Chapter 358 Burning the Bridge

Yan Yu first went home to get some jerky.

She mixed the spirit snake jerky with the ordinary jerky and handed it out to the uncles in the door-plank squad.

Whichever piece they got was whichever piece they got, all up to luck; in a way, that was its own kind of fairness.

Fourth Uncle Qi and Uncle Qi Wu, of course, got special treatment.

Each of them got five pieces, enough to fill their stomachs.

Uncle Hu and Second Uncle Hu got some too. Firing arrow after arrow without losing accuracy while keeping their focus razor-sharp was exhausting.

The battle was not over yet; they badly needed to replenish their strength to deal with the remaining enemies.

The fight at the northern Arrow Tower had already erupted.

Yan Yu gnawed on a piece of jerky as she hurried that way.

…

When the Northern Rong saw the tall figure guarding the doorway of the Arrow Tower at the foot of the mountain, so similar to the two fierce men from before, their hearts collapsed and they hesitated, at a loss.

Li Xuemei did not give them any chance to react.

She lifted her hand and loosed a shot.

Half of the arrows Xiao’an Village had seized from the Northern Rong, the ones tipped with iron arrowheads, were with her.

Yan Yu’s original plan was for the northern Arrow Tower to be the village’s last line of defense. If they really could not hold, the people here could retreat into the mountains at any time.

There were many wild beasts in the mountains, especially at night, when large animals were most active. If they really ran into one, bamboo arrows might not be able to pierce their hides; they would need iron arrows, sharp and strong.

If even beasts could not withstand them, how could the Northern Rong?

Li Xuemei’s Iron Crossbow was even more powerful and had a longer range. She was practically killing one person with each bolt.

Granny Rong stood beside her, passing her arrows.

Li Xuemei did not rely on precision or experience when she shot. What she relied on was the powerful intuition she had honed in nearly thirty years of controlling a classroom.

Whenever she saw someone move, she would keenly anticipate their next step and, almost without thinking, raise her hand and shoot.

She did not fire very frequently; she had her own unique rhythm. But the more she shot, the smoother it felt, fierce and exhilarating.

Da Gouzi, Little Gouzi, and a bunch of even younger children were not flustered at all. They held their Bamboo Crossbows steady and shot bolt after bolt.

Most of the time they missed, but it still served to harass the Northern Rong.

With a door plank in his hands, Qi Da stood as immovable as a mountain. No one could get past his checkpoint; he guarded the entrance so tightly that not even a breeze could slip through.

The Northern Rong could not take it. After gritting their teeth through one wave, they fled deeper into the mountains.

When Yan Yu rushed over, she saw only their backs as they disappeared into the darkness of the mountain path.

She stopped where she was, looked up, and saw that her mother was safe and sound. The corners of her lips curved slightly.

“Into the mountains, after them!”

Yan Yu had thought it through clearly. They could not let the tiger return to the mountain now.

If the Northern Rong crossed the mountain and came back, it would be the same as having walked the mountain road that led to Xiao’an Village once over.

That would be a huge hidden danger.

They had to snuff it out right now.

“Xiao Er!” Li Xuemei called out to her. The mother and daughter locked eyes, and she knew her girl had already made up her mind. There was no stopping her.

“Take the Iron Crossbow!” As a mother, all she could do was help her daughter as much as possible and not hold her back.

Granny Rong hurried down from the tower and handed Yan Yu the Iron Crossbow along with a back basket full of arrows.

Yan Yu took them and slung the basket onto her back with ease.

She passed the iron-wrapped wooden cudgel in her bloody hand to Uncle Qi Wu.

Qi Wu did not mind in the slightest that it was filthy. Grinning foolishly, he took it, swung it twice, the air whooshing around it, and did not care about the stink of blood at all. He could not be more satisfied.

Weighing the Iron Crossbow in her hands, Yan Yu tilted up her little face and pulled what she believed to be her cutest smile.

“Mom, we’ll go and be right back. Don’t worry!”

She paused, swept a glance over the corpses on the ground, and said to Uncle Qi, “Uncle Qi, don’t forget to finish them off.”

Uncle Qi nodded heavily, casually picked up a knife from the ground, and stabbed them one by one…

“Xiao Er!”

Yan Yu was stopped again, this time by Da Tie.

“Those horses from before, and the village livestock, are all tied up on the mountain. I’ll go with you.”

“Okay!”

…

The Northern Rong lived on the grasslands, and reading the stars for direction was almost instinctive to them, so they rarely lost their way.

But in the mountains, the thick trees blocked the sky. The stars they could see were only a small patch overhead. All they could do was follow the direction they had taken when entering the mountain and try their best not to stray.

Things, however, were never as simple as they imagined.

So at the moment, they were not heading toward their homeland at all, but drifting eastward, toward the river.

Luo San asked Yan Yu curiously what method she was using to track the Northern Rong, how she managed to find them so unerringly every time.

Without the slightest hint of embarrassment, Yan Yu tapped her own nose and gave a very convincing reason. “My nose. Some of them are injured, so there’s a bloody smell.”

Luo San suddenly understood. He took a deep breath and sniffed.

There really was a faint metallic tang of blood, but he could not tell which direction it was coming from.

Yan Yu tried hard not to laugh.

Hold it in, she had to hold it in.

The bloody smell, my foot. They themselves reeked of blood from head to toe…

Of course she was relying on Maomao.

Maomao was in the basket on her back. Those two little paws were like guiding beacons, a built-in navigation system for finding the Northern Rong.

These were the last few Northern Rong. They had already wiped out several groups, and all the corpses had been carried back.

The number of people in the tracking party had been gradually shrinking, but it was becoming more and more elite. The ones left now were the true warriors of Xiao’an Village.

Hu Da’s gaze sharpened and he drew his bow to the full.

Hu Er sensed it too. He slapped the big tree beside him, and Qi Wu automatically braced his thigh to give him a foothold.

Hu Er scrambled up the tree in a blur, more agile than a monkey…

Once they had the high ground, Hu Da shot first, followed closely by Yan Yu, and Hu Er was last.

The three of them pretty much claimed all the fleeing Northern Rong heads for themselves.

Watching this, Luo San’s eyes burned with envy. He gripped the knife in his hand, ready to spring.

Taking advantage of her nimble build and Maomao’s precise directions, Yan Yu kept adding brick after brick to her little private hoard.

Suddenly Maomao let out a series of meows and began to thrash restlessly inside the basket, her claws scratching nonstop.

Yan Yu’s next shot went wide. Fortunately, Uncle Hu followed up with another arrow.

The last Northern Rong…

Was finally dealt with.

She knew this was Maomao warning her that armed men were approaching the village.

Were they reinforcements, or more Northern Rong?

Speaking quickly, Yan Yu said, “Uncles, this should be the last one. There were only about this many who ran into the mountains. We’ve killed these few hundred men, but we don’t know if there are more behind them. Let’s head back.”

No one objected. They hefted the Northern Rong corpses and went down the mountain in the direction Yan Yu pointed.

They had long since learned that this Yan Family Xiao Er had an uncanny sense of direction; she could walk mountain paths at night as easily as flat ground.

Yan Yu led them down from the ridge on the side that ran along the river.

Everyone was eager to get home, and their pace was swift.

When she saw the flames rising from the surface of the river, it was like a bucket of cold water thrown in Yan Yu’s face.

“That’s Dashi Bridge…” she muttered to herself. “If they were reinforcements, they wouldn’t burn the bridge. Only the Northern Rong would, it has to be the Northern Rong, those damned… bastards!”

Qi Si and Qi Wu were slow to react. It took them a while to realize that it was the Northern Rong who had set Dashi Bridge on fire.

The bridge might not necessarily burn down, but the reinforcements on the opposite bank would certainly be delayed and unable to cross…

The two brothers were so furious they were panting heavily.

“Xiao Er, what do we do?” Qi Wu asked in his muffled voice.

Yan Yu’s face had gone pale. She said anxiously, “Hurry back to the village and get ready in case the Northern Rong come…”

And link up with that earlier group of dead men.

She could only hope things would not go the way she feared.

Author Note:

A battle is supposed to have one climax after another~

Yes, it’s not over yet, but it is almost done. Once the Crouching Tiger side is finished, this whole stretch of plot will come to a close~

I’m still not ruthless enough. I did not write out the true cruelty of war~ o(╥﹏╥)o Not a single person has died in Xiao’an Village~ Sigh, just treat it as some light-hearted fun and try not to dwell too much on the rest~

It’ll probably get more exciting later, right? This shut-in will do her best~

About the brains of the Northern Rong: of course they have brains, otherwise how could they have plagued Guanzhou for so many years? I think this whole series of moves is just basic stuff. As a nomadic people, they don’t farm at all, they live entirely on herding and hunting. Without some brains, how would they even fill their stomachs? They come every year to raid for grain, of course they have to rack their brains over how to deal with Guanzhou~

(End of chapter)