That night, it was dark and windy. The territory was mostly plains, and the wind howled as it passed by.
Flags fluttered atop the watchtower, and soldiers changing shifts stood motionless, red-tasseled spears in hand.
All the tents were asleep, with only occasional soldiers patrolling the area around the camp in formation, torches in hand.
In the trench, a barrier was moved aside, and two people cautiously peeked out. They had been hiding there for most of the day, well hidden since training ended at dusk.
Now, the time to act has finally come.
After the patrol video disappeared, the two men climbed out of the ditch, buried themselves in knee-high grass, and crawled towards the river.
With the arrival of the rainy season, the stars and moon are obscured by dark clouds, making it almost impossible to see what is happening on the ground. Even if lanterns are lit and torches are burning on the watchtowers, they can only illuminate a small area.
They successfully submerged in the water, swam to the other side of the river, then chug and climbed ashore, continuing to crawl through the grass.
Once they had climbed to a safe distance, they stood up and ran towards the back of a hill.
The sentry on the watchtower seemed to have heard a noise: "What's that sound?"
Another sentry looked around carefully: "It could be a rat, or it could be a snake. It's not unusual this time of year."
With such tight security and patrols, no one could possibly escape on their own.
The two soldiers ran behind the hill, felt a sense of relief, and sat down on the ground, panting heavily.
"Finally safe. They were really on guard. It was so hard to find an opportunity like this."
Another person said, "Have you memorized all those formations? When we get to the villagers' homes, we'll have to draw them out before the carrier pigeons take them away."
"Don't worry, with daily training, how could she not remember? Damn, this princess is really something, she can easily conjure up a formation. I can't even imagine how destructive it would be on the battlefield."
The first person was a little silent.
"We'll be punished for doing this, won't we? We're citizens of the Great Swamp Kingdom, and the group leader has treated us well, yet we've become lackeys of another country because of bribes. What if we end up without descendants—"
"That's enough. Stop saying such discouraging things. One intelligence report is worth a thousand taels of silver. If we do this a few more times, our family will never have to worry about money for generations. We have our own families and our own families. We're just thinking a little more about our own families. If a person doesn't look out for himself, he'll be punished by heaven and earth. What's wrong with that?"
"How long are we going to do this? If this continues, there's bound to be a risk of being discovered eventually."
"Five or six times is enough. This is the third time. If we do two more, our family will have saved up five thousand taels. We won't do anything so risky anymore. We'll stay in the army camp. It'll be impressive if we can become a junior soldier someday. As long as you perform well here, you'll have a chance."
After resting for a while, the two made up their minds and continued on their way.
“The princess did not expect that there is a great demand for mail in our camp. Many villagers raise pigeons. As long as we find a carrier pigeon that is heading north and it lands there, we can change carrier pigeons and routes and receive letters there.”
“What’s the use of just guarding the exits? Pigeons fly into the sky. Even if you block off everything, there will still be a loophole.”
To be on the safe side, the two did not choose the nearest village with carrier pigeons, but bypassed several villages and went to a more distant one.
The night was dark when someone knocked on Old Li's door.
"Who is it? It's the middle of the night." A groggy voice came from inside the house.
"Old Li, we are soldiers from the camp, here to mail a letter."
"Sending a letter so late." Old Li put on his clothes and muttered to himself, "Should we prepare writing materials?"
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