Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

"Something happened?"

Li Chengqian was peeling canned yellow peaches in his palanquin.

He didn't even lift his eyelids when he heard the messenger's somewhat distorted roar.

In his view, under such overwhelming firepower, even if Goguryeo summoned the mountain god, it would not escape the fate of being swept away.

"What's all this fuss about? Could it be that that old dog Yeon Gaesomun has gathered all the gunpowder in the city, preparing to take us all down with him?"

The messenger knelt in the snow, his whole body trembling violently like a sieve.

His pale face showed no fear of war, but rather a deep sense of shock and indignation.

"No...it wasn't an enemy attack..."

The messenger swallowed a mouthful of cold saliva, his voice hoarse as if rubbing sandpaper.

"Your Highness... there's no road ahead. General Xue has ordered the army to halt and requests that you go and take a look yourself."

"He...he had his subordinates tell you that the Goguryeo people...are not human."

Li Chengqian paused slightly in the hand holding the can.

He understood Xue Rengui, the fierce general who could charge in and out of the enemy ranks seven times, not someone easily intimidated. He knew that something could make Xue Rengui halt his army, even suppressing his initial charge.

It's definitely not simple.

"Prepare the horses."

Li Chengqian dropped the canned food, wrapped his white fox fur coat tighter around himself, and jumped out of the palanquin.

Instead of taking the slow-moving carriage, he directly mounted a magnificent, jet-black warhorse and galloped towards the vanguard camp.

The cold wind howled, carrying fine snowflakes that pelted my face.

But Li Chengqian felt no chill at all; only a strange sense of unease rose in his heart.

The further you go, the fainter the smell of gunpowder in the air becomes.

Instead.

It was a stench so strong it was nauseating, and a chilling, deathly aura that sent shivers down one's spine.

"Whoa—!"

Li Chengqian pulled on the reins, and the black horse let out an uneasy neigh, raising its front hooves high and refusing to take another step forward.

It's less than a hundred paces ahead.

The 30,000 Snow Dragon Riders and 5,000 Divine Machine Battalion Musketeers seemed to be frozen in place.

They all stood there, completely silent and stiff.

No one spoke.

Not a single person was moving.

The only sounds were heavy breathing and the metallic clanging of weapons rubbing unconsciously against armor.

Li Chengqian dismounted, pushed aside the soldiers blocking his way, and strode forward.

Xue Rengui was standing at the very front of the line.

The white-robed general had his back to Li Chengqian. His large hand, gripping the halberd, was so tightly that the veins bulged and the knuckles turned white.

"Get out of the way."

Li Chengqian pushed aside Xue Rengui's tall body.

When his gaze passed over the vanguard camp and landed on the snow-covered wilderness.

Li Chengqian's face, which had been slightly nonchalant, froze instantly.

His deep eyes suddenly shrank to the size of pinpoints.

Ahead.

That was a mountain.

A mountain that is extremely large, even taller than the walls of Pyongyang!

But it was not a natural mountain formed by piles of mud and rocks.

That is……

Head!

Bones!

Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of heads and skeletons!

The Goguryeo people tamped down the soil, piling it up layer upon layer. After thirty years of wind and rain, the remains were long since turned to white bones.

On some of the heads, weeds even grew around the eye sockets, swaying forlornly in the cold wind.

And at the very top of those old, white bones.

In an extremely jarring and bloody scene, hundreds of fresh corpses, not yet fully decomposed, were piled up.

Those were the merchant caravan that had just disappeared from the Tang Dynasty, and the three envoys whose faces had been cut off!

This is a Jingguan (a mound of skulls)!

This is the ultimate masterpiece used by the Goguryeo people to show off their military prowess and to humiliate the Central Plains dynasties!

It was like a rusty, poisonous dagger, plunged deep into the land of Liaodong.

The overwhelming resentment even made the surrounding air extremely distorted and cold.

"These...these are soldiers from our Great Sui Dynasty..."

An old Tang Dynasty soldier with a full head of white hair looked at the huge mountain of bones.

The spear in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter.

This veteran, who had faced countless life-and-death situations and never flinched even when stabbed, now knelt heavily in the snow like a helpless child.

He covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.

"Thirty years...a full thirty years!"

"I witnessed my elder brother die on the banks of the Liao River, and his body was never recovered..."

"They...they actually used my older brother's bones...to build a wall..."

The veteran's cries were like a fuse.

This instantly ignited the extremely suppressed emotions of the entire Tang Dynasty expeditionary force.

Many of the soldiers in the army were descendants of veterans who had participated in the war at the end of the Sui Dynasty, or even survivors of that war.

They looked at the pillar of shame, built with the blood and flesh of the men of the Central Plains.

Looking at those empty eye sockets that weep silently in the cold wind.

Everyone's eyes instantly turned even redder than a rabbit's.

That was the red of dripping blood!

"Fuck your mother, Goguryeo!"

"Kill them! Kill them all!"

"I'm going to skin Yeon Gaesomun alive!"

A furious roar and heart-wrenching curses instantly pierced the sky.

Countless soldiers drew their swords and charged forward like madmen, determined to tear down the mound of corpses, even if they had to bite it with their teeth.

"Stop right there!"

Xue Rengui stomped his foot, and the halberd slammed heavily onto the ground with a deafening crash.

He turned his head and looked at the soldiers behind him, his eyes bloodshot, with even a trace of blood at the corner of his eye.

"No one is to move without His Highness's order!"

He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the violent urge to destroy everything within him, and looked at Li Chengqian, who had remained silent.

"Your Highness..."

Li Chengqian neither looked at Xue Rengui nor at the enraged soldiers.

His gaze was fixed on the enormous mound of Jingguan (a type of ancient Chinese mound).

He is not a person of this era.

He felt no sense of belonging to the Sui Dynasty, nor did he feel any deep pain for the grudges from thirty years ago.

but.

When he saw with his own eyes that the blood and bones of the Chinese nation were being piled up like garbage and turned into a source of pride, he was deeply moved.

When he saw the Tang Dynasty envoys being slaughtered and displayed like animals, he was deeply moved.

The deepest resonance of his bloodline as a descendant of Yan and Huang was completely and unreservedly ignited within him!

"Bang!"

Li Chengqian suddenly turned around.

He slammed his fist violently into the cast iron shaft of a nearby artillery tractor.

The heavy shaft of the cart was actually smashed into a deep dent by this punch!

At the knuckles of Li Chengqian's fair fingers, the skin instantly tore open, and blood gushed out.

He ignored the injury on his hand.

He slowly turned his head, revealing his eyes, which had been lazy and even somewhat mocking.

At this moment, the temperature has dropped to absolute zero.

It was a destructive killing intent devoid of any emotion, pure to the extreme.

"Xue Li".

Li Chengqian's voice was extremely calm, so calm that it sent chills down one's spine.

"How far is Pyongyang?"

"Your Highness, it's less than fifty li."

"Relay my order."

Li Chengqian took out a clean white silk handkerchief from his pocket and slowly wiped the blood from his knuckles.

"The army shall halt its advance. Rest and regroup on the spot."

Xue Rengui was stunned.

All the soldiers, their eyes bloodshot, were stunned.

"Your Highness! This..."

"I said, halt the advance!"

Li Chengqian suddenly raised his voice, and the undeniable imperial pressure instantly silenced everyone.

He casually tossed the blood-stained handkerchief onto the snow.

The scarlet bloodstains stood out starkly against the backdrop of the white snow.

"I don't intend to let you gnaw on this tough nut."

Li Chengqian turned around, looking in the direction where the Tang fleet was anchored, a cruel, deathly smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Send the signal arrow."

Tell that old man.

"His big job is here."