Chapter 59: My Son Has No Regrets

Even with oil shops, distilleries, and charcoal stores, and wooden structures throughout the city, burning it all down with their limited manpower would be a massive undertaking. They needed to find as many accelerants as possible.

Once the others had left, He Lingchuan unexpectedly doubled back to Zhong’s residence and quietly slipped into an empty room.

The room was spacious, furnished with two beds—one large and one small—two stools, and a dressing table.

After Grand Master Sun fired the signal arrow, He Lingchuan had taken the opportunity while Sun was gathering his companions to explore this set of official quarters, examining everything.

He Lingchuan hadn't found any useful clues at the time, but after their recent discussion, he suddenly felt compelled to look again.

Each set of official quarters was small and functionally simple, serving merely as a place to eat, live, and sleep. This room, therefore, was likely the bedroom of Zhong Shengguang and his wife.

The bedding on the large bed was clean and neatly folded, and a precious saber with a ring-swallowing dragon hilt hung on the wall above the bed.

Only a fierce military commander would hang such a formidable weapon above his and his wife’s bed. And the small bed beside it—

—must have belonged to their daughter, Zhong Wuhuan.

The small bed was only three *chi* long, too short for an adult to lie on even with bent legs. At its head were a small wooden horse and little wooden soldiers wielding wooden swords. Opposite them was a fierce-looking cloth tiger.

No, wait, it was a cloth leopard, crafted in the image of a sand leopard, complete with its characteristic round spots.

Placed together like that, the three items told a story.

He picked it up and saw small characters embroidered on the leopard’s belly:

"My son, Wuhuan."

A small cloth doll was also tucked away at the foot of the bed.

He Lingchuan walked over to the large bed. On the dressing table, a set of makeup powders and a bronze mirror were neatly arranged.

He picked up each item for inspection and found a comb tucked into the back of the bronze mirror—it was surprisingly a set.

"This is...?" His eyes lit up. He held the comb up to the light and murmured, "So it was here all along."

It was a plain wooden comb, simple in design and function, with only a small, light-blue flower painted on its head.

The pigment, a fine powder ground from a type of shellfish, yielded a sky-blue color.

Based solely on this floral design, He Lingchuan could confirm that this was the very keepsake the Sand Leopard had carried away from its owner when Panlong City fell years ago!

It was also this item that had caused the feud between the He family and the Grand Marshal's Residence.

Yet, in this illusion, the comb was not yet half-burned.

"Zhong Shengguang's wife died shortly after giving birth to their daughter, and he did indeed keep this comb as a memento," He Lingchuan murmured to himself, glancing at the small bed. "No, that's not right. At this point, Zhong Wuhuan hadn't been born yet. Zhong Shengguang wouldn't have known if his wife would have a boy or a girl, yet he had already prepared an infant bed."

Otherwise, Commander Zhong wouldn't have placed several boys' toys—which looked as if he had carved them himself—at the child's bedside.

"This was probably the happiest time of his life," he mused. His career had promise, and his beloved wife was nearing childbirth.

He casually slid open the dressing table's secret compartment. Inside were a few pieces of very ordinary jewelry, but He Lingchuan’s gaze immediately fixed on one particular item.

It was a necklace with a crescent-shaped pendant.

It looked strikingly familiar. He Lingchuan instinctively pulled out the necklace from around his own neck.

They were, in fact, the exact same item! One existed in the illusion, the other in reality, and even their physical forms had changed.

This meant that before his daughter’s birth, Zhong Shengguang had been the owner of this divine bone necklace.

He Lingchuan, having gained some insight, carefully placed the comb back in its original position and exited the room.

Just as he stepped out of the official quarters, he saw someone standing outside.

It was Maotao.

He Lingchuan jumped, unable to resist cursing, "Not a sound! Are you trying to scare ghosts?"

"Young Master, let me go with you; I'll handle all the work," Maotao said with a fawning smile. "It feels like someone is always secretly watching me, waiting for me to be alone to strike."

"Even if there is, it's not human." He Lingchuan didn't refuse; he felt the same prickle of being watched, and traveling together was indeed safer. Maotao pointed. "I remember there's a pretty big restaurant over there."

He Lingchuan glanced back at Zhong's residence. "This is too close; we'll leave it to the city's armaments. Let's go somewhere farther away."

Both possessed some martial arts skill, so they sprinted quickly.

Thirty minutes later, the road narrowed, and the buildings along the roadside became increasingly sparse. Larger commercial warehouses, post stations, and even drying grounds began to appear.

These areas were far from any city gate. Even if the city's armaments could reach them, a single shot wouldn't effectively ignite large swaths.

This would require manual effort.

The two climbed into a distillery, found a flatbed cart, and loaded it with over a dozen jars of aged wine. They then broke off two suitable pieces of wood to fashion into torches before pulling the wine out.

They walked and burned, pouring the wine onto wood, cotton quilts, thatch, or any other combustible material they encountered.

After several *li* of this, they looked back to see flames soaring into the sky.

Maotao pointed west. "Black smoke is rising there. It seems the Grand Master is also working diligently."

He Lingchuan merely glanced and continued his work. "It seems that's not the crucial point either."

Maotao asked, puzzled, "Crucial point? What do you mean?"

"We decided to burn down the entire city simply because we couldn't identify the critical point to break this illusion, so we had to resort to this clumsy method. Otherwise, a single fire arrow would have sufficed," He Lingchuan explained clearly. "Conversely, burning other areas will be useless. Only by burning the critical point will this illusion be lifted."

Maotao shook his hand and sighed, "How much longer is this going to take?" He was exhausted, as He Lingchuan had made him pull the cart like a donkey.

Even a real donkey, pulling a cart full of wine jars for ten *li*, would be dead from exhaustion.

The thought of burning down an entire city made him feel numb all over.

"You should be glad," He Lingchuan said grimly. "The critical point isn't in the area we're responsible for; that's good karma from your past life. Think about Taobo's fate and the consequences if the illusion breaks. Can you bear them?"

Taobo's final fate had been no better than his teammates'; his body had vanished without a trace. Maotao shivered. "Then let's meet up with the Grand Master as soon as possible."

He Lingchuan chuckled. "Thanks to you, it won't be completed that quickly."

Because Maotao had sneaked off to find him, the entire northern part of Panlong City hadn't been burned yet. "Now, you can tell me: why did you come looking for me?"

Maotao paused. "I... I was just afraid."

He Lingchuan couldn't be bothered to elaborate. "Get back to the north."

"No, wait, I'll tell you! I just hadn't thought it through," Maotao said, wiping sweat with a towel. "Just now, when the Grand Master was looking at Taobo's notes, he didn't realize that before I followed Boss Situ, I actually lived in Copper City in the Baling kingdom for twelve years and even attended a private school, until my stepfather was murdered during a business deal..."

"Stop. Get to the point!"

"...I can understand a bit of Baling script."

He Lingchuan stopped. "What did the Grand Master hide?"

He knew it; that old man was holding back information!