Chapter 280: Reality and Dream Crossroads

"So, all we need to do is deal with the trouble of Hong Chenglüe?"

Zhao Pan nodded. "That would be a great help to me!"

Speaking of which, the hornbill on his shoulder suddenly took flight, landing a hundred zhang away behind him.

The warhorses were grazing in the woods. In late spring, the riverbanks were beginning to sprout tender green shoots, which suited their taste. After a winter of eating lichen, it was time for a change of diet.

However, He Lingchuan seemed to notice other large creatures mixed in among them, also grazing with their heads down.

They were much larger and stronger than the warhorses.

A herd of black wild oxen.

Their shoulder height was at least six feet, and each one was sleek and well-conditioned, with bulging muscles all over its body.

The hornbill landed on the head of the largest and strongest ox among them.

Its pair of thick, curved, forward-pointing horns were dark and shiny, and if straightened, would span at least seven feet. Anyone gored by them would likely lose half their life.

The hornbill perched on its horn, chirping twice. The ox lifted its head to look at everyone, twitched its ears, and paid no mind.

Gathered together, they formed an impenetrable wall, occupying the most lush grassy areas. Even the warhorses had to grudgingly make way for them.

Several of the larger ones stood out particularly.

He Chunhua drew a sharp breath as he looked at them. "Is this the demon ox herd?"

"Yes, they are our assault troops. Once armored, they are invincible on the plains," Zhao Pan said with a smile. "These wild oxen are naturally extraordinary, but only those large ones are actual demons. They lead the entire herd."

"And that hornbill?"

"A messenger," Zhao Pan explained. "Otherwise, no one can get close to these large creatures once they start running."

"The Wild Ox Formation," He Chunhua clapped his hands. "I think I've heard of this tactic somewhere before?"

Zhao Pan smiled. "General Nanke's incomplete military treatise."

"That's right, General Nanke."

"General Nanke? General Nanke of Panlong City?" He Lingchuan had not expected to hear that name here and now, and he blurted out, "He even wrote a military treatise?"

Zhao Pan replied casually, "Yes, his tactics were very practical. Unfortunately, he died young, so he only managed to complete half of his military treatise."

He Lingchuan's heart stirred. "How did he die?"

Zhao Pan was momentarily taken aback by his question. After a moment of thought, he said, "It seems he was escorting a merchant caravan and fell into an ambush. This happened in the Panlong Desert, so Lord He should know more about it than I do."

He Chunhua nodded. "Yes, that place is called the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. The Baling people used the spider demons in the stone forest to heavily damage Panlong City's army, and General Nanke died on the spot. However, they also tied down the enemy's main force, allowing the Great Wind Army to seize Weicheng to the north."

He Lingchuan murmured, "So that's how it was." But a storm raged in his heart.

In the Panlong dream he experienced, although the battle of the Ghost Needle Stone Forest also occurred, he had successfully destroyed Zhu Erniang's nest, causing the great demon to rush back to her lair. As a result, the strength of the Panlong army was largely preserved and not exploited by the enemy forces guarding outside the stone forest.

Of course, General Nanke also returned alive to Panlong City, and later even wanted to recruit He Lingchuan.

The same battle, because of his involvement, unfolded completely differently from historical reality.

He Lingchuan had also considered that his presence would surely influence the dream.

But it was only now that he clearly realized he had changed the outcome of this local battle in the Panlong dream, and also altered the fates of many people.

In this world, he could achieve something significant.

So, if he became more powerful and held a higher status, could he change Panlong City's ultimate fate?

The moment this thought arose, He Lingchuan's heart began to beat several paces faster.

"Chuan'er, what's wrong?" He Chunhua saw his gaze fixed.

"Nothing, nothing!" He Lingchuan said casually. "These oxen are really well-fed."

He wondered how the meat quality was.

"Their ferocity comes from their enormous appetite. The fodder you've transported must be supplied to them first. Fortunately, the harshest winter has passed, and now there's green grass along the riverbank for them to eat. Also, they're not picky; if there's no fodder, they'll eat meat. Otherwise, we really couldn't afford to keep them."

Zhao Pan led them through the front lines, and the He father and son now had a clear understanding of the situation.

Back at the camp, the moon was already beginning to set in the west. Rock Wolf told He Lingchuan, "The monkey is looking for you."

He Lingchuan returned to his tent, and the medicine ape, Lingguang, immediately came over. "That medicine is too interesting!"

"What thing?" He Lingchuan's mind was still preoccupied with the battle of the Ghost Needle Stone Forest.

"The medicine you gave me a few days ago, boss." Lingguang produced a glass bottle containing half a bottle of red liquid. "The one you got from Dong Rui."

How could he forget this? "Figured anything out?"

"There are at least ten ingredients in it, but after several days of experimentation, I can't analyze the main one. It doesn't belong to any medicine I know," Lingguang said. "Just one drop can kill all plants and flowers within an area of one mu."

He Lingchuan stared. "No way, is this a potent poison?"

He clearly recalled that Dong Rui had taken out this glass bottle intending to save the ghost ape.

Could it be that, seeing its injuries were too severe, he intended to euthanize it?

No, impossible.

"Later, I divided one drop into ten portions and tested them on both pigs and horses. Without exception, they twitched twice after ingestion, fell to the ground, and died instantly."

He Lingchuan yawned, unable to hide his disappointment. "So it's a genuine, potent poison. Is it contact-based or ingestible? Can it be applied to weapons?"

"Hey, let me finish," As a future top-tier alchemist, Lingguang was not one to give up so easily. "I tried diluting it bit by bit, and finally, I discovered that when it's diluted a hundredfold—"

It gestured for He Lingchuan to pick up a large bucket of water from the corner, then followed it out of the tent, out of the camp, stopping at the edge of a thicket.

The monkey squatted down and poked a hole in the soil, placed a round seed inside, and then covered it with earth.

The seed was brown, slightly larger than a soybean.

"What plant is this?"

"A wutong seed, the seed of a phoenix tree," Lingguang said, pointing at the small mound. "Water it."

This squat, gourd-like monkey was ordering him around? Who was the boss here?

He Lingchuan rolled his eyes and poured the water from the bucket evenly over the freshly planted wutong seed.

Just a few breaths later, the soil stirred.

Lingguang quickly grabbed him and pulled him back, retreating a full three zhang (about 10 meters).

Something green burst forth from the ground and grew rapidly.

He Lingchuan had just made out that it was a tender shoot when it already shot up two feet, then five feet, then one zhang (about 3.3 meters) high…

Branches and leaves also eagerly burst forth.

He Lingchuan's perspective, as he watched it, shifted from looking down to looking straight ahead, and then to looking up—

In just half an incense stick's time, it had grown into a massive tree over five zhang tall (16 meters)!

He Lingchuan stared intently, asking the monkey, "You call this a wutong tree?"

He recognized wutong trees. The main trunk and the shape of the branches and leaves of the tree before him indeed looked like a wutong in many ways, but in one respect, it was utterly unlike one:

There was simply too much of it.

There was also a large wutong tree planted at his old home in Blackwater City, with a straight trunk, green bark, and a neatly formed canopy at the top.

But the tree before them had branches growing from its trunk, and the ends of these branches thickened like trunks themselves, and then grew more branches…

Its leaves grew in a similar chaotic fashion.

This recursive growth caused the entire tree to transform into an irregular mass of foliage, and its volume continued to expand horizontally.

Even more terrifying, the color of its branches changed from greenish-blue to light blue, with the outermost ones even turning reddish-brown.

Its leaves, meanwhile, were half greenish-blue, half golden-yellow, and another half pure black.

Pure black leaves were something He Lingchuan had never seen in his life, apart from those struck by lightning or burned by fire.

Such a tree possessed no aesthetic beauty whatsoever.

He Lingchuan looked up at it, feeling it resembled seventeen or eighteen wutong trees grafted together and then crumpled into a single, bizarre, and twisted mass.

No wonder Lingguang had taken it outside the camp to cultivate; otherwise, He Lingchuan's tent would have been destroyed in just two breaths' time.

Naturally, the commotion also attracted the soldiers in the camp, who gathered closer and pointed at it.

He Lingchuan had to order them to retreat, because although this bizarre tree-sphere had slowed its growth, it was still expanding, from five zhang to seven zhang, then ten zhang…

As it grew taller, it also grew wider, extending beyond the edge of the thicket and crushing five or six tents.

The entire canopy writhed and shifted, as if some monster was hidden within.

In reality, this was simply due to the extremely rapid growth of its branches and leaves.

Soldiers from the tents all climbed out to witness the spectacle.

He Chunhua and various generals, including Wu Shaoyi and others, were also alerted and rushed over.

Even the Xunzhou army camp across the Han River noticed the unusual activity here. The number of torches in their camp suddenly increased; they probably thought the Yuan Army was up to something.

He Chunhua pushed through the crowd and entered, immediately spotting his eldest son, thinking to himself, "Just as I expected."

Who else but his son could cause such a massive stir on their very first night at the front lines?

"Chuan'er, what's going on here?"

"Lingguang and I are experimenting with a new medicine," He Lingchuan scratched his head. "It's the liquid we got from Dong Rui."

Dong Rui's liquid? He Chunhua understood. What good could come from something conjured by that demon puppeteer?

"How are we going to deal with this?"

He Lingchuan looked at Lingguang, who spread its two paws. "Squeak?"

Going mute now? He Lingchuan grumbled, "We can only wait. I think the medicinal effect is almost at its end."

At this moment, Zhao Pan also arrived, having heard the news, and looked up at the giant wutong tree. "What in the world is that! Could the Xun people have created it?"

As a commander, his first thought was to link the strange occurrence in his camp to the enemy across the river, and he quickly ordered a heightened alert.

He Chunhua had just given him a brief explanation when Zhao Pan saw a dark, shadowy figure move towards the tree, stretching its head to nibble on leaves.

It was a wild ox.

It had also been drawn by the giant wutong, and couldn't control itself upon seeing the green leaves.

"No! Don't eat that!" Zhao Pan, forgetting his stature, lunged forward and pushed its head away.

But it was too late. The ox had already munched on several leaves and was still chewing.