Each More Shameless Than the Last!
Bi Xiu coughed up some blood. Fortunately, his deputy general supported him from the side, which ensured that he did not fall from his camel.
With the sound of exploding heavenly lightning, Gu Shu’s army realized that it had been rash, and they all stopped in their tracks, no longer daring to advance. Some people hoped that the coalition army would act as cannon fodder, but when they turned around, they found that Jue Ping City was completely empty. Not a trace of a shadow of the coalition army could be seen. They could not help but begin silently cursing the ten small countries.
Gu Shu’s people no longer advanced, and Da Shun’s people did not push the issue. They just stood there while looking at them with smiles on their faces. It was as though they were teasing children. But the people of Gu Shu had already gotten over their rashness. After all, Da Shun’s strength was clear for all to see. Even if they were openly humiliating them, they did not dare do anything. All of the soldiers began to quietly think about how they could quietly run away. If the enemy suddenly threw another heavenly lightning at them, would they not all die?
Bi Xiu was surrounded by the soldiers and did not dare to poke his head out in the slightest. He understood clearly that, aside from heavenly lightning, the people of Da Shun had a type of hidden weapon that could accurately take the life of someone from a great distance. But they could not remain frozen in this position, thus he took a deep breath and shouted: “Xuan Tian Ming! If you have the ability, come out and fight this general! What sort of ability is there in bringing a group of people?”
Once these words came out, not to mention Da Shun’s soldiers, but even Gu Shu’s soldiers could not hold back their laughter. Fuck, this was a battle between armies! Did you yourself not bring an army of hundreds of thousands? Counting the numbers, you brought far more people than Da Shun. When two countries fought, could it be that it would be a one-on-one fight rather than a group fight? How much had the general drank to have this sort of brain fart?
Xuan Tian Ming also laughed, loudly saying: “Marmot, you are drunk, but this prince is not drunk. Instead of using the heavenly lightning that we have, this prince would fight you alone? Do you have nothing better to do?” After saying this, he did not give Gu Shu’s army any time to prepare and casually threw a grenade. With a “boom” another group Gu Shu’s soldiers became worthless.
Even without the ten-country coalition, Gu Shu itself had an army of 300 thousand, but through experiencing battles in Sha Ping and Jue Ping, their numbers had slowly been blown away. Not only had their fear of “heavenly lightning” not been reduced, but it had actually grown, especially with Feng Yu Heng having participated in this battle. Who knew if it was a result of Imperial Daughter Ji An’s mother and father passing away that caused her to be especially angry, but the black-ish thing that she held continued to emit a fiery light. It continued to shoot in a sweeping motion in the direction of Gu Shu’s side, and each sweep would cause people to die in a large area.
Gradually, the people of Gu Shu understood that this was not a fight between two armies. This was just Da Shun’s army slaughtering them one-sidedly! The people of Gu Shu did not continue to fight. In fear, they began crying for their mothers and fathers while holding their heads. They were no longer in any mind to pay attention to Bi Xiu, who had managed to sober up, and the orders that he was shouting out. Even the standard-bearers threw down their standards, as they covered their ears and desperately ran inside the city.
Bi Xiu’s eyes had turned red, but they had not turned red from killing. In truth, not a single hair on the people of Da Shun had been touched. They were still far away and just continued to throw an endless barrage of heavenly lightning. They also endlessly swept back and forth with their strange hidden weapons. Blood flowed from Gu Shu’s army like a river, as corpses piled up to form a mountain.
The deputy general tugged Bi Xiu’s sleeve: “General, let’s retreat! There’s no way of fighting this battle!”
At this time, Bi Xiu was completely sober. When he clearly saw the situation before him, it was as though the failure at Sha Ping City had repeated itself. He tightly closed his eyes. When he opened them once more, he finally gave the order to retreat!
With the general giving the order, the soldiers ran with even more haste. The sounds behind them shook the skies, and nobody knew if heavenly lightning might land on their heads. They just ran without any concern for anything else. Just running back inside the city was not enough. They had to continue running South. They ran out of the Southern gate, and it would be best if they could run all the way back to Yue Ping City. Like that, they could have some time to recover.
Bi Xiu returned to the city. When he passed by the red tent, he saw the girls desperately running outside, fearing that they would be struck down by the heavenly lightning if they were slow. In just this glance, his nerves were shaken. Among the girls fleeing for their lives, there seemed to be one that looked exactly like Da Shun’s Imperial Daughter Ji An. It was such that he nearly believed that his vision had become blurry.
“Who is that person?” He pointed at the girl and asked his deputy general, “Is that one of the girls in our red tents?”
The deputy general looked over and was also dazed for a while, subconsciously blurting out: “Da Shun’s imperial daughter?”
One of the soldiers that had overheard them replied: “That’s the new girl that we caught outside the city!”
“New girl that we caught?” Bi Xiu’s eyes lit up, as he quickly rushed over on his camel. Without saying an extra word, he bent down and placed the girl before himself.
The girl let out a loud scream then turned around in horror to say: “Who are you?”
Bi Xiu once again stared at that face and could not help but sigh in shock: “There’s actually someone that looks so similar in this world? Could it be that they are twins? Or could it be… one of Da Shun’s spies?” Once these words came out, a fierce look appeared in his eyes. The grasp around the girl’s waist also tightened, and the pain caused the girl to let out a shrill scream.
“General, could it be that this person really is one of Da Shun’s spies?” The deputy general looked at the girl darkly and pulled out his sword once more. He was just about to chop down with it!
It was at this moment that the girl loudly shouted: “I’m not! I am one of the eighth prince’s people. I am on your side!” This shout made her identity clear. It was Fu Ya, who had escaped from Lan Zhou. She had heard about the general’s identity and immediately said in a loud voice: “General hates Imperial Daughter Ji An, right? I also hate her! Since the eighth prince wants to use my face to cause a stir, why does general not know about it?”
These words acted as a reminder to Bi Xiu. At the same time, it caused him to recall a rumor that the eighth prince, Xuan Tian Mo, had obtained a girl that looked exactly the same was Imperial Daughter Ji An. It turned out that it was true! He let out a loud laugh and picked Fu Ya up to sit in front of him. His large hands very naughtily grabbed at an important part of her body, inciting a scream from Fu Ya. Bi Xiu was very happy and loudly said: “Since that’s the case, this general will bring you to Yue Ping City!”
In just a single night, Gu Shu had lost another city. Back on Da Shun’s side, news traveled through Sha Ping City and reached the southern border then to Lan Zhou. Within half a day, news of Jue Ping City being taken by the ninth prince had spread throughout the entirety of the South.
Rumors of the ninth prince being a god of war descended from the heavens spread among the citizens once again. Even the 300 thousand troops of the Southern Army had no choice but to admire His Highness the ninth prince’s might. It had to be known that taking Gu Shu’s cities was not that easy. The heat was an impediment to the advancement of Da Shun’s army. In the past, it was not as though the eighth prince had not tried, but by the time the soldiers had reached the outside of Sha Ping City, a portion of them had already collapsed from heatstroke. Those that remained were on the verge of fainting. Even standing was difficult, thus fighting was not even up for discussion.
It was not as though they had not thought of fighting at night, but who could have thought that they could take an entire city in just a single night? Once they failed to take it, what would they do the next day?
This battle improved the standing of Xuan Tian Ming’s military might by a bit; however, who knew that after taking Jue Ping City, they would be faced with difficult problem after difficult problem.
These difficult problems appeared with the citizens of Jue Ping City. The citizens of Jue Ping City were not as acceptant of Da Shun’s rule as the people of Sha Ping City. The prefect of Jue Ping City was even more intense. Bi Xiu’s army had run off, and Jue Ping had been occupied. He felt guilty toward the ruler of Gu Shu. While Xuan Tian Ming’s army was taking care of the battlefield outside the city, on the morning that they entered Jue Ping City, he brought everyone in his family, young and old, and committed suicide in front of the government office.
This suicide was not for the sake of scaring people. They really died. There were some that used swords to stab themselves through the belly, some that rammed their heads against walls, some hung themselves in front of the entrance, and two toddlers were smothered before the adults died. When Xuan Tian Ming and Feng Yu Heng led the army to the entrance of the government office, they found tens of corpses lying around.
They never thought that Gu Shu would have such loyal officials. For a while, they were quite shocked. The tragic event had already occurred, thus there was nothing that they could do to remedy the situation. Xuan Tian Ming gave the order to lay the prefect’s family into coffins before asking around to find a place for burial.
However, the death of the prefect’s family had already caused a commotion among the citizens in Jue Ping City. They loudly shouted: “Da Shun’s people are criminals! Da Shun’s people have ruined our homeland! Chase Da Shun’s dogs out of Jue Ping City! We’ll fight them!”
Practically all of the citizens in the city moved, regardless of age or gender. They brought out the things that they could use as weapons and rushed into the streets to fiercely oppose Xuan Tian Ming’s advance.
Da Shun’s soldiers did not act rashly. After all, civilians were civilians, and soldiers were soldiers. Soldiers going onto the battlefield to fight a battle to the death was something fated, but they never hoped to treat human life like grass. They also did not want to hurt innocent civilians. Xuan Tian Ming had already given the order beforehand. No matter where the army attacked, they must not massacre the city.
But today, the residents of Jue Ping City were entirely focused on wanting to reclaim this city for Gu Shu. There were even some that pointed at Xuan Tian Ming and cursed: “You group of damn dogs! Instead of staying in your own home, you came to ruin someone else’s home. You’re just a group of rascals! You’re criminals!”
These words caused Xuan Tian Ming to laugh with anger, and he asked the civilians: “Could it be that you didn’t know that it was Gu Shu that attacked us first? Over the years, there was nothing between our two countries. Da Shun provided your Gu Shu with all kinds of benefits, and it sent so many nice things from food to necessities. Which one of them was not plentiful. What is it, not only do you not show any gratitude, but you also turn around and want to conquer Da Shun?”
The civilians of Jue Ping City were more shameless than the average, as their reply to Xuan Tian Ming was actually: “Why should Da Shun occupy such a great location? Why should our Gu Shu be forced to live in the desert? What’s wrong with us taking a few of your cities? is it such that you would oppress us to such a degree? Everyone says that Da Shun had a vast territory and plentiful resources. Why don’t you spare some for us?”
“Hm?” Xuan Tian Ming was a bit flustered from hearing this. Turning his head, he asked Feng Yu Heng: “Hearing this, why does this prince suddenly feel as though the Feng family has been revived? Each one is more shameless than the last. These people shouldn’t all have the surname Feng, right?”
Feng Yu Heng also felt that she had seen such a scene before. Thinking back to how the Feng family was in the past, was it not just like this?! They could take advantage of you in any way, but if you were to react, you were entirely in the wrong.
She snorted coldly and had an unkind expression: “If it really was like that, it would be easy to handle. I have experience in dealing with the Feng family! Not everyone can be reasoned with!”
Xuan Tian Ming nodded: “That’s right, when the situation calls for it, force needs to be used for suppression!” Once these words came out, he raised his hand and loudly said: “Soldiers, hear my orders! Anyone that gets in the way of the army controlling Jue Ping City, kill them without holding back!”
