Liaodong's sky was blue as a clear, polished mirror, and its mountains were magnificent, their ridges like soaring dragons, their verdant peaks rising in ranks.
Upon reaching Liaoxi, Luo Chen and his companions saw the cities the Yan People had once built. Most were small and low, the tallest walls no more than three meters, built of layer upon layer of tamped earth. Perhaps several thousand people had once lived here, but after the Yan People migrated south, rain, snow, wind, and frost had left them looking somewhat dilapidated.
Heavy rains had collapsed the deserted thatched houses, leaving a few broken walls. Weeds crowded the city walls and streets, and wild foxes even prowled there, dragging a pheasant's carcass and leaving two trails of blood. Outside the city, graves could be glimpsed everywhere, some with holes left in them. The living had migrated and died, while the dead could only remain here; perhaps their descendants had all died out.
With a touch of emotion, Luo Chen said, "A few barren mounds, a few lines of names. The Yan People left so decisively, without the slightest attachment. To them, this was not a homeland where they had lived in peace for a hundred and fifty years, but a demonic land that devoured their hearts' blood."
Everything in the old Yan State bore an air of decline. They had not even seen a level straight road here, and Luo Chen could feel how difficult life had been for the Yan People.
A somewhat level path led out of this city, trodden into being by the people of the city and its villages. Now it, too, was overgrown, the weeds on either side even reaching waist height. It was already late autumn. Fallen leaves hung suspended among them, roots and stems had withered