Chapter 164: Ghost City

Fengren Qimaili was positioned near the rear of the formation. Instinctively diving to the side upon seeing the crossbolts come flying through the air, he narrowly managed to dodge the volley of arrows.

Though Fengren Qimaili escaped unscathed, the soldiers beside him were not so fortunate. Especially now, with the city gate newly breached and the rear troops eagerly surging forward, what greeted them instead was a relentless storm of arrows.

Dozens of Western Xia soldiers fell to the ground wounded, a significant number of them killed outright by a single direct hit.

"The Song dogs are truly cunning beyond measure, actually resorting to such despicable tricks!" Fengren Qimaili roared in rage. The agonizing groans of the wounded Western Xia soldiers around him drove him to the brink of fury; right at that moment, he longed to charge straight in and wipe out those Song troops completely.

Yet, shaken by this sudden barrage of crossbolts, Fengren Qimaili dared not act rashly for the moment.

Ordering his men to carry the wounded back, Fengren Qimaili held his ground, terrified that the Song forces might still have hidden ambushes lying in wait within.

After waiting quietly at the entrance for a while and detecting no further movement from inside, they finally began to ease their tension. Fengren Qimaili commanded his soldiers to ready their shields and cautiously advanced into the city.

The group stepped through the gateway with hearts pounding in their throats, yet their journey all the way inward proceeded without a single obstacle.

Fengren Qimaili let out a long breath, secretly rebuking himself for being overly suspicious. Still, the interior of the city was unnervingly silent—so quiet that it felt entirely like a deserted ghost town.

"Is anyone there?" Fengren Qimaili ordered the guards beside him to shout out.

Yet the surroundings remained utterly still, bearing no trace of human presence. Could the common folk within Da'an City have all been slaughtered by the Song army? Although Da'an City was merely a minor settlement, it housed a population numbering in the tens of thousands. How could it be that not a single soul remained, turning the place into a ghost town?

As this thought crossed his mind, Fengren Qimaili clenched his fists tightly. For a military commander, this was nothing short of ultimate humiliation.

"Spread out and search every corner; see if there are any living souls left," Fengren Qimaili instructed his attendants.

With that, the five thousand soldiers began scattering and running deeper into the city.

"Caw, caw, caw..." A few crows circled overhead on the rooftops, their harsh cries unsettling Fengren Qimaili's nerves.

A scout came galloping over on horseback and reported to Fengren Qimaili, "Young General, the Grand General asks about the situation inside the city."

Lacking a clear understanding of the situation within the city at that moment, Fengren Qimaili replied, "Go back and report to the Grand General that I am currently investigating the conditions inside. At first glance, Da'an City has already turned into a ghost town. Once I have thoroughly ascertained the situation, I will report back to him."

A ghost town—a city devoid of human habitation, left vacant as if inhabited only by wandering spirits.

The scout acknowledged the order and rode away.

Soon, many of the dispatched soldiers returned, essentially empty-handed. The city truly was, just as he had surmised, a ghost town where not a single person could be found.

As the soldiers trickled back one after another, leaving only a single remaining squad unaccounted for in the blink of an eye, Fengren Qimaili’s sense of unease grew even more intense.

After a lengthy wait, a single soldier came running back, completely out of breath.

"Why have you returned alone? Where are the others? Did something go wrong?" Fengren Qimaili demanded anxiously before the soldier could even speak.

The soldier's face was plastered with utter shock. Perhaps exhausted from his frantic run, he struggled to articulate his words. After Fengren Qimaili hurriedly had someone hand him a cup of water, the man managed to gasp out, "General, they are fine, it's just... it's just..."

"Just what? Out with it!" Fengren Qimaili snapped, driven to the edge of exasperation by the soldier.

"The sight was simply too... General, you had better go and see for yourself. Over there, it's completely... completely filled with people," the soldier stammered.

Hearing this, Fengren Qimaili was startled. He wanted to press for more details, but seeing the terrified expression on the soldier's face, he decided against further questioning. Mounting his horse, he led his troops at a gallop in the direction the soldier had come from.

Da'an City was not particularly large, and after a brief, rapid ride, they arrived at the location the soldier had described.

In an open plaza at the very center of Da'an City, a dozen or so soldiers stood frozen in place, their faces etched with shock.

As Fengren Qimaili drew near, he too was struck by immense astonishment, which instantly morphed into boiling rage. The Song army had truly gone too far!

Right before his eyes stood a towering pyramid of skulls—though it was not a traditional trophy mound, but rather a wall constructed entirely from severed human heads. The victims' expressions at the moment of death seemed to have been permanently frozen onto their faces, casting an eerie, horrifying aura over the entire scene.

A peculiar odor drifted through the air. Fengren Qimaili had no time to ponder its source, though it likely mingled the stench of fresh blood with the rot of decaying corpses.

At the very center of this skull wall stood a large wooden placard bearing the inscription: "Throughout the realm, whoever dares to offend our mighty Song shall be exterminated, no matter how distant they may be!"

Seeing this sign, Fengren Qimaili flew into an uncontrollable rage. Furiously drawing his saber, he strode right up to the wooden board.

With a flurry of wild strikes—*Clang! Clang! Clang!*—he hacked away at it.

Though the plank appeared exceptionally thick, its material proved surprisingly brittle. After just a few blows from Fengren Qimaili, it snapped apart with a sharp *crack*.

"Caw, caw, caw..." Another chorus of crow cries echoed through the air, stirring a deep sense of irritation within Fengren Qimaili.

*Hiss... hiss... hiss...* A strange sound reached his ears. Frowning, Fengren Qimaili felt his ominous premonition intensify drastically.

A deafening *boom* suddenly erupted right beneath Fengren Qimaili's feet. Before he could even react, the blast hurled him violently into the air.

That single sword strike from Fengren Qimaili had acted precisely like opening Pandora's box. With a sudden *whoosh*, flames burst out from the ground, instantly connecting into a sheet of fire.

Had Fengren Qimaili remained alive at that moment, he undoubtedly would have felt deep regret, for he finally understood the nature of that strange odor he had smelled earlier. While it had carried the scent of blood, the underlying aroma was unmistakably that of lamp oil.

This was no petroleum, but ordinary vegetable oil collected by Yang Weiguo and his men from various households throughout the city, scattered beforehand around the base of the skull platform. He had correctly anticipated that the Western Xia commander would fly into a rage upon witnessing such a spectacle, inevitably cutting down the wooden placard. Doing so would trigger the concealed mechanism beneath, detonating the buried explosives.