Although what happened before the Wooden Hedgehog Pass was tragic, it was still the norm for more than 500 years.

Although Rong Di generally starts a large-scale war with the Qin State every ten years or so, it is not all peaceful in the past ten years.

The war has always been a flesh and blood collision, never to the death, the two sides will always catch some prisoners after the war, plus those Rong Di who accidentally ran to the Qin State were occasionally caught by the border sergeants, which made some simple exchanges.

The people of Shenzhou, where Rong Di is located, cannot go, because in addition to Rong Di's savagery, there are mysterious lesions and fierce attacks of unknown species.

Although they have been fighting each other for more than 500 years, there are indeed very few real exchanges, and even for more than 500 years, the Qin State has never taken the initiative to attack even once.

Most of the knowledge of Rong Di comes from the confessions of the captives and the exploration of the Black Ice Platform. This basic information is not a secret, and Zhu Lihua knows some of it during his five years in the General Administration.

Rong Di calls himself the Xia Kingdom, and it is also organized, the Rong people often live according to tribes, these tribes are large or small, the population is more or less, they chase water and grass, herd cattle and sheep, and those diseased places that make the people of Shenzhou smell and change their color do not seem to have much impact on them, Rong and Di are just another name for the north and south, in fact, there is no essential difference.

No one knows who the supreme leader of Rong Di is, and whether the number of Rong Di is large or small. The captives of Rong Di were questioned and tortured, and they preached in a few words:

"Every year after the invasion of Rongdi, each tribe selects new leaders from among the surviving men after the war to replace the original leaders who died in battle. Then the tribes competed with each other, until two years before the invasion of the pass, after layers of selection, the big leader was elected in Longcheng, three hundred miles west of Xiaoguan.

After the big boss was elected, he set out from Longcheng and then traveled 200 miles west to enter the royal court to be sealed, and after receiving the seal, he came back and called Shan Yu, and added the name of the tribe before the name.

Shan Yu can lead the Rongdi tribe warriors gathered before the invasion to start the war to conquer the Shenzhou barrier, Shan Yu every ten years, if he does not die after the war, he can enter the Dragon City to serve, but Shan Yu is by no means the highest leader of Rongdi, but no one knows who it is. ”

Yu Lihua secretly felt that the Iron Eagle swordsman named Jiang Weizhe might have obtained some major clues, otherwise he would not have plotted against the Rong people for the first time since the founding of the Qin Dynasty, but these questions may never be answered, leaving only a faint uneasiness in his heart.

The cold wind seemed to be blowing a little harder, and it was pitch black outside the gate, and Zhu Lihua exhaled into his hands, and finally moved for the first time. Beneath him was a dangerous pass that protected the Jade Sky Lord, and there were a hundred and ten brothers behind him.

……

Three months later. In a mountain forest outside the gate, there was a bird cry of "coo, coo".

Although it is early spring, the main peaks of the majestic Sumeru Mountains are still covered with snow, and the west side of the Sumeru Mountains is less than the east side, so more forests are composed of spruce, pine, and pine, and the straight trunks of these coniferous forests reach into the sky, although there are no weeds under the trees, but there are still thick dead branches and thin leaves and dense pine towers.

A rush of footsteps made a few foraging squirrels hurry up the tree.

"Lord Baijiang, there is no obstacle here." Zhu Lihua looked at Liu He beside him and nodded. This is the first time that Lihua has gone out of the customs to investigate since he came to the Qimu Pass for more than three months, which is also the duty of the guards of the city, but Lihua is a scholar, and his subordinates tried hard to persuade him for a long time before he left the pass, but Lihua still insisted on going, because he wanted to see the extraterritorial land with his own eyes.

There were scouts in front of him who were already scouting, and the two cuckoo calls just now were sent back by the scouts.

Scouts, also known as night non-collection, are the standing reconnaissance troops of the Qin army, and the quality and experience of individual sergeants are quite rich, and they are often served by standing soldiers, and few people can meet the requirements of scouts if they are even more stroked.

This time, Lihua brought twenty people with him, fifteen of these twenty people were An Xuzhi's subordinates, and the remaining five people, except for Liu He, were carefully selected from the people brought by Lihua.

In addition, the twenty-one people of Lihua and his party had left the Qimu Pass for more than 20 miles at this time, although it was only more than 20 miles, but for the mountain road, they also walked for half a day.

Zhu Lihua looked back and looked up, and the Qimu Pass was still within reach, as if it was right in front of him, and the black Xuanwu flag on the upper floor of the pass was waving in the wind. He turned around and beckoned Liu He and the others to continue walking down the mountain.

After walking less than two miles, the pine forest gradually became dense, the dead branches and leaves under the feet made the ground unusually soft, and the dense woods blocked the sunlight, which greatly affected everyone's vision, and the surrounding temperature also dropped suddenly.

Zhu Lihua and the others struggled to walk on the soft soil, and no one said a word, only the gasps of the crowd could be heard.

Suddenly, I only heard three rapid bird calls in front of me, "cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo". Everyone stopped and looked in the direction from which the sound came, but it was covered by towering trees, and the light was like dusk, so how could they see ahead.

One of the members of the team crawled on the ground, ignoring the dead branches and thorns, and pressed his ears tightly to the surface, listening carefully to the sound that came.

Everyone looked at him nervously, and after a while, they saw the man jump up and shout "run", and then pulled the person next to him to turn around and run, and the rest of the people were stunned for a moment and immediately turned around and ran.

Years of fighting side by side have allowed the elite of these soldiers to cooperate tacitly, and in the face of unknown dangers, they choose to trust each other intuitively without asking at all.

At this moment, everyone hurried backwards, hoping to get out of the forest as soon as possible. As he ran, he heard only a few low roars behind him, and it was obvious that many quadrupeds could be heard chasing after him.

At this time, the sergeant next to Zhu Lihua suddenly stopped running, and the rest of the sergeants, including the five people brought by Lu Lihua, also slowly stopped.

After everyone stopped, they immediately divided into six people and climbed a few straight pine trees, climbed to a certain height, held the trunk with their legs to stabilize their bodies, and quickly took off their bows from their backs to mount arrows.

The other seven people were back to back, forming a circle, surrounding Zhu Lihua and the five guards in the middle, and each of them raised their long ges and looked around nervously.

Strangely, the things that were still chasing them behind them also stopped, hiding in the darkness without making a sound, except for a faint fishy smell in the oncoming wind.

Lu Lihua silently pulled out the saber on his body, and looked at the sergeant who was pulling him to run, he talked with the sergeants for a long time, and knew that this person's surname was Li, and no one knew his real name, in fact, the sergeant himself didn't know, because his father and mother didn't know Ding, so he didn't have a name, because he was the eldest in the family, so he called him Li Ji since he was a child.

Li Ji has been extremely brave and brave since he was stationed at Qimu Pass with An Xu, and has made many great achievements, and is deeply trusted by An Xu, and can be said to be the first fierce general under An Xu's account.

This time, when Lihua came out of Guan An Xuzhi, he sent Li Ji to follow Lihua, and told him several times to protect Lihua.

At this moment, although Li Ji was also very nervous looking at the depths of the woods, it could be clearly seen that he was full of fighting spirit, just staring into the distance with burning eyes.

Zhu Lihua whispered: "Li Shichang, do you know what it is?" Li Ji still looked ahead after hearing Lihua's question, and replied softly and coldly: "Sumeru wolf." ”

Hearing the words "Sumeru wolf", Yu Lihua couldn't help but be shocked, although he had never seen Sumeru wolf, he had also heard of it.

This Sumeru wolf only haunts the Sumeru Mountains, coming and going like the wind, and the reason why it is called Sumeru wolf is not only because of Mount Meru, but also because their size is much larger than that of wolves in the mainland, and the adult Sumeru wolf is often twice the size of the wolf in the mainland.

They are ferocious by nature, whether they are hungry or not, and they must kill people and animals whenever they encounter them. Unlike other xenomorphic creatures, most of which live in the mountains and are not close to people, the Sumeru wolf is not too limited by geography, and the counties close to the Sumeru Mountains in the Qin State have repeatedly experienced large-scale invasions of Sumeru wolves, which are called "wolf plagues".

When the wolf disaster occurred, hundreds or thousands of Sumeru wolves ran around the densely populated villages, killing people and plundering animals without leaving them alive.

I only heard Li Ji continue: "Lord Baijiang, it seems that this Sumeru wolf has been hungry for a winter and came out to forage, listen to the sound within a hundred, I will resist for a while, and then wait for the opportunity to retreat." ”

At this time, Lu Lihua calmed down a little from the panic, quickly sorted out his thoughts, and asked, "Li Shichang, what about Tang Yuan and the Da Niu brothers?" ”

Li Ji glanced sideways at Zhu Lihua slightly, and there was a hint of gratitude in his eyes, and said: "Although this Sumeru wolf is fast and strong, it can't go up the tree after all, Tang Yuan and Da Niu should be fine." ”

Li Ji replied, but said in his heart, this hundred generals are in danger, and they don't think about their own safety first, the first thing they think of is their brother, and from this point of view, he is also a person worthy of trust.

Originally, because Lihua was a nobleman, the mustard was slightly reduced.

And Zhu Lihua also knew at this time that although he was familiar with military books, he was indeed extremely inexperienced in actual combat when he actually went to the front line, and these elite soldiers knew exactly how to deal with the current crisis.

simply instructed Li Ji to give him full authority to command the affairs here, and he also obeyed Li Ji's arrangement, so as not to cause chaos.

Although the details are detailed, the time is only in the corner.

In the dark woods as far as everyone could see, pairs of green glows appeared one after another, and when they looked at it, they didn't know how many they were.

Zhu Lihua wanted to shout that Li Ji and the others should go up the tree to avoid it, but he thought that the number of bows and arrows on everyone's bodies was not large, and looking at the appearance of Li Ji and the others, he didn't plan to go up the tree, so he knew that climbing the tree or not a good strategy did not squeak.

The longer the confrontation lasts, the greater the mental torture of the person, and Zhu Lihua obviously feels that his back and forehead are oozing down with fine sweat, and the confrontation for a quarter of an hour seems to have stood still.

Under such pressure, he could hear the sound of the teeth of a guard brought by him beside him, and he stretched out his hand to grab the trembling hand of the guard, only to feel that his cold palms were full of cold sweat.

He grinned at the guard.

After the guard saw Lihua's smile, he was obviously upright, and he also smiled at Lihua.

At this time, a snow-white Sumeru wolf slowly walked out in the dark woods opposite, and everyone looked at it intently, only to see the two blue eyes of the Sumeru wolf looking at the people on the opposite side as coldly as electricity, the body was the size of a scalper, and the huge mouth whispered and made a "buzzing" sound, and the lips were closed one by one, revealing the white teeth.

Suddenly, Li Ji shouted: "This is the time." Six arrows from the tree shot at the Sumeru wolf almost simultaneously. Lihua was about to see how the wolf reacted, but was immediately grabbed by Li Ji's hand and ran back, and the other ten people quickly followed Li Jili Hua and ran backwards.

Li Ji shouted and shouted: "Don't look back, just run forward." Hearing this, Lihua and the others didn't say a word, just galloped forward, running and running, Lihua found that there were no wolves chasing behind, so he wanted to turn his head to look at the situation behind, but Li Ji seemed to have insight into Lihua's thoughts, so he said to Lihua urgently: "Don't look backwards to Lord Baijiang." With that, he pulled Zhu Lihua and accelerated forward.

After running for about a quarter of an hour, Zhu Lihua and the others had really reached the end of the strong crossbow and could no longer run, and when they found that there was a cliff in front of them, they stopped.

After stopping, he looked back and saw wolves everywhere, but he couldn't even find the woods. When escaping, just find some flat places or go straight ahead, and even the way back to the wooden hedgehog pass will disappear.

Li Li Hua looked at the same panting companions around him, some people had already fallen on the ground motionless, and Li Ji was already sweating profusely when he stood beside Li Hua, and found that Li Li Hua was looking at him, so he hurriedly explained to Li Hua: "Lord Baijiang, the white Sumeru wolf king is very rare, and the estimated number of wolves is far greater than expected, if I turn back when I run, maybe the wolf king will chase and kill us when he sees it, if he doesn't turn back, those wolves may not catch up." ”

"So those six brothers became bait, and you abandoned the car to protect the handsome?" Zhu Lihua looked coldly at Li Ji, whose face was gradually reddening, and asked.

Although Li Lihua was annoyed by Li Ji's approach and worried about the lives of the six people, he calmed down and felt that Li Ji had done a good job, at least most of them still ran out alive.

But it was also the first time he led troops out of the customs, and he lost so many brothers, and he couldn't accept it emotionally for a while.

Li Ji suddenly knelt in front of Lihua and bowed his head and said: "Lord Baijiang, I have tied my head to the belt of my trousers since I waited for the border, and the brothers have been killed and injured one after another over the years, and this life and death have long been taken lightly.......

Zhu Lihua was shocked physically and mentally, he understood what Li Ji said, if there is no companion to report back to the customs and die, it can only be counted as a missing sergeant, not only has no military merits, but also the family does not get any reward, isn't it just a vain death.

What's more, Li Ji did not say that he left his companions and ran away to protect himself, and he was afraid of embarrassing himself.

In all fairness, when encountering such a group of Sumeru wolves, the number is too different, and you can't beat it, and you can't run it, so it's already a good ending.

Zhu Lihua leaned down and pulled Li Ji up, and asked, "Chief Li Shi, is there a chance that the brothers will survive?" Li Ji shook his head and lowered his head.

Also, there are many ants and can bite elephants to death, and the Sumeru wolf is huge and running like a fly.

Zhu Lihua patted Li Ji on the shoulder, didn't continue to ask, picked up the three-foot sword and walked back to the way he was running.

When everyone saw that the Lord was going back, they were taken aback and chased after them, Li Ji and Liu He stopped Lu Lihua at the same time, and Liu He asked, "Where are you going?" ”

Zhu Lihua pulled away the arms of the two and said as he walked, "Save people." ”

After the two of them were stunned when they heard this, Liu He didn't make a sound and just silently followed behind him, Li Ji looked at his back, and the two of them also stomped their feet and chased after them, and the rest of the people saw that the Lord would not be afraid of death, and they hesitated for a moment and got up and chased after them.

Thirteen people turned around and walked back to the woods along the way they came, everyone was no longer as fearful, Zhu Lihua and Li Ji Liuhe and others discussed countermeasures while walking, but after discussing and discussing, they all felt that it was a dead end anyway, so Li Ji simply proposed to rush in.

After about half an hour, they finally arrived at the woods, and the people watched the woods from afar, but strangely did not notice or hear the wolves or the fighting.

Zhu Lihua asked Li Ji to lead the two of them into the woods to investigate the situation, and soon after, they saw Li Ji and the three of them come out of the forest and wave to them.

When he and the others went into the woods, they found that the wolves and the six brothers were gone. Curiously, they found the pine trees that the six brothers had climbed, and found no blood in their vicinity.

Zhu Lihua looked at Li Ji, and Li Ji also shook his head and said that he didn't know what the situation was.

Zhu Lihua groaned slightly, and said to the rest of the brothers: "It is still early, and the eight brothers are behind us in prison, and the bones are not left. ”

"I'm waiting to go!" When everyone saw that the Lord was going to make a decision, they were immediately arrogant and responded in unison.

Zhu Lihua didn't say much, turned around and led everyone to the depths of the forest.

Everyone walked for about an hour, and then they heard the sound of running water in the distance, Li Ji stepped forward and said to Zhu Lihua: "Lord Baijiang, the smell of the Sumeru wolf is already very weak, and there is the sound of running water in front, if the Sumeru wolf crosses the river and then looks for it according to the smell, it will be more difficult." Lord Baijiang, we are already about thirty or forty miles away from the Qimu Pass, and it is estimated that it will be dark in less than two hours, so it is better for us to go back first and look for it again tomorrow morning. ”

After listening to Li Ji's words, he also felt that he didn't know what would happen if he returned to the pass in the dark, but he was a little unwilling to return at this moment, so he hesitated and said to Li Ji: "Let's go to the river to explore first, and if we can't find it again, we will return." ”

Li Ji sighed. He is not cold-blooded, but after several wars, he does look at life and death a little lightly, but he is also very moved to see Lu Lihua sparing no effort to find the missing soldiers. Isn't it the same for me in the past, isn't it just to hope that your lord will love the soldier like a son?

The group hurried towards the river, and as they went, they found that the light in the woods became brighter and brighter, and the trees became scarcer, and they knew without much thought that the woods had come to an end.

Suddenly, a sergeant shouted, "Look, there's someone over there." ”

Everyone looked for prestige, and when they really saw a few people standing by the river, they couldn't hide their excitement and wanted to run to the river. But he was suddenly pulled by Li Ji, and Li Lihua looked at Li Ji in shock, only to see him shake his head, as if he understood something.

Li Ji's people seemed to have known the result, and walked up without saying a word, carrying the bones of those people to the ground. When she approached, she saw six corpses, their internal organs had been hollowed out, and only their shells remained.

When he was young, he read some books about Sumeru wolves, which recorded that Sumeru wolves were quite intelligent, and they killed their prey not only for food, but also for the sake of killing, because the book recorded that the Sumeru wolf would torture and kill its prey.

The situation in front of him confirmed what the book said, but he didn't understand why the six soldiers had arrived here unscathed before they were tortured and killed, because there were no traces of blood or drag along the way.

But no matter what, the six brothers who were with him half a day ago have now turned into cold bones, which makes Lu Lihua sad and angry.

He couldn't forget the words of An Xu's cry three months ago, the warriors who shouted at his mother and jumped off the fire in the Qimu Pass, and the walking corpse-like soul he saw when he first arrived at the Qimu Pass.

In the past three months, he tried and made a lot of efforts to make the more than 20 remaining soldiers slowly recover from the continuous training, construction work, carrying food outside Longde, and teaching their own sergeant combat skills, so that their faces gradually smiled.

But in one afternoon, there were six fewer people, and they were sacrificed when they led the team, which made Lu Lihua extremely uncomfortable and self-blamed, and he also seemed to experience An Xuzhi's original pain.

Li Ji, Liu He and others watched Zhu Lihua and a sergeant carrying a corpse at the head of the return to the customs, and the back looked particularly lonely in the afterglow of the setting sun.

As the sun set, Lihua and the others returned to the Muqi Pass, and all the people in the pass stood on the four sides of the pass, witnessing the ragged generals and other thirteen people slowly entering the pass.

Lihua carried the corpse to An Xuzhi, who was at the gate, handed him the stretcher in his hand, and said softly: "General An Bai, Lili is incompetent, bury them for me, there is no face in Lili to say goodbye." With that, he slowly walked into his room in the building.