At the Flood River Pass, the Peace Mountain split off from the western side of the An Mountain Range, extending from east to west. At the point where it reached the Great Plains and turned south, there was a flat gap that looked like it had been created by a horse's hooves.
The surging waters of the Flood River flowed out from this gap and merged into the Dan River in the west.
Sixty years ago, those warriors of the Blood Sun Ancient Kingdom and EsGod, who had revived from their long slumber, had attempted to kill their way into the Dongting Protectorate's territory.
Ever since that battle, the Dongting Protectorate had built a large number of stone fortresses here, extending from the pass all the way to the two banks of the Dan River. Sixty thousand soldiers were stationed here year-round.
After sixty years, a military town had been formed behind the pass. Along the way, there were many docks and fortresses, making it convenient for supplies and goods to be transported to the front lines at any time.
Even during the years when the Plague God was wreaking havoc, the river leading to the pass remained unobstructed.
Dou Chang stood on top of the curved fortress and looked at the tents on the barren land to the north. That was where the Army of God was stationed. Two of the Army of God's marquises were currently stationed.
His mission was to keep an eye on the Army of God's general, Qi Dian.
This person's combat strength was extremely outstanding, second only to Zhu Que. In the hands of Xuanfu's men, apart from him, no one else had the slightest chance of victory against this person.
All of a sudden, he heard the rumbling of leather drums coming from the other side of the pass, followed by a flock of startled birds flying out. He turned to look, but he couldn't see anything other than lush vegetation.
A figure flashed as Qi Wu appeared beside him. "Senior Brother, the commotion on the other side is getting bigger and bigger."
Dou Chang said, "They're trying to intimidate us. They've always been there, don't pay them any attention."
Qi Wu said, "But Senior Brother, I heard that some natives with blood-colored paint appeared at the pass. They look like believers of the Blood Sun Ancient Kingdom's Mad God Buchnak."
Dou Chang's expression turned serious. "Are you sure?"
Qi Wu nodded. "It's news from within the Commandant's army. There should be no mistake."
Dou Chang frowned and clenched his fists. "Another problem."
Mad God Buchnak was one of the three EsGods that survived after the Blood Sun Ancient Kingdom was destroyed once again. It was extremely powerful and unreasonable, always doing as it pleased. It had led large numbers of believers and tribes to invade the protectorate several times.
Furthermore, the most troublesome thing was that this EsGod's strength was very unpredictable. There was even one time when they had to rely on Zhu Que personally to defeat him.
Now that his believers were here, it meant that EsGod was up to something again.
Outside the town, Qi Dian sat on a wide tree stump, gnawing on a huge deer leg.
On the surface, he looked to be in his twenties. His temperament was healthy, and his teeth were neat and white. His hair was very stiff, and it looked like it hadn't been combed. It was like a bush of grass, but there wasn't a single stain on it. Instead, it was pitch-black and shiny, with a strange luster.
As a Marquis of the Army of God who was famous for his strong attacks, his body didn't look thick at all. Instead, he was tall and agile. The lines of his muscles were long and beautiful, and he looked as vigorous as a leopard.
Just as he was focusing on the food in his hand, a young man who looked to be about 16 or 17 years old walked over from afar. He had a very bright smile on his face as he greeted, "Big Brother Qi, you're here."
Qi Dian looked at him and nodded. After thinking for a while, he picked up the deer leg and shook it. "Do you want some?"
The young man was pleasantly surprised. He took a few steps forward and said embarrassedly, "Really? Then I won't stand on ceremony. I haven't eaten yet. "
Qi Dian's expression froze slightly, and his movements also paused.
After taking a few steps forward, the young man suddenly slowed down and blinked at him. "Big Brother Qi, you can eat by yourself. I suddenly don't feel hungry anymore."
Qi Dian glared at him unhappily, as if afraid that he would change his mind. He swallowed the deer leg in a few mouthfuls, chewing and swallowing the bones. Then, he took a wine bag and gulped down two mouthfuls.
The young man looked at him and said, "Big Brother Qi, are you feeling a little bored?"
Qi Dian wiped his mouth and admitted, "It's a little boring. I can't find a good opponent, and I feel uncomfortable all over."
The young man was puzzled. "The people from Xuanfu are right beside you. Why don't you spar with them, Big Brother Qi?"
Qi Dian directly denied. "I'm not interested in those people from Xuanfu. Other than Dou Chang, who's passable, the rest aren't worth my attention."
The young man asked curiously, "Then isn't Dou Chang a suitable opponent?"
Qi Dian shook his head. "It's impossible for us to fight to the death. Instead of looking for him, I might as well look for those EsGods."
The young man smiled and said, "If it's EsGod, then Big Brother Qi will have a chance to exercise very soon."
Qi Dian tightened the metal wristband in his hand and said, "Yes, I'm looking forward to it." He stood up from the tree stump. At this time, it could be seen that he was two heads taller than the young man.
After stretching his body, he turned around and walked toward the city. With his back facing the young man, he waved and said, "Let's go back."
The young man watched him leave.
At this time, an Army of God captain walked to his side, cupped his hands, and said, "Army Marquis Pang, Army Marquis He is returning from the north. He will probably return to the camp tomorrow morning."
The young man seemed to be relieved and said, "Sigh, he's finally back. Not far away are the people from Xuanfu. Beside me is my weak big brother, and opposite is the Mad God. The burden is all on me, and it's really crushing me."
The captain looked at his spirited appearance and resisted the urge to speak.
The young man looked into the distance and said, "Where do you think Captain Lin is now?"
The captain thought for a while and said, "He should be deep in the hinterland of Mount An."
The young man nodded, crossed his arms, and said, "This time, the three of us made a big fuss here and attracted the attention of the natives and EsGod to the mountain pass. I hope they can seize this opportunity and not make us waste our efforts."
After Zhang Yu returned to the academy, he used a day to re-examine the secret scroll and roughly corrected a few of Shang Xueling's mistakes. There were only a few details left that needed to be considered.
During the inspection, through the comparison between the paper and the ink, he could tell that the translation of the secret scroll was roughly divided into two stages.
The first stage was to translate paragraph by paragraph, and the content was more fragmented. In the second stage, the content was more coherent.
This undoubtedly meant that Shang Xueling did not see the complete secret scroll at the beginning and had to translate it in batches.
Furthermore, he believed that Shang Xueling was not the only one who translated this secret scroll because he could see that there were some contents that did not belong to Shang Xueling's own translation style.
He thought for a while, copied a few paragraphs, and stuffed them into an envelope. He called Li Qinghe over and said, "Send this to Zhan Shaolang and let him see if he can identify who translated it."
He did not have much contact with the ancient naturalists of the other academies. On the contrary, Zhan Shaolang was the son of Zhan Gong and Qiu Xueling's student, so he had a lot of dealings with these people.
Li Qinghe took it and said, "Sir, Qinghe will go now."
After Zhang Yu gave the order, he continued to check the remaining parts that had not been completed.
About a summer later, Li Qing He turned back and handed over a letter, saying, "Sir, Shao Lang Zhan has replied."
Zhang Yu took it and opened it. He saw that Zhan Shaolang was very certain that the translations he copied should be the work of his former teacher, Qiu Xueling.
The letter also said that when he was Qiu Xueling's student, he had always been by his side. At that time, most of the documents were handled by him. Therefore, he was sure that Qiu Xueling had not come into contact with such things, at least before their master-disciple relationship was broken.
After Zhang Yu finished reading, he was deep in thought.
At this time, he thought of a problem. The Army of God's translations seemed to have been translated in the past few months. However, it had been four years since the fire in the Wenxiu Academy. If Yan Xulun took the secret scroll, why did he wait until today to start translating it?
He speculated that the problem was probably that there was only half of the secret scroll, so he had not made any moves. Or rather, he could not make any moves.
Looking at the secret scroll in Shang Xueling's hands, although there were some problems with the sequencing, the content was undoubtedly complete. There was no sense of fragmentation.
This meant that it was very likely that Yan Xulun had only recently obtained the other half of the secret scroll and had only begun to find someone to translate it.
If that was the case, regardless of where Yan Xulun had obtained the other half of the secret scroll, the content that both sides had should be more or less equal.
He guessed that at this time, the Army of God had most likely already secretly sent people to search for that domain. However, if it was not someone at the level of a military marquis, then there was no need to worry too much. Because the interior of Mount An was full of all kinds of dangers, it was impossible to deal with without reaching a certain level of strength.
Therefore, Xiang Chun's strategy was not bad. He only needed to watch over a few military marquises and nothing would happen.
Of course, the premise was that he could watch over them.
At this time, he did not need to be influenced by the other party's rhythm. He only needed to take care of his own matters step by step. Especially this time, because he needed to go deep into the interior, he felt that it was necessary to improve himself before he officially set off.
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