1

"The passing water is turbulent, and it gradually disappears into the distant mountains. Where is the mountain going, and the birds know it? The passing water is turbulent, gradually disappearing from the mountains, sometimes there are far away, and there is no return for the years. ”

The song drifted in the cold night wind, but it was drowned out by the snare drums that shook the north wind and the horns that wanted to tear the night sky apart. The fire bolts in the sky were the first to enter the city, and the walls and roofs were dotted for a while, and although the rain did not dry, it did not affect the burning of grease, and the remnants of the night sky were dyed with blood first.

"The passing water draws and draws, and the shore is mangqi. Mang Ke knows me, where is this water? The passing water draws and draws, and the wild mangqi. There is a new mound in the wild, and there is no mangji. ”

Zhong Li quickly rode to the east of the city, and galloped on the east wall along the road. When they came out of the city, they saw that the walls were covered with arrow feathers, and the soldiers, shirtless or armoured, were lying on the side of the battlements with their shields.

Suddenly, I heard someone shouting "lie down", and I saw a cold light on one side. Zhong Li hurriedly hid on the side of the horse, and flew into the city with his ears wiped his ears. The crackling sound sounded close to his ears, and the waistcoat was pierced by several arrows, and although Zhong Li was on the other side, he could also see that the ground was dyed red with dripping blood for a while.

"I'm sorry, good horse, good horse......" Zhong Li sandwiched the horse's flank with his legs, grabbed the saddle with one hand, and reached into the horse's neck armor with the other hand to caress slightly. The rain of arrows was not broken, and the horse trembled heavily from time to time, but it did not groan. Zhong Li was anxious to find a place to go left and right, but the battlement was on the other side of the horse, and he only had a ring knife on his body. Although he is wearing armor, this armor can only withstand the long-range shooting of ordinary bows and arrows, and this vest must be a crossbow if it is worn through.

When he was hesitating, Zhong Li suddenly felt that his whole body was swinging, and his hands and feet were desperately grasping but he was still thrown out. In the air, a black shadow hit the horse's belly, and a cold red light penetrated from the other side, and the whole horse was taken to the wall and climbed down the wall in an instant.

"Bed crossbow!"

Zhong Li didn't have time to marvel, so he was dragged to the edge of the battlement by several nearby soldiers with shields. He didn't have time to ask more, so he hurriedly asked for a shield. It happened that Qin Lang led more than a dozen guards to look for him, so he ran towards the tower together.

"The passing water is long, and the green hills are round. There are wood and stones in the mound, which can block the eastward flow? The passing water is long, rushing around the green hills. The wood and stone are short, and they are all bridges and boats. ”

"Singing?" Under the tower, a few people faintly heard the female voice whispering through the gap in the drum horn, and although the tune was low, it sounded infinitely open and barren. Zhong Li looked up, crossed the layers of log frames with arrows inserted, and sure enough, he saw a dark purple skirt.

"The general has just arrived?" The voice was not like shouting, but it was being heard clearly.

"Come down!" Zhong Li abandoned his shield and jumped up the ladder as he shouted. "How are you up there? It's not like usual these days! As he was shouting, he heard a thunderous sound, and an arrow hit the top of the tower, although it did not pass through, but it lifted half of the roof, and the splashed rafters and thatch sawdust flew into the sky for a while, and they fell one after another, making Zhong Li unable to open his eyes.

"General Danger!" Seeing this, Qin Lang hurriedly pounced and pulled Zhong Li down.

Zhong Li struggled to look up, and saw Gu Yu lying on the top of the tower, leaking out his head and shouting: "At this time, I can't go down, you can't come up, it's better to retreat from the enemy first!" ”

Seeing that Gu Yu was fine, Zhong Li somewhat relieved his heart. Although this command tower is a big tree, but it is built strongly, although the bed crossbow can lift the thatch at the top of the tower, it is difficult to shake the tower body, and the enclosure at the top of the tower can also stand within a dozen arrows. It's just that this tower is still shouldering the mission of passing orders, and now the situation is afraid that no one can go up to the tower.

"You might give me a command?" Zhong Li shouted upward.

"How?"

"Do you see two lanterns, one red and one white, upstairs?"

"Yes." Gu Yu had seen two unlit lanterns placed in the corner of the tower earlier.

"You light it first, hold white in your left hand, red in your right hand, and then watch Qin Lang's movements." After Zhong Li finished shouting, he said to Qin Lang: "You just take the two torches and just teach them to understand." Start with 'fuel throwing'. ”

Gu Yu took out the candle and lit it with a torch, and then inserted the lantern back into the lantern respectively, and then took it to the left and right red to signal to the tower. Qin Lang immediately moved to the front of the tower under the protection of several shields, waving two torches in the only little space facing the sky. After he finished fighting, he saw that Gu Yu still seemed to understand something, so he fought again.

Before he finished reading it for the second time, Gu Yu got up and held the two lanterns high, waving them like more than a dozen watchtowers in the distance according to what he saw. The arrows seemed to hesitate, but now they all came at once, and they couldn't fly on the tower, so they crackled like heavy rain and hit the shields of Zhong Li and the others. Suddenly, a black shadow passed by, and landed in the far end of the city, stirring up a cloud of dust, and then another hit the guardrail of the tower, and saw the entire tower shake off the sawdust and fly in the dim firelight.

"Hold on!" Zhong Li shouted as he annotated the watchtower at the far end.

Gu Yu also knew that he would have to wait for a reply, so he still signaled over and over again. Another arrow hit the base of the tower, and the whole person fell on the fence as if it were about to be shaken out. She desperately defended the lantern, then signaled and let her arrows pass by.

"The passing water is clear, the twilight field is peaceful, and the twilight is when it is gone, it is born of water. The passing water is clear, and the dark field is flat. Born to go to the same place? ”

2

At the beginning of the ugly year, the night was as dark as ink in the sky, and the moonlight and stars that had just been revealed were frightened by the sound of drums and horns and hid back in the clouds. The torches in the city were piled up in three or two, but they could not be illuminated, and the outside of the city was dead black. The torches at the four corners of the watchtower were like fireflies floating in the air, and the watchtowers of the city walls, which were still visible, had disappeared into the darkness intermittently.

Suddenly, something shook in the afterglow, and in the blink of an eye, there was a touch of vermilion and a touch of dull yellow light. The points of light were originally separated, then ascended and merged, and after a pause for a moment, they separated again, and merged again, and so on three times.

"It's the North Second Tower that received it." Qin Lang said to Zhong Li with a hint of tentativeness.

Zhong Li looked at the firelight, and quickly turned his gaze to find the rest of the response, but the darkness remained. "There's a reply, hit it again!" He shouted as he looked up.

The lights above his head were still waving, and from time to time he could shine on the feathers of the arrows that swept by, and the faint singing was still there, as if he wanted to grab a little rhythm in the crackling sound of the arrows. Soon there were lights flickering in the distance, and Zhong Li hurriedly shouted: "The East Fourth Tower is also there!" ”

"Also, the third and fourth towers in the south, the first tower in the east, and the fifth tower in the north......" The red and white firelight began to outline the appearance of leaving the city.

"Ignite!"

After Zhong Li finished saying these two words, he breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned against the battlement, the cold air had soaked into his armor from the cold stone, but the pain in his chest burned like fire, and there was no sign of calming it. He looked at the top of the tower, and the lights flickered again in the night, and in the cracks of the broken wooden fence, the dark red fire reflected by black and purple satin flickered from time to time, and this fire danced in his sight like flying embers.

And this ember ignited the fire.

The scattered arrows flying from the walls of the city and from the top of the towers ignited the fuel piled up in the trenches in an instant, and the black canopy of the sky was dyed red in an instant. The grease and forage were not burned sufficiently due to the dampness, and in a few moments, thick smoke rose from the deep ditch, and the smoke screen formed a high wall into the sky, shrouding the entire eastern part of the city under a red curtain.

Seeing the smoke rising, Zhong Li stood up and left the battlement, and walked steadily towards the ladder of the tower. At this time, although the rain of swords did not stop completely, it seemed to have lost its strength, and it just crackled and fell on the city. Whenever he saw an arrow standing on the wall, he stepped on it, leaving a broken shaft after a creaking.

"Come down." He shouted to the tower, but after a long time he did not respond, he climbed upward.

"General?"

"It doesn't matter." Zhong Li stopped the worried Qin Lang with a look, and then still climbed up steadily with his hands and feet. The hand armor landed firmly on the ladder, and there was a muffled sound of a thump, so that the ladder, which was several feet high, was like a snare drum, beating it to the people under the tower one by one. At this time, there were still stray arrows flying in, but they all seemed to be deliberately circling him, and the bed crossbow also stopped, leaving Qin Lang and the others to send Zhong Li to the top of the tower as if they were paying attention to raising the flag.

When she saw Gu Yu, she turned her back to Zhong Li, holding two lanterns, one red and one white, in both hands, and the lanterns were attached to her skirt to dye the whole piece of silk with a warm yellow light.

"Alright, it's over." As if because of the warm yellow light, Zhong Li's movements on the railing of the tower became soft, but when he removed the red lantern from Gu Yu's slender hand, his armored hand still took some effort.

When his hand touched Zhong Li's cold armor, Gu Yu seemed to come back to his senses.

"You're coming up." The words were so light that they could not be heard, followed by a light smile. "But is there anything else?"

"It's gone."

"The lantern ......"

"Thank you." Zhong Li grabbed Gu Yu's hand that handed the white lantern, interrupted her speech, and then let it go lightly. "Thank you." Again, he said the two words solemnly.

"Thanks for what?" Gu Yu smiled subconsciously and took the lantern back, but slowly retreated to the edge of the fence, and then let out a long breath. "Anyone in this situation has to be like that." She sat down slowly along the fence, the lantern clattering against the floor, and the light of the fire shook a few times. She tilted her head to the post, and the arrows with the thickness of her forearm pierced through the fence a foot, and the cluster of arrows the size of her palm had broken to one side. She stared at the cluster of arrows, and inadvertently reached out her hand, her slender fingers caressing the curled iron blade.

"Don't thank me for any military exploits." She said softly again suddenly.

Zhong Li squatted down, "Of course." ”

3

"It's over?"

There was a commotion in the command tower for a while, and it was Hu Yang who led the team to come over.

"I'm afraid it's just the beginning." Looking at Hu Yang's joyful and innocent expression, Qin Lang sighed and said, "Now it's just that I've avoided the bow and crossbow with smoke, and looking at this situation, I'm afraid I won't give up." ”

"Grandma's, just right, hid for a long time, and taught me to take a few grandchildren to beat their teeth." He didn't care about the next crisis.

"Hu Yang!"

A sudden shout from the tower made him stand up and look up: "General." ”

"Are you on duty on this shift?"

Hu Yang heard the tone of questioning, so his reply seemed less confident. "Yes, it's me."

"Then how do you defend yourself!"

"I, I saw the enemy attacking the city, so I let the crossbowmen fight back, but this black light blinded the fire, I don't know where they are, and there are strong bows and crossbows, and they are suppressed for a while."

"What a strong bow and crossbow, I have less for you in this city?" Hu Yang was listening to Zhong Li's reprimand, when he saw a black shadow flashing in the sky, and something fell straight on the stone slab in front of him, stirring up a spark. It turned out that Zhong Li threw down the bed crossbow arrow on the tower. "Do you still need me to tell you the truth about the difficulty?"

"I ...... It's not ...... first."

"Don't quibble." As soon as Hu Yang wanted to explain something, he saw Qin Lang on the side busy giving him a look. Although he was aggrieved in his heart, he could still understand for a while that Zhong Li was soft or hard, so he had to bow his head and admit his mistake.

Sure enough, Hu Yang softened a little, and although the words from the tower were just as unpleasant, his tone eased a lot. "The walls won't be defended, so I'll go and bring your cavalry."

"Yes."

"By the way," Zhong Li thought of again, "tell them to prepare the 'golden soup'." ”

"Order." When he heard the word "golden soup", the corners of Hu Yang's mouth, who was originally depressed, twitched slightly upward.

A cool breeze rose again, and the smoke screen tilted slightly to the southeast, because there were only three dark red smoke walls rolling up as far as the eye could see, and for a moment I felt that the tall towers and low walls were about to tilt over. Zhong Li unconsciously held on to the railing, watching Hu Yang and the others go away, there was no one else under the tower except Qin Lang and a team of guards waiting for the order, and they were idle for a while, and only the whirring sound of the wind blowing wildfire was left in their ears.

"Why should you?"

When Zhong Li heard the soft woman's voice, he turned around and leaned his back against the wooden fence where the arrows were kept. "Why bother?"

Gu Yu sat in the corner and saw Zhong Li's knowing expression, so he turned his gaze to the more distant canopy behind him. "It's not time to use the agitation method yet, right?"

"How do you know that I'm a radical and not a true qi?"

"You have to take great pains to do things yourself, how can you ask a subordinate who can only use force to do it?" Seeing Zhong Li put on a puzzled look, Gu Yu had no choice but to continue to explain: "I saw that you had already prepared this burning oil and forage on the city wall, and this morning you checked the depth of the water in the trench......

Listening to her analysis clearly, Zhong Li no longer denied it. He pulled out an arrow from the fence and fiddled with it in his hand, and then said to Gu Yu, "It seems that it has been relieved." ”

Gu Yu glanced at the top of the tower, which was half bald with a long arrow, frowned and smiled lightly, and then stood up. "Looks like I'd better be honest."

"Okay? When you enter the city, it's not the same whether you're honest or not. ”

"Then again," Gu Yu suddenly thought of something, so he stared at Zhong Li and asked, "If I hadn't been on it just now, what would you have done?" ”

"Then let Qin Lang climb or crawl along the wall to pass the order, so that it can be delivered." Seeing that she was still frowning and staring at herself, Zhong Li said again: "That's why I said thank you just now." Why, you still think I can calculate that you must be on it, so I deliberately left an empty tower? ”

"No one knows why you left the empty tower," Gu Yu still looked suspicious when he heard this, "I can only think of it as a coincidence, right?" ”

4

The rain inadvertently began to fall again, dripping and dripping wet the quiet city walls. Although the fire in the trench was not affected much, the fuel was damp a little more, and the smoke rose more slowly and thickly than before. As if suppressed by the rain, the smoke began to spread flat, and the strong smell of soaked grass smoke and the smell of unburned animal fat could be smelled from the tower. The outline of the wooden walls out of the city also faded into the fog, leaving only patches of bright yellow from torches and black-brown watchtowers towering from smoke.

"Ahem, didn't you think about this rain before you smoked?" Gu Yu seemed to deliberately use his cough to emphasize the smell of the smoke. Although the rain drifted sporadically, it was full of dampness and cold, so she leaned on the side where Zhong Li had left the top of the tower and guarded the fence next to the entrance of the ladder.

Zhong Li turned his back to her, leaned against the fence on the other side, and looked down at the wall out of the city. "The sky is unpredictable."

"I'll believe you don't understand the truth that fire can help rain?"

"The soldiers are coming to the city, can you estimate these?"

Gu Yu sneered: "This is good, people will have bacon to eat when they enter the city." cough cough cough ......"

"If the girl thinks that the smoke on it will come down, the air in the inner city will be cleaner." Qin Lang's clean and warm timbre interrupted the cold and gloomy tone of the two. Gu Yu turned his head to see that he was holding a torch under the ladder to meet him.

"Eh, if you have the slightest kindness on the part of your lieutenant, you can make people more comfortable." After Gu Yu finished taunting, he saw Zhong Li lower his head and sneered.

"If she wanted to go down, she would have gone down a long time ago, so why are you waiting for you to teach her to pass the message?" Zhong Li's voice was heard everywhere in the quiet out of the city. Gu Yu turned his head and saw Qin Lang put his hand into the iron helmet and scratched it, and then Shanshan walked to the side.

"How do you know I'm willing to suffer this smoke with you?" As she spoke, she spun around and stepped on the ladder with one foot.

Qin Lang looked up and saw a dark purple skirt hanging down, so he was about to pace down the tower again, and as soon as he stepped out of his leg, he saw something planted under his feet in front of him.

"Hidden!" Seeing a straight arrow feather, Qin Lang hurriedly shouted loudly, "Get down!" He shouted, and was pushed back to the wall by the shield-bearers who rushed up.

On the tower, Zhong Li grabbed Gu Yu's only exposed arm, "Come back quickly!" ”

Before Gu Yu could react, she felt that her feet were already hanging in the air, so Zhong Li then put her arm on her shoulder, and the other hand passed under her armpit, grabbed the wide, close-fitting strap from her waist, and carried it back to the top of the tower with a light lift.

It wasn't until his feet touched the floor that Gu Yu realized that he had been copied back from outside the tower by Zhong Li, and the feeling of pulling the back of his right hand also came a step later.

"Let's stay honest for now, I'm back." Zhong Li said and threw his gaze out of the city again.

Gu Yu didn't say anything more this time, just sat back in his position, aimlessly scanning the guards who were sticking to the wall.