Chapter 18: Chapter Seventeen: Leaving Shaqiu

After pulling Song Changqing out of the pit, the Shu cavalry and the Green Pine Daoist acolytes prepared to leave.

But just as they were about to move, the Green Pine Daoist acolyte suddenly halted and turned to Guan Huchen: “This humble disciple believes the general would slaughter every male in Shaqiu before departing.”

Guan Huchen paused for a moment, then shouted: “If the Daoist has ordered it, this subordinate will surely complete the task.”

Saying this, he turned his horse around without even glancing at his adopted daughter seated behind him.

“No, that was not my order!” the Green Pine Daoist acolyte waved his hands rapidly. “What I mean is, given the general’s nature, you would never let the remaining Sha Man go unharmed.”

Because of this assumption, there was no need for me to give you extra instructions.

But now that you’ve surprised me, those matters must be clearly explained.”

"This subordinate is not a murderous man..." Guan Huchen half-heartedly defended himself, then decided it was pointless.

It is said that when the First Emperor was still “King of Qin,” China had many vassal states, and many lords valued “benevolence” and “ritual.”

If one gained a reputation for “cruelty and slaughter,” one’s prestige and future in the Central Kingdom would be utterly ruined.

Even the “tyrant” himself did not wish to be called a “tyrant who harms the people.”

But in today’s glorious Qin Empire, the rules and customs have changed—cruel slaughter is no longer a stain.

Even if labeled “cruel and bloodthirsty,” his planned “great future for Qin” would remain untouched.

Perhaps, once word spread, he would earn the admiration of Qin generals who “today slaughter three hundred thousand, tomorrow bury forty thousand alive,” and rise swiftly to join their ranks—the “famous generals” who “today slaughter three hundred thousand, tomorrow bury forty thousand alive.”

Huchen did not proceed to cleanse the Sha Man partly because the dragon qi backlash left him distracted, and partly because he saw no need.

Yesterday’s surprise attack on Shaqiu had already allowed his iron cavalry to “sack the town”; all able-bodied men had been slaughtered.

“General, what task do you wish me to carry out?”

The Green Pine Daoist acolyte said: “Smash every iron-smelting kiln.”

Huchen immediately assigned two squads of ten men each to complete the task.

“Besides the iron-smelting caves, should we also destroy the spirit shrines, salt wells, and irrigation ditches?” he asked.

The Green Pine Daoist acolyte shook his head: “Your daughter is a natural talent who has never studied a single Daoist technique, yet the iron furnace she designed already bears traces of the Xun-Li transformation of the Dao Palace’s Eight Trigram Furnace.”

Even if all the former blacksmiths died outside Tianmen Town, the barbarians might eventually stumble upon how to restart the furnace.

Picking up iron sand from the beach is simple, but smelting it into molten iron and refining pure iron... hehe, even in the Central Kingdom, not just any blacksmith could manage it.

Therefore, unless you completely scatter the Sha Man tribe, you must destroy the iron furnace.

Achieving this is sufficient.

The spirit shrine venerates the Three Pure Ones—I dare not touch it.”

He paused, then added: “The dragon vein is the earth vein. When we just severed it, you all felt the ground shake violently.”

The earth vein has undergone a radical transformation; the brine wells have been buried under earth and stone, and the underground water veins will slowly dry up.

The Sha Man’s irrigation ditches can no longer hold clean water—only weak, brackish water remains, rendering the fields barren.

Hehe, this is the effect of severing the dragon vein.

After speaking, he turned and smiled at Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu smiled back, but her smile was stiff.

“Daoist, Envoy, save me, save me~~~”

Without warning, a gray-black mist rose from the ground.

Inside, it sounded as if a thousand venomous snakes were hissing, a strange, chilling sound that raised the hair on one’s scalp.

More horrifying wails emerged from the mist.

“Great Daoist Lord, please, please, save this humble spirit... save your servant! I have served Qin with merit, guarded the western Sha Man lands for centuries under the Emperor’s mandate, and even delivered all information about Xiao Yu’s whereabouts to you—how can you abandon me to die—ahhh, no, I am a spirit appointed by the Qin Emperor, you barbarian dragon qi, get away, get away—save me, it’s so painful, I suffer so much~~”

Xiao Yu froze in shock—what was this thing?

And the things he said... the information was overwhelming.

Had she been under surveillance by this spirit all along?

“General Guan, the Shaqiu matter is concluded. This humble disciple departs first. We shall speak again at Hengsha Pass.”

The Green Pine Daoist acolyte glanced once at the black mist, then turned away expressionlessly, greeted Guan Huchen, and without waiting for a reply, sank into the earth—a flash of yellow light, and he vanished.

“Daoist, this—”

Huchen reached out to stop him, wanting to say: the dead envoy from Eastern Shu has already found this place—won’t you deal with him? Must I?

That thought vanished the next instant.

For as soon as he saw the Green Pine Daoist acolyte vanish underground, the wailing gray-black mist did not hesitate—it immediately chased the yellow light beneath the earth and disappeared.

Ordinary people could not see earth-traveling techniques, but Zou Qing, as the land god of this region, moved faster than the Green Pine Daoist acolyte within his own domain, the “Xin Mo Hao” western Sha Man lands.

Before Xiao Yu could ask a question, hundreds of meters away, the mournful wailing echoed again: “Daoist Lord, do not abandon your servant! My spirit is being corroded by earth qi—I’m about to dissipate! Save me, save me, save me~~~”

“Go far away. You brought this upon yourself. It has nothing to do with me.”

The Green Pine Daoist acolyte’s voice carried clear anger and impatience.

“No, you caused this! You must answer for it! Don’t run! Come back—you can’t escape!”

“Boom!” A purple-red thunderbolt split the sky.

“Ahhhh!” The wailing grew even more agonized and filled with hatred: “Qing Song, I curse you! When heavenly retribution comes, you will perish utterly—your suffering must be ten thousand times greater than mine today!

I also curse Qin! You are treacherous and ruthless, severing dragon veins of all foreign tribes, suppressing all non-imperial vassals—someday, retribution will fall upon every Qin person. Emperor Zheng, I wish to perish with you—”

“Boom!”

A thunderbolt as thick as a water barrel, pale blue-white, nearly split the sky in two—the venomous curse ended abruptly.

“Leave immediately! Get out of here now!”

Guan Huchen’s face darkened slightly; he lowered his voice and ordered the riders, then spurred his horse forward at full speed.

The Crimson Smoke Steed moved with blazing speed, like a rolling fireball across the sands.

It did not head toward the place where the lightning struck.

Though they should have headed south, it galloped westward, moving farther and farther from the lightning strike.

The other riders made no cries of “General, you’re going the wrong way!”—they too remained silent, driving their horses to exhaustion, following close behind.

After riding for about half an hour, Xiao Yu, seated behind Huchen, could no longer see even a shadow of the black-armored cavalry.

“Father, the iron cavalry has fallen behind,” she whispered.

“They won’t get lost,” Huchen replied calmly, his tone brimming with confidence.

Still, he slightly tugged the reins, slowing the Crimson Smoke Steed.

“What was that just now?” Xiao Yu asked curiously.

“Don’t ask. Forget everything you heard and saw.” Guan Huchen spoke sternly.

“Father, I don’t know martial arts, and I’m a bit hard of hearing—I heard nothing, only saw a gray mist. What was it?” Xiao Yu said.

Huchen turned his head to look back, but could not see Xiao Yu.

Though riding with him, she had hidden herself inside his fireproof cloak.

“Land God Xin Mo Hao, Zou Qing.”

“Land God...” Xiao Yu’s face changed slightly. “Could it be the Land God of Shaqiu? Even Shaqiu, this barbaric wasteland, has a spirit willing to come?”

If even Shaqiu had a Land God, how flourishing and strictly structured must the spirit path of this world be?!

She began to regret her recklessness.

Her iron furnace, her search for salt wells, all her “crazy ideas” had been recorded by the Land God all along.

Cold sweat broke out on her back.

After regret, Xiao Yu felt immense relief: though she had been reckless, she had always remained wary of divine observation.

Thanks to the reminder of “Liusha River,” that famous pilgrimage site from Journey to the West, she had realized this was a primordial world with Buddha, the Three Pure Ones, and celestial gods.

Though she had “crazy ideas,” she was merely quick-witted and precocious—she had never uttered sensitive terms like “television” or “Journey to the West.”

Even her iron smelting and salt boiling were developed gradually, not achieved overnight—her knowledge seemed to have matured like that of a time-traveler with an encyclopedia in his mind.

The shrines to the Three Pure Ones, Buddha, and the Jade Emperor were built only after she heard barbarian tales of the “outside world.”

If she had truly been reckless, creating papermaking or “inventing” Sha Man script would have been easy—but she couldn’t even write or read... this disguise was simple, since Shaqiu had no books or writing at all.

Had it not been for the reminder of Liusha River, Xiao Yu would have believed she had received the script “Time-travel to Primitive Society as a Chief”—she would have been even more reckless, utterly unchecked, until she recklessly killed herself.

Judging from the attitudes of the Green Pine Daoist acolyte and Guan Huchen toward her, she might indeed be “born with an omen,” but her identity as a time-traveler had not been exposed.

It wasn’t really her fault to be “crazy.”

Had she been born in Qin, she would have been a standard Qin female paragon, never acting out in the slightest.

Everything she had done in Shaqiu was for survival.

Without finding salt wells and boiling salt, she would become a white-haired girl.

Before she finally dug out the salt well from a crack in a stone cave after scouring a hundred li, over half the Sha Man were “white-haired girls,” severely deficient in salt.

She smelted iron because Shaqiu was too primitive—wolves and tigers were minor threats.

Those “half-step spirits” that absorbed the essence of sun and moon could not be pierced even by pure iron.

Without smelting iron to forge weapons, how could she protect herself?

She could not spend her whole life hiding in Shaqiu, nor could she travel alone.

Forging weapons to strengthen the tribe’s military, boiling salt and farming to increase population (mainly absorbing nearby Sha Man), expanding the “Saqiu Kingdom’s” power and influence outward until it touched the “Central Civilization Circle”—this was the safest path.

Xiao Yu had largely succeeded.

When Shaqiu grew from a village of three hundred to a great tribe of tens of thousands, with five thousand armored warriors and the hard power to absorb nearby Sha Man and form a “barbarian kingdom,” the envoy from Lu State came to her voluntarily.

Had the Central Kingdom of this world been even slightly normal—not overly militaristic or arrogant, like Tang Dynasty in Journey to the West, content to guard its own patch of land (ps)—she would now be traveling to Lu State as the “Princess of the Sha Man,” seeking immortals and the Dao.

(ps: In truth, the Central Kingdom in Journey to the West was not “content” at all—it was equally hyper-militaristic.

The original text clearly states: in the “Wuji Kingdom,” the crown prince said: “Think of how Li Shimin seized the throne and unified the land, yet still wasn’t satisfied—he launched expeditions beyond the seas. If he learns our king harmed his imperial brother, the holy monk, he will surely raise an army and come to fight us. But our forces are few and our generals weak—by then, it will be too late.”)

What does the Prince of the Crow Country revealing these words imply?

There must have been similar incidents before—a cautionary tale: some western nation offended the Central Kingdom, and though distant, it was utterly destroyed by a massive army.

Otherwise, this would be blatant lies, utterly meaningless, and the Crow Country would have no reason to fear.

In fact, after the Prince of the Crow Country spoke these words in court, not a single person—not even the fake king or the entire court—laughed at the prince for being foolish.

Even the demon immortal posing as the fake king was immediately frightened.

Where is the Crow Country?

Tang Sanzang’s western journey route is as follows: ... Liusha River, Wanshou Mountain’s Wuzhuang Temple, Baihu Ridge, Wanzi Mountain’s Boyue Cave (three hundred li west lies Baoxiang Kingdom), Pingding Mountain’s Lotus Cave (a dozen li away, Yalong Mountain’s Yalong Cave), Crow Country (Baolin Temple) ...

The Tang army may not yet have entered the western kingdoms (given the pitiful portrayal of Emperor Taizong in the Journey to the West, he likely never would—alas, we cannot compare it to real history; this is an alternate reality. Had the real Emperor Taizong’s character and resolve been placed in the Journey to the West world, he would never have been manipulated so easily by Buddhism), yet before Emperor Taizong, the Central Kingdom must have dominated both banks of the Liusha River.

Not merely political influence, but military conquest and punishment as well.

In this book, the ones who carried out such acts were Great Qin and the future Great Han.

In the real world, with the productive capacity of over two thousand years ago, Great Qin pushed its military industry and army development to the absolute limit.

In the Journey to the West’s primordial world, Great Qin could also push its military power to the absolute limit allowed by the current world’s productive capacity—the primordial world’s highest productivity was not technology, but Dao arts!