Chapter 669: Strange Changes

Winter in the Imperial Capital was very short. The twelfth lunar month had just passed, and the ice covering the river had almost melted by the middle of the first lunar month. It was already starting to get warm.

For the past few days, Yan Liqiang had been training intensively inside Deer Villa as if he was a trapped tiger preparing for anything that might happen.

For him, it was finally the 17th year of the Yuanping reign in the Great Han Empire. For the Han Empire, this time seemed to come with a countdown. There was the prophecy that on the night of the seventh day of the ninth lunar month this year, countless meteorites would fall from the sky, bringing flames down from the above. That massive blast wave would destroy the Imperial Capital and the surrounding area, turning it all into a land of ruins where plants could no longer grow, let alone crops. The entire Han Empire would enter a chaotic state with no promising future. Amongst all that, Yan Liqiang would run out of tricks he learned from the Heavenly Realm…

This Heavenly Tribulation was no accident but more manmade. Every time this thought came across Yan Liqiang’s mind, he could not help but shiver a bit.

The imperial court and the Emperor thought that they could survive this by sacrificing millions of innocent people and moving the imperial court to the next location to wait for the right time for recovery. However, the White Lotus Society did not seem to want to give the imperial court time for that. Although Yan Liqiang did not know what this so-called killing weapon was, as time passed, Yan Liqiang vaguely could sense the changing atmosphere in the land. It was getting tenser and tenser up as if it was a volcano that was about to erupt…

After experiencing devastation, anger, frustration, desperation, and admitting his powerlessness and failure in the face of the Heavenly Tribulation, Yan Liqiang picked himself up again. He dived into endless training while he jumped in the discussions with Fang Beidou, trying to figure out ways to transfer people out from this land since at this critical time. One person moved would be one person saved.

…

“Is the Hu family from Xiaoqi Village already gone?”

“Yes, we have moved them already based on your inquiry. They were in the first batch of departures. Based on the schedule, they should have gone past Hui Province. I went there myself, and when I was there, they could not believe this kind of luck would be bestowed upon them until I mentioned you and bought over their house and land. After that, the old man believed me and was willing to come with us…”

Hearing Fang Beidou’s words, Yan Liqiang let out a long breath. Although he could not take everyone with him, being able to bring the Hu family still gave him a great deal of comfort.

Right now, it was the eighth of the first lunar month, and they were inside Fang Beidou’s house inside the Imperial Capital.

“Where are Xu Enda and the rest?” Yan Liqiang asked.

“Xu Enda and the rest were also amongst the first batch of departures. Right now, Xu Enda is staying in Hui Province and there is a Hundred Craftsman Village with one thousand or so residents there. Generations of them were blacksmiths and other types of handymen and they are the last few skilled people. I want to take all of them since all of the roadblocks have opened up as well…”

“Are there enough travel passes?”

“The travel passes from the imperial court are of course not enough, but the travel passes that we made are…” As Fang Beidou was speaking, he took out two travel passes and placed them in front of Yan Liqiang. “One of these two is from the imperial court, and one was made per your request. Here, take a look…”

Yan Liqiang picked up the two. The texture, the writing, and even the details of the imperial stamp were identical. Holding the two travel passes in his hand, he could no longer tell which one was real and which one was fake. As he continued looking at these two travel passes, Yan Liqiang let out a breath. “Not bad, not bad… it is indeed well-made.”

“We have a lot of craftsmen here — they are all the best in their craft. Before, some of the elders from the printing shop could make the wood blocks directly. It was an elder who did the magic work — he used to be some street artist, writing letters for people for a living. He can copy anyone’s handwriting. This governmental stamp is also carved by a trusted source; it is perfect with no flaws…”

The forgery of the bureaucracy’s travel passes was not hard at all on the technical side. It was not like it was a dying art — the problem lied in the willingness to commit the biggest possible crime. According to the Han Empire’s laws, forgery of official documents would be a deadly crime that would result in the death of the criminal’s whole family. Yan Liqiang and Fang Beidou had gone all out for this.

“What about those checkpoints?”

“Our evacuation passage is through these three routes: the Eastern Capital Region, the Southern Capital Region, and the Western Capital Region. We will go through Tong City, Jingling City, and Hui Provincial City to leave the Imperial Capital region. There will be nine checkpoints in total. Right now, the local law enforcers on this land were actually getting anxious as well — they were just too afraid to speak out. The Emperor and the superior governors would be able to leave during their tour down south, but they cannot. They also have wives and kids and elders back at home. Besides bribing with money, they would be able to go anywhere with these travel passes, and no one would ever stop them since all of the local authorities did their headcounts separately. Naturally, if they pooled in the numbers, they would be able to find out about us. But right now, no one would have time to do this inside the palace…”

“That’s good.” Yan Liqiang nodded. “I have already communicated with the Datong Monetary House. If you need money during your travels, you can go to their branches in different cities to withdraw money. I asked them to prepare to give out three million taels of silver so there is no need to worry about money…”

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“Right now, there is just one more problem. Some of the handymen we talked to before had promised to come with us to Gan Province, but after leaving the Imperial Capital, we noticed some of them had sneaked away which is a bit tricky…”

“Are there a lot of them?”

“Not many, but when we left in groups and exited the Imperial Capital where a travel pass would be required to leave, one or two families from each group would always disappear on the second morning. Some of them were nice enough to leave behind a letter, while some others just completely vanished…”

“Then don’t worry about them. If they want to leave, let them leave. We are just in charge of bringing them out. We can only try to save as many people as possible…”

“Alright!” Fang Beidou nodded. He hesitated and said, “Over at Gong Province…”

Yan Liqiang lowered his head. “It was on the third. But the government has not publicly announced it so the news has not spread out yet…”

“I know!”

“It is rather tricky to get in and out of the Imperial Capital City. I think you should move out of the city soon so we can communicate better.”

“Alright!”

“You take care!” Yan Liqiang stood up and picked up the hat on the table. “I will leave now…”

Fang Beidou walked with him until they reached the gate of the yard. Yan Liqiang opened the gate and put on his hat before nodding back at Fang Beidou and saying goodbye.

Yan Liqiang met up with Fang Beidou every three days, and he normally went to see Fang Beidou. Today, early in the morning when the sky was still dark, Yan Liqiang came the second the city gate opened. Right now, after talking to Fang Beidou and after he left Fang Beidou’s house, the sky was getting brighter and more people started to appear on the street.

There was a vendor selling lamb soup noodles on the streets right next to Fang Beidou’s house. It was still early in the morning, and the shop had just opened. But that pot of lamb soup had been boiling for a while now — the tasty smell spread all the way down the street.

“Hey, Owner, give me a bowl of lamb soup noodles!” Yan Liqiang walked inside the store and left eight copper coins on the counter before finding a seat by the road to sit down.

“Alrighty! Be right there!” The owner started cooking smoothly.

Not many people were inside the noodle store besides Yan Liqiang — there were only five or six other customers. On the wall, there was also a noticeable banner which said, “Do not talk about politics.” Some of the customers who sat at the same table chatted quietly while eating noodles…

The lamb soup noodles were ready quickly, but Yan Liqiang noticed some kind of disturbance on the street as he was eating his noodles. Some people ran into the distance. He could vaguely hear that someone seemed to have died over in one of the alleys.

Yan Liqiang did not move. For normal people, it would be special, out-of-the-ordinary news, but for Yan Liqiang, death was so normal inside the Imperial Capital and he did not have the interest to let some dead man ruin his appetite.

After a while, he saw some law enforcers rushing towards that direction as well. A lot of people started dry gagging on the side of the street and some had even puked out their breakfast.

Two of the law enforcers pushed their way out from the crowd as they also started puking with their bodies bent towards the ground. “Everyone…hurry…leave now! Everyone leave!”

“Lock this place up! No one is allowed in…”

“Pestilence… it is pestilence!”

A fat middle-aged man ran out, shouting as he ran.

Yan Liqiang suddenly stopped in his tracks. His body flashed and he immediately appeared inside that alley…

In the deepest part of that alley, a highly-decomposed corpse laid on the ground. From afar, he could smell a bad odor. The bodily fluid was everywhere on the ground as if it was a river. Countless strangely-colored red worms crawled around the dead corpse…