When Shen Xi’s family of five died, Shen Feng was distraught and used all the power of the Vermillion Bird Clan to trace the murderer, but he never found out who the person was.
And then soon afterward, Shen Yanxiao’s father and the youngest son of Shen Feng, Shen Yu, had also suffered from a vicious attack together with his family.
All of these were still unsolved mysteries until now, yet Shen Yue was afraid that the death of his eldest brother and sixth brother had something to do with Shen Duan.
However, he dared not ask any more question, fearing that he might become the next person to suffer.
“That… then I’ll rely on Second Brother.” Shen Yue swallowed his saliva and felt as if his brother suddenly became a stranger.
Shen Duan sneered, “That is natural.”
…
At the third day after returning to the Imperial Capital, Shen Yanxiao met the Emperor and received the letter of appointment to the Barren Land from the Emperor’s hands.
After getting the letter of appointment, Shen Yanxiao went back to the Vermillion Bird Clan.
Staring at the words “The Rising Sun[1]” written in the letter of appointment, she was lost in thoughts.
[ [1] 日不落: English meaning: The sun never sets.
Note: We can’t think of a pleasing English name close to the meaning so we took the roundabout way… Since the sun never sets in that place, it means it is where the sun rises. Thus The Rising Sun City. Yeah screw it…]
The city given to her by the Emperor was called The Rising Sun City. It was located in the eastern part of the Barren Land.
All four countries of the Radiance Continent were connected to the Barren Land respectively. Among the four corners, the closest to the Long Xuan Empire was the east corner.
“Xiu, do you know about The Rising Sun City?” Shen Yanxiao was sitting cross-legged on top of her bed as she carefully looked at the letter of appointment again.
‘The Barren Land is the stronghold of the Demon Race. They have a total of seven headquarters in the entire Barren Land, and The Rising Sun City is the Demon Race’s headquarters in the east.’ Xiu answered.
“Headquarters?” Shen Yanxiao slightly raised her eyebrow.
‘The area of The Rising Sun City is comparable to the Imperial Capital of Long Xuan Empire, but because it used to be one of the headquarters of the Demon Race, the level of the demons there is very high, and the population of lower demons there is also very dense.’
“Oh, the Emperor is really generous to give me such a big place.” Shen Yanxiao chuckled loudly in the bed, but her smile did not reach the bottom of her eyes.
This seemingly generous reward was brewing with dangers.
If one get such a large block of land in normal areas, anyone would probably die from happiness.
But The Rising Sun City was located in the Barren Land, and the bigger the land was, the more demons were there to eradicate and the more defenses and city equipment needed to be built.
In the past, the winners of the Long Xuan Empire school tournament would be assigned to smaller cities so as to avoid a large number of demons and reduce the workload.
However, the arrangement of this Emperor today was quite surprising.
“It seems that the Emperor has a good opinion on my profession.” How could Shen Yanxiao not guess the idea of the Emperor? Just recalling the disgust in the Emperor’s eyes when he gave this letter of appointment to her, she knew that the Barren Land task this time would be absolutely difficult.
The champions of the previous school tournaments were not even able to consolidate a small city, yet the Emperor suddenly gave such a big land to her this time, this showed that he did not really want her to successfully build a city.
However, this was still in line with Shen Yanxiao’s plan, since her main purpose was to capture those demons.
Instead of fearing that the numbers of demons were a lot, she was more afraid that these demons would be not enough to satisfy Xiu’s appetite.
“Xiu, you should know some news about the Barren Land. What do you think we need to prepare this time?” Shen Yanxiao inquired Xiu’s opinion. She always felt that Xiu’s understanding of the Barren Land surpassed everyone.
And Xiu’s answer did not disappoint her.
‘If you want to rebuild The Rising Sun City, it will be hard to do that without thousands of people. However, your main purpose should be to subdue all the demons living in that place first. Or else, even if you bring ten thousands of people there, I’m afraid that it will be all for nothing.’