Chapter 776: Stoke Your Fury

A'Ming chose to run.

Under the circumstances... running really was the only choice left.

The situation was obvious.

He simply... couldn't beat them.

If you couldn't win, you withdrew.

Perfectly normal.

Kashir thought so too.

More importantly, he was terrified A'Ming might throw him away in order to run faster.

So the old vampire immediately changed his tune.

"Oh, Lord A'Ming is absolutely correct! We are noble Blood Clan. How could such precious lives be casually thrown away here? Oh... ohhhhhh! AAAAAAH!"

By the end, Kashir was practically shrieking through convulsions.

His body spasmed violently.

Because A'Ming was draining his blood at terrifying speed, using it to amplify his movement technique during the escape.

Violently.

Without restraint.

Fortunately...

A'Ming had not fallen directly into the enemy encirclement.

Fortunately... they were inside mountainous woodland.

Even more fortunately... the enemy consisted of infantry rather than cavalry encountered on open plains.

The speed at which those infantrymen ran was unexpectedly frightening.

Even so...

A'Ming ultimately escaped.

Of course... part of the reason was that the enemy did not seem completely determined to capture him at all costs.

Beside a frozen stream, A'Ming sliced open the ice with one fingernail.

He pulled several arrows and a throwing knife from his back and tossed them aside.

Then he used the stream water to wash his wounds.

Kashir lay nearby with a face white as paper.

He had been completely wrung dry.

His eyes carried the emptiness of a man who had lost all desire to live.

"Cough..."

A'Ming coughed once.

He tried repairing several key parts of his body.

The rest of the injuries could wait.

The important thing was that none of them interfere with movement.

Then he rose.

Turned around.

Looked behind him.

No pursuers.

"I nearly killed him," A'Ming murmured.

So close.

The commander of the Chu front... had nearly died in his hands.

Kashir's gaze slowly gathered again.

There was not a single drop left in him.

In an extremely weak voice, he said:

"Thank you... for Lord A'Ming's mercy."

This was not sarcasm.

Kashir did not have the courage for sarcasm.

If A'Ming had raised the level of the Forbidden Spell a little higher... expanded the scale a little farther... drawn a little more blood... or even, from the very beginning, simply drained Kashir until the old vampire burst apart and used everything inside him to unleash the strongest possible strike... then Nian Yao... probably would have died.

Still... there was nothing worth regretting.

A'Ming had made that calculation himself.

Compared with improving the chance of killing Nian Yao... he preferred to keep his blood bag around a little longer.

He could not bear to destroy the bag.

More importantly... he had not known an army was hidden behind that slope.

A'Ming digging up a grave here just to drink wine was absurd enough.

Nian Yao giving an order not to move without his personal command, only for his soldiers to obey so perfectly they nearly watched him die... that was absurdity piled on top of absurdity.

There were too many regrettable things in this world.

Once missed... they were missed.

A'Ming bent down and hoisted Kashir onto his back again.

The blood bag was temporarily useless.

He would need a long time to recover.

Kashir muttered weakly:

"The wine..."

He was still mourning all those jars of Peach Blossom Brew.

And honestly... if he wasn't going to mourn the wine, what else was there to mourn?

Guo Dong?

Pi Si?

The others they had abandoned behind without even turning to look?

...

"General, we failed to catch him. His movement technique was bizarre. He didn't move like a man. More like some demon beast that had taken human form."

"Demon beast?"

Nian Yao shook his head.

"I've never seen a demon beast that powerful. Heh."

Unlike the Yan, who only bred Pixiu and related beasts, the Chu possessed a far greater obsession with taming demon beasts.

They also understood them much better.

"Forget it. We cannot waste more time on him. Leave the mountains immediately. We worked too hard to conceal ourselves and reach this point. We cannot throw away the opportunity now. Pass the order. Everyone runs like you're still in the mountains. Let the Yan open their eyes and see just how fast two legs can move!"

"The Grand General orders full speed ahead!"

"The Grand General orders full speed ahead!"

The soldiers began running at high speed.

Their running postures looked exaggerated.

And their skin tones and facial features differed noticeably from what one would usually call Chu people.

Chu people themselves generally carried the traditional features of Xia.

These men clearly did not.

They also lacked the hairstyles Chu people valued so greatly.

Many had shaved their heads.

Strictly speaking... this was not a Chu army made up of ordinary Chu people.

It had been formed from one of the Shanyue tribes.

The barren mountains and hostile waters of Chu lands were the final refuge of the Shanyue.

After the Regent came to power, the Fifth Prince brought Wutong Commandery back under the court.

Combined with the Regent's subsequent policies...

Chu society and the Shanyue tribes began rapidly merging, sometimes willingly, sometimes by force.

More and more Shanyue warriors were organized by the court and incorporated into Chu's armies.

Qian had once done something similar.

Marquis Zheng had personally encountered the locally recruited tribal soldiers used by Qian.

Those troops could run like the wind.

They fought fiercely.

They did not fear death.

When Qian suppressed local rebellions... it loved using such troops.

But on the true battlefields between great states... their weaknesses appeared too easily.

Poor command.

Too easily excited.

Too little discipline.

Back when Marquis Zheng had only just begun rising... he had farmed plenty of heads from Qian's tribal troops.

But the Shanyue "Mountain Troops" under Nian Yao now had clearly undergone his personal training.

Their weaknesses had been repaired.

Which meant their strengths... could be displayed as fully as possible.

In truth, the main zones where Yan and Chu scouts and mounted patrols were killing one another lay around Shanggu Commandery and the Wei River.

This mountain range was comparatively quiet.

Marquis Zheng had crossed these mountains personally before.

Small groups could pass through.

Large formations basically could not.

Warhorses and mules would be ruined by the climbing and river crossings.

And even if a large army somehow emerged from the mountains... logistics could never keep up.

The same principle had applied to crossing the Tianduan Mountains into the snowfields.

Thirty thousand troops had nearly exhausted all the reserves Shengle City possessed at the time.

They had been forced to establish supply caches and depots along the route before the army moved.

Once the army crossed the mountains and entered the snowfields... even if mountains of grain remained behind... there would have been no way to move it forward quickly enough to support them.

There had been a reason Guo Dong's team was assigned here.

Xu An had, after all, looked after his old brother.

He had not thrown Guo Dong into the zone with the highest death rate.

But who could have imagined... that Grand General Nian, mocked by the world as "Old Turtle Nian," would personally lead fewer than three thousand infantry through these mountains in absolute silence... and truly emerge on the other side?

Once an organized army left the cover of the mountains... it could no longer remain completely invisible.

Mounted patrols and scouts discovered them.

Warnings immediately went upward.

A Lieutenant Commander stationed nearby personally led more than a hundred cavalry to intercept.

Years of victories in foreign wars had steadily deepened the Yan army's tendency to underestimate its enemies.

That Yan Lieutenant Commander probably intended to harass and delay them while waiting for reinforcements.

But somewhere inside... perhaps he also hoped to turn one hundred cavalry into some enormous victory.

After all... hadn't his own Marquis once created the glorious feat of taking a city with one hundred riders?

The example stood right there!

Everyone possessed greed.

The problem... was that this man faced Nian Yao.

And the troops Nian Yao had personally brought on this mission were clearly anything but ordinary.

In the end... the mounted side was the one surrounded.

Only a handful of riders escaped.

The Lieutenant Commander died on the spot.

The rear erupted in alarm.

Gongsun Zhi, whose main force was stationed farther back and who had also been ordered by Marquis Pingxi to watch this mountain region, received the report.

He personally led troops out of camp.

The delay was not long.

One night at most.

But by the time Gongsun Zhi arrived, while two other formations beneath him also completed their encirclement... the Chu force had vanished like smoke.

Not even a strand of hair remained inside the net.

Gongsun Zhi's heart went cold.

There were only two possibilities.

First... the Chu force had retreated back into the mountains.

But that was obviously unlikely.

They had labored enormously to cross the range.

Why would they turn around and crawl back without suffering any meaningful loss?

Which left the second possibility...

They had already run out of his encirclement ahead of time.

Gongsun Zhi clenched his back teeth.

At this moment... what occupied his mind was not the battlefield consequence.

It was the punishment he might suffer for the gap in his own deployment.

This was the first time since Marquis Pingxi Residence's establishment that the Marquis had personally gathered the generals and mobilized troops.

Very likely... someone would be killed as an example.

"Pass the order. Cui Sheng will return north. Every other force follows me west!"

There was no longer time to worry whether he himself might become that chicken.

Gongsun Zhi understood perfectly.

The main army had gathered at the front.

The rear was not completely undefended... but it was inevitably relaxed.

More importantly... that Chu force... was damned fast!

...

The fire had not yet gone out.

Corpses lay everywhere.

Marquis Zheng, armored and riding his Pixiu, arrived at the military station.

The station had originally been a village.

But repeated wars throughout Jin, and especially eastern Jin, had caused enormous population losses through flight and captivity.

Even after Marquis Pingxi Residence absorbed large numbers into Fengxin City and restored prosperity over the past two years... many areas of eastern Jin, including this village, had never recovered.

During preparations for war, the transport of grain and military supplies required a chain of waystations.

This village sat along one of those routes.

A military station had been established here.

There were not many soldiers stationed within.

Only about a hundred.

And even they were auxiliaries rather than regular combat troops.

The long-term laborers numbered far more.

Seven or eight hundred.

In addition... another convoy of roughly four hundred laborers had just completed a transport assignment and happened to be resting here while awaiting the next.

Now... inside the burned station... their corpses were everywhere.

Marquis Zheng dismounted.

His gaze swept across the ruins.

Although most of the station had burned... it remained obvious that the defensive works had been extremely crude.

Calling this place a military station was generous.

It was really closer to a relay post.

And the Chu had attacked at night.

Most of the laborers had been asleep.

The outer sentries were silently removed.

Then the Chu descended on the place almost like soldiers dropped from Heaven.

If there had been proper fortifications to rely upon... more than a thousand laborers could have held for quite some time.

But there had been none.

So beneath the darkness... what occurred here was a one-sided massacre.

A rabble of untrained laborers could never defeat Chu elites who came prepared.

Especially not when the commander personally leading them was Nian Yao.

Marquis Zheng lifted his head slightly.

He drew a deep breath.

The smell of charred wood filled the air.

Mixed into it was the scent of roasted meat.

An aroma capable of producing immediate physical nausea.

At the same time... he could not help remembering that night years ago when he himself had been a corvée laborer.

They had all been laborers.

But these men... had not possessed his luck.

And this side had truly been caught completely unprepared.

There had been no Commandery Princess charging out in time to clean up the battlefield the way there had been for him.

At the center of the station stood a tall pole normally used for lifting cargo.

A man now hung from it.

He seemed to still be breathing.

But his entire body was drenched in blood.

Two agile personal guards prepared to climb up and bring him down.

Fan Li stepped forward.

Wrapped both arms around the pole.

Crouched.

Then exerted force.

The entire pole was ripped straight out of the ground.

Slowly... he lowered it.

The personal guards rushed forward and took down the gravely wounded man.

Zheng Fan approached.

He looked down at him.

The man wore no armor.

Both ears had been cut away.

Two characters had been carved into his face:

YAN DOG.

The soldier looked vaguely familiar.

Marquis Zheng could not remember who he was... even though he himself had once granted this man the title of Mojin Commandant.

But that had merely been one of Marquis Zheng's private jokes.

Great Yan's armies possessed endless irregular Lieutenant Commander and Commandant titles.

Zheng Fan himself had once been some sort of Lieutenant Commander for Protecting Merchants.

The wounded man, however... clearly recognized Zheng Fan.

His eyes opened.

Blurred.

Then fixed upon him.

Immediately, he tried to speak:

"Mar... Marquis..."

Zheng Fan crouched.

When he saw the man trying to lift his head, he supported Guo Dong's neck with one hand.

His other hand rested lightly over the man's chest.

"Marquis... Nian... Nian Yao told me..."

"He told you to bring me a message, didn't he? Speak."

A tired old battlefield cliché.

Among the ruins... leave one survivor.

"He... he..."

"Don't worry about anything. Repeat his words exactly. Then you'll go get treated."

"He said..."

"What did he say?"

"'You... aren't worthy.'"

Marquis Zheng froze for a moment.

Then nodded.

"This Marquis understands."

"This general... disgraced the Marquis... This general asks for death."

"Take him away. Treat his wounds."

"Yes!"

"Marquis... please... grant me death..."

Marquis Zheng ignored Guo Dong's plea.

After the man had been carried away...

Marquis Zheng rose.

The Blind Man stood behind him.

"What are the losses?"

"Not large."

Zheng Fan nodded.

"Before this, a great deal of grain and fodder had been stored here. The official road farther ahead was unfinished, and after snowfall it often became blocked and difficult to travel. Supplies accumulated here easily. At the worst point some time ago, nearly ten thousand laborers were stranded here, along with... enormous quantities of grain and fodder originally destined for Zhennan Pass."

Marquis Zheng said:

"Well, I've learned something today. Before, I was always the one burning other people's grain routes and cutting their rear. This time I get to be the student."

The Blind Man nodded.

"In truth, the one who should feel the greatest regret is Nian Yao. Chu's spies probably discovered the situation here long ago. But by the time Nian Yao arrived, he failed to find mountains of grain waiting for him."

Because...

Marquis Pingxi Residence had mobilized for this war with terrifying efficiency.

It was as though Marquis Zheng said they were going to fight...

No.

Marquis Zheng had not even said they were going to fight yet... and the people beneath him had already begun preparing.

Most weapons, grain, and military stores had been transported toward Zhennan Pass long in advance.

By the time Marquis Zheng issued the formal order and laborers were levied on a large scale... many of those laborers existed more as reserve capacity than immediate necessity.

That was why, when Gongsun Zhi realized the Chu force had escaped his planned encirclement ahead of time... this station had not been his first thought.

It had already become a transfer point.

No longer a major stockpile.

"What direction did the Chu go?" Marquis Zheng asked.

"West."

"Fengxin City?"

"Most likely."

"So he wants to come knock on my door?" Zheng Fan asked.

Marquis Zheng did not believe fewer than three thousand Chu troops could actually break into Fengxin City.

The household was relatively empty.

But not that empty.

Even with Nian Yao personally commanding them.

Of course... if the Chu force managed to reach the walls of Fengxin City and parade around beneath them... that alone would be enough to disgrace Marquis Pingxi.

It would be like Barbarians riding their horses outside Prince Zhenbei Residence.

"Master."

Siniang approached.

"You should come look beneath that shed."

Zheng Fan walked over.

The Blind Man asked Siniang curiously:

"What is it?"

"Can't you look yourself?"

"I'm blind."

"Master is in a bad mood right now," Siniang reminded him.

Meaning... do not talk too lightly at a time like this.

The Blind Man did not care much.

"Master can adjust himself."

On that point... the Blind Man possessed great confidence in his Master.

They had merely been caught by surprise once.

Nian Yao was still in Jin territory.

Probably somewhere west.

Pursuing forces had already been dispatched.

How could Tian Wujing's final disciple fail to swallow even this tiny loss?

But once they reached the shed... and the Blind Man "saw" the row of wine jars beneath it... the casual expression vanished from his face.

It became grave.

At the same time, he sent Siniang a mental transmission:

"You should not have shown Master this."

"Why?"

"Something will happen. People will die. A dead man and a dead man are not always the same thing."

"He deserves it," Siniang replied.

"That's true, but..."

At that moment...

Zheng Fan emerged from the shed.

He asked:

"Did A'Ming come with us?"

"He's here," Siniang answered.

A personal guard went to summon him.

A'Ming arrived soon after.

He did not look well.

His face was somewhat pale.

But a faint smile still rested at the corner of his mouth.

Earlier, he had already reported that he had nearly killed Nian Yao.

Only barely failed.

"Master. You called for me?"

Zheng Fan pointed toward the shed behind him.

"Your wine is in there."

A'Ming looked toward the jars.

He nodded.

Then walked over.

But as he drew close... his expression suddenly changed.

He smelled something.

Something terribly familiar.

A'Ming removed the lid from one jar.

Inside... a corpse soaked in wine.

More precisely... a human swine.

A human stump.

Arms severed.

Legs severed.

Eyes gouged out.

Tongue cut away.

Nose sliced flat.

Ears destroyed so the victim could no longer hear.

A genuine human swine, properly made, could remain alive for days.

These had been prepared crudely.

Forced into shape.

They had died long ago.

One wine jar after another was opened.

The corpses still wore Yan armor.

One of them... had been the officer commanding this station.

A'Ming's eyes turned red.

Not from grief.

Not from sorrow.

But... from rage.

On a battlefield, you killed my men.

I killed yours.

That was normal.

But this...

And put into wine jars besides.

Zheng Fan turned his back.

Then said:

"Nian Yao wanted to make me angry."

He paused.

Then Marquis Zheng added:

"He succeeded."

[End of Chapter 776]