Reclaiming Wasteland and Farming: My Haunted Fields Are Spawning Monsters Infinitely

Chapter 126 Refusing to Admit Mistakes

Several more days have passed.

"The barbarian soldiers have retreated! The barbarian soldiers have retreated!"

Cheers came from outside, waking Li Qingshan from his sleep.

He sat up on the kang (a heated brick bed) and exclaimed with delight, "The barbarians have really retreated!"

"snort!"

Lu Botong gave a heavy, cold snort: "This is all thanks to my lord. He can defeat the barbarian army from a thousand miles away while staying in this dilapidated house of yours."

The King of the North shook his head indifferently: "He has devoted himself to the North, but his contributions are insignificant."

Li Qingshan stepped into the outer room, where cheers were already erupting outside the village gate.

"My benefactor, the barbarians have been driven back; we have won this time."

"Have Tian Quan and the others returned yet?"

"They're back, they're back."

Tian Quan stepped out from the crowd and said with a smile, "Brother Li, thanks to you. We went to the interior and found Miss Shen. She immediately mobilized 10,000 elite troops to surround the 3,000-foot cliff."

When the barbarians broke through the mountain wall and emerged, we happened to surround them. You didn't see it, but the barbarians' faces turned green on the spot.

He spoke vividly, and the people around him listened with great interest.

In the end, the barbarian soldiers were routed, and only their leader escaped.

Jin Wuji stepped out of the tent, surprised, and said, "There really are barbarian soldiers at Three Thousand Feet!"

"Of course there is. The barbarians are incredibly wicked; they actually used a giant fox to smash open the mountain wall. Of course, that giant fox was completely dead," Tian Quan said. "But back then, Brother Li wouldn't even let you take a look."

Jin Wuji felt increasingly distressed. Seeing through the barbarian's scheme was a great achievement.

But now, he watches helplessly as the credit slips away from him.

Li Qingshan turned around and went back into the house.

Inside the earthen house, the King of the North looked like a wilted eggplant, and Lu Botong's expression was also very unpleasant.

Noticing Li Qingshan's gaze, the King of the Northern Border suddenly raised his head: "What are you trying to say? Are you saying you won this battle? Are you here to deliberately ridicule me?"

Li Qingshan sighed softly: "I want to tell you, you are wrong."

"No, I am not wrong. I have done everything for the world and for the people. Who among you understands my hardships?"

Lu Botong said, "Your Highness, I understand you."

"roll!"

Only after he had finished venting did Li Qingshan speak: "The Three Thousand Feet Strategy is not something that can be conceived in a day or two. It is obvious that the barbarians have been planning this for a long time. While you were secretly trading with the barbarians, they were plotting a surprise attack on the capital."

"I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong—" the King of the North murmured repeatedly.

"Imperial decree has arrived!" a voice called from outside. "King of the North, come out and receive the decree."

Lu Botong's eyes lit up: "Your Highness, the imperial decree has arrived. His Majesty will surely reward you handsomely this time."

Li Qingshan thought to himself, "The imperial edict arrived so quickly. We just finished fighting, and the edict has already come."

Moreover, it was delivered to Huai Shu Po.

Li Qingshan cut the hemp rope binding Lu Botong and immediately helped the Northern King up and walked towards the door.

Li Qingshan did not stop him.

An exquisite carriage stopped at the entrance of the village, and a eunuch dressed in white and heavily made up stepped out of the carriage.

"This is the place, it's freezing cold here."

The eunuch wiped his nose and said, "Kneel down to receive the imperial decree."

The crowd suddenly knelt down.

The eunuch unfurled the imperial edict and said in a shrill voice, "By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees that this rebellion by the barbarians was truly a case of a mantis trying to stop a chariot, or an ant trying to shake a tree. The Northern Governor Shen Qingzhou and the soldiers Jin Wuji, Zuo Qiuhan, Lu Botong, and Tuoba Feng have all rendered meritorious service, and I have ordered the Cabinet to reward them accordingly."

Lu Botong raised his head, and Jin Wuji also raised his head.

One person is missing, no, two people are missing.

The imperial edict made no mention of the King of the Northern Border or Li Qingshan.

The two of them should have been the ones who made the greatest contributions, but the imperial edict made no mention of them at all.

It was as if they didn't exist.

"By order, His Majesty has issued an oral decree," the white-robed eunuch said again.

Everyone fell silent at the same time.

"Dong Fang, Tian Quan, and Tian Ling have also made great contributions this time. They are all righteous heroes of the martial arts world, and we cannot treat them unfairly." The eunuch in white said with a smile, "Mr. Dong, His Majesty heard that you have the title of Xiucai (a scholar who passed the lowest level of the imperial examinations) and wants to transfer you directly to the Hanlin Academy."

Dong Fang's injuries had not yet healed, and upon hearing this, a blush suddenly appeared on his face.

This down-on-his-luck scholar, who had always struggled to make ends meet, was seizing this opportunity to rise to prominence.

"Accept the imperial decree."

"We, your subjects, accept the imperial decree," Jin Wuji and the others said in unison.

The eunuch in white robes finished reading the imperial edict and left.

At this moment, Li Qingshan came out of the house and looked up. The burly man driving the cart turned around and glanced back. He vaguely looked like Wu Fang from the Demon Suppression Hall.

Jin Wuji and Lu Botong stood up from the ground, dusted themselves off, and began to gather their soldiers, as if they hadn't seen the Northern King on the ground.

The King of the North knelt for a long time in the cold wind, waiting for the troops to leave and for the number of people to dwindle, but he remained motionless.

Li Qingshan helped him up from the ground and said, "You can go now."

"Leave?" The King of the North opened his almost frozen mouth. "You're not going to kill me?"

"No need," Li Qingshan said.

"Indeed, there's no need," the King of the North said with a sinister laugh. "If you let me go, where can I go?"

"Now, the court wants to kill me, the people want to kill me, my colleagues want to kill me. My achievements, my reputation, all the hard work I've put into the North, you've wiped them all out."

Li Qingshan watched him quietly until he also quieted down under Li Qingshan's gaze.

"I've said it before, your reasoning is not worth refuting, and I'll say it again now, it's not worth refuting." Li Qingshan looked up at the warm winter sun. The weather was beautiful today, the sky was a clear blue. "There is righteousness in the world, and some things cannot be traded, such as human life, such as conscience."

"I've always been curious about why the world is so bad, and now I understand. It's because of people like you that the world is getting worse and worse." Li Qingshan waved his hand in the air, as if trying to grab something. "If one day, I really want to kill all of you people and restore the world to its original state."

"Now—" Li Qingshan looked at the King of the Northern Border, "you can leave."

The King of the North walked out of Locust Tree Village alone, his hair completely white, looking no different from any other old man.

He walked and walked until he reached the riverbank, where he stood alone, gazing at his reflection on the ice. After a long while, he suddenly let out a long, mournful laugh.

The fact that his name was not mentioned in the imperial edict was a way of giving himself face.

Because his crimes were too serious and mentioning them would damage the imperial court, he kept them completely silent.

Good riddance, good riddance.

Even after death, his clansmen within the pass could still enjoy wealth and honor.

He decided to end it all by dying.

Just then, a cold wind blew by, scattering his full head of white hair.

A moment of confusion flashed in the eyes of the King of the North.

Why bother with all this?

After I die, who will remember me? Will the members of my clan be grateful to me?

No, they will only hate themselves, hate that they did something wrong and ruined their future.

Having strategic acumen is more valuable than having a million soldiers; even if one becomes an outlaw in the mountains, one can still build up a powerful force.

If we wait a while, and things change, we might be able to achieve something great again.

wrong?

I was not wrong.

The fault lies with everyone, not with me.

He raised his head, smoothed his white hair with his severed hand, and his eyes regained their light.

Hey, I'm not going to die.

Just then, footsteps sounded behind him. The King of the North turned around and saw two ragged refugees emerge from the grass.

"Are you the King of the North?" the two asked timidly.

"What business do you have with me?" the King of the North asked, puffing out his chest.

"That's him!"

"My father was killed by him."

"Kill him."

"You, you all—"

The King of the North instinctively stepped back and fell onto the ice, only to see a series of ferocious figures rushing towards him.

With fists and fingernails, they tore his flesh into strips and chewed them forcefully.

"I----"

The King of the North's voice was drowned out by the crowd: "I don't want to die yet."

At that moment, a familiar carriage stopped at the entrance of Huai Shu Village.