Chapter 47 The Forty-Seventh Rebirth
The moment the dagger pierced the skin, Zuo Qinghou grabbed the third brother's arm. The middle-aged man's arm was quite strong. He didn't expect that the man covered in holes could still struggle in his death throes. He was startled, but then found that he couldn't break free.
The strong men behind him hurriedly pulled him back, but his arm seemed to be attached to Zuo Qinghou's hand and wouldn't budge.
Suddenly, Zuo Qinghou spoke, his hoarse voice mixed with blood, spraying into everyone's ears: "Fan Qi is the one I took down."
Seeing that the person who should have been dead had spoken, the people behind panicked and hurriedly pushed forward, trying to crush Zuo Qinghou to death with a little more force. But the people in front, starting with the third brother's arm, one after another, instantly turned into mummies, like withered branches. When the people behind, who did not know what was going on, pushed them, they were all crushed into dust.
By the time the people behind reacted, it was too late to pull their hands out; they too were turned into mummies. Fortunately, the people behind were actually backing away, leaving behind several intact mummies.
Just moments before, Zuo Qinghou was covered in holes, but now he was radiant. Not only were his wounds invisible, but even the fine lines around his eyes were gone. His already striking appearance was now almost otherworldly, rivaling that of Qi Lingjun.
However, Zuo Qinghou had no time to care about her appearance. She kicked the bloodstained farm tools to the ground and opened the granary door. Looking at the rice piled up only two people high, Zuo Qinghou didn't feel cheated. She turned around and kicked open the partition door.
The gate crashed to the ground, instantly killing the person behind it who had heard the noise and was reporting the incident.
Zuo Qinghou returned to the banquet, looked at the elders and his close friends, poured a cup of wine, but still felt it wasn't enough, so he put it down, picked up the wine jar and poured it over the head of the elders who were already stunned.
Although his family was afraid, they knew that they would die if they didn't fight, so they grabbed candlesticks and fought back fiercely.
Zuo Qinghou swung an empty wine jar, which shattered into pieces on the head of the first person. The fragments then killed the rest one by one. It was fast, accurate and ruthless. Even the elder didn't see it clearly before a group of people had already fallen to the ground.
Zuo Qinghou waded through the blood, pulled up a chair, sat down next to the elder, glanced at the two handsome men clinging to the table like quails, and laughed, "Kid, you're quite the player. Giving me people you've already used, how despicable am I in your eyes?"
"You...you brat! You brat!" With all his relatives dead before his eyes and all his clansmen lying in ambush likely having met with misfortune as well, the elder knew he couldn't escape. Although his legs were trembling with fear and anger were tearing at his nerves, he still cursed without any restraint.
Zuo Qinghou patted the elder's wrinkled face with the hilt of the dagger that had just killed her and laughed, "Kid, I'm 120 or 130 years old this year. Didn't your parents teach you to respect your elders?"
One hundred and twenty or thirty years old, yet so young. Suddenly, stale memories were unlocked, and the elder thought of the female general from decades ago who had almost brought the enemy to their doorstep. No, she wasn't that female general; she was… she was…
"Golden Cavalry Captain!" the elder suddenly exclaimed in alarm, calling out her former name as if he had followed her in the army decades ago.
Zuo Qinghou didn't remember killing him, but upon hearing the name, his eyes lit up with surprise. He chatted on like an old friend reunited, "You remember me? I just randomly picked a name back then, Jinmai. That's what the old soldiers used to call me. Most of them died after that. How did you know?"
The soldiers accompanying him at that time never killed innocent people indiscriminately. When he was robbed of his grain, it was even a passing soldier who helped him retrieve it. At that time, Jinmai was sitting on his horse. He lashed the man who robbed him with his whip and angrily said, "What kind of skill is it to rob a scholar? If you're so capable, rob your army grandfather's grain too."
But he was never grateful; they were there to plunder food and land, taking even more food from his country.
Driven by anger and fear, the elder trembled even more violently, his beard shaking. He said, "Since you have such ability, why haven't you destroyed the Kingdom of Wu yet? What conspiracy do you have? Do you want to toy with and kill all the people of Wu?"
"I heard you're a scholar, you've really read a bunch of pedantic books. I alone can destroy the entire Wu Kingdom? How do you defend the city? How do you appoint officials? How do you settle the people? Your brain..." Zuo Qinghou couldn't think of a suitable adjective. She pointed to her brain and made a face that was hard to describe.
He thought the man was of the same generation, but it turned out he was an old fogey. Zuo Qinghou really didn't want to talk to such a fool anymore, so he turned and left.
"You're not going to kill me?" the person behind me asked in a trembling voice.
"Hey, what's the rush?" Zuo Qinghou chuckled, as if joking with an old friend. "Anyway, I'm going to massacre the city."
The soldier tasked with handling the corpses cowered, too afraid to approach. He had been ordered to deal with the bodies the previous night, and the sight of the eerie, mummified corpses filling the house had terrified him so much that he hadn't slept a wink all night. With so many bodies left from the silent massacre that had occurred overnight, he needed to ask for instructions on how to proceed.
In truth, the soldiers held Zuo Qinghou in more respect than fear; after all, if it weren't for her, they would all have already drunk the poisoned wine and perished. The spy who sent the message was easily exposed and tied to a pigsty, fed alive to the pigs. But such ruthless methods, coupled with the fact that the elderly, women, and children were all included in the massacre, were undeniably chilling.
The soldier encouraged himself several times before he finally mustered the courage to go in and, with his head down, poured out the whole story.
"Afraid of me?" A gentle female voice came from above, and the soldier was indeed a little intimidated, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He shook his head and said, "General, you are valiant. You saw through the treacherous schemes of the common people all by yourself. This is something we soldiers can only dream of."
The woman laughed and said, "If you're not afraid, I'll look up and answer you."
The general was ruthless to the enemy, but lenient and generous to his own people. The soldier gritted his teeth and looked up at the general sitting in the center.
The woman's long hair cascaded down her shoulders and onto the carpet. Her stunningly beautiful face showed no signs of the hardships of military life, let alone the life-or-death struggle she had just experienced the night before.
The soldier was momentarily stunned. After regaining his senses, he stammered, "I just wanted to ask what should be done with those corpses."
"Burn them into compost and bury them in the ground. That way, their flesh and blood will have a proper end, repaying the kindness of eating grains." Such philosophical words, spoken by Zuo Qinghou, who ordered the massacre of the city last night, are truly chilling.
The soldier agreed, and as he was leaving, Zuo Qinghou tossed him a stack of silk face towels, saying, "The smoke and dust from the burning are heavy, so tell the soldiers to take care of themselves. The battles to come will be even tougher, so don't let yourselves get knocked out by the smoke."
Holding the face towel that only officials and nobles could afford, the soldier was filled with mixed feelings. Finally, he solemnly put the face towel into his pocket and said respectfully, "Thank you, General. Please take care of yourself."
"...Hmm." It landed softly.
That night, Zuo Qinghou wandered alone to the wounded soldiers' camp. She first shared her inexhaustible life force with several dying soldiers. Seeing that their lives were hanging by a thread, she chatted with the soldiers for a while.
Under the cover of night, Zuo Qinghou walked to the back of the mountain and buried his hand in the soil. Before long, tiny sprouts emerged from the soil and spread across the entire hillside like a flood.
She reverted to her previous appearance, as if some of her vitality had been drained away, and she was no longer as radiant as before. With a flick of her finger, the nearest bud instantly sprouted and grew, then its vibrant red blossoms burst into bloom.
In just a few years, all the farmland and open spaces will be planted with red flowers, and human desires will make the red flowers grow more and more, and grow faster and faster.
As she lay on the tender buds of the Crimson Flower, she suddenly remembered when she had just brought the Crimson Flower back. She had been busy all day, but she didn't dare to lie on the newly planted Crimson Flower. Instead, she lay on the ridge of the field, imagining how this flower could be exchanged for so much money.
The thought of the bright red flowers being exchanged for golden wheat and glittering silver made her feel like she had done a tremendous good deed, the kind that would make future generations kowtow three times when they mentioned her. That way, Jiang Linzhi would have something to be proud of, and she wouldn't have to be called a "mud monkey" anymore.
She no longer has to plant flowers one by one, but she is much more tired than before.
As he pondered, the wound on his back began to ache faintly. Zuo Qinghou raised his arm, pressed his forearm against his eyes, and closed them to rest.
Before she could even rest properly, Jiang Jinyi's gyrfalcon flew into her hand. The smoke from the burning corpses cast a somber glow on the moonlight. She returned to her tent with the letter. The form of address she saw made her extremely uncomfortable:
To my elder sister:
Everything is normal at the border. Our main force is tied down and unable to reinforce the southwest in the coming days. Sister, you can focus on conquering new territories without worry. Furthermore, Sister's brilliant strategy of exchanging gold for grain has left the enemy short of supplies and struggling to continue. I'm just truly worried about Sister's health. I captured a few bottles of traditional Chinese medicine for treating heart disease; please take care of yourself. There's also a bunch of white flowers; they smelled quite nice when I passed by…
Before the letter was even fully unfolded and the signature was even visible, Zuo Qinghou closed the envelope, set aside the dried flowers inside, and untied the bundle from the gyrfalcon's back, tossing it aside as well. He tossed a piece of raw pork to the gyrfalcon, saying, "Your master is really crazy, making you carry such a heavy load. Aren't you afraid of exhausting yourself?"
The gyrfalcon didn't understand, made a couple of cooing sounds, and then began to tear at the meat with its legs and beak, devouring it with gusto. One piece wasn't enough, so the gyrfalcon tilted its head and looked at Zuo Qinghou.
Zuo Qinghou sighed helplessly, tossed it another piece of meat, and said, "Blurring public and private matters, acting on emotions, it's true what they say, like mother, like son."
The gyrfalcon, of course, couldn't understand. It tilted its head and cooed twice more. Seeing that there was no more meat, it flew to the roof beam.
Left with no other option, Zuo Qinghou picked up her pen and wrote a letter to Jiang Jinyi. She had intended to use Jiang Jinyi as cover in order to launch a surprise attack on southwestern Wu. Her target had always been Shu; once they had Shu, they would no longer be threatened by food shortages.
With gold and food, we can support our soldiers and civilians, and live a little longer.
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