Chapter 157

For example, the resentful spirits and heroic souls of Panlong City rely on the Great Fang Hu, and can even wander around the Panlong Desert. Such a divine object is rare and hard to find; he assumed Hong Xiangqian didn't have such a powerful soul vessel, so Lu Yao should have quickly found a new host after his weapon-release to move house for Hong Xiangqian's Primordial Spirit.

Forget it, thinking too much makes my head ache; let Father worry about it.

Returning to his room, while He Yue was away, He Lingchuan closed the door and took a dozen items from his bosom, laying them out on the bed one by one.

These were all Lu Yao's relics, swiped from under Commandant Zhao's nose. Seeing that he was the son of a nobleman, although the Garrison Prefecture was dissatisfied with this snatching behavior, they didn't say much in the end.

A few ingots of gold and silver, some elixirs, two thumb rings, and other than that, some small miscellaneous items.

Oh right, there was also the Ghost Eye Bow that He Lingchuan had been thinking about.

No one told him that this powerful bow was only the size of a palm when not in an activated state, wrapped in gray cloth by Lu Yao and hidden close to his body. Otherwise, if it had appeared in its murderous form, Commandant Zhao probably wouldn't have let it go.

He Lingchuan grabbed the Ghost Eye Bow, and as soon as he injected a little spiritual power, it grew to its actual size. The bow handle felt icy cold, and the surrounding temperature immediately dropped by four or five degrees, as if urging the archer to enter a state of calm.

He Lingchuan felt the cold wind behind him even more, and ghost whispers lingered in his ears, repeatedly urging the archer to sacrifice his life in exchange for the powerful "Triple Arrow" divine ability.

He wouldn't listen to ghost talk.

What if he didn't sacrifice? He Lingchuan pulled the bow to test it. It was still a good bow; that divine ability could be regarded as a special effect, and it wouldn't be triggered without a sacrifice.

After playing with the Ghost Eye Bow for a long time, until the divine bone necklace became hot again, he remembered the business he hadn't done.

The necklace had been waiting impatiently.

So, he picked up the remaining miscellaneous items and brought them close to the divine bone one by one.

The first few items had no reaction until he picked up two black talismans.

After Pei Xinyong smashed his sternum with a hammer, Lu Yao immediately took out a black talisman and chewed it; He Lingchuan had seen this with his own eyes. Clearly, Lu Yao had high hopes for the black talisman, firmly believing it was an effective life-saving skill that could support him in escaping the battlefield.

Unfortunately, things went against his wishes.

These two black talismans, other than being a strange color, didn't look special. He Lingchuan played with them over and over, not feeling any special spiritual power fluctuations; he could only say that the crimson talisman on them was different from any he had seen.

As for how exactly it was different, he didn't have much research in this field.

But when he brought a black talisman close to the divine bone necklace, there was a strange phenomenon.

The black talisman turned into powder on the spot and was sucked into the hole in the divine bone, as if there were a whirlwind inside.

He Lingchuan reached out his hand but didn't feel any wind.

Well, that's good; let's call this hole the "wind eye."

In just a few blinks of an eye, the black talisman was completely absorbed, not even leaving a speck of dust. And the divine bone necklace remained the same, with no changes other than the red light flashing, indicating its desire for the remaining black talisman.

"I won't feed you this one yet." He Lingchuan muttered to himself. "I have to keep a sample."

What exactly was the black talisman, and how could it enter the eye of the divine bone? Lu Yao was a boorish man; He Lingchuan couldn't imagine him hunched over a table with a brush, carefully drawing talismans, so the black talisman was likely something he had obtained from someone else.

Who could have drawn it? He Lingchuan only had one association: the "Holy Master" Hong Xiangqian.

After all, Lu Yao's Ghost Eye Bow was also obtained from Hong Xiangqian, so it wouldn't be strange to have one or two more things.

From the Wang Ting's perspective, Hong Xiangqian was just a rebel leader leading a bunch of rabble. Why did the divine bone want two ugly black talismans instead of the Ghost Eye Bow?

Yes, he had also tried the Ghost Eye Bow, and the divine bone necklace had no interest in it.

It was so picky, and He Lingchuan hadn't grasped its taste.

￥￥￥￥￥

The next day, the support army set off and continued north.

Before leaving, the Wuliu County Magistrate personally saw He Chunhua off and brought a piece of news: the massive search for Lu Yao's remnants and Pei Xinyong's two rebel factions had already begun; the wanted posters with faces drawn by artists overnight had been sent to every county and town yesterday, and people had even been sent to every village and township to specifically announce them.

Especially for those who discovered Pei Xinyong, the informant could receive a hundred taels of silver, and those who captured him alive could receive a thousand taels of silver.

Lu Yao was dead after all, but Pei Xinyong, a general under the great rebel Hong Xiangqian, was still alive and kicking with over a thousand men under his command—how could this not make the local officials lose sleep?

A hundred taels of silver was a hundred thousand wen; at current prices, it was enough for a family of three or four civilians to eat and drink for five or six years, and quite comfortably at that.

So in a few days, every village and town would be discussing it heatedly.

He Lingchuan saw the government's wanted poster at the entrance of the vegetable market, which played up Lu Yao's cruelty and brutality, saying that although this bandit leader had been executed, his subordinates were equally addicted to human flesh, frequently slaughtering villages and occupying towns, grabbing infants and women to use as side dishes for their wine; Pei Xinyong was a mass murderer, equally wicked, and so on.

The reputation of being a cannibal demon was a double-edged sword; it could make enemies flee at the sight when things were going smoothly, but when down and out, it also made people deeply detest them, and both officials and civilians wanted to execute them as quickly as possible.

In this way, these rebels would soon fall into the vast ocean of people's war.

And the Wuliu County Magistrate had also sent this matter by fast courier to the local prefecture and county; if the rebel army escaped the boundaries of Wuliu County, the intensity of the pursuit wouldn't necessarily be any less.

After leaving Wuliu County, He Chunhua ordered the entire army to speed up, and they arrived at Woling Pass five days later.

This was the boundary between the mountain range and the plains. He Lingchuan had been walking in the high mountains and steep ridges for so many days, and suddenly the view opened up, stretching for a thousand li, and he saw the great river surging, the autumn water flowing east, and finally understood why Hong Xiangqian and the Wang Ting had to fight to the death at Woling Pass: once out of Woling Pass, the plains leaning against the mountains and water were truly indefensible.

Woling Pass was actually composed of the pass itself and the auxiliary city behind it, about three zhang (ten meters) high, with city walls three chi thick—very solid. However, after experiencing the magnificence and solemnity of the ancient Panlong City, He Lingchuan looked at Woling Pass and always felt that the two were the difference between a giant and a dwarf.

Entering the pass with the support army, He Yue kept looking around, and seeing the scars and arrow holes on the city walls, as well as the wall stones stained red with blood, he couldn't help but gasp: "How many people must have died here!"

"This is a pit made by a catapult." He Lingchuan pointed to the concave hole on the wall and said to his younger brother, "It didn't hit accurately, otherwise the rolling stones would have fallen onto the city gate."

He pointed to another black-yellow stain that had clearly flowed down from a high place—of course, it had long since solidified: "This probably hit accurately; do you know what it is?"

The little scholar naturally had a thirst for knowledge and watched intently, but he didn't know what that thing was. Seeing Zeng Feixiong holding back laughter, he said unhappily: "You know?"

Zeng Feixiong coughed hard twice: "Second Young Master, that is Jin Tang!"

"What Jin Tang?" He Yue still didn't understand. "The 'Jin Tang' of 'as solid as a golden cauldron'?"

The government soldiers on the side all laughed.

"The characters are correct, but the meaning is wrong. It's a waste of my thinking you were learned." He Lingchuan tightened his face. "You must know that reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles!"

Mao Tao said loudly: "Second Young Master, Jin Tang is boiled excrement juice, human is the best. When the enemy uses siege ladders to attack, the city defenders pour the golden juice down; it's a bit smelly, but it works!"

The expression on He Yue's face immediately froze, and he only felt the faint smell of stench lingering all around.

An attack relies most on morale, but no matter how brave and combative a warrior is, he absolutely cannot endure the humiliation of being showered with excrement! Moreover, wounds scalded and then contaminated by the golden juice would soon become infected and rot, causing minor cases to require flesh to be gouged out and major cases to require amputation or even endanger life, dealing a heavy blow in both spirit and flesh.

He Yue looked around and suddenly pointed to the left: "Is that a battering ram?"

Half of the wall on the left side of the pass had collapsed, creating a large hole. Two strangely shaped vehicles were pressed against the wall base, and the roofs of the vehicles had been damaged by rolling stones and earth.

This vehicle was two zhang long, with thick baffles erected on all four sides, which were iron and wood intermediate layers, but the baffle at the front had already disappeared. Its roof was also very solid, and people hiding inside could probably be immune to various attacks from above, whether it was fire stones, arrow rain, or golden juice.

But this vehicle was not horse-driven; it was pushed entirely by people.

He Yue had read in books that this vehicle had two uses. One was to hang a heavy battering ram to strike the city gate; the other was to add a roof and then push it to the bottom of the enemy's city wall, where the engineers inside would pick up their tools and start digging at the wall base.

As long as the wall base is dug well, no city wall will not fall.

Woling Pass had clearly suffered a great loss in this regard, and was finally breached by the government troops digging through the wall base.

He Lingchuan also looked at these two battering rams and was stunned: "Did the rebel army not use divine powers to reinforce the city pass?"

"They did." It was Wu Shaoyi who replied. Everyone turned their heads and saw his expression was calm. "It's just that later a small team rebelled and directly pulled out the Holy Master's talisman array from the inside, causing the reinforcement divine power to fail, so the government troops could take advantage of the situation."

It turned out the person involved was here, and the people who were commenting didn't know what to say for a moment.

He Yue muttered: "Sure enough, the strongest fortress is always breached from the inside."

He Lingchuan looked at the huge hole in the wall and said: "Now that Woling Pass has been taken back, will the local authorities not repair and patch up the pass?"

It could be seen that since Woling Pass was breached, no one had managed this place.

The importance of Woling Pass had been clearly shown in the war of the past few months. If he were a local official, he would definitely repair the city pass as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the next wave of uprisings came, the capital would be in danger again.

No one picked up on this.

After a long while, He Chunhua said nonchalantly: "The war has been going on for too long; perhaps they can't afford to repair it."

Afterwards, he sent people to investigate the secret chamber in the southeast corner of the auxiliary city, where Hong Xiangqian had "passed away."

Walking from Woling Pass, one could see traces of the ravages of war all the way. This place had been repeatedly contested and had gone through several fires; abandoned war chariots, houses, and post stations had not been cleaned up, and although it was late autumn, green and yellow grass seedlings had already emerged from the broken wooden wheels and the cracks in the wall corners.

Work done, have a happy weekend!

(End of chapter)