Just as Yun Zhe was racking his brains to the point of near baldness, he received a letter from Serena. The letter brought him good news: Duke Sald would be leading a large army in pursuit. However, Yun Zhe needed to hold off Belvado's forces.
At least ten days.
Seeing the final count in the letter, Yun Zhe fell into deep thought. This time, they didn't need to eliminate the enemy; they only needed to slow their return home. This task seemed much simpler, but for Yun Zhe's current troops, it was still far too difficult. Moreover, it was clear that Serena intended to accompany Duke Sald to reap the rewards of Belvado and had no intention of sending him a single soldier.
Yun Zhe lay on the hard, cold ground, gazing at the glittering Milky Way in the sky and listening to the lively noise coming from the campfire. He suddenly felt that as long as he didn't have to think about these annoying problems, life was still pretty good.
"Hey Jack, why is the meat you gave me yesterday already rotten? You didn't use some old, dried meat to pay the bet, did you?"
A distant shout shattered Yun Zhe's leisurely moment. Yun Zhe suddenly felt annoyed; gambling was something he had explicitly forbidden, so how could anyone be so bold as to continue gambling?
Yun Zhe turned around on the ground and crawled towards the direction of the conversation. In the shadows beside the campfire, two figures were huddled together furtively. Yun Zhe frowned, then stood up and walked over.
"Brother Mark, Brother Mark, this really isn't bad meat. I just brought it out of the castle a few days ago."
"Hmph, bullshit, how could it smell bad when it was just brought out?"
A figure suddenly stood up, as if about to strike someone.
Yun Zhe coughed suddenly, and both figures froze. Then, as if on the same wavelength, they pounced on Yun Zhe together.
Yun Zhe was shocked. Were these two going to kill him to silence him? Yun Zhe naturally wouldn't tolerate it and subdued them both in a few moves.
After recognizing Yun Zhe as the person they were dealing with, the two turned ashen-faced and momentarily forgot to speak.
Yun Zhe's actions attracted the attention of the soldiers by the campfire, who rushed over to see what was wrong. After handing the two men over to the soldiers, Yun Zhe was about to leave when a foul stench suddenly caught his attention.
It was that spoiled jerky.
Yun Zhe kicked the jerky with his foot. "Stop!" he shouted as he turned around.
The soldiers and the two men being escorted stopped in their tracks. Yun Zhe approached the tall Mark and asked in a low, serious voice, "Where did you get this jerky?"
Mark was so terrified by what had happened tonight that he couldn't even open his mouth. Yun Zhe stared at the tall, disheveled man, carefully searching his memory.
It turns out that the jerky was actually good, but it was just part of Mark's scheme to blackmail Jack. He had already made jerky from the meat of an animal he had caught and buried it in the ground. After Jack lost the jerky, he switched it with the real thing and dug it up to blackmail Jack into giving him another piece of jerky.
After learning the whole story, Yun Zhe waved for them to take the two away before Mark could say anything.
"Lock them up. We'll meet tomorrow morning, and I will hold a public trial for their crimes!" Yun Zhe said, his tone not angry, but rather slightly excited.
Yun Zhe had an idea on how to slow down the enemy's advance.
Two days later, at dawn, the Belvedere army, which had marched to Ordorf, joined forces with the troops that remained there. They planned to rest for a day before continuing their arduous march the next day.
Faced with the Belvedere army, whose numbers had recovered, Leonrenlang decisively abandoned the idea of fleeing across the river. He rallied his troops, preparing for a potentially fierce attack.
The two armies faced off across the river once more, but this time their thoughts and feelings were vastly different. Belvaldo, eager to return home, had sent troops under the guise of building a bridge to cross the river, but this was merely a smokescreen to deceive the enemy. Moreover, seeing the enemy remain entrenched even after seeing through their scheme, the Belvalid army felt a growing sense of contempt. Even if Leon dared to lead an attack, they were neither afraid nor intimidated.
The Leonrenlang troops, however, preferred to avoid trouble. The situation was clear: they had lost the war, and now the enemy had returned—either to eliminate them or to go home. In that case, they might as well show them they couldn't handle and get rid of them quickly. They'd had enough of war!
While bluffing, he showed no fighting spirit. If nothing unexpected happened, Belvaldo would swagger away the next day, while Leon would gather his troops and watch him leave.
However, the next morning, many soldiers in the Belvaldo camp suddenly developed diarrhea. Many of them had been suffering from diarrhea since the previous night, and some of the weaker soldiers were so exhausted that they collapsed into bed and had no strength left to walk.
The same situation occurred at Leon's camp on the other side of the river. Leon himself was among the group most severely affected by diarrhea.
The suddenness of the event led Yom to suspect that the other party had used some new kind of magic. However, after careful investigation, he found no trace of magic. In other words, what they encountered this time might not be a man-made disaster, but a natural one.
Since it wasn't the other side's doing, Yom was somewhat relieved. However, at least a third of the army was suffering from diarrhea, significantly slowing the army's march. For Belvedere's army, which was now carrying a valuable treasure, this slowdown would introduce even more unpredictable and potentially worse problems. This was indeed Yom's greater concern.
The Belvedere army finally set off, but due to severe diarrhea, the entire army could not form a normal troop formation. Scattered along the long road were countless Belvedere soldiers suffering from diarrhea. Frequent bouts of diarrhea had caused them to detach from their units, eventually losing all contact with them, and they could only trudge on with any nearby troops or fellow sufferers they could find.
Yom stood on a small hill, his brow furrowed as he looked at the sparsely packed troops behind his army. Today's march was less than half the speed of yesterday, and they had no formation whatsoever. If an enemy cavalry unit were to charge out now, they would likely face annihilation.
But seeing the soldiers' faces contorted in pain from diarrhea, Yom could no longer contain his anger. He recalled the wars he had fought before. He seemed to have never encountered anything like this before.
Wait a minute, Yom paused for a moment. He remembered seeing several archers with their buttocks naked after a battle. The smell around them was awful, and the reason they weren't wearing trousers seemed to be because of persistent diarrhea. At that time, the war was urgent, and the army was moving quickly, so they had no choice but to do this to ensure they could keep up with the main force.
Yom frowned, wondering if he really wanted to issue such an order.
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