The general delivered a brutal kick to Han Ping. "How dare you defy us Quzhao people! It seems you have a death wish."
Han Ping's two sons hurriedly rushed forward to support him. Seeing their elderly father's face contorted in agony, unable to rise from the heavy blow, they felt a surge of fury. Momentarily forgetting their fear, they lunged forward to confront the man.
Enduring the pain, Han Ping grabbed them. "Don't... don't go."
The general acted as if he had just witnessed something incredibly amusing and burst into raucous laughter. "You lowly Han peasants actually want to fight me? Come on then, haha..."
The other Quzhao soldiers joined in with mocking laughter.
With a grand wave of his hand, the general ordered, "Brothers, pick your women! Kill anyone who dares to resist!"
Shuangjiang was leading a squad of female soldiers on a scouting mission.
Suddenly, her ears twitched, and she raised a hand.
The female soldiers halted instantly, their vigilant eyes scanning the surroundings.
Faint cries and agonizing screams drifted through the air.
Shuangjiang's gaze sharpened. "Let's go take a look."
"Ah! Mother, save me..." A frail, childlike young woman clung tightly to her mother's hand, trembling violently in terror.
The woman held her daughter back, weeping and begging for mercy. "My daughter is only thirteen! Please, I beg you, let her go! Please!"
A Quzhao soldier yanked the girl hard, pulling her into his embrace. Reaching his left hand toward her lower body, he laughed wickedly, "Heh heh, since you can't bear to part with her, I'll just take you both! Haha..."
Two other soldiers grabbed the mother by each arm, lecherous smirks plastered across their faces. "A mother-daughter blossom, not bad, not bad at all."
"You pack of animals! I'll kill you!" Unable to bear the sight of his wife and daughter being violated, the man raised his wooden club and swung it at the Quzhao soldiers.
The other villagers, their fierce instinct to resist ignited by the Quzhao soldiers' cruelty, also prepared to charge.
Thwack.
An arrow pierced straight through the man's abdomen.
Naturally, the Quzhao soldiers were not so careless. Dozens of archers were stationed around the perimeter.
This was a game they often played—forcing Han men to watch their wives and daughters be defiled, just to see if they would choose to fight back or cower.
Regardless of their choice, there was only one outcome: death.
"Ah..." The woman let out a heart-wrenching shriek as she watched her husband take the arrow and collapse.
The soldiers holding her merely laughed uproariously.
Swish, swish, swish...
Several more villagers were struck by arrows and fell to the ground.
Han Ping's eyes nearly split at the seams. Seeing his son fall and his daughter-in-law and granddaughter about to be violated, he roared, "Fight them to the death! We're all going to die anyway!"
With that, he charged headlong at the Quzhao soldiers.
Han Yi and Han Da led the remaining villagers in a desperate charge. Their hearts were filled with sorrow—just as they had feared, coming down the mountain offered no chance of survival either!
The Quzhao archers on the perimeter immediately aimed their arrows at them.
A burly Quzhao soldier, wearing a wanton grin, was just about to draw his bow when he suddenly felt a cold breeze on his neck, followed by an icy chill piercing his heart.
"Urgh..." A mindless gasp escaped his lips as he staggered back two steps and crashed heavily to the ground.
An arrow was lodged firmly in his throat.
Her eyes ice-cold, Shuangjiang led over twenty soldiers of the Jinyang Army as they slaughtered their way into the Quzhao ranks.
Behind her, a dozen Jinyang soldiers wielding Dragon Plume Crossbows unleashed a volley upon the Quzhao archers.
The general shoved aside the woman whose clothes he had half-torn, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Enemy attack! It's the Jinyang Army!"
"Ah!" The woman cried out pitifully as she was thrown to the ground.
Before she could even try to get up, her face was suddenly sprayed with a warm liquid.
With trembling lips, she looked up, only to see that the Quzhao general who had just been ruthlessly humiliating her was missing his head!
Blood was fountaining from his decapitated neck.
Thump.
The severed head, eyes wide open and face twisted in bizarre terror, landed right in front of her, splashing blood everywhere.
"Ah!" A shrill, bloodcurdling scream echoed through the dense forest before the woman's eyes rolled back and she fainted dead away.
An unknown amount of time passed before the young woman slowly regained consciousness. The sound of her mother's weeping and her grandfather's anxious voice drifted into her ears.
"Please, I beg you, save my son! I am willing to serve as a slave."
A female voice replied, "I don't need you to be a slave. Your son took an arrow to the abdomen. We've applied a basic bandage to stop the bleeding, but we don't know how to properly treat the wound."
The young woman looked up and saw a somewhat petite woman speaking to her grandfather.
This woman looked even younger than her. Her childish face was speckled with drops of blood, and she gripped a long saber in her hand. Surprisingly, she looked incredibly imposing.
As her memories flooded back, she finally recalled that this was the very same woman who had chopped off the Quzhao general's head.
For some reason, she didn't feel afraid at all anymore.
Seeing her awake, the mother let out a quiet sigh of relief, her voice trembling with sobs. "Your father was shot with an arrow, boohoo..."
Only then did the young woman fully come to her senses, looking over at her father lying on the ground.
She tried to crawl over to him, but her mother quickly held her back. "Don't go. They are looking at your father's wounds."
The young woman paused, biting her lip, and stayed where she was.
Shuangjiang continued, "You should go to our Gefeng to find a doctor. It's just that the distance is a bit far, and I don't know if your villagers can hold on until we reach the city."
She sighed inwardly. By the time they arrived, seven of these commoners had been shot by the Quzhao soldiers. Three died on the spot, and four were severely wounded.
There were others who had been beaten and kicked, but those were considered minor injuries.
The Quzhao soldiers' original intent was to torture the civilians to death rather than kill them instantly, which was why four of them had managed to survive this long.
Han Ping nodded hurriedly. "Yes, yes, we will go to your Gefeng."
"Alright." Shuangjiang wasted no time, turning to give an order. "Bring four horses over here."
The arrows were still lodged in the wounded. None of them were professional medics, so they didn't dare pull the arrows out.
Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped, so their only option was to take them back to Gefeng on horseback.
Han Yi and Han Da gathered around the wounded. The dead and injured villagers were all from their respective villages.
Han Yi considered his words carefully before asking, "My lady, could we carry our dead to be buried near Gefeng?"
Returning to one's roots like falling leaves was an obsession carved into the very marrow of every Han person. They couldn't return to their true roots now, but at least burying them somewhere relatively close would provide some peace of mind.
Although this was an unreasonable request, looking at the villagers weeping bitterly over the bodies of their loved ones, his eyes grew red and he couldn't help but ask.
If not, they would have to bury them on the spot. And if they weren't buried deep enough, the bodies might be dug up and eaten!
After speaking, he grew anxious again. These people who called themselves the Jinyang Army had just saved them and were offering to take them back for medical treatment, yet here he was making such an excessive demand.
Shuangjiang looked around. She saw that these commoners, whether elderly, children, or young adults, all had sallow complexions and were so thin they were nothing but skin and bones.
Right now, they were looking at her with eyes full of hope and timid fear. A wave of bitterness washed over her heart. Around this time last year, she had been fleeing as a refugee just like them.
Back then, at least there had been plenty of water and wild vegetables to forage. But now, there was almost nothing left; even water was hard to find.
"Gefeng is dozens of miles from here. If you have the strength to carry them, then do so," she said softly.
It wasn't that she was unwilling to help. She had only brought out a single platoon this time; they were short on personnel and horses. They needed the horses to carry the wounded and had to send people ahead to scout the path. There were simply no spare horses to transport corpses.
