A Major Breakthrough

**Western Fortress**

Many young soldiers were wielding mops and buckets, scrubbing blood from the roads with grim determination.

"I want to go fight on the battlefield — I didn't sign up to do janitor work!" one of them snapped, flinging his broom aside in frustration.

"Bodies have to be cleared out promptly," Wang Xiaojun said. "Let them pile up and you invite disease. Hangzhou is already drowning in some unknown plague — if the Western Fortress ends up the same way..."

He never finished the sentence. A scream ripped through the barracks.

The boys froze, too stunned to react for a long moment.

Wang Xiaojun sprinted inside and nearly collided with a wave of Military Mages stampeding out, faces white as sheets.

"What happened? What's going on?" he called.

"The plague! Da Ah Li is covered in festering sores!" someone shrieked.

Wang Xiaojun pushed through to the back and found a bare-chested young man crouching in the corner, fingers raking frantically at the oozing wounds erupting across his skin. His nails had torn the sores open, letting blood seep out in a foul-smelling trickle. The sight turned Wang Xiaojun's stomach.

The entire barracks had emptied in a panic, everyone scrambling for the exit.

Everyone knew how contagious the plague was. One infected man in the barracks could mean the whole company was doomed.

"Da Ah Li — are you alright?" Wang Xiaojun edged forward, his voice uncertain.

"Why are you coming closer?! Get away from me!" the young Military Mage snarled.

"I — I just wanted to help you to the infirmary," Wang Xiaojun said. "This might not even be the plague. Could be a poisonous rat bite — honestly, the smell of your blood is kind of familiar."

"Wang Xiaojun, this is none of your business — get lost!" An officer strode over and booted the boy aside. "The medical team is on its way."

The officer held his ground near the afflicted young man but kept a careful distance.

Wang Xiaojun limped out of the barracks rubbing his sore backside. "It's not the plague," he muttered to himself. "It's just a poisonous rat bite."

He was still grumbling when a girl came striding toward him, wearing a black-and-red plum blossom qipao. Wang Xiaojun's train of thought derailed completely.

*Since when had there been someone this cute at the fortress?* Those twin pigtails, that qipao, those slender little legs — she was going to be an absolute beauty when she grew up.

"Hey." The girl stopped in front of him, voice cool and imperious. "What did you just say?"

"Rude. You should call me 'big brother.'"

"Skip the nonsense," Lingling said sharply. "Tell me exactly what you said — why don't you think that's the plague?"

"Because it's not," Wang Xiaojun said, sizing up the feisty little girl before answering honestly. "I used to catch rats and got the exact same sores on my hands. You just rub on some Eagle Red Grass leaf juice and they clear right up."

"You're serious?" Lingling's expression sharpened.

Lingling had been stationed at the fortress all along, keeping close watch on the Blood Serum shipment.

She had been puzzling over exactly how the Blood Serum connected to the plague — and now it fell into place completely.

The source of the plague was the Blood Serum itself, medicine originally meant for healing. The young man who had just fallen ill was living proof: she had watched with her own eyes as that Military Mage walked off the battlefield, collected a dose from the contaminated batch, and succumbed shortly after.

The Western Fortress had been under strict quarantine throughout — not a trace of plague had penetrated its walls, ruling out any accidental infection entirely.

When someone fell ill, Lingling followed.

It was by chance that this bold young boy had caught her attention, prompting her to press him for answers.

"Why would I lie to you?" Wang Xiaojun said earnestly. "I keep a gray hawk. Its bloodline isn't pure, so Beast Tamers always look down on it — it can barely get enough to eat. I used to sneak out to the forest nearby to catch big rabbits and rats to feed it. A few times I ran into these venomous rat fiends and caught those same festering sores. My hawk actually brought me some Eagle Red Grass — it only grows in Xi Ling. I healed up fast, completely fine. And after that, every time I ran into those rat fiends again, the sores never came back."

"Is there any Eagle Red Grass left?" Lingling asked quickly.

"None. It doesn't grow around here at all — over in Xi Ling it's practically a weed. Normally I could make the trip to get some, but that's impossible now. The White Demon Eagles have taken over Xi Ling, vicious as a pack of demons, and they could attack at any moment..."

"Come with me." Without ceremony, Lingling seized Wang Xiaojun by the sleeve and hauled him toward the watchtower.

At the top, Mo Fan sat perched at the very edge, eyes fixed on the distant slopes of Xi Ling — a mountainside that had shifted from green to white under a sea of feathers.

The White Demon Eagles were multiplying by the hour, massed across the rolling ridgelines like an army stockpiling for a final assault.

No one knew when they would strike again, or how many lives their next wave would claim from Hangzhou.

"Mo Fan, I've found something big." Lingling marched over, dragging Wang Xiaojun firmly behind her.

Noticing Mo Fan's officer's uniform, Wang Xiaojun snapped to attention. "Sir."

Lingling relayed everything to Mo Fan — what she had witnessed, what the boy had told her.

Mo Fan listened with measured skepticism, asking several follow-up questions about the details.

"The Eagle Red Grass is in Xi Ling," Mo Fan said, gesturing at the mountains. "And look at Xi Ling right now. The White Demon Eagles have buried every slope in feathers. We can't reach the grass — so how do we even verify what he's telling us?"

Seeing Mo Fan shake his head with a sigh, Lingling shot to her feet and jabbed a finger straight at his forehead. "You're being an idiot. We can't approach Xi Ling, but we can have this kid catch one of the venomous rat fiends for dissection and analysis! If the toxin in the rat fiend's blood matches the plague sores, that proves the rat fiend is the source of the plague!"

Mo Fan's eyes blazed. He scooped Lingling off her feet without a second thought and planted a loud kiss on her chubby little cheek. "Ha! How did I not think of that..." He set her down and turned to Wang Xiaojun. "What's your name, kid? Go on — go catch one of those rat fiends. Actually, I'm coming with you. At your level, it'd take you half a day just to kill one."

"It's right in that forest up ahead," Wang Xiaojun said. "Follow me — I know how to draw them out."

Mo Fan nodded and summoned his Swift Star Wolf without hesitation.

*If this kid was telling the truth, they had just found the major breakthrough they needed to crack the plague that had been tearing all of Hangzhou apart.*