With enemies at their doorstep, the foreign affairs department had been abolished, its personnel scattered among administrative and logistics divisions, effectively split into two separate teams serving the King and the State Preceptor. Several consecutive meeting requests had vanished like a clay ox entering the sea, their whereabouts unknown. Small matters unrelated to the war, such as invitation cards from foreign envoys, either couldn’t complete the procedural process or were simply lost during the reporting chain.

By the time Feng Miaojun reached Yinggong City, she had not received any formal response from Xi Kingdom officials. This would be unimaginable in any other country.

This indirectly indicated that the Xi Kingdom maintained only the shell of a nation while its internal governance was in extreme disarray, unable even to maintain normal communication channels. From this small matter alone, Feng Miaojun could smell the scent of decay.

With official channels blocked, she could only use her methods to sneak in and find Yu Haizhen.

They first passed through a desolate small town.

The town was not small in scale, capable of accommodating at least four to five thousand residents. However, the roads were empty, all doors tightly shut, and the dilapidated signs of several shops creaked in the wind.

Standing in this town, one could only feel coldness and desolation.

How could a town built just behind the main city be so desolate?

Intelligence had already described Yinggong City, but when Feng Miaojun personally looked down from high above, she was still amazed by the magnificent scenery below.

It was a great ravine, where the ground was not only crisscrossed with countless gullies but also cut into numerous stone platforms of varying sizes and heights, collectively creating a strange and treacherous terrain.

Cliffs, dangerous peaks, and peculiar rocks were the most common topographical features here. The tops of the stone platforms were flat as if sliced by a knife, vastly different from typical mountains.

Yinggong City was built on the two widest stone platforms.

Indeed, these two platforms were like stairs, but with a difference of nearly forty zhang (130 meters), their cross-sections smooth as if carved by a knife, difficult even for monkeys to climb. Using the cross-section as a boundary, the part of Yinggong City built on the lower platform was called the Lower City, while the part a hundred meters above was naturally the Upper City.

The mountain city was originally small, but when the Yan King withdrew here, he expanded it and built military facilities.

Influenced by the terrain, if the Yan army wanted to capture the royal palace, they would have to start by attacking Yinggong’s Lower City, while the Xi-Wei allied forces swore to resist death from this natural stronghold.

Siege warfare was always difficult, and a city with such terrain was even more challenging. Feng Miaojun finally understood why, despite spending so much time on her journey, the Yan army had not yet conquered Xi Kingdom.

In these mountains with such strange terrain, the Yan army truly struggled to advance. Although the Xi King was cowardly, it must be said that his chosen new capital was very suitable for defense, with advantages even over narrow passes where one defender could hold against ten thousand attackers.

At present, the Yan army had not even broken through the Lower City, let alone the Upper City. Xi Kingdom must have deployed its most elite troops in the Lower City, firmly halting the enemy’s advance. But during Feng Miaojun’s hasty glance earlier, she saw red lights and black smoke rising in waves below, along with earth-shaking sounds, clearly indicating that the siege battle continued.

It was almost evening, yet the Yan army showed no intention of stopping.

Just from the density of the artillery fire, she knew her timing was opportune, coinciding with a round of intense attacks by the Yan army.

Yan Kingdom was truly wealthy and generous—after three months of attacks, they still had such abundant ammunition. It was understandable that this kind of positional warfare was extremely costly for both sides, with the attackers at a greater disadvantage. The Xi people were fighting on home ground, making food and supplies much more convenient than for the Yan people. In contrast, the Yan army had to transport all supplies from outside. Now, with the cold weather, they had been deadlocked here for three months, fighting from autumn into winter, possibly without sufficient clothing and bedding.

Hunger and cold caused the greatest damage to morale.

Therefore, the Yan King had to grit his teeth to secure the final victory, otherwise, the Yan army might have to spend the New Year in this remote area.

Feng Miaojun was unsure how long the Xi army could hold out. Those city walls were riddled with holes and looked precarious from above. It was already a miracle that the Xi army had held out against the Yan offensive for so long, even with Wei’s assistance.

That said, the small town behind Yinggong City should be very safe, as no one except birds could reach it. Strategically, such a town should be a good location for stationing troops and storing provisions.

Feng Miaojun said softly: “There are people inside the houses.”

Not only were there people, but many people, even to the point of overcrowding.

Despite the barriers of the houses, with her divine sense expanded, she could immediately feel the crowded souls in the town.

Walking further behind the town, what were originally fields were now covered with small mounds, densely packed.

Graves!

Feng Miaojun and Chen Dachang exchanged glances, instinctively holding their breath.

They had already realized what kind of place this was.

“My Queen… miss, this is a plague town.”

Feng Miaojun nodded. Although cultivators should not fear epidemics, to be safe, she quickly took out two pills to prevent miasma, giving one to herself and one to Chen Dachang.

People had long recognized that plagues mainly spread through the air, so infected people would be sent to suburban areas, isolated from the population. This place was very close to Yinggong City, suggesting that the town was where infected patients were abandoned and disposed of.

“It seems the plague has not been completely suppressed,” Feng Miaojun said softly. “There should be several such towns near Yinggong City.”

The reason she said “not completely” was because Yinggong Upper and Lower Cities had 60,000 residents, but counting soldiers, the total exceeded 300,000. If the epidemic was still raging as before, no number of nearby villages and towns would be sufficient.

Chen Dachang said: “Even if an antidote was developed, with so many city residents, the antidote might be scarce.”

Just as they were speaking, bell sounds suddenly came from the end of the mountain path.

Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling.

In the desolate mountains, these crisp sounds seemed eerily strange.

The two looked toward the source of the sound. After about a minute, a pitch-black carriage emerged from the wind and snow, heading toward the town.

Shortly after, the carriage stopped, and two coachmen dressed in black jumped down, dragged two heavy sacks from the carriage, threw them onto the empty ground in front of the town, and shouted:

“Drag them in and bury them!”

After shouting, they jumped back onto the carriage, eagerly turning around to return the way they came.

Who would dare linger in such a place?

The town was completely quiet.

After a while, two doors opened, and several men carrying shovels and picks walked out, dragging the sacks to the back mountain.

Their faces were pale, yet they wore soldiers’ undergarments. Feng Miaojun saw that they had black, swollen pustules on their bodies. One man had a pustule on the back of his neck that had burst, leaking a light black fluid.

This was indeed no ordinary plague.

So this was how the graves on the empty ground behind the town came to be. Although the infected townspeople had no path but to await death, they were willing to give their departed companions a proper burial, because they themselves would soon walk the same path. They did not want to be left exposed in the wilderness when their time came.