Seeing the tall soldier fall, his companion hiding not far away glared with bloodshot eyes and roared, "Ah, I'll fight you to the death!"
Jiang Jin did not hesitate and fired another arrow from her hand.
Thwack.
The arrow pierced the soldier's left eye, sinking in three or four inches.
A shrill scream rang out. The soldier covered his bleeding eye and the arrow with one hand, while wildly hacking around with his saber in the other.
The sound of wind approached from behind. Jiang Jin dodged sideways and shot an arrow backhanded.
The arrow embedded itself into the chest of the ambushing soldier.
The ambusher stumbled back two steps, looking down in disbelief at the arrow in his chest before looking up at Jiang Jin.
Swish.
Jiang Jin followed up with another arrow to his neck.
Yun Chengxuan's approach was much more straightforward. He disliked using crossbows. Wielding Buddha's Heart, he chased after the Qu Zhao soldiers, slaughtering them. Wherever he passed, there were agonizing howls and severed limbs.
At this moment, he was like an Asura from hell—every step left a bloody footprint, and every strike claimed a fractured soul.
Hearing the screams behind them, dozens of soldiers fled back the way they came, terrified out of their wits. It was too horrifying; the Jinyang Army was actually ambushing them in this dense forest!
Furthermore, the repeating crossbows used by the Jinyang Army were incredibly powerful. They were simply no match for them.
Flee, they had to flee!
The soldier running at the front suddenly stopped. Because he halted so abruptly, the soldier behind him crashed right into his back.
"Why did you stop..."
His words came to a sudden halt.
A tall man stood before them, blocking their path. Behind the man were over a dozen imposing Han soldiers.
Yao Ji gripped his long saber, flashed a grin at the Qu Zhao soldiers, and charged at them without another word.
His weapon, Mo Lin, was too long for jungle warfare, so he had swapped it for a different saber. However, the blade forged by Gefeng was by no means weak.
The Qu Zhao soldier looked horrified and hastily raised his saber with both hands to block.
A harsh metallic clash rang out. A sharp pain shot through the webbing of the Qu Zhao soldier's hands. He instinctively loosened his grip, and his saber was sent flying.
Yao Ji's momentum did not wane as his blade slashed directly into the Qu Zhao soldier's shoulder.
Squlech.
The blade sank into the shoulder, cutting all the way to the chest.
The soldier spat out a mouthful of blood and let out a miserable wail before his body went limp.
Yao Ji pulled out his long saber, flicked the blood off the blade, and cast a cold, sharp gaze at the remaining Qu Zhao soldiers.
The soldier he locked eyes with felt a chill run through his entire body. Looking at his brother twitching on the ground, before he could even step back, Yao Ji's saber was already swinging toward his neck.
The soldier's pupils shrank as he frantically tried to parry.
But Yao Ji's strike carried the weight of a thunderbolt. With a loud clang, the soldier's saber was cleaved clean in two.
Thud.
The soldier's head flew high into the air.
"Ahhh, you Han thieves, I'll take you down with me!" A Qu Zhao soldier charged at Yao Ji.
Yao Ji had awakened their ferocity. Knowing there was no escape, their only option was to fight.
Yao Ji laughed loudly, "Perfect timing!"
With a thrust of his blade, he claimed the life of another Qu Zhao soldier.
The Dragon Shadow Squad behind him quickly joined the fray, determined not to let a single Qu Zhao soldier escape.
The evening glow of the sunset filtered into the dense forest, casting a layer of golden light over the blood-soaked ground.
Holding his bloodstained saber, Yao Ji reported to Jiang Jin, "All killed. Not a single one escaped."
Jiang Jin glanced at the sky. "It's getting late. Leave the bodies as they are for now. Just leave two squads stationed in the Verdant Forest."
They were deep in the mountains where tigers and wolves roamed. After a winter of food scarcity, she was certain the wild beasts would appreciate this feast of flesh and blood.
In this era, there were no night vision goggles or convenient lighting tools like flashlights. Normally, no one would venture into the perilous deep mountains and dense forests at night.
Just as Jiang Jin predicted, Qu Bai truly had no intention of sending men to continue investigating the military grain incident during the night.
He had sent out over five hundred men, and none had returned by now. It was obvious something had happened, but nightfall was not a good time to strike.
Standing outside the tent under the gloomy sky, he gazed at the curling smoke rising from Gefeng City in the distance, knowing the civilians there were preparing their evening meals.
Qu Cong stood half a step behind him, his face dark. "I don't believe bandits did this. It's very likely the remnants of the Yan State."
This aligned with Qu Bai's own suspicions. He also didn't believe it was the work of bandits. If bandits were that formidable, they wouldn't have lived so comfortably over the past few years.
Moreover, he felt a looming sense of conspiracy surrounding this entire matter, as if an invisible hand was manipulating them, drawing them into an uncontrollable situation.
He was even hesitating whether they should just drop the matter here, fearing that further investigation would only lead to greater losses.
Right now, he was more worried about another issue: if the ones who stole the grain were Yan State remnants, were they allied with the Jinyang Army?
Would they launch a pincer attack against him?
Jiang Jin was also guessing Qu Bai's next move. "What do you think? Will Qu Bai continue to send people to track the military grain tomorrow? How many do you think he'll send?"
Yao Ji, walking to her left, replied, "He will. The numbers should be higher than today."
Xia Chanyi asked, "I wonder how many they'll send?"
Jiang Jin thought for a moment and said, "At most, no more than two thousand, unless he transfers troops from elsewhere."
Qu Bai's mission was to besiege Gefeng City. Over a thousand of his twenty thousand troops had already been wiped out by her.
If his forces were spread too thin, Gefeng City might launch a counterattack against him. After all, he didn't know how many troops Gefeng currently had, so it was normal for him to harbor such concerns.
Similarly, he didn't know how many heavy ballistas and repeating crossbows Gefeng possessed. These overwhelming, lethal weapons undoubtedly made him extremely wary.
And now, there were the mysterious grain robbers whose strength Qu Bai couldn't fathom.
Truth mixed with falsehoods, reality blended with illusions—the unpredictable was always the most agonizing. Let him slowly guess.
Yao Ji suggested, "If two thousand men really do come, I'm afraid the Dragon Shadow Guard won't be able to handle them alone."
Xia Chanyi sneered coldly, "The Dragon Shadow Guard currently has two hundred members. By occupying favorable terrain, it is more than enough to annihilate two thousand Qu Zhao soldiers. My Lord, just leave it to our Dragon Shadow Guard."
Xia Chanyi was currently serving as the acting captain of the Dragon Shadow Guard.
Yao Ji twitched the corner of his mouth. "I was just trying to lighten the burden on your Dragon Shadow Guard."
Jiang Jin smiled. "Alright, we'll leave the Verdant Forest to the Dragon Shadow Guard. After all, the various traps and mechanisms we set up haven't even been triggered yet."
She looked at Yao Ji and added, "If you guys want to join the battle too, then open up a second battlefield in the Gesi Mountains."
Since things were going to get chaotic, they might as well make it even more chaotic. The Gesi Mountains were close to Gefeng City; if anything happened in Gefeng, they could provide support at any time.
Yao Ji's eyes flickered. "That works. Let's discuss it thoroughly when we get back."
Late at night, in the Verdant Forest.
The moonlight was dim, the night sky pitch-black.
Green eyes flashed in the dark, and the howling of wolves began to rise.
