As the three rushed to the outside of the courtyard, their minds were filled with thoughts. The only thing that could cause panic among the people was a sudden attack by the enemy. However, with such heavy rain and the city gates heavily guarded, how could the sentries on the city tower not notice if the enemy suddenly attacked in broad daylight? And if they did notice, how could they not sound the horn?

As soon as the three of them stepped out of the mansion, they were met with a foul, rotten smell. Mu Yan sniffed hard and was about to say something when he heard an old woman on the street push open her door and yell, "Where is this smell of death coming from? Whose grave has been dug up?"

The smell of death? The three frowned. Wasn't this the smell of death? Moreover, they hadn't been able to smell it in the courtyard, but now that they were on the street, the smell was even stronger.

People were running around the streets, covering their noses with their sleeves. Mu Yan grabbed an old man and asked, "Sir, what happened?"

The old man looked terrified, pointed to the river that ran through the city not far away, and said in a trembling voice, "Something happened over there, the river is full of dead bodies."

After the old man finished speaking, he seemed to recall the terrifying and disgusting scene he had just witnessed, and he ran to the wall to the side and vomited painfully.

Several people walked hurriedly towards the river with solemn expressions. When they arrived at the river, the scene before them horrified them—the wide river was covered with countless corpses of soldiers!

Some of these corpses were dressed in the military uniforms of the Dongyue Kingdom, while others were dressed in the clothes of ordinary people, but their deaths were equally tragic and horrific.

They looked like they had been treated brutally; many of them had missing skin and limbs, with no part of their bodies intact.

Mu Jin looked at everything in the river before her, and her face instantly turned pale.

After the city fell, they set up traps upstream of the river to prevent any living spies from entering the city by diving.

However, they never expected that Su Yuntian would find so many dead people from somewhere and throw them into the river, causing the Liancheng River to be polluted and turn black!

The appearance of these gruesome corpses on the river not only caused great panic among the people of Liancheng, but also deprived the entire city of its only source of water.

Mu Yan covered his mouth and nose, and cursed loudly, "Is this all Su Yuntian is capable of? Digging up these dead people to build his empire! Doesn't the current Dongyue army have any fighting skills?"

The stench of corpses permeated the river, causing Mu Jin's head to throb with pain. She frowned deeply, her heart filled with worry.

With so many corpses floating in the river, not only is the river severely polluted, but the wells in the homes of the townspeople are also connected to this river. If these corpses are not dealt with and the water source is not purified as soon as possible, the consequences of a plague would be unimaginable!

The people of Dongyue suffered from the ravages of war for years, making their lives extremely difficult.

Last year's nationwide epidemic and snowstorm claimed countless lives.

Before everyone could recover from their grief, Su Yuntian, after ascending the throne, disregarded the people's hardship and instead increased taxes to launch a campaign against Southern Shu. This left the already impoverished lower classes with nowhere to turn, so the most abundant thing in Eastern Yue was the dead.

Su Yi stood by the riverbank, his clear black and white eyes fixed on the gruesome corpses floating on the water, a chilling aura emanating from his dark pupils. "Su Yuntian's move is clearly an attempt to ruin Liancheng!"

Mu Yan frowned as he looked at the two of them and said, "Then what should we do?"

Before Su Yi could make a decision, a bugle call suddenly sounded outside the city walls: "Enemy troops are attacking—"

Hearing the noise, several people ran to the city wall. Under the heavy rain, a dark mass of the Dongyue army was approaching.

None of them expected that Su Yuntian, who had been beaten into submission the night before, would launch such a swift counterattack against Nan Shu.

The Dongyue army set up camp a hundred feet away from the city wall of Liancheng. They were not in a hurry to attack the city, as if they knew all along that even if they did not shed a single arrow or morsel, Nan Shu would abandon Liancheng. They did not come to fight, but to watch Nan Shu make a fool of itself.

Su Yi looked at the approaching Dongyue army with a gloomy gaze, and finally, as if he had made a great decision, he said: "Take all the people of Liancheng and retreat to Liangcheng!"

Mu Jin turned back and angrily said to Su Yi, "Are we just going to hand over this city that we finally managed to capture so easily?!"

“Ah Jin, not to mention the Dongyue army is attacking now, there are also corpses along the river that may be carrying the plague. We can no longer stay in Liancheng.”

"But this is the home of the people of Liancheng for generations!"

Mu Yan stepped forward and, together with Su Yi, comforted Mu Jin, saying, "Ah Jin, taking a step back is only temporary. Once we destroy Dongyue, we will always come back to help the people of Liancheng rebuild their homes."

Mu Jin understood this perfectly well. Indeed, Liancheng's water source was already polluted. Even if they stayed to fight, without a clean water supply, they would be unable to fight Dongyue. Liancheng was destined to be an abandoned city.

But she was truly unwilling to accept it. The capture of two cities had greatly boosted the morale of the Southern Shu, and how could she be satisfied with retreating without a fight?

Mu Jin stood on the city wall, glaring angrily at the Eastern Yue army in front of her, while behind her, the Southern Shu soldiers were going door to door informing the people of Liancheng to evacuate through another city gate.

Mu Jin stood on the city wall for a long time, unwilling to leave, until a rain of arrows came from the Dongyue army.

Su Yi stepped in front of Mu Jin and used his sword to cleave the arrows away.

"Ah Jin! Let's go!" No matter how unwilling Mu Jin was, she turned around and ran down the city wall with Su Yi.

At Su Yi's whistle, Yinglong galloped from the street corner. By this time, most of the city's residents had already evacuated. The two rode together on one horse and sped towards the south gate.

The evacuation of the entire city was not easy. Although the Southern Shu left 10,000 soldiers in Liancheng to buy time for the people to evacuate, there were still many people on the way, and the mountain roads were very difficult to travel due to the rain. Even though the army horses were given to the elderly, weak, women and children, there were still many problems on the way.

The group walked to a valley, and Mu Yanlai decided to take shelter from the rain and spend the night there.

Mu Jin objected, saying, "We will only leave about 10,000 men to hold Liancheng against Su Yuntian's 100,000-strong army to buy time for this retreat. If those 10,000 soldiers cannot hold out, then when Su Yuntian's army catches up, these defenseless civilians will have no way to survive."

“But Ah Jin, with the heavy rain all night and the darkness in the mountains, if any people were to take a single misstep in this valley, they would have no chance of survival.”

That's a fact. Mu Jin remained silent. "Distribute the grain to the people first, and then set off after resting for half an hour."

The Mu siblings looked at Su Yi, who said, "Have someone prepare some long hemp ropes. Everyone should hold one and walk with it. Soldiers will lead the way. Even if one person slips, the others can pull them up."

Everyone knew perfectly well that they couldn't stay here for long and had to quicken their pace to return to Liangcheng as soon as possible.