Inner city.
Jiang Ning tore across the inner city rooftops like a gale, like a bolt of lightning.
He had long since pushed his speed to its limit.
In an instant, he covered dozens of zhang.
In one breath, he covered two hundred zhang.
Watching the signal flares continuously explode overhead, he did not dare relax in the slightest.
As far as he knew, such large signal flares launched from the city gates—flares capable of lighting up the night sky and alarming the entire county—would only be fired in the most urgent of emergencies.
And the sounding of war drums further indicated that something had happened at the west gate.
Something major—perhaps an army was attacking the city.
For large signal flares and war drums were the same sort of warning as the beacon fires and wolf smoke of his previous life.
Though he racked his brains and still could not understand why an army would attack the west gate, prompting large signal flares to be fired and war drums to be beaten.
But since the drums had sounded and the flares had risen into the sky, an army attacking the city was highly likely.
This reminded him of some intelligence he had seen before.
Across the nine prefectures of Great Xia, scattered rebel armies had begun appearing several years ago.
Though all were swiftly suppressed, rebel forces kept springing up like bamboo shoots after rain, impossible to kill off completely.
One place would be crushed, and another would raise its banners and ignite rebellion.
Over the past year, uprisings and rebellions had become increasingly frequent.
Especially in the year before that, such incidents had occurred even more often.
Within Zeshan Prefecture, where Luoshui County was located, the greatest uprising had been the Black Lotus Cult's rebellion.
The Black Lotus