Chapter 710: The Northwest Rotten to the Bone

Chen Changsheng had no intention of lingering in Water's End City.

He had overlooked one incredibly important matter: he could feel his Soul Fire on the verge of going out.

This time had lasted a little longer than he'd expected.

The pressing matter at hand was where these young women would go.

Chen Changsheng had asked for their thoughts on the matter.

Most of the young women expressed a desire to return home. After being adrift out in the world for so long, the only thing that could likely bring them peace of mind was going back to their own families.

Thus, Chen Changsheng had the tooth broker arrange for their journey back, which simply meant having them tag along with a departing merchant caravan.

For the tooth broker, this was hardly a difficult task.

Chen Changsheng had imparted a surge of unfathomable power into him.

This also placed the tooth broker's life entirely in Chen Changsheng's hands. He could not die without Chen Changsheng's permission; he could only carry out affairs exactly as Chen Changsheng wished.

It was no different from imprisonment, but such was the tooth broker's fate.

Fang Miao naturally chose to return as well. Right before she left, she asked for Chen Changsheng's name and where he lived, but he told her neither.

Fang Miao looked at Chen Changsheng with reluctance in her eyes. She harbored a special sort of affection for the man who had saved her life.

In this chaotic Mortal World, sometimes a single glance was enough to etch a person into memory for a very, very long time, never to be forgotten. Let alone a life-saving debt of gratitude.

If not for Chen Changsheng, she might have already been ravaged to death by those men in the Military Camp—a suffering too horrible to imagine.

"My Lord..."

Fang Miao pursed her lips, wanting to speak yet holding back.

Chen Changsheng glanced at the horse carriage and waved her off. "Go back."

Their meeting was merely a fleeting encounter. After today, they would likely never cross paths again. That was simply how fate worked in this world—dull and tasteless. Sometimes, lingering attachments only bred deeper unease.

Not waiting for the horse carriage to depart, Chen Changsheng turned and walked away.

He left Fang Miao with nothing but the sight of his retreating figure clad in a green robe.

She silently carved that sight into her memory, hoping they might reunite again someday.

But in truth, they were never to meet again.

Chen Changsheng stood atop the City Wall of Water's End City.

He looked down, watching the horse carriages slowly roll away from this city in the sands.

Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly frowned, gazing into the distance.

Far off in his line of sight, he suddenly saw a group of sand bandits moving among the rocky dunes. They appeared to be waiting for something.

For the current tooth broker, there was no need to worry about these sand bandits, but even so, Chen Changsheng remained to watch.

When the horse carriages slowly rolled across that stretch of desert, the distant sand bandits spotted them. Yet they merely glanced over and made no move.

It seemed they had no interest in these few horse carriages; they were waiting for something else.

Sensing that something was amiss, Chen Changsheng remained there and waited.

After a short while, several horse carriages suddenly rumbled out of Water's End City. The carriages were draped in heavy cloth, hiding their cargo from view.

Soon after, the cargo-laden caravan crossed paths with the sand bandits.

The bandit leader's eyes lit up. Drawing his saber, he charged forward.

Under Chen Changsheng's watchful gaze, the scene descended into chaos as the sand bandits began to pillage the items on the horse carriages.

The escorts transporting the goods also drew their weapons to resist, but something about it looked bizarre.

Amidst the chaos, Chen Changsheng caught a glimpse of what the horse carriages were hauling.

It was grain, liquor, and cloth...

Following the disorganized brawl, both sides retreated from the area. All the cargo on the carriages had been seized by the sand bandits.

The escorts fled in a panic, returning to Water's End City.

Yet, they returned in the exact same numbers they had left in. Hardly a single man had been injured, let alone killed.

It was as though they had planned this with the sand bandits all along. That entire skirmish had merely been an act.

Chen Changsheng followed them into the city. These men paraded through the streets loudly lamenting about being robbed by sand bandits. They even reported it to the authorities, wailing about their miserable luck.

Chen Changsheng watched them report the crime, ultimately to no avail, before they sheepishly retreated.

The group eventually gathered in a small courtyard within Water's End City.

Chen Changsheng observed them from a nearby rooftop. A short while later, the men walked out in entirely different clothes.

They were now clad in armor and wearing headbands.

There was no mistaking it...

These were the soldiers stationed to guard Water's End City.

They had changed their demeanor entirely. Smiles were plastered across their faces as they chatted while walking.

"We should make a pretty penny off this run."

"Let's go find a couple of girls tonight."

"Hahaha..."

Right before the sky grew dark, Chen Changsheng watched one of the men slip out of the city, dig up a chest from a sand dune, and haul it back into Water's End City.

When the chest was opened, it was brimming with gleaming white silver taels.

It all clicked into place for Chen Changsheng. The whole thing had been a staged farce. There had been no bandit raid at all—it was a thorough transaction.

The bandits weren't bandits, but North Desert People in disguise. The caravan wasn't a caravan, but soldiers from the Military Camp in disguise.

They used this charade to cover their tracks, supplying grain and liquor to the North Desert People in exchange for silver taels.

Chen Changsheng suddenly realized why the Northern Desert had remained such an unyielding threat for so long. The stubbornness wasn't just in the Northern Desert, but in human nature itself—it was human greed.

These Northwestern Borderlands were rotten to the bone.

Witnessing this, Chen Changsheng let out a long sigh.

He felt that a disaster was inevitable. A massive upheaval would surely shake the Northwestern Lands in the future. He could only hope that Yan Ruchu was truly capable of outmaneuvering this and setting everything right. Either that, or he would finally see the error of his ways and officially appoint the Crown Prince, preventing the world from spiraling into such chaos.

It seemed the state of the world was not developing as one would hope. It was a sight no one wished to see, yet he was powerless to change it.

This was the fate of the Mortal World.

Chen Changsheng gazed into the distance at the final lingering rays of the setting sun.

With a long sigh, his figure gradually turned into sand, drifting away on the desert winds toward some unknown place.

What awaited him next was another long, excruciating stretch of darkness.

Once enveloped in the dark...

Chen Changsheng began to ponder the words that figure had spoken to him in the Yellow Springs.

The matter of the Yellow Springs ran far deeper than he had imagined.

Chen Changsheng still couldn't say for certain if that figure had actually been himself.

But undeniably, the Yellow Springs was an exceptionally crucial piece of the puzzle.

The emperor's Investiture Scroll was like a freshly carved riverbed, pointing the way forward for this path.

Now, the only thing missing was a river flowing into it—and that was the Yellow Springs.