Chapter 494: Heartthrob
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
So, the two of them had been schemed against and given up?
Although they were all bandits, they had been fighting amongst themselves for territory, people, and grains in the past few years. However, once they encountered soldiers, they would at least communicate with each other. Now, they were surrounded but no one had informed them. They even let their troops be expended on Qi Haoran’s 3,000 soldiers.
Lin Man was only angry, but Liu Dahei had deeper considerations. For example, was the news that the Imperial Court was surrounding them true or false? Or was it possible that they had been schemed against when they came to surround Qi Haoran?
Could it be that, like Qi Haoran, they had been abandoned by their companions?
Or did one of them collude with the Imperial Court to slowly exhaust them before wiping them out in one fell swoop?
The more Liu Dahei thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. Now, only Lin Man was in the same boat as him. Hence, he did not hide these thoughts and freely shared them with Lin Man. “Qi Haoran is a general who defeated the Jin soldiers. He’s like a divine weapon against us bumpkins. Big Brother Lin, we surrounded him for 18 days. Not only does he lack food and water, but he doesn’t even have many weapons left. But tell me, how long will it take you to take him down?”
Lin Man hesitated. “If he still has food up there, it shouldn’t be difficult for him
to last another ten days.”
“If even you can deduce it, how can those elites who have tens of thousands of troops not know?”
Lin Man’s face was filled with anger. “We’ve become guns in someone else’s hands.”
Liu Dahei sighed. “Who asked us to be inferior to others?”
■■Then our brothers’ lives can’t be wasted like this.” Lin Man shouted, “We can’t
let this matter go just like that.”
Liu Dahei lowered his eyes. Lin Man said, “Sigh, are we still surrounding Qi
Haoran?”
Liu Dahei thought for a moment and said, “Let that old servant read the letter to Qi Haoran at the foot of the mountain. We’ll observe his reaction.”
Lin Man thought that it made sense. Coincidentally, it was time for a truce. So, he directly asked someone to escort the old servant to the foot of the mountain and let her read the letter to Qi Haoran from below.
The old servant was illiterate, but she had memorized the letter before she came. As Mu Yangling’s letter was written in vernacular, it was easy to memorize. Therefore, the old servant could shout the contents at the top of her lungs without stopping.
Qi Haoran was having his last dinner on the mountain when he heard a rough voice at the foot of the mountain. “Haoran, our child and I miss you!
Qi Haoran spat out a mouthful of dry food. Deputy General Zhong and a few regiment commanders looked at Qi Haoran with strange expressions. The soldiers wore a blank look. It took them a while to realize that “Haoran” was their general’s name.
As Fei Bai patted Qi Haoran’s back, he scolded angrily, “Master, they’re slandering you.”
Qi Haoran waved his hand. Fei Bai thought that he was saying that he didn’t want to argue with them, but when he thought of how handsome his master was and how a group of bandits actually framed him like this, he was furious. He stood up and shouted back, “Is our master’s name something you can call? HOW dare you use such despicable methods to slander our general! Our Fourth Madam is as beautiful as a fairy. How dare any Tom, Dick, or Harry who comes from nowhere call him that!”
At the foot of the mountain, Lin Man and Liu Dahei were stunned. Before they could yell back, the old servant shouted excitedly, “Master Fei Bai, this is your servant. I was sent by Fourth Madam to deliver a message to Fourth Master-” Before the people on the mountain could question her, the old servant shouted, “Fourth Master, Fourth Madam gave birth to a big fat baby boy for you. He weighs seven catties and six liang
The old servant shouted too loudly, so her voice was a little hoarse. She panted slightly and the people at the foot of the mountain heard a smug voice coming from the mountain. “Hahaha, I have a son! Ah Ling gave birth to a son for me!
Hahaha…”
As soon as she finished speaking, the old servant finished panting and shouted, “Fourth Madam asked me to tell you this so that you can leave in peace!”
The laughter on the mountain seemed to be cut off by someone. The people at the foot of the mountain immediately burst into laughter. Even Lin Man, who already knew this, laughed out loud.
Deputy General Zhong and the others were happy and sad for Qi Haoran, all at the same time. When the old servant shouted, they couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Then, they tried their best to suppress their laughter, which resulted in their shoulders trembling violently.
With a frown, Qi Haoran shouted, “What are you laughing at? Don’t laugh!” Qi Haoran shouted down the mountain, “What nonsense message are you passing? Am I someone who dies so easily? Go back and tell your Fourth Madam to wait for me at home obediently. Watch how I deal with her when I get back!”
Seeing that Qi Haoran was angry, the old servant immediately took out Mu Yangling’s letter and shouted, “Fourth Master, Fourth Madam even wrote you a letter, but the kings at the foot of the mountain don’t allow me to go up the mountain. I’ll read it to you at the foot of the mountain.”
Mu Yangling’s letter was very simple. The key was that she knew that these letters would most likely be checked, so she simply wrote some words that a wife would say to a husband. The letter started off with “I miss you”. She expressed her emotions in a straightforward and passionate manner, but there was no beauty to it. Those who were lucky enough to read this letter, both openly and secretly, shook their heads and sighed. “As expected of an uneducated woman.”
Then, she told him about the date and time of birth of their son. Not only was their son strong, but he was also obedient. The instant he was born, he cried twice to show that he had come to this world. Then, he fell asleep all the way until dawn. When he woke up the next day, he immediately let it be known that he wanted to be fed. He was very smart, drinking milk as if he was in a war. He would sweat profusely after drinking his fill. One look at him and you’d know that he was as strong as his father…
At the foot of the mountain, everyone fell silent at the same time. Only the old servant’s rough roar could be heard.
It was clearly the most simple and ordinary letter, but for some reason, everyone felt a little sad.
The old servant finally shouted, “I know you aspire to be a great general. In the past, I didn’t stop you from fighting against the Tartars. But now that you have a wife and a child, you can’t just charge forward blindly. If there’s the slightest chance of survival, you have to survive. Whether you escape or hide, try your best to survive. Our son and I will wait for you at home!
After the old servant finished shouting, she cleared her throat. The entire mountain was silent. There truly was no beauty to her voice, and when she read the letter, she did not put any emotion into it and only shouted loudly. However, at this moment, everyone was already exhausted after 18 days of fighting. Not just those on the mountain, but even the bandits at the foot of the mountain were extremely exhausted. At this moment, when they heard that the high and mighty general on the mountain actually had a wife and a child at home like them and his family was looking forward to his return, they thought of their past.
For a moment, they felt both hatred and pity for him. Clearly, they were all humans, but why was it that it was their families that had to be destroyed? At the same time, they felt sorry for his might-be-widowed wife and young son who probably felt sad. But at that moment, they remembered that he was also under orders and was a great hero who fought against the Jin Dynasty. For a moment, they did not know what to choose.
Actually, there were only two things that really tugged at everyone’s heartstrings. Qi Haoran had a wife and son, and that son had just been born. A young child could always make one’s heart soften.
The second point was that Qi Haoran was previously a general who fought against the Jin Dynasty. Only then did the bandits at the foot of the mountain know that the assistant commander on the mountain was called Qi Haoran. He was the younger brother of the Great General of the West Camp, Qi Xiuyuan, and had just been transferred back from the north.
Now, Qi Xiuyuan was a hero second only to General Yuan. Everyone in the Great Zhou knew him, from the five-year-old children to the 70-year-old elderly folks.
This was, once again, all thanks to the free speech allowed in the Great Zhou Dynasty and information that disseminated more efficiently than in the past..
