Tiger and Linli
The frozen soil along the Wei River was gnawed open by pickaxes and sweat. A trench three zhang deep, like a hideous scar, meandered across the scorched earth of Longshou Plain. The turbid Wei River water was forcefully drawn into the trench by a large bamboo water hose, washing away the malevolent black ice that had seeped into the earth's veins the previous night. A thin film of oil, with an eerie metallic sheen, floated on the surface, emitting a pungent, sweet stench of rust and rotting flesh, making the men digging the trench gag.
"Water can't wash it away!" An old craftsman, his face covered in mud, leaned on his shovel, staring at the churning black water at the bottom of the ditch, his voice hoarse with despair, "This poison... it's like it's taken root!"
Xiao Yuxuan stood on the edge of the ditch, the cold wind whipping up his old cloak stained with mud. He bent down and grabbed a handful of damp, cold soil, his fingers sticky and sticky, with a few fine, almost invisible gray-black threads trying to burrow into his palm like living creatures! He jerked his hand away, a tingling, needle-like numbness shooting through his palm.
"Governor! Master Xuanwei has made a discovery!" Chen Zhong rushed over, panting, and pointed to the makeshift medicine shed next to the ruins of the school.
The medicine shed was filled with a strong, bitter smell of herbs and a faint, almost imperceptible stench of blood. Xuanweizi carefully picked up a few strands of grayish-black "roots" washed down with the black water from a ceramic bowl and placed them on a clean slab of glass. Beneath the glass, a specially made oil lamp emitted a ghostly blue light. Under the blue light, the "roots" suddenly unfurled like a spiderweb, spreading countless extremely fine, transparent tendrils that greedily adhered to the glass surface, leaving behind specks of corroded scorch marks!
“Neither insect nor grass, but spores of the ‘Corpse Gold Mushroom’!” Xuanweizi’s face was so solemn it could wring water out of it. “This thing sprouts when it encounters blood and qi, and it craves the essence of metal and iron! When these mushroom spores are mixed into the filthy blood of the wolf puppet, they take root and grow wildly by absorbing the mineral qi from the earth’s veins! Wherever its roots reach, the soil and rocks become as brittle as rotten wood, the grass and trees wither, and it absorbs the grains that grow from it… Eating it is like swallowing gold dust, and it will pierce through your internal organs!”
A deathly silence reigned inside and outside the medicine shed. The horror of last night's bloody battle was still fresh in their minds, and this invisible, intangible poison, rooted in the earth's veins, sent chills down their spines. This meant that the land they depended on for survival was turning into a poisonous nest that was slowly killing everyone!
"Is there a solution?" Xiao Yuxuan's voice was as deep as iron.
“Difficult!” Xuanweizi shook his head, pointing his whisk to the still wriggling roots on the glass shard. “It requires a potent medicine with strong Yang fire to burn its roots. However, this mushroom spore is deep underground, and ordinary medicines are ineffective…” His gaze swept over the medicinal herbs piled up outside the medicine shed, which were mostly common herbs for clearing stagnation and removing toxins, lacking several crucial potent medicines. “…It requires ‘Red Yang Earth Essence’ as the main medicine, supplemented with ‘Fierce Blood Vine’ and ‘Lightning-Struck Charcoal’ to have a glimmer of hope.”
"Red Sun Goblin?" Ji Zhai's voice came from the doorway, carrying the chill of wind and snow. "This creature grows deep in the scorching Gobi Desert of the far west, extinct in Hexi! Bloodthirsty Vine grows in the miasma-ridden lands of the southern border, and Lightning-Struck Wood is even more rare!" The Mo Family Grand Master's face was smeared with engine oil, but his eyes were sharp as knives. "Yan Yang issued the 'Reclamation Restriction Order' yesterday, cutting off my medicinal herb trade routes. These three herbs... are as difficult as ascending to heaven!"
Xiao Yuxuan's gaze swept over Xuan Weizi's solemn face, past the anxiety in Ji Zhai's eyes, and finally landed outside the medicine shed—on those hunched figures braving the wind and snow, still struggling to dig trenches in the poisonous soil, trying to divert water to wash away the poisonous roots. Their faces showed fear and exhaustion, but they had not given up.
"Continue to draw water from the Wei River!" Xiao Yuxuan declared decisively. "Every bit of poison flushed away is a chance for survival! Daoist Xuanwei, do you have any medicinal herbs available that might slow the onset of the poison?"
“It can temporarily remove the superficial toxins and suppress the germination rate of the spores,” Xuanweizi nodded. “However, it is not a long-term solution. If the root toxins are not eliminated, it will eventually become a major problem!”
“A delay is enough!” A cold glint flashed in Xiao Yuxuan’s eyes. “Mr. Ji, begin building the protective wall today! Use this poison-soaked soil!”
"What?!" Ji Zhai and Xuan Weizi were both stunned.
"Poisonous soil to build walls?" Chen Zhong exclaimed in disbelief.
“Excellent!” Xiao Yuxuan grabbed a handful of grayish-black soil, clenching it tightly between his fingers, the mud seeping out from between them. “This soil is saturated with corpse-gold mushroom spores, making it exceptionally hard! Use it as the foundation, and then cover it with rammed earth, wood, and stone! Mr. Ji, does the Mohist school have a method to secretly install fire channels within the walls?” He stared intently at Ji Zhai. “Once we find potent medicines like the Crimson Sun Earth Spirit, grind them into powder, mix them with coal, and use the fire channels to deliver heat, burning the poison from the inside out!”
A sudden glint of light flashed in Ji Zhai's eyes! He abruptly crouched down, pulled out his charcoal pencil, and rapidly sketched on the cold ground: "Wonderful! Wonderful indeed! Using poisonous soil as a base, it actually increases its strength! It has a circular fire channel inside, covering the entire wall! The medicinal powder mixed with burning coal, the heat rising, is like an alchemical furnace! This wall... can be named the 'Purification Wall'!"
A spark of hope ignited instantly within the medicine shed. The poisonous soil, no longer a dead end, had become a bulwark material against external enemies! Xuanweizi stroked his beard and sighed, "The way to survival lies in one's mind! This is a chance to turn the tide!" He immediately turned to the medicine cabinet, "This old Taoist will now prepare the suppressant medicine to save the lives of those brave men who dug the trenches and built the walls!"
---
Hexi Governor's Office - Temporary Workshop
Inside the workshop, the furnace roared, the sounds of hammering and forging filled the air, and the air was scorching hot. Ji Zhai, shirtless, his bronze-colored back muscles bulged, sweat pouring down like streams. His hammer flew, precisely striking a red-hot, curved piece of iron armor. The armor was strangely shaped, neither fish nor scales, its edges covered with intricate mortise and tenon joints and grooves.
"Ah Tu! 'Soft Steel'!" Ji Zhai roared without looking up.
"Master is here!" Atu responded, running over with a thin steel plate that had softened slightly from the heat and gleamed with a peculiar dark blue luster. This steel was made by Ji Zhai using a secret method to repeatedly forge wrought iron mixed with a small amount of meteorite fragments; it was exceptionally tough and elastic.
Ji Zhai took the flexible steel and embedded it into the groove pre-drilled on the edge of the curved main armor. The hammer fell like raindrops, sparks flying. The tenon and mortise meshed perfectly under the high temperature and immense force. He then took a perforated, honeycomb-shaped ceramic lining and carefully inserted it into the inside of the main armor. The holes in the ceramic lining were pre-filled with Xuanweizi's specially made detoxifying powder, which emitted a bitter medicinal fragrance.
"Dingbian, try it on!" Ji Zhai wiped his sweat and handed the strange armor, which combined steel, ceramic lining, and medicine pouch, to the corner.
Xiao Dingbian leaned on his father's unsharpened ceremonial sword, supporting himself on one leg as he stood up. His left leg was still wrapped in thick bandages, but the black energy lurking beneath his skin had been temporarily suppressed by the medicinal powder in the hilt of the ceremonial sword and the Xuanweizi acupuncture. He took the armor; it felt heavy in his hand, yet still warm from the furnace fire. The armor covered his left chest to his left shoulder, shaped like half a Qilin's body. The outer layer was a hard, curved main armor, while the inner lining was made of ceramic shards riddled with medicinal holes. Flexible, dark blue steel covered the joints and vital points, giving the entire piece a rugged yet sophisticated intimidating aura.
"This armor is named 'Tiger-Scale'!" Ji Zhai's voice carried the crispness of metal. "The main armor protects the heart, while the flexible steel protects vital joints. The ceramic lining contains medicine to slowly release and remove poison! And more crucially..." He pointed to a slightly protruding mechanism on the left shoulder of the armor, shaped like a tiger's head swallowing its jaws, "Embedded here is a 'repeating crossbow bolt,' which connects to the ceremonial sword in your hand!" He picked up the ceremonial sword, and at the end of the hilt, there was a delicate metal joint. "In case of danger, turn this mechanism on the hilt, and the hilt will detach, revealing three three-inch-long steel armor-piercing crossbow bolts that can be fired from the tiger's head! This is a life-saving killing move; it should not be used lightly except in a life-or-death situation!"
Xiao Dingbian stroked the cold armor plates, feeling the roughness of the inner pottery shards and the bitter fragrance of medicinal powder. He then weighed the seemingly ancient but actually deadly ceremonial sword in his hand. His father's words echoed in his ears—"The way to survive... the weapon in your hand and the thought in your heart, both must have a weight of a thousand pounds!" A heavy sense of power spread from his palm to his entire body.
"Thank you, Mr. Xie Ji!" The young man straightened his back and put on the heavy tiger-scale armor. The cold metal clung to his young and resilient body, and the tiger head on his left shoulder gleamed with a cold luster in the firelight.
---
Secret Room in the School: Flickering Candlelight
The small, secret room barely accommodated a table and a lamp. Xiao Mingxin knelt before the table, her long, black hair casually tied up with a wooden hairpin, a few strands falling to brush against her focused profile. On the table lay the blood-stained fragment of the *Gongzheng Yilu*, surrounded by countless sheets of scrap paper filled with delicate handwriting and intricate geometric figures. A specially made three-wick oil lamp, its flame adjusted to an unusual bluish-white, focused its light upon the fragment.
On the tattered scroll, besides the obscure diagrams of mechanisms and ancient seal script annotations, countless pale golden, extremely fine veins faintly emerged under the light of the bluish-white lamp! These veins, like the blood vessels of a living creature, meandered and flowed between the lines of the drawing, forming an even more mysterious and intricate energy flow diagram!
Xiao Mingxin's slender fingers held a probe as thin as a hair, its tip inlaid with tiny crystals. Holding her breath, she carefully followed a pale golden vein, gently touching a node of a complex gear assembly marked on the blueprint. Her fingertips were frighteningly steady, her concentration absolute.
“Earth veins…resonance…” she murmured to herself, her clear eyes reflecting the lamplight and golden patterns. “Senior Gongzheng…are you using mechanical arts…to simulate the earth’s pulse?” Her probe followed the golden patterns, finally stopping at a core hub shaped like a heart, surrounded by countless tiny golden patterns. The blueprints here were severely damaged and mostly covered in bloodstains.
Her delicate brows furrowed slightly as she channeled a tiny wisp of internal energy into the crystal at the tip of the probe. The crystal, refracting a rainbow of light under the pale blue lamplight, slowly swept across the bloodstain. As the light shifted, beneath the bloodstain, several lines of even more ancient Rong script symbols, seemingly inlaid with extremely fine gold threads into the paper's core, faintly appeared! The symbols twisted like snakes, exuding a primal and eerie aura, utterly incongruous with the overall ancient grandeur of the scroll!
"There really is a hidden layer!" Xiao Mingxin's heart skipped a beat. She immediately took a specially made, soft membrane soaked in medicine and carefully covered the bloodstained area. The membrane quickly absorbed the surface stains, revealing the core hub pattern surrounded by golden Rong script—it wasn't the square axle commonly seen in Central Plains mechanisms, but a ferocious, dripping wolf head! The lines of the wolf head pattern were exactly the same as the incantation patterns she had seen on the fragments of the Northern Rong mechanical beasts her father had brought back!
"The Northern Rong witchcraft... was forcibly grafted into the core of the mechanism by Senior Gongzheng?" A bold and terrifying conjecture exploded in Xiao Ming's mind! Her fingertips trembled slightly, and the probe once again pointed to the center of the wolf head pattern, trying to sense the flow of its energy.
Buzz—!
A cold, violent, and bloodthirsty intent, like a lurking venomous snake, suddenly darted into Xiao Mingxin's fingertip through the probe! The pale blue lamplight in the secret chamber flickered wildly, its color instantly turning an eerie dark red! Xiao Mingxin groaned, as if struck by a heavy blow, his face turning deathly pale, and the probe in his hand snapped in two with a "crack"! Under the dim red light, the wolf head pattern on the tattered scroll seemed to come alive, its fangs opening and closing, its bloodshot eyes dripping with blood!
"Evil thoughts backfire!" Xiao Mingxin endured the excruciating pain and nausea churning in his mind. Without hesitation, he grabbed a small jade bottle left behind by Xuanweizi on the table, uncorked it, and poured all the clear, cool liquid inside onto the tattered scroll!
Sizzle—!
The medicinal liquid touched the tattered scroll like cold water poured into boiling oil! The eerie dark red light and the wolf head phantom let out a silent shriek, twisting and struggling violently before finally dissipating unwillingly. The lamp flame returned to its pale blue-white, and the golden veins on the tattered scroll dimmed, as if it had all been an illusion. Only the broken probe and the lingering cold sting on Xiao Mingxin's fingertips testified to that breathtaking moment.
The girl gasped for breath, her back soaked with cold sweat. She looked at the still-grotesque wolf head pattern on the tattered scroll, wet with the medicinal liquid, then at the broken probe in her hand. For the first time, a cold, warrior's flame ignited in her clear eyes.
"Use water to overcome mechanisms...use righteous thoughts...break the evil curse!" She grabbed a charcoal pencil and quickly wrote down new deduction formulas on scrap paper.
---
Ghost Plains Edge: Rebirth in Willow Forest
A biting wind howled, swirling up withered grass and ashes. On a newly turned patch of land, hundreds of delicate willow saplings trembled in the cold wind. Xuanweizi, compass in hand, performed a series of ritualistic steps, chanting incantations. Dozens of volunteer Taoist disciples and laborers from Anji Camp carefully filled the tree pits with soil mixed with specially prepared medicinal powder, tamping down the roots.
"Kan position, Li earth! Zhen palace, pour water!" Xuanweizi pointed his whisk to the specific location. The disciples immediately sprang into action, pouring the prepared medicinal solution into the corresponding tree pits.
"Taoist Master! These willow trees... can they really absorb the poison from the ground?" An old farmer with a wrinkled face held the saplings, his voice filled with hope yet doubt.
"The Rebirth Willow has roots with miraculous effects, slowly absorbing the yin and impure metal energy from the earth and transforming it to nourish itself," Xuanweizi said in a deep voice. "Given time, the willow forest will form an array, and with the assistance of my array to guide it, it may not be impossible to purify this poisonous land! This is... using wood to overcome metal, using life to overcome death!"
Just then, the sound of rapid hoofbeats, accompanied by arrogant shouts, came from afar!
"Make way! Make way, all of you! By order of the Tax Supervisor, Lord Yan: This land is government land, and everything planted here belongs to the government! Anji Camp has planted private trees without authorization, defying the 'Land Reclamation Restriction Order,' and they shall be... all uprooted immediately! Anyone who disobeys shall be sent to Jincheng in shackles!"
A swarm of fierce-looking black-clad guards, surrounding a tax collector, stormed into the willow grove! The leader, holding an official document stamped with a bright red official seal, lashed out with his whip at the nearest laborer who was protecting the saplings without saying a word!
"Ah!" the laborer screamed, a bloody gash appearing on his face.
"Stop!" Xuanweizi, his hair and beard bristling, stepped forward, blocking the laborers. His whisk, sharp as a whip, deflected the whip that was lashing out again! "These were planted by me and my men; they have nothing to do with Anji Camp! How dare you harm living beings and trample on the livelihoods of the people?"
"Unrelated?" the tax collector sneered, pointing to the boundary markers that Anji Camp had just erected at the edge of the willow grove. "The boundary markers are right here! Still trying to argue? Old man, if you know what's good for you, get out of here! Otherwise, we'll lock you up too!"
The black-clad guards grinned maliciously as they stepped forward, the iron chains in their hands rattling as they prepared to uproot the seedlings and lock the person up!
"Who dares to move!" A thunderous roar came from outside the willow grove! Xiao Yuxuan arrived like a whirlwind with more than ten personal guards! He was not wearing armor, only cloth clothes, but the murderous aura he exuded from the bloody battlefield made the arrogant black-clad guards subconsciously take a half step back.
"Xiao Yuxuan! Do you intend to rebel?" The tax collector, though blustering, held up the official document in his hand. "Lord Yan's order is here! Uprooting willows and destroying seedlings is a matter of course!"
Xiao Yuxuan didn't even glance at the official document. His cold gaze swept over the bloodstains on the faces of the whipped laborers, over the frail saplings shivering in the cold wind, and finally fixed on the tax collector's face. He slowly raised his right hand, and the silver seal with a dragon-shaped knob, symbolizing the civil administration power of the Governor of Hexi, reflected a cold and heavy light in the bleak winter sunlight.
"In accordance with the 'Three Amnesties' decree, this Governor hereby grants the refugees of this region the right to register in Anji! The land they cultivate and the trees they plant are all private property registered in the 'Anji Household Register'! They are protected by the law!" His voice was not loud, but every word struck like an iron hammer. "Yan Yang's 'Restriction on Land Reclamation' prohibits 'unauthorized reclamation of toxic soil,' not 'planting willows to cleanse filth'! By destroying the seedlings today, you are destroying the very foundation of the survival of the people of Hexi! You are trampling on the laws of the nation!"
He took a sudden step forward, raising the silver seal high: "I, the Governor, wield this seal to fulfill my duty of protecting the people and ensuring the safety of the land! Anyone who destroys crops or harms the people—" His gaze flashed like lightning, piercing the black-clad guards wielding iron chains, "is a villain who has harmed the people of Hexi! According to the law… he can be executed on the spot! As a warning to others!"
The words "Kill on the spot" were like a cold wind sweeping through the willow grove! More than ten guards drew their long swords half a foot from their sheaths with a clang! The cold light reflected on the black-clad guards' faces, which were filled with surprise and uncertainty.
The tax collector's face turned deathly pale, and his hand holding the official document trembled violently. The black-clad guards behind him exchanged bewildered glances, their palms sweating as they gripped the iron chains. Behind Xiao Yuxuan, the previously terrified laborers and Taoist disciples now had a fire burning in their eyes, and they spontaneously gripped their hoes and sticks, silently taking a step forward to surround him.
An invisible pressure, like a boulder, weighed heavily on the hearts of the Black-Clad Guards. They had come under orders to establish their authority, never intending to fight the Commander-in-Chief or the bloodthirsty refugees!
A stalemate. Only the howling of the cold wind and the faint rustling of willow seedlings in the wind could be heard.
Finally, the tax collector swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, and with a forced bluster, he uttered, "Fine! Fine! Governor Xiao! This matter... I will certainly report to Lord Yan!" Having said that, he dared not look Xiao Yuxuan in the eye again, and waved his hand sheepishly, "Let's go!"
The black-clad guards, feeling as if they had been granted a pardon, hurriedly put away their chains, turned their horses around, and slunk away from the newly grown willow grove.
The cold wind still howled, but hundreds of reborn willow saplings, under the silent and steadfast protection of the crowd, stood stubbornly on the edge of the scorched Ghost Plain. Xuanweizi looked at the silver seal still held high by Xiao Yuxuan, and at the hunched figures bending down again, carefully adding soil to the saplings. He exhaled a long breath of white air and softly chanted:
"The seed of human spirit has finally broken through the frozen soil... How wonderful!"
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