Chapter 21 Comrades
It was unknown how long passed, perhaps just a moment, or perhaps as long as a century. Shen Zijie seized a tiny flaw in the opponent's attack, and despite enduring the excruciating pain of the opponent's blade hitting his shoulder armor, he thrust the curled blade in his hand like a venomous snake, fiercely piercing the gap in the armor under the Scarred Leader's ribs!
Hot blood gushed out, splashing all over Shen Zijie's head and face.
The scarred leader howled like a beast, staggered backward, and his throat was pierced by Cui Junji, who had been assisting him.
The Xiongnu's elite offensive was temporarily halted. Shen Zijie leaned on his sword, panting heavily, a piercing pain in his shoulder blade. He looked up. The rain of arrows continued to pour down from the city walls. The soldiers and civilians within the city walls used their flesh and blood to resist the influx of enemies, and men fell every moment.
But the gap was finally temporarily blocked! The Huns' offensive was like a tide hitting a reef, and their momentum was stalled.
Cui Junji leaned back against him and took a breath for a while. His face was stained with blood, but his eyes were surprisingly bright.
He held tightly in his hand a mud-stained leather quiver. The quiver was of ordinary style, no different from those used by ordinary Xiongnu soldiers, but Cui Junji's fingers were tightly gripping an inconspicuous hidden buckle at the bottom of the quiver.
"Brother Chen!" He spoke in a hurried voice, with an unsuppressible heaviness, "Look at this!" He used the tip of the knife to pry open the secret button, and inside was a piece of thin silk that was folded very small and soaked with sweat and spots of dark red blood!
Shen Zijie's heart was shocked. He grabbed the thin silk and, with the flickering firelight from the top of the city wall, he could barely make out the densely packed tiny characters on it.
The writing was powerful and strong, definitely not something the Huns could have written! The content was even more shocking! It clearly marked the rotation times for the various beacon towers surrounding Yunzhong City, the secret codes for the hidden paths through Yingchoujian, and even several weak points in the city's defenses at the north gate!
There was no name at the end, only a faint mark that Cui Junji could not mistake—a phoenix-like emblem drawn with special ink! It was the secret seal of the Eastern Palace's Chancellery!
A chill, more biting than the coldest wind outside the Great Wall, instantly froze Shen Zijie's limbs and bones. He suddenly raised his head and looked at Cui Junji, whose eyes were filled with the same shock and coldness.
No words are needed, the answer is obvious.
The origin of this traitor, the traitor who betrayed the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Xunyang City, was actually in the capital, in the crown prince who was second only to the emperor and above everyone else - His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!
"What he wants is not a city," Cui Junji's voice was hoarse and low, with the coldness of a young man from an aristocratic family who understands power struggles, "What he wants is the military power of the entire northern border! Use it as a bargaining chip to intimidate the aristocratic families in the Central Plains!" The last trace of the reserve and the consideration of staying out of the affairs of a young man from an aristocratic family in his eyes was completely extinguished, leaving only the anger of betrayal and the cold murderous intent.
Shen Zijie clenched the thin silk tightly, his knuckles turned white due to the force, and the thin silk paper was almost crushed by him.
Every word on that piece of paper was like a red-hot iron, burning his palms and even more so his heart. How could he not know? He knew it too well. But when he was actually there, in the middle of it, he felt only anger.
The sounds of fighting below the city, the wails of the dying, and the sharp sounds of weapons clashing seemed to be separated by a thick layer of frosted glass, becoming blurred and distant.
Only Cui Junji's icy words, like poisoned ice spikes, repeatedly pierced his eardrums: "What he wants is the military power of the entire northern clan! Use this as a bargaining chip to intimidate the Central Plains families!"
The prince's ambition is to use the bones of soldiers at the border as stepping stones!
"Evidence!" Shen Zijie suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot, his voice hoarse as sandpaper. "A secret order isn't enough! It's not enough to bring down the Eastern Palace!" He pointed at the Xiongnu army that was retreating like a tide below the city and regrouping in the distance. "The old thief, Chanyu, must have something more conclusive! Something that can nail him to death!"
Cui Junji's gaze passed over the chaotic city walls, casting a shadowy glare against the twilight of dawn. The flickering bonfires within the camp resembled the eyes of dormant beasts. He was silent for a moment, a silence brief yet heavy as iron. When he spoke again, his voice was unusually calm, a calm so unnerving it made one's heart tremble: "I'll get it."
"Are you crazy?!" Shen Zijie grabbed his arm with such force that it almost broke his bones. "That's Longtan Tiger Xue! It's a life-or-death situation!"
Cui Junji's lips curled up in a faint smile, carrying a hint of the inherent arrogance of a child from an aristocratic family and a moment of near-mad determination. "How can you get a tiger cub without training? The Cui family of Qinghe has never produced a coward. Besides..." He glanced at the piles of corpses and tattered flags below the city. He thought about all the years he had spent trying to get close to and please a puppet, only to have his plans fall apart. "This blood debt must be paid for by someone."
He paused and lowered his voice so that only Shen Zijie could hear it, "If I can't come back... Brother Shen, this thing will be the last spark." He stuffed the blood-soaked silk back into Shen Zijie's hand and pressed it hard.
Shen Zijie saw the burning, desperate fire in Cui Junji's eyes and knew that further persuasion was useless. His throat rolled, and finally he could only squeeze out two words from between his teeth: "Live!"
Cui Junji didn't answer. He quickly took off his blood-stained brocade robe, revealing a tattered fur coat he had prepared long ago, the same one worn by a fallen Xiongnu soldier. He then picked up a blood-stained felt hat from the corpse of a Xiongnu soldier who had just been carried down and haphazardly put it on his head.
Finally, he grabbed a scimitar commonly used by the Huns and smeared a few handfuls of blood-mixed mud on his face and body. After doing all this, he gave Shen Zijie one last look, his eyes complex and difficult to understand, with entrustment, farewell, and a hint of almost tragic calmness.
Then, he turned around suddenly, like a slippery loach, and while the attention of the defenders on the city wall was drawn to the enemy troops regrouping in the distance, he slid down silently through a collapsed gap in the low wall, and his figure quickly disappeared in the pile of corpses and the thick smoke below the city.
Shen Zijie stared intently at the smoke until the figure completely melted into the darkness. His palms, clutching the thin silk, were wet with sweat, and his heart pounded heavily in his chest. He took a deep breath, suppressing his surging anxiety. He turned abruptly, roaring like a wounded lone wolf: "Reform the defenses! Roll logs and rocks! Prepare kerosene! Show these beasts how strong the bones of Xunyang City are!"
The next two days and two nights were the longest and bloodiest ordeal of Shen Zijie's ten years of garrisoning the border. Like sharks smelling blood, the Huns attacked the crumbling Xunyang City in wave after wave.
The gap opened by the traitor became a meat grinder where the two sides fought over and over again, with corpses piling up like mountains.
Shen Zijie was like a reef, pinned to the most dangerous spot on the city wall. He changed swords one after another, his armor covered in knife and arrow holes. The wound on his shoulder from the mace had long been numb, but it was repeatedly soaked with sweat and blood, and every swing of his arm caused a tearing pain. He couldn't remember how many enemies he had cut down, but he only remembered that the sticky blood under his feet was getting thicker and thicker, so slippery that it made him feel uneasy.
Every time he repelled the enemy's attack, in the brief interval, his bloodshot eyes would involuntarily turn to the silent Hun camp outside the city.
The endless expanse of tents, like a vast cemetery, swallowed Cui Junji's figure, leaving him in complete silence. Hope, like a candle in the wind, flickered on the edge of the abyss of despair, ready to go out at any moment.
Fatigue, like an icy tide, repeatedly tried to drown his resolve. The only things that sustained him, besides the city behind him and the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians within, were the blood-soaked silk in his hand and Cui Junji's resolute glance before he vanished into the smoke of gunpowder.
Before dawn on the third day, at the darkest hour, the Huns launched their fiercest offensive since the start of the war. The blaring of trumpets was like the wail of ghosts, and countless torches illuminated the city walls as bright as day. Fearless Hun soldiers, threatened by the whips and blades of their supervisors, stepped on the corpses of their comrades, frantically climbed the ladders like ants, and pounded on the city gates.
Shen Zijie charged back and forth from the top of the city walls, his roars hoarse, and every swing of his sword felt like the weight of a thousand pounds on his arm. The city defenses were in critical condition, logs and rocks were exhausted, and the kerosene was almost depleted. The soldiers were exhausted to the point of exhaustion, relying solely on their last bit of willpower to hold on.
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