"

Within two quarters of an hour, everyone had gathered at Mitian Temple.

It stood at the heart of Coiling Dragon City, covering ten mu of land, with courtyards within courtyards and pavilions and halls everywhere.

At the height of its prosperity, the place must have been a splendid sight, with ancient trees shading the grounds and visitors streaming through. But now, more than a century after it had been looted and burned, it was a vast ruin. The clear springs and lotus ponds had long since dried up. The once-lush ancient trees had become deadwood, never to sprout fresh green again.

At least half of the exquisite buildings had been destroyed. The magnificent main hall that had housed Mitian had been razed completely, first toppled and then burned to the ground. As they approached the site, all they saw were a few blackened timbers lying haphazardly across the ground.

Someone reached out and snapped one. It crumbled.

The Mitian Statue was carved from stone. Even just one of its forearms would have been as long as He Lingchuan was tall. Unfortunately, they couldn't see its original appearance, because after the statue had been toppled, it had been cut into seven or eight pieces, each hacked to bits with blades and axes and then smeared with ink.

The allied forces hated Coiling Dragon City and the Great Wind Army. They hated their faith just as fiercely.

Once everyone had arrived, Nian Songyu held up the glass jar and said gravely, "This is the place!"

He walked around the pool directly in front of the main hall. The Three-Corpse Insects in the jar turned along with him. No matter which way he went, they all pressed against the side of the jar facing away from the pool!

"The pool?" Situ Han asked in surprise. "Are you sure it's this one? If we're wrong, we can't get hold of more clean water."

The Chipa Plateau had plenty of water, and the water features at Mitian Temple had been exquisitely designed. There were springs and streams, and no fewer than six pools.

The pool Nian Songyu had picked was right outside the main hall. Its shape was somewhat irregular, and it looked much like a wishing pool where people tossed coins. It covered about twenty-six or twenty-seven square meters.

Of course, it was now completely empty, without a single koi or coin.

Sun Fuping walked around the pool, then pressed his hand against the rim a few times. "Several sections of the masonry along the edge are different in color. It looks like they were sealed up later."

Everyone took a look, and he was right. There were several repairs along the edge of the pool, rough and uneven, with workmanship far inferior to the original. Whoever had patched it later had clearly done no more than a slapdash repair.

"Quite a few years must have passed between the original work and the repair. And the repair is so crude, it doesn't look like the work of the people of Coiling Dragon City, who worshipped Mitian, much less the Xian-Baling Allied Forces." He Chunhua pondered. "Could this have been done by the last force Baling sent here?"

The proudest disciple sent by Grandmaster Zhu Gen surely hadn't traveled a thousand miles just to work as a mason.

If they really had repaired this pool, they must have had a specific purpose.

What interested He Lingchuan more was why the pool had been dug open in the first place.

Sun Fuping said solemnly, "More importantly, why was the pool dug open, and who dug it open?"

Zeng Feixiong pointed to the large and small stones scattered across the ground. "Maybe falling rubble damaged it when the main hall was destroyed."

The temple had been brutally looted. Such a magnificent building and statue had come crashing down, leaving even the ground pocked with deep craters. What was so strange about a small pool getting smashed through?

"Or perhaps that was the effect the person in charge wanted to create?" He Chunhua pondered. "When Coiling Dragon City fell, the allied soldiers would certainly have poured in and plundered the city. Their officers could hardly stop them. Whatever those soldiers damaged would be nothing out of the ordinary. If the pool looked like it had been ruined during the looting, the allied forces wouldn't investigate too closely, and the secret hidden inside it would stay concealed."

"With the city in a panic and Coiling Dragon on the verge of falling, who could have calmly arranged all this?"

The answer was obvious. Nian Songyu murmured, "Zhong Shengguang, or one of his trusted men. He had to open the pool and let the water out before the city fell."

If they were right, the deeper meaning behind that act was worth investigating.

Decades later, the Baling expedition must have reached a similar conclusion and repaired the pool again.

Situ Han came over to take a look, his expression troubled. "Are you saying we should pour water into this pool? Even if we emptied the spare clean water carried by all two hundred of us into it, I'm afraid we still couldn't cover the bottom."