nownovels Chapter 180 Suspicion of an Internal Traitor
Chapter 180 Suspicion of an Internal Traitor
Three days after the beast tide receded, Tianlang Pass enjoyed a rare period of peace. Outside the pass walls, charred carcasses of ferocious beasts still lay piled at the base of the walls, ashes and bone fragments swirling in the wind, accumulating in a thick layer. Soldiers cleared the area along the base of the walls, pushing the remaining skeletons into the trenches to bury them. A lingering smell of burnt and decay filled the air, slowly dissipating in the afternoon sun. Inside the pass walls, the repair work on the array patterns was nearing completion; the remaining nodes had been remelted, revealing the polished luster of the bronze array plates. The wounded soldiers in the barracks quieted down after their final round of medication, occasionally exchanging a few whispered words, but mostly simply resting on their beds with their eyes closed. The entire pass resembled a colossal beast that had fought a long battle, lying panting at the edge of the wasteland.
Lin Chen, however, did not rest. Inside the military tent, several newly drawn arrows and circles were marked on the troop deployment map with charcoal, traces left after his repeated revisions. In the blank spaces along the map's edges, several parallel lines were drawn, indicating the convergence routes of the beast tide as it attacked the city walls from various directions, forming several obvious intersection points on the map—precisely landing on the weakest sections of the defensive formation. One arrow cut diagonally from the north side of the western outer wall, pointing directly to the location of the supply depot inside the city.
He wasn't deducing a victory; he was recalling the details of the battle. The timing of the beast tide's attack coincided perfectly with the intervals between supply rotations; the beast tamers' positions precisely avoided the areas with the widest range of the arrow towers; and the direction of the main force of the evil race's feint attack was exactly where the defenders' forces were weakest. These arrangements weren't spur-of-the-moment decisions; they were judgments made only after a thorough understanding of the situation inside Tianlang Pass. And those who knew this clearly were few and far between within the entire pass.
A gust of wind swept in when the tent curtain was lifted, causing the edges of the map to flutter slightly. Han Polu walked in, turned the curtain back down, and carefully placed the map back onto the table. Two parallel charcoal marks were held in place by his fingers in the airflow from the lifted curtain, preventing them from dissipating.
"You also feel something's not right?" Han Polu's robes were still covered in dust from the city walls, and his worn-out black iron armor remained on, the scratches on his shoulder armor faintly visible in the firelight inside the tent. He walked directly to the other side of the table, his gaze landing on the spot where Lin Chen's finger had just lingered. "The evil race always manages to pinpoint our weaknesses with pinpoint accuracy during their attacks. They know exactly where the grain storage is, when the troop rotations will take place, and the weak points in the formations. The previous times the grain convoys were attacked, the transport routes were all decided on the spot—decided one day, and the problem arose the next. Someone inside the pass leaked the information, and this person is of a high rank."
"Does the general have anyone he suspects?"
"Quartermaster Zhang He," Han Polu's voice dropped a half-tone. "He's in charge of supply dispatch and defense map safekeeping, so he has the most access to core secrets. Half a year ago, he went out of the pass on a mission and was captured for three days. When he came back, he said he escaped by risking his life. He did have a knife wound on his leg, and he had lost a lot of weight. I checked the records for those days. The location he said he was captured wasn't far from the pass. Logically, the evil race's defenses shouldn't be that lax, but the timing of his return was too coincidental, exactly half a month before that supply convoy was attacked." He paused, raising his hand to the edge of the map where the supply depot was located. "I had someone keep an eye on him for a while, but we didn't find anything wrong with him. Without evidence, it's not good to take action against him."
Before he could finish speaking, hurried footsteps approached from outside the tent, and a soldier's shout rang out, his voice torn into fragments by the turbulent air as he ran: "General! Commander! The supply depot is on fire—all the spare provisions—the fire is too big—"
The two men emerged from behind the curtain almost simultaneously. Flames soared into the sky from the direction of the supply depot, and crimson smoke hung low over the barracks, spreading outwards along the eaves. Even from hundreds of paces away, the scorching heat emanating from the armor plates could be felt. Flames rolled outwards from breaches in the depot's roof, their edges tinged with a thin green light—a color not typical of ordinary flames. Arriving soldiers were lined up, passing buckets of water. The water they poured didn't extinguish the flames upon contact with the edges; instead, it stirred up a pungent smoke, causing the fire to intensify even further.
Su Muyue was already standing at the entrance to the passageway on the side of the warehouse, her array flag unfurled, golden array patterns pushing along the ground towards the edge of the fire, attempting to use the array to isolate the spread of the fire. Su Ling'er led the medical team to carry the wounded firefighters to the rear, while others cleared flammable materials piled up around the warehouse. Leng Feng circled around from the other side, holding a wet rag to his mouth and nose, blocking the route for transferring supplies and preventing falling burning timbers. Chu Fan squatted upwind of the fire, brushing aside the embers of the burned warehouse door with his hands, grinding a small pinch of grayish-white powder on the ground with his fingertips, sniffing it, and then examining it closely in the light. The powder faintly shimmered with a dark green phosphorescence in the sunlight.
When the fire was finally brought under control, most of the grain and fodder in the warehouse had been burned, and the rest was smoky and unusable. Chu Fan got up and walked back to Lin Chen's side, wrapping the powder he had just rubbed in a cloth: "The fire started from the inside. There were no signs of forced entry on the warehouse door locks, the doors and windows were intact, and the guards didn't see anyone entering or leaving. The only possibility is that someone started the fire from the inside. They used a special kind of ignition powder made by the evil race, which cannot be extinguished by ordinary means. The arsonist should still have residual powder on their body. This kind of powder leaves a faint fishy smell when it gets on cloth, and it will take at least half a day to dissipate."
Lin Chen's gaze shifted from the warehouse ruins to the camp entrance. When the supply depot caught fire, most of the camp was watching the firefighting efforts, resulting in chaos and a dense flow of people in the barracks area. If anyone had managed to escape in the confusion, they probably hadn't gone far by now.
"Leng Feng, take men and seal off the entire military camp. No one is allowed to move around freely. Check each person for any fishy smell. Mu Yue, use the purification array to scan the camp area. The tinder powder will glow when it comes into contact with the purification array."
Less than an incense stick's time after the order was given, the search team cornered Zhang He in an empty barracks on the edge of the camp. He had changed into a set of old, unmarked clothes, and was carrying a cloth bag on his shoulder, the top of which was loosely tied, revealing the edges of several changes of clothes. When the light of the purification array swept across the corner of his clothes, a small patch of dark green fluorescence emerged from the fabric fibers, particularly conspicuous against the golden array patterns. When Leng Feng pressed down on his shoulder, he did not resist; the bag slipped from his shoulder to the ground, half of the clothes spilling out of the bag.