Chapter 650: Secret Passage

Chapter 650: Chapter 650: Secret Passage

Shen Hao considered himself a seasoned veteran of battle formations by now.

He’d already survived such a high-intensity offensive and defensive battle in the Upper Military Camp at Jianchuan before—how could that not make him a "worldly old soldier"?

Of course, everyone else—including Wu Kai—scoffed at this claim. You think fighting one battle makes you a veteran? Dream on! At best, you’ve just shed your rookie status; as for being an old soldier? Still a long way to go.

Later, Shen Hao thought he was done with his temporary reassignment this time, but out of nowhere Cheng Jinhou just shoved him aside and sent him all the way to Stone Gate. In fact, Shen Hao only got word that the place was called "Stone Gate" halfway there—it hadn’t even been named until just then...

After the great victory at Jianchuan, the entire situation naturally took a turn for the better, but Shen Hao hadn’t expected that just a few days’ march ahead of Jianchuan’s Upper Military Camp, right next to the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea, there would be another detachment of the Dynasty’s troops. Judging by appearances, they’d already been there for days, and the military camp’s construction was basically complete. This no doubt let all the previously anxious soldiers breathe a huge sigh of relief.

But when Shen Hao saw Zhang Qian and Gan Lin, he started to catch on.

There’d already been reports of a large number of soldiers secretly stationed near Xiaochuan, close to the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea, who had then mysteriously vanished. At the time, it had been surmised that Zuo Yuliang had found a secret path to lead the army through the Bamboo Sea. It now seemed that assumption was spot-on.

And ever since Zhang Qian and Gan Lin had gone to the front lines, there’d been no news of them—Shen Hao had even asked, but no one knew anything. Now, running into them at Stone Gate, Shen Hao guessed these two guys must have been with the same detachment that came with Xiaochuan.

Together with Wu Kai, he went to the main camp to deliver the orders. Shen Hao’s job wasn’t military affairs, but to continue taking part in the building of the camp as Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs. As for Chen Zifang, who’d traveled with him before, he was reassigned to conduct inspections at Jianchuan’s Central Military Camp.

This arrangement made it clear to Shen Hao that Cheng Jinhou really was running out of people. After completing their previous encirclement, the forces at the Central and Lower Military Camps had rushed back to defend their own camps, to prevent the Barbarian Race from taking advantage. But the advanced scouts ahead of the Upper Military Camp still needed a few experts with them.

Did Shen Hao count as an expert? Gathering Spirit Realm Ninth Layer, of course he did. The three guards beside him assigned by the Commanders—now they were definite experts. Cheng Jinhou was playing his cards close to his chest, making full use of everyone he could, and left Shen Hao with no grounds to complain, forcing him to sneak along with Wu Kai, who’d been pulled away just like him.

Wu Kai looked as if nothing was wrong, but was actually seriously injured, barely holding himself together with elixirs—under his battle armor, he was swaddled in tight bandages.

The kind of guy whose guts had spilled out and had to be stuffed back in, could now still ride all the way here—no denying that a cultivator’s body could withstand trauma far better than an ordinary person’s. At least for Wu Kai, as long as he didn’t get into a fight, you really couldn’t tell he’d been wounded; only a careful observation of his aura betrayed it.

Shen Hao had been curious why Wu Kai came back out before he was healed, and got the answer: Wu Kai was afraid that if he went back to Wu Lake to recover, he might miss out on the post-victory military deployments and spoils of war following the great win at Jianchuan.

In Wu Kai’s own words: "If I can hang on, I’ll hang on. Otherwise, wouldn’t those wounds have been suffered for nothing?"

Still, on the way here, shameless as ever, Wu Kai managed to cadge a mid-grade healing pill from Shen Hao. He also gave Shen Hao a simple summary of the military affairs Cheng Jinhou hadn’t revealed to him before.

Actually, Cheng Jinhou was carrying out the overall plan of the Daoxing Chief’s Office. But the great victory at Jianchuan before had been plotted and executed by Jianchuan’s Commander-in-Chief, Shen Wanlin. Cheng Jinhou served as bait, repeatedly exposed under the Barbarian Race’s fierce attacks and on the verge of collapsing, making the enemy think they’d found a weakness in Jianchuan’s defenses and encouraging them to commit heavily. Meanwhile, the Upper, Central, and Lower Military Camps at Jianchuan were secretly coordinating to set a trap.

After the great victory, advancing deeper to the northeast was actually not part of Jianchuan’s defensive strategy, but an order from the Central Army. So, out of caution, Cheng Jinhou only sent an advance Vanguard Battalion for rebuilding. Even Shen Hao, who traveled with them, was ordered to be ready to run at a moment’s notice.

And after arriving here, Wu Kai was assigned to immediately relay news back and also assist Pan Shigui in holding the position.

Did their nearly thirty thousand troops really need help from just over a thousand under Wu Kai? Of course they did—the main thing was guidance on practical combat details, and Wu Kai had plenty of experience in that area and could offer these less-battle-tested officers and soldiers some real lessons.

For Wu Kai, this was already an easy assignment—at least before the main army behind Jianchuan caught up, he wouldn’t need to go through such brutal battles as before, so he could take the chance to heal up.

Shen Hao had no authority to get involved in the strategic side of things; what he was really curious about now was what Zhang Qian and Gan Lin had been through these days, and whether things had unfolded as he’d guessed—that this detachment had crossed directly through the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea.

With the title of Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs granted by the Daoxing Chief’s Office, Shen Hao naturally had the right to wander the camp freely, and could go in and out of either advanced scout camp as he pleased.

"Shen, the evil qi on you is way heavier than before!"

"Yeah, yeah! And I can’t even see through your cultivation anymore! Tsk tsk, I figured you’d surpass me and Old Zhang eventually, but I didn’t think it would be this fast. Impressive!"

Zhang and Gan still spoke to Shen Hao as before, but their eyes darted around, and their tone wasn’t as natural as usual.

It’d been a long time since they’d seen each other, and since they’d just found Shen Hao’s cultivation had become even more unfathomable, both Zhang and Gan were being cautious—testing the waters with a couple of lines before getting down to business, just in case Shen Hao took offense.

"Just luck, just luck. You two big brothers, it’s been ages—don’t start off by teasing me, all right? So, what are you doing here? I was in Jianchuan’s Upper Military Camp before, but I never saw a detachment like yours come through."

Zhang Qian laughed, "It used to be top secret, but now it doesn’t matter. So I might as well tell you. We came through the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea."

Shen Hao wasn’t surprised, just curious: "How’d you do it? Moving an army through the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea, that’s..."

"You won’t believe it—by the time we got through, it was all figured out. Sure, we lost plenty of people, but overall it was pretty smooth. I don’t know how the Daoxing Chief’s Office found that secret path; it actually avoided nearly all the fierce beasts and deadly terrain."

"A secret path?"

"That’s right. A marked trail in the forest, but not a wide one—at most three people side by side—but except for some poisonous bugs and venomous brambles, there was almost no danger along the way."

Shen Hao kept asking, and Zhang Qian and Gan Lin’s answers greatly surprised him. What he’d imagined would be a road of near-certain death was actually nothing so terrifying—even the over a thousand men who died along the way had mostly done so by accidentally stepping off the marked path or being unlucky enough to get killed by poison along the way. As for the fierce beasts long rumored to roam the bamboo sea, they barely ran into any.