It had not snowed these past two days. Under the moonlight, the traces of this retreating and defeated army could not have been clearer.
Jiang Yuqing led Bai Xiaoshi and chased them for sixty or seventy li before finally discovering them on a leeward slope.
These dogs that had lost their homes were chased too hard during the day. At this moment, they were all crowded into the few tents still standing, snoring loudly in their sleep.
Only a few were left to patrol and stand watch.
Jiang Yuqing had Bai Xiaoshi stop at the highest point of the slope. She smiled and took out the battle flags that she had once cherished too much to use. Lowering her head, she carefully stroked them and said, “My darlings, today’s the day for you to make your entrance!”
When Bai Xiaoshi took one look, she was so frightened that she jumped and exclaimed anxiously, “What are you trying to do? I’m warning you, don’t cause any trouble!”
Jiang Yuqing tilted her head to glance at Bai Xiaoshi. “I’m sorry, Xiaoshi. Tonight, I’m probably going to go back on my word. I might even get you involved!”
“Isn’t there any other way?” Bai Xiaoshi anxiously paced around in circles. In her carelessness, one of her hooves happened to step on a weathered rock. With a crashing sound, the rock tumbled noisily down the slope.
The noise immediately alerted those standing watch. “Who’s there?” they yelled in the Xiongnu language. Although Jiang Yuqing could not understand them, she could guess their meaning well enough.
It did not matter now that they had been discovered. In any case, none of these beasts would escape tonight.
The Xiongnu camp was quickly astir. By the time these barbarians had gotten to their feet, lit torches, and gotten a look, they saw that it was just a young child with a deer. They immediately burst into loud laughter. “Hey, little kid! Did you come to bring us a midnight snack?” A child so small and tender would definitely taste delicious.
Laughing boisterously, two of the Xiongnu ran up the hillside, wanting to capture Jiang Yuqing and Bai Xiaoshi and roast them to eat.
Jiang Yuqing did not even spare a glance at these two pieces of human scum. She only shook her head and continued speaking to Bai Xiaoshi. “These past two days, you’ve also seen how cruel they are. Their actions can hardly even be called human. It is up to the heavens to forgive them. My duty is to send them down to hell.”
“But if you do that, the heavens will retaliate against you. At worst, you could die!” Tears were nearly falling from Bai Xiaoshi’s eyes.
Jiang Yuqing jokingly stroked Bai Xiaoshi’s beautiful antlers to comfort her. “I’m the Jade Emperor's1 dear daughter. How could He bear to let me die so easily? And in this second life I've been granted, I've already gained so much love from so many people that I've earned quite the profit. As the saying goes, we must know contentment and not be too greedy, right?”
As she spoke, her hand flicked, sending all thirty-six battle flags flying accurately onto their respective nodes. Next, she forcefully struck two spirit crystals into the central formation eye. Her hands swiftly formed seals, then she fiercely pushed out a palm and loudly shouted, “Formation, arise!”
In that instant, thirty-six transparent blood-colored pillars of light shot toward the heavens, swiftly gathering to form an enormous blood-colored cover of light that enveloped all five thousand-some people.
The Xiongnu were stunned dumb by this sudden scene. After reacting, they fled this way and that in horror. Many even drew the knives at their waists and hacked away, only to discover that no matter how hard they struggled, they could not break through this bizarre blood-colored cover. It was like a net cast by the god of death.
Unable to escape, the Xiongnu could only kneel pleading for the gods to forgive them.
The shouts of terror from their tribesmen down the slope frightened the two Xiongnu who had been running up the hillside. When they looked back and saw the scene, they were also scared witless.
By the time the two of them stiffly turned their heads back around, they saw two snakelike things hurtling straight toward their faces. Before they could react, the things instantly punctured their foreheads, and they died with eyes wide open.
Jiang Yuqing indifferently tossed down a seed. In an instant, several vines burst out from the soil, dragging the corpses underground to disappear without a trace.
Jiang Yuqing rode Bai Xiaoshi as she flew down the slope and stopped midair. Using spirit power to project her voice, she coldly said, “Which of you is Huyan Agula2? And who is Habater3?”
The Xiongnu had already been scared out of their wits by the bizarre scene before their eyes. Now, seeing a tiny girl child riding a deer and flying midair, they thought that they must have angered one of the gods. They knelt again pleading for forgiveness.
Among them were some who understood the Daya language4. They immediately pointed out the two with finer clothing in the center, obviously of much higher status than the rest.
Jiang Yuqing gave a cold laugh. With a flip of her wrist, Little Thorn immediately extended two vines that flew into the formation. In an instant, they snatched the heads off of the two bodies.
Blood sprayed, and the two headless corpses toppled to the ground with a thud, dead beyond dead.
The most important pieces now in hand, it was time for these beasts whose hands were stained with Daya people’s blood to descend into hell. Jiang Yuqing formed a hand seal with her right hand, linking her middle finger and thumb. With a light flick, a gale instantly kicked up within the formation.
The one-sided slaughter had begun.
Countless invisible blades of wind flayed the former executioners. Unfeelingly, they reaped life after life, spurting sprays of blood as if this were purgatory itself.
Jiang Yuqing watched it all coldly. In the past, the common people of Daya had also wailed and pleaded this very same way. Had they ever shown mercy to those pitiable people?
The innumerable soldiers who had died at the border—who had they been sons, fathers, and husbands to? With their deaths, how many innocent families were torn apart?
And what of the young ladies stripped naked? The children impaled on stakes? The pregnant women whose bellies were slit open and babies snatched out while still alive? What endless pain and humiliation had they suffered before death? Who could tally the ocean's worth of blood debts still unpaid?
Blood debts can only be repaid in blood!
Jiang Yuqing gazed frigidly as these executioners were chopped into mincemeat of flesh and bone. A feeling of avenged fury rose in her heart. Only when not a single living being remained did she finally recall her battle flags.
The Heavenly Gang Slaughtering Immortal Formation5—she had thought it was a cruel formation she would never use again. She had never expected that in the end, she would still go back on her word.
Afterward, she indifferently scattered several more handfuls of seeds. With a sea-like flood of spirit power infused into them, countless vines burst out of the ground and swept all the flesh, metal weapons, cloth scraps and everything else on the surface into the soil in but a few breaths.
If not for that remaining patch of dark red bloodstains, the ground was so clean it seemed as if nothing had ever occurred there.
Jiang Yuqing casually wrapped the two heads in some tattered cloth and hung them over her shoulder on a stripped branch. Then she climbed onto Bai Xiaoshi’s back and softly said, “Xiaoshi, let’s go back. It’ll be dawn soon.”
Seeing how unusually calm she was, Bai Xiaoshi called her by name in a rare display of concern. “Qingbao, are you alright?”
Jiang Yuqing tried hard to swallow back the taste of iron in her mouth and calmly replied, “I’m fine. Let’s hurry back. They’ll be worried when they get up and can’t find me.”
Bai Xiaoshi sensed her strain and did not dare fly too quickly. As they neared the city gates, it took the initiative to descend and switch from flying to walking.
At this time, the first light of dawn was peeking over the horizon. Bai Xiaoshi could make out people’s silhouettes moving back and forth atop Tongluo Pass’ towering city walls.
Jiang Yuqing retched and blood flowed from her nose and mouth.
She lay slumped atop Bai Xiaoshi’s back and said in an extremely soft voice, “Xiaoshi, I’m a little tired and want to sleep for a while. Inside my clothes...there’s a letter. If I...don’t wake up again...help me give it...to my parents...”
“No! You have to give it to them yourself. I won’t help you!” Bai Xiaoshi’s voice carried tones of weeping. “Qingbao, please, don’t sleep! I’ll take you back to find a doctor!”
The little girl on its back did not respond again!
Bai Xiaoshi felt a liquid flowing onto its neck, still hot—it was the warmth of blood.
Qingbao had suffered the heavens' retaliation in the end after all!
