Marshal Hong and Military Advisor Ji (II)

This attack by the Meng Kingdom was extremely dangerous for the Green Mountain Pass garrison. If it hadn't been for Hong Linying's ruthless decisiveness in using over ten thousand soldiers to delay the enemy's siege, they probably wouldn't have had time to deploy on the city walls before being overrun.

This battle terrified the city's residents. The sight of the enemy's ferocious faces constantly appearing over the city walls, so close at hand, was unforgettable. After the battle, blood covered the city walls, flowing down the stone cracks and into the city. The area within half a mile of the city walls was like a pool of blood. The usually bright and clean streets were now covered in blood, and each step made a squelching sound.

Afterward, every time Hong Linying thought about the battle, even with his composure, he felt immense danger. He couldn't help but sigh, recalling what Ji Wenhe had said the night before, mentioning the possibility of the enemy hiding a large force waiting for an opportunity to strike.

In the following months, Ji Wenhe visited him again twice in the middle of the night, informing him of the enemy's movements and deployments. Hong Linying basically believed him these two times, and based on the information Ji Wenhe provided, he made targeted arrangements, resulting in great victories with minimal losses.

The second thing was that Ji Wenhe also began searching for a successor in the army. However, his tests were very strange. He didn't look at their martial arts aptitude, nor did he use internal energy to test their bodies. Instead, he used Silver Needle Pulse Testing on the people he tested. Ji Wenhe said that because their sect's internal cultivation method was very unique, if those who didn't pass the test forcibly practiced his sect's unique mental techniques, the result would only lead to the practitioner's internal energy reversing, causing them to die from reversed meridians and blood flow. What made Hong Linying strange was that Ji Wenhe hadn't found a suitable person in the army for a year, despite so many strong and healthy individuals, which surprised him greatly.

With Ji Wenhe's several major military victories, Hong Linying simply had the original military advisor retire and become the deputy military advisor a year later, making Ji Wenhe the military advisor. As for how he learned about the enemy's movements each time, he didn't care much. With this Military Advisor Ji's skills, he must have many methods. Besides, the enemy information he provided was extremely accurate. If he was a spy, the price would be too high, and it would be impossible to exchange the lives of seventy to eighty thousand people in these few battles for a possible successful scheme later on.

This move made many generals in the army initially unconvinced, but in the following battles, large and small, all plans were devised by Ji Wenhe, almost completely routing the invading enemies. This immediately stabilized Ji Wenhe's position in the army, and his prestige grew day by day.

What brought his prestige to its peak was a battle two and a half years ago. Before that battle, Ji Wenhe went to the central army camp thirty miles north of the city to continue searching for his "disciple," whose existence was uncertain. This was also because there were hundreds of thousands of troops stationed there. Even if Ji Wenhe had great abilities, he could only test a few hundred people at most in a day, even if he did nothing else. Therefore, in the past three years, in addition to testing almost all the tens of thousands of soldiers at Green Mountain Pass, he would also go to the central army camp from time to time to look for a disciple.

At first, the people in the army found these things very strange, but later, officers at all levels gradually got used to it. However, few outsiders knew about this, after all, Ji Wenhe was low-key and usually quiet and taciturn, rarely interacting with people in private.

That afternoon, on the very day that Ji Wenhe went to the central army camp, the Meng Kingdom suddenly launched an attack. Hong Linying led his troops to meet the enemy and fought with them. This time, the enemy reinforcements slowly increased like adding oil to a fire, entangling Hong Linying so that he couldn't escape and slowly fell into encirclement. At this time, Ji Wenhe, thirty miles away, received a fast horse report and led his troops from the central army camp. By the time they arrived, Hong Linying and his troops were in imminent danger. Ji Wenhe ordered the army to charge inward from the periphery in an Eight Trigrams Continuous Formation, step by step, while he himself revealed his terrifying Martial Arts for the first time in front of people. Alone with his sword, he was like a celestial being descending from the sky, shuttling through the enemy ranks as if entering an uninhabited land. Apart from occasionally deflecting enemy weapons, all who stood in his way were killed with a single sword strike. In the end, he even killed his way to the enemy's central army, soaring through the air like an eagle catching a rabbit. Before the enemy's guards could react, he had stepped forward and flown into their midst, beheading the enemy's deputy marshal with a single sword strike. Then, he deflected the incoming weapons and gracefully ascended, standing on top of the enemy's flag, which was more than ten meters high, with just a few steps. Holding a sword in one hand and raising the enemy marshal's head high in the other, he was truly unparalleled in demeanor. The enemy's morale immediately collapsed, and they had no intention of fighting anymore, suffering a crushing defeat. Only then did Hong Linying lead his troops to break out of the encirclement.

After this battle, the name of Military Advisor Ji was unparalleled for a time, even surpassing that of Marshal Hong. People also learned that this military advisor, in addition to being able to "theorize on paper," was also an unparalleled expert. At the same time, the Imperial Dynasty's army no longer focused on defense, and often sent troops to attack the enemy's borders, or even brought large armies to pressure the border. In the following years, the two sides had their own offensives and defenses, and were almost evenly matched. Despite the existence of Ji Wenhe, the power of one person ultimately couldn't determine the outcome on the battlefield. Moreover, the Meng Kingdom knew that there was an expert at Green Mountain Pass who could take a person's head from among thousands of troops, so they also transferred several first-class and top experts from the country to hold the line.

Through this, Hong Linying could basically confirm that Ji Wenhe had reached the Transformation Realm, and might even be above this realm, a realm he didn't know. As a Martial Arts fanatic, he certainly knew that this was due to Ji Wenhe's sect's martial arts. Although he had guessed Ji Wenhe's realm before, he didn't expect it to be so powerful. After this, he couldn't help but feel a burning desire in his heart. However, no matter how he investigated, he couldn't find out where this sect came from.

Through occasional sparring with Ji Wenhe, he felt that the other party's Martial Arts were exquisite, or rather, the other party's internal energy was exquisite. Any ordinary move, when used by Ji Wenhe with internal energy, always made Hong Linying feel like the water of a great river, continuous and endless, and sometimes like a mountain pressing down, crushing everything, making him unable to resist at all. This made him unable to resist Ji Wenhe's internal cultivation method, and once greed arose, he tried every means to obtain it.

However, Ji Wenhe's matter of choosing a disciple was always delayed, and Ji Wenhe's complexion was getting worse and worse, as he had said before, and even his appearance had aged a lot. Hong Linying subtly wanted to let himself inherit this unique skill, so after a banquet, he said to Ji Wenhe, "Military Advisor, what kind of person are you looking for to inherit your sect? So many years have passed, but you haven't met one. What kind of physique are you looking for?"

Ji Wenhe smiled slightly and replied, "The reason why our sect has been passed down from generation to generation is not because we don't accept many disciples, but because the mental technique requirements are really special, you could say one in ten thousand. In fact, as long as the body has a unique expression under the Silver Needle Pulse Testing that uses my unique mental technique, there is hope."

"This is more than one in ten thousand. In my army, whether it's the old troops or the new recruits, you've probably tested almost everyone. I think it's one in hundreds of thousands," Hong Linying shook his head and sighed.

Then he said, "When your silver needle goes down, what kind of abnormal expression in the body is there hope for?"

Ji Wenhe said, "That's not certain. Maybe it's an abnormal complexion, maybe it's an abnormal aura in the body. At that time, I must use internal energy to explore through the silver needle as a guide to know. If it merges with my internal energy, then it's right."

Ji Wenhe always tested in one place, either in a house or in a tent. Apart from the person being tested, outsiders were never allowed to enter, so Hong Linying was always half-doubtful about these words.

Hong Linying pretended to be slightly drunk and said with the help of alcohol, "Then Military Advisor, can you see what my physique is like?" He didn't say what would happen if it was suitable, nor did he say what would happen if it wasn't suitable. The feeling this remark gave was that it was just a joke after drinking, just out of curiosity.

Ji Wenhe smiled slightly when he heard this, as if the two of them had just said something casually in a chat. He nodded and replied, "Anyway, I have nothing to do. It's worth a try. Maybe the Marshal is really destined for my sect." Then he took the cloth bag from his side, opened it, took out a silver needle, and tested his pulse.

It is said that Ji Wenhe must carry this cloth bag with him every time, because he would go to find some soldiers to test whenever he had free time. After the silver needle went down, Hong Linying felt a numbness in his wrist, and then there was no abnormality, and he didn't feel any internal energy entering.

Ji Wenhe also shook his head in disappointment and put away the silver needle. "It seems that the Marshal is also not destined for my sect, so there is no need to use internal energy to check."

This meant that Hong Linying was also unable to learn his cultivation method, but how could this statement convince Hong Linying? He had practiced Martial Arts since he was a child, and along the way, there were only difficulties he could overcome, and he had never seen a cultivation method that he couldn't learn, it was just a matter of whether he was willing to practice it or not.

However, he couldn't use force against Ji Wenhe. He thought to himself that he was definitely not Ji Wenhe's opponent. Even if this person looked worse year by year in recent years, it was estimated that dealing with him would only take a few moves or even a casual gesture. Although he was already a top expert in the current Jiang, it depended on who he was compared with.

Until the beginning of last year, Ji Wenhe finally found the disciple he was looking for in the central army camp. Hong Linying also found an excuse to contact Ji Wenhe's disciple, who was like finding a drop of water in the "vast sea of people," in private.

He even used internal energy to explore the meridians in this child's body, but he didn't feel anything special about this child's meridians. This made him feel that Ji Wenhe should have concealed something, but it was these things that made him unable to understand.

However, only one month after Ji Wenhe found his disciple, this disciple, who had just entered the sect, suddenly died violently one night. Afterward, Ji Wenhe also looked painful and regretful, saying that he was illiterate and had misunderstood the sect's Martial Arts, and died from reversed Qi and blood due to improper practice.

Hong Linying also saw the tragic death of that person, his whole body turned black and swollen, unlike practicing Kung Fu, but more like dying from severe poisoning. This gave him two ideas: one was that Ji Wenhe used this person as a poisonous body object, wanting to use a method to force the poison on his body into the other party's body to relieve his own poison. This poisonous body object must have something to do with his sect's Kung Fu or this poison in order to be able to implement it according to the law, otherwise, he would just pull someone to be this poisonous body object. But looking at Ji Wenhe's appearance afterward, his complexion didn't seem to have improved much, which made him doubt the correctness of this judgment. The second was that Ji Wenhe's mental technique should be quite overbearing, and it may be that this disciple who had just entered the sect really practiced Kung Fu improperly, causing his Qi to rush upward, causing his blood to flow backward, breaking his internal organs, and causing abnormalities in his whole body. But for someone like Ji Wenhe, since he knew that his disciple was illiterate, he should have a compromise method to solve it or use the Kung Fu of a grindstone to supervise his Kung Fu practice. Is it really that his time is running out? In addition to these, there are still some other places that Hong Linying cannot connect and understand. If he wants to know these, he still has to start from the pulse test, maybe there may be some clues revealed.

Ji Wenhe still went to the army to find some soldiers to test their pulses every time, but Hong Linying had no reason to follow. If he went to watch, it might be said that he was interested once or twice, but if he went too many times, it would be obvious that he had intentions. Moreover, this also involved some privacy in the Jiang sects. It is a big taboo to inquire about the privacy of other sects in the Jiang, and it is not an exaggeration to kill people and silence them. It's just that he has a reason to come every time new recruits are enlisted, to observe the quality of the new recruits and the recruitment situation.

In fact, Hong Linying also guessed that Ji Wenhe would be clear about his inspection of new recruits every time. It was not difficult for someone like Ji Wenhe to see these things, but Gong Linying had no other way. At present, he could only start from this point. He wanted to obtain clues from some clues, and then make the next plan, so that he could get closer to his dream of the best Kung Fu. Unfortunately, Ji Wenhe completed the pulse test in the tent every time, and he was not easy to enter.

Even so, he still wanted to see what kind of person Ji Wenhe had chosen as his disciple in the first place, and what clues he could grasp. Of course, this kind of thing had to be seen with his own eyes and done by himself. After all, what others said was not as clear as what he saw with his own eyes.

Hong Linying leaned back in his chair and looked at the tent. His slightly squinted eyes flickered constantly, and he kept thinking in his heart, "This matter is really tricky. I have used both soft and hard methods in the past few years, but I can't get it. According to him, he only has one or two years left to live. Is this true or false? Even if it is true, he will not take it out even if he loses it. What should I do then?"