Chapter 1147: The Straightforward You and Me, The Him and Her on Paper
After Wang Po clashed blades with the Demon General, the first to act was not the Prince of Xiang leaping out from the sun, nor the Black Robe hiding behind schemes and plots, but Divine General He Ming.
He rubbed his weary face, walked to the entrance of the central command tent, and gazed into the distance.
The Wolf Cavalry had ceased their assault, retreating like several streams of dark water back toward the passage of night beneath Mount Norilang.
The Demon General had been defeated and fled; the Prince of Xiang followed after him; the Li Mountain Sect Leader gave chase.
The Taoist Nun Huairen sat on the ground healing her wounds. Mao Qiuyu held off the Third Demon General and the Eighth Demon General. Wang Po stood still, unmoving.
That Snow Old City noble fell onto the grassland, smashing into countless clumps of mud. He struggled to his feet, his body covered in wounds, seemingly on the verge of death.
“Are you the human commander?”
The noble stared at Divine General He Ming, a mad gleam in his eyes, and said, “Then your luck today is truly terrible.”
Though he was dying, though Divine General He Ming was also a Star Gathering realm expert, the threshold of the Sacred Domain was incredibly high. He could still kill He Ming.
The young girls of Nanxi Zhai surrounded the central command tent like scattered white flowers.
They hadn’t expected this Sacred Domain expert to fall from the sky, and for a moment, they were flustered.
Ye Xiaolian was not flustered at all. She shouted clearly, “Withdraw!”
Divine General He Ming said, “Disperse!”
His voice was calm but firm.
Ye Xiaolian was confused, even a little angry, but remembering the abbess’s prior instructions, she gritted her teeth and shouted, “Disciples, scatter!”
White blossoms bloomed and drifted away, and the surrounding tents collapsed.
Hundreds of crossbowmen, wielding Holy Light Crossbows, aimed at the blood-soaked Snow Old City noble.
Hundreds of crossbow bolts shot out with holy light, forming a beam several feet wide that pierced through his body.
Most of the noble’s demonic body vanished.
He looked down at himself, a dazed expression in his eyes.
The clatter of dense footsteps broke the silence as cavalry returned from the battlefield.
Before people could shake off the shock and bewilderment of what they had just witnessed, they heard an even more shocking command.
Divine General He Ming said, “Depart in sixty breaths.”
A deputy general asked in surprise, “Sir, where to?”
Divine General He Ming said, “Snow Old City, of course.”
He said this as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Ye Xiaolian was startled. She suddenly remembered the young master of the Tang family on the Divine Path in the capital many years ago, and then recalled the senior Su Li that the abbess occasionally mentioned.
The specific arrangements were naturally handled by staff officers and other generals. Divine General He Ming walked back into the tent, went to a dim corner, and said softly, “I’ve troubled the Holy Maiden.”
Xu Yourong opened her eyes and looked at him, asking, “How confident are you?”
In recent days, she had gone many days and nights without sleep, utterly exhausted.
Today, she had planned to get a good rest, but ended up being dragged into a chat by the Li Mountain Sect Leader in the storage room. After he finally left, she hid here, leaning against a crate, hoping to doze off. But before she could sleep long, the battle outside ended, and someone came to bother her again.
She hadn’t slept well, so she wasn’t in a good mood, and her words were naturally blunt.
Divine General He Ming thought it over and said, “Thirty percent.”
Xu Yourong thought for a moment and said, “That’s enough.”
Divine General He Ming said with emotion, “Discussing matters with the Holy Maiden is truly refreshing.”
Xu Yourong said, “That’s true. If it were Chen Changsheng here, it would be endlessly troublesome.”
She took out a bronze object from her sleeve.
It was the artifact Shang Xingzhou had made from the Heavenly Mirror.
She wasn’t preparing to contact the capital, because the other artifact wasn’t in Chen Changsheng’s hands, but in Xue He’s.
She told Xue He two things.
First, the Prince of Xiang was severely wounded and couldn’t return to the Western Ninth Camp in the short term.
Second, Commander He Ming ordered the entire Western Army to advance, reaching the central region of the Bunong Highlands within three days and capturing Soluo City.
She believed Xue He would clearly understand the meaning of these two sentences.
And this was jointly guaranteed by Divine General He Ming and Xu Yourong.
Sure enough, later that day, Xue He went directly to the Right Main Camp, seized military command from the Prince of Xiang, and led the Western Ninth Camp northward.
The Central Army and the Eastern Army also moved simultaneously.
The fastest was the Northern Third Camp, the vanguard of the Eastern Army.
They force-marched for a day and night, bypassed Xingxing Gorge, captured Wutai River, and thus took the most important military stronghold in the south of the Bunong Highlands.
Using this as a breakthrough point, the human army advanced with unimaginable speed, forcibly cutting the demon race’s second steel defense line into three sections.
Most importantly, in terms of time, the seventeen days lost in the first battle were all reclaimed in this process.
The Black Robe’s strategic deployment could be said to be a complete failure.
…
…
Chen Changsheng put down the dossier in his hands and stared blankly for a while.
Reading it on paper always felt shallow.
The Northern Third Camp of the Left Army, force-marching for a day and night, bypassing Xingxing Gorge, capturing Wutai River.
On paper, it was just a short sentence. In the real world, what a tragic and courageous story it was!
“The most important reason is that when the demon race attacked, the Northern Third Camp suffered no losses.”
Gou Hanshi thought of the three names at the top of the merit report and smiled.
Not because they had achieved great merits and brought glory to Li Mountain, but because they were still alive and well.
The key point was: why had those thousands of vultures flying out from the cliff walls suddenly fallen onto the grassland and burned themselves to death?
The frontline officers and soldiers couldn’t figure this out. Liang Banhu had also expressed his confusion in a private letter sent back.
Seeing Chen Changsheng’s expression, Gou Hanshi vaguely guessed the truth, but since Chen Changsheng didn’t bring it up, he didn’t feel comfortable saying anything.
The story between the Pope and his guardian, though not widely publicized, was known to those who needed to know.
After all, since that autumn, no one had seen that black-clad girl by Chen Changsheng’s side.
Thinking that she had left the warm southern island and gone to the snowy plains her father had once trodden, Chen Changsheng’s mood was complicated.
Then he noticed Gou Hanshi looking at him with a half-smile.
He felt a bit awkward and, thinking of something, changed the subject.
“What was that demon race freak in the cliff wall shouting before he died?”
“Su Li hasn’t left yet?”
“Huh?”
Gou Hanshi smiled and said, “I mean, that’s what the demon was shouting. He should have been from the demon race’s Ghost Charioteer clan, best at controlling beasts, even more terrifying than the southern Wu tribe. I heard that Grandmaster Uncle hunted them for many years back then, and they were thought to be extinct. I didn’t expect any survivors.”
Why had Su Li hunted the Ghost Charioteer clan back then?
The Li Mountain Sword Sect had no records. Gou Hanshi didn’t know, and Chen Changsheng couldn’t guess.
They exchanged a glance, thinking of one possibility.
Perhaps hundreds of years ago, Su Li had already seen the importance of that tribe in warfare?
Maybe that was really it.
Because before leaving this world, Su Li had been fighting the demon race all along.
Not battles—war.
And what about that guy who had been fighting the demon race since birth?
Chen Changsheng really wanted to know where Zheshe was.
Gou Hanshi was also concerned, because Zheshe was now the son-in-law of Li Mountain.
The front lines naturally had their own methods of recording military merits.
What was known now was that since the war began, Zheshe had killed over a dozen demon soldiers.
For an ordinary soldier, this would be a very commendable achievement, but for Zheshe, it seemed somewhat strange.
His abilities were definitely not limited to this.
Where exactly was he? What was he doing?
“It seems I need to go ahead of schedule.”
Chen Changsheng said to Gou Hanshi.
In spring, Gou Hanshi had told him that he could only leave the capital when he saw Snow Old City.
Now, although those three cavalrymen had seen Snow Old City, the human army was still a long way from it. Why did he need to go now?
Because although the human army had won this battle, in other respects, the demon race had barely achieved their goals for this campaign.
Including Wang Po, the vast majority of human Sacred Domain experts had been severely wounded and couldn’t fight again in the short term.
At times like this, soldiers’ morale could easily waver, because Sacred Domain experts represented their backbone.
If Chen Changsheng appeared at the front lines now, it would greatly stabilize morale.
If Xu Yourong appeared alongside him, the effect would be even more pronounced.
Chen Changsheng said, “As long as His Majesty is in the palace, the capital won’t be in chaos, and the people’s hearts won’t waver.”
This time, Gou Hanshi didn’t object.
Because the situation was very different from spring.
The capital had truly welcomed summer.
The wind coursed through the city, filtered by the Luo River and the willows on its banks, becoming slightly cooler, but when it met the red walls of the palace, it turned hot again.
Mo Yu’s cheeks were slightly flushed, with a few beads of sweat at her temples. She fanned herself incessantly with a handkerchief in her left hand, the buttons at her collar undone, revealing a stretch of white skin.
Chen Changsheng sat across from her, looking at the tea in his cup, feeling as if a flower might bloom inside it.