The weather was humid.

The horse's hooves trampled into the wet dirt, and the mist parted like flowing water from the sides of the horse's broad chest. The thick fog obscured the sky and the sun, and it was impossible to see anything from ten paces, so the cavalry had to slow down and pay careful attention to the wind and grass in the blind spot.

The watchtowers and beacon towers that had been built in the past had long since overturned, and half of the decaying beams and pillars were stuck diagonally in the ground, entangled by crazy vines. The roads in the military forts, which were supposed to be straight and open for the transport of troops and the movement of food and grass, are now full of mud puddles, pits, and weeds. The houses on both sides of the road were disemboweled, and there was no place to hang a belly of barren belongings.

Yuzhu rode a nimble mare with tame black eyes. Yuzhu wears the black clothes of scouts, and only has light armor plates covering lethal places such as the chest and abdomen, so as to reduce the weight to the greatest extent. Murderous underneath this seemingly inconspicuous outfit, Yuzhu can draw weapons from her belt, sleeves, and calves at any moment.

"Young General," Yuzhu walked to Chu Zhixia's side, half-bowed and said, "Ten miles to the north is Sanquan Village, where the scout is responsible, I have to go and see." ”

Chu Zhixia was wearing heavy black armor, and the visor covered her face. Through the narrow slit in her visor, Yuzhu could only see her eyes. Chu Zhixia's eyes are very beautiful, her eyelashes are thick and slender, and her eyes are rounder when she is young, like an elk in the forest.

Chu Zhixia didn't look at the jade bead, but stopped Xue Cheng and raised the horsewhip in his hand. Seeing this, the troops behind him stopped one after another, and Cheng Yuan led the horse to trot and pass on the order to stand by on the spot.

"According to the rules of scouts, I will only wait for you to have three sticks of incense. As soon as the time of the three incense sticks has passed, if you don't come back and don't send a signal, I will be killed by you. Chu Zhixia said unkindly, "We will retreat." ”

"My subordinates understand." Yuzhu walked forward without hesitation, and the thick fog was like a white forest, obscuring her tracks.

Chu Zhixia's face was not shocked, but his eyes were staring at the direction where Yuzhu left. Her fingers tapped on the scabbard, counting the time one by one.

——

There is a jujube tree in front of a family in Sanquan Village, the only one. Every harvest season, the children would sit under the tree, staring at the mean-faced grandmother, waiting for her to scold and beat the dates with a pole and distribute them to the children. Dates are sour and astringent, but they are already a rare surprise outside the gate where supplies are scarce.

The grandmother's husband and son died on the battlefield.

On the day when the Beidi people slaughtered the village, this old lady, who usually scolded people and was vicious, put it in a bucket and put it into a dry well. When the jade bead was fished up by Chu Mingxiu, he struggled to look out of his arms.

The Beidi people regarded the heads of their enemies as gold, and all the heads were cut off and taken away. A group of soldiers were gathering the headless corpses together and pouring them on fire oil to incinerate them to prevent the plague from breeding. Yuzhu saw an old hand, holding a knife in the palm of his hand. The hand had handed her the dates many times, and they were crumpled and a little painful to the touch, like a knife had scraped them.

Yuzhu remembered every line on that hand.

The familiar hand clutched a bloody scythe.

Now the entire Sanquan Village is deserted, and there is only the sound of the wind in the air. In the middle of the collapsed house is a huge tomb, where all the villagers who died in the massacre of the Beidi people are buried. In front of the tomb is a stone tablet with the name of the deceased engraved on it.

Yuzhu couldn't help but turn over and dismount, reaching out to wipe the dust off the stele.

She paused suddenly.

The stele was a man tall, densely carved with words, and covered with a thick layer of dust. But there was a straight mark in the upper part of the stele, cutting through the dust—the mark was new. Yuzhu pressed the manic heartbeat, and while groping for the sword at her waist, she estimated the height.

The trail was thin and long, like something hard sweeping over the stele. But at this height, it's hard to leave such traces carelessly.

The man sat on his horse, stopped to observe the tablet, and turned around with the knife at his waist slashing through the tablet.

There are no footprints on the land at the entrance of the village, which means that they have just arrived here and have not had time to go out. They must have noticed Yuzhu's movements, so they hurriedly hid. Yuzhu restrained herself from looking down at the ground under her feet, lest people in the shadows find out that she had noticed that something was wrong.

Yuzhu wiped the corner of the stele with a natural expression, knelt on the ground and kowtowed three heads, pulled the reins and prepared to get on the horse and leave.

Suddenly there was an arrow roar in the silent air, and the war horse instantly lost control.

Jade Pearl stepped back half a step and fired an arrow straight at her temple, another into the horse's chest.

Dozens of big men jumped out of the mist, some drawing bows and arrows at her, some drawing swords at her. Each of them was clad in light leather armor, and their bare necks were tattooed with fangs and claws. Yuzhu recognized it at a glance, this was a slave of the Blue Eagle Department.

In Beidi, only slaves had patterns tattooed on their bodies to show that they belonged to a certain family.

These people met each other in tacit understanding, and one of them pounced. Yuzhu did not retreat but advanced, but at the moment of approaching him, she lowered her body and crashed into his arms. Yuzhu cleanly pulled the sword out of his heart, pushed his neck and smashed it against a person who rushed towards him in the stab.

Yuzhu seized this gap, pressed the tombstone and turned over the tomb, and plunged headlong into the mist behind the tomb.

A rain of arrows rained down on her back.

Yuzhu snorted, rolled down the two-person grave pile, and jumped into the jungle. Sure enough, their horses were tied there. The person left behind was not a good stubble, Yuzhu couldn't dodge, and was slashed in the shoulder by his knife, and the sharp pain seemed to tear her apart.

The man thought that Yuzhu was tied up, and relaxed his vigilance slightly. Yuzhu violently erupted against the risk of the blade advancing an inch further into his body, and a slender blade was cut from his sleeve and pierced his throat. Before the rest of the people could react, she snatched the horses and rushed out of Sanquan Village.

A series of shouts and scolding sounded behind him, and Yuzhu's eyes blurred in pain.

The signal fireworks on her body had just been knocked out, and it was such a thick fog that she couldn't see clearly even if she set it off.

——

Chu Zhixia heard the sound of horses' hooves.

Cheng Yuan stared intently at the incense sticking on the ground, and the third incense stick had already burned half. The moment Chu Zhixia's body suddenly tensed, Cheng Yuan immediately drew his sword and stood in front of her horse in understanding. The others became serious, silently listening to the sound of horses' hooves approaching in the depths of the mist.

Chu Zhixia lit a little fire on the arrow cluster and shot it into the distance.

The feathered arrow arced and landed on the grass. At the moment of the fall, the firelight illuminated a running black horse, as well as a unconscious person lying on the horse's back.

"It's Yuzhu."

Chu Zhi Xia rode his horse and rushed forward.

The strange horse lost control and hesitantly stopped in the fog. The man on horseback had been clutching the reins tightly, and she seemed to have exhausted all her strength and rolled off her horse.

Chu Zhixia didn't know how to pick up Yuzhu.

The back of the jade bead was full of arrows, like a hedgehog, and Chu Zhixia had no idea where to start. Yuzhu was lying on her side, the knife wound on her shoulder was deep and bone-seeing, almost tearing her entirely. Her blood flowed half of her body, pouring into the horse's fur.

It's hard to imagine how she managed to get here.

"Miss, there is an ambush ahead...... Yuzhu couldn't even open her eyes, and said repeatedly in a weak voice, "Hurry up." ”

"Cheng Yuan, private!" Chu Zhixia spoke to Cheng Yuan, but his eyes kept staring at Yuzhu.

"Where's the medic officer, where is the medic officer!" Chu Zhixia's eyes were hot, and he covered the wound on Yuzhu's shoulder with all the cloth he could find on his body, gritting his teeth and asking.

Yuzhu was in a trance, feeling a drop of warm rain hitting her eyes.

In a daze, Yuzhu heard a choked voice.

Miss, what is there to cry about? Everyone is going to die.

But Yuzhu still couldn't help but feel distressed. This is the girl she has taken care of growing up, from a small point to such a tall one, pinning on Yuzhu's selfish feelings. A thousand words were in my heart, but Yuzhu didn't have the strength to say it.

When a man is about to die, his words are good.

But what to say?

Miss, don't cry, people who are all major generals still cry their noses, and they will be laughed at by their subordinates.

Miss, I'm not here for you, you don't have to blame yourself.

Miss, I once really wanted to guard you for the rest of my life, watching you grow up, get married, and grow old.

"Miss," Yuzhu murmured as she stretched out her hand toward the darkness she couldn't see, "you want to ......"

You have to eat well.

Chu Zhixia only saw that the hand was slightly raised by a few inches, as if it was struggling unwillingly before death, and it hung down weakly.

"Major General, someone is approaching!"

"Meet the enemy."

——

"Closer is the old site of Sanquan Fort, the fog is too big, so don't act rashly." A slave said to the chief.

"Coward!" The leader whipped him in the face and scolded, "The Khan shouldn't have given you this chance to go into battle and kill the enemy. Don't even a scout dare to chase after me? ”

The slave endured the burning pain on his face, and changed his words: "Then it's better for us to line up a scout, and the other party is cheating." The people of the Central Plains have always been cunning. ”

The leader pointed to the slave and said, "Then you can go." ”

The slave cursed in his heart, dismounted and walked into Sanquan Fort. The mist had no intention of dispersing, swirling among the black ruins. When the slave walked to the center of the fort of Three Springs, he saw a familiar horse and the corpse at the foot of the horse.

The slave's heart jumped, and he turned over the corpse and recognized it as the scout he had encountered in the village of Three Springs. He looked ahead, and the messy horseshoe prints went straight to the outside of Sanquan Fort. It seems that after receiving the information from this scout, the enemy troops hurriedly withdrew, and did not even have time to collect the bodies of their comrades.

The slave was overjoyed and turned back to tell his companion the good news aloud. They were probably met by a light cavalry in charge of reconnaissance, and there were not many of them, so they fled. If it's fast enough, you might be able to catch up.

The leader led this hundred-man squad into the Three Springs Fort, but the road to the Three Springs Fort was riddled with countless broken walls and ruins, and the horses stumbled in it.

"Her head has been rewarded to you, take it back and ask for a reward." The leader looked up at the emaciated corpse and said.

The slave knelt on the ground and kowtowed twice, drawing his sword and aiming it at Yuzhu's neck.

A feathered arrow pierced the slave's throat.

The leader looked up in surprise, and a group of black-armored soldiers burst out through the fog. The war horses of the Beidi people were already difficult to walk on the messy roads, and they were not afraid of death and rushed up to stab the war horses to death.

The fog made it difficult for the Beidi people to see if there were more enemies in the depths, and the shouts of killing came from all directions, which was deafening. The leader drew his sword and fought while directing his men to retreat outside the Three Springs Fort. He was thrown off his horse by a war horse and fell to the point that his head was bleeding.

At that moment, a gun slashed down from the top of his skull, turning its head and breaking his neck.

The leader was dizzy and fell to the ground spitting blood.

The fight is coming to an end.

The leader's eyeballs were bloodshot, and his vision was blood-red. He kept his eyes open to see the faces of his enemies. The person in front of him took off his armor, revealing a pair of clear eyes and a beautiful face. She drew the sword from her waist and gestured at his neck, looking for a good place to lay the sword.

"Is it the habit of your Beidi people to cut off the heads of your enemies and serve wine?" Chu Zhixia's voice was indifferent, "It's a little disgusting, but I'm a relatively easy-going person, and I don't mind following the local customs." ”

The silver light flashed, and the head with a recessed head in the middle rolled to the ground.

——

Embrace the snow pass.

The sunken boat hurried into the morgue and slammed headlong into the heavy wooden door.

Bloody arrows were scattered all over the place, cut off and pulled out of their bodies. Thin sunlight poured in through the narrow window and fell on Yuzhu's blood-lost pale face. The wound on Yuzhu's shoulder had been sewn up, and the stitches were crooked.

Chu Shixia heard that if he died with a wound, he would have a scar on his body in the next life. So she lay here and sewed slowly for a long time. She sat beside Yuzhu, her armor unremoved, staring blankly at Yuzhu's face.

"Ink Snow ......"

Chu Zhixia turned his head to look at Shen Zhou, his eyes were red.

"I'm fine." Chu Zhixia said mechanically.

Shen Zhou strode forward and hugged her hard. Chu Zhixia was pressed by Shen Zhou's hot body temperature, and his heart, which was stiff and numb from the cold, felt pain in hindsight. But Chu Zhixia didn't cry, and not a single tear fell.

"She lied to me a lot, so I was a little angry. The last thing I said to her was that if she was killed, we would retreat. Chu Zhixia's voice trembled, "She didn't say it, but in fact, did she blame me in her heart?" ”

"It's not your fault." Shen Zhou said.

Chu Zhixia crumpled the letter in his hand, and his heart ached.

It was a letter left by Yuzhu.

Every soldier in Yongxueguan has such a habit, leaving a letter before going out on the expedition, some people talk about homesickness, and some people simply write the amount of money and pension in the envelope. No one knows if they will be able to come back, so each letter is a pending suicide note.

But Yuzhu has no family alive for a long time.

The hometown and relatives she arranged to Chu Zhixia are a mirror. When the lie is shattered, only loess and white bones remain, and blood flows like a river.

"The eldest lady personally revealed:

Now, you should be called the young general, but I really miss the days when the eldest lady in the palace went to the house to uncover the tiles and go down to the river to fish, please allow me to call you that again. Maybe for the last time.

I once had a younger sister who died in the massacre of Sanquan Village by the Beidi people. Someone who took care of me growing up may have told you that she froze to death. Actually, no, she was killed by me. I was so scared that she was crying so much that I lost my hand and held her in my arms.

I'm not a good sister.

The second son took me out of Sanquan Village, and I was very young when I swore to join the Hawkeye Guard. He asked me why I wanted to be in the Eagle Eye Guard. I said, I want revenge. The second son said that I was too young to say such things, so he sent me to you. Many years later, when I left Yunzhong with the eldest lady, the second son asked me again why I wanted to join the Eagle Eye Guard.

I said, I want to guard the eldest lady for the rest of my life.

Miss, forgive me for breaking my promise. I can't treat you as my sister, my blood relative. I knew that Da Zhou was about to go to war with Beidi, and every night when I dreamed of returning to my hometown, I always heard the cry of my sister in the dry well.

I know that my body is about to die, and I wish to die as it deserves, so as to comfort the souls of the dead.

I wish the eldest lady a hundred victories and a long life.

Yu Zhuliu in the first year of Xuande"

The first year of Xuande, the end of March.

Beidi raided the military fortress "Dafeng Fort" outside Yongxue Pass, and the most tragic but short-lived war of the Great Weekend year began. According to later statistics, the Great Zhou invested countless resources in this battle, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. In the second year after the war, the water and grass on the Beidi grassland were abundant and fertile, which was nourished by the bones in the soil.

What is not recorded in the history books is that the first conflict in this unprecedented war was an ambush in an abandoned fortress. No one remembers that the first person who died in this war was an insignificant orphan.

"Yuzhu guards the eldest lady for a lifetime, not the eldest lady's life, but Yuzhu's life."