Can You?

Lu Yao roared in fury, "Fire the signal arrows! Fire the signal arrows!" He could not care less about the rest right now; he had to summon his ambushing force to hold the line first. Two signal arrows shot into the sky, one red and one green, glaringly conspicuous against the night. Wu Shaoyi laughed instead. "Trying to summon reinforcements? Hahaha, General Pei has already taken care of them for you!" Lu Yao was stunned. Among the three generals meeting in Xianling Village, Pei Xinyong was the most composed and prudent. If not for his determination to broker this rendezvous, Lu Yao and Wu Shaoyi would never have met at all—at worst, they would have fought to the death on sight; at best, they would have refused contact to their dying days. How could Pei Xinyong have completely thrown his lot in with Wu Shaoyi in just half a night? It made no sense! Or had the two of them conspired long ago to gang up against him? If that was truly the case, then the nine hundred men he had brought into the mountains were not too many, but far too few! The combined forces of Wu and Pei numbered fully twenty-six to twenty-seven hundred men. Cold sweat instantly broke out across Lu Yao's back. He said urgently, "I only wanted to stall that dog of an official until you two came up so we could sacrifice him to the banners together! He is on his way to Xiazhou to take up the post of Director-General. If we seize his credentials and official seal, we can roam free in Xiazhou and never have to hide in the shadows again! I can swear a blood oath by my ancestors that we'll split all the spoils equally from now on, with no ill intent whatsoever!" Wu Shaoyi gave a cold chuckle. "Kneel and let yourself be bound to show your sincerity. Once we take down the dog official, we will naturally give you a fair deal!" Lu Yao raged, "Bah! Don't push your luck!" He had yielded time and again; when had he ever swallowed such foul insolence? That bastard Wu did not know what was good for him! Lu Yao's eyes darted around, and he shouted again, "Boys, head to the lake and untie the boats!" As the two rebel factions clashed, the imperial soldiers withdrew immediately, terrified of catching fire from the blaze. Fortunately, once Wu Shaoyi spotted Lu Yao, he clamped onto him with relentless fury, not even bothering to spare a glance for the imperial soldiers. Clearly, in his eyes, an internal traitor was ten times more detestable than an external foe. Furthermore, a deep-seated grudge had already existed between the two; the longer it was suppressed, the more violently it erupted. He had even given the order to "slaughter the Lu scoundrels," so his men pitted themselves against Lu's troops in vicious combat, paying little mind to pursuing the imperial soldiers. Of course, this also had much to do with the imperial troops retreating without putting up a fight. He Chunhua had long since ordered everyone to sleep with weapons ready. Dawn had not yet arrived, but all the carriages, horses, and baggage were packed and tied down. Some had never been unpacked at all; others had been reinforced and overhauled overnight. Even the household utensils Madam Ying had just used were packed back into trunks and securely lashed to the wagons. Even the horses had been fed fodder and fresh water, rested to full vigor, and hitched to the carts. The moment fighting broke out in the village, He Chunhua decisively gave the order: "Retreat to the west!" More than four hundred people, with their carriages, immediately set off toward the mountain path west of the village. The imperial soldiers naturally did not deliberately make noise, but the villagers were neither deaf nor blind. Seeing them fully equipped and setting off, the villagers swarmed over at once, wailing, "My lords, take us with you!" He Chunhua had anticipated this. The soldiers pointed forward. "Follow our retreat! Everyone form a column, no more than three abreast!" "You may ride horses, but no carts or wagons!" Despite repeated warnings, some villagers still tossed all their belongings onto carts and tried to drive horse-drawn wagons westward. They were stopped by the soldiers, and the two sides traded insults before escalating into physical scuffles. With He Yue, Zeng Feixiong, and the others swamped with work, He Lingchuan had no choice but to stride over and shout, "Abandon your carts and get moving, or stay behind with them! Don't stand here blocking the road!" These horse and ox carts were bulky, but the mountain path was narrow, accommodating at most two carriages abreast. When they blocked the way while the official wagons needed to pass, the commoners were squeezed out entirely. The cart owners raged, "The officials can take wagons, so why can't we?!" "Exactly! All our worldly possessions are on these carts! Are we supposed to live on northwest wind once we get out?!" Shoving broke out again between the two sides. He Lingchuan reached out, dragged the foremost man down from his wagon, and hauled him up to his face. "The soldiers can fight the rear guard—can you? Whoever among you can take up arms and cover the retreat can bring their cart through!" He asked the man in his grasp harshly, "Can you?!" The man froze, his neck stiffening as if paralyzed. He dared not nod, yet was unwilling to shake his head. They were ordinary law-abiding folks; what qualifications did they have to battle hardened, bloodthirsty bandits? Lest anyone forget, the bandits had just slaughtered a hundred villagers in broad daylight, and among them were sturdy, capable men from the village militia! Moreover, these were no ordinary bandits. They were rebel remnants who had battled imperial forces for years, conquering cities, sacking territories, and slaughtering people without batting an eye! Their battle experience was vast—what did the villagers have to fight them with? "Those who can't fight, dismount and walk! Those who can fight, put your families on the carts and stay behind yourselves!" With He Lingchuan's bark, and someone in the rear shoving forward while screaming, "The bandits are coming!", the commoners on the carts dared not dig their heels in any longer. They clambered down and bolted forward. If they did not run now, once the bandits caught up, they would merely be acting as meat shields for those who had run faster. The soldiers shoved the villagers' carts to the side, clearing a path for the commoners on foot. This way, one half of the road was for pedestrians and the other half for wagons, keeping things reasonably orderly. Soon enough, He Lingchuan also spotted bandits dashing toward the west end of the village, smashing doors and breaking into houses. He could not tell whether these men belonged to Wu or Lu, but in any case, looting in the chaos was their specialty. In particular, when Wu Shaoyi's subordinates saw that their numbers far exceeded the enemy's and that victory was only a matter of time, some began scheming to loot early. When it came to pillaging, the rule was simple: the quick got everything, and the slow got nothing. Yesterday evening, just as Lu Yao had killed people and occupied the village, before he even had time to plunder, the imperial soldiers arrived right on his heels. To avoid giving themselves away, Lu's bandits had not ransacked the homes, thinking they could pillage after defeating the imperial troops. Consequently, the furniture and livestock the villagers could not carry off in their haste were still sitting in their homes. Seeing this from up the mountain, the fleeing crowd felt glad rather than angry. With the bandits busy looting homes, they could buy precious time for their retreat. Yet things rarely went as one wished: more and more bandits still set their sights on the western mountain path. Some of these were following Lu Yao's orders, aiming to capture He Chunhua, but more than half had been ambushed by Wu Shaoyi's men and were forced to fight while retreating— Some retreated eastward, but others retreated west, overlapping directly with the evacuation route of the soldiers and commoners. Zeng Feixiong and the others were rushing back and forth trying to command, facing great difficulty. Yet no one made any demands of He Lingchuan. Even Madam Ying had told him earlier, "Go to the front and lend your father a hand." The vanguard of the column was the safest. Having seen the worst lot drawn from the Water Spirit, no one blamed him. He Lingchuan watched Zeng Feixiong's retreating back and silently clenched his fists. The Water Spirit's prophecy lingered in his mind, refusing to disperse. If his great calamity were truly to strike tonight, he should not act recklessly at a life-and-death crossroads like this. But what if it did not? Next time, and the time after that, was he to shrink back every time? If the great calamity would only arrive ten years from now, was he supposed to live in fear and retreat for ten years first? Hiding behind others was certainly easy, but could you truly be sure the butcher's blade would never fall upon your own neck in the end?