A World Without People

Apart from bubbles, there was nothing in the water.

No impurities, no silt, no aquatic plants.

Interestingly, he found he could breathe with ease, as comfortable as a fish in water, without the slightest sense of suffocation.

Yet, he was fuming inside. He would never have taken on such a dangerous scouting job under normal circumstances, but he had been caught in the residual shockwave of the Great Wind Army commander's strike and blasted right into this place.

To put it bluntly, his cultivation was too low.

Back when he was throwing his weight around in Blackwater City, he hadn't felt it, but after encountering Nian Songyu and State Preceptor Sun, and later exploring Coiling Dragon City, he realized that as crises loomed ever closer, his meager cultivation felt increasingly powerless.

If only he were a bit stronger.

His body sank rapidly; directly below, it was pitch black, like a bottomless pit.

Just a heartbeat before he plunged into the boundless darkness, He Lingchuan caught a glimpse of a dark red figure.

The thing seemed massive, looming in and out of sight around him, and the part of its body exposed appeared to be cylindrical.

Well, shaped like a water barrel, but magnified countless times over.

Most importantly, the thing was moving!

Unfortunately, He Lingchuan had no time to look closer before his vision went black.

When he opened his eyes again, the scene had changed.

He was standing by a small stream. The water, barely covering his instep, was crystal clear, the gravel beneath it clean, and a small river shrimp was currently launching an attack on his boot.

The alligator weed and wild radishes by the stream were a pleasant green, and not far away, a few farmsteads stood with wisps of smoke curling from their chimneys.

He Lingchuan checked himself and found his clothes dry; they hadn't been soaked by the bloody water in the well at all. It seemed that had merely been a passage.

He climbed from the valley onto a low slope, and the moment he looked up, he froze.

Before him lay a vibrant plain. Large fields of wheat were turning green, and while the trees along the edges were sparse, the tallest reached three to five zhang.

Small huts for guarding the fields were scattered about, and He Lingchuan even spotted a waterskin hanging from a nearby tree branch.

In the distance, a great river surged, dividing the two plains.

On the other side of the river, the terrain was much higher, looking from afar like a giant crocodile lying by the water.

Most importantly, the shape of the plain's edge was unique and very familiar.

Could that be... the Chipa Plateau?

He Lingchuan leaped down the slope and headed toward the Chipa Plateau.

The sky was blue, the clouds were white, and the air was filled with the damp scent of soil and grass. Walking through this pastoral landscape was truly refreshing.

Especially for someone who had just walked out of a desolate desert city.

However, the more serene it was, the more eerie it felt.

He Lingchuan walked straight for several hundred paces, passing through a village of a hundred households along the way, yet he didn't encounter a single soul.

The village was quite large.

The fields, the farmsteads, and the houses were all deathly quiet. He even checked house by house, but they were empty. Yet, in one kitchen, coarse flour buns had been steamed and were still emitting hot, swirling steam.

He didn't dare eat them, but he picked one up and squeezed it; it was soft and hot to the touch.

Where had everyone gone?

Passing another wheat field, a pink butterfly happened to flutter toward him.

He Lingchuan reached out and poked at it, his fingertip passing straight through the butterfly.

Nothing there.

Fake?

He found a green grasshopper in the wheat field and poked it, but it was also just air.

These living things were all illusions.

But the texture of the wheat seedlings felt real. He snapped off a bit of the core and chewed it; it was slightly astringent and bitter, exactly the taste a grass sprout should have.

Just then, there was a rustle in the wheat field, and a living creature darted out.

He Lingchuan was startled and had his blade half-drawn before he realized the newcomer was actually a sand bandit.

This man was the second cousin of Situ Han's brother-in-law, known by the nickname Mao Tao, a name he earned because he was thin, small, and sported a full beard.

He was also stunned to see He Lingchuan, then immediately overjoyed: "Young Master, you're alright!"

"Where are the others?" He Lingchuan looked left and right, realizing only this one teammate had arrived. "Also, why is one of the Life Fires on your shoulder missing?"

"The State Preceptor took it and placed it on a candle," Mao Tao said with a bitter expression. "Then he pushed me down. Where is this? Coiling... Wasteland?"

Anyone with eyes could see the strangeness of this place. "This place is fake, isn't it? An illusion?"

"Yes." He Lingchuan immediately guessed State Preceptor Sun's goal. "They used you to scout the path, so they must be coming down soon too."

The two walked forward together, and He Lingchuan asked him, "When you passed through the scene... no, after you fell into the pool, did you see anything?"

"It was just pale red blood-water, and it didn't even choke me. Then, in the blink of an eye, I was here."

"Nothing else?"

Mao Tao thought carefully. "No. What did you see?"

He Lingchuan shook his head.

Was that massive, unknown entity in the pale red pool just a trick of his eyes?

After walking for another hour or so, the two finally approached the Chipa Plateau.

The river before them was gentle, about thirty feet wide, with a steady, unhurried current. He Lingchuan knew this must be the moat of Coiling Dragon City, but it was nowhere near as deep or wide as what he had seen before.

They continued west along the riverbank for another half-hour, and Coiling Dragon City finally appeared in their field of vision.

"There, there!" Mao Tao let out a breath. "Is that Coiling Dragon City?"

Coiling Dragon City was still in the exact same location, at the lower pass of the Chipa Plateau. But it looked nothing like the magnificent structure he had seen in the desert.

The city walls were neither as high nor as thick, and there were no Crocodile Tooth Spikes on the battlements.

When the two approached the Natural Bridge, they discovered that the bridge deck was paved with bluestone, much of which had shattered, the cracks stuffed with moss and grime.

Crossing the bridge, the city gate was still there, but the gate panels were not made of iron fir, but of ordinary, iron-clad thick wood.

The defensive strength of this city gate was no different from that of Blackwater City.

However, two people were standing under the gate, waving at them.

Nian Songyu and Sun Fuping.

He Lingchuan frowned inwardly at the sight of them, but as he walked up, he put on a look of surprise. "Why are only the two of you here? Where are the others?"

"The Great Wind Army spirits brought reinforcements, and Governor He took his men to stay behind and hold the enemy off outside the pool and well," Sun Fuping said. "This is the territory of the Great Wind Army; we cannot fight them here."

Otherwise, it would be a certain death sentence.

It sounded reasonable enough, but He Lingchuan's heart skipped a beat. He knew he had to be extra careful, though he feigned dissatisfaction on his face. "Father is truly unkind, leaving me here all by myself."

He Chunhua and the main force hadn't come down, leaving him alone to face Sun and Nian. If they wanted to mold him like clay, wouldn't he be at their mercy?

The situation was stronger than the man; it was better to be sensible!

Sun Fuping couldn't even be bothered to respond, only asking, "By the way, how long have you been down here?"

"About... two hours?" He Lingchuan's attitude softened, and he pointed back. "I landed in that village over there and crawled out of the river."

Sun Fuping's expression shifted slightly, and Nian Songyu pointed at Mao Tao. "How can that be? I followed this fellow down closely. He was only a few dozen breaths behind you."

The State Preceptor pondered. "The four of us came down one after another, yet our arrival times here were all different. That means it is a matter of flow rate. This place is truly more than just an illusion."

Indeed, anyone who arrived here would first define it as an illusion.