The moment that spark fell, Wang Jingcong thought he had seen through Xu Qinghuan's trump card.
He was wrong.
The spark did not directly ignite the bamboo tubes inside the carriage. Instead, it spread rapidly along the fuse beneath the shafts, branching off abruptly the moment it touched the bottom of the carriage, and darted close to the ground toward the north and south ends of the narrow pass.
There was no warning of thunder, nor did it leave anyone room to breathe.
Only two muffled roars were heard from beneath their feet, followed by the sound of cracking rock formations from high up on the cliffs on both sides.
The crowd looked up:
They saw massive boulders weighing tens of thousands of pounds, mixed with dirt, gravel, and uprooted old pine trees, cascading down with a deafening crash.
The entrances and exits of the Yanshan pass, which were less than twenty feet wide, were completely filled in a matter of breaths.
Stone dust billowed dozens of feet high, blotting out the sky and the sun, abruptly cutting off the daylight above the gorge. The dust poured back into the pass, choking people so badly that the taste of blood rose in their throats.
Four hundred death warriors, along with thirty carriages linked end to end, were sealed tight inside this hundred-meter-long enclosed pass.
"Oh no! The retreat! Our way out is gone!"
Someone shouted, and the ranks of the death warriors, already in chaos because of the straw men, descended into absolute panic.
Wang Meng's eyes were bloodshot. Wielding his thick-backed broadsword stained with human blood, he charged like a madman toward the pile of boulders blocking the exit.
"Open up for me!"
He crazily smashed the blade with all his might against the bluestone.
But with a crisp clang and a shower of sparks, a thumb-sized chip broke off the blade. The recoil surged back up the hilt, tearing the webbing of Wang Meng's hand until it bled.
Blood dripped down the hilt onto the stone dust.
The boulder did not even show a white mark and remained completely motionless.
Wang Jingcong was knocked to the ground by the blast wave of the falling rocks. His dark cloak was covered in dirt and ash, his jade hair crown was shattered, and his hair was left disheveled.
One of the two iron Baoding balls he was so proud of was nowhere to be found, while the other had smashed against the cliff face, chipping off a piece of its iron shell, and rolled under a horse's hooves.
He scrambled up on his hands and knees, looking at the piles of rubble towering into the clouds at both ends, panting heavily.
A dead end.
So this was Xu Qinghuan's true killing trap, his own dead end!
Pine needles rustled down from the old pine tree at the top of the cliff.
Xu Wuyou wore grayish-black martial attire. Resting one foot on the trunk, he leaned half his body out. He tossed a yellow mud-sealed bamboo tube in his hand, looking down condescendingly at the death warriors scrambling blindly at the bottom of the valley.
The gorge amplified the sound.
"My little sister said, if a matter can be settled with fire, don't waste the blades of our brothers."
These words landed like a solid slap directly on Wang Jingcong's face.
Xu Wuyou stopped tossing the bamboo tube and gripped it in his palm. Looking at the crowd below, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Doesn't the Wang family love ambushes? I've given you four hundred men a tight stone blanket to roast slowly under."
Wang Jingcong's reason completely collapsed at this moment. The dignity of a noble young master and the arrogance of a master strategist were utterly crushed by this mockery.
Pointing at the blurry figure on the cliff top, he roared hoarsely, "Loose the arrows! Shoot him down! Turn him into a hedgehog!"
The death warriors below woke up as if from a dream. Dozens of archers and crossbowmen hurriedly raised their heavy crossbows and longbows, aiming up at the cliff top.
Triggers were pulled, and bowstrings vibrated.
A dense volley of feathered arrows shot upward, piercing the air.
The cliff was too high and nearly vertical, and the wind in the gorge formed a vortex because both ends were sealed tight. As the arrows flew halfway up, they were pulled by gravity, and their momentum was completely drained.
The arrowheads spun in the air, reversed direction, and plummeted straight down.
"Dodge!"
The valley floor was already narrow, and with four hundred people crowded together, there was nowhere to maneuver. Although the falling arrows had lost their upward momentum, they remained incredibly sharp with the force of their descent.
Several shrill screams rang out. A few death warriors who could not dodge in time had their shoulders and thighs pierced by their own arrows, their blood instantly dyeing the grass red.
One arrow even brushed past Wang Jingcong's cheek and pinned itself into the ground, slicing off a lock of his hair.
The counterattack turned into a ridiculous display of self-mutilation.
Xu Wuyou did not even bother to dodge. He sneered coldly at the arrows that had not even touched the edge of the cliff top.
He pulled out a fire starter from the wooden box behind him and blew it alight.
The flame licked the fuse at the top of the bamboo tube. With a sizzling sound, the sparks quickly drilled inward, emitting a wisp of pungent blue smoke.
With a flick of his wrist.
The bamboo tube, trailing blue smoke, traced an arc in the air and plummeted straight toward the valley floor.
Wang Jingcong tilted his head up and watched the black dot grow larger and larger. The wind howled in his ears, and in that moment, he clearly smelled the scent of sulfur.
"Scatter! Everyone scatter!" Wang Jingcong roared at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking.
It was too late.
The bamboo tube accurately smashed through the tattered tarpaulin of the first carriage and fell deep into the cabin.
The carriage was packed tightly with bamboo tubes, and the gaps were stuffed with bags of quicklime specially modified by Jenny Huang.
It left no time for anyone to pray.
The first explosion was not the sound of an ordinary firecracker, but a roar that could shatter one's internal organs.
A blinding ball of fire expanded rapidly inside the carriage. The hard wooden planks splintered, and the blast wave rippled outward in a ring, sweeping across the surroundings with tremendous force.
The dozen or so death warriors closest to the blast did not even have time to scream before they were torn to shreds by this terrifying force.
Severed limbs and broken arms, mixed with wood splinters and bamboo shards, scattered overwhelmingly in all directions. Before the mist of blood could even disperse in the air, it was evaporated by the intense heat that followed.
This was only the beginning.
Sparks mingled with burning wood fragments splashed onto the second and third carriages.
The thirty carriages were tightly chained together by thick iron cables, and now, a chain reaction of explosions began.
Deafening explosions echoed back and forth within the narrow pass, and flames shot into the sky, illuminating the entire gorge.
At this moment, the temperature inside the pass was extremely high.
The four hundred death warriors had nowhere to escape in this enclosed sea of fire. Some were sent flying by the blast waves, crashing heavily against the stone walls and collapsing completely limp.
Others, covered in burning gunpowder, rolled all over the ground, letting out agonizing wails, but they could not extinguish the flames on their bodies. Even more people were instantly reduced to charred remains at the centers of the explosions.
Half of Wang Meng's body was forcefully whipped in two by a flying iron chain. Lying in a pool of blood, he watched helplessly as the raging fire swallowed his legs, lacking even the strength to struggle.
Wang Jingcong stood dumbfounded on the spot, watching the massive waves of fire surging toward him.
He did not run, nor could he run away anymore.
The intense heat devoured his robes and roasted his flesh until it sizzled. The final hope for revenge of the Jiangning Wang family, along with his unwilling ambition, was completely reduced to ashes in this sea of fire.
Half an hour later.
The endless explosions finally ceased.
The flames at the bottom of the valley were still burning, but they had lost their initial fury, leaving only the crackling embers of scorched wood and charred flesh.
The pungent smell of gunpowder smoke and the choking odor of quicklime, mixed with the nauseating stench of burning meat, surged straight into the sky along the gorge's wind drafts.
The once-flat pass was now covered in craters. Not a single trace of the thirty carriages remained, leaving only a few sections of red-hot iron chains resting on the scorched earth.
The four hundred death warriors were completely annihilated.
The cliff top.
Xu Wuyou took a step back, brushing away the stray grass and dust clinging to his clothes. He stared down at the blackened, scorched valley below, his face blank and his eyes completely devoid of emotion.
There was no room for mercy in war. His younger sister had set the trap; his only duty was to pull the net close.
"Clean up the tracks," Xu Wuyou said as he turned around, his voice steady and commanding. "Dismantle the pulley system entirely and burn the ropes. Do not leave a single obvious clue for those men at the Ministry of War."
The thirty scouts behind him moved with practiced efficiency. In merely the time it takes to finish a cup of tea, the cliff top was restored to its original state. Save for a few trampled pine needles, there was no sign whatsoever that an ambush had taken place.
Xu Wuyou walked over to the tree where his horse was tethered and vaulted into the saddle.
He pulled the reins taut. The horse pawed at the dirt a few times, seemingly unsettled by the thick stench of blood rising from the valley.
Turning his horse's head toward the Northern Frontier, Xu Wuyou raised his large, calloused hand, gave the horse's neck a heavy pat, and uttered a single word:
"Go."
The Wang family was officially off the board.
