Everyone had stones stuffed in their mouths, their jaws cinched shut with hemp rope. Unable to speak, they could only hum through their noses in terror, as though they wanted to say something... Yet Shi Wenguang had no intention of hearing another word from them. They were all forced to their knees. Besides the men holding them down, a red-clad executioner carrying a demon-headed broadsword stood behind each of them.
The generals looked at the five hundred men. They knew what would happen next, yet none of them reacted, and not one stepped forward to plead for their surrender. They all understood that these five hundred-odd soldiers, like Yan Ping and Wen Gao who had just been bound, were spies planted in the army by the imperial court. Their ranks simply had not been as high as those two spy generals. They had not been touched before because they did not wish to alarm the court. Now that the army was about to depart, at a single command from the Grand Marshal, every last one of them had been caught in the net.
At the sight of this formation, Yan Ping and Wen Gao's faces instantly turned deathly pale. They understood everything. So every move they had made had long been under the Grand Marshal's control. Today was the day they would all be swept up in one net.
"Marshal, spare my life!" Yan Ping suddenly struggled to his feet and wailed miserably toward the imposing figure atop the reviewing platform. Two soldiers raised the thick backs of their blades and smashed them into his shinbones. Crack! The sound of breaking bone was crystal clear. Yan Ping let out a muffled groan of agony. With a bang, he dropped to his knees again.
Wen Gao, who had also been about