Chapter 155
Chapter 155
“When the time comes, you run first.”
Jiang Yunsui and Ji Si spoke in unison.
Ji Si paused. “You run. I’ll hold them off.”
“I can’t run fast anymore. You go. In a minute, they won’t be able to see me.”
Most importantly, Ji Si was injured, and carrying her would only drag him down. Jiang Yunsui was truly afraid he would die here.
No. She did not want that.
“Si Si, you run.”
Little Mushroom’s childish voice was full of stubborn resolve.
“Even if they catch me, I can get away.”
Ji Si tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.
The Barbarians had run out of arrows. They galloped after them with curved sabers in hand.
“Si Si, put me down. You’ll run faster.”
Ji Si did not want to let go. One rider had already caught up behind them.
Ji Si whirled and raised his sword to block, but the impact left his hand trembling. He had already spent too much stamina, and his internal energy was nearly exhausted.
“Si Si!”
Jiang Yunsui was afraid, too, but she was even more afraid of watching Ji Si die in front of her.
Just like Cook Chen.
Ji Si pressed his lips together and set her down.
“I will find you.”
The moment her feet touched the ground, Jiang Yunsui sprinted in the opposite direction.
She did not get far before a Barbarian on horseback caught her.
“Look what I caught. A little lamb.”
To the Barbarians, a child Jiang Yunsui’s age was the tenderest lamb of all.
In their eyes, human beings were food.
More of them went after Ji Si.
Though Ji Si was exhausted, without Jiang Yunsui weighing him down, he unleashed a sudden burst of strength. He killed one Barbarian, seized his horse, and galloped away without pausing for an instant.
Only once did he turn to look back at Jiang Yunsui.
Her dark eyes met his.
She did not struggle. Fighting now would only enrage the Barbarian.
As long as she stayed alive, Jiang Yunsui could easily escape later.
“Has the little lamb gone stupid with fear?”
“Hurry back. We lost so many men this time. The King definitely won’t let us off.”
Most of their losses had come from the yak charge.
As for Ji Yan’an’s group, these few men were certainly no match for them now.
They had to return and report to the King.
“What do we do with the child?”
“Hmph. Our King loves tender little children like this. Bring her back. She should cool his temper.”
They were speaking the language of the Barbarians, so Jiang Yunsui understood none of it.
At that moment, she had only one thought.
The stench was about to knock her unconscious.
She had never imagined the Barbarians would smell this awful!
Blech~
No. Hold it in!
Jiang Yunsui clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound. What if the Barbarian lost his temper and killed her?
Blech…
Slung sideways across the saddle, Jiang Yunsui was bounced along for so long she lost all sense of time.
She really was about to pass out.
Through the haze, she sensed that they had reached their destination.
She heard a great clamor.
Countless felt tents, each like a tiny house, stood scattered across the land.
Most of the people walking around were Barbarians. There were also people from the Central Plains and other tribes, but they were all slaves: skeletal, exhausted, and weather-beaten.
Jiang Yunsui raised her head and met the eyes of a man from the Central Plains. He was so thin his bones showed, his feet were bare, and his hands and feet were covered in chilblains.
Their eyes met for only an instant before the man numbly lowered his head.
Behind him, a Barbarian brandished a whip and shouted. The lash rose and fell, striking a slave at random.
Despite the pain, the victim clenched his teeth and dared not make a sound. He simply continued forward beneath a heavy load of fodder.
“What happened to you? Why are there so few of you coming back?”
“Lock this child up first. We have something to report to the King.”
Jiang Yunsui was casually lifted like a chick and tossed to another man.
He still stank, Jiang Yunsui thought.
How long had these people gone without bathing?!
“She’s so plump. She must be a child raised by some noble family from the Central Plains. The King will definitely like her.”
Fortunately, she could not understand them.
Though even if she had, all she could have done in her current situation was sulk helplessly.
Then they threw her into a sheep pen.
That was right. The Barbarians used sheep pens to hold slaves.
The slaves here did not even have a proper place to live. They were treated worse than cattle and sheep.
Jiang Yunsui hugged her knees and quietly made herself as inconspicuous as possible.
Only after the Barbarian left did she cautiously peek outside.
Barbarian soldiers patrolled around the pen.
It smelled truly awful inside. Pinching her little nose, she secretly glanced around.
The pen held women and children, all slaves.
Every pair of eyes was filled with fear and numb resignation.
The people in this pen received much better treatment than the men forced into hard labor, yet the slaves living here were even more afraid. They never knew when they might be dragged away, slaughtered, and eaten.
Jiang Yunsui did not dare speak to anyone at random. She could only begin plotting in secret.
First things first.
She had to fill her belly.
She would find the cooking area. If she could steal something to eat, she would.
And so Little Mushroom bent low and slunk out of the sheep pen with all the stealth of a suspicious cat.
At the same time, Ji Si had already found Ji Yan’an’s group. The moment he explained what had happened, he collapsed from exhaustion.
Ji Yan’an clutched the Golden Eagle Egg in his arms and forced himself to remain calm.
Jiang Yunsui had those special abilities. She would definitely be fine.
The most important thing now was to locate the enemy camp and find a way to rescue her.
“Did you get anything out of them?”
“They talked after taking a Truth Pill,” Song Jin said.
Ji Yan’an lowered his eyes. “There are too few of us for a frontal assault.”
His gaze fell on the Barbarian Army uniforms and weapons they had stripped from the bodies, as well as the horses they had seized.
“Then we’ll infiltrate the camp.”
The others would have no problem, but there was no way someone of Ji Yan’an’s build could wear a Barbarian’s clothes.
“Find somewhere to leave me. I’ll wait for you.”
Ji Yan’an understood his condition. He would not hold them back.
“Let’s see if there are any tribes nearby,” Song Jin suggested.
To be safe, Ji Yan’an still changed into clothes from a local grassland tribe.
Those clothes had also been stripped from a corpse. Like Jiang Yunsui, he was nearly knocked unconscious by the stench.
He genuinely dry-heaved several times.
“How long had these people gone without bathing?!”
Ji Yan’an looked utterly disgusted.
Nanshu looked heartbroken. “Young Master, why don’t you take them off?”
Ji Yan’an waved a hand. “I’m wearing them.”
He could endure it!
In the main tent of the Barbarian camp where Jiang Yunsui was being held, the King learned that only a few men had returned from a troop of over a hundred. He immediately gave the survivors a vicious beating.
The men who had captured Jiang Yunsui knelt below, their faces bruised and swollen.
Above them, a man dressed in animal skins sat with his legs spread wide while a beauty fussed over him.
He took a huge gulp of wine.
“Useless! All of you are useless! You failed to bring back the yaks, and you cost me that many men!”