When the Cunning Rabbit Dies, the Hounds Are Cooked

The fires in Zhao Family Fortress were still burning. The stench of char mixed with blood fermented in the night.

Inside the Hall of Brotherhood, the condemned prisoners and private soldiers of the Assault Camp had descended into revelry. Gold, silver, and jewels lay piled carelessly across the floor. Wine jars had shattered over the silk carpets. Black Bear stuffed a roast chicken into his mouth, a gold chain stripped from Zhao Tianba's corpse hanging around his neck, grinning like a three-hundred-pound child.

"Boss! The Zhao family was damn rich!" Pockmarked limped over, clutching a rosewood box to his chest. "Fished this out of the well in the back courtyard. Take a look!"

Ji Ye sat in the seat of honor, wiping the chips from his Wild Goose Feather Saber. He took the wooden box and opened it. Inside lay a snow-white ginseng shaped like an infant.

"Hundred-Year Snow Ginseng."

A glint flashed through Ji Ye's eyes. This was a great tonic gentler and richer than Blood Wolf Marrow, enough to help him stabilize the Bone Forging Realm and perhaps even glimpse the threshold of Organ Tempering.

Yet he did not consume it at once. He closed the lid, his brows drawing together slightly.

It had gone too smoothly.

From breaking through the city gates to slaughtering the entire Zhao household, everything had gone almost unnaturally smoothly, aside from Zhao Tianba, that old bastard, making a desperate counterattack and wounding a few brothers. The hundreds of retainers at Zhao Family Fortress did not seem nearly as troublesome as the rumors claimed.

More importantly, Qin Wuji's army had arrived far too slowly.

By all rights, once the fires started here, the cavalry from the camp fifty li away should have reached the battlefield in half an hour to harvest the spoils. Yet dawn was nearly here, and there was still no sign of reinforcements.

"Stop drinking!"

Ji Ye abruptly rose to his feet and kicked over the wine table before him. "Armor up! Take your weapons! Assemble!"

The drunken soldier scum jolted in fright. The chicken leg fell from Black Bear's mouth, and he muttered, "Boss, what's wrong? The Zhao family's all dead. What, are there ghosts now?"

Before his words had faded.

"Thud, thud, thud."

Heavy, perfectly synchronized footsteps suddenly sounded beyond the fortress.

They were not the chaotic footsteps of a rabble, but the iron rhythm of thousands moving as one. Then came the teeth-grating sound of bowstrings being drawn tight—the distinctive sound of Divine Arm Crossbows being cocked in the army.

Ji Ye's expression changed. His body flashed as he smashed through the window and rushed outside.

The walls surrounding Zhao Family Fortress were somehow already filled with a sea of black-armored soldiers. Heavy shields and long spears in hand, they had sealed off the entire stronghold so tightly not even water could pass through.

At the main gate, a huge command banner bearing the character "Qin" snapped in the wind.

Qin Wuji sat atop a white horse. He had not even entered the fortress, merely watching from afar with the eyes of a man looking at a herd of pigs and sheep awaiting slaughter.

Standing at the very front was that familiar adjutant.

He held a command arrow in his hand, his voice cold as it rang through the fortress under the amplification of Internal Strength:

"Ji Ye, centurion of the Assault Camp, colluded with bandits, embezzled military supplies, and massacred the innocent Zhao household. His crimes are monstrous!"

"By order of the Commandant, execute them on the spot!"

"Kill!"

There was no defense, no trial.

Only a frigid order to kill without mercy.

"Qin Wuji! I'll fuck your ancestors!!" Black Bear had just rushed out of the hall when he heard those words. His eyes went bloodshot with rage, and he brandished his massive axe as he charged forward.

"Twank, twank, twank—!!!"

A dense barrage of bolts poured down like a torrential rain.

Divine Arm Crossbows—the killing weapons of Great Liang's frontier army—could pierce heavy armor within a hundred paces.

"Pfft, pfft, pfft!"

Black Bear's huge body instantly turned into a porcupine. His leather armor was as thin as paper before the Divine Arm Crossbows. More than a dozen bolts punched through his chest, thighs, and throat.

His raised axe froze in midair. A wet gurgle came from his throat as he lowered his head in disbelief to look at his chest, then crashed to the ground.

"Brother Bear!"

Pockmarked let out a shriek and tried to pull him back, only for Ji Ye to seize him and shove him behind a pillar.

"Thud, thud, thud!"

A row of bolts embedded themselves deeply in the pillar, their shafts humming.

The Assault Camp brothers inside the hall fell into chaos. They were fierce bandits, desperadoes who lived with their heads tied to their belts, but before the encirclement of an organized regular army, they were nothing but living targets.

Screams rose one after another.

The brothers who had been drinking and eating meat together moments ago now fell one by one into pools of blood. Their blood stained the gold and silver on the ground red, a scene of bitter irony.

"Boss... we were sold out..." Pockmarked clutched the shoulder pierced by a stray bolt, his face deathly pale. "Those dog-fuckers... they're trying to silence us..."

Ji Ye leaned against the pillar, listening to the rain of arrows outside. There was no anger on his face, only the stillness of death.

He should have realized it long ago.

Zhao Family Fortress was a local power. Though disobedient, it was still one of Great Liang's major taxpayers. If word got out that Qin Wuji had destroyed the Zhao family for military provisions, it would drive powerful families across the land into rebellion.

So someone had to take the blame.

And what scapegoats could be better than a pack of "condemned prisoners" and "bandits"?

"When the cunning rabbit dies, the hounds are cooked."

Ji Ye took out the Snow Ginseng from his robes and swallowed it in two or three bites as if he were eating a carrot.

The massive medicinal force exploded within him, but it could not save his life. It could only make him die a little slower.

"Pockmarked."

Ji Ye drew his Wild Goose Feather Saber and picked up a round shield from a corpse.

"Are you afraid of dying?"

"Afraid..." Pockmarked trembled, tears and snot streaming down his face, but he tightened his grip around his broken blade. "But I don't want to die like some spineless coward!"

"Good."

Ji Ye took a deep breath, feeling the blood within him boil from rage and medicinal power.

"Then let them see that when a dog is driven into a corner, it can still bite someone to death."

"Charge out!"

With a thunderous roar, Ji Ye raised the round shield and charged into the sky-filling rain of arrows like a lone wolf trapped at the end of the road.

Since they could not live.

Then they would drag a few down with them!