Chapter 641: Chapter 193: Shocking Change in Qiulong County! The Name of Fan Wu Known to All! (17,000-word Mega Update)_9
"Good heavens!" Yun Jiuqing felt she had already imagined a bloody royal conflict erupting within the Shangwu Dynasty.
It made her nervously swallow her saliva in secret.
They say the infighting within a royal family usually results in many deaths, and anyone caught up in it would face the risk of losing their life. What’s more, it was the Shangwu Dynasty, a dynasty even more formidable than the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Such strife within a great dynasty.
How could it be simple?
"Daoist Priest Xing Fengzi..." Liu Feng, who was in the same carriage as Xing Fengzi, quietly asked the man beside him, "Did you also just learn of Daoist Fan Wu’s background?"
Xing Fengzi nodded and replied, "Indeed, we didn’t know before. When I found out yesterday, it was quite shocking."
"It’s more than shocking!" Liu Feng said with a wry smile. "You are separated from the Shangwu Dynasty by our Great Yan Dynasty, so you might not fully understand how powerful the Shangwu Dynasty actually is. In the eyes of our Great Yan Dynasty, the Shangwu Dynasty is like an invincible superpower."
"If the Shangwu Dynasty wanted to annex our Great Yan Dynasty, they wouldn’t even need to exhaust their national strength. They would only need to send a few armies to sweep through the entire Great Yan Dynasty."
"Moreover, the people of the Shangwu Dynasty tend to be martial enthusiasts; it’s said they are even more so than the people of our Great Yan Dynasty."
"I think the martial fervor in our Great Yan Dynasty is already exaggerated. I can’t even imagine what the Shangwu Dynasty is like."
After hearing his words, Xing Fengzi nodded thoughtfully, "Listening to you, Mr. Liu, this Shangwu Dynasty does indeed seem very formidable."
After all this time gaining experience, Xing Fengzi had learned that the Great Zhou Dynasty and the Great Yan Dynasty were about equal in national strength.
If the distant Shangwu Dynasty could easily destroy the Great Yan Dynasty,
did they also have the power...
to effortlessly obliterate the Great Zhou Dynasty?
And, considering the characteristic that the people of the Shangwu Dynasty are even more martial than those of the Great Yan Dynasty,
could it be that the Shangwu Dynasty has refrained from attacking both the Great Yan and the Great Zhou Dynasties because they think subduing these two "lesser" dynasties wouldn’t be worth the cost of war?
Hiss!
Thinking about it this way...
It’s rather astonishing.
On their journey, Fan Wu and his companions didn’t encounter much evil; they only saw many commoners with worried expressions. As for why they were worried, anyone with a brain could figure it out.
They were on the verge of war.
How could they not be worried?!
Under this tense atmosphere of an impending storm, Fan Wu and his party endured a journey of ten days and nights. Of course, they didn’t go without rest during these ten days. If they had traveled day and night without any rest, they could have arrived at Qiulong County in only five days and nights.
But with occasional stops along the way,
it was different now.
"Qiulong County!!" Yun Jiuqing looked at a county stele not far away. When she saw the three big characters carved on it, the bored expression on her face was immediately swept away, replaced by excitement and agitation.
Waving her riding crop in hand, she eagerly said, "Daoist Priest Fan, Daoist Priest Fan! We’ve arrived at Qiulong County!!"
"..." Daoist Priest Fan wasn’t blind; did he need a reminder?
Fan Wu naturally had also seen the stele of Qiulong County.
And he had seen it even before Yun Jiuqing did.
In fact, Qiulong County was also where he had lived the longest... As he was about to return to Qiulong County, Fan Wu felt somewhat sentimental.
"The surrounding flora hasn’t changed too much!" whispered Fan Wu.
But then he realized that was to be expected.
After all, he had left Qiulong County for no more than half a year, and how much could these plants and trees have changed in such a short time? Flowers, maybe, but for trees to transform in half a year was almost impossible!
"Is this the Qiulong County where Qiulong Temple is located?" The following Liu Feng looked around continuously, "This place is quite remote! Although not deep in the mountains, it’s hardly different."
Indeed, Qiulong County was a very secluded place; despite tens of thousands of inhabitants, the county lacked even a branch of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau.
Remoteness meant poverty, backwardness, and a saying that the mountains are high and the emperor is far away—the emperor’s power did not reach the county.
"Hm?" At that moment, Fan Wu’s brow suddenly furrowed.
He felt something was not right in Qiulong County.
He could vaguely hear some discordant sounds.
Fan Wu drove the carriage along a poorly maintained official road toward the town center.
Soon, they entered the territory of Qiulong County.
"It’s too deserted," assessed Fan Wu.
Although Qiulong County did not have a particularly large population, it should not be as barren as it was now, with not a single person visible on the entire road. Especially since there were many farmlands and fields alongside the road, with some crops growing.
These crops definitely needed tending.
But where were the people now?
By this time, the discordant sounds Fan Wu heard were becoming clearer and clearer. His expression visibly darkened—this was the first time he had shown such a demeanor since he had left and returned to Qiulong County.
