Chapter 20: The True Sovereign of the Great Ming Southwest

Just as the crowd surrounded Chen Yuchong, poised to seize him, a deep, rumbling vibration began to emanate from the void. Like a small stream swelling into a torrent, the sound grew increasingly thunderous. The magnificent Great Hall of the Chishui Tusi Mansion started to shake violently, causing bottles, jars, and plates on the tables to slide off and shatter against the floor.

The pungent, heady aroma of Maozhen liquor filled the air as the bottles broke, though few spared it a thought.

"What is happening?" the Tusi headman, Tu Huaichen, cried out in alarm.

The Imperial Envoy’s face drained of color, and driven by a primal instinct for self-preservation, he bolted for the hall’s entrance. Others realized the danger too and attempted to flee, but an indescribable force gripped them, locking them within the hall. Strangely, the more powerful one’s inner cultivation, the more forceful the containment became.

Roaring flames surged into the air, instantly engulfing the entire Tusi Mansion. Just as the crowd braced for death, they realized that despite the fire licking at them, their bodies remained cool. This inferno was nothing more than an illusion—yet it was an illusion that reflected a true history.

The people witnessed a bleak battlefield of broken walls and tattered banners. They saw millions of corpses and rivers of blood. They saw an invincible commander, leading from the front, joining his soldiers clad in gleaming armor to raise their muskets and spit torrents of fire at a vast army of war elephants. The space between heaven and earth was filled with a barrage of projectiles, resembling a meteor shower of the apocalypse.

Everyone stood dumbfounded, failing even to notice the floor tiles beneath them slowly parting, driven by a mysterious power, to reveal a massive chasm like the gates of hell. A formless force suddenly seized all those who were unable to escape the hall.

The flames roared, but their light swayed with agonizing slowness, as if time itself had dilated. Recovering their senses, the men wore grim expressions, their hands gripping the weapons at their waists or backs. Suspended in mid-air by the invisible force, they were slowly drawn downward into the void that the Great Hall had become.

The floor closed silently, and the earth-shaking tremors ceased. The once-crowded Great Hall became vast and silent; apart from the disappearance of everyone inside, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

Beneath the hall lay a subterranean palace—or, more accurately, a sprawling underground city. Everyone was struck by the sight, a sense of profound astonishment and awe welling up within them.

"What a magnificent achievement is this?"

***

"Proceed with caution, everyone," the Yongshun Tusi remarked. "Within this mysterious underground palace, I can vaguely perceive subtle fluctuations of spatial energy."

"Is this a relic left by the Heavenly King Ye? Or perhaps Yang Yinglong?"

"No," the Wumeng Tusi replied. "Such a miracle is beyond the reach of the so-called Four Heavenly Kings of Guizhou. No prominent Tusi could even hope to compare. Even the works of the Dali Kingdom, which dominated the Southwest hundreds of years ago, pale in comparison."

"What are you implying?"

"It is exactly as I suspect. Only the true kings of the Southwest under the Great Ming Empire—the Mu Prince’s Mansion—could build an underground city of such scale and grandeur."

Meanwhile, a strange, eerie voice echoed in Chen Yuchong’s mind: "There is a secret passage beneath the Chishui Tusi Mansion. Once you use this key to open it, everyone above will be drawn into a place called the City of Great Desolation."

Chen asked, "Is this secret so profound that even Heavenly King Ye Xiaotian does not know of it?"

Chen’s expression shifted. "No, that’s impossible. The Ye family has operated in Chishui for generations; they cannot be ignorant of this underground city. This key should have been in their hands, yet now it is with you. Who exactly are you?"

The voice countered, "Do you know who built the City of Great Desolation?"

"Who?"

"The first Duke of Qian, Mu Ying, Prince of the Mu Mansion."

Mu Ying was a founding father of the Ming Dynasty, a legendary general, and the adopted son of the Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang. His life was filled with legends and immortal achievements.

"And this City of Great Desolation?"

"It is the place where the fortunes of the extinct ancient Southwestern kingdoms—Yelang, Nanzhao, Dali, and Luchuan—are suppressed."

Chen Yuchong contemplated this and grasped the gravity of the situation. Before the Ming Dynasty, the Southwest had repeatedly fractured, resisting the Central Plains. Mu Ying, who fought a hundred battles and pacified the Southwest, must have built this city to suppress the "kingly aura" of the region, just as Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty had suppressed the royal aura of Jinling, ensuring the Southwest would forever remain imperial territory.

Mu Ying was a peerless figure, and the city held the grievances of countless evil legends and overlords of the Southwest. For an ordinary person, entering would mean certain death. Yet, as the mysterious figure vanished without a trace, Chen found a primitive map made of cowhide in his possession.

Yun Zheng, Ye Xi, the five fickle headmen... As long as he survived the City of Great Desolation, he could eliminate all instability and erase the entire affair completely.

***

The disappearance of those people could be explained away as an accident triggered by the sudden eruption of an ancient ruin.

Beside him lay a wide corridor, his feet resting on a floor of massive granite. He could faintly hear the sound of mechanisms and gears turning. Countless underground rivers beneath Guizhou provided the infinite energy required to keep the City of Great Desolation running. Chen understood that while the city appeared static to the naked eye, it could, in fact, shift, deform, or even teleport through the void at any moment. Even with the map, he could only grasp a fraction of its patterns.

*Bang!*

A gunshot shattered the silence of the City of Great Desolation.

Yun Zheng steadied himself and looked into the distance. At a crossroads, the headman Tu Huaichen had his head exploded by an enchanted lead bullet, his brains and blood splattering the ground. In that moment, Yun Zheng saw a massive violet light bloom in the void.

"Violet... 'Violet'..." Yun Zheng murmured.

He was not without friends among the missionaries from the Red-Haired Kingdom. One had once told him a story: ten years ago, the legendary gun "Violet," the national treasure of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, was stolen from deep within the Amsterdam City Hall.

The creator of "Violet" was the Dutch Grand Pensionary, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, a famous merchant and master craftsman known throughout the West. That same year, Oldenbarnevelt was defeated in a brutal political struggle and publicly beheaded. Amidst the chaos of the coup, the famous weapon vanished, and some claimed it had drifted to the Ming Empire.

Chen Yuchong had once traveled across the ocean to the Netherlands, only to lose everything and return a beggar.

(Is this Chen Yuchong’s revenge?)

"Violet," even in the lands of the Ming, was comparable to the ten most famous guns of the era. Yun Zheng’s eyes narrowed in vigilance as he gripped the stock of the weapon in his pack.