Chapter 354: Damn

The border guards were still fighting, but the battlefield had shifted from the city walls to savage street combat.

The latter was even more brutal and dragged in far more civilians.

Everyone made a different choice when faced with life and death.

Some chose to run, hoping the farther they got, the better.

Some stayed wherever they felt safest, and most often, that place was simply home.

From the moment the gates of Crouching Tiger City were breached, this city became the final battleground between the Border Army and the Northern Rong.

The Northern Rong had indeed come for grain.

To seize the grain stored inside Crouching Tiger City, they had plotted for a long time, schemed in a hundred ways, greased countless palms, and paid with many clansmen’s lives, only then bringing about this day when the city fell, when they could trample this great city that had tried to shut them out behind solid walls, grind it beneath their heels, and take whatever they wanted…

Blood and death easily plucked at the fragile string inside them that was called “humanity”.

In the place the people of Crouching Tiger called home, the Northern Rong swung their butcher’s blades, hunting every living soul in the dark of night.

Defeat was to be consecrated with blood, and victory needed that same gaudy scarlet to be written.

Yan Lao’er had been wrong.

The Northern Rong still had not taken Crouching Tiger’s granary, but that did not mean they would not do the “unnecessary things” Yan Lao’er had spoken of.

Within Crouching Tiger City, it was like a purgatory.

When the night was no longer silent and all that remained were screams and heart-rending sobs, hysterical mad laughter and strangled pleas of “Help… me…” dying in the throat…

That suffocating feeling could drive anyone insane.

Yan Lao’er was no exception.

All the caution he had shown before, his instinct for avoiding disaster, his rational desire for self-preservation, that conviction that he had to live, all of it was crumbling… faster and faster.

His breathing grew more and more rapid, not just his, but that of everyone on the rooftop.

The uncontrollable urge, flushed eyes, the creak of grinding teeth, all pointed to one thing:

Their blood was not cold. It burned like magma, scalding hot.

Liang Manshan set his hand on the ladder, his gaze locked tightly on Yan Lao’er.

“Brother Huai’an, let’s fight it out.”

Yan Lao’er’s nerves finally snapped when, at the mouth of the alley, a figure shaped like a woman crawled out, only to be slowly dragged back by a Northern Rong who was cackling gleefully.

He could almost hear fingernails scraping across stone…

“Bastards! Bastards! Damn it, you’re all damned! You all deserve to die!” He sprang to his feet. He could not bear to waste even the time it would take to climb down the ladder, and instead sprinted across the rooftop.

Roof tiles slid and fell with every movement he made.

In the instant that Northern Rong looked up in surprise, Yan Lao’er loosed an arrow filled with pure rage.

One arrow, straight to the throat.

As he moved, everyone else sprang into action as well.

They charged over recklessly, like madmen, eyes almost bursting from their sockets.

They leaped down into the street one after another, hurling themselves at every Northern Rong in sight, swinging the blades in their hands with all the strength they had, with only one thought in their hearts: Cut him down, cut him down…

These few Northern Rong never imagined their retribution would come so quickly, dropping down from the sky in front of them.

With not even a bit of guard up, they were hacked to death in the flurry of blades.

Yan Lao’er used the last bit of rationality in his mind to make himself crouch down.

He could not stay standing. Standing made him too conspicuous…

Did that shot actually hit?

Dead on.

How did I even shoot that?

Forget it, that does not matter.

It was definitely not accuracy he could have honed from hard practice anyway…

He heard a heavy thump, followed by roof tiles crashing to the ground with a clatter and shattering to pieces.

He turned his head stiffly and saw his Eldest Nephew with his mouth hanging open, eyes wide, wearing a look of utter disbelief.

Yan Lao’er scoffed inwardly. What was this compared to everything else? He, Yan Er, was no longer that timid, cowardly Yan Er.

Killing, this was not his first time anymore!

When it came to killing those who deserved it, his heart was hard as iron, and he would never show mercy.

If only his legs were not quite so shaky…

“Uncle, Magistrate… Magistrate…” Yan Xiangheng pointed at the gap in the roof where tiles were missing, swallowed, and said, “He stepped into thin air and fell through…”

Yan Lao’er: …

Even one ellipsis was not enough to express how he felt right now, so he added another.

Yan Lao’er: …

He hurried over and peered down through the hole, asking hoarsely, “Magistrate… Magistrate, how are you?”

“I am fine.” Magistrate Tian’s low voice floated up from below.

Liang Manshan fumbled the ladder into place in a panic.

Several people hurriedly climbed down the ladder.

After checking him over, they were immensely relieved.

Magistrate Tian had no serious injuries. His legs and back were fine; he had only been badly startled, and when he caught himself with his hands on the ground, his arm had been jarred slightly out of place.

No one here knew how to set bones, and no one dared try it casually on Magistrate Tian.

He would simply have to endure it for now.

If they survived this, it would not be too late to see a doctor.

If they all ended up dead, then whether his arm healed or not would not matter.

They helped Magistrate Tian out, then set the ladder for the brothers who had just jumped down in a burst of anger so they could climb back up.

Coming up with them were also the commoners who had narrowly escaped the blades of those few Northern Rong.

Yan Lao’er looked around, but he did not see the figure that had been dragged away earlier, and he fell silent.

“Yan Er, inside Crouching Tiger City, the safest place, aside from the granary, does not exist,” Magistrate Tian said quietly.

Yan Lao’er agreed wholeheartedly.

The layout of the Government Office was actually not bad, but Crouching Tiger was simply too poor, and the Government Office, inside and out, was shabby and falling apart.

The granary was different. Its high walls were built to the same standard as the city defenses, easy to hold and hard to attack, truly an excellent place.

It was just a place they could not reach.

Liang Manshan suddenly said, “I think moving along the rooftops works great. The Northern Rong will never see it coming. We can jump out of nowhere and catch them completely off guard.”

Yan Lao’er wanted to say that while the height was not that great, one misstep was enough to twist an ankle…

He looked at the yamen runners, faces solemn, eyes burning with fierce fire, and tightened his grip on the Bamboo Crossbow in his hand.

“Then we go along the rooftops. However many we can save is however many. There are still border guards in the city, and commoners who are fighting back. We still have a chance. Once the Wolf-Smoke Signal is lit, reinforcements will definitely come. We just have to hold on until that moment… We must hold on until that moment.”

Yan Lao’er climbed back onto the roof, with a good number of people following behind him. Even the commoners who had just been rescued gritted their teeth and climbed up as well.

And… Magistrate Tian…

“Magistrate, you wait here. Once we have saved people, we will tell them to head to the Government Office. The Northern Rong already searched this place before, so they probably will not come again in the short term. If they do, you… lead everyone up onto the roofs, or if there are any unused dry wells, hiding inside them is safe too…”

At worst, they could search every well in the city later to find people.

If there was a later.

…

Yan Yu decided to strike first and take out the dozen or so Northern Rong outside the village.

The enemy was simply too many. They could not wait for them to finish gathering.

She had Maomao scan the number of arrows the Northern Rong were carrying and got a very encouraging result.

The Northern Rong’s arrows were indeed almost used up.

They needed a great many to besiege Crouching Tiger. Those dozen or so outside, plus the more than three hundred about to arrive, had plenty of blades but few bows, and even fewer arrows.

(End of this chapter)