Chapter 890: Let Others Judge Right and Wrong

Jiao Lake drained for only a single day before reaching its new level. After that, the water stopped falling. The countless little streams feeding the lake had reached a balance with the water flowing out through the breach.

Three days.

The men trapped on Jiao Lake held out for only three days before they could no longer endure it.

A million troops had no shortage of drinking water. They had brought enough grain as well.

The problem was that there was no convenient way to cook.

They chewed raw rice and drank lake water. There was nowhere to move about. Packed together on wooden rafts, exposed to wind and sun, they could not rest properly.

With so many people eating, drinking, urinating, and defecating in the same confined space, the conditions became indescribably foul.

Before long, more and more soldiers began falling ill.

The Zhao troops ashore had either surrendered under heavy encirclement or been wiped out.

The allied army now controlled all of Jiao Lake.

Standing on the rafts and looking at the men packed shoulder to shoulder around them, slumped and leaning against one another in every direction, the leaders of Zhao's three great sects knew it was over.

Morale was gone.

Even if they somehow managed to get these men ashore now, they would no longer be capable of fighting.

A single threat from the enemy might cause whole swaths of them to surrender.

Then there were the large flying mounts circling constantly in the distance, carrying out uninterrupted reconnaissance for Yan's army.

The enemy would never give them an opportunity to break out.

The large and small cultivation sects that had originally obeyed Zhao's three great sects had fled.

Almost all of them.

The great tide had already turned.

Those sects knew there was no future in continuing to follow the three great sects. None were willing to accompany them to their deaths.

Some ran.

Others surrendered.

Now, essentially only the three great sects themselves remained, unwilling to casually abandon the foundation they had spent so many years building in Zhao and bitterly trying to hold the entire situation together.

When news arrived that the imperial palace in the capital had been raided, the three Sect Leaders were startled.

Afterward, they made an agonizing decision.

At last, they chose to give up.

There truly was no hope left to see.

"Grand Commander-in-Chief, come with us to the capital."

After discussing it among themselves, the three Sect Leaders went to find Pang Teng.

Pang Teng's lips were split with cracks.

He had all the lake water he could drink, yet his mouth had still dried until fissures covered it.

His eyes were threaded with blood.

Whenever he looked across the dispirited army, despair would unconsciously show through.

He remembered the day this army had assembled and marched east.

How majestic the formations had been.

How awe-inspiring.

How powerful.

And now they had become this.

Only a few short days had passed, yet Pang Teng had wasted away until his bones seemed visible beneath his skin.

He looked utterly haggard.

Hearing the three Sect Leaders' words, he immediately understood what they meant and asked anxiously, "If I leave, what happens to the soldiers here?"

Jiang Wanlou flared up at once.

"You are the Grand Commander-in-Chief commanding this army, and you're asking us what happens to them?"

"Who caused things to reach this point?"

"To open a route for the army to land, do you know how many people our three sects lost?"

"Our losses were disastrous!"

Pang Teng clutched his chest and shook his head in grief.

"I, Pang Teng, deserve ten thousand deaths!"

Zuo Chengfeng said, "Grand Commander-in-Chief, getting you out is already the most we can do. We have no way to carry all these men out with us."

"As for whether you deserve ten thousand deaths, you can speak of that after returning to the capital and seeing His Majesty."

Pang Teng pounded his chest with one fist, overwhelmed with sorrow.

"I am commander of this army. How can I abandon a million soldiers and flee alone to save my own life?"

Jiang Wanlou's voice sank.

"You are the one refusing to leave. It is not that we refuse to take you."

"You had better think this through."

Pang Teng had nothing more to say.

He shook his head.

He would not go.

He would live or die with the army.

"An incompetent fool who ruined the state! A useless man who has dragged the entire army to death!"

"We have already done everything humanly possible for him. Whether he wants to die or surrender is his own affair!"

Jiang Wanlou flicked his sleeve in contempt.

In the end, the senior figures of the three great sects began leaving the battlefield one group after another aboard large flying mounts.

The allied forces intercepted them as they fled.

Yan's army itself did not particularly care.

If Zhao's three great sects were willing to abandon the struggle and thereby avoid prolonging the war, that was a good thing.

Xiaoyue Pavilion, however, had other plans.

It did not want to leave behind additional hidden dangers after establishing itself on Zhao's territory.

If it did not strike while the enemy's manpower was still concentrated, was it supposed to wait until they scattered and went into hiding before acting?

Xiaoyue Pavilion had already mobilized considerable strength in preparation.

Its goal was to destroy as much of Zhao's three great sects' strength as possible.

For that purpose, it did not hesitate to use the expensive Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Arrows, intercepting and sniping at the three sects' senior figures in the air with full force.

Fortunately for the three great sects, their veteran powerhouses fought desperately and managed to carve open a road of escape for their Sect Leaders.

As for the three sects' large flying mounts, not one survived.

Every last one was killed by Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Arrows.

Against the cultivators of the three great sects attempting to break out over land, Xiaoyue Pavilion likewise joined forces with the army and hunted them down with everything it had.

It even used the opportunity as a blood pledge, forcing those Zhao cultivation sects that had surrendered to prove their loyalty by attacking their former masters and demonstrating that they had truly severed ties with Zhao's three great sects.

The three great sects had already suffered considerable casualties earlier while trying to create opportunities for the army to break out.

Now there were no Zhao troops left ashore.

There was no army to coordinate with them.

Nor did they have the support of large numbers of cultivators from Zhao's other sects.

Only their own sect disciples remained, attempting to break out through an army while facing full-force interception from cultivators belonging to virtually every other Zhao sect.

They did ultimately succeed in breaking through.

But the losses were severe.

Reality after the tide turned was cruel.

In the past, everyone on Zhao's soil had feared the three great sects.

Now the three great sects had become homeless dogs, beaten by everyone once they fell into the water.

Even after they successfully broke out, Xiaoyue Pavilion had no intention of letting them go so easily.

It brought the old strengths of an assassin organization into play, dispatching specialists who continued pursuing and killing them without pause.

Their large flying mounts were gone.

They did not dare casually use relay-station horses either, regardless of whether any remained available.

So they traveled on their own feet, hiding and running from place to place.

When they stopped to rest in a mountain forest along the way, the senior figures of the three sects looked at the dispirited disciples still gathered around them.

The mighty three great sects of Zhao had fallen to such a miserable state almost overnight.

Their hearts were desolate.

They knew the glory of Zhao's three great sects had ended.

Whether they would ever have the opportunity to rise again was impossible to know.

Back on Jiao Lake, after the three great sects departed, the soldiers stranded across the water gradually realized that there were almost no cultivators left beside them.

How were they supposed to keep fighting now?

Military morale collapsed completely.

Some officers began trying to persuade Pang Teng to surrender.

Pang Teng killed one of them in fury, temporarily frightening the others into silence.

But when the great tide was gone, it was gone.

The next day, a group of officers came together and forced a confrontation.

They begged Pang Teng to give them a road to survival.

If he refused, they would bind him and take him over to surrender.

A million-man army lost control almost in the blink of an eye.

Every heart turned away from him.

The handful of loyal men still around Pang Teng could accomplish nothing.

The Zhao soldiers surrounding him had once looked to him as commander.

Now they stared at him like an enemy, encircling him so tightly there was no gap.

"Hahaha..."

Pang Teng suddenly threw back his head and laughed.

The laughter was desolate beyond description.

Those around him looked at one another.

"Grand Commander-in-Chief, make your decision at once!"

One officer abruptly shouted, cutting off Pang Teng's laughter.

This very officer had once been punished under military law by Pang Teng for poor performance in battle.

Now he had turned around and become the first to oppose Pang Teng.

Instead of being condemned for it, he had gained the support of many other officers and become the leader of the surrender faction.

Shing!

Pang Teng suddenly drew the sword at his waist.

The officer instinctively stepped backward on the raft in fright.

Yet Pang Teng did not attack him.

Instead, he abruptly swept the blade across his own throat.

Blood sprayed out.

Let others judge right and wrong.

Pang Teng no longer had the slightest desire to cling to life, nor did he need anyone's pity or sympathy.

He spoke not one unnecessary word.

Before everyone, he simply cut his own throat.

At this point, he could no longer stop the men below him from surrendering, and he would not stop them.

But he himself would never surrender.

Not even in death.

His eyes remained wide as he fell backward.

At his ears, he could still hear loyal subordinates shouting, "Grand Commander-in-Chief!"

Soon, he heard nothing at all.

Chaos followed.

Pang Teng's loyal men tried to protect his corpse.

The others wanted to seize his head and carry it over as proof of surrender and a claim to merit.

Only a few men were willing to risk their lives for Pang Teng now that they had reached this desperate end.

That handful was swarmed by the mutinous troops.

Sabers and spears descended together, blood splashing everywhere.

Afterward, Pang Teng's head was hacked off.

Someone raised it high in one hand.

The soldiers trapped in hopeless circumstances seemed suddenly to see a road back to life.

Cheers rose from one place after another.

Watching this upheaval, it was difficult to tell whether these men were Zhao's soldiers or Zhao's enemies.

Once the great tide recedes, human hearts flow away like water.

With the Zhao commander's head removed, and with the great banner bearing the character "Pang" chopped down, the war between Yan and Zhao formally came to an end...

After the Zhao army surrendered, the agreement between Niu Youdao and Xiaoyue Pavilion was carried out.

Zhao possessed thirty-three provinces in all.

Of those, the eleven adjoining Yan were ceded to Yan.

Yan had no desire to continue fighting.

Shang Chaozong and Meng Shanming immediately drove their army forward, sweeping those eleven provinces clean, taking control quickly, and occupying them as fast as possible.

The remaining territory belonged to Xiaoyue Pavilion.

Xiaoyue Pavilion immediately marched its forces toward the Zhao capital, preparing for the final capture of the city.

Yan no longer had any interest in participating.

Given Yan's national strength, swallowing eleven provinces was already the limit.

The proper course was to consolidate and administer them as quickly as possible, turning them into actual Yan territory.

Xiaoyue Pavilion did not want Yan stretching its claws any farther either.

As for what remained, the momentum was now entirely on Xiaoyue Pavilion's side.

Taking the Zhao capital would no longer be difficult.

...

At the entrance to an underground palace beneath Zhao's imperial palace, Zhao Emperor Hai Wuji was shoved forward so hard he staggered and nearly struck the mechanism-controlled door.

"Your Majesty, open it."

Jiang Wanlou urged him.

The place before them was cast in bronze and iron.

This was where Zhao's state-protecting divine artifact was stored.

Trying to force the door open by brute strength was almost certainly impossible.

The secret method for undoing its mechanisms had always been passed down among Zhao's emperors.

Jiang Wanlou also had one hand around Empress Dowager Shang Youlan's throat.

Zuo Chengfeng, Mi Man, and the other senior figures of Zhao's three great sects were all present, waiting for Zhao's treasury doors to open.

After their dusty, exhausting return to the capital, they had rushed to the imperial palace at the first opportunity.

Their goal was precisely to take the valuables stored here.

They wanted enough capital to rebuild the three great sects and rise again in the future.

Hai Wuji's face was cold.

"I already told you. I cannot open this treasury by myself."

Jiang Wanlou's grip tightened instantly.

Shang Youlan's face flushed crimson.

She looked as though she were about to suffocate.

Holding her by the throat, Jiang Wanlou warned Hai Wuji, "Your Majesty, I already said it. We only want what is inside the treasury."

"We will not treat Your Majesty as Song's three great sects treated Mu Zhuozhen."

"Once we take the things, we will leave immediately and cause you no further trouble."

Hai Wuji immediately pointed at him.

"Release Imperial Mother first, and I will tell you the method for opening it."

Easy enough.

Jiang Wanlou immediately released Shang Youlan.

She coughed repeatedly and gulped for breath.

"We don't have time to waste here with you," Mi Man urged. "Speak."

Hai Wuji said, "I possess only half the secret key for opening this mechanism."

"The other half is held by another person."

"Only by combining the keys held by both of us can the mechanism be opened."

Zuo Chengfeng frowned.

"Are you joking? Only Zhao's emperors throughout the generations have known this mechanism."

Hai Wuji said, "I am not joking."

"In the secret decree concerning the mechanism that the late Emperor gave me before his death, he granted me only half the key."

Mi Man asked, "Where is the other half?"

"Don't tell me the late Emperor carried it into the grave with him."

Hai Wuji shook his head.

"Sect Leader Mi jokes."

"The other half is still inside the palace."

"The late Emperor gave the other half of the key to Chief Steward of the Inner Palace Zhuge Chi."

[End of Chapter 890]