“You go and wash up as well.”
Xu Qi’an looked at Lina, raised his hand and pointed to the pool, and asked, “There are clean clothes in the Earth Book fragment, right?”
“Yep yep.”
Lina tossed back a reply, leaped nimbly over the rocks, and dived headfirst into the pool.
Xu Qi’an turned his back, sat on a large boulder, with only Mu Nanzhi and the little white fox in her arms by his side.
After sending them here, Protector Hongying returned to the Hundred Thousand Mountains.
“She is Number Five, a member of our Heaven and Earth Society, a young girl from the Strength Gu Tribe in the Southern Marches, and has been staying at Xu Manor in the capital all this time.”
Xu Qi’an explained, “As I planned to travel to the Southern Marches, I brought her along.”
Mu Nanzhi stroked the little white fox’s head, glanced towards the pool, nodded calmly, and commented coldly,
“She looks nice, has a good figure, but is a bit dim, she’s sure to suffer in the jianghu on her own.”
She was referring to this young girl from the Southern Marches, who boldly undressed right by the poolside, not even glancing back to check on the man behind her.
Either she was too stupid, or she had an ulterior motive…
Such behaviour, voluntarily presenting herself like this in front of Xu Qi’an, whether intentional or not, was, in Mu Nanzhi’s view, a provocation.
Xu Qi’an merely smiled, making no effort to explain for Lina.
When it came to this sort of thing, women were always petty and unreasonable. There was no sense in arguing, saying Lina was harmless. Lina had no schemes at all, but she would only think you were defending a green tea schemer.
Half a stick of incense later, the master and disciple, now free from grime, returned in clean, tidy clothes.
“Big Bwother~”
Xu Lingyin came running over, like a plump and nimble little pig, leaping among the rocks, her messy hair flying behind her, and plunged straight into Xu Qi’an’s arms.
Xu Qi’an held his sister without moving, then handed her to Mu Nanzhi:
“Could you help her tie a child bun?”
He accepted the little white fox that Mu Nanzhi handed over in passing.
Baiji’s pitch-black eyes curiously studied Xu Lingyin and murmured,
“She’s your sister!”
That’s right, you’re a fox cub, she’s a human cub… Xu Qi’an hummed his agreement and introduced,
“Lingyin, this is Baiji, the younger sister of a friend of your big brother’s. You need to get along well with her.”
“Alright, Big Bwother~”
Xu Lingyin nodded enthusiastically, reached out her chubby hand to rub Baiji’s head, then twisted away and quietly swallowed.
“Why did you swallow?” Xu Qi’an asked accusingly.
“I didn’t swallow,” Xu Lingyin argued.
“You clearly did just now.”
“My tummy’s hungry…”
Hearing the brother and sister chattering, Baiji silently retreated into Xu Qi’an’s embrace, suddenly feeling a lack of security.
Once Mu Nanzhi finished tying Little Pea’s hair, Xu Qi’an asked,
“What happened? Why do you look so dishevelled?”
As soon as Lina heard this, she pulled a troubled face:
“We kept running into trouble along the way. Every Central Plains person we met either wanted to sleep with me or eat Lingyin, but we drove them off.
“Later, an elderly man told me to disguise ourselves as refugees, with Lingyin pretending to be a fool, so that we wouldn’t attract attention. We did as he suggested, and sure enough, had no more trouble.”
These few simple remarks made Xu Qi’an instantly understand how dire the situation in Yuuzhou was.
There were already starving refugees resorting to cannibalism.
And any woman with a bit of good looks, if she couldn’t protect herself, would only end up a plaything in such chaotic times.
Human nature is a bestial, hypocritical, and brutal thing; the law is the cage restraining it, and morality the chains binding it. But as order gradually collapses, the beast would break free. The ancients said that when ritual collapsed and music was broken, the country would certainly fall. That was what they meant… Xu Qi’an sighed inwardly.
Everyone set up camp by the triple waterfall. Xu Qi’an caught a few wild chickens, set up a pot to cook rice and meat, and, with everyone fed and watered, they continued southwards into the territory of the Southern Marches.
…
The Yunzhou military camp, command tent.
Qi Guangbo stood before a map of Qingzhou propped up on a rack, tapping at a few cities on the map one by one with a bamboo stick.
“Next, if we want to push our troops to Qingzhou City, we must break through three defensive lines. The first defensive line is Songshan County, Dongling and Wan Commandery. Within five days, I want you to take these three cities.”
He tapped the words “Songshan” with the bamboo stick and said,
“Songshan in particular, with dangerous peaks to the south and the Song River to the west, both are difficult directions to attack from. To take the city, we can only break through the east or north gates. This place is like a nail, nailing down our route to the west. Yang Gong will surely have stationed heavy troops here.
“Which of you will pull out this nail for your commander?”
Ji Xuan said calmly, “We could break this city within three days.”
He was indicating he would take on this task.
Qi Guangbo shook his head. “You cannot go. You must attack Dongling. Lure Sun Xuanji out for me and draw Qingzhou’s attention over there.”
“General, please rest assured and leave it to me!”
Among the seats, a tall and muscular general stood up. His left eye was ashen and dull, apparently blind, but his right eye flashed with a cold, fierce light.
This man was called Zhuo Haoran, nicknamed “Zhuo the Butcher.” He was belligerent and bloodthirsty, and when he went berserk, he made no distinction between old, young, man or woman, the lives in his eyes were all the same.
When he was a bandit in the mountains, he never left survivors when raiding merchant caravans, and every so often led raids on civilians to satisfy his bloodlust.
Because of his violent nature, he was not well-liked among the Yunzhou generals, but it could not be denied that he possessed formidable abilities in military command and combat.
Qi Guangbo had personally praised him as a rare military talent.
“Good!”
Qi Guangbo smiled. “If you cannot take Songshan County within five days, come back and clean the latrines.”
Zhuo Haoran licked his lips, his right eye flashing with a cold glint of excitement.
Once the decision was made, Qi Guangbo smiled and said,
“If we are lucky, in less than half a month, we’ll have new reinforcements.”
Ji Xuan frowned slightly. “The Buddhist sect wishes to preserve its strength to deal with the southern Yao. As for the Church of the Warlock God, the National Teacher once sent someone to negotiate, but the Great Warlock refused the alliance.”
His eyes lit up. “The shaman clans?”
Qi Guangbo nodded and glanced at the other generals, who were also showing looks of delight.
“Otherwise, don’t you find it strange? Where Ge Wenxuan has gone?”
Ge Wenxuan was the National Teacher’s disciple, as well as an outstanding young general from Qianlong City’s young faction, skilled in strategy and deployment.
Such an outstanding young general ought to have had a place in the command tent.
But since Yunzhou’s army raised its banner, he had vanished, never appearing.
Qi Guangbo said gravely,
“Since our army left Yunzhou, the Jianzheng has hung over our heads like a sabre. The National Teacher and Agaruka Bodhisattva are holding him back, but are also being held back by the Jianzheng.
“This has left the National Teacher with no time to make other plans. The situation in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, the alliance between the Wanyao Kingdom and Xu Qi’an, are examples.
“Fortunately, the National Teacher anticipated this and left clever plans for Ge Wenxuan to execute.”
Ji Xuan nodded slowly.
After the uprising began, the National Teacher and the Jianzheng joined the game themselves, turning covert struggle into open conflict.
While they and Agaruka Bodhisattva restrained the Jianzheng, they were also restrained in turn, unable to scheme further.
In this period, it gave Xu Qi’an the chance to make his moves, which led to the current tense situation in the Hundred Thousand Mountains.
“I knew it, the National Teacher is a master strategist, how could he possibly run out of ideas so easily?”
“There’s no support from the Buddhist sect, but if the shaman clans send troops, the end result will be the same.”
“The shaman clans of the Southern Marches have long held a grudge against the Great Feng, of course they will send troops. We just have to wait for reinforcements.”
The generals had almost blind faith in Xu Pingfeng.
…
Two days later, a party of four people and a fox emerged from the wild mountains and arrived beside a smooth official road.
With Lina leading the way, the group of four and one fox cleverly avoided the various tribes along the way and finally reached the lands of the Strength Gu clan.
“Eighty li further ahead is Bo Mountain, the base camp of our Strength Gu clan.”
Lina jumped cheerfully, her face glowing with the joy of returning home.
Behind her, Xu Lingyin wielded the Taiping Sabre, hacking through thorns and brush to open a path for the group.
“There’s finally a road…”
Xu Qi’an said grumpily, “Are you still not admitting you got lost? Why didn’t you take this main road to begin with? Why did you have to drag us over mountains and through valleys?”
“Oh come on, I wasn’t lost! I was taking you along a shortcut, and we avoided all those annoying tribes on the way.”
Lina explained.
Xu Qi’an bounced Mu Nanzhi, who was slung on his back, feeling the plump and soft body of the reincarnated Flower God.
“All right, let’s keep going.”
The mountain path had been too tough and Mu Nanzhi soon couldn’t keep up, so Xu Qi’an had carried her.
Now they had left the mountains and he should have let her down, but Mu Nanzhi’s soft and rounded body, her curvy, springy bottom, whether the touch or the feel, were just too hard for Xu Qi’an to let go of.
Mu Nanzhi also hadn’t asked to walk herself, the two of them tacitly silent.
Eighty li would take about a day on foot. After walking for an hour, the wild mountains lessened, plains increased, the climate of the Southern Marches was warm and humid, the mountains still azure, wild grasses rose and fell on the roadside.
The cold disaster in the Central Plains hadn’t affected this place at all.
“Whoosh!”
Suddenly, the sound of something whistling through the air rushed at Xu Qi’an from the left.
Without pausing, he turned his head and blew gently, the arrow, powerful and whistling like lightning, immediately fluttered away like a weak willow leaf in the wind.
From the left thicket, two young men dressed in animal furs and carrying buffalo horn bows burst out.
Their skin was dark, their eyes pale blue, and their hair naturally curled.
“You are not a merchant caravan. You cannot enter the territory of the Strength Gu clan.”
The square-faced young man on the left barked in the Southern Marches dialect.
The other young man had nocked another arrow, aiming at Xu Qi’an.
Among the group, he was the only man.
However, the two young men of the Strength Gu clan did not show strong hostility, probably because of Xu Lingyin’s presence.
“Tulong, Mutou, it’s me, it’s me!”
Lina waved her arms happily, clearly recognising the two young men.
“Who are you?”
The square-faced young man scrutinised her suspiciously.
Lina was stumped by the question, then pointed at her own face. “It’s me, I’m Lina!”
“Rubbish, you’re white and tender, definitely a Central Plains woman at a glance!”
The young man with the bow let his arrow fly at Lina.
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