If I made you cannon fodder, how did you manage to achieve your goal of conquering the wolf's l

The wind and snow poured in from the narrow gap between the two peaks, carrying fine ice particles that lashed against the snow-covered rock walls, making a rustling sound.

Xu Qingshan rolled over and lay prone in a snow pit sheltered from the wind by the rocks, his hand on his long sword, staring intently in the direction Hou San was pointing.

About three hundred paces ahead, the pass of the Wolf Fang Pass is blocked by two protruding black boulders, forming a natural narrow gate. In the sheltered depression below the pass, a sturdy, rough-hewn wooden hut has been built against the mountainside. The roof is weighed down with thick raw cowhide and stones, and the gaps are plastered with frozen yellow mud. A very faint wisp of bluish-gray smoke is rising from the chimney.

On a stone platform in front of the shed, there was a cast iron brazier, and several small horses from the border region wrapped in wool blankets were tied to the brazier.

"I know it all perfectly well."

Hou San lay beside Xu Qingshan, exhaling a breath of warm white air, his voice so low that only those nearby could hear him:

"Inside are the elite troops of the Blackwater Tribe, a total of fifteen people. Eight are roasting meat around the charcoal fire in the tent, four are taking care of the warhorses in the stables on the side and rear, two are taking turns keeping watch on the roof, and one is specifically guarding that iron brazier."

Hou San gestured with his hand on the snow, his expression grave:

"These barbarians are very cunning. They set up sentries at this pass not only to block anyone trying to slip out of the mountains, but more importantly, to report back to the main camp. Every hour, the sentries outside have to add specially made firewood to the brazier and raise a specific signal fire deep into Langya Ridge."

"In other words, we not only have to cut off these fifteen heads silently, but we also have to time it perfectly so that the next horn can be raised on time."

Hearing this, Zhou Laoqi frowned slightly and whispered in a rough voice, "The signal is given once every hour. If there is any mistake, or if a single person escapes, the hundreds of barbarian cavalry in the deep mountains ahead will immediately notice something is wrong."

"We cannot force our way through, nor can we set fire to the shed."

Ah Man nimbly slid down the snow slope from behind, holding a small pinch of tobacco ash residue she had just collected from downwind, and sniffed it lightly.

On that boyish face, which was usually expressionless, a hint of certainty, belonging to a hunter of the wilderness, appeared:

"This is the 'Three Green Fires' of the Blackwater Tribe."

Aman looked at Xu Qingshan and whispered, "The brazier is filled with dried pine cones wrapped in grassland artemisia. Every hour, the brazier is covered with a wet sheepskin three times, and the smoke column rises and falls three times to send a signal to the main peak. If the brazier is smashed or the signal is cut off, the large group in the deep mountains will immediately be on alert."

"If you understand the Fire Number, things will be much easier."

Xu Qingshan narrowed his eyes slightly, a cold glint flashing deep within them.

"Chen Huaishan thought Langya Ridge was a dead end, and the Heishui tribe thought Jubei Fortress was theirs for the taking. They set up this iron gate to guard against starving people who were too frozen to walk, never imagining that a fully armed light cavalry force could penetrate their heart in the snowy night."

Xu Qingshan turned his head to look at his trusted men behind him and decisively issued the battle plan:

"Don't destroy the sentry post, seize it."

"Xiao Qi led three sharpshooters to occupy the high point on the left stone beam, and taking advantage of the wind and snow for cover, they took out the lookout post on the roof first;"

"Hou San led twenty scouts, dressed in white cloaks, and carrying climbing ropes, cut across the cliff on the right side, breaking through the roof behind the wooden shed;"

"Aman, follow me and lead ten veteran soldiers to press forward head-on and seal off the stables and wooden gate."

Xu Qingshan's fingers gripped the hilt of the knife tightly.

"Use silent crossbows and medicated short blades to finish the battle within half an incense stick's time. Leave no one alive, and don't let even half a horse escape!"

"Yes, sir!" The men lowered their voices and responded in a deep voice.

……

The mountain wind howled, and the snowstorm intensified.

More than twenty scouts from the Zhenbei Army, clad in snow-white camouflage cloaks, silently slipped into the frozen rock cliffs on both sides.

With the help of specially made anti-slip pads and barbed climbing ropes from Baizhi Workshop, Hou San and his group resembled a series of pale geckos clinging to the black rock face, scrambling up the ice crevices and using the small protruding ridges of the rock wall. Thick hemp ropes were thrown out and silently hung on the suspended rock frame above the shed, allowing the entire team to quickly suspend themselves in position, hovering in the blind spot behind the wooden shed.

Two hundred paces to the left, on a towering ice beam, Xiao Qi was buried in the snow, with only her cold, icy eyes showing.

He slowly drew the heavy hardwood horn bow, weighing two stones, and the bowstring, soaked in antifreeze tung oil, was slowly pulled taut at his fingertips. The arrowheads did not have reflective steel arrowheads, but were instead coated with a layer of light-absorbing black lacquer.

On the rooftop, a barbarian sentry wrapped in a thick goatskin coat shivered in the howling wind, clutching a scimitar. He raised his hand to rub his frozen eyelids, preparing to bend down and ask for a bowl of hot mutton soup from inside the shed.

"call out!"

A faint whooshing sound, almost completely swallowed by the wind and snow, suddenly swept by!

The arrow pierced through the snowstorm two hundred paces away, striking the sentry diagonally upwards from his jaw and exiting directly through the top of his head!

The barbarian soldier couldn't even utter a muffled groan; the air in his throat was abruptly blocked, his body stiffened, and he fell backward.

Just as his body tilted, a white shadow had already descended from the cliff behind him. Hou San grabbed the rope with one hand, reached out into the air, and steadily caught the falling corpse, gently placing it flat on the haystack on the roof without making the slightest tremor.

Almost at the same time, the second sentry next to the stable below was also shot through the neck by Xiao Qi's second silent arrow.

"Let's do it!"

Hou San, standing on the roof, made an attack gesture.

Five scouts slid down the ropes, and with a deft twist of their specially made steel crowbars along the wooden tenon joints of the cowhide shed roof, the entire rear panel was neatly lifted open, creating a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Dozens of short, powerful, twin crossbows emerged silently from the breach, their dark muzzles aimed at the barbarian soldiers roasting meat around the brazier below.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

A series of muffled vibrations from the machinery echoed in the cramped shed.

The short arrows, coated with Qin Yuenu's specially made anesthetic and highly poisonous liquid, transformed into deadly streaks of black light within a distance of less than five paces, accurately piercing the barbarian soldiers' faces, chests, and throats!

The barbarian soldier who was hit by the arrow shuddered violently and opened his mouth to scream, but the drug took effect extremely quickly. The poison flowed through his blood vessels, and his limbs became weak and powerless in an instant. He could only gasp for breath and collapsed one after another onto the muddy ground.

Just as the two barbarian riders who had sensed something was wrong drew their scimitars at the front door of the wooden shed, the heavy wooden door was smashed open from the outside by Xu Qingshan and Aman!

The blade flashed like lightning!

Xu Qingshan's steel longsword drew a chilling arc in mid-air, giving the opponent no chance to shout. The blade, carrying immense cleaving power, slashed diagonally down the first barbarian soldier's shoulder blade, splitting his leather armor in two!

The curved blade in Aman's hand transformed into a sinister silver thread, swiftly advancing along the ground and severing the tendons and throat of the second barbarian soldier.

Encircled from both sides, a thunderous encirclement.

All fifteen fierce and barbaric soldiers of the Blackwater tribe stationed at the pass died in pools of blood before they could even hear the horn, not one of them escaping!

……

"Hurry up and drag the body into a corner, then cover it with dirt to cover the blood!"

Hou San flicked the blood off his short blade and immediately ordered the scouts to clean up the scene.

At this moment, there was less than half an incense stick's time left before the next hour's signal for the handover.

Aman strode to the iron brazier outside the shed, quickly stripped off a greasy black leather robe from a barbarian captain, put it on himself, and then put on a heavy wolfskin snow hat, covering most of his young face.

He precisely rummaged through the dry woodpile next to the stable and found the dried pine cones and dried artemisia at the bottom, then threw them into the fire pit.

Flames flickered, and a thick wisp of smoke carrying a slightly bitter medicinal smell rose up.

Aman knelt on one knee in the wind, his hands gripping the thick sheepskin soaked in snow water. With a solemn expression, he methodically covered and lifted the fire pit in a rhythm of three long and two short strokes.

A dark blue column of smoke rose and fell three times amidst the swirling snow, drifting straight toward the main peak of Langya Ridge.

The wind and snow were desolate, and the mountain path was silent.

Xu Qingshan stood on the edge of the stone platform, his gaze piercing through the thick snow curtain, staring intently into the darkness deep within Langya Ridge.

Several dozen breaths later, at the summit of the precipitous main peak about five miles away, a faint, dark red flame flickered three times in the wind and snow before disappearing without a trace.

Without arousing suspicion, the first line of defense had already been quietly taken over!

Led by Zhou Laoqi, the large group of men quickly led the warhorses and sleds into the shaded hollow in the mountainside, sheltered from the wind by the wooden shed.

However, just as everyone was preparing for a short rest, Qin Yuenu, who was searching for enemy supplies inside the wooden shed, suddenly changed her expression.

"Centurion...come quickly!"

Qin Yuenu stood beside a deep pit at the innermost part of the shed. Her originally delicate face was now deathly pale, and her eyes were filled with indescribable shock and disgust.

Xu Qingshan stepped into the house, sword in hand.

A huge black iron pot sat on one corner of the wooden shed, the embers at the bottom of the pot still slightly warm.

In the snow and mud beside the iron pot, there was a large pile of cleanly gnawed and smashed bones.

The bones had large joints and the marrow had been removed, but they were definitely not the limbs of cattle or horses. Right above the pile of bones, there was a half of an arm bone that had been charred and broken by the raging fire. The joints were slender, clearly belonging to an adult!

Qin Yuenu squatted to the side, turning over the pile of bones with a short iron bar, her breathing rapid and her voice trembling:

"These aren't animal bones...they're human bones."

"And...it's not just one. There are at least four different skeletons in this pit, two of which...are still the skeletons of children who haven't fully grown."

Upon hearing this, the veteran soldiers of the Zhenbei Army inside the room felt a chill run down their spines, their hands gripping the hilts of their knives so tightly they cracked.

Lu Yong, sitting in a wooden wheelchair, struggled to move in with the help of his comrades.

When his gaze fell upon the edge of the pile of bones, on a piece of coarse, tattered cloth stained with dried oil and blood, he was struck dumb, his body convulsing violently, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets.

"This...this is Liu the blacksmith's wife's floral cloth bag...this is a piece of cloth from the clothing of a garrison soldier in Jubeibao...!"

Lu Yong collapsed before the pile of bones, his fingers digging deep into the foul-smelling mud and snow, a desperate howl erupting from his throat like that of a wild beast being skinned alive:

"These beasts... these inhuman beasts! They ate the villagers who escaped...!"

The Blackwater and Snow Wolf tribes besieged the mountains for two months, but heavy snow blocked the roads outside the pass, and their military provisions had long since run out.

In order to continue the siege of Jubei Fortress on the outskirts of this icy and snowy cliff, these barbarian cavalrymen who had long lost their humanity actually began to search for lone soldiers and civilians who had escaped from the fortress in search of food, to be used as rations for the camp!

The entire interior of the wooden shed fell into a deathly silence.

Zhou Laoqi's eyes were bloodshot, his thick chest heaved violently, and his teeth were clenched so hard they almost drew blood from his lips. Several young scouts felt a violent churning in their stomachs and leaned against wooden pillars, dry heaving uncontrollably.

In this harsh and cold northern region, killing and warfare are the norm.

But when people are reduced to livestock to be slaughtered, this cruelty, which breaks through all the bottom lines of humanity, completely enraged every soldier of the Great Qian Army present.

Xu Qingshan slowly walked to the pile of broken bones.

He slowly bent down, picked up the piece of coarse cloth stained with dried blood, and held it tightly in his palm.

The dim firelight illuminated his cold, hard face, and in his deep, icy eyes, all emotions were suppressed, leaving only an unyielding chill and murderous intent.

He didn't speak, but slowly turned around and looked into the eyes burning with boundless hatred and rage inside the room.

Xu Qingshan raised the long sword in his hand, slowly running his thumb along the icy, bone-chilling blade, his voice deep and resonant, like a death warrant emanating from the deepest depths of hell:

"From now on."

"All those from the Blackwater Tribe and the Snow Wolf Tribe who are armed—"

"No prisoners shall be taken; not a single one shall be allowed to live."