When the last Helian soldier fell, the riverbank had already fallen silent.
Xu Zhan retracted his mace, wiped the mud splashed on his calves with the sole of his boot, and scanned the battlefield.
More than thirty corpses of Helian elites lay scattered among the gravel and reeds, their eyes wide open in death.
However, the remnant soldiers of the vanguard camp were not faring much better.
Cripple Liu sat on the ground, his left hand clutching a gash under his ribs. Blood seeped through his fingers as he bared his teeth and sucked in cold air.
Another man, missing three fingers, planted his spear on the ground. The trouser leg of his right leg was slashed open, revealing the mangled flesh inside.
Xu Zhan looked at them one by one, finally stopping in front of Zhang Tiezhu.
Zhang Tiezhu was still kneeling in the muddy water, his severed right arm drooping. He stared blankly at Xu Zhan, his lips trembling for a long time.
"Centurion Xu, are... are you here to kill me?"
Xu Zhan looked down at his severed right arm, and then at his own empty right sleeve.
"Can you stand up?"
"I can... I can... stand up."
"Then go herd the cattle and sheep over here."
Xu Zhan turned his head and jutted his chin toward the opposite side of the river.
Zhang Tiezhu was completely bewildered.
"What?"
"The Helian cattle, sheep, and grain carts across the river. Do you not have eyes?" Xu Zhan had already walked away, his voice drifting back from ahead. "Hurry up. Get them all over here before dawn breaks and the fog clears."
Qian Fugui trotted up from behind, panting as he grabbed Cripple Liu's arm and helped him up.
"Centurion Xu, how many livestock are across the river?"
"Haven't counted yet," Xu Zhan replied without looking back.
"Then... do we have enough manpower? A lot of the brothers are wounded..."
"Enough or not, we have to bring them over."
Qian Fugui swallowed the words that had reached his lips and quickly called out to those who could still move to head toward the river.
Zhang Tiezhu struggled up from the mud, his legs wobbling. He stood in a daze for a moment before suddenly turning to ask the companion beside him, whose shoulder had been cleaved open.
"He... he's not going to kill us?"
That companion was gasping in pain, completely unable to reply.
Zhang Tiezhu stood there and gritted his teeth. Blood was still dripping from the stump of his right arm. He used his teeth to tear a strip of cloth from his sleeve, clumsily wrapped it around twice, and waded toward the river.
For the next half hour or so, Wild Fox Shoal became quite lively.
The remnant soldiers split into two groups. One group guarded the south bank, inventorying the supply carts and scattered swords and bows left behind by the Helians. The other group waded across the shallow boundary river, herding the cattle, sheep, and grain-carrying mules and horses brought by the Helians southward.
The cattle and sheep were disobedient, scattering in all directions whenever startled. Cripple Liu led three men chasing them in the water for a long time before finally driving a dozen stray sheep out of the reeds, cursing as they tied them into a string with ropes and dragged them across the river.
Qian Fugui was calculating shrewdly. He squatted next to a Helian grain cart, lifted the felt cover to look at the stacked bags of millet inside, and counted quickly on his fingers.
"One, two, three... Good heavens, a full sixty piculs! Plus the other three carts... this trip will yield at least over two hundred piculs of grain!"
His voice suddenly brightened as he shouted toward the opposite bank.
"Centurion Xu! There are still two flocks of sheep over there that haven't been brought over! At least a hundred of them!"
Xu Zhan stood under a crooked willow tree on the north bank, holding his mace in his left hand, staring at the corpse of a Helian soldier.
Hanging from the corpse's waist was a hemp rope strung with seven or eight dried, blackened human ears.
Xu Zhan squatted down, untied the string of things, and felt inside the corpse's collar, pulling out a copper token with words on it—a centurion token under the banner of the Right Luli King.
He tucked the copper token into his chest and stood up.
"There are still live ones in the sheepfold over there. Bring them all over."
"Got it!" Cripple Liu responded, leading his men toward the temporary sheepfold further away.
Zhang Tiezhu had also found his place by now. Although his right arm was severed, he could still exert strength with his left hand. Along with two other wounded soldiers, he was responsible for receiving the livestock driven across the river on the south bank, using ropes to tie the cattle and sheep one by one behind the supply carts.
Thinking about what happened earlier, he felt waves of numbness down his spine.
He had come out with Zhao Si, originally hoping to make a fortune, but ended up with most of his brothers dead and losing an arm himself.
In the end, it was this criminal who had been thrown into the death row by Lord He who saved his little life.
Another half hour passed. The mist on the eastern horizon began to be dyed a pale gold by the morning light.
The fog was clearing.
Xu Zhan finished inspecting the last grain cart and turned to shout at Qian Fugui.
"Let's go."
"Coming, coming!" Qian Fugui jogged over eagerly, looking back to count the livestock as he ran, muttering to himself, "Seven hundred and twenty-six sheep, forty-three cows, and eight packhorses... four grain carts, plus our original ones... enough, enough, it's all enough!"
The convoy reorganized and moved slowly southwest along the riverbank. The remnant soldiers escorted them on both sides, with the cattle and sheep herded in the middle.
Xu Zhan walked at the very back, his iron mace resting on his shoulder, occasionally looking back at the path they came from.
But no one noticed.
In the opposite direction of their departure, about two miles to the northeast, there was a low hill.
The top of the low hill was covered with cogon grass that swayed wildly in the wind. Among the grass, seven or eight men wearing grayish-brown short tunics blended almost perfectly with the color of the withered grass.
The man in the center sat on horseback, holding a copper spyglass in his hand, pointing it directly toward Wild Fox Shoal.
Through the lens barrel, Xu Zhan's figure was drawn extremely close.
The man recalled the stance of Xu Zhan swinging the mace with one hand, as well as the scattered corpses of the Helian elites on the gravel beach, while the remnant soldiers on the south bank were herding cattle and sheep in formation to retreat south.
"This man is incredibly valiant; he possesses the courage of one who can hold off ten thousand men."
He lowered the spyglass and let out a sigh of admiration.
"When I read the history books back then, reading about King Xiang defeating an army of a hundred thousand with eight hundred cavalry, I always felt it was just an exaggeration by the Grand Historian. Now that I have seen this Xu Zhan, I know there truly are such formidable figures in this world."
A subordinate lying nearby swallowed hard.
"Boss, this Xu Zhan is so formidable, if we clash with him head-on..."
"Clash with what?" The man put away the spyglass, rolled it in his hand, and gently tapped his palm. "He's just a warrior. No matter how well he can fight, he only has one arm and one mace. How many people can he protect? How many matters can he manage?"
The subordinate didn't understand, a look of confusion appearing on his face.
"Then Boss, are we just going to let them take these cattle, sheep, and provisions back to Zhenbei City? We aren't going to intercept them?"
And that man was Chen Changfeng. He slowly stood up, brushing the dirt and grass clippings off his knees.
"Intercept what? Let them take it."
"But..."
"Once this batch of grain enters the city, what do you think will happen?" Chen Changfeng turned his head and glanced at his subordinate.
The subordinate opened his mouth but couldn't articulate a reason.
"Zhenbei City has been out of grain for half a year, and military morale has long since crumbled. He Minghu embezzles military pay to line his own pockets, and the soldiers under him hate him to the bone. At this critical juncture, an outsider imperial envoy suddenly brings in hundreds of cattle and sheep, and hundreds of piculs of grain. Think about it, who will those soldiers who have been starving for half a year be grateful to?"
The subordinate's pupils shrank slightly.
"They will... they will be grateful to the imperial envoy."
"What about He Minghu?"
The subordinate's mouth hung open in shock.
Chen Changfeng tugged at the reins. His black horse snorted and paced a few steps in place.
"There is no need to intercept this shipment of grain. Once it enters the city, it becomes a blade. We won't even need to lift a finger; the people inside Zhenbei City will start tearing each other apart first."
He paused, tucking his spyglass into the leather pouch beside his saddle.
"Xu Zhan is fierce, but the truly formidable opponent has never been him."
The subordinate pressed further, "Then who is it?"
Chen Changfeng had already turned his horse around, heading down the slope. With his back to his men, he tossed back a single reply.
"It is the person who arranged for him to be here."
With that, hooves crunched against the crumbly earth of the slope, and his grayish-brown figure vanished into the morning mist and tall grass.
The remaining subordinates exchanged glances, silently mounted their horses, and followed after him.
...
From the direction of Wild Fox Shoal, the faint sounds of cattle and sheep drifted over.
Xu Zhan walked at the very rear of the convoy, an iron mace resting against his shoulder. Suddenly, he paused.
His footsteps halted as he looked toward the northeast, fixing his gaze on the low hill where Chen Changfeng and his men had stood just moments ago.
He stared into the distance.
Yet all he saw was the tall grass swaying in the wind. There was no trace of anyone on the hill.
