“I quit!” Li Tai angrily swept everything on the table to the floor. The ink bottle fell to the ground and shattered into pieces, the pitch-black ink staining a large patch of the floor.
Across from him, Hypatia raised her head, removed her crystal glasses from the bridge of her nose, folded them carefully, and hung them on her chest. The golden frame stood out prominently against the two halves of her snow-white peaks.
“Don’t try to tempt me, it’s useless. Even if you stripped naked and stood before me, it wouldn’t work. We’ve exhausted every method, but it’s still not feasible. Gunpowder as a long-term propulsive force doesn’t seem viable because this force is too violent and difficult to control. As soon as we begin trying to control it, explosions occur. No method works. Gunpowder is not a qualified propellant. Yun Ye said this before, and I didn’t believe it. Now I have no choice but to believe it.”
Li Tai sat dejectedly beside the huge desk, supporting his chin with both hands, speaking listlessly.
“Really?” Hypatia raised an eyebrow, and she actually began undressing. The room was somewhat chilly. After removing her garments, Hypatia’s smooth skin showed some subtle raised bumps from the cold. Her two hands half-covered her breasts, but no matter how she tried to conceal them, she couldn’t hide them completely. Her pink nipples appeared and disappeared between her fingers. The tabletop blocked the view below, preventing Li Tai from seeing even if he wanted to.
Li Tai swallowed rather pathetically. The words he had just spoken were instantly forgotten completely. In a few steps, he walked over and buried his head in Hypatia’s ample bosom…
After a long while, the naked Li Tai gently glided his hand over Hypatia’s gracefully curved body, softly saying to her, “Thank you, Xiao Ya. You’re always so good to me.”
Hypatia’s eyes were like silk, her flushed cheeks looking as if water could be squeezed from them. She buried her heated face in Li Tai’s embrace and nuzzled against him, laughing as she said, “You’re also very good to me, Qing Que. No matter how willful I am, you’ve never restrained me. You just let me live happily and joyfully, soaring freely like a little bird. With your protection, I’ve been able to continue my inheritance. Do you know? I’m luckier than all the Hypatias before me, having a prince as strong as a mountain who dotes on and loves me.”
This was precisely where men were pathetic—they couldn’t withstand a few sweet words from women. Being flattered a little made them feel they could move mountains and fill seas. After dressing, the two sat before the desk again, analyzing the reasons for their last failure with such seriousness that they seemed like they were in an academy classroom. No one could tell the two had just been entangled in passion moments before. Only the lascivious atmosphere lingering in the room hadn’t yet dissipated, desperately trying to prove that behind their noble facades, they seemed to have researched something else as well.
“This is the limit of our knowledge. If physics doesn’t make further discoveries, without theoretical support, we’ve already reached our limit. If we want further expansion, we need those strange and peculiar ideas in Yun Ye’s head. I only hope this fellow can return soon. This is very important for our research, extremely important. A perfectly good scholar has now become a military man and politician—and third-rate ones at that. I need to empty out his brain before he forgets those profound theories.”
Li Tai didn’t need to empty it out—Yun Ye was already nearly emptying his own brain. When the fist-sized morning star hadn’t yet disappeared, brilliant fireworks rose on the horizon. Cheng Chumo had already launched a sudden attack on the Abbasids from the rear. Over twenty thousand auxiliary troops were continuously stringing barbed wire at the valley entrance, building defensive positions. In Cheng Chumo’s view, rather than passively defending, it was better to actively attack, disrupting the Abbasids’ formation so they couldn’t mount an effective assault in a short time.
Forty days of arduous marching had drained this army’s spirit and energy. No matter how firm their faith, physical exhaustion still arrived as expected. Whenever they weren’t marching, their only thought was wanting to sleep.
Dawn was when people’s drowsiness was most intense. The crude barricades couldn’t stop Cheng Chumo’s cavalry. Almost in an instant, the camp gate was blown open by explosive projectiles. Cheng Chumo’s cavalry galloped freely through the Abbasid camp. Many times, they didn’t need to put in much effort—they simply rode their horses over the low tents.
The explosions of the gunpowder bombs awakened the sleeping Abbasids. They rushed out from their tents wearing thin clothing. Many fierce Abbasids hadn’t even put on their shoes. Cheng Chumo wielded his horse lance, hoarsely demanding his subordinates charge with him. He wanted to completely disrupt the Abbasids’ deployment. This way, when the Camel City rolled over them, they could be completely annihilated in the shortest time.
The instant Cheng Chumo launched his attack, the Camel City began moving its steps, slowly advancing toward Yusuf’s army. Ten li wasn’t far. Liu Zhengwu desperately urged the camels forward, raising the Camel City’s advance speed to maximum. The camels’ thick footpads treading on the earth actually created an effect similar to thousands of troops and horses galloping.
Just as the Camel City approached the Abbasid camp, a line of firelight suddenly appeared on the ground. The pitch-black Abbasid camp suddenly became brightly lit. The camp’s high platforms were filled with fully armored Abbasids. That line of firelight spread into a sea of flames in a short time. Liu Fang’s expression instantly became cold as iron.
“This is an Abbasid stratagem. They anticipated we would launch a surprise attack, so they set up traps in advance. This sea of flames blocks our way. Cheng Chumo is in danger.”
Watching the orderly Abbasids in the valley begin converging on the rear camp, the Great Tang generals standing on the Camel City were at their wits’ end, anxiously pacing in circles. Camels feared fire—in fact, all livestock and wild beasts feared fire. The entire Camel City came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the sea of flames. Feeling the scorching heat of the raging fire, the camels wailed and retreated backward. As a result, their steps were no longer uniform, their weight shifted, and the frontmost formation collapsed with a thunderous crash. Over a hundred camels were crushed alive into meat paste by the Camel City’s weight.
This was simply a trap. Forty consecutive days of pursuit had indeed exhausted the Abbasids’ energy, but it had also stretched Yusuf’s nerves to their limit. He had witnessed the terror of the Camel City, so every day when setting up camp, he would establish such a sea of flames in front of his encampment. He hadn’t expected it to achieve miraculous results today.
“The Abbasids don’t have much fire oil.” Yun Ye held up his telescope, glanced at the catapults throwing fire oil into the sea of flames, and said thoughtfully to Liu Fang.
“They don’t need to have much fire oil. They only need to delay us for one hour. Now Cheng Chumo has already launched an attack on the rear camp. Those Abbasids, Tocharians, and Great Bolu people who fell behind will quickly catch up and surround Cheng Chumo’s cavalry in the canyon area. We’ll suffer enormous losses.”
Yun Ye looked back at Liu Fang and said, “Do you really think Cheng Chumo’s forty thousand troops can’t hold out for one hour? As long as the great fire is extinguished, the Abbasids still can’t escape the fate of being crushed into meat paste by the Camel City. Someone come! Behead the commander of Formation Jia Three. Formations Jia Two and Jia Four, clear Formation Jia Three and open the road. Order the gunpowder crossbows to prepare. Order the catapults to prepare. I will blast out this sea of flames!”
Fan Hongyi clasped his fists and hastily departed. Formation Jia Three had truly been disgraceful tonight. The Camel City valued stability most, yet he couldn’t even control his five hundred camels—he deserved death. Not only had he made the enemy laugh, but he also blocked the path for other armies to advance.
As soon as Fan Hongyi left, countless gunpowder crossbow bolts flew into the sea of flames. Dense explosion sounds rang out within the sea of flames. The blast waves produced instantly suppressed the great fire, which then began burning again. The fire was much smaller than before—all results of the previous round of explosions kicking up earth and sand to cover the fire oil layer.
Seeing that the gunpowder explosions were very effective, Du Ruhui breathed a long sigh of relief. Not only him, but the other officers and soldiers as well. Liu Zhengwu’s spirits were greatly lifted. Waving his single arm, he once again issued the bombardment order. Gunpowder crossbow arrows and explosive projectiles rose into the air again, falling precisely according to pre-calculated positions. This round of explosions completely divided the large connected sea of flames into scattered small patches.
Several thousand road-paving soldiers carrying wooden boards rushed out from the Camel City. They threw down their carried boards and quickly ran back. Specialized soldiers connecting the boards firmly locked the clasps on the boards, spreading the boards into a flat road. For every zhang this wooden board road extended, the Camel City advanced one zhang. As long as the Camel City approached Yusuf’s camp, it would announce the arrival of his doomsday.
The Abbasids frantically poured their remaining fire oil onto the empty ground before their camp, trying to make the flames rise higher. However, the fire oil they possessed and the fire oil the Camel City possessed were two different things. The viscous oil couldn’t form a spreading tendency on the sandy soil. Once covered by sand blasted up by gunpowder crossbow arrows, it quickly extinguished—unlike the refined fire oil on the Camel City, which could burn violently even when dispersed in the air.
Formation Jia Three had part of its weight shared by the two adjacent Formations Jia Two and Jia Four, slowly withdrawing from the battlefield. The Formation Yi behind quickly moved forward to fill the gap.
The Camel City rapidly changed formation into a single-file line. This way, they didn’t need to lay wooden board roads over large areas. Everywhere were large craters blasted out by gunpowder, which were extremely unfavorable for the Camel City’s march.
The sky had already brightened considerably, yet it remained dim. The blue sky had been shrouded by black smoke. The entire valley was even more filled with black smoke, like a hellish realm on earth.
The ground after the great fire was so hot that people couldn’t even place their feet on it, yet there was a group of people who, after dousing themselves with cold water, charged into this scorching land wearing pig-snout masks, using iron shovels, using clothing, even using their hands to scoop hot sand to extinguish the remaining flames.
Yun Ye’s orders required the Camel City to quickly cross this land. If this fire oil evaporated into gasoline-like substances under the high temperature’s scorching heat, the Camel City would be finished.
When a gunpowder crossbow arrow exploded on the wall of the Abbasid camp, forcibly tearing open a large hole in the camp wall, only then did Yun Ye lower his highly suspended heart. As long as they were within his strike range, they had nowhere to escape.