Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan thought, You obviously want to go to the Panlong Ruins, so why bother pretending to ask me? Outwardly, however, he wore a serious expression. “We’ve been to the Panlong Ruins before. That place is a deathtrap and shouldn’t be approached lightly. Old man, once the sun comes out, we’ll be able to get our bearings. We should return to the city.”

He answered so decisively that He Chunhua was momentarily taken aback.

A nearby officer immediately said, “The sky is thick with clouds. Who knows when the sun will come out? Waiting around in the desert isn’t a solution either. Our most urgent need is to find water.”

They had set out in a hurry to pursue the enemy and brought little food or water. After an entire night, both men and horses were badly parched.

They could manage without food for a while, but the same could not be said about water.

Zhao Qinghe reminded them, “Travelers who entered the desert recently mentioned an oasis near the Panlong Ruins. We should head there first and get some water.”

He Chunhua nodded. “Then we’ll go straight for the water.”

At his command, the Heishui City army began moving toward the direction where the red light had appeared. Most of the men had no objections, aside from a few grumbles.

They had no sense of direction in the desert anyway. They might as well head toward somewhere known to have water.

This time, the Heavenly Palace and the other factions once again traveled alongside the Heishui City army.

Zhang Lianhai and the others were not particularly happy about it.

They were heading to the Panlong Ruins to investigate what had happened. If some treasure truly had appeared there, how many men did they have?

The Heishui City army might have repeatedly split off troops during the pursuit, but it still numbered around three hundred. It would be strange if they did not use their superior numbers to seize whatever they found.

Still, the desert was vast. They could hardly forbid other people from traveling through it.

That scarlet light had looked close because of how conspicuous it was, but in reality, no one knew how far away it had been.

He Chunhua estimated that it had to be at least several dozen kilometers.

Four hours later, the scarlet light contracted and once again faded away into the world.

By then, the sky was fully bright, but the sun still had not appeared.

The downside was that the army still had no way to determine direction.

The upside was that the weather remained relatively cool, allowing both men and horses to keep moving with some difficulty.

They continued like this until nearly three in the afternoon. By then, everyone was exhausted. The soldiers’ lips had cracked from thirst, and they no longer even had the energy to complain.

Discontent simmered in everyone’s hearts, but no one dared leave the group on their own.

Traveling alone through such an unpredictable desert was practically asking to die.

Even those from the Heavenly Palace and the State of Baling were unwilling to head out and scout independently.

At that moment, the hunting falcon descended with momentous news: the oasis was only a kilometer and a half ahead!

The announcement immediately breathed life back into everyone. The entire force suddenly found fresh energy and hurried forward.

A kilometer and a half meant exactly a kilometer and a half.

Once they crossed a low rise, the scent of moisture struck them head-on. Ahead, clumps of grass appeared one after another, and even low shrubs had begun putting out tender new shoots.

There were plants here. Sparse, perhaps, but plants nonetheless.

And then they saw it, an oasis amid the boundless yellow sands.

It lay in a depression, tucked behind two enormous semicircular dunes. Even on a clear, sunny day, direct sunlight would only reach it around noon.

The oasis covered a large area and consisted of three interconnected small lakes. The water was crystal clear, its banks lush with greenery, while birds drifted leisurely across the surface.

For most people from Heishui City, it was an astonishing sight they had never seen before!

This was the Panlong Desert, the Heaven-cursed land where even a drop of rain had once been unable to remain.

The moment they approached, everyone felt the temperature plunge by at least ten degrees, their bodies enveloped by a long-forgotten coolness.

The soldiers did not even have time to marvel. With a cheer, they led their mounts and rushed toward the oasis.

He Chunhua immediately stopped them. “What’s the hurry? Test the water first!”

Even if an oasis existed in the desert, its water was not necessarily fit for human consumption.

One of He Chunhua’s personal guards hurried to the lakeside first. He took out a small bowl, scooped up some water, then dropped a lotus seed into it.

He Lingchuan recognized the guard. His name seemed to be Hu Xuan. A year and a half earlier, in Xinhuang Town of Xia Province, he had decisively sacrificed five years of his lifespan to draw the Ghost-Eye Bow for He Chunhua and wound Dong Rui’s ghost ape. He Chunhua had taken him into his personal guard on the spot.

It seemed he had now become one of General He’s trusted men.

That was only right. If there was something a leader was unwilling, unable, or afraid to do, and you did it for him, your career might just soar.

Hu Xuan had seized his opportunity.

Under everyone’s gaze, the seed sprouted, unfurled leaves, and flowered.

To their surprise, it became a tiny bowl lotus with twelve petals across its inner and outer layers.

The blossom was a fresh, tender pink-red.

Only then did Hu Xuan turn to He Chunhua. “My lord, the water is safe to drink.”

This plant was called the drought-heart lotus.

Its seeds could remain dormant for twenty years during severe drought and would sprout the moment they encountered water. The flower’s color changed according to water quality. If it bloomed pink-red, the water was safe for both humans and livestock. If it turned blue or purple, it was best avoided. And if it bloomed black... well, that meant the water was poisonous.

The seeds of drought-heart lotuses were extremely useful for testing water during long marches or journeys. He Lingchuan carried some himself.

Without waiting for another order from He Chunhua, the Heishui City soldiers rushed into the lakes and drank their fill alongside their horses.

After such thirst, there could hardly be a greater joy than finally finding water.

Qiu Hu and the others, however, waited until He Lingchuan nodded before going to the lakeside to drink.

Which group had the stricter discipline was obvious at a glance.

The cliff ram drank a few mouthfuls, then immediately started grazing on the grass along the bank. He Lingchuan also scooped up some water to wash his face. He let out a long breath and, for a moment, fell into a daze.

This oasis had existed in the Panlong World too.

Back then, it had been even larger. There had been a proper lake wetland, with woods along the shore, a post station, and even a small shrine.

He Lingchuan had watered his horse here many times.

Once, he had even caught a fish weighing around two and a half kilograms and roasted it together with Doorboard.

More than 160 years have passed, and now this little lake has returned.

Then what about Panlong City?

He gazed into the distance.

Zhang Lianhai was looking that way too. At the far edge of their vision, along the horizon, an immense highland had appeared.

The great slope rose hundreds of meters straight out of the earth. Even from this distance, it carried a majestic, desolate grandeur.

Zhang Lianhai murmured, “That’s the Chipa Highland.”

And atop the Chipa Highland lay their destination: the ruins of Panlong City!

The Heavenly Palace had sent two urgent messages, ordering them to determine the cause of the changes in the Panlong Desert as quickly as possible. It had even dispatched new reinforcements.

Ever since the upheaval at Mount Xu nearly a year earlier, both the Heavenly Palace and the gods had paid far greater attention to the Panlong Desert.

During his previous entries into the desert, Zhang Lianhai had wandered in countless circles without ever finding the highland. This time, however, after following the Heishui City army, he had been guided here by the red light.

Why?

Is it because the mirage’s glow had only turned red a few days ago, signaling that some treasure was about to emerge?

After drinking their fill, the horses began grazing along the shore.

The men, however, were now so hungry that their stomachs growled.

Most of the soldiers had already finished their dry rations. Now, whenever they saw someone stuffing a flatbread into his mouth, they could only swallow hard.

The oasis was pleasant, but the fish in it were not even as long as a little finger. They fled the moment they saw people and were useless for filling stomachs.

During the pursuit of the Andong army, the Heishui City troops had captured quite a few horses. Zhao Qinghe came over and asked He Chunhua whether they should slaughter one for meat.

A single horse weighed more than three hundred kilograms. Slaughtering just one would be enough to give everyone some meat.

He Chunhua waved a hand. “Why kill a horse?” Then he asked He Lingchuan, “You still have some of those stink dumplings, don’t you?”

How does he know that? He Lingchuan had no choice but to contribute a little of the concentrated liquid.

He Chunhua then ordered his men to kill an Andong prisoner. They stuffed a black jar into the corpse’s clothes, poured the foul-smelling liquid over the body, then dug a large pit in the sand and half-buried it.

He Chunhua had commanded armies and managed military logistics before. He knew that at a time like this, a warhorse was worth more than a prisoner.

Before long, movement came from beneath the sand.

Everyone heard faint rustling beneath their feet, and parts of the ground began to sink.

Then something suddenly yanked the prisoner’s corpse and dragged it beneath the sand.

The cord tied to the body snapped taut.

Whatever was underground gave another violent tug.

The finger-thick rope broke.

Boom!

A tremendous explosion erupted beneath the yellow sand.

Sand blasted more than a meter and a half into the air, and even those standing nearby felt their feet go numb from the shock.

He Chunhua waited several breaths. When there was no further movement underground, he pointed at the sand. “Dig it out!”

The soldiers immediately set to work. Before long, they unearthed an enormous creature.

It was around thirteen meters long, round-bodied and exceedingly plump, looking somewhat like an eel and somewhat like an earthworm. Its body was divided into ring-like segments.

It was simply too large for them to hoist out, so they had no choice but to dig away the surrounding sand instead.

Zhang Lianhai and the other outsiders came over to watch. “What is that?”

They seemed to have seen creatures like this while traveling in and out of the desert.

“A sand wyrm. A specialty of the desert,” answered He Lingchuan. “A few months ago, these things would attack travelers. Now they usually stay quietly underground and rarely come out.”

Other deserts had sand wyrms too, but they were rarely this enormous.

The strange breeds of the Panlong Desert had all been influenced by the Generous Pot. Now that the Generous Pot had changed, their aggression had vanished along with their baleful nature, and they had reverted to being scavengers that hid beneath the sand.

A huge hole had been blasted open in this sand wyrm’s belly, obviously the work of the explosive jar.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Since the group could not drag the entire creature out, they simply chopped large slabs of flesh from its body. They pulled out the slimy, fishy tendons, stripped away the hide, rinsed the meat, rubbed it with salt, and roasted it over fires.

Sand wyrm meat was rich, tender, and fine-textured, much like eel. It had always been a delicacy on Heishui City dining tables.

Zhang Lianhai and the others initially looked somewhat put off, but after eating a few pieces of roasted meat, they stopped caring.

A creature this massive was enough to feed the entire army for several meals.

After resting at the oasis for about half an hour, the various expedition teams finally parted ways with the army and eagerly headed toward the Chipa Highland.

None of them looked back. Everyone understood perfectly well that once they entered the Panlong Ruins, they would all become competitors.

Whatever camaraderie they had built while fighting the enemy together had already vanished without a trace.

He Chunhua filled his waterskin, then pointed toward the Chipa Highland and said to He Lingchuan, “We should head over too.”

“Huh?” He Lingchuan looked thoroughly unwilling. “We’re still going?”

“Have you forgotten why Sun Fuping and Nian Songyu came here last time?”

He Lingchuan grumbled, “Didn’t that black dragon already say that the Generous Pot is one with Panlong City itself and can’t be taken out at all?”

“Things have changed now. Otherwise, why would so many people be rushing toward it?” He Chunhua’s expression turned grave. “Sun Fuping was right about one thing: the Generous Pot can influence the course of a war. Dong Haoming’s rebellion still shows no sign of ending. If we can obtain the Generous Pot, it would be a tremendous blessing for Great Yuan!”

If he could release the Three Corpses Worms to assist his army, suppressing Dong Haoming’s rebels would hardly be difficult at all!

“Then you go, old man.” Using righteousness and the greater good to pressure me, how is that any different from what Sun Fuping did back then? He Lingchuan scratched his ear. “I’ll stay here and hold the fort for you.”