Chapter 103: The Sky Is Falling, As An Adjective
“Kraaah——”
A piercing bird cry that echoed through the skies exploded above Yun City. Doggy, who had been sprinting alongside Yun Ce, actually collapsed limp on the ground, submissively exposing its belly with all four paws in the air.
“Get down.” Doggy roared anxiously.
Yun Ce had just gotten down when a powerful gust of wind pressure enveloped them from above. Yun Ce pulled over two Doggy with paws in the air and covered himself with them, only hoping this crude disguise could fool the Large Bird above.
The Large Bird’s wings whipped up massive waves of wind, and raindrops pelted the ground like bullets. The Doggy unlucky enough to be hit let out miserable screams one after another.
Once the wind pressure dissipated, Yun Ce cautiously peeked out from the neck of one Doggy. Although the sky was still pitch black and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, he still wanted to take a look.
“It’s gone.”
Doggy said these two words quite calmly, but Yun Ce inexplicably detected a hint of fear in them.
Yun Ce tossed aside the Doggy corpse riddled with holes from the raindrops and stood in the pouring Heavy Rain to wash his body. But at that moment, he saw a patch of white light suddenly rise from Yun City, which then turned into a net of fire swept down from the sky by the rain.
“This can’t be white phosphorus bombs, right? This is impossible to be white phosphorus bombs, right?”
1 Yun Ce asked Doggy incoherently.
1 “Don’t ask, run fast. I always feel it’s not safe here. If you wait until this cloud drifts away, it won’t be easy to escape anymore.”
1 Yun Ce obeyed the advice and blindly sprinted in the direction Doggy indicated.
1 For the first time, he discovered that he could actually run as fast as a horse.
1 Yun City in the rain erupted once more in towering flames. This fire feared no Heavy Rain and burned wildly in the night sky.
1 The Red Date Horse caught up from behind. It was actually quite curious—clearly he could have ridden it to run, yet Yun Ce insisted on running himself.
1 After running over a hundred li in one go, Yun Ce finally dared to ride the Red Date Horse up a high slope. From here, he could clearly see Yun City engulfed in blazing fire.
1 “Earlier, four Albatross appeared in the sky above Yun City.” Doggy’s voice still carried a trace of emotion. This guy was becoming more and more human-like, and this kind of sentiment felt somewhat familiar.
1 “Aren’t they supposed to be extremely rare? And they never land from birth. How many days has it been? I’ve already seen five Albatross, and one even chased me down.”
1 Doggy said somewhat enviously, “That clump of fire you got might be something big.”
2 “How so?”
2 “It burned off two of my tentacles.”
2 “Your tentacles are fragile; it’s no big loss if they’re burned off.”
2 “You know shit.”
2 “I really didn’t know you could fart. No more chit-chat. I need to get back early to bathe. That river which was originally so clean, how did it become so smelly.”
2 Doggy said, “If I were you, after going back, I’d immediately pack up my valuables and keep running. Based on what Old Pan and them said, and Inspector Han De’s words, after my comprehensive calculation, I found that the Royal Hunting Ground is too close to Yun City. If that clump of fire is really as magical as they say, then the people riding Albatross here definitely have the power to draw circles on the map and create No Man’s Land.”
2 Yun Ce shook his head. “Can’t run. Once I run, even the dog shit will be pinned on me. Besides, they have those Large Birds; where could I run to anyway?”
2 “Better to fish in troubled waters.”
2 “Betting your life on others’ mercy—gotta say, you’re a fool. Let me tell you, there’s a thirty percent chance the Royal Hunting Ground will be silenced.”
2 Yun Ce rode the Red Date Horse down the slope. Having just obtained a clump of unknown but very precious fire made his mood extremely good.
3 He didn’t want to keep arguing with Doggy. Being a perpetual fugitive in the Great Han Dynasty held no meaning for him. He needed to personally understand this Great Han—not just the people here, but all the secrets on this land.
3 Back at the Hunting Palace, E Ji smelled the odor on Yun Ce and immediately prepared hot water and soap. She even added a bit of her cherished perfume to the bath water, rolled up her sleeves, and prepared to give Yun Ce a thorough bath.
3 “Yun City is done for. No one in that city could have survived.”
3 Hearing Yun Ce’s remark, E Ji showed no reaction on her face and just focused on washing his hair.
3 “I’ve realized that the Han People’s temperament is actually a bit strange. They seem to only know how to charge forward, never understanding the profound meaning of retreating.”
3 “When I entered Yun City, my heart went cold. You know when we lived in the city, it had over a million people. But in the city, I didn’t see many people.”
3 “Guess where they all went?”
3 E Ji got annoyed fiddling with his hair. A clean person goes out with clean, fresh hair, but comes back with rotten bones, bits of shredded meat, Grass Roots, and tree leaves all tangled in it, needing to be picked out bit by bit to wash clean.
3 “Of course they ran. Don’t treat others like fools. People know to run home in the rain, let alone with a big battle about to happen—how could they not hide away?”
3 “If they were as dumb as you say, they’d have been wiped out long ago.”
4 After rebuking Yun Ce, E Ji felt it was too slow doing his hair alone, so she called in An Ji and the others. Each took a section to quickly finish it off.
4 Facing E Ji while naked, Yun Ce didn’t care, but when An Ji and the four others came in, he sank his body into the water and used the bath towel to cover his privates.
4 Yun Ce knew E Ji wanted to erase all traces of his outing in the shortest time possible. Don’t think E Ji seemed oblivious—as a Wasteland person, her nose for danger was no worse than Yun Ce’s.
4 After Yun Ce finished washing his body and slept for a bit, dawn broke. That Heavy Rain last night had completely erased the traces he left on the Wasteland.
4 So, when Yun Ce got up in the morning, he had become a simple Grass Roots official of Yun Prefecture.
4 Albatross only exist in two places: one is Chang’an, the other is Luoyang.
4 Therefore, the four Albatross flying in the sky could only have come from those two places.
4 Moreover, Yun Ce was certain the Great Han Court now knew the great secret that Yun Prefecture Shehuo had not been extinguished.
4 Yun Ce never imagined he’d see Old Pan again. Though massive waves surged in his heart, the joy and longing on his face moved even a sly one like Old Pan.
4 “Finally, I can return your wife and children to you intact.”
5 Old Pan seemed not too concerned about his wife and children. After some chit-chat with Yun Ce, whom he felt indebted to, he quickly entered the Hunting Palace with a few old friends and closed the Gate.
5 Yun Ce glanced at the closed Gate and asked Doggy.
5 “How do you think they escaped that big fire?”
5 “Is it possible that fire was the same nature as the one that burned you? They set the fire maybe to identify, not to kill?”
5 “Alright, that’s pretty likely.”
5 In the afternoon, Yun Ce finally saw Old Pan again. This time, having protected his wife, children, and family, Yun Ce directly asked if he had any way to enter the Great Han Homeland, even go to Chang’an.
5 Old Pan heartily ate several dishes E Ji prepared, then put down his chopsticks and said to Yun Ce, “Now, you have no choice but to go to Chang’an.”
5 Yun Ce was overjoyed and grabbed Old Pan’s hand. “Brother, you actually have such heaven-reaching ability?”
5 Though Yun Ce tried hard to flatter, Old Pan teared up and said to him, “It’s all this foolish brother’s fault. Back when you returned to the Royal Hunting Ground, we should have come back with you. If we’d planned carefully, we might already be in the Great Han Homeland by now.”
5 Yun Ce laughed. “A little late doesn’t matter.”
6 Old Pan, tears flowing, said, “Back then, going to the Great Han, we couldn’t get rich and noble, but at least we’d have food and clothing without worry. But now, we’ll all go to Chang’an as Convicted Prisoners for identification.”
6 Yun Ce asked puzzled, “Convicted Prisoner—what does that mean?”
6 Old Pan shook his head vigorously. “Better not to know. Better not to know. The more you know, the faster you die.”
6 Yun Ce frowned. “Isn’t there any twist to this?”
6 Old Pan shook his head. “Dragon Terrace Guard has come; the whole thing has no twists left.”
6 “Dragon Terrace Guard?”
6 “The Emperor’s personal troops.”
6 “Yun Prefecture is just an abandoned prefecture. What virtue or ability does it have to summon the Emperor’s personal troops… No outsiders here, we can still…”
6 Old Pan said indifferently, “Resign to fate. For taking care of my family, big brother gives you one piece of advice—resign to fate.”
6 Yun Ce was someone who listened to advice. For an old fox like Old Pan to choose resigning to fate, it was probably the best solution to the current trouble.
7 Sure enough, on the third day, Yun Ce saw Zhang Min, bound like a dumpling, thrown down from a Giant Bird’s back. He knew then that the matter of Yun Prefecture Shehuo not being extinguished had been exposed, and Zhang Min, as Panxing Tower’s secret agent in Yun Prefecture, knowing nothing about it, was guilty of a grave crime.
7 Yun Ce’s head whipped left and right quickly. Apart from one Large Bird, he saw no one watching them. He walked to Zhang Min’s side, untied the rope, and seeing her wrists chafed bloody, casually bandaged them with a handkerchief.
7 Zhang Min’s face was deathly pale. Seeing Yun Ce silent, she couldn’t help saying, “Aren’t you curious why I’ve fallen to this state?”
7 Yun Ce shook his head and tried to pull Zhang Min up, but she refused, preferring to sit on the soil rather than stand.
7 Zhang Min glared at Yun Ce in frustration. “Don’t you know we’re all going to die?”
7 Yun Ce said puzzled, “What does it have to do with me?”
7 Zhang Min teared up. “You think something has nothing to do with you, so it really doesn’t?”
7 Yun Ce sneered, “Fine, then let’s go all out.”
7 Hearing Yun Ce say that, Zhang Min suddenly quieted down. She stood up from the ground, grabbed E Ji’s hands, and said, “If it’s time to truly live life, then live it truly once. Don’t leave yourself too many regrets.”
7 E Ji said anxiously, “What exactly happened?”
8 A strange smile appeared on Zhang Min’s face as she pointed at the sky. “The Sky is Falling.”
