“Commander, are you saying that in the future we’ll be living on camel backs?”

“That’s right. The smell might be a bit strong, but there’s no other way. Our city needs to travel back and forth across the gobi, so we can only live on camel backs. The Camel City can’t go everywhere, but as long as our cavalry operates within a three-hundred-li radius of the Camel City, they won’t need to carry large quantities of supplies—just one or two days’ worth of dry rations and water will suffice.”

“With a great city at our backs, the cavalry can fight without any distractions. As long as distance is no longer our fatal weakness, heh heh, I’ll lead you bastards to storm even the Palace of King Yama.”

After hearing Yun Ye’s explanation, not only was Yun Ye grinning wickedly, but the soldiers around him were also grinning wickedly together. That’s just how it was—Tang people had never doubted their combat prowess, especially these killing machines from Longyou and Guannei Circuit. Even a fool would know what a tremendous advantage it was to fight with a city at your back. Even if you were accidentally surrounded by the enemy and couldn’t reach the city walls, the most exciting thing would happen at that moment—your own city would come to you…

After explaining the Camel City and the necessity of literacy to the soldiers, Yun Ye returned to the commander’s tent. Fan Hongyi and Tian Yuanyi were still waiting for him. The construction of the Camel City absolutely couldn’t be completed overnight. Never mind anything else—just the problem of steering was enough to give anyone a headache, not to mention that the terrain of the Western Regions was complex. The great city needed flat land wherever it went. It wouldn’t do to have other camels walking while camels in deep pits fell into holes—what kind of situation would that be?

So harnesses were extremely important, and roads were extremely important too. As long as this great city could move laterally two thousand li left and right, Yun Ye believed his army would have sufficient capability to lock down this region. With intelligence coordination, when the Western Regions barbarians charged over, they would discover that a city had appeared on their path forward, eyeing them hungrily.

This was the most beautiful scenario in his imagination. Reality was nowhere near this perfect. The Camel City could only be tested in battle to see whether it was useful, whether it could meet the needs of warfare. What Yun Ye could think of now was that the Camel City could maximize the reduction of soldiers’ hardships from constant traveling.

He could only hope that the academy’s research would bring him good news. Yun Ye almost wanted to press his palms together and pray that Heaven would give him a bit more face.

Mount Zheluoman remained snow-white, reflecting dazzling white light under the sun’s illumination. Yun Ye was now accustomed to the white light. Wu She could already easily produce the white light and then put it away. The old fellow was like someone who had obtained a flashlight and was excitedly playing with the switch, turning it on and off like an idiot.

Yun Ye believed this thing might have radiation. He held a suspicious attitude toward all stones that could emit light on their own. Watching through thick walls as Wu She happily bathed in the white light like an immortal, he instructed the pregnant Na Rimu not to approach within ten zhang of Wu She. He didn’t want Na Rimu to give birth to some fool who wore his underwear on the outside in the future.

Na Rimu now attached extraordinary importance to her belly. Her husband’s words were never wrong. If the white light would harm Na Rimu herself, she might not be able to suppress her curiosity and go look at it. Now, hearing that this thing might harm the child in her belly, Na Rimu immediately complied readily, staying far away from Wu She. This made Wu She ask Yun Ye during meals why he hadn’t seen Na Rimu since winter began.

Wu She showed no symptoms of hair loss, nor did his skin ulcerate. After taking his pulse, Yun Ye found that the old fellow couldn’t be healthier. His strong pulse made Yun Ye very envious.

He claimed that after being illuminated by the divine light, his sleep improved, his spirit was vigorous, and he could kill an ox with one punch. In short, he used his personal experience to tell Yun Ye that the white light was a good thing and hoped Yun Ye would also get more exposure when he had time.

What kind of light hadn’t he been exposed to in his previous life? He’d been exposed several times to the kind of light that could see bone structures—things that doctors were reluctant to overuse. Expecting Yun Ye to accept more radiation was pure fantasy.

“How is it harmful to the body? This old man has been exposed for an entire winter—have I had any problems? Look, my spirit is so vigorous. I feel that some of my chronic ailments are healing without medicine. This is divine light—something you can encounter but not seek. That Yuan Shoucheng next door thinks about climbing to Tianchi every day to find immortals, but doesn’t know that the immortal is right next door. Young man, this is karmic connection! Those with karma can kick a stone and find gold. Those without karma can’t find the way even if they wear through their iron shoes. Why don’t you know how to cherish this karmic opportunity?” Wu She was somewhat angry and began lecturing after setting down his teacup.

“This karmic connection is yours. If you like it, get more exposure. Anyway, you’re already a ninety-year-old man—you can do whatever you want with impunity. Even the law says so. This youngster isn’t even thirty yet and wants to live a few more years. My karmic connections are many—I can trip and pick up gold nuggets. Maybe in the future I can eat at the same table with immortals. If you accidentally become an immortal from exposure to white light, what’s the difference from me becoming an immortal? As long as someone in our family becomes immortal, it doesn’t matter who—I’m happy to see it happen.”

Seeing that Yun Ye still didn’t care, Wu She felt somewhat disinterested and said lazily: “If Old Liu Fang were in the Western Regions now, he would be as happy as this old man. To bathe in divine light with old friends, to drink tea and play chess in the divine light—that would be ultimate bliss in the mortal world. What a pity.”

“No pity at all. Old Liu suddenly got the urge to travel for some reason and ran off to Talas with our merchant caravan. I only just learned the news. I estimate that when he returns from Talas, he’ll come to Beiting, and then you can drink tea, chat, and bask in divine light together.”

Yun Ye unhurriedly told Wu She the news that Liu Fang had gone to Talas. The old fellow immediately cheered up, drank his tea in one gulp, and went off with his hands behind his back to laugh at Yuan Shoucheng. Now his only pleasures left each day were basking in divine light and looking at Yuan Shoucheng’s deadpan face.

Fan Hongyi was most delighted that the commander said the fire oil stockpile was sufficient. In fact, they had run out of iron buckets. He immediately lifted the restrictions on those barbarians and merchants, allowing them to produce fire oil with maximum capacity. To make money, those merchants didn’t even care about their lives, and they forcibly trampled out a passage at the mountain pass. In the dead of winter, they made it so camel and horse caravans could still travel between the northern and southern sides of the Tianshan Mountains.

Gaochang produced cotton in abundance, but no one was collecting it. Cotton covered the mountains and fields, spread white across the ground. Tian Yuanyi drove the common people to pick cotton in the snow. These lazy worms didn’t know how to move in autumn, and the good cotton was about to rot in the fields. Didn’t they know what price cotton fetched in the Great Tang?

He didn’t care how much money it could sell for—he only cared about cotton. The commander said cotton was also essential military supplies for the Camel City. He never doubted the commander’s words. As the commander’s aide, he just needed to execute orders properly.

The lieutenant who returned from Loulan said that his family had gone back to Yumen Pass with the army’s supply train. This put his mind greatly at ease. Being able to return with the army was definitely much safer than going back with a merchant caravan. Once inside the pass, they wouldn’t need anyone to escort them—mother and child could make their own way to Chang’an. General Su’s army had swept through Longyou and Hexi three times. He’d heard that those places were now so clean you could sleep on the ground.

He pulled out a small silver flask from his bosom, took a sip of strong liquor, grimaced, and let out a long breath. Damn it, now this was the life! Tian Yuanyi muttered to himself, then lay back in the pile of collected cotton, facing the sky and looking at the blue sky and white clouds above, feeling warmth seeping through all thirty-eight thousand pores of his body.

“Why are the flowers so red, why are they so red, red like burning flames, red like burning fire, they symbolize pure friendship and love…”

Na Rimu wore a gauze dress and veil, singing this melodious song, leaving the soldiers drinking around the fire completely mesmerized. Only under this blue vault of heaven would Na Rimu, like a lark, come back to life.

Singing for soldiers—if Xinyue knew about it, she would beat her to death. But Yun Ye loved seeing Na Rimu display her former spirit. He believed that women from the grasslands should be like this—like fire when passionate, like old cowhide when resilient.

Yun Ye had taught this song to Na Rimu, and it quickly spread at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, so much so that Tian Yuanyi could hear this tender, melodious song even lying in the cotton pile.

How wonderful it would be if there were no warfare! Tian Yuanyi thought dreamily. Half his life had been spent at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains. Here the mountains were high, the waters beautiful, the melons and fruits sweet and fragrant, and cattle and sheep were everywhere—it could be considered an earthly paradise. If he could live out his days here, it would also be a good choice.

In the past, he needed to hide a knife when sleeping and never dared relax. Now that his wife and children had left, Tian Yuanyi had completely relaxed. He himself was a learned man. His governance here could be considered diligent. He even had more ideas he wanted to realize. Give me ten years, and I’ll return you an earthly paradise.

Cavalry always ran about in squads here. If it was a single rider, they would likely disappear quickly. Tian Yuanyi was fed up with this state of affairs. He didn’t know what those people were thinking. You kill one cavalryman, and then a large army surrounds the village, and in the end, all the cattle and sheep in the village are beheaded before they’ll stop. What’s the point? Don’t they think before doing things?

The barbarians picking cotton in the fields raised their wooden forks and surrounded him. What did they want to do? He still had fifty soldiers with him, all veterans, reportedly from the Xuanjia Army. These few hundred people weren’t enough for them to kill.

These men were all the commander’s personal guards. Never mind that one’s hair and beard were grizzled—wait, these people wouldn’t think that because the ones watching them were old soldiers, they could kill off this group and then go home, and when the army arrived later, claim they knew nothing, would they?

How were these people’s minds made? Did they think the general would have the leisure to listen to their explanations? Would the military administrator distinguish good civilians from violent ones one by one? That was an army, not constables from a yamen. They always killed people first and then wrote reports, or killed people and wrote nothing at all.