Outside Shangyu County, in a stretch of flattened mountain forest.
Guan Feng stood holding a spear, his mourning cloth stained with blood and his clothes in tatters.
Corpses littered the ground around him. Blood soaked severed limbs, and spilled guts lay everywhere-a scene of mangled flesh.
Around him, nearly a thousand Greenwood soldiers held their long weapons up, maintaining the encirclement without charging in again.
At the front of the crowd, Fox Mei Zi called from afar, "Guan Feng, if the army's leader didn't want you captured alive, I would have cut off your head and hung it above the city gates long ago. Don't spurn our goodwill. Kneel now, and you can live a couple more days without suffering physical torment."
Guan Feng stood alone in a pool of blood, gazing at the beacon fires burning around him. Hatred and obsession had long since left his heart. All his ambitions had vanished like smoke when Shangyu County's Grand Formation was broken.
At that moment, this lonely spot in the mountains, with everything hushed and still, was just like the stagnant pool of his heart. No matter how fiercely the winds raged around him, no matter who lived or died, nothing could stir even the slightest ripple in it again.
Night fell, and the wind ceased.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Ren Ye, Ai Fei, Xu Bangzi, Old Liu, and the others appeared in the woods at the same time.
"This bastard nearly poisoned an entire town to death. What's the point of keeping him alive?" Old Liu said bluntly. "I'll go squeeze his balls out."
"His balls aren't going anywhere. Why be in such a hurry?!" Xu Bangzi said fawningly. "His Highness still has questions for him. We need him alive."
"Heh."
Old Liu readily took the advice and sneered. "Then we'll