Listening to the pleasant cries of the cranes, Yan Bo smiled as he flew over the magnificent mountains and rivers of what had once been Great Yan. Looking down from the sky, he saw places still peaceful and tranquil, and others still shrouded in the smoke of war.
Yan Bo was heading toward Great Yan's former capital-Zhongling Prefecture, where the capital had been relocated south, rather than the old capital from the nation's founding. The white cranes stayed with him all the while.
This did not surprise Yan Bo. In his memory, some white cranes did indeed head to Zhongling Prefecture at this time every year. A vast stretch of wetlands surrounding a lake in the splendid royal gardens had been reserved for them, with attendants assigned to feed them.
For the cranes, it had been an excellent dining hall. Quite a few would stop there and remain until the right season to continue their migration, while some simply stayed through the winter.
But now, the white cranes probably no longer had such a fine place to go.
Zhongling Prefecture seemed to have lost the prosperity Yan Bo remembered, though it remained a major city in this land.
Suspended in the air through Wind Control, Yan Bo looked down over Great Yan's former Capital City, as though phantoms of its old bustle still lingered before his eyes.
The White Feather Way's Daoist temple, whose threshold everyone from nobles and officials to commoners had nearly worn through in their eagerness to offer incense, had long since become a ruin. Anyone with even the slightest connection to it had perhaps been put to death years ago.
Even his grandmaster, Han Shiyong, had been beheaded in full view of the public.
Yan Bo could almost see that scene: the crowds packed around the