Chapter 150: Left Alive

Du Qiao'er, led by Liu Chengzong, found the murderer among the captives.

In Liu Chengzong's eyes, a rather clever and brave little girl now walked timidly through the ragged ranks of captives, her body suddenly going rigid, as if struck by a body-holding spell.

"Found him?"

Du Qiao'er seemed jolted by his voice; her body stirred, and she raised a hand to point at a banner soldier at the front of the ranks.

Liu Chengzong looked over. It was an old banner soldier past forty, his weathered face deeply lined, looking utterly honest. One arm was severed, and he sat cross-legged at the very front of the ranks, his back hunched.

Being pointed at, a puzzled look surfaced on the old banner soldier's face. He glanced at Fan Sanlang, then lifted his eyes to Liu Chengzong. "You thieving scum, if you want to kill someone just draw your blade. Don't sling filth — I don't even know this person."

Truth be told, Liu Chengzong had been quite suspicious that Fan Sanlang might have identified the wrong man.

But upon hearing this banner soldier call him thieving scum, he tilted his head, scratched the back of his scalp, and ran his tongue across his teeth.

Since entering Shanxi, Lion Camp had wiped out eight bands of bandits including those at Yatou Mountain, surrounded Fort Huo where only Gao Xian's unit had loosed a few arrows, and apart from that, had only fought the banner troops of the Fenzhou Guard.

And this very banner troop, right under the eyes of the pond cavalry, had plundered and burned the two villages of Zaowang Mountain and Fanjia Valley, slaughtering at least two hundred households of common folk.

And now he had the nerve to call him thieving scum.

Then there was absolutely no mistake.

Before he could say anything, Fan Sanlang tore off her headscarf. "You killed my brother-in-law, killed my little brother, and dragged away my eldest sister — see if you recognize me now!"

"It was you! What gave you the right to kill my brother-in-law, kill my little brother, kill my eldest sister!"

Du Qiao'er had only glanced at the old banner soldier's face once. She could never forget that face.

Even after spending two whole days fantasizing in her head about ways to take revenge, she had only dared to look once.

With just one look at that face, her heart was seized tight by terror.

These banner soldiers were all man-eating demons who didn't even spit out the bones. Half her family had died at this man's hands.

But now this man was a prisoner in chains. Others weren't afraid of him at all. These bandits from Shaanxi didn't even bother wasting rope to tie him up.

"So it's you, little girl."

The old banner soldier's face rippled slightly. He turned his head away, refusing to look at her, and merely said, "I've killed so many people, how would I remember which one was your brother-in-law or your little brother?"

That was enough.

Liu Chengzong watched as the old banner soldier used his remaining arm to push himself up. The banner soldiers around him all unconsciously edged away, but the man's face showed no fear of death.

His gaze settled on Liu Chengzong's face. No longer calling him a bandit, he put on an ingratiating smile. "General, even with just one hand, I can still kill for you... You said it yourself — Lion Camp spares those who name names. You can't kill me."

The old banner soldier pursed his lips, turned to the girl and bared his teeth in a grin, then turned his head back. "I want to name names."

Liu Chengzong let out a snort of laughter through his nose. "Your mind works fast. Living to such an age and still just a banner soldier — what a waste. Does this even mean anything?"

The old banner soldier was not using the rules to fight the one who made them.

He looked left, then right, before nodding again at Liu Chengzong.

The meaning was clear: he was facing death anyway. Either don't kill me, or if you kill me, the rules you set are worthless dogshit, no one else will name names, and the captives won't just sit and wait to die anymore.

In this world, few people will truly sit and wait for death.

Those who do sit and wait for death all believe that what they sit waiting for is not death, but life.

If what awaits is death, then what is there left to wait for?

Liu Chengzong could only raise his hand. "Name them. I won't kill you."

The old banner soldier wore a victorious smile and turned around to start pointing people out.

Liu Chengzong lowered his head to glance at Fan Sanlang. She had been crying the whole time.

He turned around and beckoned toward someone not far away.

The old banner soldier was acting as if it were a game, a smile on his face, his arm stretched straight as he swept it across the crowd. His finger seemed to carry immense power — wherever it swept, the banner soldiers' expressions changed drastically.

In that moment, the old banner soldier suddenly wanted to ask: what does "innocent" even mean?

In a place like a guard post, where the same few families had rotated the post of commander for two hundred years, where so many people had been military households for two hundred years unchanged — could a person even still be called a person?

The commander was the sun in the sky; the banner soldiers were the chives on the ground.

They were upright livestock, human-shaped tools, to be replaced by surplus males when they died. What the commander wanted done, they had to do even if they didn't want to; what the commander forbade, they couldn't do even if they wanted to.

Morality, ritual, law, justice, right and wrong — whatever the commander said, that's what it was.

Guard posts — weren't guard posts just for fighting the emperor's wars? As long as they could fight, that was enough.

One thousand men against Lion Camp's fifteen hundred — swap the ground, and even the Xuan-Da border army wouldn't necessarily have fought much better than them, would they?

Suddenly, the expressions of others cut short the old banner soldier's fantasy.

Those banner soldiers he pointed at no longer feared his hand; instead, they looked past him with expectant faces.

He turned his head. Liu Chengzong was holding a Frankish hand cannon, explaining something to the little girl.

Chengyun had thought his second brother called him over for some big matter and had jogged all the way, only for his second brother to say not a single word to him, simply reaching over and pulling the cannon from his waist.

Outrageous!

"A blade's no good for you to kill him. This — don't let your hand shake. One hand grips, the other supports. Shove it right up close and pull the trigger."

The old banner soldier roared, "You can't kill me!"

"Dawdling around naming names. I won't kill you. A grievance has its debtor, a debt has its owner — why can't she kill you? She's not going to name anyone else."

With that, he fitted the match cord and handed it to Fan Sanlang.

The hand cannon in the girl's hands, front hand steadying, rear hand gripping — she held it as if it were a long-barreled bird gun, and walked step by step toward the old banner soldier.

Bang!

Gunpowder smoke sprayed out in front of Fan Sanlang. In the instant before the muzzle flash erupted, Liu Chengzong saw the old banner soldier sigh.

Then he was struck in the chest and collapsed to the ground, stretching his one remaining arm toward the sky, trying to grasp at something.

Fan Sanlang turned and ran back, placing the bird gun into Liu Chengzong's hands.

She wiped the tear streaks from her face, then turned back around to draw her blade. She misjudged the length, her movements clumsy — her arm straightened, but the blade tip was still stuck in the scabbard.

She had to tug the scabbard further back before she could grip the waist saber in her hand.

The girl no longer feared the old Banner soldier. She walked over, raised the blade above her head, and struck — once, again, and again.

Over nine hundred Banner soldiers sat there. No one stood up; they only watched with blank expressions.

Strange to say, when the old Banner soldier said he would identify them, with that look of having Liu Chengzong dead to rights, Liu Chengzong had felt no stir in his heart.

But the old Banner soldier's dying sigh carried a tremendous sense of power, and it made him feel sorrow.

He raised his head and glanced at the deep blue sky, then stepped forward, grabbed Fan Sanlang by the back of her collar, and lifted her out like a small, flailing animal.

This one was simply not soldier material.

In truth, Liu Chengzong placed great importance on having a female soldier come to join him.

He was very excited — a female soldier!

Everything is hard at the start. With a female soldier, he could take the next step and use her as an example to rally the common people, which would increase his potential recruitment pool by at least thirty percent.

But the kind of female soldier he wanted was actually the Qin Liangyu type — one meter eighty tall and one hundred eighty jin in weight — not this little thing he could lift with one arm, barely over a hundred jin.

Compare the ideal to reality, and reality was just a clucking, cackling quail.

The identifications ended that afternoon. Four hundred and twenty-two Banner soldiers of the Fenzhou Guard, guilty of countless atrocities, were executed.

One hundred and thirty convict soldiers were organized into a left and a right squad. At dusk, they drank a meal of millet gruel, were issued round shields, blades, and swords outside the fort, and began scaling the walls.

The remaining six hundred-plus Banner soldiers, according to the severity of their crimes, were sent to dig earth pits or haul and drag goods.

Among them, over two hundred men, after extensive testimony was gathered from within the Banner ranks, were confirmed to have been merely swept along, never proactive toward the late Commander's orders, and were ultimately released.

Liu Chengzong even gave each of them two jin of dry rations for the journey.

This made them profoundly grateful; these men had never expected to leave alive.

They were the last people to believe in the saying "spare the surrendered, and they won't surrender." Besides, they were captives, not turncoats.

In this world, there is only cause and effect; there is absolutely no such thing as karmic retribution.

If retribution truly existed, Liu Chengzong was theirs.

Fu Renxi also came from Yonghe Pass to observe the two convict squads' assault on the fort.

Liu Chengzong's ferocity frightened Company Commander Fu, but this man also considered matters from a very practical standpoint: "Things have already come to this — why did you still let those two hundred men go? You should have just killed them all in the valley."

"Among those two hundred I let go, there may be some who did inhuman things, but I believe the majority did not act like beasts."

Fu Renxi was momentarily speechless. His hand, not daring to rise too high, pointed at Liu Chengzong from waist level. "You're just strange. Let two hundred men go, and the Fenzhou Guard lot will fight you again — they'll never surrender unless they absolutely have to."

"If they don't surrender to me, they'll surrender to someone else. They'll have to surrender to someone eventually. A cat that squeezes into a rat hole gets its head stuck; a rat that crawls into a cat's den dies."

Liu Chengzong viewed the matter with indifference. "We're not the same kind of people. They don't want to surrender to me, and I don't want to accept their surrender."

A volley of gunfire rang out from the fort wall. The two convict squads entered the range of the Huo Family Fort, hoisting scaling ladders and raising shields as they quickened their pace.

Fu Renxi pointed toward the Huo Family Fort. "Then, are you and I, General, the same kind of people?"

"You want to go to Liaodong. I can see you part of the way there, but once you're there, I won't be able to help. The world has already come to this."

Liu Chengzong watched as two scaling ladders were raised against the fort wall and slowly shook his head. "Everyone in this world seeks only to survive. That is what makes ambition so rare and precious."

He was very gratified that during the battle with Zhang Zhan at Lion Camp, Fu Renxi had not led his troops to stab him in the back.

Fu Renxi spat with a bitter laugh. "This world — I have only four hundred men under me. The General can help me. If I were a Regional Vice Commander or Deputy Regional Commander, the moment I opened my eyes every day, ten thousand mouths would be demanding grain from me. What damn ambition could I possibly still have?"

Liu Chengzong turned his face and glanced at Fu Renxi. "Deputy Regional Commander — give me some time to think it over. How many times would you have to exterminate me to earn a Deputy Regional Commander post? By the time you've become Deputy Regional Commander, I reckon that anywhere I go in Shaanxi or Shanxi, I'll be able to support you."

"Ha!"

Fu Renxi clearly did not believe it, taking it only as Liu Chengzong telling a joke. He clasped his fists and laughed along. "Then this humble officer shall borrow the General's auspicious words. If the day comes that I go to Liaodong, I'll have my child recognize you as godfather."

Liu Chengzong was not joking.

In his mind, a rough route had already taken shape.

Barren regions like Shaanxi and Shanxi were not without grain; it was just that the best land was all in the hands of princely estates. Many common people had been displaced, and the number of those who remained was far smaller than before.

If more and more officers commanding troops could form a symbiotic relationship with him, like Fu Renxi had,

he could further reduce military pressure and have the time to accomplish the water conservancy projects the Great Ming could not, restoring at least a trace of vitality to this land.

Even if it still could not solve the grain problem, it would be enough to radiate influence to Northern Zhili, the Central Plains, and even the doorstep of the Land of Abundance.

But plans always look wonderful on paper. Last winter, he had still been thinking that this year the Apricot River would yield a bumper harvest. Then after the New Year, a single frost came and struck the princely estate so hard that a year's planting was not even enough for their military rations.

The two convict squads fought with desperate effort, scaling the fort wall under bows, crossbows, and firearms, and entering the close-quarters battle to seize the ramparts.

The younger generation of the Huo family had no shortage of capable fighters, but defending the fort wall made victory difficult.

This battle essentially decided the outcome.

Soon, the defenders on the earthen fort grew fewer and fewer. The fort gate was forced open, and Gao Xian's infantry filed in and stormed the interior.

Not long after, the commoners, the old, the weak, and the women and children who had earlier taken refuge inside the fort slowly emerged. The younger generation of the Huo family withdrew into the residence and held fast.

Those who surrendered had already surrendered; those who fought were still fighting.

But since the fort gate was open, the remaining fight was merely a matter of mopping up the holdouts. The problem was no longer serious.

This allowed both Liu Chengzong and Fu Renxi to breathe a sigh of relief.

It seemed only at this moment that Fu Renxi noticed a young woman was actually following behind Liu Chengzong. He laughed and said, "General, is this a newly recruited retainer?"

He meant it as a joke — who would believe that a woman in the retinue of such a great bandit chief was a soldier?

Yet, to his disappointment once again, Liu Chengzong nodded very seriously. "I am quite troubled by it too."

He glanced back at Fan Sanlang and said, "She came to join me. I originally wanted to put her somewhere away from the fighting, cooking and washing clothes for the soldiers — even learning some medicine would have been fine. But she insists on fighting. Look how thin she is. I was sturdier than her when I was twelve or thirteen."

It was a good thing Master Gao was not here, or he would have been furious.

Wasn't it only natural that you were sturdier than her? With the food you had that autumn, no decent person could compare.

How many heroes and bold spirits eat only one such final meal in their entire lives — the executioner's meal — and you went and wolfed it all down, spending the whole autumn packing on fat and training martial arts.

Put a rock in your place, eating the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and gnawing on the essence of the sun and moon like that every day, and even it could wreak havoc in the Heavenly Palace.

"Assign her to another unit, and she'll be dead in the next battle — might even drag them down. Of those two villages, she is the only one who lived. Her life should be cherished."

Du Qiao'er truly found it hard to offer any persuasion.

She had thought about it for a long time down in the well. Sanlang had long since dug a hiding hole there, and the old lady had already passed away. There was no need to go out and fight to the death with anyone.

Fan Sanlang had traded everything he had to her — his weapons, his clothes, his army pay, his spoils of war, even his very life.

All so she could live on, and live well.

That was why she had set up a door plank as a grave marker on Sanlang's burial mound, and on it she wrote: The Grave of Du Qiao'er.

That night had been wrong.

The banner troops should not have killed. Her eldest brother should not have left the village. Her second brother should not have jumped the wall. Her eldest sister should not have tripped. Her second sister should not have run wild... Everything about it was wrong.

The one lying on the ground should have been Du Qiao'er, and the one walking with hand on saber should have been Fan Sanlang.

She had to learn Sanlang's skills as fast as she could, and set things back to the way they were meant to be.

Wielding Sanlang's saber, bearing Sanlang's bow on her back, she would live on under the name Fan Sanlang.

Liu Chengzong turned his head. The little quail, who had been eavesdropping with both ears pricked, hurriedly averted her eyes. He let out a long breath through his nose. "Survivors are neither special nor rare. Here, every single person you see — we are all survivors left behind by natural disasters and man-made calamities."

Source of "The Stubborn Bandits":