Cries of anguish filled the land.
Arrows fell like locusts.
The attacking Zhongshan cavalry raised their shields. The defending capital army’s shields formed a wall. Only the common people in the middle were naked and defenseless. To prevent them from disrupting the formation and affecting the imminent battle, the rain of arrows fell almost entirely upon them—
With no path forward and no way back, the running people fell to the ground.
Xie Yanfang no longer covered Xiao Yu’s ears, allowing the cries, shouts, and screams to assault them. Perhaps impacted by the war drums and the soldiers’ roars, the child before him went from trembling to slowly becoming numb.
Having witnessed such brutality, one would have no fear or dread.
“Minister Xie,” Eunuch Qi felt the ground trembling—the first wave of assault was about to begin. “Take His Majesty back a bit.”
Once fighting started, even the central formation wouldn’t be safe, let alone being this far forward.
Although he trusted that Xie Yanfang wouldn’t let anything happen to Xiao Yu, who could say for certain? No one had expected the Crown Prince to die back then either—
Xie Yanfang looked down and asked with a smile: “A’Yu, are you afraid? You might get hurt in a moment.”
Xiao Yu murmured: “Not afraid.”
His hand gripped the blade tightly.
Not afraid—but it still wasn’t enough. Xie Yanfang looked at Xiao Yu: “Then Your Majesty should smile. Watching soldiers fight valiantly, watching the wolves’ ambitions come to nothing—Your Majesty should laugh heartily.”
Smile? Xiao Yu gripped the blade even tighter, struggling to squeeze out a trace of a smile.
Although the smile wasn’t hearty and didn’t look very good, it was enough. This smile amidst brutality, imprinted on the child’s heart—when he grew up and encountered even more brutal scenes, such as exterminating entire clans or important ministers using favors to plead—he would also be able to laugh heartily without fear. Xie Yanfang gently stroked Xiao Yu’s shoulder, having him watch ahead as the great army’s formation shifted, crossbowmen retreating, cavalry thundering—
“Your uncle will take you to fight at the front lines. A’Yu is no longer that weak victim who was ambushed. A’Yu is a strong one who can kill among thousands of troops and ten thousand horses.”
Kill, kill—he was no longer the one being killed. Those who wanted to kill him, who wanted to harm him, must all die! All go die! Xiao Yu gripped the long blade in his hand, raising it, letting out a cry that seemed half sob, half laugh: “I will kill them!”
Xie Yanfang spurred his horse forward, taking Xiao Yu away from the central formation.
Eunuch Qi followed for a few steps then stopped. He couldn’t even hold a blade properly—going to the front lines would require seven or eight soldiers to protect him. This would only cause trouble. He could only watch Xie Yanfang take Xiao Yu forward.
He knew Xiao Yu wouldn’t be in any danger, but—
Eunuch Qi murmured helplessly: “He is a sovereign, but he is also a child.”
Last time, the child escaped from slaughter. This time, the child was throwing himself into slaughter. This child would never be able to escape nightmares for his entire life, would he?
As a sovereign, this fate was destined to be inescapable.
But the next moment, he was slightly startled. Although he wasn’t going to the front lines, from the central army he could better sense it—the troops and formations seemed to have some disturbance.
The slaughter seemed to have—stopped?
……
……
Once the slaughter on the border battlefield began, it wouldn’t stop until one side was dead, or both sides were dead.
The long blade thrust forward, severing the armor of the Xi Liang soldier ahead and severing his life. However, the long blade was also firmly gripped by the Xi Liang soldier. Through the blood-soaked blade, Xie Yanlai saw a savage grinning face behind him.
Without a blade, how could he kill?
The Xi Liang soldier behind raised his blade to chop down, but the next moment, this young general forcibly dragged the Xi Liang soldier in front, executing a spinning kick that sent him tumbling to the ground. Before he could react, the blade’s handle slammed hard against his throat.
A clear sound of bones shattering seemed to echo in the air.
The Xi Liang soldier didn’t move—dead.
Without a blade, one could still kill.
In the distance, horses’ hooves galloped and the ground trembled. When reinforcements arrived, the last Xi Liang soldier also fell.
In the dusk-shrouded land, corpses piled like mountains.
Before his horse had fully stopped, Zhong Changrong jumped down, gripping his blade and charging forward, shouting: “How many are still alive!”
Behind him, soldiers surged forward, sending any Xi Liang soldiers still breathing on their final journey and rescuing wounded comrades.
The mountain of corpses shifted, and quite a few people emerged from it. The number of survivors wasn’t small.
Zhong Changrong breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking of something, he raised his voice again: “Xie Yanlai!”
Only after shouting two or three times did a young general emerge from beneath the pile of corpses, his voice full of mockery: “General Zhong, if your reinforcements had come any later, you’d be summoning my soul.”
Seeing him, Zhong Changrong breathed another sigh of relief. Hearing these words, his eyes bulged with anger. This damn brat!
“You attacked without orders,” he shouted. “This was reckless advancement.”
Xie Yanlai took the bandage cloth handed to him by a nearby soldier and wrapped it around his arm a couple times, saying: “This is called adapting to circumstances. Having finally found where this Xi Liang main force was located, how could we let them go?”
Recently, the Xi Liang soldiers had been killing like madmen, emerging from all directions. Very obviously, besides Chu Ling’s death, they had also heard about the confrontation between Prince Zhongshan and the court—Da Xia’s interior was also in chaos.
Zhong Changrong, temporarily acting as commander, felt very anxious. If the court and Prince Zhongshan continued fighting like this, the border here was very dangerous.
Not only because of the Xi Liang soldiers’ frenzied attacks, but also because the border army’s mobilization and command were rather laborious, with military morale unstable and generals harboring various private thoughts.
Fortunately, there was Xie Yanlai. This youngster seemed rash and unreliable, but each time he successfully completed his missions. Plus, with his status as a Xie clan descendant, he could intimidate many generals with private agendas.
He just didn’t listen.
The thought barely formed when he saw Xie Yanlai mounting a horse and calling to the soldiers—