The female soldier flashed a wide grin at Luo Aman. "Thank you for the military merit, Squad Leader."
As one of the earlier recruits to enter the military department for training, Luo Aman had managed to secure the position of squad leader.
After all, Jiang Jin now had over 300 female soldiers under her command, which meant there were around 30 squad leaders.
Luo Aman was speechless.
She wanted to cry but had no tears. That was clearly her military merit!
And it should have been two!
In the end, one ran off to have diarrhea, and the other slipped right past her, allowing someone else to pick up the easy win.
She let out a soft breath to console herself. Fortunately, they were all in her own squad. A soldier's merit would somewhat count toward hers, at least as a collective military merit.
In the dense forest on a hillside a few hundred meters away, Yao Ji, who was lying in ambush, couldn't help but facepalm.
Xie Nanxiao's eyes twitched wildly as well. "No, seriously, I've fought in wars for so many years, but I've never seen anything like this. Who chases after people just to surrender to them?"
Yao Ji remained silent. It wasn't like he had seen it before either.
In less than fifteen minutes, all the mountain bandits were beaten to the ground. Even though only about fifty female soldiers had come, their combat power was not weak.
Jiang Jin alone had taken down over a dozen of them, not to mention having Xia Chanyi and Shuangjiang—two absolute killing machines—present. Dealing with a hundred or so bandits was no difficult task.
Looking at the bandits sprawled all over the ground, Jiang Jin pointed her wooden stick at Zhao Er again. Just as she was about to speak, a rustling sound came from the grass by the roadside. Everyone couldn't help but look over.
They saw the bandit who had run off to have diarrhea earlier walking out of the bushes, pulling up his pants and muttering, "Damn it, why did I have to take a crap right at this moment..."
His voice came to an abrupt halt. He looked at the scene before him, then looked back at the bushes, feeling a chill rise from the soles of his feet.
"Um, I, I think I went the wrong way, ha, ha..." His voice trembled as he took a step back, turning around with the intention of darting into the bushes to escape.
Xia Chanyi was closest to him. She hurled the stick in her hand without a trace of hesitation.
The stick whistled through the air and smashed into the Diarrhea Bandit's head.
Bang.
The Diarrhea Bandit fainted on the ground, entirely unsurprisingly.
Shuangjiang stepped forward, grabbed one of his feet, dragged him out like a dead dog, and threw him onto the ground.
Only then did Jiang Jin look back at Zhao Er and ask, "Tell me, do you accept our surrender or not?"
Zhao Er was covered in bruises, with a large bump forming on the top of his head. He wanted to cry but had no tears. "W-we lost. Can we be the ones to surrender?"
Jiang Jin expressed her dissatisfaction. "Is it really that hard for us to surrender? Hurry up and get up to lead us captives up the mountain."
Zhao Er felt incredibly bitter inside. "N-no, we can't. We don't have, don't have anywhere for you to stay in our mountain. P-please, could you just not surrender?"
Jiang Jin flashed him a smile. "It's fine. If there's nowhere to stay, we can build it ourselves. It's settled then, otherwise..."
She tightened her grip on her stick and waved it at Zhao Er, the threat self-evident.
Zhao Er jolted in terror. "Okay, let's, let's go up the mountain."
On the rugged mountain path, Zhao Er led the way dejectedly.
Beside him walked the Diarrhea Bandit, who had been knocked out and then woken back up.
The Diarrhea Bandit lowered his voice and asked, "Did they really surrender?"
Zhao Er looked thoroughly devoid of the will to live. "What other choice do we have? Whether it's true or false, we have to accept it, or else all our men will be beaten to death by her."
"T-then, what if they go up the mountain and slaughter our villagers?"
Zhao Er was worried about this too. "They wouldn't, would they?"
Remembering that this group of women hadn't killed a single one of them earlier, he figured they probably wouldn't kill the villagers either, which steadied his heart a bit.
But what was their purpose in going up the mountain?
Could it be for Mount Wuhu? Did they want to go up the mountain and become bandits too?
Thinking about their fierce combat skills, the more he pondered it, the more he felt this was the case.
Zhao Er felt sorrowful inside. What were they going to do? Were they going to be driven off the mountain?
Where could they even go?
Without the treacherous terrain of Mount Wuhu, anyone could easily wipe out their group, which was burdened with the old, the weak, the women, and the children.
Even though there were over 500 people on the mountain, there actually weren't many strong young men.
The Diarrhea Bandit felt anxious. "Who knows? Our brothers are all being held at the bottom of the mountain by them, and we don't even know how they are doing now."
That woman had said the mountain road was hard to travel and that having too many people would slow them down, so she just had the two of them lead the way while everyone else stayed at the bottom of the mountain.
Only three of the women followed them up the mountain, while the rest stayed at the foot of the hill.
Zhao Er was also incredibly worried, but with things having reached this point, what could he do?
The ones at the bottom of the mountain were his brothers, and the ones at the top were his brothers and family members as well. Both the palms and the backs of his hands were flesh; he could only hope these women would show mercy.
Besides, the other side only had three people going up the mountain. Once they reached the top, they might still have a chance to resist.
At this moment, he still didn't know that his brothers at the bottom of the mountain had all been tied up and were currently being escorted back to Gefeng.
While his thoughts were running wild, the path ahead came to an end, and they had arrived at their mountain stronghold.
Jiang Jin looked at the steep cliff in front of them and thought to herself that it was a good thing they had become captives, otherwise getting up this mountain really wouldn't be easy.
The cliff was about twenty meters high and completely smooth with nothing to hold onto; even a mosquito trying to stand on it would have to do the splits.
Not to mention how to climb this cliff, even the trail leading up the mountain was very narrow.
Especially one section of the path that bordered a cliff on one side, only allowing one person to pass at a time. It was indeed just as treacherous as the information Zhou Sui had gathered.
On a path like this, if someone were lying in ambush somewhere to launch a ranged attack against them, it would be difficult even to escape.
Two tall men stood at the top of the cliff.
One of the men shouted, "What happened to you guys? Why are you all bruised and swollen? Where are the others? Why did only the two of you come back?"
The other man followed up and asked, "Didn't the village chief say we shouldn't kidnap women? Why did you bring them up here?"
Zhao Er adjusted his facial expression before speaking. "Why are you asking so many questions? Hurry up and lower the ladder."
Although the man didn't quite understand what had happened, out of his trust in Zhao Er, he still lowered a rope and wooden ladder.
He didn't know how formidable Jiang Jin was. Seeing that there were only three of them, he had nothing to worry about. After all, they had several hundred people on the mountain. How could they be afraid of three women?
Zhao Er climbed the ladder first. This rope ladder was not easy to climb; at such a height and with no anchor points, it easily swayed back and forth.
Jiang Jin was about to follow, but Xia Chanyi quickly stepped in to stop her. "My Lady, let me go first."
While traveling outside, she had changed her form of address to "My Lady" to avoid arousing suspicion.
Knowing that Xia Chanyi was worried about her, Jiang Jin didn't force the issue and stepped aside.
Xia Chanyi had practiced martial arts since childhood and was very agile. She stepped steadily onto the rope ladder, following behind Zhao Er.
Zhao Er must have been used to climbing it, as his speed wasn't slow.
Xia Chanyi was a martial artist with a solid foundation, so she followed steadily behind him.
In just a dozen breaths' time, the two of them reached the top of the cliff.
Next came Shuangjiang and the Diarrhea Bandit.
Finally, it was Jiang Jin. When she reached the top and planted her feet firmly on the ground, she waved her hand.
Seeing her gesture, Xia Chanyi and Shuangjiang quickly stepped forward and subdued the two men guarding the top.
The men were terrified. "What are you doing? Zhao Er, what's going on?"
Xia Chanyi delivered a swift hand chop, knocking the man out instantly. He was simply too noisy.
