As soon as Lin Dan returned to the camp, Ding Mujie, who had rushed over, hugged her tightly. He patted her back repeatedly, then pulled away from her, carefully looked at her bloodstained face, and said in a hoarse voice, "You've lost weight."
Lin Dan pushed him away, her tone slightly awkward: "Besides being thin, don't you see anything else?"
"Is there anything else wrong?" Ding Mujie immediately showed an anxious expression.
"Everything is wrong," Lin Dan pulled at his clothes that were already stiff and clumping, and said bluntly, "I haven't taken a shower for more than a month. I sleep with the horses every day. Can't you smell it? I'm rotten all over."
Ding Mujie's worried expression froze for a moment, and after a while he smiled helplessly, "Someone come," he shouted, "Go and boil a bucket of hot water for General Lin!"
"Wait," Lin Dan raised his hand and emphasized, "Burn a few more barrels. One barrel may not be enough!"
The summoned soldier ran away with excitement on his face, as if he had received a very important mission. Ding Mujie and Li Xian couldn't help laughing. Lin Dan is still as straightforward and cute as ever. She had been gone for more than a month, but to them it seemed as if ten years had passed.
"Come to my tent after taking a shower, we'll sit down and have a good chat." Li Xian said in a hoarse voice.
"I'll come too." Ding Mujie looked at him meaningfully.
"I'll come too, and bring some good wine and food." The other generals, who had not yet walked far, responded when they heard this. They finally got General Lin back, so shouldn't they celebrate properly?
Li Xian was upset, but seeing that Lin Dan agreed, he didn't want to chase her away, and cursed inwardly, "What a tactless person."
After washing up, Lin Dan entered the big tent and began to recount her experiences over the past month: "...After leaving the village, I wanted to go back to the camp, but then I thought: Even if I come back, what can I do? The 300,000 Western Expedition Army is no match for the 800,000 Five Barbarians. What can I change alone? If I had thousands of troops, I would surely be able to defeat the Five Barbarians."
Having said that, Lin Dan raised the wine jug and drank deeply. Her jade-colored face was flushed with two blushes, making her look particularly bright, and her eyes were like the stars in the sky, dazzling and incomparable. The soldiers looked at her with burning eyes, carefully hiding their admiration. This is their leader and the person they respect the most. How can they be rude to her?
Li Xian took a quick look at her, then lowered his head to drink.
Ding Mujie, however, seemed to be fine. He just leaned on the couch and looked at Lin Dan with a smile. He didn't dare to blaspheme her, nor did he dare to get close to her, but he didn't dare to let her out of his sight.
Lin Dan finished a pot of wine, wiped his red lips casually, and continued: "When I thought of this, I caught a glimmer of inspiration. I thought that thousands of troops were hard to come by, but on this vast grassland, there were all kinds of wild horses. So I wandered around the grassland, and successively collected five or six groups of wild horses. I picked out the strongest one from the five or six leading horses and tamed it, and killed the others. In this way, this group of wild horses gathered here and there obeyed my orders. As long as I controlled the leading horse, it was equivalent to strangling the necks of all the horses. I told them to go east, and they would never dare to go west. On the way back, I met several groups of Hun scouts, but I hid under the belly of the horse, and they couldn't see me at all..."
Lin Dan has always been taciturn and rarely speaks so much. But today was very different. Today she had won a battle, drank some strong liquor, and had a strong feeling in her heart that needed to be expressed, so she talked more. She had no idea how charming her free and unrestrained appearance was when her cheeks were blushing, her eyes were bright, and she was talking eloquently.
Everyone looked at her intently. When she laughed, they laughed too. When she drank, they raised their glasses and drank too. Being able to stay with her was the happiest and luckiest thing in the world. In the end, everyone was drunk, but Lin Dan was only slightly tipsy. After putting down his glass, he asked in a deep voice, "Why didn't Lin Qing come?"
Ding Mujie deliberately avoided everyone's toasts. He was still sober at this time and said slowly: "He was forced by the old lady to stay in the capital to get married. She said that he would not be allowed to come to the border until his wife was pregnant. Almost all the sons of the Lin family died in the battle, leaving only him. He has to leave a descendant for the Lin family. Speaking of which, you are also old enough to get married."
If he had not avoided Lin Wan's plan when he was reborn, Lin Dan should have become his wife, right? This thought clung to Ding Mujie's mind like a maggot on his tarsal bone, making it difficult for him to let it go. But he was also deeply aware that even if Lin Dan became his wife, he would let their relationship end because of that misunderstanding.
It would be better to be like this now, plain and simple, at least we can still be friends. Thinking of this, Ding Mujie couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly. He originally wanted not to drink and accompany Lin Dan properly and soberly, but now he actually had the urge to get drunk.
Lin Dan leaned back in the chair and said word by word: "I will wear out my golden armor through a hundred battles in the yellow sand, and I will not return until I have defeated the Huns. I will not get married until the Huns are destroyed. The bloodline of the Lin family will be passed on by Lin Qing. Let's not talk about this, let's drink." She filled Ding Mujie's glass of wine, and then picked up the jug and drank it, her movements were extremely free and easy.
Ding Mujie looked at her infatuatedly for a while while she closed her eyes, then he drank the wine in one gulp and said with a smile: "I'll leave the fighting to you, and leave the family lineage to Lin Qing, so that we can each show our strengths."
Seeing him teasing Lin Qing like that, Lin Dan couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Ding Mujie was stunned for a moment. Li Xian, who was lying on the couch, secretly opened one eye and stared at her seldom-revealed smile without blinking. Countless tenderness surged in his heart, but he dared not express it at all. This person is like a towering mountain and also like a gurgling stream. The breeze is her, the ice and snow are her, the bright sun is her, the morning dew is her...all the beauty in the world seems to be concentrated in her. But it is precisely because she is so good that people are afraid to approach her.
Not getting married? Li Xian closed his eyes, and thought with some regret and relief: This is also good...
Ding Mujie turned the wine cup in his hand, his brows slowly relaxed, as if a heavy burden had been relieved.
…………
In the capital city, the emperor, who looked much older, was waiting for reports from the battle at the border. The crown prince and a group of court officials stood outside the palace, not daring to even breathe.
So far, no news has been received from the border, but everyone knows that with the strength of the Wei State, it is impossible to stop the coalition forces of the Five Barbarians. It is almost a foreseeable result that the country's territory will be divided up by the Five Barbarians and the people will be enslaved by them. If these nobles wanted to survive, the best way was to cross the Yangtze River to the south and abandon the north.
"Father, this is the regulations for the Southern Migration. Please take a look." The prince took out a thick memorial.
"Wait a minute." The emperor waved his hand to refuse, his tone sounding a little tired. He didn't want to abandon his subjects and flee unless it was absolutely necessary.
The prince sighed, his face full of helplessness. The officials standing behind him all looked anxious. They wanted to urge the emperor to make a decision as soon as possible, but they did not dare to speak rashly. The officials led by the Ninth Prince all looked determined, as if they were ready to die for their country.
No one thought that Wei could win, so when the battle report came, they were all stunned.
"You, what did you just say?" The emperor held the urgent battle report of 800 miles in his hand, but he did not dare to open it.
The messenger repeated, "Your Majesty, our army has defeated the Five Barbarians. We have now successively recaptured northern Shanxi, northern Shaanxi, Hetao and other places, and have penetrated deeper into the desert to defeat the Xiongnu!"
The emperor then opened the envelope with shaking hands and read it eagerly. At the end, he laughed out loud with ecstasy on his face: "Great, great, great, Lin Dan! It is a blessing for our Great Wei to have such a brave general!"
The princes and court officials sitting below the seats finally came to their senses, but their faces still showed expressions of disbelief. The emperor's old face was now rosy. After reading the battle report, he handed it to the eunuch and said with great joy, "Read it to them!"
The eunuch cleared his throat and recited loudly word by word. Only then did everyone understand what had happened at the border. It turned out that Lin Dan was not dead at all. When the battle was at its most intense, he suddenly led a group of wild horses to appear behind the Five Barbarians Alliance, broke up their formation, trampled their soldiers to death, and took the heads of the leaders of the four tribes alone, completely splitting the Five Barbarians Alliance. Mo Xiao was frightened by her and immediately turned his horse around and fled back to the grassland. On the way, she almost cut off one of his arms, and also injured his shoulder. He bled a lot and didn't know if he could be saved after returning.
After the victory, she encircled and suppressed the remnants of the Five Barbarians in various places on the grassland, and recovered the lost territories one by one. By now, the border has been completely stabilized. This time, Mo Xiao did not dare to submit a letter of peace. Instead, she directly wrote a letter of surrender and ordered a special envoy to take it to the capital to submit to the Wei State.
After the battle report was read, the hall was completely silent. It was a long time before someone shouted out in surprise. Only a few princes had unnatural expressions, but as everyone was celebrating, no one paid any attention to them. The State of Wei was saved, and the ministers did not have to abandon their property and move south, so they were naturally happier than anything else.
The emperor slapped the imperial table hard and pondered, "How should I reward General Lin for taking the heads of the four clan leaders and saving the country from danger?"
At this time, no one impeached Lin Dan for stealing the general position as a woman, not to mention her crime of murdering her biological father. They hurriedly echoed: "She deserves a reward, a big reward!" If General Lin was disheartened again, he would leave the border and return to Beijing to get married. Then who would intimidate the barbarians outside the Great Wall? You know, in the vast desert, in addition to the Five Barbarians, there are also the Mongols and the Jin people. They are also ambitious and ready to make moves, just waiting for the right opportunity to bite the Wei State hard. The seemingly endless grassland is far from being as peaceful as it appears.
The emperor picked up his pen and quickly wrote an imperial edict, directly promoting Lin Dan to the rank of General Dingguo, replacing the old Marshal Lin, and also bestowed her with a first-class title and a fief of 1,000 households. This was unprecedented in the history of the Wei State. In order to win over Lin Dan, the emperor spent a lot of money.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
