Qin Qiancheng’s brows shot up, cutting off Huan Heng’s words in unconcealed fury.
“General!”
Huan Heng spoke with earnest persuasion, looking as if he felt Qin Qiancheng was being wronged.
“I do not wish to hear those words a second time!” Qin Qiancheng snapped at Huan Heng, but he released Lao Hei’s neck. Lao Hei, again attempting to bite his tongue off, was seized by the jaw by Huan Heng once more.
With a ferocious expression, he told Lao Hei, “Don’t even think about dying, you won’t die!”
Lao Hei was the eyewitness, the human testimony to prove that Ji Jinmo, for his own selfish gain, had disregarded the lives of soldiers and civilians, and ordered poison to be dumped into the Sishui River.
“Take the man away, guard him well, and at first light tomorrow, escort him back to the capital to be dealt with by His Majesty!” Huan Heng once again overstepped Qin Qiancheng and issued the order.
Xiao Jia remained still, looking towards Qin Qiancheng.
Qin Qiancheng deliberately ignored Xiao Jia’s gaze. Huan Heng kicked him, sending Xiao Jia sprawling to the ground. “Are you deaf? Hurry up and take him away!”
Xiao Jia struggled to get up, and he glanced at Qin Qiancheng again.
Huan Heng glared fiercely at him. Still playing games? Knowing full well that Qin Qiancheng would not react at this moment, Xiao Jia kept looking at him, enjoying Qin Qiancheng’s predicament of feigning ignorance?
After being glared at by Huan Heng, Xiao Jia seemed to finally grasp the unspoken rule that his superior’s silence implied consent. He untied the rope binding Lao Hei to the stake and dragged him away.
…
The casualties from yesterday had already been tallied: eight hundred and nineteen lightly wounded, one hundred and twenty-three severely wounded, and thirty-eight killed in action.
Half of the thirty-eight soldiers who died were from the Huai City border army.
After the enemy temporarily retreated, the soldiers gathered the remains of their fallen comrades. The thirty-eight bodies, a mere handful when standing, occupied half a room when wrapped in white cloth and transported to the yamen.
“Alas!”
The chief clerk, after counting the numbers, flipped through the conscription roster to find the identities of the deceased.
Looking at the soldiers who hadn’t even reached the age of twenty before their deaths, the chief clerk sighed with a hint of regret.
“Why are you sighing?”
The county magistrate of Huai City walked up behind him, pointing at the corpses on the ground. “Are they fortunate? They lost their lives. Are they unfortunate? At least now there are people to collect their bodies. The battlefield is brutal. If this war continues, in the end, there might be no one to collect our bodies.”
The chief clerk was startled by the magistrate’s words. He shook the brush in his hand, trying to get the magistrate to retract his inauspicious words. “Pah, pah, pah! Your Excellency, spit it out, spit it out!”
“I spit!”
The magistrate spat at the chief clerk.
He smeared the spit across his face and then, as Xiao Jia was escorting Lao Hei into the yamen, he overheard the conversation between the chief clerk and the magistrate.
He couldn't help but sneer, “If Your Excellency the Magistrate fears no one will collect his body, then he should leave!”
The magistrate and the chief clerk both looked up at Xiao Jia.
The chief clerk fell silent. The magistrate looked at Xiao Jia’s young face, adjusted his official robes, wiped the corner of his mouth, and smiled faintly at Xiao Jia. The chief clerk lowered his head to flip through the conscription roster in his hand, subtly stepping back.
The next moment, a barrage of curses, akin to a shrew’s public scolding, erupted in his ears: “I’ll leave your x-mother’s x, you little x-brat you… %……&*￥￥#@！*……” (ten thousand curse words omitted here)
The magistrate’s face was etched with a smile. If one didn’t look at his rapidly opening and closing mouth, and closed their ears to his continuous, non-repetitive, endless stream of curses, he would have appeared like a broad-minded, gentle, and refined noble gentleman.
Xiao Jia’s mouth hung open, completely unprepared for his single sentence to have triggered some unfathomable switch.
“Your Excellency, Your Excellency…”
Xiao Jia tried to interrupt, but the Huai City magistrate seemed deaf.
He looked at the chief clerk, who stepped back further. “Little General, don’t look at me, looking at me is useless. This… just bear with it a bit longer, it’ll be over soon!”
Xiao Jia gritted his teeth, his anger causing his brows to furrow. This fellow wasn’t restrained, didn’t resort to subtle sarcasm or roundabout taunts; he directly cursed your ancestors for eighteen generations. Xiao Jia’s anger surged, and if the thread of reason hadn’t been constantly pulling at him, he would have almost dropped Lao Hei and landed a heavy fist on the Huai City magistrate.
“Your Excellency, hitting people, that’s enough, this isn’t your subordinate, Your Excellency!”
Seeing the other man’s face grow increasingly grim, and glancing at the bloodied, barely breathing figure he was dragging, the chief clerk nervously tugged at the magistrate’s sleeve.
The magistrate flung his arm off, continuing his tirade for another two minutes.
Finally, he declared, “You’d better not die in battle. If you do, see if I collect your body!!”
Xiao Jia snorted, “I will relay those words to you, Your Excellency.”
The magistrate shot him a fierce glare, then turned to the chief clerk. “Ask him what he wants, I can’t be bothered with him!”
With that, he strode away angrily.
“This young general, please don’t mind him. Our magistrate is just a bit sharp-tongued, but he’s a good person,” the chief clerk said with a smile after the magistrate had left, offering a word in his defense before asking, “What brings you here, little general?”
Xiao Jia quickly waved his hands, not daring to let the chief clerk call him general. “Your humble subordinate is merely a junior officer in the Jiyang Army, not some little general. Chief Clerk, please just call me Xiao Jia.”
“Your humble subordinate is acting under the General’s orders to escort this spy who dared to disrupt the military camp to the yamen for detention. I hope Chief Clerk can grant me some convenience.”
Xiao Jia said politely to the chief clerk.
“Certainly, certainly!”
The chief clerk personally led him to the prison and, after Lao Hei was locked up, ordered the constables to guard him closely.
The yamen constables were engaged in mock combat with their weapons, training with commendable skill. Seeing Xiao Jia’s puzzled expression, the chief clerk explained with a smile, “These are our orders from His Excellency.”
“After learning of Da Li’s invasion, His Excellency had the yamen constables begin training. His Excellency said that if our army could not arrive when Da Li attacked the city, then we would be Huai City’s last line of defense. Even if we could buy the civilians just one more second, even if we could protect one more civilian, our deaths would be honorable!”
“Then just now…”
“His Excellency speaks the truth!”
“Because they were prepared to die, because even in death they were unwilling to take a single step back, that’s why they cared about whether their bodies would be collected!”
Xiao Jia looked at the chief clerk’s consistently smiling face and fell silent.
Forget it. Tonight, he wouldn't be climbing over walls to smash that bastard’s head in!!!