Xie Lian was getting more confused the more he listened and thought. He said, "General, I want to ask..."
But Ke Mo interrupted, "No more questions! You killed my soldiers and still want to ask something? I won't answer, let's fight!"
San Lang said, "I killed them, he didn't do anything. You can answer him, then fight me."
That made sense. Ke Mo angrily said, "You're all her helpers, you're all the same!"
Xie Lian quickly responded, "General Ke Mo, you must be mistaken. We came here to get rid of the Half Moon National Teacher, how could we be her helpers?"
When he mentioned they were there to eliminate the Half Moon National Teacher, Ke Mo fell silent for a moment. Then he said, "If you weren't sent by her, why did you kill my soldiers?"
Xie Lian explained, "We had no choice but to defend ourselves after you threw us down here."
Ke Mo retorted, "Nonsense, I never intended to throw you down. I clearly grabbed you, you jumped down yourselves!"
Xie Lian had to admit, "Yes, yes, we jumped down ourselves. General, we're all trapped at the bottom of this pit, let's join forces for now. Why did the Half Moon National Teacher open the gates to let the army in and slaughter the city?"
Ke Mo wasn't interested in reasoning, still holding a grudge, "You two are too despicable, ganging up on me."
Xie Lian sighed, "I really just hit you once. Didn't do much."
He didn't mind being called sneaky or anything.
If the situation was dire, he'd have no problem with a hundred against one, who cares about one-on-one?
But earlier, San Lang had clearly been holding someone and still had the upper hand, and told Xie Lian not to intervene. Yet Ke Mo seemed to think he could win in a solo fight, which frustrated Xie Lian. However, given Ke Mo's personality, he seemed like someone who could be persuaded eventually.
No problem.
But San Lang was impatient and said casually, "For your soldiers' sake, you should answer him."
Ke Mo replied, "They're already dead, threatening me with them won't work."
San Lang said, "But their bodies are still here."
Ke Mo seemed to be losing his composure, cautiously asking, "What do you want?"
San Lang replied, "That's up to you. What do you want?"
Just from the sound, Xie Lian could imagine San Lang squinting his eyes as he spoke, "Do you want them to have a peaceful next life, or to be born as a puddle of blood?"
Ke Mo was stunned at first, then realized, "You?!"
The Half Moon people took funeral rites very seriously. They believed that the state of a corpse at death determined their form in the next life. For instance, if someone died missing an arm, they'd be born with one arm in the next life. If the bodies at the bottom of this pit were indeed crushed into a pulp, wouldn't the next life be worse than none?
Ke Mo was a true Half Moon person, so he couldn't help but be afraid. Sure enough, he ground his teeth in the darkness for a while, then finally said, "Don't touch their bodies! They were brave soldiers, stuck at the bottom of this pit for so many years, already very unfortunate. Being killed by you today, I don't know if it's a release, but they must not suffer such humiliation again."
After a pause, he added, "Are you really here to kill the Half Moon National Teacher?"
Xie Lian answered gently, "No deception. To know your enemy is to win every battle. Very few outsiders know about the Half Moon National Teacher, making it hard to deal with her. But General Ke Mo, since you once worked with her, you should be able to give us some pointers."
Perhaps because of shared enemies, or maybe because he was stuck in a pit he couldn't climb out of, sitting on a mountain of soldiers' corpses, Ke Mo seemed to temporarily put aside his hostility and said, "You don't know why she opened the gates to let the people of Yong An in? Because she wanted revenge on us. She hated the Half Moon Kingdom!"
Xie Lian asked, "What do you mean she hated the Half Moon Kingdom? Isn't the Half Moon National Teacher a Half Moon person?"
Ke Mo explained, "She is, but not entirely. She's mixed blood, half from Yong An!"
"Ah..."
It turned out that the Half Moon National Teacher was born to a Half Moon woman and a Yong An man. In this borderland, the people of the two countries disliked each other. This mixed couple lived a difficult life. After a few years, the man from the Central Plains couldn't stand it anymore and returned to the prosperous and peaceful Yong An.
Though they parted amicably, the Half Moon woman died soon after from a broken heart. Their six or seven-year-old daughter was left alone, growing up hungry and neglected. The couple was looked down upon, and so was their child. Half Moon people were tall and strong, valuing robustness, while this girl, being mixed, was small and weak among Half Moon children, often bullied. Over time, her personality became more withdrawn and strange, and Half Moon children wouldn't play with her, though some Yong An children did.
When this mixed girl was in her teens, a rebellion broke out at the border, and armies from both sides clashed. Many died in the battle, and the mixed girl disappeared.
She had no family or friends in the Half Moon Kingdom, so no one asked about her during the years she was gone. But when she returned, everything was different.
In those years, she had traveled thousands of miles alone across the desert to Yong An. It's unknown what she encountered there, but she returned with powerful and dark magic skills. Not only that, she could control the Scorpion-Tailed Snake, the most feared creature by Half Moon people.
Her return filled some Half Moon people with fear as well as awe. Her personality hadn't changed, still withdrawn and solitary. Many Half Moon people who had bullied her were now worried, as she had become a high-ranking court mage. What if she wanted revenge?
Xie Lian guessed, "I suppose many Half Moon people spoke ill of her?"
Ke Mo snorted, "More than that, they went to the palace and told the ruler she was a venomous Scorpion-Tailed Snake sent to harm the Half Moon Kingdom, and should be hanged. But they didn't succeed."
Xie Lian speculated, "Did she hang them first?"
Ke Mo was even more annoyed, "You Yong An people, why do you always think so maliciously? No! I protected her."
Xie Lian sighed, "I told you I'm not from Yong An... never mind."
At that time, Ke Mo was already a general. Once, he led his soldiers to eliminate desert bandits, taking the court mage girl with him.
The bandits were formidable, building nests under the sand. Both sides suffered casualties, but Ke Mo won. The battle caused the sand nests to collapse, and a storm was approaching, so Ke Mo withdrew with some soldiers, but the mage and others couldn't escape.
After reaching safety, Ke Mo returned after the sandstorm to retrieve the soldiers' bodies for burial. To his surprise, the mage had dug a sizable underground shelter by herself, dragging the surviving injured soldiers inside to wait out the storm.
She had also dug out the dead, laying them neatly. All of this was done with her bare hands. When they arrived, the mage was covered in blood but silently guarding the entrance, like a lone wolf.
Ke Mo said, "After that, I thought she was good, did things right, and had no intention of harming the Half Moon Kingdom, so I vouched for her, silencing those malicious voices."
Moreover, Ke Mo had been bullied as a child for being weak, so he empathized with her and paid more attention to her. The more he observed, the more he realized her great abilities. He recommended her, eventually elevating her to the position of National Teacher, becoming her most loyal supporter, as history recorded.
Until another war broke out, and Yong An sent troops to besiege the Half Moon Kingdom.
Ke Mo said, "The two countries were locked in a long stalemate. She held a ceremony, claiming to protect our Half Moon soldiers."
The soldiers fought fiercely, morale boosted, defending the gates with all their might. Arrows, boulders, boiling oil, and swords, the battle raged on.
Unexpectedly, the National Teacher suddenly opened the gates at the battle's peak.
With the gates wide open, tens of thousands of enemy troops flooded the city, turning it into a blood-soaked altar!
Ke Mo, fighting the enemy, went mad with rage upon hearing the National Teacher opened the gates. No matter how brave, he couldn't change the outcome.
Ke Mo gritted his teeth, "I learned then that she had colluded with the enemy general, arranging to let them in. But even if I was destined to die, I had to kill this traitor first! So I sent soldiers to the tower to capture her and hang her over the Pit of the Damned. Right there on that pole!"
With the army's passage, the entire Half Moon Kingdom became a dead land. The general, soldiers, and National Teacher who died couldn't leave this ruin, still harboring hatred for each other.
Xie Lian asked, "So, General Ke Mo, you lead your Half Moon army, searching for the National Teacher's figure, and every time you catch her, you hang her over the Pit of the Damned again?"
Ke Mo replied, "Hanging her a thousand times, ten thousand times wouldn't be enough! Because she's also capturing my enraged soldiers, throwing them into the pit! She set up a powerful formation around the pit, only she can break it. Once you fall in, you can't climb out, and my soldiers, betrayed and wronged, filled with resentment, can only find peace by devouring Yong An flesh and blood, or else they wail every night, unable to find relief!"
Xie Lian said, "So you keep capturing people to feed them?"
Ke Mo replied, "What else can I do? Let them cry and wail down there?"
"The people you throw down, do you capture them yourselves, or...?"
"We can't leave the Half Moon Kingdom too far, but fortunately, her snakes often cause trouble, biting people outside the ancient city. Those bitten traders come looking for the benevolent moon grass."
"The person buried in the palace, was that you?"
"Yes. That person was trying to steal treasures from the palace. But all our treasures were looted by Yong An two hundred years ago."
Xie Lian asked, "Why did you just bury him and not throw him down?"
Ke Mo replied, "We need fertilizer to grow the grass, or else we can't control the Scorpion-Tailed Snakes. We don't want to deal with those things."
Xie Lian thought to himself, something's not right.
Ke Mo's side was clearly planting the benevolent moon grass, even using live people as fertilizer, showing that their fear of the Scorpion-Tailed Snakes hadn't diminished even after death.
In life, this fear must have been even greater. If the Half Moon National Teacher controlled such a deadly weapon, how could she be so easily captured and hanged by soldiers?
According to Ke Mo, over two hundred years, they repeatedly captured and hanged the National Teacher. If Xie Lian had such a weapon, he wouldn't let enemies near him.
And the Scorpion-Tailed Snakes that crawled out of the ancient city to bite people, was it an accident? It seemed more like a deliberate lure. Was the National Teacher doing it on purpose? Wouldn't that be helping Ke Mo capture people to feed the soldiers? Doesn't that contradict their supposed enmity?
Were they pretending to be enemies? But what would be the point?
Amidst all this confusion, there was another mystery—the identity of the white-robed woman and her companion. Xie Lian decided to ask more, "General, when we entered the city, we saw a black and white-robed woman. Do you know who they are?"
Before he could answer, San Lang softly said, "Shh."
Though he didn't know why, Xie Lian immediately fell silent. A strange intuition made him look up.
The same square black-blue night sky, the same cold white half moon.
However, beside the half moon, he saw a person, a black-clad figure peering down.
After watching for a moment, the figure suddenly turned into a full body—jumping down.
As the figure fell, Xie Lian saw clearly that it was the Half Moon National Teacher who had been hanging on the long pole earlier!