Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely Chapter 1845: Intimidation, Retreat, Fang Tianqing's Desolation

The reputation of the Xia people for observing propriety has only risen in the past six months.

When, in the third month, the Great Xia Lord Lady Li Xuanling and Caiqiu’s Minor Landgrave Cai Qiuhu formally signed a truce agreement in Guangning City, the two sides simultaneously opened trade routes; once commerce began, exchanges naturally became more and more frequent.

The Caiqiu people discovered that all the Xia people coming from the south were very particular about etiquette. Whenever they met an elder, regardless of status, they would cup their fists in salute, and their movements were extremely precise: the left palm spread, covering the right fist, and then, depending on the person being saluted, the position of the cupped fists would differ—at chest level for equals, at brow level for elders, and at the forehead for the very old.

The Xia people’s cupped-fist salute piqued the Caiqiu people’s interest. With a bit of asking around, they learned of Xia Li, and came to know that from daily clothing, food, housing, and travel to major matters such as marriage and funerals, everything among the Xia had to strictly follow Xia Li; within Cai Qiu, this even sparked a major debate.

Supporters felt that without rules nothing could be properly ordered; with Xia Li as constraint and cultivation, no wonder the Xia people could grow to such scale in barely over ten years. Opponents, however, felt that all those rules and regulations were too many shackles, entirely lacking in freedom, and that over time they would make people rigid in thought and action, inflexible in handling affairs, and so on.

Leaving aside the outcome of the debate for the moment, the reputation of the Xia people as observant of propriety had thoroughly resounded throughout Cai Qiu, and since exchanges among the Four Vassals along the Moao River were already frequent, the other three vassals of course all knew of it as well.

Only, for Chu Tianhe to use such words at this moment to needle him was, to say the least, rather naïve.

Xia Chuan lifted his head and looked at Chu Tianhe in the sky. Though he knew full well that his own strength could not compare to the other’s, not a trace of fear showed on his face, nor did he respond in any way to that speech just now. He merely gazed at him for a moment, then slowly spoke:

“At the end of this year’s first month, I sent Governor Chu the first letter. Afterwards, on the ninth day of the fourth month, the second; on the ninth of the fifth month, the third. Your lordship wholly ignored them, the army never stirred. It seems your vassal state does not place my Great Xia in its eyes…”

At this point, Xia Chuan’s lips curved in a faint smile; he shook his head and said, “Now it seems I was muddle-headed as well. If letters alone could turn back armies, my Great Xia would never have fought those three great wars with Cai Qiu…”

“Xia Chuan, have your Lord come out and speak!”

Xia Chuan was suddenly cut off. Seeing the contempt in Chu Tianhe’s eyes above, his emotions did not ripple in the slightest.

This had been well within his expectations. Chu Tianhe was not only the son of Chen Cang’s Landgrave Chu Longteng, he was also a bona fide Tribulation Body Realm powerhouse. In Chu Tianhe’s understanding, naturally Xia Chuan had no qualifications to converse with him.

It had been many years since anyone had addressed him so bluntly by name!

A faint ripple rose in Xia Chuan’s heart. Looking at Chu Tianhe, his tone utterly calm, he said, “If Chu Longteng were here, that would be another matter. You, a Landgrave’s second son, a little character following behind Chu Tianming to help him seize the succession, want to speak with my Lord? Do you have the qualifications?”

Chu Tianhe’s expression froze abruptly. The same shock flashed clearly across the faces of Fang Tianqing beside him, and the five behind him—He Tianxin, He Tianyuan, Lu Qinghu, and the others.

This Xia Chuan, merely a Xianyang Level whose Basic Strength was only thirteen jun, dared to speak to Chu Tianhe like this—had the man gone mad?

“Arrogant, arro…”

“Loose!”

Chu Tianhe did not respond with mere rage. As he spoke, gold and blue flames suddenly flared around him—an anomaly born of his Gold and Water Two-line Tribulation Qi being fully released.

Yet under normal circumstances, when a Tribulation Body Realm expert struck with full force, what erupted should not be Tribulation Qi, but the Golden Body. Chu Tianhe at this moment did not summon his Golden Body, merely released the Tribulation Qi within him—evident proof that he did not truly intend to make a move.

Xia Chuan’s reaction, however, was far more violent than his.

Boom…

The word “Loose” that Xia Chuan shouted sounded somewhat ridiculous to Chu Tianhe and the rest from Chen Cang.

Let alone the Tribulation Body Realm—even at the Xianyang Level, so long as one maintained sufficient altitude, one could essentially avoid all attacks from Crossbow Arrows.

It was not that Crossbow Arrows could not reach targets at such height; the key was that all large implements such as Crossbow Arrows had what was called an effective range. In other words, even if you could shoot out to over a hundred kilometers at the farthest, how much power would remain in the arrow after flying over a hundred kilometers—could it still injure anyone?

The Divine Machine Crossbows of Great Xia were no secret among the Four Vassals along the Moao River; Chu Tianhe and the others were well aware of them. In fact, Chen Cang also possessed large crossbow devices similar to the Divine Machine Crossbow, and in terms of range and force, they were even stronger than Great Xia’s Divine Machine Crossbows.

They had long since noticed those twenty Divine Machine Crossbows below, and even in the brief interval when they had just now exchanged a few words with Xia Chuan, all the movements on the ground of the Soldiers mounting the crossbows and drawing the strings had been taken in clearly by their eyes.

Chu Tianhe and the others had paid them no heed precisely because they did not take them seriously.

Yet when five silver-white long bolts suddenly surged up from the ground like scallions pulled from dry soil, Chu Tianhe and Fang Tianqing, together with He Tianxin and the other five behind them, had their faces changed in an instant.

Thrum… Thrum…

At the moment the long bolts tore through the air, they abruptly sucked the air out of the space above the ground. When the crossbow strings that had shot the long bolts returned to position, they let out a resounding crack; though five Crossbow Mechanisms had fired in unison, the sound was so loud it seemed as if there were only a single report.

How extreme was the force generated when the taut crossbow strings snapped back into place?

Of the five hundred Soldiers operating the Crossbow Mechanisms, nearly half failed to keep their footing and went sprawling to the ground; dozens were flung backward more than ten meters, and the worst of them were even jolted so hard they spat blood on the spot.

Boom…

At the instant the long bolts took flight, the immense force, rebounding from the base of the five Crossbow Mechanisms down into the earth, formed five colossal shockwaves centered on the crossbows, spreading outward in circular ripples toward all directions, stirring up boundless snow-mist—the spectacle could only be called terrifying to the extreme.