Bend Over [ 折腰 ] - Chapter 16

[Chapter 16 Wei Hou’s Wrath (Part 2)]

The remaining fire in the prefect’s mansion has not been extinguished, and it is temporarily unable to enter. All the injured were placed in the Liucao Yamen in Dongcheng.

The sergeant lit the fire, and Wei Shao walked all the way. In addition to the direction of the prefect’s mansion behind him, there was also a fire jumping. The street was dark at the beginning and the end, and the doors and windows of the civilian households on both sides were closed. It was like an uninhabited city. There was a cry of a child, and before the cry was finished, it disappeared immediately. It must have been forcibly covered by the terrified adult or covered in the quilt. At the entrance of the yamen, dozens of officials, large and small, such as Shiyi Shoucheng, Changshi, Duyou, etc., are all gathered in front of the gate at this moment. The soldiers and armor are glaring at each other. Weeping, suddenly heard the sergeant shouting “Your Majesty is here”, and salute again, turned their heads in unison, and saw a man in armor and covered in blood trotted up on the entrance steps, described as Yingwei, quite young. , also in his twenties, knowing that this person is Wei Shao, who is famous in the north, all shuddered, and he didn’t dare to make a sound, just peeking at him.

Wei Shao ignored these officials in Shiyi, and when he got inside, he took off his armor, wiped the blood on his face, and went to comfort and reward the wounded soldiers who attacked the city tonight.

This siege battle was really tragic. Although the 20,000 defenders in Shiyi were completely wiped out, Wei Shao’s losses were not light. Not counting the casualties, the wounded were lying here alone, with dozens of doctors interspersed. Healing wounded soldiers is very busy.

When the soldiers saw that the lord did not celebrate first, and just took the city, they came to visit their wounded, and they were all grateful.

Wei Shao finished comforting the soldiers and went to visit Wei Liang alone.

Feeling guilty, Wei Liang fought hard for the city siege, and accidentally hit several rockets. Fortunately, he didn’t reach the key point. The military doctor has finished his treatment. He is now lying on a bed with his eyes closed and resting. Seeing Wei Shao coming to visit, struggling to get up to go down, Wei Shao pressed him down.

Wei Liang’s body was poisoned by fire, and his injuries were really serious. His complexion was like golden paper, but he was still chatting and laughing, and his spirit looked good.

Wei Shao asked him about the details of the incident in Qiuji that day, Wei Liang repeated it from beginning to end, and finally gritted his teeth and said: “I hate Chen Rui, a thief who is used to conspiracy, and took advantage of my unpreparedness to rob the mistress! That fellow really deserves to die! When I find him next time, I must cut him into eight pieces before I can dispel my hatred!”

Wei Shao asked: “You mean, the lady was first kidnapped in the post court, and then someone sent passers-by to give it to you. Reported that she fell into the hands of Chen Rui? Do you know where that person came from?”

Wei Liang shook his head blankly: “I don’t know. It just happened to fall into the eyes of people, so I came to report the news.”

When Wei Shao pondered, just now The sergeant-major hurriedly reported that a soldier had found Chen Rui several miles outside the west gate of the city, and that he had snatched a military horse from him.

Wei Liang was furious, and when he sat up, he was about to turn over and get out of bed, which affected the wound on his body and showed pain on his face.

Wei Shao looked as usual, but a shadow passed through his eyes. Pressing Wei Liang’s shoulders, telling him to recuperate from his injuries, and ordering the military doctor to treat him with all his heart, without making any mistakes, he got up, got on his horse, and went straight out of the west gate.

…

Chen Rui climbed over the wall of the thatched hut of the prefect’s mansion, and fled out of the west gate while he was in a hurry, but saw the torches light up behind him, and the figure of Wei Shao’s soldiers swayed. When he arrived in the wild, there was a bush of thorns, and regardless of the thorns stabbing his body, he dived in to hide, trying to escape this pursuit, and then find a way to escape after dawn. Not wanting to lose his luck, he actually disturbed a nest of wild raccoons who settled in the thorn bushes. The fox ran around and made a noise, attracting the sergeant and stabbing the thorn bush with a long spear. Chen Rui endured it at first, not wanting a soldier to happen A shot hit him in the buttocks, and with an ouch, he jumped out, knocked over the sergeant viciously, snatched a horse, stepped on it, and fled westward.

He ran wildly for a while, and the soldiers who were chasing behind him were finally thrown away by him. Fang heaved a sigh of relief. Seeing that the horses under him were gradually panting and the pace of their feet was slowing down. I lost my legs, and I was really tired, so I sat down and sat on the ground to catch my breath. Before I could take a breath, I realized that someone was chasing after me.

Tonight, the moon and stars are sparse, and the four fields are empty, so it is vaguely discernible that there are at least a dozen people in this group. Chen Rui suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, got up from the ground, jumped on the horse, and ran wild again, not wanting to panic, and finally ran into a large deserted cemetery. I heard the sound of horses’ hooves hitting the ground.

Chen Rui knew that Wei Shao would definitely hate himself to the bone now. If he fell into his hands, life would be better than death. If he ran down like this, he would have no way to escape. He kicked the horse’s butt and urged the horse to move on. He rolled and crawled into the deserted graves and hit a wild grave. There was a dark hole in the shade. , he got into it with one end, curled up desperately, and after hiding it, he dug out a stone to block the entrance of the hole.

…

Wei Shao personally led people to chase out of the city dozens of miles away. After passing the cemetery, he chased the horse in a moment. Seeing that the horse was empty, Chen Rui was missing. He stopped and ordered the sergeant to search nearby, but he was not found That fellow, thinking that there was a barren cemetery next to Caicai Road, ordered the sergeant to search again.

The sergeants came back one by one, reporting that they had looked all over the place, but had not seen Chen Rui.

Wei Shao pondered for a moment, looked back at the city, and thought that the sergeant had been rushing on the road for days and then attacked the city in the middle of the night. He was already tired. And just after Shiyi was won, there are many things in the city. Although Gongsun Yangdai is in charge, it is not easy for him to leave for too long. The barren cemetery, ordered to withdraw the team and return to the city.

…

Chen Rui huddled in the pitch-black grave, with his eyes open and his fingers out of sight, he didn’t dare to move at all, he only perked up his ears to listen to what was going on outside. At first, there seemed to be footsteps nearby, but fortunately, the other party didn’t notice the strangeness and walked over. After a long time, there was no other noise outside. Chen Rui deduced that Wei Shao and his party should have left, and finally heaved a long sigh of relief. Only then did he smell the smell of rotten fireflies in his nostrils. He almost felt sick and muttered. With a sound of “bad luck”, when he pushed away the stone and was about to climb out, the corner of his clothes suddenly seemed to be firmly pulled by someone and could not be loosened.

Chen Rui’s eyes flashed a resentful ghost. Although killing people on weekdays is not afraid of ghosts and gods, but at this moment, in the middle of the night, I am in a tomb, surrounded by dark hands and can’t see five fingers, and the corners of the clothes behind him are firmly pulled, and it seems that a cloudy wind suddenly blew past. Neck, no matter how daring he was on weekdays, at this moment, all the hairs on his body stood on end, he lay on the ground and dared not move any more, closing his eyes and begging for worship. After a while, seeing that there seemed to be no other abnormality behind him, he finally had the courage to slowly reach out and touch it, only to find out that the corner of his clothes was just caught by a wild thorn growing behind him, and he pulled it hard. , then broke free, crawled out of the grave with hands and feet on the ground, sat on the ground breathing heavily, and when his mind was calm, he did not dare to stay here for a long time, got up and looked around, seeing the vast expanse, finally reluctantly discerned the direction, hurriedly Escape in the direction of Bingzhou.

…

Wei Shao returned to the city, and it was already four more.

Chen Pang had a dozen water dragons in reserve earlier. The sergeant pressed the fire with a water dragon. The fire has finally been put out. Although most of the prefect’s mansion was burned, and the granary was slightly affected, only a few hundred stones of grain were damaged.

Gongsun Yang was instructing to clean up the mess near the fire, when he suddenly saw Wei Shao coming, he rushed up to report to him.

He also hadn’t closed his eyes all day and night, but he was still in good spirits, and he could even be called excited. After Jian Hui finished, he smiled and said, “Congratulations, lord, for successfully conquering Shiyi today, occupying the portal, and taking Jinyang is just around the corner.”

Wei Shao smiled slightly. Laughing, he said, “Sir has spent the whole night, and the sky will be bright. You can go on with the rest of your orders. Sir, go to rest first.”

Gongsun Yang agreed, thought for a while, and said, “The fire of the prefect’s mansion came just in time. , it can be said to have helped the siege. It’s just that the fire was a little strange. Just now, I visited the lady along with the military doctor on my own initiative. As expected, the lady was released to escape.”

He said it again, and finally praised: “I can’t see that the lady seems to be fragile, and she can endure the pain to put such a hand on herself, and then use the fire to escape. Her wrists were really scorched, covered with blisters and blisters. Her condition was so pitiful that I couldn’t bear to see her. When the military doctor treated her, she didn’t complain at all, but comforted me, saying I have nothing to do with myself. I am really impressed.”

…

Although Chen Rui is a boy and a girl, he is reckless. At that time, Xiao Qiao was tied with his backhand and placed on the bed as if he was catching a chicken. After he left, he thought about Wei Wei. Shao has come to attack the city, and the two sides are fighting against each other. In the chaos of the army, no matter which side wins the battle of the city wall, if he is locked here like the flesh of a chopping block, he will definitely not end well. When I was anxious, I suddenly thought of the two happy candles that were lit in the room, got out of bed and jumped in front of the candlelight, rubbed his sleeves up, turned his back to the candlelight, resisted the severe pain of being scorched, and the burning stopped. Finally, Liao broke the rope on his wrist. When it was finally cut off, a piece of her fair and flawless wrist was burned with large and small blisters on the spot, the cold sweat of pain continued, and the person’s eyes were black, and she almost fainted. He opened his feet and put on the rope, ignited the curtains in the room with candles, covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief dipped in tea, and put on a quilt to hide behind the door. When the fire in the room was getting bigger and bigger, and when she alerted the servant girl outside the door to open the door, the servant girl couldn’t see what was going on inside because of the smoke. Fortunately, due to the battle at the city head, there was no one in the prefect’s mansion, and with the cover of darkness, he finally found a remote empty stable in the upper wind and hid himself temporarily.

…

Most of the prefect’s mansion was devastated by the fire, and only a few rows of houses upwind remained intact. Xiao Qiao was placed in an inner room at the moment, the bed was complete and clean. Before Gongsun Yang left, he ordered two servants from the prefect’s mansion to accompany him outside, and left a group of soldiers to hold the passage and the front and rear entrances all night.

Xiao Qiao knew that he was finally safe.

In the past few days, she hadn’t closed her eyes for a moment. After being brought here by Chen Rui, there was a hungry wolf staring at him and drooling beside him. He was even more trembling. He didn’t dare to be too tough to provoke him, let alone make him feel that he was easy to use, in order to deal with Chen Rui. Rui, telling him not to get close to his body is a laborious effort, and his whole body, even his hair, is taut.

Now that it is safe, the bursts from her wrist are still like the pain of being burned by fire, but she can’t sleep at all, and she can’t wait to peel off the skin on her wrist.

Just now when Gongsun Yang and the military doctor were still there, she had been holding back and didn’t want to reveal anything. There was no one in front of me now, and the surroundings were quiet, and I couldn’t help but shed tears in pain. I lost the golden beans silently for a while, and I don’t know whether it was the medicine given by the military doctor that worked, or whether I felt more comfortable after crying, and the pain on my wrist gradually seemed to be lighter, with tears on my face, and finally leaned on. On the head of the bed, he fell asleep in a daze.

[End of This Chapter]