Just at this time, an urgent intelligence report was delivered to the tent, which said that enemy reinforcements were only half a day’s march away from Lishan City.
“So soon?” Ling Zhang furrowed his brows. It seemed that the reinforcements of the Luohai Kingdom were also aware of the strategic importance of Lishan City and had been traveling day and night.
“Is it doable to take Lishan City within half a day?” inquired Ling Zhang.
“Lishan City’s defenses are about to give way. We can take it within half a day if we go all out,” replied Yuwen Jin.
Xiao Jiangyue shook his head. “We’ll need some time to get prepared after taking Lishan City, in case enemy reinforcements attack us when our troops are tired.”
Xiao Jiangyue, an experienced general, covered all the bases.
Yuwen Tong had the same opinion.
Ling Zhang thought about it for a moment and then said, “I’ll sneak into the city and figure out a way to open the gates.”
“How are you going to get in there?” asked Xiao Jiangyue.
Ling Zhang said, “My Lightness Skills are pretty good. I’ll climb over the ramparts when the defenders’ attention is drawn to you guys.”
“That would be great!” said Yuwen Jin excitedly.
Yuwen Tong cast him a warning look and observed, “That’s too dangerous.”
Yuwen Jin, taken aback by his second cousin, recalled Ling Zhang’s identity and hastened to agree, “Sire is right. You should not do that, Brother Zhang.”
Ling Zhang said, “I’ll be careful, and I’ll take Jiang Xi Yao Yi and some others with me. Even if I can’t open the city gates, I’ll kill as many enemies as possible to distract them.”
Xiao Jiangyue and the others looked at Yuwen Tong.
Yuwen Tong inclined his head eventually. “You must be very cautious.”
Having got Yuwen Tong’s consent, Ling Zhang, along with Jiang Xi, Yao Yi, Wang Dashan and some others, immediately blended in with the crowd of soldiers attacking the city, sneaked to the foot of the ramparts and, while the defenders were distracted by the troops, secretly found a spot where they soundlessly climbed to the top of the ramparts before entering the city while no one was watching.
The moment they gained entry into the city, Ling Zhang noticed that the city gates were blocked by a giant rock the size of a mound.
“Holy shit. What a huge rock,” exclaimed Qiu Bing in a muted voice.
“They must’ve transported the rock there with chariots, given the deep ruts in the ground,” remarked Ling Zhang.
They were now hiding in a secluded corner nearby, observing the situation at the city gates.
“If we are to open the city gates, we’ll have to figure out a way to remove that rock, but even with all our strength combined, moving a rock that size will take a lot of doing, and there’s no way we could do it quietly enough not to be spotted. The soldiers will definitely attack us. This is tricky,” said Jiang Xi.
“Enormous as the rock is, it’s not really immovable,” observed Ling Zhang. With his powerful internal energy, he could remove the rock single-handed, but it would take some time. After this thought occurred to him, he said, “Dashan and the others are to adopt a defensive formation and hold the enemy soldiers at bay. I’ll take care of the rock.”
“Let us help,” said Yao Yi.
Fortunately all of them were top-notch kung fu masters with superb internal energy.
Ling Zhang nodded, quickly made some arrangements and then, while none of the defenders had noticed their intrusion, sprinted at the city gates with the others.
Jiang Xi, brandishing his spear with wicked gleams, charged into the crowd of enemy soldiers and instantly attracted all their attention. Wang Dashan and the others, taking advantage of the chaotic situation, streaked into the short passageway behind the blocked city gates, quickly killed all the soldiers inside, turned around and formed into a defensive formation, holding the other defenders back.
Ling Zhang, Yao Yi and some others stood beside the giant rock. Ling Zhang scrutinized it for a moment and said, “This rock is not very solid.”
They could break it where it was, but the large pile of broken rock would still make it inconvenient for the city gates to be opened, so they decided to remove it.
Ling Zhang, who had reached the sixth layer of his cultivation method, had long since developed a high proficiency in his palm technique, and his internal energy was more than enough for him to halve a rock the size of a mound.
He immediately mobilized all his internal energy and gave the rock a stupendous push with his palms.
The gigantic rock jolted and then started moving backwards, grating violently across the ground.
Yao Yi and the others were also straining every sinew, trying to help Ling Zhang remove the immense rock. At first the rock was edging along, but after a few moments, when they had more space and could better exert their power, the rock moved a lot faster.
“Don’t let them remove the rock! Shoot them!” someone bellowed outside.
Ling Zhang frowned but was still pushing with all his might, teeth clenched.
BOOM!
When the rock was about to be pushed out of the passageway, Ling Zhang yelled at Wang Dashan and the others, “Step aside!”
Wang Dashan and the others rapidly backed deeper into the passageway as the enormous rock toppled forward to the ground with a great crash!
With that Ling Zhang gave a palm strike and the next moment elemental internal energy exploded inside the mound-sized rock which was instantly reduced to numerous flying pieces.
All the defenders in the vicinity were hit by the shooting pieces.
“Open the gates!” shouted Ling Zhang.
Yao Yi and the others spun around and lunged at the gates as a hail of arrows arrived.
Ling Zhang, who had just taken a breath, whipped out his sword and, mobilizing his powerful internal energy, wielded the sword in a fluid circular motion at the broken rocks on the ground and with that they flew up into mid-air before shooting towards the incoming arrows.
A flurry of clinks rang out as more than half of the volley of arrows were downed by the flying rubble, the remnants of them blocked by Ling Zhang’s sword. Two or three arrows whizzed past Ling Zhang but were then parried by those behind him.
At the same time, Yao Yi had quickly removed the long iron bolt, unlatching the city gates …
…
No sooner had the gates been unbolted than troops of the Great Wen flooded into the city and engaged the defenders.
Ling Zhang, when exiting the city, suddenly sensed that there was something dangerous in the east and promptly went in that direction.
His bodyguards hastened to follow in his wake. Yao Yi and the others, unable to extricate themselves from the fight with the defenders for the time being, couldn’t go with them, looking apprehensive as they saw Ling Zhang swoosh off and quickly disappear from view.
Ling Zhang hurtled all the way to the east city gates, his bodyguards on his heels.
“What’s this about, Young Master?” asked Liu Yi.
The east city gates were wide open and it was very quiet outside. The enemy reinforcements had not arrived yet. Most of the enemy soldiers had gone to the west city gates to help, leaving only a small number of them standing guard.
Compared with the sparse soldiers guarding the gates, the panic-stricken residents trying to flee the city were in much greater numbers.
Ling Zhang couldn’t spare a thought for that matter. He had a hunch that the reinforcements of the Luohai Kingdom were not far away and would soon arrive.
The city gates must be closed.
Ling Zhang’s eyes swept through the steady stream of civilians exiting the city. “Get into a formation and stop them,” he said to his bodyguards.
Slaughtering these civilians was not an option, so he could only hold them back.
His bodyguards, also aware of it, raised no objection and promptly followed Ling Zhang’s orders, forming into a formation and holding the civilians back.
Ling Zhang, after allowing the residents who were already at the gates to get through, quickly killed the enemy soldiers standing guard and shut the gates.
“Let us out!”
“They are from the Great Wen!”
“Are they here to kill us?”
“Let us out!”
The civilians were thrown into confusion.
BANG! All of a sudden, a Luohai soldier was knocked off his feet by a spear, which then penetrated his chest and pinned him to the ground in front of the crowd of shouting citizens, a violent shock wave of internal energy forcing many in the vicinity back several paces.
“I’m not going to kill you,” said Ling Zhang, emerging from behind his bodyguards, his cold eyes raking the crowds who found his voice striking fear into their hearts. “None of the Great-Wen soldiers would kill any innocent civilians in this city or plunder any of your houses, but if anybody puts up a resistance, they’ll end up like this man!”
He was emanating that commanding air at full stretch, which served as such a deterrent to the residents in the vicinity none of them dared utter a word. Some of them, gazing at the dead body on the ground, were shaking from head to foot.
Ling Zhang instructed Wang Dashan and the others to stand guard where they were and kill anybody who walked past that dead body.
The residents, who were trying to flee the city because they didn’t want to die, were scared by Ling Zhang’s brutal act and the murderous air about his bodyguards, not daring do anything rash.
Ling Zhang glanced at the body on the ground, withdrew his eyes and then walked up the flight of steps to the top of the ramparts.
The reinforcements of the Luohai Kingdom would soon arrive, but the defenders inside the city had not been wiped out yet, and the streets were still blocked. Yuwen Tong’s men wouldn’t be able to come any time soon. He must figure out a way to hold back the Luohai reinforcements.
After giving it some thought, he believed that the only way was to deploy a deceptive Formation outside the city.
…
In order to reach Lishan City before the Great-Wen army did so that they could keep the Great-Wen army out, the Luohai reinforcements had been traveling day and night. As the ramparts of Lishan City came into view in the distance, all of them felt a sense of relief.
Though all the troops were rather weary, the commander still decided to enter the city immediately in case anything unexpected happened.
The large army progressed towards the east city gates of Lishan City along the national road.
After quite a while, an officer suddenly perceived that something was wrong.
“General, do the ramparts strike you as unchanged, or is it just me?”
The commander did not cotton on to what the officer meant. “There’s nothing wrong with the ramparts,” he said, looking in that direction.
“That’s not what I mean, General. What I’m trying to say is that the ramparts seem to be just as distant as they were a quarter of an hour ago. Theoretically we should have approached the outside of the city by now. How come it still appears to be that far away?”
The commander jumped at the words and then found that the officer was telling the truth. The ramparts seemed just as distant as they had been when he had first seen them, which obviously didn’t make any sense.
But surely the ramparts had not been moving away from them as though they had feet?
“Don’t be ridiculous. Hurry up, all of you! We’ll be inside the city in less than an hour!” yelled the commander.
Though it struck him that there was something fishy at work, he was unable to find a plausible explanation for it, so he could only instruct his men to pick up speed, believing that they would find out the reason when they reached the city gates.
The reinforcements of the Luohai Kingdom quickened their pace. The soldiers had been traveling non-stop for days, their feet blistered, their lips pallid, mingled tiredness and numbness etched in every line of their faces. The commander ordered them to hurry up, so they numbly walked faster.
Gradually, an hour passed.
The ramparts still seemed to be as distant as they had been an hour ago.
The commander gave the order to cease proceeding, swallowed hard and muttered, “This can’t be happening. Why haven’t we got any closer to it?”
“It’s daytime. Surely there are not any ghostly presences at play?” Another officer began to make speculations, appearing faintly unnerved. Having been journeying day and night for such a long time, not only the soldiers traveling on foot but also the officers riding horseback were weary and somewhat listless.
“That’s impossible! No ghostly presence dares show up in broad daylight! Stop undermining our troops’ morale with this kind of nonsense!” reprimanded the commander.
The officer instantly fell silent, not daring utter another word, but as he looked in the direction of the ramparts again, the expression in his eyes was now different, his bearing vigilant.
“We’ll have two hours’ rest in this place. Send the vanguard ahead to scout out the lay of the land,” said the commander.
