Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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In order to disguise himself better, Zhuang Li painted his entire face with blood.
Le Zhengming, who was sitting on a tall horse, just frowned, glanced at him and then looked at the wider battlefield where blood was flowing and countless corpses were lying.
They were his comrades, not relatives but better than relatives. They walked, sat and slept together, shared joys and sorrows, supported each other with their backs and trusted each other with their lives. One day ago, they were still laughing and joking together, drinking from big bowls, knocking on pottery pots with chopsticks and singing heroic songs, but one day later, they had turned into piles of corpses that could no longer be seen as human beings.
He still remembered someone saying cheerfully after getting drunk: “General, if I succeed this time, you must let me go back home and marry a wife!”
Now that he was dead, all his good dreams had become empty.
Le Zhengming’s face was as hard as a rock, and his eyes were filled with a bone-chilling light, as if he was not disturbed by this inhumane scene at all. But Zhuang Li, who knew him very well, knew that he was very sad. The corners of his eyes were a little red, and the back of his hand holding the whip showed blue veins, as if he was suppressing the violent emotions surging in his heart.
After a long while, he turned his gaze back and said indifferently: “For cowardice, twenty lashes!”
Zhuang Li suddenly opened his narrow eyes wide.
7480: “Hahahahaha…”
The iron tower-like general immediately shouted: “Understood!”
Le Zhengming tightened his hold on the reins, drove the horse around, and rode further away. The horse’s hooves raised not mud but blood. The smoke from the war gradually blurred his figure, which seemed like an ominous sign.
Zhuang Li stared at him for a long time without saying a word of defense. It was wrong to pretend to be dead on the battlefield, and he couldn’t make up any messy excuses to cover it up, otherwise his first impression would be worse.
The general threw Zhuang Li to the ground and said sarcastically, “You are really incompetent. You can’t even pretend to be dead. Would a dead person breathe as hard as you do?”
Zhuang Li understood immediately. When he heard the enemy soldiers shouting his lover’s name on the battlefield, his breathing became much faster. It was around that time that the tall and strong man noticed him.
“Go, go back and receive your punishment!” The general kicked Zhuang Li’s buttocks lightly.
Zhuang Li staggered and fell to the ground, ending up with a mouthful of mud.
7480: “Hahahaha, I can’t take it anymore. I’m dying of laughter! Master, you are so useless! It turned out that I was right to send you here.”
The tall and strong man was also surprised. He was stunned for a while before muttering, “Are you really pottery? I didn’t use any force, so why did you fall?”
Zhuang Li, who had crawled out of the pool of blood, had become very irritable, but he had to suppress his negative emotions. In this world, there was neither a computer for him to search for the original owner’s information nor high technology to help him. With everything blurred, he could only wait and see.
The two returned to the camp one after the other.
On the way, Zhuang Li was silently observing his body.
The original owner’s palms were very delicate, without the thick calluses from years of holding swords; his skin was fair, without any signs of being exposed to the sun; the soles of his feet were very painful, probably from blisters, and he didn’t look like a soldier who was used to marching.
Combining the above points, he could draw two conclusions: first, the original owner was a spoiled person and should have a good family background; second, the original owner had just joined the army not long ago and had never experienced the hard military training.
This made the situation very strange: Why would a good family send their child to serve as a soldier? Is there any precedent in the military for sending children to the battlefield without any training?
While he was thinking, they had already arrived at the military camp. The strong man pushed Zhuang Li into the stable and ordered the soldiers standing on both sides: “Keep an eye on him! Catch all the deserters and let them be tortured together! Bring out the rack and put it in the center of the military camp. I want everyone to see clearly that this is the fate of escaping in the middle of a battle!”
“Understood.” Several soldiers stood upright and shouted.
The strong man left.
Zhuang Li was imprisoned in a stable, with a few other dejected young men sitting around him. It was assumed that they were also deserters.
Zhuang Li didn’t say a word, just washed his face with the water in the trough, then deliberately wandered in front of the young men, carefully observing their reactions.
These people looked at him as if they were completely unfamiliar with him. They didn’t take the initiative to say hello or start a conversation, so they probably didn’t recognize this face.
This was exactly what Zhuang Li had expected. How could a young man who had not even participated in military training before being pushed onto the battlefield, know many of his comrades?
Yes, Zhuang Li’s current body was still that of a teenager, not very tall, and was very thin, half a head shorter than those young men, huddled in the corner, looking really pitiful. He tried to recite a few Buddhist scriptures, his voice clear and melodious, still carrying the immaturity of a teenager.
Such a young, pampered, untrained recruit could appear on the cruel battlefield. Was it because this army was extremely short of manpower or did someone want to kill the young man?
Zhuang Li calculated various possibilities in his mind, while also listening attentively to the discussions of the people around him.
After experiencing such a brutal battle, everyone was in low spirits and couldn’t help but express their anger and fear.
The deserters who were sitting together lowered their voices and said, “General Le Zhengming was ambushed! The letter sent to him was fake. The Ninth Prince was not ambushed at all. The general ran to rescue him but was ambushed by the enemy on the way. Over 500 of the 10,000 cavalrymen were killed!”
“Is there a traitor in our army? Otherwise, how could the letter be fake?”
“There must be a traitor, but I don’t know who it is. I suspect the Ninth Prince more. Without his fire seal, the general would not believe the contents of the letter. This shows that the letter is true, but the story of the Ninth Prince being attacked is false.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you understand? The Ninth Prince has joined forces with the enemy to kill our general!”
“I guess so! Otherwise, why did General Xu, who was guarding Qiuzhuang, lead his troops to withdraw first? If General Xu hadn’t deliberately let the enemy into Guandu, we wouldn’t have been ambushed!”
“General Xu is General Le Zhengming’s confidant!”
“Bah! He has long been bribed by the Ninth Prince and Zhuang Ran! The Ninth Prince is afraid that the general’s achievements will threaten the emperor, and Zhuang Ran wants to take over the general’s military power. They all want to kill the general!”
“The heaven is blind!”
“Good things never come to good people!”
“We had 170,000 soldiers, but the Jie people killed us until only 40,000 are left! 130,000 of our comrades died! The blood flowed all over the ground and formed a river. I ran through the blood, and my heart was like a knife in my throat! There were broken arms and legs and intestines everywhere. I was scared!”
“I was scared too!”
“There are even more frightening things to come! The general almost wiped out the Jie tribe, and they are determined to kill the general here this time. Maybe in a few days, the Jie people will gather their troops and attack us!”
“Only 40,000 of us are dead, but the Jie people still have 180,000 troops! 180,000! Just the raised hooves of their horses can crush us!”
“I don’t want to die, wuwuwu…”
The intermittent cries of grief echoed in the stable, stinging Zhuang Li’s eardrums.
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