"It's a vast area," Chang Geng said in a low voice after a long silence. "There are open seas and canals between the north and the south. East and West official roads can go to the rest of the territory. There are many plains in this area, with a foreign enemy occupying them for a long time, it is impossible to go on. It's also easy for our people to get in, I think they... they had to do a thorough cleaning up."

Xu Ling asked in a daze, "What is a thorough cleaning?"

"Send Heavy Armors to slaughter the village," Chang Geng whispered. "Make a circle, group the people inside the circle together, cleaning them all up, and not letting people from the outside come in again. Then just send people to block several main official road entrances and exits, so that there won't be thousands of Black Iron Camp soldiers mixed in under the disguise of merchants like what happened in the Southwest that year. Now I finally understand why there were only a few soldiers on patrol just now."

"... Because this place is a no man's land." Chang Geng kicked the stomach of the Western captive as he spoke. The captive almost had his intestines leaked out from this kick containing his anger. Unable to scream, he had to groan on the ground like a pig.

Gu Yun took the light from Ge Chen's hand and illuminated a rotten piece of wood, there was a line of inscriptions engraved by fingernails on it——

A guard asked, "What's that, Marshal?"

Gu Yun's throat moved slightly: "... 'The tears of the survivors are in the enemy's dust'*... There's only half the sentence..."

There was a skeleton beneath the big wooden pillar, it had rotted into a mass with patches of white bone, appearing very horrifying. Only an index finger eaten by insects and ants was still pointing at the inscription relentlessly.

As if it was still questioning in silence: in the land of fish and rice, where were the generals and the iron horses?**

*/**: Referenced from the Southern Song dynasty poet, Luyou 陆游《秋夜將曉出籬門迎涼有感》 (The feelings of traveling outside the fences during cold Autumn night), the original continuation after the first quoted line was "Hoping for the return of the Emperor's Army for another year."

Soaking in the rain all night, the chill finally seeped through his bones.

And the words 'Jiangnan defeated' had never been so powerful before, the whole ancestral temple was engulfed in dead silence for a while.

Not knowing how long had passed, Chang Geng gently nudged Gu Yun, "Don't look at it anymore, Zi Xi, many things could happen in the long night. Let's leave here first, it's important to join Old Zhong."

Gu Yun tightened his fist, straightened his back as he heard his voice. Unexpectedly, the front of his eyes darkened, tumbling for half a step before he could stand still. Chang Geng supported his arm in fright.