Chapter 108: Save Some Flowers!

The army had marched day and night without pause, and at last halted five li beyond the Capital to set camp.

Ji Xiaoxiong asked in puzzlement, “Why stop so close?”

In the past, the Flying Bear Army always encamped ten or even twenty li outside the capital, whether it was for defense or for maneuvering troops. At this distance, we were already beyond the city’s safe perimeter.

Xia Ningshang gave a brittle laugh. She had long since understood what this meant, and she said with a careless tone, “It’s probably because this is His Young Master’s first time commanding an army and he doesn’t yet understand such details.”

Ji Xiaoxiong made a whining noise of discontent and muttered, “This little idiot has a lot to learn.”

Ji Huo rode back to the capital at speed with only Ji Xiaoxiong and Xia Ningshang; he brought no one else.

Though Ji Xiaoxiong was somewhat displeased, he said nothing at all, at least not in front of the soldiers.

After her father and Xia Ningshang rode ahead, Ji Huo said to the bewildered captains in an airy voice, “Put the entire army on battle readiness.”

Lu Deshui, Lv Shui, and the others all froze for a moment. Battle readiness, five li outside the capital? Who would be the target?

Ji Huo had nearly begun to explain vaguely, but the men were already brimming with excitement. They knelt and bowed.

“Junior commander, we receive your orders!”

Ji Huo barely opened his mouth again, only for Lv Shui to speak first, “Commander, please be reassured! Not a single man in the Flying Bear Army will let wind out of this!”

Ji Huo pressed his lips together, opened them slightly again—

Lu Deshui cut in, “Commander, please be reassured! Even the marshal himself will never learn of this!”

Ji Huo closed his mouth. He thought of saying something more, and before he could, another officer barked urgently, “Commander, please be reassured! We have drilled this in secret more than once. There will be no leak at all!”

“……”

Ji Huo silently shut his mouth and, feeling something about wronged and awkward, could only throw out, “Be careful,” before leaving.

……​

“So that is the capital?” Xia Ningshang said, lifting a hand to gather her hair behind her as the huge, imposing city came into view in the distance. A strange, bright gleam crossed her eyes.

“Those wall bricks look weathered on purpose. That was the effect we wanted. In truth, the masonry was renovated not long ago,” Ji Huo said with a smile, remembering their earlier conversation.

“……”

Xia Ningshang fixed her gaze on the city and narrowed her eyes. Even without sorcerer’s arts, she could feel something was wrong with this city.

It felt as if the whole place had fallen into a dead stillness, devoid of the least trace of life.

She quietly turned, and their eyes met. Both of them nodded faintly, each seeing a shard of solemnity in the other.

“Ha, ha, ha! Miss Xia, the capital is far more splendid than this first impression. Once you move in, you’ll see how lively and lively it is.”

Ji Huo’s father chuckled warmly. “Later on, let this fool take you everywhere. I think you’ll come to like it here.”

No, I do not like this place at all—not this city that looks like a ghost town to me. If this fool hadn’t insisted on coming, I would have run as far away as I could…

Xia Ningshang knew that the thing she saw was not what they saw, so she smiled and said, “If given the chance, of course I’ll look it over properly.”

Ji Huo pinched the corners of his mouth and looked toward the capital, his face grave. Even the Sword of the Human Sovereign at his waist gave a faint metallic hum and trembled, as though it too felt a hunger.

At first, Xia Ningshang had worried that dragon qi would prevent her from entering the capital, but seeing its appearance, she let out a private sigh of relief.

At the same time she felt the fragment of the Demon Lance hidden within her body tremble, as if something were calling her onward.

When they stepped into the city, it was as though they passed through an invisible barrier. A wave of rotten stench instantly filled their nostrils, and they both fought back the urge to vomit.

The people in the streets moved like the undead. Many had corpse-like blotches on their skin, yet they still wandered about as if alive, utterly unaware of their own condition.

“Hm. Excellent! This is it! That very smell—the rich aroma of a grand empire,” Ji Xiaoxiong said, inhaling deeply in ecstasy. A trace of violet flickered in his eyes, then vanished at once.

“……”

“……”

Seeing Ji Huo’s brow knot into a hard frown the moment he entered the capital, his eyes continually scanning everyone around them, Xia Ningshang knew he was worried for the people of the city. She slipped her arm through his and, smiling sweetly at her uncle, said, “Uncle, I want this fool to accompany me around. Could you return first?”

Her father bloomed with broad laughter, like wildflowers bright on a mountain slope, and kept repeating, “Of course, of course!”

Then, after groping in his robe for a long moment, he finally pulled out a crumpled silver note—worn thin from who knows how long it had been kept—and stuffed it into Ji Huo’s sleeve.

“Use your head, youngster. If Miss Xia likes anything, just buy it for her.”

He set off toward the residence of the Duke of Guarding the Nation. After a few paces, he turned back, eyes wide with concern.

“Don’t spend it all at once!”

He walked on again, then stopped and turned back once more, suddenly excited as if he’d solved something. “Don’t worry about that! I’ll settle it with Junhong.”

Then he ran off briskly toward the distance.

“……”

“……”

Ji Huo’s corner of the mouth twitched; heat rose to his face. Embarrassed, he said, “My father is only bewitched by a demon. He doesn’t act like this normally.”

Xia Ningshang smiled. “Exactly. Being bewitched makes one’s true heart easier to see.”

They walked through the streets. The teasing mood that had once been there vanished when they saw the dead-limbed dead-eyed bodies swarming the roads.

“They are probably beyond saving,” Xia Ningshang murmured.

Only a little while before, she had watched a five- or six-year-old girl, with blood-filled hollows for eyes, chewing something as if in a trance.

Another woman, her skin mottled blue-black with corpse spots, came running out with a rolling pin and shouted, “You little rabbit brat, you stole my jujubes again!”

Ji Huo nodded, his face set, and said in a low voice, “Once they realize they are dead, they will truly die. Even if we do not wake them, when the Great Demon completes the final step, they will die at once.”

Xia Ningshang tightened her hand on Ji Huo’s arm, her nails almost seeming to sink into his skin.

After thinking for a while, she loosened her grip slightly.

“The capital is the point of outbreak for this Great Demon’s dragon-swallowing calamity. That creature used a formation to lock yin and yang, cloaking its work, and that is what has caused this atrocity.
“In other parts of Great Zhou, whether their vital essence or life force has been drawn out, this kind of life-and-death imbalance would not occur so suddenly, and there should not be such mass death in so short a time.”

Ji Huo nodded, scanning several passersby who seemed relatively normal but whose spirits were strangely dulled. “If one is a cultivator and can endure the theft of vitality, they won’t die at once. If we could wake them, they might even become an aid. The only regret is I do not know how to do that.”

Xia Ningshang nodded too. “I don’t know that method either. And there are far too many people in the capital for us to handle.”

As they walked, Xia Ningshang suddenly felt something and pointed to a large residence a short distance ahead.

“What is that place?”

Ji Huo glanced at it. “The State Preceptor’s residence.”

Xia Ningshang made a soft sound in acknowledgment.

“Since we are already here, we might as well take a look.”

Ji Huo exhaled softly and said, “I and the State Preceptor have crossed a few strands of fate before. I heard from my elder brother that all civil and military officials had been struck, and so had the Preceptor. I never saw him at the very end in life. To look at him once after his death, to speak a few words, that would at least give this ending some form.”

Xia Ningshang nodded, and then the two of them paid their visit to the State Preceptor’s estate.