Chapter 41: Finding a Breakthrough

Misfortune and fortune are interdependent. If not for the generous terms offered by the Grand Coordinator, He Chunhua would not have wished for the Panlong Desert to disappear.

He fell silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Chuan'er, do you think Garrison Commander Zhong's thirty-two years of holding his ground were truly worth it?"

He Lingchuan thought to himself that since he had asked, he must already feel it wasn't worth it.

"Not worth it," he said, pretending to be blunt. "Panlong City fell anyway, and the Xiluo Kingdom perished all the same. He spent thirty-two more years, yet he changed nothing."

"For the first twelve years, the Xiluo Kingdom was powerless to march west and reclaim its lost territory; they didn't even know that a million soldiers and civilians were holding out in the Panlong Wasteland. For the last twenty years, the Xiluo Kingdom tried several times to cede the Panlong Wasteland to the Xianyou Kingdom in exchange for a moment of peace. If I were Zhong Shengguang, I would be furious to death if I encountered a motherland that was so useless and constantly held me back!"

"The Xiluo Kingdom was once illustrious, with a national destiny of two hundred and seventeen years; looking across the world, it was a rare, long-lived nation." This continent rarely knew peace; the shortest-lived regimes lasted only a few dozen days, and most small nations completed the entire cycle of rise and fall within twenty or thirty years, so the Xiluo Kingdom had already endured quite well. "But when Zhong Shengguang guarded Panlong City, the Xiluo Kingdom was plagued by internal strife and external threats, the powerful and wealthy were singing and dancing, the starving were displaced, and foreign enemies attacked incessantly. The death knell of the end had already sounded." He Chunhua said this and then fell silent, sighing as he stroked Zhong Shengguang's tombstone.

Father is thinking of himself, He Lingchuan thought, but he did not point it out. The current Dayuan Kingdom is indeed a bit too similar to the Xiluo of yesteryear.

At this moment, the clouds parted to reveal the moon, illuminating the desolate and sorrowful city.

"Grand Commander Zhong, it must be very lonely guarding this place all by yourself, right? Let me keep you company for two more cups." He Lingchuan could not help but offer two more cups of wine to Zhong Shengguang. "It's a pity I couldn't pay my respects to General Hong, nor could I behold the heroic bearing of that elder!"

Both Zhong Shengguang and General Hong were legends. As for He Lingchuan himself, he was even more curious about the mysterious General Hong.

He asked He Chunhua, "There is a shrine to General Hong in the city, yet his tomb is nowhere to be found, not even a cenotaph. Is it possible... that he didn't actually die in the final battle?"

"General Hong was struck by seven consecutive bolts of heavenly lightning summoned by the Xianyou State Preceptor at the cost of his own life, and he was reduced to ashes on the spot. Soldiers from both sides witnessed it with their own eyes, so there should be no mistake; otherwise, the morale of Panlong City would not have collapsed so suddenly." He Chunhua shook his head. "You are still young and do not know that human strength has its limits."

Just as He Lingchuan was about to speak, two whistling sounds suddenly came from the northeast.

Two fireworks shot into the sky and burst into bloom.

That was the pre-arranged signal. He Chunhua took one look and said, "They found it. Let's go!"

￥￥￥￥￥

Within two quarter-hours, everyone gathered at the Mitian Temple.

It was located in the heart of the entire Panlong City, covering ten acres with layers of courtyards and numerous pavilions and halls.

One would imagine that in its heyday, this place must have been a bustling scene with ancient trees providing shade and visitors weaving through like a loom. However, it had now become a large, desolate ruin, a hundred years after the looting and burning. The clear springs and lotus ponds had long since dried up, and the once-lush ancient trees had turned into withered wood, never to sprout new green again.

At least half of the exquisite architecture had been destroyed, especially the magnificent main hall dedicated to Mitian, which was completely ruined—first pushed over and then set ablaze. As the group approached the site, they saw only a few charred wooden pillars lying helter-skelter.

He reached out to break one, and it crumbled.

The Mitian statue was a stone carving; even the length of a forearm was as tall as He Lingchuan. Unfortunately, the group could not see its original appearance because the entire stone statue had been cut into seven or eight pieces after being pushed over, each piece hacked with blades and axes, and then smeared with ink.

The Allied Forces hated Panlong City and the Dafeng Army, hating even their faith to the bone.

After everyone arrived, Nian Songyu held the glazed jar and said solemnly, "This is the place!"

He walked around the pool directly in front of the main hall, and the three-corpse insects in the glazed jar changed direction accordingly. No matter which direction he walked, they always pointed toward the side wall away from the pool! "The pool?" Situ Han asked in surprise. "Are you sure it's this pool? If we make a mistake, we won't be able to get any more fresh water."

The Chipa Plateau had plenty of water, and the water features within the Mitian Temple were exquisitely crafted, with springs, small streams, and as many as six pools.

The pool Nian Songyu had his eye on was just outside the main hall; its shape was irregular, much like a wishing pool where people would toss coins. It covered an area of about twenty-six or twenty-seven square meters.

Of course, it was empty now, containing neither koi nor coins.

Sun Fuping walked around the pool and pressed his hand against the edge in a few places. "The masonry on the edge of the pool has color differences in several spots; it looks like it was patched later."

Everyone took a look, and it was true. There were several patches on the edge of the pool, the workmanship rough and uneven, far inferior to the original craftsmanship of the pool. It was evident that the later repairs were just repairs, and quite perfunctory at that.

"There is a significant gap in time between the old and the new. And since it was patched so crudely, it doesn't look like the handiwork of the Panlong City people who worshipped Mitian, nor does it look like the work of the Xianba Allied Forces." He Chunhua pondered, "Could this have been done by the last team sent out by the Baling Kingdom?"

The prized grand-disciple sent out by Patriarch Zhu Gen surely didn't travel thousands of miles just to be a mason, right?

If they were indeed the ones who patched this pool, then they must have had a specific purpose.

What He Lingchuan cared more about was why this pool had been dug up in the first place.

Sun Fuping said sternly, "More importantly, why was the pool dug up, and by whom?"

Ceng Feixiong pointed to the large and small stones scattered on the ground and said, "Maybe it was accidentally smashed by falling rocks when the main hall was destroyed."

The temple was ransacked, and such magnificent buildings and statues collapsed with a rumble, even leaving large craters in the ground; what was so strange about a small pool being smashed through? "Perhaps this is the effect the mastermind wanted to fabricate?" He Chunhua mused. "When Panlong City fell, the Allied soldiers must have entered the city to loot extensively, and the officers would have been unable to stop them. Whatever these soldiers destroyed was perfectly normal. If this pool looked like it was destroyed during the looting, the Allied Forces wouldn't investigate further, which would conceal the secret it hid."

"In a time of panic when Panlong was about to fall, who could have arranged this so calmly?"

The answer was obvious. Nian Songyu murmured, "Zhong Shengguang, or his trusted aides. He had to open the pool and drain the water before the city fell."

If their guess was correct, the deeper meaning behind this action was worth exploring.

Decades later, the exploration team from the Baling Kingdom probably had a similar judgment and patched the pool back up.

Situ Han came up to take a look, his face showing difficulty. "Do you all mean to put water into this pool? But even if we pour in all the spare fresh water from our two hundred people, I'm afraid it won't even cover the bottom of the pool."

(End of chapter)