Chapter 200 - Both Parties
Cao Hai gingerly opened the door and saw Peng Longteng lying down on a bed. At this moment, there were two doctors bandaging the wound on her neck.
“Aiya~!” Cao Hai approached her and started to stomp the ground beside her bed in frustration. “Are you crazy? You just killed thousands of civilians!”
Peng Longteng replied with her eyes closed, “Who would want to fight for the country if they don’t pay us? It’s so much harder to ask them for money than it is to kill them. Since the nation is having such a difficult time paying us, I might as well as take matters into my own hands. After all, I cannot mistreat my soldiers after fighting the war for so long!”
“You! You—” Cao Hai was infuriated.
“It’s just a small town of a few thousand people... why are you so anxious about it? I’m already very merciful for not plundering a city instead,” said Peng Longteng.
“You talk as if it were that easy! Those were all the civilians of Hou Shu!” shouted Cao Hai as he wiped his tears. “Everyone within the palace is busy dealing with the Natural Disaster and you are just adding to their troubles! You just offended all of them!”
When she heard this, Peng Longteng sat up and pushed the doctors away, “I don’t care about the Natural Disaster. Even if the Heavens were to fall, the soldiers need their money! And why are you so afraid? It’s not like this is not the first time a Natural Disaster has occurred.”
“If you wanted money, you could have just taken it. Why did you kill all of them?” asked Cao Hai. However, even as he complained, he still used his handkerchief to wipe the blood off of Peng Longteng’s armor.
“We just came back from the battlefield and had lost quite a few men. Then, we didn’t even get our money. My soldiers were starting to reach their breaking point, and if I hadn’t done anything then it would have caused a mutiny within my camp,” said Peng Longteng.
Hearing this, Cao Hai’s voice became soft, “There’s no way you will be able to cover this up. Those within the palace should already know about this by now...”
“So what if they know about it? You think I don’t know how they would act? They already embezzled the money that was meant for my soldiers, so they should have already known how I would act. Relax, they won’t make a big deal about it and their superiors will even work to cover it up. If word of this got out, then everyone would be at a disadvantage. This is the best situation for them. Not only do they not have to pay us, we still receive our money too. It’s a win-win situation. Plus, I have my own justification. We already discovered that there were several Si Qi spies within our kingdom,” said Peng Longteng. As she recalled the spies, her face became gloomy and she touched the left side of her face.
The tattoo on the left of her face had mostly been burned off, leaving behind only the character representing ‘loyal’. Even this tattoo had become distorted, giving her a much more fearsome appearance. Her left eye was also blinded. It was now white in color.
“Damned brat! Not only did he escape, he even managed to injure me! Officer, go and find the Surveillance Bureau. Tell them to find the location of the spy and let me know immediately so that I can go and kill him!” commanded Peng Longteng.
“Sigh, just let it go. Since he’s from the Ao Jing Sect, it’s no longer under your jurisdiction. Let's head back to the camp,” said Cao Hai.
“No! I am Peng Longteng, and I refuse to leave this grudge alone! Since he offended me, then I will kill him!” said Peng Longteng.
“But what are you going to do? You can’t just bring your soldiers and mobilize all of Hou Shu. You are not the Emperor,” asked Cao Hai.
“I am a General, someone that protects the people from their enemies. I will destroy all of the enemies of Hou Shu,” declared Peng Longteng.
Cao Hai was speechless. “Since when did they harm Hou Shu? Weren’t they just beaten and chased off by you?”
“No, they are the enemy!” retorted Peng Longteng as she smashed the bed with arm. Her immense strength caused the solid wooden frame of the bed to break apart.
——————————————
At that moment, a mace was swung downward, instantly killing a two-meter long snake just like that.
Gao Zhijian took the snake and smiled happily. Then, he placed it on his shoulder and walked back to their resting place.
The mountains were filled with boulders and stones, but at least it was not as barren as before; there was some green vegetation here.
Soon, Gao Zhijian returned and saw everyone inside a cave.
“Make... Make... Make...” stuttered Gao Zhijian as he brought the snake inside the cave.
“Make what? Senior Li told us we can’t light up a fire. Go and eat your ration,” reminded one of them.
However, Jin Shanzhao thought otherwise. He cheerfully took the snake and said, “We can still eat this without needing a fire. We can use it to make sashimi.”
As he spoke, he took out a small knife before carefully skinning the snake and slicing the flesh into small pieces. Then, he plated the neatly cut pieces of flesh nicely.
When he was done, Jin Shanzhao took a pair of bamboo chopsticks, and used it to dip a piece of snake flesh into a chili dipping sauce and ate it. “Mm~ It’s delicious. Come and try it yourselves.”
Hearing this, everyone huddled together and started eating.
Puppy was eating happily with everyone else when he suddenly stopped and shouted for Li Huowang, “Senior Li, come and eat. It’s surprisingly tasty. It reminds me of fatty pork.”
But Li Huowang ignored him. At this moment, he was in the middle of training himself to utilize his newfound power.
Shua!~
When Li Huowang opened his eyes again, he saw that everything around him had turned upside down. Directly below him was his own head.
Closer... Closer... Careful... Don’t go too fast now...
Li Huowang carefully willed himself to get back to his original position as his line of vision slowly became one with his body.
This time, he managed to overlap himself perfectly.
Li Huowang could finally overlap his illusion and himself perfectly after training for so many days.
He then looked around and saw Bun. After a moment of thought, he willed his illusion to appear directly in front of Bun.
Bun was surprised by Li Huowang’s sudden appearance and fell backward. Then, it crawled back up and started wagging its tail at Li Huowang’s illusion.
Li Huowang was happy with the results of his training.
I don’t know how I got it, but this power is very useful. At least I will be able to use it to confuse and surprise the opponent next time around. But I still need to practice more to become used to it.
Li Huowang's current limit was projecting his illusion anywhere within ten feet of himself. During this time, he wouldn’t be injured even if the enemy attacked his illusion, just like how the General failed to injure him before.
But he knew that he wouldn’t be able to use it frequently; the opponents he would be faced with will not be idiots. They wouldn’t be surprised a second time.
“Senior Li, how is your training coming along?” asked Bai Lingmiao as she brought him a bowl of snake sashimi.
“Not bad,” replied Li Huowang as he picked up his chopsticks and began eating.
Even though snake sashimi wasn’t that delicious, it was still a much better meal than eating dried rations.
“Senior Li, how much longer until we are out of Hou Shu?” asked Bai Lingmiao.
Hearing this question, Li Huowang stopped eating and took out Jin Shanzhao’s map. “We can’t walk on the main paths anymore, and so we have to take numerous detours. We probably can’t travel through some of the smaller paths either. However, given that they don’t know where we are, we at least have the advantage in that regard. We will arrive at this place in two days, and then we have to travel for another week before we arrive at the border. And since we cannot go through the official gate, we will have to take yet another detour and hike out of Hou Shu. After that, we will be safe.”
“But... we can’t travel for that long. Even if we eat our rations sparingly, our food supply will at most last another two days,” pointed out Bai Lingmiao, worried.
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