Chapter 833

Just past the hour of Zi, the moon was more than half covered by a thin layer of clouds, leaking only a little pale light that fell into the pitch-black forest outside the Lecture Hall.

Zhao Heizi squatted at the root of an old locust tree, pressing the hilt of his sword with his left hand and gesturing with his right hand behind him.

More than five hundred people were divided into three groups, entering one after another along the gap in the broken wall on the north side, their footsteps making a fine rustling sound as they stepped on the fallen leaves.

Liu Si Hai leaned into Zhao Heizi's ear, his voice pressed to a buzzing sound like a mosquito.

"There's no movement at the front sentry post; Lu Ming's heavy armored infantry patrolled to the east side, at least half an hour before they turn back."

The corners of Zhao Heizi's mouth pulled, and that pockmarked face revealed a kind of sinister ferocity in the moonlight.

"Is Sun Decai's person in place?"

"Arrived, three hundred people sneaked in from the ditch on the west side, pinching us from front and back."

Zhao Heizi drew his horizontal blade three inches from its scabbard, and the moonlight reflected on the blade flashed between his fingers.

"Solve it within one stick of incense; first control those one hundred seeds, then block Chen Yan in the commander's tent."

His gaze glanced in the direction of the commander's tent that was still lit in the center of the camp.

"As long as the blade is held to the necks of those seeds, even if Chen Yan has three heads and six arms, he will have to yield."

Liu Si Hai's handlebar mustache shook twice in the night wind.

"What about Ma Biao's side?"

Zhao Heizi took a short flute from his bosom and blew an extremely short note beside his mouth, like a night owl calling in the forest.

Three breaths later, a similar response came from the bushes in the distance.

"Arrived."

Zhao Heizi stuffed the short flute back into his bosom, drew his horizontal blade completely, and the blade drew a silent arc in the dark.

"Go."

More than five hundred people surged in like a pack of wild wolves that had smelled blood, bending their waists and entering from the gap in the broken wall, their footsteps becoming faster and denser.

They passed through the first fence.

No one.

Passed through the second trench.

Still no one.

Zhao Heizi's footsteps slowed by half a beat, his brows twisting.

Too quiet.

There should be patrolling sentries in the Lecture Hall camp, there should be watch torches, and there should be occasional coughing and tossing sounds.

But there was nothing.

Not even the insects were calling.

Liu Si Hai's hand clenched by three degrees on the hilt of his sword, his voice squeezed out from his teeth.

"Old Zhao, something's wrong."

Zhao Heizi's footsteps stopped in the open space in the center of the camp; his gaze swept over the pitch-black tents all around, his pupils shrinking into two needle points in the moonlight.

Then, the torches lit up.

Not one or two, but several hundred.

From all directions of the camp, from behind the tents, from the top of the broken wall, from the dark corners of the trenches, from every corner they had passed, dense torches were lit simultaneously, as if pulled out from under the ground.

The firelight illuminated the entire camp as bright as day, exposing all five hundred of Zhao Heizi's people in the broad daylight.

Then came the sound of armor plates colliding.

That kind of sound closed in from all directions, dull and rhythmic, like a giant beast tightening its jaws.

Lu Ming's heavy armored infantry walked out from behind the tents, row after row, column after column, long spears like a forest, iron armor like a wall, surrounding the five hundred private soldiers tightly.

Zhao Heizi's face turned into the gray-white color that only dead people have in the firelight.

On the high platform, a figure walked out from the shadows.

Chen Yan sat on the folding chair in the center of the high platform, his right hand resting on the hilt of his horizontal blade, his left hand leisurely wiping the blade with a piece of silk, wiping extremely slowly and carefully, as if wiping a beloved toy.

His gaze lifted from the blade, crossed the firelight, and landed on Zhao Heizi's face.

"I have been waiting for you for a long time."

Zhao Heizi's horizontal blade shook twice in his hand, his voice squeezing out from his throat carrying a heavy tremor.

"You, you knew it all along?"

Chen Yan took the silk off the blade and threw it at his feet.

"The night you were plotting in the desolate temple, my people lay under the broken tiles above your heads and listened for a full three hours."

He lifted the horizontal blade to his eyes and turned it in the firelight; the light reflected from the blade shone into Zhao Heizi's pupils.

"I specifically left you three days to prepare, just to see how many people you could pull out."

Zhao Heizi's teeth ground together, and the horizontal blade in his hand pointed in the direction of the high platform, his voice suddenly raising.

"Brothers, we are surrounded; it's death anyway, so we might as well fight!"

He waved the horizontal blade in a circle toward the five hundred people behind him.

"Chen Yan is acting perversely and destroying the rules of the army; brothers, kill your way out!"

A few dozen of the five hundred people who had truly sold their lives for Zhao Heizi roared and raised their blades and spears, charging toward the gap in the encirclement.

Charged three steps.

A long spear flew out from the shadows on the side of the high platform.

The spear body drew a straight silver line in the firelight, the spear tip carrying a piercing whistle, accurately piercing through Zhao Heizi's right shoulder blade, the huge penetrating force lifting him from the ground, flipping him half a circle in the air, and smashing him heavily onto the muddy ground three steps away.

The spear tail was still trembling.

A figure walked out from behind the tent on the side of the high platform with big strides.

Ye Zhuxi.

She was in dark military uniform, her waist bound with leather armor, her hair tied high with a copper hairpin, revealing a face with distinct angles in the firelight, the corners of her mouth hanging with an arc colder than a blade edge.

She walked to Zhao Heizi, bent down, and pulled out the long spear stuck in his shoulder; the spear tip brought out a spray of blood mist, and Zhao Heizi's scream flipped out from his throat, his whole body twitching like a fish thrown onto the shore.

Ye Zhuxi carried the long spear on her shoulder, the blood on the spear tip dripping down the spear shaft, leaving a dark red trace on the back of her hand.

Her gaze swept over the five hundred faces that had already been scared pale.

"Those who dare to oppose the Zhuguo, this is the end."

The voice was not high, but every word was like a nail, nailed into the ears of everyone present.

The formation of the five hundred private soldiers shattered into slag after that spear; the few dozen die-hards charging at the front looked at the hole still bleeding on Zhao Heizi's shoulder, their blades and spears shook twice, and dropped to the ground with a clatter.

Lu Ming's voice exploded from outside the encirclement.

"Surrender and you won't be killed; for those still clutching weapons, I'll count to three!"

Before the count reached the second, more than five hundred blades and spears were all thrown to the ground, the sound of metal colliding with mud connecting into a piece.

Liu Si Hai knelt at the very front, his handlebar mustache covered in mud and cold sweat, his knees soft as if the bones had been pulled out.

Sun Decai was dragged out from the ditch on the west side, his face covered in mud, iron chains already wrapped around his wrists.

Ma Biao didn't even have time to run; Gao Jiong's Embroidered Attire Envoys intercepted him in the forest behind him, pulled him off the horse, and pressed him into the mud.

Chen Yan stood up from the high platform, turned the horizontal blade in his hand, and walked down the steps step by step with his boot soles.

He walked to Zhao Heizi.

Zhao Heizi was paralyzed on the ground clutching his shoulder wound, his face a mixture of blood and mud, his mouth agape, emitting a string of unintelligible begging sounds from his throat.

Chen Yan looked down at him.

"What did you just shout?"

Zhao Heizi's eyeballs were filled with fear, his lips trembling as he squeezed out two words.

"Zhuguo, spare..."

Chen Yan's horizontal blade sent downward.

The blade edge passed through the cervical vertebrae of Zhao Heizi, the sound extremely short and crisp, like breaking a piece of dry firewood.

The head rolled out, turned twice on the muddy ground, and stopped facing up in the brightest place of the firelight; that pockmarked face still retained a begging expression that hadn't had time to be finished.

Chen Yan shook the blood off the horizontal blade and turned to look at Liu Si Hai, Sun Decai, and Ma Biao who were pressed to the ground.

"Drag them to the training ground and behead them in front of all the seeds."

The Beiwei Death Guards dragged the three people up from the ground, the iron chains dragging three dark red traces on the muddy ground.

On the training ground, one hundred and three Political Commissar seeds were gathered beside the bonfire; most of them were still wearing the short coats they wore when sleeping, their faces filled with the blankness of being urgently awakened, but after seeing the three heads dragged over and the three living people still struggling, the blankness quickly turned into something else.

Chen Yan stood in front of the bonfire, the firelight pulling his shadow extremely long, covering the face of everyone in front of him.

"See clearly."

His finger pointed toward the three people pressed to the ground.

"These people are the kind of people who ride on your heads, eating your blood and drinking your sweat; after He Lanhu fell, they just changed a master to continue lying on your bodies and sucking."

His voice sank, sinking to a level that even the crackling of the bonfire couldn't cover.

"Today, I will squeeze this layer of pus clean in front of you."

The horizontal blade rose and fell.

Three short, crisp sounds.

Three heads rolled onto the muddy ground illuminated by the bonfire, fresh blood spreading out in a large area, staining the boot tips of the few seeds closest to them red.

Li Gen stood at the very front; his body shook the moment the blood splashed, but his eyes didn't close, his gaze nailed dead to those three heads, his pupils reflecting the dark red color where the firelight and blood light intertwined.

Zhou Xiaoman's fist clenched at his side until his finger bones made a cracking sound, his lips pressed tightly, his face filled with something that wasn't fear.

It was hatred.

It was the hatred that grew from the marrow of his bones toward those people who rode on their heads.

Chen Yan inserted the horizontal blade back into the scabbard at his waist and turned to face the one hundred and three seeds.

"This is the end for betraying the commoners, and also the end for betraying me."

His finger drew an arc in the air, circling every face reddened by the blood light in front of him.

"Remember the blood tonight, remember the expressions on these heads; after you go down to various battalions in the future, whenever you see such parasites who bully brothers, report their names to me."

His voice lowered by half a degree, every word bitten extremely heavily.

"My blade will always be drawn for you."

The gazes of one hundred and three people were nailed to him in unison, the bonfire jumping in their pupils, reflecting the same scorching light.

Early the next morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, the four heads of Zhao Heizi, Liu Si Hai, Sun Decai, and Ma Biao were hung on the flagpoles around the training ground, along with the heads of the seventeen die-hards who were beheaded along with the private soldiers last night, hung at a lower level.

When the wind in the camp blew past the flagpoles, the heads in the iron cages would sway gently, and every dead face was frozen with a kind of fear twisted to the extreme.

Special training continued.

Chen Yan stood in the center of the training ground, with twenty-one heads hanging behind him, and one hundred and three pairs of eyes brighter and hotter than yesterday in front of him.

His finger pointed toward the flagpoles hanging behind him.

"This is your first practical lesson."

He turned around and walked with big strides toward the rack that had been set up at the end of the training ground long ago.

Hanging on the rack was a blackboard taller than a person; the lacquer surface of the blackboard had been repainted by Gao Jiong overnight, pitch-black like ink, without a trace of a flaw.

Chen Yan picked up a piece of white lime stick from a wooden bucket beside him and dropped the first stroke on the blackboard.

The brushwork was extremely heavy, and the lime powder fell from the board surface with a rustle.

"Today, I bestow upon you the military soul."