The wind roared, the sky darkened, and the celestial signs turned suddenly abnormal!
The whole of Akbachu was instantly enveloped in an eerie, mysterious atmosphere—and it wasn’t only Jun Beiyue who sensed something was wrong!
At this moment, throughout the entire city of Akbachu, inside and out, from the noblest emperor to the lowliest servant, everyone realized something was terribly wrong!
The northwest wind had always been blocked entirely by Mingsha Mountain, yet now it suddenly surged straight over the mountain toward Akbachu!
For a hundred years, Akbachu had never experienced a gale like this!
And this wasn’t just wind—it carried the very sand of Mingsha Mountain with it!
The Xijing emperor no longer had any attention to spare for Jun Beiyue’s fury or the guests at the peace conference—he was several times more panicked now than he had been when Jun Beiyue had threatened him moments ago.
He reached his hand out into the wind, and within moments, his entire palm was covered in sand!
Given this wind strength and this concentration of sand, within no more than three days, Mingsha Mountain would surely be leveled, and Akbachu would inevitably be buried beneath the sand.
The Xijing emperor didn’t want to admit it, but he had no choice—this was a disaster, a disaster for Akbachu.
So the forbidden legend was true after all—the Jiazi year, Jiazi month, Jiazi day was indeed Akbachu’s day of disaster!
“Go! Send the order—activate the secret army, relocate the capital to Hamabachu City!”
The Xijing emperor decisively gave the order at once. While the royal family guarded the legend of Akbachu, they had also maintained a secret army all along, one permitted to be activated only when facing disaster!
Not only was there a secret army, but there was also a relocation plan passed down through generations of emperors, never once activated, everything arranged in meticulous detail!
“Yes!” The attendant immediately went to carry out the order!
Only then did the Xijing emperor turn to go find Qianqian, only to discover Yelu Qianqian was nowhere to be found!
“Where’s Qianqian? Where is she?”
He erupted in fury, so enraged he nearly devoured the person beside him. “Where is she? Weren’t you supposed to be watching her?”
“Your Majesty, the sky… the sky changed so suddenly, this servant was so frightened that the princess slipped away!”
“Nonsense! That foolish girl never knows the gravity of a situation—go find her now! Wait for me at the south gate. If you haven’t found her within half an hour, half an hour, you’d better come alone!”
Only the Xijing emperor understood just how terrifying the legend truly was. With a sky like this, a wind this fierce, clouds gathering like this, a massive desert super-tornado would surely sweep through within roughly half an hour.
By then, in less than three days—no, within just half an hour—it would be more than enough to blow Mingsha Mountain away entirely, more than enough to bury Akbachu completely!
They had to flee!
And they had to flee far, far away—all the way to the caves south of the vast Gobi expanse stretching south of Akbachu.
That was the only escape route passed down from their ancestors. Otherwise, within a hundred li of Akbachu, there would be no escape at all—everyone would be swept up into the sky by the tornado, doomed to fall to their deaths!
Clutching the imperial seal, abandoning everything else, the Xijing emperor turned and fled.
At this moment, the entirety of Akbachu erupted into chaos, as if in the throes of a riot—everyone fled outward, whether they understood what was happening or not, all swarming toward the city gates as if fleeing for their lives!
Even the Gobi flats, small sand plains, and small towns near Akbachu descended into chaos as well!
The Xijing emperor, showing some measure of mercy, ordered the troops to maintain order and direct everyone southward.
Amid the crowd, surrounded on all sides as a matter of course, were naturally the rulers and dignitaries of the various nations. The Xiliang emperor and the Xiongnu emperor remained relatively composed, but the Dongqin empress, who had never before witnessed the desert’s weather turn like this, had gone pale with fright, fleeing fastest of all under Nanny Qin’s protection, having long since abandoned Bai Mengmeng to her fate.
And amid this chaos, as everyone fled southward with the wind, Jun Beiyue was instead heading westward against the northwest wind, toward Mingsha Mountain!
The distance from Akbachu to Mingsha Mountain wasn’t far—at Jun Beiyue’s pace, a quarter hour would suffice!
But today’s northwest wind was no ordinary gale, howling and roaring, already showing faint signs of coalescing into a small tornado!
Under such conditions, even the most formidable master would find every step a struggle!
Jun Beiyue didn’t know exactly what was happening with Mingsha Mountain, but he had always known there had to be a reason why this place produced its singing sand sound, why the sand there was never blown away!
He simply didn’t have enough time to fully work out the special nature of this location!
Now, he couldn’t afford to worry about any of that.
He had only one thought: find his wife before true disaster struck, hold her in his arms, and carry her away—that was all.
Yet Jun Beiyue wasn’t the only one heading against the wind—there was another, Yelu Qianqian, who was also pushing against the gale, also trying to find Han Ziqing, wanting to explain things for Situ Haonan.
She knew perfectly well that the truth had already come out, that no amount of explaining would help now—but she still wanted to try.
Yet with her mediocre martial skill, fighting against the wind, she couldn’t get far at all—every step forward blew her back several steps instead.
She was moving against the wind, yet making no progress, only being pushed backward. Before long, the guards found her and forcibly dragged her away.
The pace of the exodus was astonishingly fast—before long, the entire city of Akbachu stood empty, with Yelu Qianqian and her guards among the very last to leave.
“Let go of me! Let go!”
“I won’t leave! Han Ziqing is in danger, I won’t leave! I have to explain! I won’t leave!”
…
No matter how much Yelu Qianqian struggled, it was all in vain.
But just then, amid the howling gale, a faint cry for help seemed to flicker in and out. The guards paused, listening—they thought they’d heard something, but listening more closely, there was nothing at all!
The wind grew stronger, the sky grew darker, and the guards, growing frightened themselves, didn’t dare linger any longer—they simply knocked Yelu Qianqian unconscious and carried her off.
“Help!”
“Someone save me…”
“Help me…”
Amid the howling gale, there truly was a cry for help mixed in—and it belonged to none other than Bai Mengmeng, abandoned by the Dongqin empress.
Bound hand and foot, about to be executed, the celestial phenomena had suddenly shifted, and upon hearing the news, the Dongqin empress and Nanny Qin had fled at once, abandoning her entirely, alone.
She knew this was an opportunity—an enormous, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
But could she actually seize it?
Bound tightly, unable to break free no matter how she struggled, she lay collapsed on the ground, desperately writhing and screaming, yet no one paid her any attention.
She watched countless people fleeing southward, watched Yelu Qianqian struggling forward and back against the wind before finally being carried away, even heard Yelu Qianqian repeatedly calling out a name—a name she despised to her very core, Han Ziqing!
She also watched that man she loved so desperately, hated so desperately, rushing toward Mingsha Mountain as if he cared nothing for his own life!
She knew it—Han Ziqing must be at Mingsha Mountain, and Jun Beiyue was surely going to find her!
Watching the man she loved rushing recklessly toward another woman, she couldn’t bear it. Gritting her teeth, enduring the pain at her wrists and ankles, she was determined to break free even if it killed her!
She wanted revenge!
She had once been afraid of Han Ziqing, avoiding her, hiding from her.
Now, she was free—Jun Beiyue had released her, the Dongqin empress had abandoned her, and now she was completely, utterly free!
She would go find Han Ziqing. In this entire lifetime, she had never once laid eyes on that woman, and even if it killed her, she was going to give her a thorough tongue-lashing.
Otherwise, she would never be able to swallow this grievance!