The mountain road is winding and winding, and I walk alone in silence without any trouble.
His mood at this moment was as complicated as the road in front of him.
A few days ago, the battle between him and Haicangfeng did not result in a winner, but... there was a difference between "higher and lower".
He originally thought that most of the so-called heroes were exaggerated in name, so he didn't pay much attention to people like Haicangfeng at first.
However, as soon as they met, he realized that he could not win.
At least...not with a knife.
It didn't take long for Haicangfeng to see through the secret of Xiao Wuji's sword skills. He knew that there was no point in fighting anymore, so he stopped in time, said "Your martial arts is good." and walked away.
After the other party left, Xiao Wuji stood alone in the bamboo forest for a long time. It wasn't until the sweat on his hands dried that he put the knife back into its sheath.
"Is it just 'not bad'..." At that moment, he couldn't help looking up at the sky and talking to himself.
Xiao Wuji has been practicing martial arts since he was a child and has extraordinary talent. He can be said to have been surrounded by comments such as "a genius" and "a brilliant person in the past" all year round - "not bad", to him in the past, It's almost like swearing.
But now it sounds like he can accept it.
Because he would rather be a "good" swordsman than a "genius" swordsman.
He would rather think that he is a bandit than to admit that he is Xiao Xuan, the son of Xiao Zhun, the young owner of Wujian Villa and the sword master.
…………
After walking the long mountain road, Xiao Wuji finally returned to his village.
"Open the door quickly! The boss is back!"
While he was still far away, he heard the man in charge of the lookout yelling at the village.
This shout also brought Xiao Wuji back to reality from his wild thoughts about the past.
"Yeah... I'm just a bandit leader now. Isn't this kind of martial arts enough?"
While he was thinking, he walked into the gate of the village.
However, as soon as he entered the village, Xiao Wuji felt something was wrong.
He glanced over and found that all of his minions were listless and yawning in broad daylight. Inexplicably, there were a lot of makeshift shields placed in the village courtyard, and dozens of them were piled up. Sandbags, and a dozen tanks filled with water.
"Hey, what's going on?" Xiao Wuji looked at one of the minions who stepped forward to greet him, pointed at the things in the yard, and asked casually.
"Oh! You don't know, first master, that something big has happened in the past few days since you have been away. Please go and talk to the second master and third master." The man looked anxious and worried. look.
Xiao Wuji looked at it and felt a little happy in his heart. He thought to himself: "If we break the stronghold, what big trouble can happen?"
Obviously, Xiao Wuji didn't really care about the situation in this village, so after seeing this situation, he was more curious than nervous.
To make a long story short, not long after, the "Second Sister" and "Lao San" also heard the news of Xiao Wuji's return, and they both came out to greet them; Back hall.
After the three of them sat down and chatted a few words, the second sister started to talk about the topic: "Brother, to tell you the truth, something has indeed happened in the past few days."
The third child also added: "Oh... we are in for a big deal this time!"
"What happened? Did you two get scared like this?" Xiao Wuji asked in confusion.
There is a hint in the book here that the "second sister" and "third brother", one is named Yuan Zhan'er and the other is Guisan. They were the top and turtle slaves in a not-so-famous brothel in Jinling.
One day four years ago, Xiao Wuji spent some money to redeem these two people on a whim, and taught them some martial arts. He also became sworn brothers and sisters with them, and then they fell into poverty together. thief.
For Xiao Wuji, this is just a "play". He just wants to degenerate, so he keeps doing these ridiculous things.
However, for Yuan Zhan'er and Gui San, this is a major turning point in their lives. They regard Xiao Wuji, their eldest brother, as their reborn parent, and they cherish their promising job as a bandit leader.
On weekdays, Yuan Zhan'er and Gui Sanping practice martial arts very hard. In addition, their master is a master like Xiao Wuji who has only practiced high-level martial arts since childhood. Therefore, in just a few years, the two of them have already touched the world of second-rate martial arts. threshold.
Of course, compared with Liu Wusheng and Zou Baiqiu who came up the mountain to fight a few days ago, they are still inferior.
"Brother, we have to start talking about this seven days ago." Yuan Zhan'er used to be the number one. Even if he wasn't a very famous one, his conversation skills were definitely much better than that of Gui San. She made three sentences and two sentences , and told him about his plan to kill Liu Wusheng and Zou Baiqiu.
"Oh..." After hearing this, Xiao Wuji groaned, and then continued, "Then you are currently fighting. Could it be that you have received news... Someone wants to go up the mountain to seek revenge for these two people?"
"Harmful! That's right!" Gui San couldn't help but reply at this time, "Who would have thought that we had just killed the 'Tiger Arm Ming King' and 'Yida Zhenguanzhong', and not even two days later, they were here again. The two of them are called 'the East harmonizes with the West's poison'."
"Huh?" As soon as these four words came out, Lian Xiaowuji's face changed slightly, "The names of these two people... I seem to have some impression."
Just when Xiao Wuji was scratching his head and wondering why he had a strong impression on these two people...
"There is a legend in the world about a young hero who likes 'killing people in cesspits'... you know this, right?" Gui San took advantage of the situation and revealed the source of his biggest fear of dual harmonies, "The person he is talking about is the 'Western Poison' Huang Donglai. "
"Oh!" Hearing that keyword, Xiao Wuji remembered it, "Yes, no wonder it sounds familiar to me." He paused for half a second, "What? Are these two people going to the mountain to avenge Liu Zou? "
"They not only want revenge, but they are threatening... that all of us in the village will die, and they will also have our ashes spread." Yuan Zhan'er said this in a tone that was filled with anger and fear. , with a look of resentment still on his face.
"Ha..." Xiao Wuji was not afraid, he still smiled easily, "Do you know when they will come?"
As soon as this sentence came out, Yuan Zhan'er and Gui San's faces became angry.
"Oh... don't mention it." Gui San said, "These two grandsons have been saying they would come every day since five days ago, but they haven't come every day, which makes us worried all day and night... what will happen every night? Up?"
"I can't sleep at night!" Yuan Zhan'er answered with a look of disgust.
"That's right, I can't sleep at night." Guisan's education is still poor, and he often needs reminders from his second sister before he can use idioms fluently.
Hearing this, Xiao Wuji still didn't understand: "Isn't there our spy in the village? Why isn't this matter settled yet?"
"Brother, you don't know something..." Yuan Zhan'er replied at this time, "The earliest time was five days ago, around dusk, our spies sent news that these two people were in several villages at the foot of the mountain. He bought a large amount of saltpeter, sulfur, soap locust, and various medicinal materials and iron blocks. He also took over the entire blacksmith shop in Gengjia Village, saying that Huang Donglai was going to make a kind of 'mechanism' for attacking the stronghold, called What's the 'Flying Bolide'... He also said that this thing can be made in just one night, and they will use it to raze our village to the ground early the next morning.
"At that time, I thought that the reputation of this East-West poisoner was far above that of Liu Wusheng and Zou Baiqiu, and his martial arts skills would not be lower than those two people. Even if we took advantage of his 'Flying Fire Meteor' before he finished it, Nowadays, attacking the village from the mountains may not bring any benefits. It is better to stay in the stronghold and lay out a clever trap like last time... This way, the chance of winning is greater.
"Then I thought about it again. Judging from the name and materials, the 'flying fire meteor' was probably something like fire arrow gunpowder, so I ordered the brothers to prepare sandbags overnight and fill all the water tanks in the village. I brought it out, filled it with water, and found various objects, either tied or nailed, to make a shield in preparation for the next day."
Let me digress here, why do these people make shields but not armor?
Both shields and armor can resist stray arrows and fire, but shields are basically not used during robbery, but armor can be used at any time in the future. Logically speaking, it should be always available in the village.
Here I will explain something that may also be used in later documents - in ancient times, whether you kept customers or collected weapons, even if you had hundreds or thousands of weapons, you could get away with it... But "hidden armor privately" "This is absolutely not possible.
In large-scale battles in the era of cold weapons, the role of armor is extremely huge. Three hundred "armored soldiers" can kill more than a thousand people without armor, and it is no problem that five thousand armored soldiers can disperse tens of thousands of unarmored soldiers. Down.
The imperial court is not afraid of you who secretly hide weapons and keep your followers. If you don't believe me, you can bring them out to fight the regular army. If you want to win, Guo Jing and Huang Rong will worship you as their teacher. However, if you make armor privately, it will definitely be treated as treason. There is no other explanation, and it will be strangled in the cradle once discovered.
Of course, there are exceptions. For example, Brother Sun's "protective armor" is a soft armor. There is only one piece in total. He wears it himself, so no one will hold him accountable; there are also some bandit leaders who have thought about being cheated. "General" is addicted to wearing a full-coverage armor to look cool, but no one takes it seriously.
But for ordinary people, if there is no soldier in your family, but you hide armor, even just one set, it is a crime of rebellion; let alone the sects on Green Forest Road or Jianghu Road, if it is discovered that there are ten people in the door, Those with dozens or twenty sets of armor are directly regarded as "rebels" and must be wiped out with all their strength.
To sum up, in those days, it was impossible for ordinary bandit villages to consider acquiring armor. It would be more sinful and risky than robbing and murdering them.
"Then..." Shu returned to the truth. After listening to Yuan Zhan'er's countermeasures, Xiao Wuji nodded, as if to indicate that the latter's response was quite correct: "What's the result?"
"As a result... we waited until noon the next day, but they didn't come." Kame San interjected with an annoyed look on his face.
Yuan Zhan'er also added: "So we sent a spies to find out... An hour later, the spies reported that the two people slept until noon. They also told the villagers, 'Last night, we were working on a mechanism. I'm too tired and overslept, so I might as well wait until dinner before going, and I can take advantage of the cover of the night." She curled her lips viciously, "Brother, by the time we received the report, it was already midnight, brother We haven't slept for almost two days and one night, so we can only take advantage of the two hours before the sun sets to take a break and close our eyes, and then get up and be on guard again..." At this point, she frowned again He frowned, "I didn't expect... they didn't come the next night either."
Xiao Wuji said: "Then why is it this time?"
"We waited in vain all night, and asked the spies to check it out at dawn the next day..." Guisan added in time, "The spies reported that Huang Donglai had eaten something unclean for dinner, had diarrhea and diarrhea, and had diarrhea in the middle of the night. I took a rest when I felt better and decided to come back in the afternoon instead.”
"Ah?" At this time, Xiao Wuji suddenly thought of a possibility, "These two can't be liars, right? It feels like they are deliberately looking for excuses to procrastinate."
"At that time, we also began to wonder...could these two come out to deceive people under the banner of 'Eastern Harmony and Western Poison'." Yuan Zhan'er said, "Unexpectedly, the third day has not yet reached the afternoon. , they came suddenly."
"Oh?" Xiao Wuji became more and more interested as he listened, "Have you ever fought against them?"
"Why are you handing me over?" Guisan looked depressed, "My brothers and I stayed up all night again and wanted to sleep a little longer before the afternoon. Unexpectedly, not long after we lay down, these two guys ran to the entrance of the village. Several 'flying fireballs' were thrown into our village."
"What on earth is that?" Xiao Wuji asked.
"We don't know either." Gui San replied, "That thing looks like a small black ball before it hits the ground. It explodes as soon as it hits the ground. Once it explodes, it explodes. Once it hits, it will be a puddle of kerosene, accompanied by some Iron pieces exploded in all directions; at that time, all the brothers in the village were sleepy, tired, and relatively lax, so we only flew in a few, leaving seven or eight dead and injured."
"What happened next?" Xiao Wuji asked.
"Of course we got up to fight the enemy later," Yuan Zhan'er said, "But when all the brothers in the village got up and put out the fire, the two Sha Qian Dao didn't come in. They just shouted outside, saying what they were saying at this moment They just took a few bolide shells to test their power. When they returned to the village and pushed up the "fort", they didn't just throw a few in with their hands, but "seventeen rounds per second" into our village. boom."
"What does 'second' mean?" Xiao Wuji asked again.
"Who knows, but judging from what they mean, it will probably only take a blink of an eye." Gui San said.
When asked, Xiao Wuji had already guessed what Shuangxi was up to, so his next sentence was: "If nothing else happens, you didn't sleep in the afternoon and night of the third day, right?"
"No." Gui San said, "By daytime on the fourth day, we felt that it was not an option to continue like this, so the second sister came up with an idea to divide the brothers into two groups and take turns sleeping; the group that was awake In addition to guarding the village, I was also responsible for fetching water from the well in the back mountain and trying to save as much water as possible in the water tank for later use. In addition, I also divided a team of people to go down the mountain to find ways to get sandbags and make shields. Material."
After hearing this arrangement, Xiao Wuji couldn't help but sneer secretly in his heart: "Huh... If these gangsters in the village are not lazy, why are they thieves? Now you let them do this backwards? If they can do it seriously After that, will you still come back to be a bandit? Isn’t it better to be a soldier? "
Yuan Zhan'er's next words echoed Xiao Wuji's thoughts, and she continued: "Oh, it's a pity that all the losers in our village are lazy and slippery. There are still a bunch of lazy people in front of this great enemy. , I scolded them a few times when I found out, and they dared to talk back to me, saying that I was exhausted a few days ago and hadn't recovered yet, so I really couldn't do the work.
"These words made me angry. I thought about how none of these bastards felt tired when they were lying on top of women. When it was their turn to do something serious, it was as if they were not given anything to eat... I was furious. , several of them were killed on the spot, and they thought they were killing chickens to show the monkeys.
"Brother, guess what? That night, more than twenty of these grandsons escaped in one go. Damn it..."
"Oh... Let's put it this way, excluding those who were killed by the 'flying fireball', those who were beaten to death by you, and those who escaped on their own... there are only about thirty brothers left in the village." Xiao Wuji made an estimate and asked.
"That's not true." Yuan Zhan'er replied in a helpless tone, but when she said the next sentence, a bit of excitement appeared on her face, "But now that you are back, brother, we have nothing to be afraid of. , we no longer need to stay in the stronghold so fearfully, as long as you give the order, the two of us can immediately follow you to attack the mountain, skin and cramp the two children of Sun Huang, and cut them into pieces!"
"Yes, brother, I'm just waiting for you to say something!" Gui San also echoed, "You have been away for more than ten days, and you just happened to catch up with so many things. The brothers have not gone down the mountain to collect food for more than ten days. The women captured in the village are all dead, you see..."
"I see? Ha..." Xiao Wuji smiled. Although his face was always smiling, at this moment he really felt ridiculous and laughed out loud, "I see... you two are already dead. The end is near, if I come back one day later, I may only have time to collect the bodies for you."
When Yuan Zhan'er and Guisan heard this, they looked at each other.
Guisan's brain is dull and he can't think of any reason.
Although Yuan Zhan'er is smarter than Guisan, he still can't see the overall situation of the matter clearly, so he asked: "Brother, how can you say this?"
"You fell into someone else's trick..." Xiao Wuji replied, "If I'm not wrong, that 'Flying Bolide' was just a bluff. They only did those seven or eight from the beginning to the end. It’s just fire bombs; from the very beginning, they have thought of using our spies and spies to create various illusions for you, defrauding you again and again, leaving you overwhelmed and exhausted..."
"This...can't be..." Yuan Zhan'er said, "Even if they know to use our spies to defraud us, how can they be sure that we will stay in the stronghold and won't kill and go down the mountain?"
"That's right." Gui Sanye asked, "They don't know that Liu and Zou were killed by our tricks. Could it be that they thought...even if they were led by people with higher martial arts skills than those two? If a large group of men and horses are killed, they will definitely be able to escape unscathed?"
"Ha..." Xiao Wuji chuckled again, "If their martial arts were really that high, why would they be doing this? They would have rushed directly into the village long ago." He paused, "Those two The reason why they have been tormenting you for so many days is, firstly, because they are not completely sure about the attack; secondly, because they have probably concluded that Liu and Zou may not have died because their martial arts were not high enough... You The two of them rely on tricks and are very guilty, so they can achieve miraculous results by using tactics of suspicion."
After Xiao Wuji finished speaking, he raised his eyes and gestured in the direction of the door: "Look back and think about it, seven days ago, you took down people like Liu Wusheng and Zou Baiqiu without using any troops, and all the brothers knew it. , they can immediately go down the mountain to make a fortune on the pretext of "settling accounts with the villagers". At that time, the village was full of strong people and strong morale; but after these few days, nearly half of the brothers in the village were lost. The remaining people were also tired, sleepy, and had low morale... And what did Sun and Huang do? They just lived in the village at the foot of the mountain, eating and sleeping, and from time to time they spread false news and harsh words to scare them. The only time you actually went up the mountain, you didn't even dare to enter the village gate. You just threw a few kerosene bombs in, and then walked back after throwing them... Hehe, their psychological attack methods are really incredible. So clever."
When Yuan Zhan'er and Gui San heard this, they were very angry. They also somewhat complained about their elder brother, how could he laugh at them in such a relaxed tone.
At this moment, suddenly...
One of the minions rushed to the door, stood at the door and shouted loudly: "No! Village leader! Then Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai have arrived at the entrance of the village and are shouting outside, asking us to open the door and surrender."
When Yuan Zhan'er and Gui San heard this, they immediately felt angry and evil in their hearts.
They said to themselves: Okay, if there is a way to heaven, you will not leave, but if there is no door to hell, you can just take it yourself! A few days ago, our eldest brother was away, so you two kept us entertained. Today, he just happened to be back. Let’s see what other tricks you can come up with! Today we want you to die without a burial place!
As for Xiao Wuji, he didn't rush and stood up calmly: "Oh, you're good to come. I was just thinking about meeting these two people."
