[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dragon-lies-hidden":3,"chapter-the-dragon-lies-hidden-the-dragon-lies-hidden-chapter-70":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dragon Lies Hidden",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2289368,4477,"Chapter 70: Feng Shui Blessing","the-dragon-lies-hidden-chapter-70",70,"\u003Cp>Before Xiang Weiyuan arrived, Fang He Tong had relied on the city wall to hold firm, using powerful bows and crossbows to fire ambush arrows, forcing the Liao to dismount and fight at close range. Without their horses, the Liao’s combat effectiveness halved at once; combined with the boost from the Merit Scroll at critical moments, the civilian fighters could briefly match the strength of regular border troops, and with everyone fighting to the death and throwing bodies into the fray, they repeatedly drove back the Liao who breached the village.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tonight, Xiang Weiyuan’s unexpected ambush killed seven or eight reconnaissance riders outright, and accidentally killed their captain, resulting in the complete annihilation of the enemy force.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was Xiang Weiyuan’s first true battle against a foreign tribe; the mountain giants he faced during his junior exam were merely incomplete versions, and with senior sect members standing guard nearby, there was never any real danger—certainly none of the pressure he felt now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though the Tai Chu Palace had established tight defensive lines across two commanderies, the Liao were no puppets on strings who would obediently follow orders. They moved like the wind, attacking wherever they pleased. The Tai Chu Palace’s defense system could only prevent enemies of the Law Body realm from storming in and slaughtering freely; Dao Foundation cultivators could appear at any moment, and it was entirely possible to encounter a formidable late-stage Dao Foundation foe. If such a case arose, one could only hold firm and await reinforcements, sending out distress signals for mobile sect cultivators to rush to the rescue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet not all outposts were as isolated as Xiang Weiyuan’s; some frontline outposts appeared weak but were in fact extremely powerful—even a late-stage Dao Foundation Liao barbarian who stumbled upon them would be swallowed whole. Hundreds of outposts, real and deceptive alike, kept the Liao barbarians from daring to probe recklessly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for a large army launching a deep-strike ambush… with a True Immortal monitoring heaven and earth, such an ambush would be a joke.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fang He Tong caught his breath, pulled out a vial of elixirs, hesitated for a long while, then finally swallowed one pill, his face twisted in pain. He called over several strong, sharp-eyed men and ordered them to drag the Liao reconnaissance corpses back in. Once their riders were dead, Liao warhorses would return home on their own, so only two horse carcasses remained outside the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The civilian fighters shuttled back and forth carrying corpses, while Fang He Tong and Xiang Weiyuan kept watch on the wall. Carrying corpses was extremely dangerous—if more Liao scouts emerged, whether to shoot the defenders on the wall or to kill the men outside in rage depended entirely on the enemy’s mood. Yet all the men Fang He Tong selected willingly left the village without a single complaint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It took eight men to carry each warhorse back, and four men to carry each Liao corpse. Only after much effort did the dozen or so men manage to drag all the bodies into the village.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, the night beyond faded, receding silently, and Xiang Weiyuan could now see fifty li away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fang He Tong sensed it too and said, “It seems the Liao won’t return tonight. I’ll hold this post—why don’t you rest for a while, younger brother?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan remembered something: “Good, I need to set up a formation. I’ll leave it to you, Master Fang.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ever since arriving at Shayang Village, he’d been swamped with tasks and nearly forgotten he still needed to set up a feng shui formation for blessing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan descended from the wall, walked around the village to inspect every corner, then returned to the ancestral hall. Following what he’d learned from the Treatise on Heaven and Earth, he confirmed this spot was the feng shui node surrounding Shayang Village.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All Tai Chu Palace Dao Foundation disciples followed standard protocols when deployed, and altering battlefield feng shui to bless and ward off disaster was one such protocol.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan pulled open the altar table in the ancestral hall, rummaged through his pre-battle supply pack, and took out a small box. From it he retrieved several talismans and five-element spiritual objects; beneath the box lay several formation plates that, when assembled, formed a miniature feng shui formation. He arranged the plates, placed the five-element objects in their proper directions, pasted the talismans around the room, then channeled Dao energy to activate it—the miniature feng shui formation was complete.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan activated his Qi-Viewing Technique and saw a thin, clear light shoot upward from the formation plates, sending out invisible ripples that spread outward. Some gray-black vapors invisible to the naked eye retreated slowly under the light’s touch. Xiang Weiyuan nodded—he knew the formation had succeeded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Xiang Weiyuan’s cultivation were higher, and he used his Heavenly Eye to look down from above, he would see hundreds of clear lights rising across Gan Ning and Bian Ning commanderies, like scattered stars merging into one, their radiance illuminating the surrounding land and forcing the yellow, brown, gray, and black miasmas that once clung here to retreat dozens of li away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All formation plates, talismans, and spiritual objects originated from the Tianji Hall; the very idea of battlefield feng shui formations was first proposed by the Tianji Hall. While feng shui formations certainly had effects on the battlefield, their actual impact was uncertain. Originally, this was not a mandatory step for Tai Chu Palace disciples entering battle, but over time, disciples discovered that if everyone around them set up feng shui formations and they did not, a feng shui depression would form in their area, often leading to misfortune.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Taking Xiang Weiyuan’s current battlefield as an example: if he hadn’t set up the feng shui formation, he might have encountered a stronger foe—perhaps not just a captain with a perfected Body Casting, but a Dao Foundation company commander, or even a powerful one among them. Though if everyone set up the formation, it would be as if none had, yet as long as someone nearby had set one, Xiang Weiyuan had no choice but to set one too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This conclusion, drawn by the Tianji Hall’s True Persons after studying countless battlefield cases, led them to make setting up feng shui formations a mandatory battlefield protocol, requiring every disciple to comply.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon after this protocol was enforced, other sects noticed their disciples’ casualty rates rose sharply when fighting alongside the Tai Chu Palace. The sect masters and elders were no fools; after brief study, they uncovered the mystery of the Tai Chu Palace’s feng shui formations and immediately ordered their own disciples to set them up before entering battle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Due to the widespread adoption of feng shui formations, the talismans, formation plates, and spiritual objects produced by the Tai Chu Palace’s Tianji Hall became impossible to supply in sufficient quantity, and prices soared. The Tianji Hall grew immensely wealthy, its profit-making prowess rivaling that of the Zao Hua Temple, whose orders were already booked three centuries ahead, and it decisively overshadowed the Tiangong Hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regardless, after setting up the feng shui formation, Xiang Weiyuan felt inexplicably more at ease. It seemed his encounter with the Liao reconnaissance squad tonight was partly due to forgetting to set up the formation—previously, when the Liao came, there were at most seven or eight riders; this time, twenty came at once, and one of them was even a captain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, some powerful prodigies deliberately avoided setting up feng shui formations to lure fierce enemies and hone themselves. There had once been many such people, until a number of them died in battle—after that, fewer dared to do so.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan leapt onto the wall and gazed northward; after the feng shui formation was set, the night had receded another ten li—he could now see sixty li away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, torches were lit in the village; many men were roused from sleep and, under the flickering light, began processing the Liao corpses. Their armor and clothing were stripped off, bows, arrows, and weapons sorted and stored, and every personal item retrieved—within moments, the nineteen Liao rider corpses were reduced to nothing but undergarments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two warhorses were butchered, their meat cut away, while their tack and equipment were set aside. These two horses could feed three hundred men for ten days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiang Weiyuan picked up a saddle at random and found it unusually heavy. The saddle’s frame was made of bone, edged with iron, padded with thick animal hide, and each side bore a horse belly armor—also hide-based, studded with iron plates. This full-armored saddle weighed three or four hundred jin, too heavy for human warhorses to carry, but Liao horses could bear it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This saddle was useless to humans, worth little more than its materials, so it could only be dismantled and sold. Xiang Weiyuan then picked up the quiver, removed the arrows inside, and examined them carefully.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1497,"2026-06-20T03:38:27.933Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","01a2ca7906e7fc447a28e972ac548dd060a1b606a0ba1fdd8f148629814d79db","the-dragon-lies-hidden-chapter-71","the-dragon-lies-hidden-chapter-69",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dragon-lies-hidden-cover.jpg"]