After the national teacher jumped down, she spoke in Half Moon language, "Ke Mo, what's going on?"
Her voice was quite different from what Xie Lian had imagined. It did sound cold, but it was also very soft, like a sullen child talking to themselves, not the kind of cold and powerful voice he expected. If Xie Lian's hearing wasn't good, he might not have heard it at all.
Ke Mo said, "What's going on? They're all dead!"
The national teacher asked, "How could they all be dead?"
Ke Mo replied, "Isn't it because you pushed them all down here, locking them in this cursed place!"
The national teacher asked, "Who's here? There's another person."
Actually, besides Ke Mo, there should have been two "people" at the bottom of the pit. However, San Lang didn't breathe or have a heartbeat, so the Half Moon national teacher couldn't detect any sign of his presence. Earlier, it was chaotic above, and she couldn't remember who fell and who ran away, so she thought only Xie Lian was there.
Ke Mo said, "They're the ones who killed my soldiers. Are you happy now? They're finally all dead!"
The national teacher was silent for a while. Suddenly, a flame ignited in the darkness, revealing a young girl in black holding a small flame in her palm.
The girl looked only about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in simple black clothes, with black eyes. She wasn't unattractive, just looked very unhappy, with bruises on her forehead and mouth, clearly visible in the firelight.
If not confirmed beforehand, no one would have thought that the Half Moon national teacher was such a pale young girl.
The flame also illuminated her surroundings. At her feet were the bodies of Half Moon soldiers in armor.
Xie Lian couldn't help but glance to the side.
Because the flame the national teacher held was very small, it didn't light up the entire pit, and they remained hidden in the darkness. But with that distant bit of firelight, he could see a red figure beside him.
Whether it was an illusion or not, San Lang had already been taller than him, but now he seemed even taller. Xie Lian's gaze slowly moved up, stopping at the boy's throat, then continued up, resting on his well-shaped jaw.
The upper half of the boy's face remained hidden in darkness, and even the lower half seemed subtly different from before. Still handsome, but the contours seemed clearer. Perhaps noticing his gaze, the face slightly turned, and the corners of the lips curved into a faint smile.
Maybe wanting to see more clearly, wanting to get closer, without realizing it, Xie Lian took a step closer to him.
At this moment, a loud shout came from afar. It seemed Ke Mo, witnessing this tragic scene, was greatly shocked. Xie Lian suddenly woke up, turned his head, and saw Ke Mo holding his head while the national teacher, hearing his shout, remained indifferent, simply nodding, "Good."
Ke Mo, in grief, became furious, "Good? What's good? What do you mean?!"
The national teacher said, "Good means we're finally all free."
She turned to the darkness where Xie Lian was, asking, "Did you kill them?"
Xie Lian replied, "It was an accident."
Ke Mo shouted, "What nonsense are you talking?!"
Xie Lian braced himself, "Life is full of accidents!"
The national teacher glanced at him, showing no expression, and asked, "Who are you?"
This time, she spoke in very standard Han language, not in a questioning tone. Xie Lian said, "I'm an official from the Heavenly Court, and this is... my friend."
Ke Mo couldn't understand but could tell they weren't arguing, cautiously asking, "What are you talking about?"
The national teacher's gaze slowly swept over Xie Lian, paused on San Lang for a moment, then withdrew, saying, "No official has ever come here. I thought you had long ignored this place."
Xie Lian originally thought he would have to fight with the Half Moon national teacher, but unexpectedly, she showed no fighting spirit, which surprised him. She asked again, "Do you want to leave?"
Xie Lian replied, "Of course, but there's a formation around here, we can't get out."
The national teacher listened, walked to one of the high walls of the pit, and simply slapped the wall. Turning back, she said, "I've broken the formation. You can leave now."
"......"
That was too easy!
Xie Lian didn't know what to say. Just then, a voice came from above, calling out, "Hey! Is anyone down there? If not, I'm leaving!"
It was Fu Yao's voice.
Xie Lian seemed to hear San Lang click his tongue beside him. He immediately looked up and indeed saw a shadow in black looking down. He shouted, "Fu Yao! There are people down here! I'm down here!"
After shouting, he waved, and Fu Yao above said, "Why are you really down there? What's down there besides you?"
Xie Lian said, "Well... besides me, there's a lot down here. Why don't you take a look yourself?"
Fu Yao seemed to think it was better to see for himself, so with a "boom," he threw a large fireball down.
In an instant, the entire pit was as bright as day. Xie Lian finally saw where he was standing.
Surrounding him on all sides were mountains of corpses, a sea of blood, countless Half Moon soldiers' bodies piled high, dark faces and arms, gleaming armor, and purple-red blood. And where Xie Lian stood was the only patch of ground without bodies at the bottom of the pit.
All of this was done in an instant, in the darkness, after San Lang jumped down.
Xie Lian turned back again to look at the boy beside him.
Earlier in the darkness, he vaguely saw that San Lang seemed suddenly taller, with some subtle differences. However, now, in the bright firelight, standing beside him was still the original handsome boy, who smiled slightly when he saw him looking.
Xie Lian looked down at his wrist and boots, and indeed, they were the same as before, with nothing that would make a jingling sound.
At this moment, there was a thud, and Fu Yao jumped down. Xie Lian asked, "Weren't you watching over the caravan people?"
Fu Yao had just come down and wasn't used to the bloody smell at the bottom of the pit. He frowned and waved his hand to fan the air, speaking in a calm voice, "I waited for three hours and didn't see you come back, so I thought something happened. I drew a circle for them to stay in and came over to check."
Xie Lian said, "The circle won't hold for long. If you leave, they might suspect they've been abandoned and run out. What then?"
Fu Yao said, "If people want to die, not even eight horses can stop them. What can be done? Who are these two? Who's who?"
He was very wary of the other two in the pit, but soon found that Ke Mo was badly injured, lying on the ground, unable to move, and the Half Moon national teacher was silent, looking unexpectedly. Xie Lian said, "This is a general from the Half Moon Kingdom, and this is the national teacher of the Half Moon Kingdom. Now they..."
Before he could finish, Ke Mo suddenly leaped up. After lying for so long, he finally gathered enough strength, shouted, and stood up, striking at the Half Moon national teacher. A big man hitting a young girl, such a scene would never have happened in front of Xie Lian before. But Ke Mo had plenty of reasons to hate the national teacher, and though she could dodge, she didn't, getting tossed around like a ragdoll. Ke Mo shouted angrily, "Where are your Scorpion-Tailed Snakes? Let them bite me! Come on, give me a release!"
The national teacher said quietly, "Ke Mo, my snakes don't listen to me anymore."
Ke Mo spat, "Why don't they bite you to death!"
"......" The national teacher said softly, "I'm sorry."
Ke Mo asked, "Do you really hate us that much?"
The national teacher shook her head. Ke Mo grew angrier, "You're driving me crazy! If you don't hate us, why betray us?! You traitor, spy, backstabber!!"
Fu Yao saw them fighting more fiercely, and it was a one-sided beating, frowning, "Hey, what are they saying? Should we stop them?"
Xie Lian couldn't bear it anymore and stepped forward to hold Ke Mo, "General! General! I think, why don't you tell us who the Eternal Peace thief is, and we..." Suddenly, the national teacher grabbed his wrist.
The grab was unexpected and tight. Xie Lian's heart sank, thinking she was going to attack, but when he looked down, the national teacher was lying on the ground, with a bit of bruising at the corners of her mouth, looking up at him. She didn't speak, but her black eyes burst with a nearly burning vitality.
This look overlapped with a small figure from his distant memory. Xie Lian blurted out, "Is it you?"
The national teacher also said, "General Hua?"
This exchange left everyone in the pit stunned. Fu Yao rushed forward, knocking Ke Mo unconscious, and asked, "You know each other?"
Xie Lian had no time to answer. He squatted down, holding the national teacher's shoulders, carefully examining her face.
Earlier, he couldn't see clearly from a distance, and the girl's appearance had changed as she grew up. Plus, it had been over two hundred years, so he didn't recognize her at first. But now, looking again, this face was clearly the one from his memories!
Xie Lian was speechless for a long time before finally saying, "Half Moon?"
The national teacher grabbed his sleeve, showing a bit of excitement, "It's me! General Hua, you still remember me?"
Xie Lian said, "Of course I remember you. But..."
He gazed at the girl for a moment, sighed, "But how did you end up like this?"
Hearing him say this, the national teacher's eyes suddenly filled with a few strands of pain.
She said softly, "I'm sorry, Captain... I messed up."
With all this talk of generals and captains, how could anyone not understand? Fu Yao was slightly shocked, "Captain? General? You? How did this happen?? That General's Tomb is?"
Xie Lian nodded, "My tomb."
Fu Yao said, "Didn't you say two hundred years ago you came here to collect junk?"
Xie Lian said, "Well... it's a long story. Initially, that was indeed my plan."
Two hundred years ago, for certain reasons, Xie Lian couldn't stay in the East anymore, so he decided to lay low, planning to cross the Qinling Mountains to the south to start a new life collecting junk. So, he took a compass and headed south.
As he walked, he felt more and more puzzled. The scenery was supposed to be lush and populated, so why was it getting more and more desolate?
Despite his doubts, he kept walking until he reached the Gobi Desert, where a gust of wind blew sand into his mouth, and he realized the compass he had been using was broken.
The directions it had been giving him were all wrong!
There was nothing he could do about the wrong directions. Thinking, "Since I'm here, I might as well enjoy the desert scenery," he continued westward, eventually reaching the border and temporarily staying near the Half Moon Kingdom.
Xie Lian said, "At first, I was just collecting scrap around here. But with frequent unrest at the border, there were often deserters, so the army randomly grabbed people to fill the ranks."
San Lang said, "And you were forcibly taken in?"
Xie Lian said, "Yes, I was. But since it didn't matter what I did, I became a soldier. After driving away a few bandits, somehow I became a captain. Those who were polite called me general."
Fu Yao asked, "But why does she call you General Hua? Your surname isn't Hua."
Xie Lian waved his hand, "Don't mind that. I casually made up a fake name at the time, something like Hua Xie."
Hearing this name, San Lang's expression subtly changed, the corners of his lips curving slightly. Xie Lian didn't notice and continued, "There were many orphans at the border due to frequent wars. In my spare time, I would play with them. One of them... was named Half Moon."
When there were bandits, Xie Lian was the bravest soldier, and no one dared to stand in front of him or even beside him. But when there weren't any, it seemed like anyone could order him around.
One day, he found a sandy wall to make a fire and used his helmet to cook. As the smell wafted out, a few soldiers came over, kicking over what he was cooking. Heartbroken, Xie Lian went to pick up his helmet, only to see a messy-haired child behind him, picking up the spilled food and eating it despite the heat. He was shocked, "No! Wait, kid!"
Sure enough, after eating a few pieces from the ground, the child started retching and crying, scaring Xie Lian into picking her up and running around until she finally threw up what she'd eaten. He wiped his sweat, "Are you okay, kid? Sorry, but don't tell your parents about this, and don't eat things off the ground again... Wait, what are you doing!"
The child, with tears in her eyes, went back to pick up more, still wanting to eat. When Xie Lian grabbed her, he realized she was genuinely starving.
When someone is that hungry, they'll eat anything. Even if it makes them cry, they'll eat it.
Xie Lian had no choice but to give her his last bit of food. After that, he often saw the child watching him from the shadows nearby.
In his memory, the child named Half Moon always looked unhappy, with bruises on her body and face. When she looked at him, she would grab his clothes and look up at him. She was ostracized by other Half Moon children, and besides Xie Lian, only a boy from the Eternal Peace Kingdom living at the border would occasionally pay attention to her, so she followed the two of them around all day.
She rarely spoke, but she could speak Han, so Xie Lian never figured out where she was from. Seeing a child wandering around with no one to care for her, he just took her along. In his free time, he taught her to sing, wrestle, and occasionally perform tricks like breaking stones on his chest. They got along well.
Xie Lian said, "I thought the 'Half Moon' in 'Half Moon National Teacher' referred to the country, but I didn't expect it was actually the national teacher's name."
Fu Yao asked, "What happened then?"
Xie Lian said, "Then... it went as the tombstone at the General's Tomb said."
After a moment of silence, San Lang said, "The tombstone said you died."
Mentioning the tombstone made Xie Lian feel very frustrated.
Aren't tombstone inscriptions supposed to praise and commemorate the deceased? Writing about his embarrassing death in such a serious manner was just too much.
When he read that part while taking shelter from the wind, he couldn't bear to look. If San Lang, who could read Half Moon language, hadn't been there, he would have pretended the part about how he died wasn't written. Even he found it funny, so how could he blame others for laughing when they saw it?
People would take shelter from the sandstorm in his memorial tomb, read his story on the tombstone, and laugh heartily. He felt embarrassed to ask them not to laugh, which was quite frustrating. Xie Lian rubbed his forehead, feeling it might turn red, "Ah, well, I didn't actually die.
I was pretending."
Fu Yao looked incredulous. Xie Lian explained, "I was stepped on so many times I couldn't get up, so I had no choice but to play dead."
In fact, Xie Lian couldn't remember exactly how he "died" or even why the two countries' soldiers fought that battle. He only knew it was over trivial matters, and he really didn't want to fight. But by then, he was already disgraced, and no one listened to him.
When the two sides were fighting fiercely, Xie Lian rushed out, and when they saw him, for some reason, they all attacked him with swords and knives. Fu Yao questioned, "You must have been in the way, drawing hatred from both sides. Otherwise, why would they attack you?
And you knew you were hated, so why didn't you avoid so many people? Why rush in? You could have avoided it if you wanted to."