"Liao Xiong! Fan Fu! You have no hope of surviving, but my lord cherishes life and will give you one chance. Will you surrender?"
Wearing a suit of Iron Loin Armor acquired from who knew where, which nevertheless fit surprisingly well, and a helmet, Xie Xuan rode forward and shouted at the top of his lungs.
Liao Xiong's horse had long since fallen dead. Only four or five personal guards remained beside him. His helmet was gone, as was the crimson headscarf around his forehead. His hair hung loose, blood and grime covered his head and face, and seven or eight crossbow bolts protruded from the gaps in his armor. He looked like a wild beast.
Yet instead of rejoicing at these words, he roared in fury, "If your lord thought anything of me, he should have come himself! Why ambush and trick me first, then send a child to humiliate me? I won't surrender! I won't!"
Xie Xuan was momentarily speechless. He wanted to shout that he was a son of the Chen Commandery Xie Clan, that his father was Minister of the Board of Revenue and his uncle the General Who Pacifies the West, and that sending him to offer surrender was no slight.
But he could not shout it, especially standing before this reed marsh reeking of blood.
This was a battlefield. Even if Liu Langya, on the hill over there, thought nothing of it, it was still a battlefield. Family influence, background, prospects-all were empty here. Here, a mere fighting man could feel his blood surge and throw away his life as he pleased.
Here, he, Xie Xuan, had no standing to answer that challenge.
Thus, after a brief silence, Xie Xuan reined his horse around, leaving the battlefield to an Army Commander who had already