In addition to cultivation, Ma Xiao also slowly learned some news in the past few days, several battalions that held the east city gate did suffer heavy casualties as Lao Wang said, his Tongzi battalion, the general Zhang Tong was killed in battle, and several deputy generals under him fell into chaos and disappeared, and the soldiers were only less than a quarter of the original, and some of the soldiers and miscellaneous servants who were familiar with each other in the school field and the gang room in the past few months were mostly buried in the snow, and no one restrained them, the veteran Wei Chao was slightly injured, and the female soldier Black Yaksha was depressed every day because she failed to save General Zhang's life, and often wailed alone. Since it is difficult to escape, Ma Xiao, who has experienced the catastrophe, has become a selfish, indifferent and ruthless person like everyone else, if he is with more than a dozen people, only one steamed bun left, he will not hesitate to eat it himself, if someone robs, it is a red knife in, a white knife out, the creed of life is to give priority to ensure that you live, other people's pain, other people's hunger has nothing to do with me, not to mention that you will miss and care about others, but at one time to die so many colleagues who have just met, it is inevitably embarrassing.

On the other hand, in order to consolidate the city defense, Ning Zongrui, the defender of Taizhou City, forcibly recruited the people in the city to enlist in the army after the war, and transferred some soldiers and officers from several other battalions to form a new army in the east of the city, called the Gucheng Army, with more than 3,000 people under its jurisdiction, guarding the east of the city, led by his deputy general Zhu Dacheng, and Ma Xiao, the surviving soldiers were naturally incorporated into the Gucheng Army.

On this day, the dark clouds dispersed, the sky finally cleared, Taizhou City under the sun was covered in silver, and the depths of the heavy snow could be the waist of adults, Ma Xiao received the first military order from the Gucheng camp: clean up the snow inside and outside the city, and clean up all the corpses left behind. Cleaning up the corpses in the winter is cumbersome but necessary, otherwise when the next spring comes, everything will recover, and the corpses left outside will become the source of the plague.

In the morning of the same day, as soon as the auspicious time arrived, the east city gate that had been blocked since the siege was finally opened again, seven or eight hundred soldiers and miscellaneous servants scattered out of the city, and the craftsmen seized the time to repair the city gate, because of the continuous north wind in the past few days, the outside of the city became a rolling snowfield, and the white snow slope of several zhang high was piled up under the root of the city wall, and hundreds of people with cotton hats held shovels and pickaxes rummaged in the snowdrift to find corpses, regardless of the howling of the north wind, and the dry was in full swing.

The corpse in the snow is still easy to find, the snow on the ground has long been blown by the wind and left a thin and hard layer, people can walk on the snow again, there is a white snow mound where there are remains, after finding it, carefully dig it out to identify which side of the soldier, and then drag it back to the city wall and divide it into two piles together, ready to be cremated and buried.

There was a short figure in the busy crowd, wearing a black cotton hat, steaming all over, squatting on a frozen body that had just been dug up rummaging around, and finally found a hidden pocket in the cuff, pulled out a letter and a silver hairpin, the short figure stopped his movements, looked around with a ghostly head, and then put the letter back, and stuffed the silver hairpin into a cloth bag and covered it in his arms.

This person is none other than Ma Xiao, he has dragged out more than a dozen in the morning, most of them are Chujun's, a small number are Peijun's, and he is not in a hurry to dig up the remains, first rummaging for the gold, silver and jade on the remains, and stuffing them into the small bags that have been prepared long ago, looking at the heavy bag, obviously a lot of gains, but he didn't find any decent weapons, all of them were the most ordinary swords, guns, swords, and halberds, all of which were handed over to the recorder for confiscation, in fact, the vast majority of people were the same as him, cleaning up the corpse was fake, rummaging through things was real, and from time to time someone fought to grab the things on the dead。

After rummaging for a few more in a row, Ma Xiao tied several bodies together with a rope and dragged them on the snow towards the city wall, although his body was sweating, but his little face and hands exposed to the cold wind were blown red.

Ma Xiaogang came to the city wall near the city gate to see a team of light horsemen, the appearance of these people attracted the attention of all the soldiers and miscellaneous servants outside the city gate, most of them stopped their work and looked at the city gate, only to see that in front of the row were eight young men wearing mink fur jackets, five men and three women, different colors of clothing, very gorgeous, all about fifteen or sixteen years old, the men were all lofty, the women were all extraordinary, really the dragon and phoenix among the people, all of them rode the horses of the gods, came out of the city, talked and laughed, did not care about the eyes of the people around them, followed by more than 20 followers, with bows and crossbows and arrows, ropes, steel forks and weapons, it looks like they are going out hunting.

Several of the young people have seen it, among which the first is the third son of Ning Zongrui, named Ning Junshan, and two teenagers are also children of families in the city, one is Zhu Chengzhi, the son of Zhu Dacheng, a general of the new army, and the other is Fu Liusheng, the son of Fu Songhai, a general of the new army.

"Haha! I don't go out for half a month, I'm about to ascend to heaven, open the city gate today, I'll take you out to relax, I heard that this Taizhou can hunt pheasants and elk in winter, and if you're lucky, we can also hunt black bears and tigers" Ning Junshan, who was walking in front of everyone, was in a good mood, turned around and said to the few teenagers behind, he looked the oldest among these people, and the rest of the people also gathered around him.

A girl in a red cloak behind her replied: "Third Brother Ning, today is all up to your arrangement, I haven't been out and walked around for a while, trapped in the city every day, like a finch tied to my legs, I can't fly if I want to, it's very irritable, if you can really hunt tigers, I will call you Third Brother Tiger in the future."

Several women all giggled when they heard this, this smile was like three plum blossoms blooming in the snow, causing the surrounding soldiers and miscellaneous servants to be distracted, but Ma Xiaoxin made a sentence "After all, it is not as good as that one" and no longer stopped to watch, and after sending the corpse to the city wall, he suddenly remembered his own Yanling knife, which was hammered by a meteor that day, and the knife should have fallen near the city gate.

Ma Xiao followed the record and reported the number and walked to the vicinity of the city gate with his own memory, since the octopus signed a symbiosis contract with himself, Ma Xiao's memory is better than before, looking through the previous memories is like looking through a book, it is very clear.

Coming to the vicinity of the city gate, Ma Xiao began to re-enact the process of rushing out of the city that day, and recalled little by little how many steps he walked in which direction, as if he was in the battlefield of grinding meat again, and finally determined a general range, so he picked up a thin shovel and dug it up in the snow, and after a while, he found a black knife handle in the snow, and the blade was pressed under the body of a Chu army, Ma Xiao happily moved the corpse, and took out a long knife, wiped off the blood stains and soil stuck to the knife body in three or two times, and a scimitar with fish scale patterns flashed a cold light in the winter sun, perhaps because of the cold weather, There was actually a colored markings on the body of this steel knife, and the old thing was restored, Ma Xiaoxi was overjoyed, it was really thanks to the person who pressed on the knife, otherwise such a good weapon would have been picked up long ago.

"Yo! what a handsome scimitar" A gentle girl's voice sounded behind her, but it turned out to be a group of people out of the city who walked closer, Ma Xiao turned around and grinned at the purple-clothed girl who spoke, took out a coarse cloth from his arms, and was about to wrap the knife.

"Eh, boy, show me the knife you picked up" Ning Junshan, who was riding on a horse, asked Ma Xiao for a knife, and stretched out a hand, waiting for Ma Xiao to send the knife over.

Ma Xiaoyi hugged his fists, "I'm sorry everyone, this knife was not picked up here, it was confiscated by me from the thief before, and it was accidentally left here a few days ago to defend the city, and I came to retrieve it today, so I won't bother you Yaxing" After speaking, the knife was also wrapped, and he turned around and tied the corpse's feet with a rope when he turned his back.

Seeing that Ma Xiao didn't hand over the knife, Ning Junshan was stunned, he had never met such an unknown soldier, and he actually let himself lose face in front of several girls, and he was very unhappy in his heart, and before he could speak, Zhu Chengzhi behind him said angrily, "Hmph! It's really nonsense, what you picked up is picked up, and you said that you paid it yourself, and you are not ashamed to say it, just with your lowly handyman, you can also pay this good Yanling knife" The other teenagers all echoed together, "That's it!" "You really dare to say big things"

Seeing that he didn't answer, Zhu Chengzhi continued, "If you know each other, send the knife respectfully, otherwise I will invite you to eat a whip and teach you to open the skin and flesh."

Now Ma Xiao's face is as thick as a city wall, and others say that he speaks big, but he doesn't care in his heart, and continues to tie knots on the corpse's body.

Zhu Chengzhi wanted to say more but was stopped by Ning Junshan next to him, Ning Junshan looked at Ma Xingxin, who was busy on the ground, and said, "As soon as you look at the poor and sour look you are wearing, you know that it is from Suizhou, and it must be the defenders of Dongcheng, even if this scimitar is yours, how did you leave the knife here? Those wine bags and rice bags guarding Dongcheng made people break through the city gate in less than an hour, and we almost lost Taizhou City! This knife is obviously falling outside the city, could it be that you still have a kind of fight outside the city?"

Hearing this, Ma Xiao's heart suddenly came up, not because the other party insulted himself, but remembered that when he was defending the city, although there were a few who escaped, but most of the defenders were a good man, desperately fighting for the city gate, many of the soldiers inside were rescued soldiers from Suizhou, who had eaten and lived together for several months, and now they are dead and are worthless, in the eyes of these high-ranking people, what are their low-level soldiers, looking at the corpses of the soldiers under the city wall who have been out for a few days, Ma Xiao clenched his fists tightly, and really wanted to knock this group of young masters and young ladies off the horse, but in the end he held back, The parents of these people are all high-powered people, not something they can afford to provoke, slowly let go of his fist, Ma Xiao made a rope buckle as soon as he retracted it, picked up a thin shovel with one hand, dragged the corpse with the other, turned his head and left.