A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

Twenty thousand cavalrymen, like a red-hot dagger, plunged straight into the heart of the Northern Rong vanguard.

The vanguard offered almost no decent resistance.

When the starving Northern Rong soldiers saw the Wei family's elite cavalry charging towards them, many of them didn't raise their swords; instead, they froze in shock.

They didn't not want to fight, they just didn't have the strength in their hands.

Some people haven't had a proper meal in two and a half days, and the raw horse meat they ate yesterday is still churning in their stomachs. They can't even stand up straight.

The scimitar slipped from his hand halfway up and was easily deflected by the Wei family army's lance.

Liu Jingshuang's white wax spear swept out with its first strike, knocking away three Northern Rong soldiers.

His marksmanship was clean and crisp, without a single unnecessary movement.

The spear thrust straight through the leather armor. As the spear was pulled out, the horse swayed to the side, and the shaft of the spear swept horizontally, knocking away another person who was rushing up from the side.

Her target wasn't these small fry.

Shigeru's command tent.

Liu Jingshuang's phoenix eyes locked onto the large banner embroidered with a wolf's head in front of her. She squeezed her legs against the horse's belly, and the warhorse neighed and accelerated.

As she rushed past the third camp, a corpse came into her view.

A drab, gray scholar's robe.

Liu Jingshuang's warhorse came to an abrupt stop, its hooves carving two deep grooves into the frozen ground.

The body lay in an open space, facing south.

His clothes were covered in blood, and his left shoulder and right arm were almost severed.

But his scholar's robe was neat and tidy, with the collar and cuffs folded meticulously.

Her hair was tied up and held in place with a wooden stick.

His face was clean, and his eyes were open.

Liu Jingshuang recognized her.

It's not because we've met before.

She had never seen this person before.

But in the entire Northern Rong camp, there was only one person who wore a Confucian robe!

The surrounding Northern Rong soldiers had been scattered by the cavalry, leaving only this lonely corpse and a few pools of dark red blood on the open ground.

Liu Jingshuang dismounted.

She crouched down and reached out to check Chen Yuan's breath.

His body was completely cold.

Even after the blood had drained, his expression remained remarkably calm.

A faint smile even lingered at the corners of her lips, as if she were having a pleasant dream.

Liu Jingshuang stared at that face for three breaths.

She recalled what Su Qingyun had said in the council chamber last night—"That gentleman risked his life."

To risk one's life.

It's easy to say in four words.

How about we get started?

To be an undercover agent among 500,000 enemy troops, to be trampled underfoot like a dog, to lie on the ground and bark like a dog, to endure every kick of a riding boot and every scornful laugh.

He tolerated all of this.

He waited until the very last moment to pass on the most crucial false information, but in order not to affect the overall situation and to prevent Shigeru Inuya from discovering anything amiss.

In the end, he could only wait to die!

He was hacked to pieces like that, not even a complete corpse was left.

Liu Jingshuang stood up and waved to the two cavalrymen closest to her.

"Take the man's body back."

Her voice was very flat, so flat that it had no inflection whatsoever.

But those who know her know that the calmer Liu Jingshuang is, the more dangerous she is.

Two cavalrymen dismounted and carefully lifted Chen Yuan's body onto a spare warhorse, securing it with ropes.

The white wax spear was taken off the saddle, its tip pointing forward, and the fingers gripping it tightened one joint at a time.

She didn't look back at Chen Yuan.

Because she knew that the best offering was not tears, but blood.

The blood of the Northern Rong people.

A hundred paces ahead, the Northern Rong central army's battle line was barely being pieced together amidst the howls of Quan Ya Mao.

The hungry taxi drivers, their faces pale with hunger, were being pushed forward by whips, their scimitars held crookedly, unable to even stand in a proper line.

Liu Jingshuang's phoenix eyes swept over the crooked lines, her lips pressed into a cold, straight line.

The white wax spear was raised high.

The spearhead pointed to the sky, drawing a dazzling arc in the golden-red light of the morning glow.

The 20,000 cavalrymen behind him all pulled on their reins, and all eyes were focused on that lance.

A surge of hot liquid welled up in Liu Jingshuang's chest.

Wei Zhan's face flashed through my mind. Chen Yuan's face, with his eyes still open, also flashed through my mind.

All the faces were those of dead people.

"kill!"

A single word burst from her throat, hoarse and shrill, like a knife cleaving through the cacophony of the battlefield.

"Kill all these Northern Rong beasts!"

Twenty thousand cavalrymen roared in unison, their voices almost shaking the heavens. The thunderous sound of their iron hooves trampling the frozen earth blended together, and their arrowhead formation accelerated once more, like a giant, sharpened axe, cleaving down towards the heart of the Northern Rong's central army.

On the city wall, Wei Zhao watched as Liu Jingshuang's white wax spear tore through the Northern Rong's central army's lines, and behind her, 150,000 infantrymen began to leave the city.

A torrent of steel surged out of the city gate, marching in orderly steps toward the Northern Rong army.

Wei Zhao's gaze swept across the battlefield and landed on the northeastern horizon.

You can't see anything there.

But he knew that Huo Qingluan's 50,000 heavily armored troops were arriving at top speed.

The pocket is already open.

We're just waiting for that final rope to be pulled.

Outside the city, the sounds of battle shook the heavens, and blood mist filled the air.

The howls of the dog-toothed beast appeared and disappeared amidst the chaos, as volatile as a mad dog trapped in a cage.

"Kill! Charge back! Anyone who retreats even one step will die!"

The howl of the dog-toothed man split in the north wind.

He brandished his scimitar and personally cut down a Northern Rong commander who was trying to turn and flee.

Blood splattered on his face, and his single eye was so red it looked like it was about to bleed.

He has completely lost his mind.

The 20,000 elite cavalry of the Wei family army, like a red-hot dagger, easily tore through the thin, cicada-wing-like defenses of the Northern Rong vanguard.

Immediately afterwards, 150,000 Wei family army infantrymen surged across the frozen ground outside the city gates like a tide.

Unlike the Northern Rong people who charged and fought haphazardly, they formed porcupine-like square formations with a hundred men per team.

The outermost layer is a large shield, the middle layer is a spear, and the inner circle is archers.

A lowly soldier named Wang Ergou held his large shield firmly in his hand.

"Bang!" A starving Northern Rong warhorse crashed into the shield.

The warhorse let out a mournful neigh and collapsed to the ground.

The Northern Rong cavalryman on horseback fell off, not even able to grip his sword properly. He rolled twice on the ground, struggling to get up.

"Stab!" the captain roared.

Without the slightest hesitation, Wang Ergou thrust his spear fiercely through the gap in the shield.

With a "pfft".

The spearhead pierced through the leather armor and plunged into the stomach of the Northern Rong soldier.

Warm blood flowed down the spear shaft, scalding Wang Ergou's palms until they went numb.

He pulled out his spear, took a deep breath, and then grinned.

Half a month ago, his own brother died under the swords of the Northern Rong people.

At that time, they ran out of food and didn't even have the strength to lift their shields.

Today, I managed to recover some of the interest.

"Keep pushing forward! Don't lose your composure!"

The captain's voice was exceptionally clear amidst the chaos of the battlefield.

Each small formation was like a merciless meat grinder, relentlessly crushing forward step by step.

The Northern Rong cavalry, who had been starving for two and a half days, found their prized mobility useless against the dense formation.

The warhorses could not break through the shield wall, and the cavalry could not wield their scimitars. They could only charge forward wave after wave like suicide soldiers, and then turn into mutilated corpses on the ground.

Just when the Northern Rong vanguard was being pushed back and suffering heavy casualties,

A sickening roar suddenly came from the rear of the Northern Rong camp.

It wasn't the sound of horses' hooves, but the heavy scraping of iron armor, the trembling of fifty thousand pairs of iron boots simultaneously treading on the frozen ground.

Huo Qingluan has arrived.

Fifty thousand heavily armored soldiers, like a moving steel forest, pushed forward from the other side of the horizon.

They were clad in heavy armor, with iron masks covering their faces, revealing only pairs of cold, indifferent eyes.

They were all armed with twelve-foot-long greatswords and heavy tower shields.