Chapter 1604 IF Scenario: What if Shen Tang woke up earlier (18)
"You scoundrel, you actually lied to me!"
The negotiations between Wei Lou and Shen Tang proceeded very smoothly, and Shen Tang successfully exchanged prisoners for the abandoned city that was considered worthless by the world. No matter how much resentment the warlord leader harbored, he dared not rashly turn against Shen Tang before he had figured out Shen Tang's background—after all, who would dare to provoke an unknown force that could attack you at will?
Wei Lou offered him a way out, and he followed it.
One hand over the person, the other hand over the city.
No sooner had Shen Tang led his troops into the city than the warlord leader left with his personal guards and the remnants of his forces. As long as he had men under his command, rebuilding his base wouldn't be a problem. The most important thing right now was to leave.
Who would have thought that he would be ambushed before he had even gone a few dozen miles?
Arrows rained down from the sky, and enemies emerged from the ground.
Before the warlord's troops could mount an effective counterattack, they were stunned by the swift and fierce attack. It wasn't until his hands were bound behind his back, and he was pushed, hand and foot, before Wei Lou that he finally saw the eloquent scholar who had recently been before him, smiling broadly.
Wei Lou: "Long time no see, it's good to see you again."
The warlord was so angry his brain was throbbing: "Pah!"
I actually believed these literati who say one thing to one person and another to another! Not a single word they uttered was true.
Wei Lou turned his head away with a cool smile, easily dodging the spittle the warlord leader spat at him, and commented in a low voice: "Vulgar."
The warlord leader laughed in fury: "Who do you think you are..."
The next second, a clear slap sounded.
The warlord leader was instantly stunned.
Not only him, but even Ji Mo Cong turned his gaze when he heard the noise.
"you--"
Wei Lou calmly straightened his sleeves, as if he weren't the one who had just stepped forward calmly and slapped a military officer so hard his mouth bled: "What do you mean, 'you'? What do I mean, 'me'? A prisoner should act like a prisoner. If you offend me again—"
His cold gaze slowly moved downwards, a hint of mockery in his eyes.
"That's not something that can be easily dismissed with a slap."
In this era, the idea of "a scholar can be killed but not humiliated" was extremely rare, because everyone was struggling to survive, and so-called integrity was the most useless thing. Wei Lou's act of slapping someone was like a warlord leader trying to spit on his face to humiliate him; he was settling his score on the spot.
The warlord leader was so angry that his back teeth were grinding together.
Wei Lou surveyed the battlefield: "Take those who are still alive back with you."
Ji Mo Cong: "What about those without air?"
In accordance with Wei Lou's usual practice, those who were not breathing or whose injuries were too severe to be saved were simply left on the spot, without any effort being made to clean up the battlefield or bury the bodies. However, since Ji Mo Cong had asked, he hesitated for a moment and changed his mind.
Wei Lou: "Let's dig a hole and burn it."
It's mainly because it's more convenient.
That Ms. Shen often muttered things like how rotting corpses left unattended easily breed diseases, and that drinking untreated water easily attracts insects... I don't know where she got all these fussys from. For 99% of people, having a sip of clear, clean water to drink is a luxury.
She, on the other hand, insisted on drinking boiled and cooled water.
On second thought, Shen Jun's fussiness was not without reason—the Gongxi clan's territory was too rich and materially abundant. What was a natural condition for them, as natural as breathing, was a daydream that ordinary people outside could never achieve in their entire lives.
Shen Jun was like this, and Cong Jun, as one of the high priests, was naturally the same; neither could understand his predicament of carelessly discarding corpses.
"Dig a hole and burn it? That would be perfect."
Now it was Wei Lou's turn to be surprised.
"Don't you think this is cruel, Mr. Cong?"
This is still considered "crushing bones and scattering ashes," no matter how you look at it.
Ji Mo Cong: "Cruel? Even our clansmen are cremated when they die of old age."
It can only be said that Wei Lou's move was a lucky accident.
Ji Mo Cong ordered her men to search through all the corpses; there were dozens of them in total. She gazed at the faces covered in blood, some elderly with deeply lined faces, others dark and thin young men. She sighed softly, her voice filled with pity and unbearable sorrow.
"Let's begin."
The cremation practices of the Gongxi clan are also different from those of the outside world.
Without fuel or burning for hours, the flames that flew from the high priest's sleeve vanished the moment they touched the flesh. Wei Lou wondered if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the corpse's expression had become peaceful, losing its initial ferocity.
Before long, only ashes remained on the spot.
Ji Mo Cong slapped the spot, creating a shallow pit, and then waved his sleeve to gather a gentle breeze that carried the ashes into the pit for burial.
New shoots are visibly sprouting from the barren soil.
"Alright, let's go."
Wei Lou asked curiously, "Flowers blooming from white bones?"
Ji Mo Cong: "No, it's not that. We just use their ashes as nutrients for the trees to grow. They are not members of my clan, so we cannot entrust our souls to them. However, the vitality of the green plants can cleanse their resentment. Once the resentment dissipates, they can be reincarnated."
"The idea of reincarnation by gods and ghosts is not credible."
He doesn't believe in that stuff at all.
Even if someone slaps evidence right in his face.
Ji Mo Cong did not refute: "If you believe, it exists; if you don't believe, it doesn't."
Believe it or not, it's up to you.
She laughed and said, "You just treat it as a psychological comfort."
In truth, Ji Mo Cong didn't quite understand why Wei Lou, this young man, was so resistant to "God," even though his nephew Wei Cheng's current state of being neither dead nor alive clearly proved "His" existence. However, neither her personality nor her beliefs would allow her to actively interfere with others' understanding. He simply laughed off Wei Lou's awkwardness.
Wei Lou: "..."
I stared at the new shoot that grew to the length of a finger and then stopped growing, and remained silent for a long time.
They returned with the prisoners before dawn.
In the dim morning light, the dilapidated city lay like a dying beast, lingering on its deathbed. The captured warlord, who had never expected to return, was filled with anxiety about his future. Just as he was worrying, he heard a constant clanging and banging sound coming from the city walls.
Dozens or even hundreds of strong, dark figures leaped and bounded across the ruined city walls.
I reckon they're rebuilding the city's defenses.
Just then, a lithe figure leaped down from the high wall, heading straight in their direction. The dust kicked up by the iron hooves on the path obscured the approaching figure's appearance until the figure broke through the yellow sand, revealing its true form.
Ji Mo Cong: "Your Highness!"
Luo San: "My lord!"
Wei Lou reluctantly said with a dark face, "Shen Jun."
Shen Tang flipped off the speeding motorcycle, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, the motorcycle braked sharply in perfect unison. The man and the mule chuckled and said, "You're finally back. It's time to eat."
The world is vast, but rice is the most important thing.
The issue of prisoners of war can be discussed after she finishes her meal.
Wei Lou, who was about to be pushed forward by the warlord leader: "..."
Since things have come to this, let's just eat.
The troops that Shen Tang led all rested inside and outside the city walls.
Because Luo Sanwei and his men had gone to ambush the city, she was severely short-handed and did not take over the city's affairs in advance. She only sent a few people into the city to appease the common people, and the rest of them cleaned up the ruins when they had nothing else to do. Just as Shen Tang had predicted, the city was full of ruins that could not be collapsed any further. Except for the central area of the city, which still had some integrity, the rest of the city was in ruins.
Ordinary people don't even have a house to shelter them from the wind and rain.
They lacked not only warm clothes, but even a cloth to cover their bodies.
The men who had gone into the city to pacify the people returned and told Shen Tang that the corners of the city were littered with the corpses of those who had starved or frozen to death. It was estimated that not before the harsh winter arrived, only a few people would remain in the city. Hearing this, Shen Tang felt a pang of regret, regretting that he had gone out to fight empty-handed.
It would be good to have someone bring a few extra changes of clothes.
Judging by the time, and estimating that Wei Lou and his group would be returning soon, Shen Tang had food prepared in advance. Because of the rudimentary logistical conditions, the food couldn't be varied. However, given the current circumstances, being able to have a hot meal was already a blessing; what more could one ask for?
Ji Mo Cong sprinkled seaweed flakes and sesame seeds on her rice.
Shen Tang finished a bucket of rice in no time.
"Huh - it's so hot -"
After eating the hot rice, my limbs felt even warmer.
Shen Tang licked the rice grains off his lips, let out a satisfied sigh, and immediately noticed the stranger who was still bound hand and foot.
Judging from this person's clothing, it's not hard to guess their identity.
The other person was also looking at the group of people who were engrossed in their meal with a complicated expression.
Shen Tang was furious when she thought about the current state of the city.
What are you looking at?
The warlord's gaze became even more subtle.
There's something he can't understand.
Why would these people target my meager savings? They could sift through every inch of land in the city and find hardly anything of value, let alone these buckets of plump, white food. It's like a nouveau riche crossing the entire city to steal garbage from a scavenger.
What's the point?
Warlord leaders are not the type to compromise themselves.
He asked directly.
His tone subtly conveyed a sense of grief, indignation, and grievance.
"You ask why we attacked you? Who told you to stay in the path? If I don't attack you, who else should I attack? It doesn't matter who I attack."
Someone's going to get beaten up anyway.
He was just unlucky to be there and got hit like that.
Warlord leader: "..."
At this moment, he was cursing filth in his heart.
No one expected that Shen Tang would come to attack the camp and besiege the city for such an absurd reason, simply because he was on the northern route.
Shen Tang: "Don't be angry. Even if I didn't hit you this time, I would have hit you sooner or later. It's better to get it over with now than to suffer a long one. While I'm still relatively easy to talk to, you might still be able to save your lives. If it were someone who's tough, I might just kill them."
Warlord leader: "...You're not going to kill me?"
"Given the state of the world, I'm willing to give everyone a chance to turn over a new leaf, and some things can be forgiven." Shen Tang cursed the wretched world inwardly. If we were to strictly pursue these standards, perhaps very few people in this world would even be qualified to live.
"Let bygones be bygones?"
The warlord leader didn't quite understand.
If I did something that angered both heaven and man, or offended this person somewhere, how come I'm suddenly being told that "past offenses will be forgiven"?
Shen Tang: "Of course."
The warlord leader sneered.
"I have no idea where I went wrong."
Shen Tang didn't argue with him. She just smiled slightly, stepped forward, and conjured a long sword, the sharp blade held against the other man's neck.
Ask him, "Do you know you were wrong?"
Warlord leader: "..."
He inappropriately recalled the slap Wei Lou had given him.
I felt angry, anxious, and resentful.
But he wasn't the type to choose death over dishonor, and living a life of ignominy wasn't something to be condemned. A true man knows when to yield and when to stand firm. Feeling the increasing pressure in Shen Tang's hand and his visibly waning patience, he quickly changed his tune.
"I know I was wrong, I know I was wrong."
Shen Tang was finally satisfied, looking at him with a face full of praise for his quick learning ability, and nodded approvingly, saying, "To know one's mistakes and correct them is the greatest virtue."
Warlord leader: "..."
He nearly coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The nouveau riche not only stole his trash, but also beat him up, forcing him to admit he was wrong! Damn it, he had no idea what he had done wrong! The warlord leader cursed while suppressing his anger, showing extreme gentleness towards Shen Tang.
Upon seeing this, Luo San sneered.
Tsk, what a pathetic, begging dog.
Shen Tang ordered the warlord leader to be untied: "Since you know you were wrong, do your best to make amends. There's a lot of work to do these next few days."
Warlord leader: "..."
He understands each word individually, but when they're put together, he's completely lost.
What kind of job?
He soon found out.
Shen Tang moved all the wounded soldiers and prisoners to one place for safekeeping, hoping to temper their temperaments. The rest were scattered and assigned to different teams to do manual labor. The warlord leader was reassured by this, naively believing that Shen Tang was treating them as apprentices.
He said it himself—
The captured prisoners were either used as food or as laborers.
This is the kind of treatment he's familiar with.
Until he saw his former subordinates serving their shifts, each receiving a generous portion of food. Although the food wasn't as refined as what Shen Tang and the others ate, it was all steaming hot! It wasn't raw, spoiled, or rotten; it was fresh, hot, sweet, and clean... He tried to rummage through it, hoping to find a few familiar pieces of red meat, but he couldn't find any.
even--
These foods don't even taste like stale grain.
He could tell it was new grain just by tasting it.
The warlord leader looked blankly at the ruins in the city.
Before he settled here, the place was already so rotten and dilapidated that even rats would shake their heads and leave.
How did these people manage to scavenge the new grain? If they scavenge it, why would they generously provide such precious food to them? If it wasn't scavenge but was brought with them by the army, they didn't bring any supply wagons.
Where is the food, enough to feed over a thousand people, stored?
There were so many mysteries that he couldn't figure them out.
Wei Lou scoffed, "With a brain like yours, you shouldn't even think about it."
Don't force yourself to use organs that don't exist.
Warlord leader: "..."
The next day, a convoy arrived outside the city.
The car was packed full, and the tire tracks were quite deep.
This is enough to illustrate the weight of the items in the car.
Just as he was getting excited and thinking about how to have someone devour this caravan so he could curry favor with Shen Tang, he saw Wei Lou gracefully descend from the city wall and talk to a burly man who was completely covered up.
Warlord leader: "...They're actually the same group."
He observed secretly.
Wei Lou and the burly man entered the city. The warlord leader heard the burly man sighing, "I didn't expect that Shen Jun and my uncle would have made a profit in just one trip. When we received the news that we needed winter clothing, we thought you had encountered some troublesome enemy who was good at manipulating the weather."
Wei Lou sneered: "Him?"
Wei Cheng looked at the ruins within the city and asked, "Is there any need to repair this?"
Since it's in such a dilapidated state, we might as well bury the ruins and rebuild it, or take the remaining few cats and dogs with us.
It's definitely more cost-effective than rebuilding on the original site.
Wei Lou rolled his eyes in a barely noticeable way.
Her tone was tinged with resentment: "She wants it fixed, what can you do about it?"
(σ)σ:*☆
(End of this chapter)
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