The Longest Day in Chang’an: A Race Against Time - Chapter 74

There were sentinels all around. Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, Li Bi rubbed his shoulders to ease the pain caused by the ropes, snorted coldly and strode forward with his head erect. Long Bo walked side by side with him, heading for the depths of the courtyard.

They walked past the pavilion and detoured around those rockeries. Along the way, a lot of strong men could be seen, holding crossbows patrolling back and forth. These people were probably the ones who attacked Jing’an Department with Long Bo. Every one of them had a temperament different from that of a common thief or bandit.

Common thugs might be very ferocious but lacked spirit of cooperation like a heap of loose sand, while these soldiers walked at a moderate pace and with a rigorous gait. There were so many of them guarding this courtyard, but it was totally quiet – even most troops of Capital City Garrison couldn’t do this, not to mention bandits.

One needed more than just money to have soldiers as well-trained as these to serve him. Then Li Bi recalled termites used as a metaphor by Long Bo, his heart sinking.

Long Bo whistled while walking, totally unconcerned about Li Bi’s observing.

They reached the periphery of the blackish-brown buckeye woods in the corner of the courtyard. All these trees were transplanted here from India, each one of which had cost a fortune. Their trunks were wrapped in sackcloth as a shelter from severe cold of the north. At the edge of the woods, Long Bo stopped and said, “Sicheng Li, this is it. Watch carefully.” Li Bi looked around and asked, “What do you want me to see?”

Long Bo smiled, “The stuff you’ve been trying to find for hours, of course.”

“Kailu Hodo?”

Li Bi said said in a low voice. Turkish Wolf Guards smuggled Yanzhou mountain tallow into the city and made Fierceflame bombs with it in Changming Fang. Fifteen barrels of the bombs had exploded, but there were over two hundred barrels remaining unaccounted for. It turned out that they had been hidden in this courtyard!

A little embarrassed, Long Bo clicked his tongue. “Kailu Hodo is a nickname given by Turks. To be honest, I think it’s too countrified. Those Turks didn’t know how to use this thing at all. All they did was merely drive carts and aimlessly blast things around. They were just as vulgar as this name.”

Li Bi’s eyes swept through every corner but he didn’t spot anything suspicious. Theoretically, it was impossible to hide two hundred barrels of Fierceflame bombs so well.

Long Bo held up his finger and pointed at the sky, saying aloud, “We need light!”

Soon, specks of candlelight appeared not far away. At first there were only a couple of them, and then they grew into a patch, a circle and soon a perfectly round area.

It was not until this moment that Li Bi saw that there was a giant bamboo lantern-wheel over sixteen meters high standing nearby. It was just that there had been no light just now, so he had failed to notice it. Now there were dozens of candles ablaze at the same time, making the whole woods as bright as how it looked in daytime, and he finally could get a clear view of the details.

The skeleton of this lantern-wheel was made by butting up thick bamboo tubes against each other, then covered with oil paper to form a waterwheel-like wheel. Candles were placed in the hollow inside. The paper surface was divided into twelve areas on which the twelve patterns of Chinese Zodiac were drawn in colorful lines, gold and silver fringes as well as satin ribbons shaped like fortune worms hanging on the edge of the wheel. Below the wheel was a water channel. The wheel was slowly turning under the push of the flowing water, and so did the twelve patterns of the Chinese Zodiac, symbolizing the passing of time. In the center of the lantern-wheel was a painting presenting the God of Good Fortune, the God of Longevity and the God of Wealth gathering together.

This lantern-wheel was not as big as those lantern pavilions in the East Market, the West Market or the Xingqing Palace, but the meticulous designer came up with this idea of using the turning waterwheel as a metaphor for the cycle of the twelve Hours, which was rather distinctive.

Just like that Spontaneous-Rain Pavilion in the courtyard, it was very ingenious. The one who owned these two things must be someone of both a leisurely, carefree mood and wealth.

With his head up, Li Bi watched it for a while. “What’s the relation between this and Kailu Hodo?” Long Bo patted his shoulder, signaling him to be patient.

After the lantern-wheel soundlessly turned for a while, the area of Chen suddenly flared up. No, it didn’t flare up. It burst. Li Bi distinctly saw that the bamboo tube exploded. The lantern-wheel was still turning, and the flame conveniently spread to adjoining Mao area and Si area, bamboo tubes in both of which also started bursting with cracks. Almost in the blink of an eye, a quarter of the lantern-wheel was aflame.

Li Bi rounded his eyes. By candlelight, he saw it very clearly. The reason why the fire spread so quickly was that some kind of black liquid flowed out of those bamboo tubes after they burst. The liquid combusted on contact with fire, and the flames were extremely fierce.

The black liquid accompanied by flames flowed all over the lantern-wheel and turned it into a torch ablaze. Soon the fire spread to the bamboo pivot of the lantern-wheel. After merely a couple of Tanzhi(A unit of time used in ancient China; 7.4 seconds), Li Bi saw a flame violently burst out of the bamboo tube, patterns of the God of Good Fortune, the God of Longevity and the God of Wealth were blasted into numerous pieces. With that, twelve patterns of Chinese Zodiac were also shredded by the sudden storm of flames. Such an exquisite lantern holder collapsed with a crash.

Li Bi was very familiar with that explosion. It was exactly the same as the one in the West Market, only that it was of a smaller scale.

“The fourth test. Over.” The voice of an observer came from amid the woods. On hearing this, Long Bo happily clapped his hands, turned his head aside and said to Li Bi, “What do you think? You understand it now? What a beautiful scene.”

Li Bi stretched out his hand and held on to a buckeye. He fully understood now.

No wonder Jing’an Department failed to find those two hundred barrels of Fierceflame bombs. It turned out that members of Termite had injected refined mountain tallow into bamboo tubes in Changming Fang, and then swaggeringly transferred those bamboo tubes away. All staff members on watchtowers and patrol soldiers in various Fangs had concentrated their efforts on looking for carts loaded with wooden barrels, so they naturally had found nothing, since they’d been acting in a way that defeated their purpose.

If they installed these bamboo tubes filled with mountain tallow onto lantern holders. With small tubes to facilitate combustion and big tubes to explode, once those lantern holders detonated, there would probably be extremely heavy casualties.

Long Bo raised his head and sighed, “It’s a shame that those Turks can’t be here to see this beautiful scene. What a shame. Do you think they would have prostrated themselves?”

“I don’t understand… ” Li Bi mumbled. “People started building lantern holders several days ago. Why did you choose to wait until the lantern show began to install the tubes instead of doing it while they were building them?”

Long Bo scratched his hooknose in remorse and anger. “We didn’t have a choice. Mountain tallow has to be preheated to detonate. And if it fails to detonate within half a Hour after being preheated, it’ll cool down and we’ll have to preheat it again.”

Li Bi understood. Because of this property of Fierceflame bomb’s, it had to be installed and detonated on site and couldn’t be installed in advance. He knew Long Bo wasn’t lying. Back then when Turkish Wolf Guards were driving a cart trying to break through the blockade, the mountain tallow in those wooden barrels was also boiling.

But wasn’t this workload… too heavy?

Li Bi replayed the scene of the combustion in his mind and suddenly found that actually only a couple of components of the lantern-wheel ignited just now. In another word, they only needed to replace three or four bamboo tubes of a lantern holder to turn it into a giant Fierceflame bomb.

In Chang’an, most bamboo lantern holders were made by butting up bamboo tubes against each other and then tied them up with ropes made of hemp, the structure of which was rather loose, so it was very easy to both dismantle them or replace their components. All these people had to do was replace a couple of bamboo tubes with these filled with mountain tallow on the pretext of maintenance. The workload was not heavy. Half an Hour would be more than enough.

Compared with those Turks’ carrying Fierceflame bombs trying to break through blockade, this move was smarter, more covert and also could cause heavier casualties. This was the real Kailu Hodo! Nobody would be able to defend against it without discovering their plan in advance.

‘Currently, there are at least several hundred thousand lantern holders in Chang’an. If we check them one by one… Wait. No. There are only two hundred barrels of mountain tallow. It’s impossible for them to put the whole Chang’an within blast radius. Unless… Unless what Termite is after is not an area but a spot!’

A layer of cold sweat suddenly welled up on Li Bi’s back.

Fierceflame bomb could only detonate within half an hour after being preheated, and the blast radius of two hundred barrels of mountain tallow was limited. He reversely deduced from these two points that what Termite planned to do was not cause extensive damage but launch an attack on a particular location at a particular time.

‘Is it possible that… ‘ A hideous, horrifying conjecture tore Li Bi’s mind apart, revealed itself and roared at the real world. His legs started trembling involuntarily.

Though Li Bi had no idea why they abducted him, the reason definitely had something to do with this earthshaking conspiracy. The look in his eyes became firm and determined, and with that he suddenly rushed towards the solid wall with his full strength, trying to butt it – he had just realized that the only way to crack this earthshaking conspiracy was him killing himself.

The top of his head was just about to hit the wall when someone grabbed Li Bi’s clothes and dragged him back with one hand.

“Sicheng Li is such a decisive man. Regrettably, your body is slower than your determination.” Long Bo satirized him.

A couple of people walked forward and overpowered Li Bi lest he try to commit suicide again. Li Bi closed his eyes in disappointment. A sense of powerlessness immobilized him like ropes.

Long Bo stooped down before him. “This look of despair on the face of an intelligent person like you, who saw through everything but powerless to do anything, is what I appreciate the most.”

Li Bi opened his eyes and enunciated slowly and carefully, “Someone will stop you, even if I’m not there to see it.” Long Bo burst into laugh, “Jing’an Department is indeed a formidable opponent. But that place has been burnt to the ground. How are they supposed to stop me?”

But soon, to his surprise, Long Bo discovered that Li Bi was also smiling. After seeing the power of Kailu Hodo, this young high-rank official could still smile. Long Bo discovered that he was a little afraid, which surprised him and suddenly made him feel very unhappy.

Slap!

Long Bo swung his arm and gave Li Bi a hard slap across the face. “You have nothing to rely on now. Why are you still smiling?”

There was a small patch of blood beside the corner of Li Bi’s mouth, but the smile on his face stayed unchanged. “Because you forgot that most dangerous guy.”

“Zhang Xiaojing?” Unexpectedly, Long Bo knew this name.

Li Bi observed that the frivolous look on his face was replaced by an unprecedentedly solemn one.