Chapter 168: For Whom Have You Risked Your Life
There’s always a woman who hides half her face in the darkness, revealing the other half of her beautiful face to ask you a question that’s hard to answer.
“Have you ever risked your life for anyone in this lifetime?”
Yun Ce felt there was something wrong with this question. Desperately fighting is an extreme thing; it shouldn’t be because you’re a woman, or rather, you’re a beautiful woman, that a man should risk his life to save you.
Yun Ce had truly fought desperately today.
But he wasn’t fighting desperately for anyone; his desperate fight was to survive.
So, he was fighting desperately for himself, like a dog that had fallen into the water. Even facing raging muddy waves, it had to struggle to paddle its short little legs, swimming doggy-style to stay alive.
As long as it survives, the process doesn’t matter; at least the meaning is extremely magnificent… Think about it: a dog, raging muddy waves, and it survives in the end, with a chance to mate with a female dog and produce offspring… That’s the greatness of life.
In this sloppy world, you can’t demand a refined life. What should happen will happen, and what shouldn’t will happen too. You just have to deal with it.
Like the blisters just rising on Yun Ce’s body, or the blisters just rising on the Red Date Horse’s body—blisters clustered together, hanging on their bodies, making this man and horse look like mutated monsters.
Blisters can’t be popped, because those raised skins are the best dressing for the wounds. Yun Ce was in great pain, and the Red Date Horse was in great pain too. It wanted to roll on the ground to burst those blisters, but seeing that Yun Ce didn’t do so, it stood like Yun Ce, enduring the pain forcefully.
1 Qin Shu had taken people to scout the surroundings.
1 After Yun Ce dragged the Red Date Horse away from the collapse area, the collapse of the Ghost King Mountain coal mine hadn’t stopped; not only had it not stopped, it had expanded outward quite a bit.
1 Now, Ghost King Mountain could no longer be seen; where Ghost King Mountain had once stood was now a large pit still spewing fire.
1 However, the big fire wouldn’t burn much longer; groundwater was already seeping out from the bottom of the pit.
1 In the evening, Qin Shu returned with his people. The news he brought wasn’t good, nor was it bad.
1 “The devils retreated. Their losses weren’t great; at the moment Ghost King Mountain erupted in flames, their army withdrew, suffering little impact.
1 However, none of the devils who entered the Ghost King Mountain mountain area survived. Roughly speaking, there shouldn’t have been more than two thousand of them, after all, the Ghost King Mountain area couldn’t accommodate more troops.”
1 Yun Ce was only wearing a soft Yi Tree Cloth garment, with nothing underneath, feeling empty. He couldn’t sit down either, so he stood listening to Qin Shu describe the recent situation at Ghost King Mountain.
1 “Those who could enter Ghost King Mountain were the elite of the elites. Just the Giant Ox knights we saw numbered more than ten; they should all have perished in Ghost King Mountain now.
1 General, honestly, I still find it hard to believe that we survived a natural disaster.”
2 “What’s the situation at Iron Enclosure Pass?”
2 He Qingfang sighed and said, “When Ghost King Mountain spewed fire, they sent out scouts. When Ghost King Mountain broke, they retreated. The scouts once had a brief standoff with the Gui Fang people; for some reason, they didn’t engage in battle, and both sides withdrew separately.”
2 “We’ve lost nearly three hundred men now, and I’ve become like this. Do you think we can still return to Iron Enclosure Pass to regroup?”
2 He Qingfang fell silent.
2 “So, we can’t go back, right?”
2 Qin Shu sighed again and said, “They think we’re troublemakers.”
2 Yun Ce looked at the five people in front of him, thought for a moment, and said, “How many more years do you think Iron Enclosure Pass can hold?”
2 Qin Shu frowned and said, “If it’s just holding, it should be for a very long time, very long.”
2 Yun Ce shook his head and said, “It’s far less optimistic than you think. We can’t assume it will stand forever just because Iron Enclosure Pass has stood for a thousand years.
2 We need to plan ahead.”
3 Qin Shu said, “Our strength is negligible.”
3 Yun Ce said, “If our strength is negligible, we shouldn’t do anything?”
3 Zuo Chong said, “How to do it?”
3 Yun Ce sighed, looking at the two leaders who had just been hastily pulled up, and said, “Prepare the second line of defense.”
3 “Second line of defense? Where?”
3 Yun Ce was covered in blisters and couldn’t squat, so he used his saber to draw a simple map on the ground, finally stabbing the saber between Iron Enclosure Pass and the Great Wall, near Jingkou Pass.
3 “Right here.”
3 “This is a plain.”
3 He Qingfang seemed very familiar with the terrain north of the Great Wall; from Yun Ce’s casually drawn simple map, she could accurately state the general terrain there.
3 Yun Ce drew a few more lines on the map.
4 He Qingfang said again, “A dense river network is good, but at least twenty days a year, the river network will freeze.”
4 Yun Ce drew a mountain in the center of the river network.
4 He Qingfang said, “A city can’t be built on a mountain without water; otherwise, it’s suicide.”
4 Yun Ce recalled Ma Su’s mistake at Jieting, nodded, and said, “So build it at the foot of the mountain.”
4 He Qingfang stretched out her foot to erase the map Yun Ce had drawn on the ground, then looked at Yun Ce and said, “Do you know how many years it took for Iron Enclosure Pass to reach its current scale?”
4 After waiting a moment and seeing Yun Ce not answer, she continued on her own, “One hundred and sixty years.”
4 Yun Ce redrew a map on the ground, stabbing it with his saber, and said, “We won’t build city walls.”
4 Qin Shu, Zuo Chong, and the others, whose eyes had just lit up with a bit of hope, dimmed again.
4 “Without city walls, how to defend…”
4 No one knew which head-lowered person let out the sigh; Yun Ce said stiffly, “This city is called Yun City. It’s not a defensive city, but our forward base for requisitioning grain from conquered territories from the Gui Fang people, so no need for defense.”
5 “Even so, we have too few people; we can’t requisition much grain.”
5 Yun Ce said, “I will tell every warrior of the Great Han that if they want to go to the Gui Fang to requisition grain from conquered territories, they can come to Yun City. By then, many people hoping to fight the Gui Fang people will come to Yun City.”
5 This is the very contradictory point of the Han people: warriors in the interior have endless enthusiasm for killing devils, but soon after arriving at the border, their enthusiasm is gradually worn away by long waits. In the end, either they recklessly head to the wasteland to seek battle with the devils and die on the battlefield, or they return home dispirited with their meager belongings.
5 When the main army refuses to take the initiative, there’s little private armed groups from the populace can do.
5 Qin Shu looked at Yun Ce and said, “When there’s no way out, if the general can come up with a plan, it’s better than us sitting here sulking.
5 We can follow the general to the Great Wall to build Yun City.”
5 He Qingfang spread her hands and said, “Just relying on our five hundred or so people?”
5 Qin Shu gritted his teeth and said, “Since we currently have no way to kill the enemy fiercely, then, as the general said, we need to think about the future.
5 As the general said, Iron Enclosure Pass is old, too old, so old it doesn’t know how to fight anymore. I’ve also heard that the Great Wall Defense Line, as the second line of defense for Iron Enclosure Pass, is now thoroughly rotten. Grand Governor Zhao Shu would rather lead troops to the capital to join the internal strife than spend any more effort on the Great Wall Defense Line.
5 Since the general wants to build a city north of the Great Wall, no matter what, I support it. Even if it’s just me and the general, I support it.”
6 When the general and deputy general have decided together, if the others don’t want to leave this collective, supporting the general and deputy general is the only thing they can do.
6 Though this matter seemed extremely unreliable, it was still better than staying at Iron Enclosure Pass waiting to rot.
6 The meeting couldn’t last long, mainly because the clothes draped over Yun Ce’s body rubbed against the blisters, causing him great pain. He needed to drive these people away so he could continue being naked.
6 Yun Ce no longer attended the meeting; Qin Shu and the other five continued.
6 “Brother Qin, do you really think the general’s plan is feasible?” Zuo Chong asked impatiently.
6 Qin Shu threw a grain for fodder dough into the fire, watched it expand, and while using a tree branch to poke the dough for even heating, said, “The moment you saw the general dragging a horse out of that earth-shattering collapse, what did you think?”
6 Zuo Chong recalled his state of mind at the time and said seriously, “I thought I saw a god.”
6 Once Qin Shu saw the dough was baked, he picked it out of the fire, tossed it hand to hand twice, broke it open, and without waiting for the hot air to dissipate, gave a piece to He Qingfang.
6 He chewed the fragrant dough lightly and said to the four others present, “Don’t forget, he is a noble.”
6 After Qin Shu spoke, the other four fell silent, seemingly accepting Qin Shu’s headless, reasonless explanation.
7 The fluid in the blisters on Yun Ce’s body was absorbed by his body on the third day. After the round blisters deflated, it meant he had a lot of dead skin on his body.
7 The greatest benefit of Peng Zeng Brand Rapid Growth Liquid is growing hair. In just three days, half an inch of hair grew on Yun Ce’s bald head. These hairs were the first to pierce the blisters on his head, causing Yun Ce pain for a whole day.
7 When Cao Kun saw Yun Ce, he almost didn’t recognize him. Only after Yun Ce extended a straight middle finger to him did he confirm that the short-haired ugly ghost before him was the once handsome Yun Ce.
7 “What happened?” Cao Kun wanted to lift the loose robe on Yun Ce to see underneath, but after being pushed away by Yun Ce, he sat on a wooden stump and asked.
7 “Anyone who escapes from the center of a fire during an earth-shattering collapse will look like this.”
7 Cao Kun shook his head. “Not worth it. Do you know what ‘a son worth a thousand gold pieces does not sit beneath the eaves’ means?”
7 Yun Ce laughed. “I know. I used to never play under the eaves; now, my family has no eaves.”
7 Cao Kun looked at Yun Ce pityingly and said, “The life of a poor wretch is truly pitiful. Alright, seeing that you’re a poor wretch and my brother, I’ll give you a good opportunity this time, one that can help you escape poverty soon.”
7 Yun Ce looked at Cao Kun playfully. “What thing of mine have you taken a fancy to again?”
7 Cao Kun leaned close to Yun Ce and whispered, “Zhao Shu might not come back. The eighty-seven passes on the Great Wall are now ownerless.”
8 Yun Ce looked at Cao Kun in shock. “Is Qiu He Prefecture going to garrison the border for the Great Han?”
8 Cao Kun chuckled. “Yes, the Great Wall Defense Line is already rotten; this is our chance to serve the country.”
8 Yun Ce sniffed. “You’re not the only one in Qiu He Prefecture who wants to garrison the border for the country, right?”
8 Cao Kun nodded. “My father says that in the very long time to come, Chang’an and Luoyang will no longer be the center of the Great Han.
8 The center of the Great Han should be at Iron Enclosure Pass, should be at the Great Wall Defense Line!”
