“Brother Yun, why did you arrive so quickly?
You must be exhausted from the journey, right?”
Yun Chunfeng lowered his head with a faint smile. “Wanting to see the young lady as soon as possible, naturally I don’t feel tired.”
Huo Ci, who was following behind them: So you two just don’t consider me a person, do you?
“National Advisor, how is it that the soldiers have been marching day and night, yet they still look so energetic and refreshed?”
Huo Ci finally couldn’t hold back the question.
This mattered greatly to him.
Yun Chunfeng lightly waved his feathered fan and didn’t hide his secret: “I’ve tied talisman stirrups to each man’s legs.
They don’t have to use their own strength—the stirrups carry them, covering up to eight hundred li a day.
Out of consideration for the troops, I didn’t have them go that fast; otherwise, the two armies could have joined forces in just a single day and night.”
After saying that, he turned his head and looked at Jiang Xingyan with a pitiful expression: “Miss won’t blame Brother Yun, will she?
Brother Yun wanted to get here faster than anyone.”
Jiang Xingyan felt a pang of heartache: “How could I?
Did it drain your cultivation again, Brother Yun?”
Yun Chunfeng lowered his gaze, his voice gentle: “For the young lady, Brother Yun does it gladly.”
Huo Ci, standing to the side, clenched his fists.
There was absolutely no need for them to be so lovey-dovey right in front of him!
If he didn’t need Yun Chunfeng’s help, Huo Ci would have loved to punch that deeply affectionate face of his.
“National Advisor, I have an improper request.
These so-called talisman horses—could they be left with the Huo family army?”
Yun Chunfeng gave a light cough and composed himself: “Such things do not belong to the mortal realm. Using them once in a while is harmless.
But if used too often, one might invite heavenly retribution.
I would advise the general to abandon that idea.”
Though disappointed, Huo Ci had expected as much.
“However, I do have some good news for the young lady.
Tieshi, the commandant of the Military Ordnance Camp, through sheer perseverance—’where sincerity reaches, metal and stone give way’—earned the favor of my sixth senior brother, Daoist Wumian, and learned quite a bit.”
Huo Ci was still slow on the uptake.
Jiang Xingyan, however, had already smiled knowingly: “How much silver did it cost?”
Yun Chunfeng also smiled: “A full ten million taels.”
“Then I must hurry and see—just what could be worth that much.”
Huo Ci watched the two of them—were it not for him physically standing between them, they would have already been arm in arm—and ground his molars so hard they squeaked.
Enough, seriously!
Still, he trudged along behind them, dejected.
After all, this concerned the Huo family army—he couldn’t afford to fall behind.
They arrived at the Military Ordnance Camp and heard Tieshi’s wild laughter from a distance.
“I did it! Hahaha!”
“No way, this guy’s about to lose his mind!”
Jiang Xingyan and Huo Ci rushed into the tent and saw Tieshi holding a palm-sized wooden device in his hands.
It was a four-wheeled cart with a spoon-shaped wooden arm mounted on top, held back by ropes.
Tieshi snapped out of his excitement and saw “Huo Ci” and Deputy General Jiang staring at him in utter bewilderment.
“General! I did it!
Deputy General Jiang! I did it!
Look!”
Tieshi picked up a small pebble, placed it in the spoon, and suddenly pulled the rope tied to it.
Twang!
The pebble shot out at incredible speed and punched a hole straight through the tent.
Before Jiang Xingyan and the other two could recover from their shock, they heard an “Ouch!” from the adjacent tent.
“Commandant Tie, that’s enough, alright? That’s like the hundredth one today!
If your tent has a draft, fine, but don’t drag us into it!”
“Shh, keep your voice down. Commandant Tie’s been driven half-mad by the black powder lately.
Just let him play with his little slingshot to unwind before he completely loses it.”
“What slingshot? That thing shot so far—look how many layers it pierced!”
“Huh? Something’s not right!”
With a shout from the soldiers, a whole crowd burst into Tieshi’s tent.
There stood General Huo, Deputy General Jiang, and the National Advisor, with Tieshi holding that curious new contraption.
“It’s this?!”
Tieshi nodded firmly: “Yes!”
The soldiers’ eyes gleamed with anticipation: “When do we go to work?”
“Right now!”
“Roar!”
A pack of fired-up young lads swarmed around Tieshi and charged out, nearly knocking Jiang Xingyan over.
“Hey! How soon can it be ready?”
The crowd shouted in unison: “Tomorrow!”
——–
The city of Qiyan was built against the mountains, making it extremely difficult to capture.
Even the defending general, Buren, was brimming with arrogance:
“Those foolish Western Zhou pigs want to get past my Buren? Ha! That’s like a dove wanting to eat eagle meat—there’s no way in, whether through the front door or the window!”
His officers burst into laughter and raised their cups:
“General Buren is the bravest war god on the grasslands! Those Western Zhou pigs are only fit to wait for death!”
Buren took a hefty swig:
“Hmph, I don’t know what the king was thinking, sending two idiots like Baha and Ursu on such an important mission.
Look—the enemy is already at our gates, and those two took so much black powder—did they feed it to the dogs or something?”
“Exactly! If they’d sent our General Buren instead, we’d probably have already marched to the Western Zhou capital by now!”
“And tied that Huo Ci up hand and foot, delivered him to the king’s bedchamber.”
The soldiers snickered lewdly.
“Look at that pretty-boy face of his—how could he possibly be fit to lead troops?
It’s just hearsay and empty boasting.”
“Maybe he looks like a woman, so the Western Zhou king took a fancy to him.”
The more they talked, the more absurd it got, dragging Huo Ci through the mud.
Buren’s eyes darkened. He wiped the drops of wine from his beard and proclaimed boldly:
“Tomorrow we’ll take the initiative and attack. We’ll capture Huo Ci alive and make him beg for mercy under my horse!”
“The general is mighty!”
BOOM!
Before the word “mighty” had even fully left their mouths, a deafening explosion shook the entire city, rattling the very ground.
“Enemy attack!”
“General Buren! The Western Zhou have black powder too!”
Buren stood up abruptly, only to be met by another earth-shattering blast.
The surrounding camps and fortifications swayed and crumbled.
“Impossible!
Even if Baha and Ursu are incompetent, they wouldn’t commit treason!”
Buren braced himself and slammed the table:
“Bring my armor!”
His guards scrambled to fetch his iron-clad armor.
BOOM! BOOM!
Before he could even put it on, two more black-powder projectiles came flying in, collapsing the banquet hall where Buren had been carousing.
What had been a splendid, golden hall was now a heap of rubble.
Under the desperate protection of his two deputies, Buren crawled and scrambled his way out in utter disgrace.
“What in the world is going on!”
Buren hopped around in the courtyard, impotent with rage.
A scout covered in blood staggered over, his eyes wild with panic:
“General, it’s bad! The Western Zhou have some kind of giant war machine.
From far away, they can hurl black-powder bombs at us—we can’t even get close.
More than half the city’s buildings have already been destroyed!”
“Where did they get black powder?!
Didn’t the National Advisor say only he could invent it!”
“I—I don’t know, sir!”
Buren felt a suffocating rage lodged in his chest, stuck halfway, impossible to swallow. He stomped his feet several times but still couldn’t shake it off.
“General, we can’t delay any longer.
The Western Zhou have an old saying: ‘As long as the green mountains remain, there will be no shortage of firewood.’ Let’s abandon the city and retreat to the capital!”
No matter how unwilling Buren was, he had no choice but to swallow his pride. He turned, grabbed his horse, and galloped out through the back gate.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosions continued relentlessly behind them. Covered in dust and grime, the group fled onto a narrow winding path.
Buren didn’t dare look back. He spurred his war horse desperately, wanting to go faster—faster—to reach the Northern Luo capital as soon as possible.
“General Buren, why such a hurry?”
“Whoa!”
Buren reined in his horse abruptly.
Around the corner, a formation of troops emerged—and at their head was none other than “Young Zhou Lang” — «Huo Ci»!
