Chapter 435: Once, Twice, Thrice

“The beacon tower has to be guarded more strictly!” The commander[1] thought it over and over again, and in the end, he went to the spellcasters and had them add a barrier.

Dragon Throat Pass already had protective talisman arrays in place; they simply were not activated in peacetime. The army had several spellcasters stationed permanently, so one might assume that a job such as this would not be too difficult for them to do. However, adding a barrier to the beacon tower required money, and the commander did not have time to report it up the chain. Moreover, even if he did report it, approval would not come quickly. He would have to wait at least ten days to half a month. So he could only pay out of his own pocket to keep things running in the meantime.

The second night passed without incident.

However, every minute that the barrier remained active consumed energy. No matter how efficient a defensive barrier a spellcaster could craft, keeping it up for twenty hours a day would still burn through at least half a profound crystal.

Two days was a full crystal!

The garrison commander had been sent to the mountain-bound Dragon Throat Pass in the first place because he had no money and no connections. Everyone knew pass duty was heavy while the pay was poor. After two days of this, he simply could not bring himself to keep it up.

He appealed for help from his superiors, only to get his head bitten off. Profound crystals were precious strategic resources, and he wanted to spend them to guard against an invisible threat?

More importantly, there was no end to that kind of defense. Was he going to run the barrier for a day or two, ten days or half a month, or a year or two?

He could pour out thousands upon thousands of silver and never hear a single splash in return. If his superior dared approve it, the superior’s superior might even suspect embezzlement.

So the barrier soon became impossible to maintain.

On the third night, the beacon tower caught fire again. This time, three of the fire pits were lit.

However, there was no fighting on the western line. The mountains and forests were quiet as a graveyard.

He looked up, and sure enough, the beacons at Dragon Spine Pass rose in quick succession. His vision went black for a moment, and he almost wanted to howl at the sky.

Brothers in the beacon tower the next pass over, can’t you wait a little?!

But this time, the soldiers guarding the beacon tower finally caught the real culprit, and it turned out to be wild monkeys in the mountains.

These monkeys would steal torches from the camp or burning branches from the cooking fires, then toss them straight into the beacon tower.

The commander was furious. “This is outrageous! Since when do monkeys light beacons for no reason?”

The soldiers naturally had nothing to say. No one dared make a sound.

Only in the latter half of the night did a trusted aide quietly tell the pass commander the truth. There were many wild monkeys in the mountains. A few days ago, they had been sneaking into the camp to steal rations, and the soldiers had burned several of them alive, then even shared out the meat.

Maybe the monkeys held a grudge, and maybe that was why they were doing this.

Believing that he could not let things go on the way they currently were, the commander immediately sent men up the mountain to capture monkeys.

But the mountain was the monkeys’ home ground. How could soldiers move as nimbly as they did? After exhausting themselves, they only caught three or four.

The consequences of this little operation were severe. The monkeys grew even angrier toward them. They began hurling stones directly into the checkpoint and the camp. If a soldier was not careful, he would get struck right in the face, blood pouring down from the wound.

Worst of all, the capital endured another night of panic. The crown prince was furious. Without a second thought, he replaced the pass commander.

* * *

That same night, in Panlong City.

Skinny was just about to leave home when a series of gongs rang out outside, accompanied by someone shouting, “Street—Corner—Announcement!”

At last, Panlong City’s large-scale prewar mobilization announcements had begun.

Crowds gathered as people listened to the street announcer, his voice hoarse and grating as he read and presented the proclamation, which contained three key announcements.

First, the mighty and righteous monarch of West Luo had issued a resettlement decree, commanding the citizens of the Panlong Wasteland to return east immediately to their homeland.

Second, the Jinxi Corridor was controlled by the Baling people. The terrain was harsh and difficult, unsuitable for commoners to pass through in great numbers. Panlong City had therefore decided to open a different route, one through South Tong Pass to Hebi to Chang River, then finally back to West Luo.

Third, Panlong City formally declared full-scale war on the State of West Ji.

The street announcer read aloud, “West Ji has harassed our borders, slaughtered our people, and seized our merchants’ goods. How can this be tolerated? Whoever blocks our road home dies!”

The proclamation was read once, and it immediately stirred up commotion.

Even through his door, Skinny could hear running footsteps, startled shouts, and neighbors flinging open their doors.

“War on West Ji! War on West Ji!” countless people chanted, as cheers erupted wildly.

The roar of voices rose in waves, one higher than the next.

In his memory, no street corner announcement had ever caused this kind of reaction.

By the sixth reading, the street outside was packed shoulder to shoulder. More and more residents began chanting along with the announcer until it became a single bold declaration that seemed to punch straight into the sky, “Whoever blocks our road home dies!”

The crowd was electrified.

Skinny stood at his doorway, staring at the sea of people. Beside him, his little nephew clenched his fists and shouted too in a babyish voice, “Whoever blocks our road home dies!”

Skinny laughed and flicked him on the forehead. “Tsk, do you even know anything about life and death?”

His nephew turned, eyes glimmering. “Of course I do! We’re going to war, and then we can go home!”

Skinny drew a deep breath. “Yeah! We’re going to crush West Ji and carve a road home right out of its body!”

Like everyone else cheering, his heart brimmed with yearning and heroic pride.

Just as the Broken Blade Squad had predicted, there was no need for extra mobilization, no need to stoke morale. A single proclamation was enough to send the entire city’s soldiers and civilians into a frenzy of eagerness for battle.

If someone had been watching Panlong City from far away at that moment, they might have seen a huge dragon-shaped phantom faintly forming above the city, like light and cloud at once, but in truth, a manifestation of surging fortune and origin energy.

Only now did the name Panlong—Coiling Dragon—truly fit.

* * *

The previous commander’s fate was unknown. The new commander of Dragon Throat Pass trembled in fear. He inspected the beacon tower, glanced up at the monkeys on the mountain making faces at him, and decided on poison.

They hid poison in food and threw it to the monkeys, and sure enough, it killed more than a dozen.

But the surviving monkeys grew even angrier. They even drew monkeys from other mountains into the fray. From above, they bared their teeth and sprayed urine, flung rocks, and chose the dead of night to make noise and ruin the soldiers’ sleep. Worse, they repeated their old trick, again and again, trying to toss burning branches into the beacon tower.

Fortunately, the sentries were on high alert this time, and the monkeys did not succeed again.

But the soldiers were now perpetually tense. They slept poorly at night and lacked energy by day. If you did not count casualties, the monkeys were actually winning because there’s no such thing as guarding against thieves every day for a thousand days.

And the crown prince had declared that if the beacon fire was mistakenly lit again, everyone at the pass would lose their heads.

This was simply how leadership typically was for the most part in the world. Those above issue orders, talk big, say this cannot happen, and that must be done, while the people below had to make it happen, whether they could or not. The top only cared about results.

So what could they do?

Driven into a corner, the commander made a decision that would haunt future generations—

He ordered the beacon tower covered!

Specifically, he had merchants passing through procure huge tarps. They stitched them together into a canopy and draped it over the beacon fire pits. Then they plastered it with a layer of mud, and on top of that, dumped a thick layer of sand.

Of course, they tested it first on flat ground. The commander even personally threw burning torches at it.

Excellent. It didn’t ignite.

There was plenty of time to calmly put out any torches that landed on it.

Most importantly, it saved money. It was one hundred times cheaper than running a barrier.

By regulations, this was absolutely forbidden. But with the threat of beheading hanging over their heads, who had time to care about peacetime rules?

This was what you called: pressure from above, countermeasures below.

All that mattered was surviving the immediate hurdle.

And so the tarp-and-sand cover went onto the beacon tower.

Then a palace eunuch sent to supervise arrived suddenly and saw what they had done. He flew into a rage and said, “This won’t do! Remove it, remove it!”

The commander begged him to stay and observe for half the night.

Sure enough, by midnight, the monkeys came in groups to start fires again.

Burning branches landed on the sand-covered tarp and went out. They could not catch fire at all.

The monkeys shrieked in frustration, and the soldiers below burst out laughing, finally feeling as though they had gotten revenge.

“If enemies come from outside the pass, we’ll still have time to remove the cover,” the pass commander pleaded. “But if we take it off now and the beacon lights again, we won’t survive.”

The eunuch nodded rapidly. “You make a lot of sense. Take the cover off.”

“Sir!”

“His Majesty ordered me here to supervise the beacon tower, which means I must ensure everything is normal!” the eunuch snorted. “You’ve got a cover blocking the beacon fire pits! Do you dare call that normal? If I let this slide, and His Majesty blames me later, I won’t escape responsibility either. Enough, stop talking and take it off.”

The commander tried every argument, but it was useless. He could only order the cover removed, silently cursing the eunuch dead a hundred times over.

No one noticed that someone was hidden on the peak, watching everything through the night. When the monkeys came racing over, that person handed them a big bundle of dates.

The dates were large and sweet. The monkeys ate until their faces lit up with delight.

That person was Old Yu, the temporary new member of He Lingchuan’s squad. He gestured and made soft sounds, somehow actually communicating with the monkeys.

Even if the guards below heard it, they would have assumed it was just monkey chatter.

Two more days passed.

Dragon Throat Pass remained quiet. The monkeys had been thwarted and seemed to have stopped coming. The palace eunuch finished his supervision and hurried back to the royal palace to report.

The moment he left, the pass commander exhaled in relief and snapped at his men, “Cover the fire pits!”

“My lord?”

Didn’t the eunuch forbid it?

“He has already completed his mission, so he can go back to the palace. But as for us, we still have to hold this place.” The commander sneered. “If something happens again, it’s not his head on the line. It’s ours. If you were me, what would you choose?”

So everyone worked together to cover the beacon fire pits again. Everyone in the State of West Ji knew that the day after tomorrow was the coronation of their new king. At a time like this, nothing could be allowed to go wrong again.

* * *

South Gate of Panlong City.

A massive force gathered, and countless torches lit the area as bright as day.

Zhong Shengguang stepped forward. With a clang, he drew his sword and raised it toward the sky, launching into an impassioned speech.

There was no question that Zhong Shengguang was far more charismatic and stirring than General Nanke.

His mobilization was interrupted again and again by cheers from the crowd.

The entire place was feverish. Listening below, everyone’s blood boiled, as though they could charge out and cut down eight hundred enemies on the spot.

“Spirit rain, come!”

A fine drizzle began to fall from the sky.

Sun Fuping had once done something similar when mobilizing Heishui City’s soldiers to march into the desert, but the range of that rain had been nowhere near this wide.

This time, more than thirty thousand troops of Panlong City were setting out. Every one of them was bathed in the spirit rain, feeling their bodies grow lighter, their strength greater, their breathing smoother, and their fighting spirit climb even higher.

This was the Red General drawing upon Panlong City’s origin energy, sharing its blessing evenly among the soldiers.

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“Half a month from now, you’ll be feasting on whole lamb in the capital of the State of West Ji, drinking Fengquan wine, celebrating our great victory!” Zhong Shengguang’s voice thundered across the field. “Now, march!”

Fengquan wine was a West Ji specialty. Even in Panlong City, it sold for a high price. It was not something every soldier could normally afford.

With a single roar, the troops pivoted in unison and surged out through the city gates.

Civilians watching from the sides erupted in cheers, throwing fresh flowers to the soldiers as they passed.

1. It seems that even though the commander was demoted one rank, he’s still the commander of the pass. ☜