Translator: DragonRider
The storekeeper and the others were baffled as to why Ling Zhang was interested in the corpse of that envoy. “Are we still burning their food supplies? His Majesty’s army will probably launch another attack on this city soon, and it’ll still be very difficult for them to climb up the ramparts if we don’t destroy the oil.”
The storekeeper and the others seemed even more anxious to see the Wan army come to grief than Ling Zhang did.
“Dashan, take some men and go with the storekeeper to check the place where the enemy are storing their food supplies. I’ll go and take a look at the envoy’s body,” said Ling Zhang.
Wang Dashan answered with an inclination of the head, “Yes, Young Master.”
The keeper of the variety store had some kung fu skills, which was part of the reason why Ling Zhaowu had put him in charge of the store. After all, there were many things that people without kung fu skills couldn’t handle. The storekeeper not only knew some kung fu but also was quick-witted. While running the store, he had trod almost every street and alley and knew the city as well as a beggar knew his bag. Also, he was well acquainted with local squires and wealthy merchants, and even had dealings with the mayor of the city.
Because of these contacts of his, the storekeeper always got information about the latest development of things in the city quicker than others did, and he was also able to figure out a way to quietly approach the military base of the Wan army, but that was the best he could do. After all, Chen Jing’s army was not the garrison of this city, and even the mayor had to go through strict security check before he could gain entry into the base, so naturally there was no way the storekeeper could easily get inside with the help of any of his contacts.
“How do you plan to get in there?” the storekeeper asked Wang Dashan and the others.
The base of the Wan army was well defended, and it was really very difficult to approach the location where their supplies were kept without alarming any of them.
However, Ling Zhang’s bodyguards were different. Though their kung fu and lightness skills were not as good as Ling Zhang’s or Yuwen Tong’s, they were capable of deploying various kinds of Formations. It wouldn’t be a problem for them to fool the guards on duty for some time with their skills. The tricky part was that they would have to work as a seamless team with Ling Zhang lest the enemy be alarmed and lock down the base before Ling Zhang could get access to the envoy’s body.
Wang Dashan and the others reconnoitered the base to get enough information about its security arrangements. After that, some of them stayed to stake out the base, while the others went back to the variety store to wait for Ling Zhang to return.
Finding the place where the envoy’s body was, however, took Ling Zhang quite some time.
As the storekeeper and the others had paid scant attention to this matter and hardly made any inquiries about it, Ling Zhang had to look for the body by himself after sneaking into the military base.
There were frequent deployments of troops in the Wan army. Ling Zhang, after observing with cold eyes for a while, conjectured that it wouldn’t be long before the next round of attacks came. He turned around and went towards the far end of the vast military base. A few moments later, an officer who seemed to be of a fairly high rank fell prey to his Illusive Trap.
Ling Zhang’s proficiency in deploying Formations had been growing by the day ever since he had made a breakthrough in his cultivation of internal energy and reached the sixth layer. Previously he had admired his grandfather for being able to deploy a Formation with a single motion of his hand. Now he himself had mastered that skill as well. Though his prowess was not as amazing as Ji Yin’s, few people in the world matched him.
The officer, after entering the Illusive Trap, soon felt dizzy, lapsed into a stupor and began to answer every question of Ling Zhang’s.
“Where’s the envoy’s body?”
“Beside the arsenal.”
“Where’s the arsenal?”
The officer told him a specific location. With an icy look in his eyes, Ling Zhang tossed him out of the Illusive Trap, undeployed the Formation and then covered his tracks. Given that Chen Jing had been preserving well the body of this relative of his who shared the same surname with him, he must really value their kinship. This action of his happened to make it more convenient for Ling Zhang to carry out his plan.
The officer, after being tossed out of the Illusive Trap, was in bemusement for quite some time before he came to himself. When he found that he was sitting on the ground leaning against a corner of a tent, presumably having just woken from a sleep, the bewilderment on his face further deepened. He vaguely remembered being questioned by someone in his dream, but when he carefully thought back to it, he couldn’t recall any details. Cold sweat breaking out over his back, he hastily pulled himself up and returned to his unit when nobody was watching.
With the information he had extracted from that officer, Ling Zhang found the place where the envoy’s body was kept, along with the arsenal. Also, he discovered that the location where the food supplies were stored was not far away either, and he saw Liu Yi who was staking it out.
Liu Yi was amazed to see Ling Zhang. After Ling Zhang made a gesture at him, he paused briefly, then inclined his head and backed into the shadows.
Though Chen Jing had had the envoy’s body encoffined, after that, he had merely had the coffin placed in a tent and done nothing more about it. There was no soldier guarding the tent, so Ling Zhang easily gained entry into it.
He pushed the coffin lid open and caught sight of the envoy’s body lying inside. He couldn’t help noticing that the corpse was in a quite unnatural, peculiar state, and the envoy’s chest was actually still heaving. At first Ling Zhang believed that the man was still alive, but after observing for a while, he found that the man was indeed dead. The body was icy cold, and nobody could be that cold and alive at the same time. Still, the unusual heave of the man’s chest …
Ling Zhang cut the dead man’s chest open with a dagger he had prepared without any particular purpose and then disgust appeared in his eyes as they alighted on a black worm coming out of the body. It looked like but was smaller and more bizarre than an adult silkworm. In a word, it was very repulsive.
It was a Gu worm. Ling Zhang killed it with a single stroke of the dagger and with that the eerie heave stopped.
Ling Zhang, without pulling out the dagger, directly shut the coffin, his eyes frosty.
It was a Gu worm that had taken the envoy’s life, and it had happened after the envoy had an audience with Yuwen Tong. Ling Zhang was fretful and kept having this feeling that there was some kind of conspiracy involved. He was anxious to see Yuwen Tong to check that he was safe.
Ling Zhang quietly left the tent, a very ugly look on his face.
It was a fact staring him in the face that someone in the Wan army was capable of using Gu.
The death of the envoy, Chen Jing’s unexpected request for peace talks, the avenger that Shan Congyi had mentioned was adept in both medical skills and kung fu … These thoughts crossed Ling Zhang’s mind one after another. Though not having figured anything out yet, he found them loathsome.
“Young Master,” Liu Yi hurriedly asked as he saw Ling Zhang coming, “Where have you been?”
“The envoy’s body is in that tent. He was killed by a Gu worm,” said Ling Zhang.
The look in Liu Yi’s eyes turned grave. A Gu worm?
“Considering the frequent deployments of troops of the Wan army, the next round of attacks will soon start. We must destroy their food supplies and oil and arsenal as soon as possible.”
Liu Yi nodded. “I’ll do it right away.”
Ling Zhang stopped him. “I’ll handle it. What you need to do is toss this thing into their arsenal.”
Ling Zhang handed him a black iron ball. Astonished, Liu Yi asked, “Isn’t this iron ball the same as the one used by Shan Congyi in the wood that day?”
“Yes,” said Ling Zhang. “It comes from a Hu merchant from the Western Regions (Hu refers to any of the non-Han nationalities living in the north and west in ancient times). It’s very difficult to produce. This one and the one used by Shan Congyi are from the same caravan. There used to be five of them. Shan Congyi used one. Chen Jing has two. The other two were purchased by a rich merchant, one of which is now in your hand.”
In the past few years, the scouts planted in the Wan Kingdom by Yuwen Tong had spent quite some time looking into the matter of the weird iron ball used by Shan Congyi before they finally ascertained from whom he had got it. Getting the two iron balls from the rich merchant had taken some doing. Yuwen Tong had also sent some men to look for that Hu merchant. However, it had turned out that that Hu merchant had got the iron balls from further west. What with the blockade of the road leading to that area by a western mini-state, in recent years that Hu merchant had been unable to pay that area another visit to bring back more iron balls. Yuwen Tong had given one of the two iron balls to the Ministry of Works. The staff members, after researching it for some time, had got a general idea of how to produce it, but it wasn’t easy to make an iron ball like that. During the past two years, they had only managed to produce some semi-finished products, the explosion of which was far less powerful than expected. The other one had been given to Ling Zhang.
“Young Master, given that Chen Jing has this kind of things at his disposal, isn’t our soldiers in danger?” said Liu Yi apprehensively.
Ling Zhang shook his head. “Powerful as its explosion is, the casualty it could cause is limited. Chen Jing wouldn’t be able to make much difference with the two iron balls. We don’t have to concern ourselves unless the Wan Kingdom could mass-produce them. The materials needed to make an iron ball like this are very scarce in the Wan Kingdom. On top of that, their artisans’ skills couldn’t hold a candle to those of ours, which is why so far they haven’t made any progress in producing it. Otherwise they would have long since resorted to it, given all those defeats the Wan army has suffered lately.”
After hearing this, Liu Yi gave a gasp of relief and relaxed.
“Now go and get it over with.”
Liu Yi inclined his head and left with the iron ball in his hand.
Ling Zhang waited until Liu Yi reached the arsenal to cover his tracks with a Formation and slip into the place where the food supplies and oil were stored. These things could be easily taken care of with a mere fire.
…
BOOM!
There was a violent explosion in the arsenal of the Wan army and the whole city quaked for a few moments. Chen Jing’s face changed drastically at the boom. “What happened?!”
The army of the Great Wen had mustered and was heading for this city. The timing of this sudden explosion gave Chen Jing a foreboding feeling. He hastened to take some men and ran towards the scene, but before reaching the destination, he caught sight of a tall flame springing into the sky from somewhere as though that place had suddenly been turned into an inferno in an instant. The whole thing happened in such a weird fashion that the look on Chen Jing’s face became even uglier.
“Fire! The food supplies and oil are on fire! Go get water! That tent is on fire as well! Someone put it out!”
“The arsenal was blasted!”
Chen Jing suffered a fleeting blackout and nearly fainted. The next moment he bellowed, “Put out the fire! Shut the front gates! Search the whole base!”
“Dispatch delivery!”
“General! The army of the Great Wen have arrived! They’ll soon attack!”
Consumed with anxiety and fury, Chen Jing clenched his teeth, his eyes red with resentment. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he quickly took some men and went to the ramparts, shouting instructions for the soldiers to put out the fire on his way. Without oil, they were now unable to set the vertical surface of the ramparts aflame, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to defend against the attack from the army of the Great Wen. It would not be long before this city fell.
An old man dressed like a scholar, who was following in Chen Jing’s wake, glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the blazing inferno and then switched his gaze to the ramparts, the expression in his eyes turning even more sinister and glacial as he saw Chen Jing ascend the ramparts in a great hurry with scant regard for him.
Wang Dashan and all the others were taken aback at the explosion and then astonished at the sight of the raging flames accompanied by billows of thick smoke, wondering why Liu Yi had taken action when Ling Zhang hadn’t returned yet.
But soon Ling Zhang and Liu Yi came back together.
“The attack has started. You guys get your stuff ready and then go to the city gates directly. I’ll use a Formation to clear the way for you and hold back the enemy’s reinforcements to buy you as much time as possible. What you need to do is take advantage of the opportunity and open the city gates!” said Ling Zhang quickly the moment he met them.
It took Wang Dashan and the others a brief moment to cotton on to what was happening, and then they immediately got their things ready and followed Ling Zhang to the side of the street.
The city gates, which were right at the end of this main street, were now heavily guarded, and the whole area was seething with Wan soldiers. If they were to get to the gates, they must get these soldiers out of the way. There was not much Ling Zhang could utilize on the scene, so he first had to create conditions for his plan to be carried out. Wang Dashan and the others had prepared some handcarts and other vehicles all of which were loaded with flammable materials, and which could be useful when they charged at the city gates. Once the soldiers outside started battering the gates, they would light the flammable materials and thrust the vehicles towards the enemy soldiers as fast as they could, and Ling Zhang would offer them assistance to make it easier for them to get to the gates.
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