In the Ming Dynasty, I became invincible simply by extracting memories!

The night was not yet over, and the sea breeze, carrying the smell of burning, blew into the city walls.

The city walls of Dacheng were packed with people. Wounded soldiers leaned on their rifles, arquebusiers gripped their fire tongs, and even those who could move in the bandage station were helped up to the top of the wall. Hundreds of eyes were fixed on the towering flames on the northern sea.

The fire was enormous. From the initial few fireballs, it grew into a vast sea of ​​fire, and now it burned a crimson blaze that pierced half the sky. The firelight reflected on the sea, making the waves look like rolling lava. Each muffled thud from the gunpowder magazine's detonation elicited a suppressed gasp from the crowd on the city walls.

Yu Dayou stood like a stone sculpture at the highest point of the city tower, wearing a faded white cloak.

Deng Cheng had reopened his wound when he went up to the city wall. But he refused to go down, his tiger-like eyes fixed on the sea. From his initial excitement to his worry at not seeing Shen Lian and the others, he kept muttering, "They're not back yet... they're not back yet..."

Tang Kekuan was carried up the city wall on a stretcher. A piece of flesh had been torn off his left leg by shrapnel, and the army doctor said that if he moved it any further, the leg would be ruined. He said, "So what if it's ruined? I want to see Shen Lian come back with my own eyes. Whether he comes back or not, I'll remember it.

Time ticked by, the campfires on the city walls crackled, and the several teams sent out to provide backup brought back no news.

The flames on the sea gradually diminished, turning from crimson on the horizon to clusters of dark red embers, until finally only plumes of thick smoke rose in the dawn. But no one appeared on the mudflats outside the city gates.

"General..." a sentry couldn't help but speak up, "Lord Shen and the others... I'm afraid..."

"Shut up," Yu Dayou said, uttering only two words.

The sentry immediately fell silent, and the city wall fell into dead silence once again.

Deng Cheng's hands, gripping the bricks, trembled. Tang Kekuan closed his eyes. Someone knelt down first, bowing their head towards the beach. Then came the second, the third, and so on, until a whole group of people on the city wall knelt down.

The veins on the back of Yu Dayou's hand, which was gripping the sword, bulged.

Just then, the lookout on the northwest corner of the city wall suddenly yelled, "They're here! They're here!"

Everyone turned to look.

In the darkest part of the night before dawn, five blurry figures stumbled and crawled along the mudflats toward the city gate. They were running so slowly that it was more like they were tumbling and crawling than running. The tall, thin figure at the front had his robes burned and torn to shreds, and his face was so black that only his teeth were white.

"Open the gate! Open the gate now!" Deng Cheng turned around and shouted into the city gate. After shouting, he pushed away the soldiers who were helping him and staggered down the city wall.

The city gates burst open with a roar, and Shen Lian and his four companions stumbled in. Shen Lian's legs gave way, and he collapsed to his knees. Yi Dong and Yi Xia also slumped to the ground, the two girls supporting each other to keep from falling. At the very back were Chen Laohai and He San. As soon as they entered the city, they prostrated themselves on the ground and burst into tears. Then, they laughed, their laughter echoing in the empty city gate. Suddenly, a mouthful of blood trickled from the corner of Chen Laohai's mouth.

"Old Chen!" Shen Lian turned around abruptly and saw that Chen Laohai had an arrow stuck in his back, the arrowhead piercing through his left shoulder blade and the tip protruding half an inch from the front.

Chen Laohai waved his hand and grinned, "It's nothing, just a superficial wound. The Japanese pirates' arrows weren't very accurate..." Before he could finish speaking, he fell straight forward.

Shen Lian, who had sharp eyes, caught him and helped him up.

He remembered that during the retreat, Chen Laohai and He San always ran on the outermost edge, protecting him and Yi Dong and Yi Xia on the inner side; he remembered that when they were climbing over the fence, Chen Laohai was the last one to jump over; he remembered that when they were running in the ditch, he seemed to hear a muffled groan behind him, but at that time he was only concerned with escaping and did not look back.

"Call a medic! Call a medic right now!" Shen Lian roared, his voice almost tearing his vocal cords.

Yu Dayou strode over, bent down to help Shen Lian up, and his personal guard took Chen Laohai from him. He looked at Shen Lian's face, blackened by smoke, slowly clasped his hands in a fist salute, and bowed deeply.

"Shen Lian, you're really something else! But on behalf of the more than nine hundred soldiers of Dacheng, I thank you for saving our lives."

The soldiers on the city wall clasped their hands in unison and bowed to Shen Lian.

Shen Liangang's roar was muffled; he pointed at Chen Laohai, who was surrounded by military doctors, then at He San, and finally at Yi Dong and Yi Xia.

Yu Dayou understood what he meant. The credit doesn't belong to me alone.

The old general nodded and turned to give a few instructions to his personal guards. Soon, Chen Laohai and He San were carried into the dressing station. Yi Dong and Yi Xia were also helped into the city to rest. Shen Lian, wrapped in a blanket, sat with Yu Dayou at the foot of the city wall, watching the sky gradually lighten with the first light of dawn.

On the sea, Wu Ping's fleet was weighing anchor. The fire at the Japanese pirate camp had burned all night, black smoke carrying the stench of burning drifting out to sea like a giant funeral banner. Scouts reported: the Japanese pirates' supplies were destroyed, their gunpowder was exhausted, and Wu Ping's fleet had begun to retreat.

Won.

The siege ended in a Pyrrhic victory for Dachengsuo.

Shen Lian watched the fleet gradually disappear into the distance on the sea and let out a long sigh. Despite the victory, the images of those figures he had glimpsed briefly outside Wu Ping's central command tent the previous night kept replaying in his mind. They were people dressed in Ming Dynasty attire, their faces flashing by in the firelight.

Who are they? And where will their evil clutches reach?

A few days later, Yu Dayou summoned his disciple Shao Yingkui and ordered him to lead 500 elite troops to temporarily garrison the city and oversee matters such as the repair of the city walls, the burial of corpses, and the replenishment of gunpowder. He also sent messengers to Chaozhou and Huizhou prefectures to report the victory and to urge the dispatch of grain and ammunition.

Ten days later.

The army embarked on its return journey.

The group of over five hundred men marched north along the official road. Wounded soldiers lay on mule carts, while lightly wounded men trudged along, leaning on their rifles. Shen Lian gave his horse to a soldier with a broken leg and walked at the very front of the group.

Chen Laohai's injuries had been treated, and he was sleeping soundly on the mule cart, snoring. He San sat beside him, boasting to several fellow villagers about his heroic feat of burning down the Japanese camp at night, spittle flying everywhere. Yi Dong and Yi Xia followed beside Shen Lian. Yi Dong's hair was singed in one section, so he simply cut it short with a dagger and tied it into a neat ponytail. Yi Xia had bandages wrapped around her shoulder, but she seemed to be in good spirits.

"What is Chen Laohai bragging about to you?" Shen Lian asked with a smile.

"He said," Yi Dong pursed her lips, but her tone was tinged with laughter, "that when Lord Shen sneaked into the enemy camp, the Japanese pirates' swords came at him, but Lord Shen dodged them by tilting his head, and then stabbed three of them with a backhand. He also said that when Lord Shen lit the gunpowder, the Japanese pirates' sentries spotted him, and Lord Shen kicked one of them two zhang away."

Yi Xia covered her mouth and laughed.

"Bullshit." Shen Lian was both amused and exasperated. "If I were that good at fighting, would I have escaped back barely alive?"

"He also said," Xia rarely spoke, "that Lord Shen is a reincarnation of the God of Literature, with a mind sharper than a knife. He said that the most capable person he has ever worked for is Lord Shen."

Shen Lian smiled wryly, "He's truly the most formidable. He was shot in the back, yet he ran several miles without uttering a sound. Yesterday, the army doctor removed the arrowhead, even bringing out bone fragments, but he bit down on a stick and didn't utter a single cry. In the end, he asked the doctor if he could still fight. The doctor said he needed at least three months to recover, and he got anxious. I couldn't bear that kind of suffering."

Yi Dong looked at Shen Lian's profile, her eyes holding a secret, and said softly, "Young Master has also suffered a lot."

"I'm not injured," Shen Lian waved his hand.

"I'm not talking about injuries," Yi Dong lowered her head. "I'm talking about... the sin in your heart, young master."

Shen Lian was slightly taken aback. This girl was getting better and better at hitting people's weak points. He wanted to say something, but felt that nothing he said would be appropriate, so he changed the subject: "If we go any further, we will reach the territory of Chaozhou Prefecture. Ahead is the narrowest part of the Dongli Peninsula, with mudflats on both sides. A battle was fought there more than ten years ago, and many people died."

Just then, the group suddenly stopped.

It wasn't a normal pause. It was the kind of sudden, frozen moment where everyone froze in place, as if a hand had pressed down on the shoulders of hundreds of people at once.

Shen Lian raised his head and looked ahead, following everyone's gaze.

Bamboo poles lined both sides of the official road. There were at least twenty or thirty poles, densely packed together, each topped with a human head. As the sea breeze blew, the heads swayed like pale lanterns in the wind.

The three bamboo poles in the very middle are the tallest, and on them are three of the freshest heads.

Shen Lian dismounted and walked forward step by step.

The faces of the three severed heads were still vaguely discernible. They were all young men in their early twenties, with dried blood congealed at the corners of their mouths, their eyes half-open, their pupils shrouded in a grayish-white gloom. The necks were jaggedly severed, as if they had been repeatedly hacked off, with flesh torn up and bone exposed.

"It's Zhang Erniu."

Deng Cheng's voice came from behind Shen Lian. The towering man on horseback was trembling slightly as he gripped the reins. Fresh blood seeped from the bandage on his chest, but he seemed to have completely forgotten the pain.

"The one on the far left is Zhang Erniu, nineteen years old this year, from Zhangzhou. His father was a veteran of the Yu family army, who died in Cengang, Zhejiang in the thirty-eighth year of Jiajing. He joined the army at the age of sixteen, saying he wanted to avenge his father." Deng Cheng choked up, each word trembling as he spoke, "He was the leader of the first wave of messengers sent out by the central command tent to request reinforcements, a total of three riders."

"The one in the middle is Liu Shitou, 22 years old, a local from Chaozhou. He has a blind mother and an unmarried sister. He just got married last month and returned to camp on the third day after the wedding."

"The one on the right is Zhao Xiaoqi, seventeen years old. His parents died at the hands of the Japanese pirates, and he grew up eating food from many families. He didn't even have a name when he joined the army. The name Zhao Xiaoqi was given to him by Commander Yu because he was the seventh child in his family, and all six of his older brothers and sisters had died."

Deng Cheng couldn't continue speaking.

The procession slowly came to a stop. No one gave the order, but everyone stopped in their tracks.

I don't know who was the first to cry out.

The cries were suppressed and hoarse. Then, a second, a third, a tenth… the cries spread through the ranks, and soldiers knelt down one after another. Some took off their helmets and hugged them to their arms, some gripped the hilts of their swords and trembled, and some knelt on the ground and pounded their fists on the gravel on the road until their knuckles bled.

Shen Lian's eyes also reddened. He knelt on one knee and bowed deeply to the three severed heads.

He had witnessed far too much death. But on the battlefield, it was knife to knife, gun to gun. These three men were ambushed and killed on their way to seek help. Their heads were displayed on bamboo poles, a testament to all who sought aid: this road is closed.

Yu Dayou, a veteran general nearing sixty, sat upright on his horse. His gaze swept over the three severed heads, his face expressionless. His right hand, gripping the sword, was bluish-white from the force, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged.

Then, his body suddenly swayed.

Tang Kekuan reacted quickly and caught him. Yu Dayou bent over and vomited a mouthful of blood, which splattered onto the yellow earth of the official road, a shocking sight.

"Commander Yu!"

"General!"

The guards rushed forward, but Yu Dayou raised his hand to stop them.

The old man wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and slowly straightened up. His face was ashen, but the light in his eyes shone like two burning flames.

"Put the person down. Wrap him in my cloak and take him back to Xuanzhong City for burial."

Several guards climbed the bamboo pole and carefully removed the three heads. Yu Dayou took off his cloak, wrapped the three heads in it, and held them in his arms. He did not remount his horse, but instead walked step by step at the head of the column, still holding the cloak.

The procession resumed its march. Everyone dismounted and followed behind Yu Dayou. The heads hanging from the bamboo poles along the official road still swayed in the wind, but they no longer looked up. They simply kept their heads down, gritted their teeth, and gripped their swords and spears tightly.

Just as the entire army fell silent, a cloud of dust suddenly rose from the end of the road ahead.

A group of people came towards us.

Leading the group were two middle-aged men dressed in Ming Dynasty official robes. The one in front wore a black gauze hat and a blue robe, with a white pheasant embroidered on his chest—the attire of a fifth-rank civil official. The one behind him wore a military officer's casual uniform, with a bear embroidered on his chest; he was a fifth-rank commander of a thousand men.

The two were followed by more than a dozen attendants and yamen runners, making quite a spectacle, but their pace was almost jogging.

Even from several dozen paces away, the civil official in the green robe had already begun to bow and greet them, calling out from afar, "This humble official, He Tang, Prefect of Chaozhou, pays respects to General Yu! Having heard of your triumphant return, I have led all the officials of my prefecture to welcome you!"

The military officer also bowed: "This humble general, Wang Riqiu, commander of the Great City Garrison, pays his respects to Commander Yu!"

Deng Cheng reacted the fastest. He jumped off his horse abruptly, wincing in pain from his chest wound, but he didn't care. He strode towards He Tang and Wang Riqiu, his finger almost poking He Tang's face.

"Welcome? You fucking have the nerve to come and welcome us?!" Deng Cheng's voice boomed like thunder. "Dacheng Garrison has been besieged for six whole days! Where are your Chaozhou Prefecture soldiers? Wang Riqiu, where are your men? Dacheng Garrison is your subordinate thousand-household garrison, right? Where the fuck are you?!"

He Tang trembled, his face paling slightly. He hurriedly cupped his hands and said, "General Deng, please calm down! It's not that I'm unwilling to send troops, but the military strength of Chaozhou Prefecture is too weak. There are indeed several thousand soldiers in the city, but most of them are local militia. If we rashly send troops out of the city, I'm afraid even the prefectural city will be..."

"Bullshit!" Deng Cheng waved his hand to interrupt him. "Outnumbered? Did Zhang Erniu and his two companions' messenger horses even reach your Chaozhou Prefecture? Did you send anyone to meet them? You just watched them get intercepted and killed by the Japanese pirates outside the city, their heads hanging on bamboo poles for half a month! Where were your men? Did you just stand by and watch their heads dangle on bamboo poles?"

Wang Riqiu's face flushed red, and large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He shamelessly stepped forward and bowed, saying, "General Deng, this matter... this humble general truly knew nothing about it. The messenger arrived at the prefectural city with a request for reinforcements, but Prefect He said... said that this matter needed to be discussed at length... the warriors couldn't wait and urged their horses to head towards the main city."

"Deliberately consider the matter?!" Deng Cheng's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Human lives are at stake, and you're suggesting deliberate consideration? The city is about to fall, and you're still suggesting deliberate consideration?"

Tang Kekuan also said coldly, "Commander Wang, I have read the battle report from Dacheng. You were still in the city the night before, and you withdrew when the Japanese pirates besieged it?"

Sweat streamed down Wang Riqiu's face, and after stammering for a long time, he finally managed to stammer, "This humble general...this humble general was acting according to military orders that day..."

"Military order? Who gave you the military order to abandon the city and flee?" Deng Cheng's voice rose eight octaves.

He Tang hurriedly took over the conversation, bowing deeply to Yu Dayou: "General Yu, please forgive me! General Yu, please forgive me! It was my mistake for a moment. I was afraid that the Japanese pirates were too powerful, and that forcibly sending troops would result in heavy losses, so I..."

"So you just stand by and watch our soldiers and innocent civilians hang from bamboo poles?" Deng Cheng laughed angrily. "Prefect He, is your head more valuable than anyone else's? Wouldn't it be better if your head were hanging there too?"

He Tang's face turned ashen, and his legs went weak, almost causing him to kneel down. His attendants behind him quickly supported him.

Wang Riqiu didn't even dare to raise his head.

Enraged, Shen Lian could no longer contain his fury. He flipped his palm and pulled out two short flintlock pistols from his robes! His eyes flashed with a cold light as he locked the gun barrels firmly onto the heads of He Tang and Wang Riqiu.

The two men glanced up and saw the dark muzzle of the gun; they were instantly terrified, their faces drained of color, and their eyes were filled with utter horror.