"Ding-dong."
As the crowd was in an uproar, the Sword of Delusion-Breaking fell to the ground. He Simu suddenly covered her face and cried, "My Liangzhou was massacred by the Huqi people. All my fellow villagers died at their hands. She spoke so outrageously that I was so angry that I was so angry that I wanted to kill the traitor with my own hands..."
She was just about to collapse to the ground and make a scene, when a pair of hands held her arms, and because the support was too steady, it was difficult to perform the fall.
He Simu turned her head and saw Duan Xu looking at her meaningfully. He grabbed her arm with one hand and bent down with the other hand to pick up the Sword of Delusion on the ground and put it back into the scabbard.
The Sword of Delusion Breaking would only sharpen in the hands of someone it recognized. Just now, it was in He Simu's hands, and it was also extremely sharp.
As they exchanged blows, Duan Xu said in a voice that only the two of them could hear: "Don't pull out my sword casually. I almost killed you just now."
He Simu actually noticed something. When she drew her sword, Duan Xu subconsciously wanted to attack her, but he restrained himself. If Duan Xu hadn't been able to restrain himself, unfortunately, he would have been the only one who got hurt.
She looked at Duan Xu with tears in her eyes and said loudly, "General, please don't blame me."
Duan Xu raised his eyebrows, chuckled, reached out his hand, wiped the blood splattered on her face with his thumb, and said, "Miss He is my hero in Tabai. I will not blame you for killing the villain out of grief."
After a pause, he whispered, "How did you manage to cry?"
"Bite your tongue."
"You don't feel any pain?"
"Won't."
"Be gentle with yourself."
While the two were talking in low voices, Lin Jun came over and stamped his feet in anger, saying, "How could Miss He just kill He Yan when we haven't even found out how she got into the granary!"
He Simu held Duan Xu's sleeve and hid behind him. Duan Xu cooperated and stretched out his hand to protect her. He turned his head and smiled at Lin Jun: "It's the same when interrogating the guards on duty today. Fortunately, the burns are not too severe and there is no serious problem."
He ordered the soldiers to clean up the scene, dismiss the onlookers, and ordered Captain Han to strengthen the guard of the granary and call the soldiers on duty today for interrogation. Then he protected He Simu's shoulders and sent her home first as he promised.
On the way back home, Duan Xu asked, "Why did you want to ferry her across?"
It seems that he also knows the significance of the Sword of Delusion-Breaking.
"What can I say? Just think that I feel sorry for her." He Simu glanced at Duan Xu and asked, "General, how did you get these two swords?"
"It's a long story. One day I met an old man on a bridge in Nandu..."
When this familiar beginning came out, He Simu almost rolled his eyes.
Duan Xu laughed and said, "This is true. I met a very young man on the bridge, who insisted that he was a man of several hundred years old. He suddenly stopped me and gave me this sword, saying that the sword can eliminate delusion and save the resentment of the living. If the person killed does not fall into the evil path, he will be reincarnated immediately. If we are destined, it may recognize me as its master."
Young centenarian.
He Simu was silent for a moment. If she guessed correctly, this old man had just passed away a few days ago and lived for nearly five hundred years.
Bai Qing, the former Palace Master of the Xingqing Palace of the great immortal cultivation sect, is the Star Lord of Tianliang, the longest-lived mortal in the world.
He is also the senior brother of her mother, aunt and uncle.
Hundreds of years passed, countless old friends returned to the dust, and only she and Bai Qing were still alive. Now even Bai Qing was gone. Although she was not close to this serious and old-fashioned elder, she was truly alone in this world from then on.
She simply gave herself a long vacation and went out to relax. Unexpectedly, the mysterious guy she met was actually the one who got the Delusion-Breaking Sword from Bai Qing.
Bai Qing is the most accurate fortune teller in the world. Did he predict something before giving the Sword of Delusion Breaking to Duan Xu? Could it be that... he knew that Duan Xu was the one who could form a curse with her, so he left this lead for her to find Duan Xu
He Simu shuddered. She had never liked Bai Qing because Bai Qing's predictions were too accurate and frightening.
Duan Xu sent He Simu to the Lin family residence, and then said that he still had to investigate the fire in the granary, so he took his leave first.
"General Duan." He Simu called to Duan Xu who was about to turn around. She stared into his eyes and smiled slightly, "I act strangely. Aren't you afraid that I am really the Duke of Pei, or a member of Danzhi?"
Duan Xu blinked his dark and bright eyes, and said seriously: "Will you be the kind of person who obeys others? From what I see in your skull, you are the kind of girl who is born to be disobedient and want to make your own decisions."
His eyebrows were slightly curved and his smile was too dazzling.
He Simu narrowed his eyes slightly.
Just now Duan Xu said in front of the people that the fire was put out in time and most of the food and grass were preserved. But in her opinion, Duan Xu was just trying to appease the people.
Under the fire, it was a blessing to have only one-fifth of the food and grass left. In such a siege, Duan Xu could stay indoors leisurely, relying on the high walls and abundant food and grass. Now that the granary has caught fire and suffered heavy losses, the prefectural city, which was already in danger, has been hit even harder, and it is unknown how long it can hold out.
This young general even smiled as if he was ignorant of the world. He Simu thought that she had not been to the human world for many years, and the living people recently were really getting fresher. The brain in this perfect skull was really hard for her to figure out.
She didn't ask any more questions. She said goodbye to Duan Xu and watched him go away. When Duan Xu disappeared in the bustling crowd buying New Year's goods on the street, she called out, "Du Zheng."
This is the name of the wandering soul that Yan Ke found for her.
The ghost of a young man floated behind He Simu. This ghost had just died not long ago, and it was still an unconscious wandering soul and could not become a ghost. However, He Simu specially gave him spiritual power and awakened his consciousness.
"Du Zheng, you are from Daizhou. You served the old lady of the Duan family in Daizhou before you died. Later, you became Duan Xu's follower. In August of the fifth year of Tianyuan, you followed Duan Xu to the Southern Capital. You were robbed and killed by criminals in Gutai, Shunzhou."
Du Zheng knelt on the ground and bowed as he said, "Your Majesty, that's right."
"You saw clearly just now that the person who spoke to me was the third son of the Duan family whom you serve, Duan Xu?"
Du Zheng stood up and looked in the direction where Duan Xu disappeared, his young face full of confusion.
"That young master just now? Although many years have passed, I can tell that he is not the Third Young Master."
"So he is the villain who robbed you?"
"Not really... I have never seen him."
If this is true, then all the weirdness of Duan Xu can be explained - he is a fake. Not only is he not the son of the Duan family, a famous official of three generations of the royal family, but he may be a Huqie. Seeing that he is quite active in helping Daliang fight, and he is very happy when bombing the Huqie, I don't know what deep hatred he has for his homeland.
He Simu turned the jade pendant on his waist from time to time and asked, "Where is the real Duan Xu?"
"I don't know. When I died, the villains were chasing after me and trying to kill me, but I don't know what happened in the end."
He Simu nodded and said, "You go."
Du Zheng bowed down and disappeared in a puff of green smoke.
Duan Xu came back and interrogated the people on duty at the granary that day. The granary was an important place. In addition to the Lin family servants who were originally patrolling and protecting the granary, Tabai also allocated troops to protect the granary. Now it was set on fire by a crazy brothel girl. This was too unreasonable.
Xiao Xie, the foreman on duty, fell to the ground and cried bitterly. He said that he took He Yan in because he felt sorry for her, but she drugged him and stole the granary key and structural diagram. He was asleep when she sneaked into the granary and didn't know how she avoided the patrol.
Duan Xu folded his hands at his chin and looked at Xiao Xie indifferently. He Yan was originally the daughter of a wealthy family. Her father was a minor official who supervised construction. Therefore, she was very familiar with the structure of the building and knew how to set a fire that was difficult to extinguish. In addition, she also obviously knew the patrol schedules of both the Lin family and the army.
What is undeniable is that there was a spy among them who secretly instructed He Yan to accomplish all this in order to force them to surrender due to lack of food and supplies.
"Miss He suddenly came out and killed He Yan. I think this is suspicious. Could it be that she wanted to silence the witness?" Wu Shengliu said.
Duan Xu shook his head: "It's not her. She doesn't know the defense of the granary."
"But why did she kill..."
"I was there at the time, and it's not that I couldn't stop her. But I thought that if the spy could expose He Yan, he wouldn't know too much, and he wouldn't get any valuable information from her. If He Yan died, he would relax his vigilance."
Duan Xu ordered Han Lingqiu, who was in charge of the granary defense, to thoroughly investigate the leak of the defense. Lin Jun also said that he would check the servants of the Lin family who were in charge of the granary to see if there were anyone else involved in this matter besides Xiao Xie.
There are more urgent things to do than finding the traitor.
Duan Xu stood up from his seat and looked at the people in the hall. These were the officers who had fought with him all the way from Liangzhou, including General Wu Lang, Lieutenant Han, Meng Wan, and Lin Jun who had helped him in Shuozhou.
He was silent for a moment, then he smiled as usual and said, "I have blocked the news, but I don't want to hide it from you all. The remaining food and grass in the city are only enough for our soldiers and civilians to survive for another 30 days."
Because Duan Xu smiled too nonchalantly, the scene felt indescribably strange. It was clearly extremely critical news, but it sounded like he was just casually saying that the weather was very good today.
Wu Shengliu opened his eyes wide, wanting to explode but then he remembered that Duan Xu was just a person who didn't know how to live or die and only loved to laugh, so he could only say sullenly: "At worst, we can go out of the city and fight them to the death. It would be worth it if we kill a few more Huqi people!"
Duan Xu waved his hand and said with a smile: "It's not time to fight to the death yet."
Wu Shengliu thought that was true. Duan Xu was always very cunning, using one shady trick after another. He had been ready to fight to the death several times since Liangzhou arrived here, but he had never used it once.
Duan Xu turned around and walked to the Shuozhou map hanging in the camp, pointing his finger at the mountain on the east side of the city. "Before the enemy came, I sent people to survey the terrain. We found a hidden path on the south side of Pengshan Mountain. It's high enough for horses to pass and wide enough for five people to walk side by side. It leads directly to the rear of the enemy camp. As the saying goes, it's impolite not to return the favor. They burned our food, so we'll rob their food as a thank you."
Wu Shengliu's eyes lit up, but then he hesitated: "Will this... work?"
"Whether it works or not, we have to do it. It's better than sitting and waiting for death, right?" Duan Xu smiled.
Upon hearing this, Lin Jun bowed and said, "The Huqi people will have to pass through several cities in the north to transport grain. Our Lin family also has relatives in the north. I will try to contact them with carrier pigeons to see if I can ask them to help keep an eye on the movement of the grain carts."
Duan Xu nodded: "Boss Lao Lin is here."
Everyone in the hall arranged and discussed, and each took on their own task. When the matter was settled and everyone dispersed, Han Lingqiu called Duan Xu.
"General."
Duan Xu turned around and looked at Han Lingqiu. Han Lingqiu's eyes flickered as he saluted Duan Xu and said, "General, may I have a word with you?"
Duan Xu looked him up and down for a moment and said with a smile, "Okay."
They walked to a secluded place beside the military camp. Han Lingqiu seemed a little hesitant. He gritted his teeth and said, "The general asked me to thoroughly investigate the burning of the granary. I had some questions that I didn't understand before, and I would like to ask the general for guidance."
"you say."
"General... when you bombed Guanhe, how did you anticipate that the Huchies would launch a surprise attack?"
Duan Xu smiled brightly, patted Han Lingqiu on the shoulder and said, "I thought it was something else, but it's actually quite simple."
"The Hulan Army commander Awolqi, who led the reinforcements, and the commander of the Yuzhou battlefield, Fenglai, have always had a bad relationship. After getting involved in the dispute over the succession to the Danzhi royal court, each side supported a prince, and they became sworn enemies. Now that the Yuzhou battlefield is at a stalemate, Fenglai is already embarrassed. If Awolqi rushes to support, won't all the credit fall into the hands of others?"
"I led my army into Shuozhou and occupied the city. I also used the parables in the Cangyan Sutra to deceive the Danzhi defenders, which had already angered the Danzhi royal court. If Feng Lai can take back the city of Shuozhou and get my head, it will not only undermine Avolqi's prestige, but also add merit to himself. So I calculated that he would sneak attack us before the Hulan army arrived, and let Meng Wan keep a close eye on their movements, and detonate the prepared bomb when they cross the Guanhe River."
Duan Xu explained in detail and clearly. Although he would not tell his subordinates about his plans in advance, he answered every question.
Han Lingqiu listened quietly, then raised his eyes to look at Duan Xu and tightened the sword at his waist.
"I have been at the border for many years, but I have never heard of what you said. General, this is your first time in the army, why do you know so much about Danzhi?"
Duan Xu looked at Han Lingqiu's doubtful and determined eyes, he laughed, his tone normal and slow.
"Captain Han, are you doubting me?"