Chapter 144: Even Dirtier

Lady Daxi had indeed been captured alive.

The Blind Man, Bei, was a very refined egoist. Zheng Fan had discovered this back when they were eating lunch together at the inn in Tiger Head City. He and the Blind Man had both picked up their chopsticks, poked into the marrow of a lamb bone, and slowly sucked it into their mouths.

Their gazes had met ever so slightly at the time.

For perhaps a brief tenth of a second, both of them had even flushed with embarrassment.

But from that moment onward, Zheng Fan had decided that he and the Blind Man were the same kind of person.

Of course, people generally did not say a father looked like his son. It ought to be said that the Blind Man was the same kind of person as him.

As long as conditions allowed it, the Blind Man would definitely capture someone alive. That much had been obvious from the moment they first attacked Lady Daxi. The Blind Man's first target had actually been Lady Daxi's horse.

Zheng Fan had not quite had the nerve to ask whether horses were simply stupider and therefore easier to control mentally.

In any case, by the time Zheng Fan and Liang Cheng came over, Lady Daxi had already been bound on the ground. The Fourth Lady had tied her up with needle and thread, and the bindings were sturdier than chains.

If she wanted to break free, she would have to tear her own tendons and meridians apart along with the restraints. It was an extremely terrifying form of torture. Even if someone with an iron will forced their way out, they would be crippled afterward, so there would be no need to worry about them escaping.

Behind Lady Daxi were more than two hundred Wolf Native Troops who had finally thrown down their weapons and been taken alive.

The worldview of the native troops was very simple.

First, they were not afraid of fighting. In particular, the ferocity with which they fought was something ordinary commoners from the other states simply did not possess.

But as long as you proved that you were fiercer than they were, more savage than they were, and that your bite hurt more than theirs, then their collapse and submission came just as easily.

Earlier, when the Wolf Native Troops broke, Green Willow Fortress's cavalry had already gone red-eyed from killing. If the Blind Man had not ordered them to leave some alive after capturing Lady Daxi, those two hundred native troops would probably have been hacked down long ago.

No one was especially resistant to that order, nor did they find it particularly difficult to understand.

The barbarian soldiers were somewhat muddleheaded; after the Blind Man had brainwashed them, they knew little beyond obeying orders. But the great-clan soldiers knew how to think.

Everyone understood one thing perfectly well.

Sooner or later, these living native troops would still be turned into bloody heads tied to their belts or hung from their saddles.

After all, this time they had crossed the Qian border and infiltrated deep inside. How could they possibly drag prisoners all the way back with them?

They did have spare horses.

But even if these native troops had no intention of escaping and sincerely wanted to follow them back to Yan as prisoners, there was still one problem...

Could they ride?

After posting a number of mounted sentries, everyone else began tending to wounds under Liang Cheng's orders.

A'Ming pulled the arrows out of his own body.

Truthfully, perhaps it was because he had spent an entire month being shot by the Master every day and had grown accustomed to it. Sometimes, just to keep the Master happy, even when the Master's arrow had predicted his movement incorrectly, A'Ming had still needed to deliberately move into its path and take the hit.

As a result, when he shielded his companions from arrows inside the city earlier, A'Ming had actually been rather practiced at it.

He was a vampire, after all. A few arrows would not kill him. As long as there was nothing wrong with his head, the rest was not a major problem.

Of course, injuries would still affect how much strength he could bring to bear, and they would also cause considerable inconvenience when he continued using this body for whatever came next.

But none of that had been worth considering during the emergency inside the city.

The Fourth Lady's needles and thread began darting rapidly as she stitched several holes in A'Ming's body closed.

"Do you have any kind of thread that dissolves on its own?" A'Ming asked somewhat unhappily.

His wounds healed faster than those of an ordinary person. That meant the thread was very likely to become embedded in his flesh, and when the time came he would have to dig the wounds open again to pull it out.

He might be a vampire, but even vampires did not have some hobby of going, "Hello everyone, I'm a vampire and I enjoy stabbing myself for fun."

"We could try making thread from intestines and the like," the Fourth Lady said, "but the problem is that it might not be as strong."

"Forget it. Pretend I never asked."

A'Ming conceded defeat.

The Fourth Lady walked over to Fan Li.

Fan Li sat on the ground, while Liang Cheng stood behind him and reached out to grip the arrows, pulling them out one by one.

He gave the wounds a brief inspection. After confirming the arrowheads had neither been poisoned nor smeared with filthy fecal matter, he motioned for the Fourth Lady to begin stitching.

"I really never thought I'd get to work as a surgeon in this life," the Fourth Lady said with a laugh, her fingers shifting slightly as the needles and thread moved by themselves to sew Fan Li's wounds closed.

Fan Li merely grinned foolishly and nodded.

"I never thought I'd get to command troops again in this life either," Liang Cheng said.

"We're still not strong enough. If we hadn't gotten out of the city early just now, would we have ended up dying in there too?"

"That's simply how this world works. No matter how great your martial arts are, you're still afraid of a kitchen knife. If one isn't enough, then a sky full of kitchen knives can still smash you to death."

A'Ming joked as he drank from a waterskin.

After taking one sip, he immediately ran the tip of his tongue over the red staining his lips and teeth.

So many people had died. Their bodies were not even cold yet; they were still warm. Why waste it?

There was no psychological burden at all to drinking blood here.

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," Liang Cheng said. "Qi refiners or Daoist cultivators may live somewhat longer, but martial artists only have ordinary human lifespans. When they grow old, their qi and blood still decline. They still age, fall sick, and die."

"What's so good about that?" the Fourth Lady asked.

"What I mean is that the level of personal power in this world isn't too exaggerated. It's a high-martial world, but it's still different from a cultivation world.

"Think about it. If everywhere you looked, cultivators were flying on swords and the mortal world was nothing but a livestock pen for them, how boring would that be?

"If that were truly the case, we'd have no choice but to find somewhere with the Master and live in seclusion while cultivating. Otherwise, we wouldn't even dare come out."

"A-Cheng, you're awfully talkative today," the Fourth Lady said with a smile.

Liang Cheng pointed at A'Ming and said, "He can live a very long time. And I have already lived a very long time."

"I agree with A-Cheng on this one," A'Ming said, taking another sip of his "water."

Liang Cheng glanced at A'Ming, pointed toward his injuries, and asked, "Nothing serious?"

"It'll affect my speed and movement, but otherwise I'm fine."

"That commander inside the city has real ability. We actually failed to counterattack our way back in just now," Liang Cheng said.

"Mm. Now we see what the Blind Man can cook up over there." A'Ming raised his chin toward the Blind Man.

The Blind Man, Bei, was squatting beside Lady Daxi.

Opposite him squatted Zheng Fan.

Lady Daxi was not particularly attractive.

She was probably not very old, but she naturally did not know how to maintain herself the way the Fourth Lady did, nor did she possess the Fourth Lady's bearing.

Perhaps the wind in the mountains was simply too fierce. It had carved Lady Daxi's facial features into hard, distinct lines, giving her the impression of someone exceptionally fierce and difficult to provoke.

The Blind Man knew very well that this was not the Master's preferred type.

His Master was not the sort of man who was worse than a beast.

If anything, sometimes he was rather excessively "not even as good as a beast."

Lady Daxi glared at Zheng Fan and the Blind Man crouching beside her.

She did not speak.

In truth, her mind was still trapped in the rout from earlier, and she had not yet figured out what she ought to say now.

But Zheng Fan had no intention of letting her speak anyway.

Because her mouth could be borrowed.

"Blind Man, are you confident?"

"This subordinate may overdraw himself."

Influencing a person's mind was not a major problem.

Inflicting mental trauma was not especially difficult for the Blind Man at his current level either.

But controlling someone completely, turning them into a puppet on strings for a short period of time that was extremely difficult.

"That's fine. As long as you don't die."

"............" The Blind Man.

Zheng Fan smiled.

"If you overdraw yourself, we'll just nurse you back afterward."

He himself had overdrawn his strength several times after letting the Demon Maru possess him.

The Blind Man nodded and called out, "Fourth Lady, help stick a couple of needles into her."

"Coming."

The Fourth Lady had just finished sewing up Fan Li's wounds.

She walked over, two embroidery needles pinched between her fingertips.

Lady Daxi's expression changed.

Fear appeared in her eyes.

No matter how brave someone was, if they saw their enemy walking toward them while pinching fine needles between their fingers, they would probably feel frightened and deeply uncomfortable.

"Master, should we ask her first?" the Fourth Lady asked.

What if she was willing to cooperate?

Zheng Fan shook his head.

"No need. Her stronghold is deep in southwestern Qian. She won't cooperate."

As he spoke, Zheng Fan opened his mouth and yawned.

"What if we let her walk up front and shout, 'My sons, don't worry about me! Defend the city with your lives!' Wouldn't that make us look like idiots?"

At present, they were unquestionably the invaders.

But Zheng Fan did not want to turn himself into some cliché villain. At the very least, he wanted to skip the familiar, melodramatic villain plotlines everyone had seen a thousand times.

"Understood, Master."

Since Zheng Fan insisted, the Fourth Lady said no more.

Both needles went down, piercing directly into Lady Daxi's head.

The Fourth Lady was exceptionally skilled with needles. Naturally, she understood the human body's acupuncture points extremely well.

Because her needles were so fine, and because needle and thread were her weapons, every strike needed to achieve sufficient effect.

If she ever stopped running a brothel as its madam, the Fourth Lady could open an acupuncture clinic and do extremely well for herself.

Once the needles entered, Lady Daxi's body began convulsing.

At the same time, her eyes rolled upward until only the whites showed.

"A-Li."

The Blind Man called out.

Fan Li, whose wounds had just been treated, came over.

His iron-tower body stood beside the Blind Man.

The Blind Man placed both hands against Lady Daxi's temples.

Zheng Fan suddenly felt something brush across his face.

It was not wind, yet it felt as though some layer of substance had passed over him.

If he had to force it into words, perhaps the best description would be... a ripple.

So this was what mental power felt like.

Lady Daxi's body stopped convulsing.

As a prisoner, she was honestly rather pitiful.

This world might not have the Geneva Conventions, but even so, there probably were not many prisoners of war who got to enjoy this sort of "special treatment."

The Blind Man's body began swaying back and forth.

Fine beads of sweat emerged across his forehead.

The next moment, the Blind Man's body toppled backward.

Fan Li, standing beside him, reached out and caught him.

Then he rose, hoisting the completely motionless Blind Man over his shoulder.

"Did it work?" Zheng Fan asked.

"It worked."

The person who answered was Lady Daxi.

A woman's voice.

The Blind Man's manner of speaking.

Zheng Fan lowered his head.

Lady Daxi's eyes had returned from white, her pupils focusing once more.

"Whew. This actually feels rather nice."

"Using eyes to look at things really takes some getting used to," Lady Daxi said.

"What does it feel like?" Zheng Fan asked curiously.

"Too blurry. Heh."

Once a nearsighted person grew used to seeing the world through glasses, taking them off made everything instantly seem too blurry.

And once someone grew accustomed to seeing the world with the mind, returning to ordinary eyes made the whole world seem far too fake.

Zheng Fan looked at Lady Daxi, who was still lying on the ground.

Lady Daxi had no choice but to speak again.

"Master, don't ask me what it feels like after transforming."

"Mm. You know I've never drawn that kind of subject matter."

"But Master is definitely curious. Curious about what it feels like for a man to become a woman."

"Mm. I'm not curious."

"Master, lying is bad."

"Then let's not talk about it. We should get down to business. You can't maintain this state for very long, right?"

"Mm."

Zheng Fan gestured for the Fourth Lady to come untie her.

The Fourth Lady walked over and withdrew the silk threads that had bound Lady Daxi.

With Zheng Fan supporting her, Lady Daxi rose from the ground.

At last, Zheng Fan still could not stop himself from asking, "Does it feel heavy?"

Lady Daxi's face took on a contemplative expression.

She actually seemed to be seriously experiencing the question.

It was something the overwhelming majority of men had no way to experience, while the overwhelming majority of women never felt there was any need to experience it at all.

Finally, Lady Daxi said, "Master, I don't think that's really an issue."

"I'm pleased you didn't accuse me of having filthy thoughts again, but I'm very dissatisfied with such an insincere answer."

"Master, there are plenty of somewhat fat men in this world whose... those... are actually larger than those of quite a few women."

"Oh?" Zheng Fan froze for a moment. "That is true."

The slightly awkward subject was finally dropped.

Lady Daxi began walking forward.

Because he was afraid Zheng Fan might finish asking about the upper half and then move on to the lower half.

Fortunately, Zheng Fan had not yet sunk that low.

He supported Lady Daxi as they walked forward.

Liang Cheng waved a hand, signaling everyone to prepare.

At that moment, A'Ming looked around and said, "Are we missing something?"

The Fourth Lady yawned.

"No."

...

Mianzhou City's gate had been closed again.

In truth, the beacon fires had already been lit long ago.

But no one knew how long it would take for reinforcements to arrive.

The enemy had appeared far too quickly. Reinforcements wishing to come here naturally could not move with the same speed.

Meng Gong's father had once held a city in the southwest while surrounded on all sides by an endless sea of rebelling native-chieftain troops.

He had defended it for an entire year before reinforcements finally arrived.

With that sort of family tradition behind him, Meng Gong did not place much hope in reinforcements.

When would they come?

Would they even be willing to come?

Those were all external factors.

None of them affected his determination to properly handle what lay in his own hands.

On the gate tower, after his latest reorganization, things still looked somewhat panicked, but there was at least a degree of order now.

He was a talented man.

A talented man who knew how to wage war.

In Meng Gong's own eyes, he had failed miserably.

The only reason he had managed to hold the city was because Liang Cheng did not have enough troops.

In Liang Cheng's eyes, Meng Gong had managed to hold this city despite commanding soldiers this terrible.

That alone was enough to call him outstanding.

In truth, if Lady Daxi and the Wolf Native Troops under her had not been so arrogant and recklessly pursued earlier tonight, things never needed to develop into such an extreme situation.

Green Willow Fortress's army might simply have suffered losses here and then been forced to leave.

But that was how matters in this world worked.

There were always all sorts of people, all sorts of accidents, adding their own vivid colors to life.

The city wall was lined with defenders.

The Wolf Native Troops had been deployed there as well.

Everyone stood ready for battle.

Earlier, Lady Daxi's Wolf Native Troops had pursued the enemy out of the city and been counterattacked.

Meng Gong had then led the city defenders outside, supported them, and forced back the Yan troops attempting to rush the gate.

Afterward, the two sides had entered a sort of tacit "peace."

Though admittedly, the peace had been rather short.

The Yan troops were cleaning the battlefield, collecting heads, and bandaging wounds.

The Qian side was reorganizing the defenses on the walls.

But Meng Gong understood that the Yan troops might not be willing to simply leave.

At present, Meng Gong had only one hope.

That Lady Daxi was already dead.

If Lady Daxi had died in battle, it would save him a great deal of trouble.

But even if she had not died, for the sake of her own stronghold she could never possibly cooperate with the Yan troops in doing anything.

Native chieftains were not fools.

And Lady Daxi had a son remaining back at her stronghold.

Meng Gong drew a deep breath.

Ahead, the Yan troops appeared carrying torches.

Then the defenders atop the wall especially the Wolf Native Troops froze.

Below the wall, two hundred captured Wolf Native Troops knelt in two rows.

Behind them stood Yan soldiers holding sabers.

The distance was awkward.

Crossbow bolts could just barely reach, but it would be extremely difficult to shoot accurately or kill anyone.

What shocked Meng Gong even more was that he saw Lady Daxi walk out.

Beside her stood the towering man who had left such a deep impression on Meng Gong earlier.

The giant held a torch in his left hand, while over his right shoulder he carried a completely motionless man.

Every time Lady Daxi stepped forward, the tower-like man took a step at the same time.

Zheng Fan stood behind Lady Daxi, supporting her.

Fan Li, on the other side, also had to keep pace.

Perhaps... the signal was poor, so they needed to stay close together.

The cold wind kept whipping at the torches.

Tonight's moon was round and bright.

So even though it was deep into the night, visibility was actually quite good.

Everything was ready.

All they were waiting for was Lady Daxi to call out.

And then, Lady Daxi suddenly turned her head and said to Zheng Fan beside her, "Master, this subordinate doesn't speak their native language."

"............" Zheng Fan.

Fan Li heard it from the side.

He merely grinned foolishly and bounced the Blind Man's body on his shoulder a few times.

"No—I've built the entire damned stage, and now you're telling me this? How is that any different from my classmate in my previous life who pulled an all-nighter at an internet café the night before the postgraduate entrance exam?"

"This subordinate remembers Master and A-Cheng discussing who was dirtier earlier."

"You were eavesdropping again."

"We're on a battlefield. This subordinate needs to pay attention to more things."

"Then what do we do next?" Zheng Fan asked.

Lady Daxi pushed away Zheng Fan's supporting hand.

She walked forward several steps on her own.

Then raised both hands and shouted toward the gate tower ahead in the common tongue of the Central Plains:

"My sons, hear my command! Raise your blades! Draw your bows! Kill the Qian men beside you and welcome the Yan troops into the city!"

After shouting, Lady Daxi turned her face toward Zheng Fan behind her.

Her gaze tilted slightly upward.

Silently asking:

How was that?

Zheng Fan nodded.

"Even dirtier."

(End of Chapter)