713 Back to the South (1/2)

Tears streamed down Ning Que's face as he looked at the Moon. He could barely stop crying until he found his crying more terrifying than the wolves' howling far away.

Ning Que had felt nothing but hunger since he woke up. His empty belly had been torturing and haunting him like the Heaven and Earth's Qi did, in the cliff cave in the back of the mountain of the Academy.

Judging by the hunger, he knew he must have been in an unconscious for days, leading him to the extremely weakened state he was in. He searched for edible grass in the meadow. He put the grass with dew in his mouth and chewed it until it was soft. He managed swallowing it, and then he felt much better.

He looked at the water droplets on the grass and took them for granted since he didn't know that they were remained from the heavy rain that had arrived after the Headmaster's passing.

When the Moon disappeared at dawn, Ning Que started to head south under the guidance of the morning sun rays.

He was depressed and confused, and didn't know where exactly he was going.

Then, head back to Chang'an.

His home was there, and the Academy was there, too. However, the Old Brush Pen Shop and the house by the Yanming Lake were empty now, and the Headmaster would never again return to the Academy.

It didn't take him long before he walked to where he could see mountains coated by snow. Then he walked towards the mountains till the night came, and the Moon shone in the sky.

For days he walked south through the mountains. At night when he looked up to the Moon, his temper would suddenly turn sour, making him spill curses at it, arms on his hips.

He knew the Headmaster was still alive, but in a different way. He was still fighting against Haotian in the sky now, and the effects of their ongoing struggle produced the shape of the Moon, bright or dim, wax or wane.

But still he felt sad and frustrated.

Because he could see nothing resembling the Headmaster in that Moon.

”Bright like a full moon is what people used to praise a handsome young man, and you're nothing like that.”

He mocked as he pulled out his podao, to cut the snow hare he had just hunted. Since he had left the Primordial Thirteen Arrows and all other weapons in the carriage by the Sishui River, the podao was all he had. Sometimes he would worry if anything had happened to the Big Black Horse.

Having cleaned the hare nicely, he passed it to the empty air next to him, saying, ”Don't over-toast it.”

He was asking Sangsang to cook the hare.

Yet Sangsang wasn't there anymore.

Ning Que lowered down his head and was silent for quite a long period. Then he cried out.

”Sangsang!”

...

...

After getting up in the morning, he continued his journey to the south and walked to the foot of the mountains.

The mountain capped by snow was the Tianqi Mountain. Along its was the way to Min Mountain, then to Chang'an, and to the Academy.

On his way, he ran into a small Herdsmen's tribe.

The tribe was ruled by the Golden Palace. They knew Ning Que was one of the Tangs by his clothes and accent. Instead of treating him to a meal, they tried to kill Ning Que for the nice podao on his back.

So Ning Que killed them all.

After that, he had a filling meal including lamb and kumiss. He found a tent free from blood splatter and there he slept away all his exhaustion and frustration.

He left the dead tribe with a boxwood bow on his shoulder. He rode one of their horses and led another with a rope that carried four gigots on its back.

Several days passed.

Ning Que had finally seen the famous gap of Tianqi Mountain. However, his face turned gloomy before he could even scream with joy.

Before the city gate of Helan City were numerous elite cavalries of the Golden Palace.

And judging by the scene, there must be at least thousands of them.

What had actually shocked Ning Que was the four carriages behind the cavalries.

Ning Que's eyesight was good enough to see the golden and silver decorations on the carriage. He could even see the steel disks inside the carriage, and the lines crossing on the surface.

Each carriage had a fully armored powerhouse from the grassland standing on it. Ning Que was able to recognize them because their armors were made of rare metals instead of leather!

Yet they were not the protagonists of this war.

They were no more than the submissive protectors of the disks and their users.

On each carriage sat a skinny and old man. Three of them were garbed in shining royal clothes and wore human-bone necklaces around their necks. Only the old man at the very end wore the most common grassland attire, without any special accessories.

”The High Priest!”

Ning Que frowned when he saw him. He had never run into the High Priests of the grassland palace in battles before, but he had heard descriptions of him from General Ma and the other military officials.

These Necromancers manipulated the Qi of Heaven and Earth through the disks, and they were the grassland palace equivalent to the Array Tactical Masters or the Talisman Master of Tang. The Golden Palaces titled them respectfully as ”Priests”. The strongest amongst them who could commune directly with the grassland were called ”High Priests” and were given the precious golden disks.

Ning Que was trying to figure out why the Golden Palace had summoned three High Priests together at one go. And looking at the old man riding the carriage at the very back, Ning Que was afraid that he ranked even higher than the other three.

”Maybe a bigwig they want is in Helan City now.”

Ning Que didn't believe that the cavalries and the Priests were here to capture Helan City. As powerful as the High Priests might be, they would find it difficult to capture the city that had been built with talisman adaptations. The city was supposed to withstand the attack of thousands of cavalries, not to mention there were only hundreds of them now.

After the rain stopped, and before the people in Helan City had come to a decision, the four weird carriages of the Golden Palace cavalry had reached the gate of the city before Helan City.

Having been in siege for days, the whole city was depressed.

Others might wonder why the city was sieged by only tens of hundreds of grassland cavalries, for there were thousands of Tang cavalries, Master Huang Yang, and many powerful generals inside the city.

But that was the truth.