Bend Over [ 折腰 ] - Chapter 163

[Chapter 161]

In February of the following year, the spring cold was still steep. On this day, in the faint sound of the waves, the mouth of an unknown small fishing village on the shore of the Yellow Sea fled into a crowd of dozens of people and horses.

Years of war and turmoil have caused such a desolate fishing village to be rarely green and strong, but there are only a dozen remaining households, all old and weak women and children, with charred faces and ragged clothes, and suddenly saw the village mouth flee into this crowd of people and horses, although they looked frightened like dogs that lost their families, some wore crooked beam hats and ignored the right ones, some had their heads scattered and their boots on their feet fell off, and they only looked at the color of their clothes, but they appeared to be high-class noble people, and in the middle there was a woman with a gorgeous golden mask, which fell into the eyes of the villagers , it is not strange.

Terrified, the villagers called out to their children and daughters and fled in all directions.

The pursuing soldiers behind them were getting closer and closer, and they seemed to be able to hear the sound of horses’ hooves falling to the ground and fighting. A man who looked like an official suddenly fell from the marching horse, Liang Guanbone rolled to the side of the road, he broke his leg, Zhang Huang called for help, but no one paid attention, in the blink of an eye, dozens of people rolled in front of him like the wind, leaving him and his terrified cry for help behind.

On the opposite side came an old fisherman with a cable on his back, like an old fisherman who had just returned from the sea. Seeing the pedestrians and horses on the other side, the old fisherman turned to flee, and was immediately arrested, and the soldiers coerced them with knives to force the old fishermen to take them to the place where the boat was moored.

The sound of the waves is gusting, and the salty sea breeze with a chill is also coming.

The horse’s hooves were stuck in the mudflats, making it difficult to move forward. Liu Yan and his party got off their horses and stepped into the mud, one foot deep and one foot shallow, stumbled towards the seashore where the fishing boat was moored, and finally fled to the side of the boat, everyone was barefoot, the corners of their clothes were covered with mud, they were embarrassed, and their boots were inserted in the muddy mud behind them, as if they were opening their black mouths to the sky, moaning and shouting in vain.

At low tide, fishing boats are quickly pushed into the sea, and old fishermen are forced to get on board with them.

But the fishing boat was not big enough to accommodate all the people.

Liu Yan, Emperor Su’e, Liu Fan, the former Yangdu Taishou Liang Ji and his daughter, who had been made empress by Liu Yan, and the last dozen or so soldiers boarded the ship, there was no place to stay.

Wang Ba, Dou Wu, Deng Xun, and others had long since lost their usual appearance of old age and weight, tiptoeing their feet and abandoning their crowns, their bodies stained with dirt, their hair on their faces, and a little mud, all of them knelt on the beach, facing Liu Yan on the fishing boat, some howling and crying, and some ignoring the mud stained noodles, prostrating their heads and sending off, and they became a mess.

At this moment, Dong Cheng violently pushed away Dou Wu, who was blocking his head in front of him, and chased after the fishing boat with the sea water, struggling to hold the bow of the boat, with a tear on his face: “Your Majesty, don’t abandon me!” Let me get on board! I was loyal enough to protect you and helped you ascend to the throne, but today you can abandon me like this…”

The fishing boat had just gone to sea with the receding tide, and it was already unstable, and he grabbed the bow of the boat like this and struggled to climb up, and immediately shook from side to side.

Liu Fan was lying on the bow of the boat covered with slippery and greasy stains, desperately stomping on the back of Dong Cheng’s hand with his feet, and seeing that Dong Cheng was gritting his teeth and dragging the fishing boat, he pulled out the waist knife of a soldier next to him and slashed at Dong Cheng’s hands.

In the scream, the fingers of one of Dong Cheng’s hands were broken, and at the moment of falling, out of the instinct to survive, the other hand grabbed it randomly and grabbed Liu Fan’s ankle, Liu Fan stood unsteadily, and was dragged by Dong Cheng, and the two of them were planted in the sea together.

The tide was gushing, the two were quickly swept away from the fishing boat, Liu Fan did not know the water, fell into the sea, while struggling to step on to break free of The Dead Dong Cheng, while shouting at the fishing boat for help: “Your Majesty, save me -”

The words did not fall, a wave came and covered him, and in the blink of an eye, the two heads disappeared above the sea.

Liu Yan stood in the middle of the boat, the sea breeze blew his robe hunting, and his eyes fixed on the direction in which the pursuing soldiers were gradually coming up in the distance, and his look was wooden.

The fishing boat gradually disappeared from sight with the cry of the widows on the seashore, and as the tide receded, it gradually disappeared from sight.

……

In the evening of the next day, Liu Yan and his party, who did not have any supplies, finally landed on a small island under the helm of the old fishermen.

There are traces of inhabitation on this small island, some tattered fishing nets dried on the beach, and the shadows of several low huts can be faintly seen in the distance.

Liang Ji asked Liu Yan to take a break and took his soldiers to look for the islanders.

As soon as Emperor Su’e came ashore, he lay on the rock and vomited continuously, and the butterfly cover on his face accidentally fell off and was swept away by a wave.

Emperor Su’e screamed, ignored the surging waves, chased up, and finally snatched the mask from the beach.

She was drenched and pale, like a dead man, clutching the mask that had been somewhat deformed, and immediately put it back on her face. It was just that both hands were trembling badly, and after wearing them several times, the mask fell off.

Finally told her to barely wear it back, she almost crawled on her hands and feet and landed on the ground, and finally sat down near a reef, gasping for breath.

Liu Yan was near her, her face was haggard, her lips were chapped and bloody, and she was motionless, like a clay sculpture.

Soon, Liang Ji returned, holding a pot of clear water in his hand, and offered it to Liu Yan, saying that there were dozens of residents on the island, all of whom had fled from the nearby seaside fishing village to the island to avoid the chaos of the war, and had only been controlled by the soldiers, so liu Yan was asked to rest for the night, wait for the supply, change to a bigger and safer boat, and then think of escaping far away tomorrow morning.

Emperor Su’e struggled, stood up from the ground, and said, “Your Majesty, the sea road is wide, Wei Wei is again with his hands and eyes to the sky, and when he leaves this coastal sea, he will have no choice!” We can go south, wait until we get to the south, recuperate, have your identity as the orthodox emperor of the Han Dynasty, and there is no loyal subject in the world! In the future, he will rebel, kill him back to Luoyang, and crush Wei’s corpse into ten thousand pieces to avenge Xue Hate! The sea breeze was

very strong, and her voice was also blown with an unreal buzzing sound, but it was so sonorous that even Liang Ji seemed to feel the hope in her words.

The spirit that had been decadent was also lifted, and he looked at Liu Yan.

Liu Yan was supported by Liang Hou, slowly stood up from the stone, and walked towards the highest settlement in the middle of the island, one foot deep and one foot shallow.

On a flat piece of the settlement, dozens of ragged fishermen knelt, both men, women and children, looked at Liu Yansu And his party with frightened and confused eyes.

Liu Yan slipped into one of the largest huts, and as soon as he entered, he lay on the tattered mat that was barely a bed on the ground, his eyes closed, motionless.

It was getting dark.

The sea breeze outside the hut whistled, and the strange sound was gusting, as if only a ghost was cruising back and forth over the island.

Liu Yan finally felt tired.

He slept over, and the ground at his feet lay on the back of the sleeping beam.

The moonlight shone through a hole in the roof of the hut, sprinkled on the young and good face behind the beam, and also illuminated a remnant of tears in the corner of her eye.

Suddenly, Liu Yan, who was asleep, opened his eyes violently and sat up.

Liang Hou was startled awake by him, and a bone crawled up, pounced on him, and said, “Your Majesty, what happened to you?” Liu Yan’s

eyes widened, and he stared at the face behind the beam in the moonlight without blinking, gradually revealing a confused look.

Liang Hou tentatively called out to him again, seeing that he should not, staring at his own eyes more and more strangely, his heart hairy, and slowly retreating backwards.

Liu Yan suddenly threw her down.

“…… You are my wife Liu Yan… Say, “You will be born with me, and die with me…”

Although Concubine Liang was a queen, she did not gain much closeness to him on weekdays. At this moment, when he fell into such a field, he felt him holding himself tightly, accompanied by a trembling and vague voice, his cold lips fell unceasingly on his cheek, his heart could not help but thump, slowly closed his eyes, and trembled: “Your Majesty, I am already your wife, I must be born with Your Majesty, and die in the same cave…”

Liu Yan kissed her even more frantically.

“I know you were forced!” You were forcibly married to Wei by your family… They deserve to die, and their sins deserve to die! But as long as you change your mind, you will not be blamed for the past, and you will be sealed as the queen! Liu Yan’s

voice became extremely excited.

Concubine Liang opened her eyes in surprise and said, “Your Majesty, Your Majesty, what are you talking about?”

Liu Yan suddenly froze, and finally slowly opened his eyes, staring at Liu Fei under him deadly in the white moonlight in the hut.

Princess Liang felt frightened again, shrank down, and said softly, “Your Majesty… Only then did you say that I was forcibly married to Wei Wei by my family… They also said that they deserved to die for their sins… My father has always been loyal to you… Your Majesty Ming Jian…”

Liu Yan’s eyes flashed, her facial muscles twitched, her breathing became more and more cloudy, and she raised her hand violently and grabbed her neck.

Concubine Liang couldn’t breathe, her thin neck was deformed under Liu Yan’s pinching as if she had exhausted all her strength, her legs were scrambling, the struggle was in vain, and soon her eyes turned white, and gradually, her whole body softened.

Liu Yan’s hand finally loosened the thin neck. He got up from the ground and sat down, staring at the face of Concubine Liang who rolled her eyes, smoothed her eyelids, and murmured in his mouth: “Barbarians, you are at ease to go first… I will follow you in the future…”

His expression seemed to be crying and laughing, like pain, and seemed to be full of happiness, whirring and whirring, gasping for breath.

Suddenly, along with the sea breeze outside the hut, there seemed to be a faint sound of killing.

Liu Yan seemed to be pricked by a needle, jumped up from the ground violently, rushed out of the broken door, saw Liang Ji rushing towards him, and shouted in a hurry: “Your Majesty, it’s not good!” Wei Wei’s big ship chased after this place, and the people had already landed!

Liu Yan looked up and saw the direction of the sea where he landed during the day, at this moment flashed a jumping fire wand light, almost reflecting the entire beach into a red color, as if in the blink of an eye, surrounded by such a fire wand light in all directions, the stars were dotted, under the moonlight, countless figures were rushing towards this high ground in the middle.

The sound of killing was so loud that it even overwhelmed the howling of the sea breeze across the island.

……

Liu Yan should have felt the same fear as Liang Ji and the dozen or so Death Guards left around him.

But at this moment, his heart was only a blankness, and a cold sense of complete despair.

In fact, since the Xiongnu sneaked into Yuyang at the end of last year without results, in his heart, it was already clear that sooner or later, he would face such a situation.

I just didn’t expect that this day would come so quickly.

“Let’s go! Bring the islanders all! Behind

him came a mournful voice from Emperor Su’e. Liang Ji immediately reacted and immediately gave a loud order.

In order to prevent the islanders from taking advantage of the night, before dark, the men were tied up with ropes, and soon the soldiers drove them over, all of them kneeling on the ground, crying.

Tonight the moonlight was white, and the whole island was like a snowy night, and Liu Yan saw a man of his own age, surrounded by several generals around him, striding in his direction in the light of white moonlight and crimson fire.

In this life, his biggest and most hated enemy was Wei Shao.

Wei Shao not only took away his fiancée, but also his world.

The irony is that he never had the opportunity to meet his enemy.

Until this moment, he finally knew that this person who was marching towards him in the form of a victor in the moonlight and fire was the evil curse that Liu Yan could not get rid of in his lifetime.

He stared at the man who was getting closer and closer, and the armor was shining red, and his body was cold and hot, and his body under the benefactor trembled uncontrollably.

“Kill—”

“Kill—”

In all directions, a mixture of low waves and a high-pitched killing sound of the whining night wind, rushed toward the high ground in the middle of the island.

The soldiers who sailed the warship with Yan Hou across the sea to pursue here were all boiling with blood.

General Li Dian, who had already joined forces with the Green-Eyed General, attacked from the north and south, and completely destroyed Chen Tianwang, causing disasters in the south for almost a year, and the cannibal army that made the people feel frightened was wiped out, at the same time, in December last year, Wei Shao personally led a large army, Pingyu Prefecture, ling Gai zhao surrendered, and after that, the momentum was like a broken bamboo, unstoppable, Lujiang Songling, Jiangxia Liu Xiao and so on also surrendered.

In addition to the barbarians in the south, only the two regimes left in the Central Plains were Hanzhong Lezheng and Liu Yan’s small imperial court.

The LeZheng brothers are infighting, the girder can be broken, and Liu Yan is now even closer, like a turtle in an urn.

Destroy Liu Yan, break the girder, from now on, the world will be one, the horse will be put on the South Mountain, a new empire will rise from the ruins, no longer have to suffer from the conquest of the blood full of sleeves, how not to make people full of expectations, blood boiling?

Wei Wei listened! These islanders are innocent people, and His Majesty does not want to be embarrassed, but you are aggressive! If your sergeant gets any closer, I will kill all the islanders and fight you to the death!”

Liang Ji used all his strength to shout at Wei Shao, who was dozens of feet away, and the words were mixed with the crying and pleading of the islanders behind him, and they were sent out with the wind.

Wei Shao stopped.

The commander gradually handed over the order, and soon, the noise of killing around him quieted down.

“Immediately give way to the passage and send Your Majesty to the ship—”

Liang Ji was emotional, brandishing the long knife in his hand and continuing to shout.

Lei Yan took Zhang Tie’s bow from a nearby archer, pulled the angry bow full of anger, penetrated the back of the bow, and after aiming, he suddenly shot out an arrow crossbow.

With a whining sound that pierced the air, the feather arrow shot towards the person on the high ground in the distance, and Liang Jixin’s arrow in his mouth, screaming wildly, fell to the ground and died.

“Sergeant Liu Yan obeys the order, my lord Zhi’er and others obey the orders of others, and they cannot help themselves, and at this moment they surrender, and forgive Er’s innocence!” If you resist again, kill them all! Lei Yan’s

voice full of breath came out, not angry.

“Surrender!”

“Surrender!”

The sergeants of the four sides also echoed in unison, and the sound was thunderous and deafening.

At the end of the road, surrounded on all sides, the Lord died violently in front of him, and the last dozen or so guards who remained at this moment, their will completely collapsed, and in a loud command to promote surrender, slowly retreated, and one of them suddenly turned around, knelt in the direction of Wei Shao, raised his weapon in his hand, and the rest followed suit.

Sergeant Wei Shao cheered and continued to move towards the high ground, slowly surrounding him.

Emperor Su’e’s face twisted and his eyes were frantic, and he suddenly grabbed a baby who was crying in the arms of a fisherwoman, held it high, and shouted, “Wei Shao listens, if you don’t let go, I will fall to death of this baby!” Are you not afraid that this evil of death will be reported to your child?

Lei Yan was furious and said to Wei Shao, “This evil woman is really vicious.” The last will shoot her first!

Wei Shao looked at The Crazy Emperor Su’e and slowly shook his head.

Suddenly, Liu Yan, who was standing stiffly and straight, seemed to come back alive and said sharply, “Wei Shao! You first took my wife, and then you took me the world, and I am inseparable from you! Today I also know that I am not invincible to you, but I am so defeated by you, I am not only unwilling, but even more disobedient! You are only running amok through the inheritance of your father and grandfather. What do I have? Although I was born into the royal family, I didn’t rely on half of it before, and I relied on my own painstaking management! I hate the injustice of the heavens! If I am like you, and have a great inheritance to rely on, why have I been defeated to this point? These islanders, I don’t want to embarrass them anymore! I can release people, but do you dare to duel with me alone? If I am no longer against you, I will die without complaint!”
Emperor
Su’e was shocked and turned back and angrily scolded: “Liu Yan, you useless person!” Are you crazy? You want to die, don’t drag me down!

Liu Yan didn’t hear it, and then roared, “Wei Shao, do you dare to respond to my words?” Wei Shao

stared at Liu Yan’s figure in the moonlight for a moment and suddenly laughed, “Why can’t you respond?” Lei

Yan and Shui Shi beside him were all surprised and dissuaded, “Liu Yan is just a dying disciple!” Kill the chicken with a cattle slaughtering knife, the lord’s golden body, do not have to fight! Wei Shao

waved his hand and said in a loud voice, “The generals obey the order, I will duel with Liu Yan, life and death will be destined, if I lose to him, he can leave on his own, Er waiting for him to stop!” When he had

finished speaking, he took his sword in his hand and strode toward a clearing in the moonlight.

Liu Yan also held his sword, and in the curse of Emperor Su’e behind him, he headed towards the clearing.

……

The moonlight is like water, and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore. Qingfeng sheathed and drew out a cold sword.

With a loud roar, Liu Yan rushed towards Wei Shao on the opposite side.

In the past few years, in addition to painstakingly planning major plans, he has also been working hard to learn swords and fight with samurai.

Countless nights later, when he closed his eyes, he would remember the scene when he was crushed by Chen Rui’s long halberd in the snow that day, and could only watch him kidnap Xiao Qiao and laugh wildly.

If I could have had the ability I have today, such a humiliating scene would never have been staged again.

And the humiliation and hatred brought to him by the man in front of him was far better than that of Chen Rui at that time.

His eyes were red, he gritted his teeth, and used all his strength, his sword was a lifeless fight.

Kill him, even if you die with him, it is not spared.

However, heaven always seemed to mock and stab him, even at the last moment.

Liu Yan’s last crazy fantasy was broken under Wei Shao’s sword.

With a piercing sound of metal breaking, the long sword in Liu Yan’s hand was twisted, and the sword body split into three pieces and burst out, one of which was impartial and inserted into Liu Yan’s left leg knee.

Liu Yan closed his eyes, opened his eyes, and saw Wei Shao standing in front of him with a long sword in his hand.

Under the moonlight, his eyes glowed with a faint cold light, which suddenly made Liu Yan think of the impermanence of life.

Liu Yan’s teeth began to tremble slightly.

Just a moment ago, all the generosity, sadness, anger, and courage that had come from the duel that had sustained him and Wei Shao seemed to be rapidly leaving him.

He did not want to show fear, but at this moment, he was real, and suddenly repented.

Maybe Emperor Su’e is right, with the islander’s life as a threat, maybe he can still escape, and there will be a chance to make a comeback in the future…

In his mind, such a thought flashed vaguely.

But before this thought could take shape, there was a sharp pain in his chest, and the long sword in Wei Shao’s hand had already pierced into his heart.

He could clearly feel that the sharp blade of the sword, which exuded the breath of death, pierced his clothes and pierced into his flesh.

“Brute is my fiancée Liu Yan… The world is the world of my Liu family…”

He stood upright, his face pale, squeezing out a trembling voice word by word from between his teeth.

Wei Shao looked indifferently at his painfully distorted face, the blade of the sword inserted precisely between the two ribs, and slowly stabbed into the beating heart that was protected, inch by inch, just as the tip of the sword was about to touch the lump of flesh that suddenly accelerated its contraction, it stopped.

“Liu Yan.”

Wei Shao’s icy voice drifted into Liu Yan’s ears.

“I don’t dare to say that I Wei Shao He De He Neng, more worthy of being barbaric than you, more qualified than you to be the emperor of this world.” But there is one thing that I will never do, that is, for my own interests, dare to risk the world’s great discord, collude with the Xiongnu, and use the land of the Han people to marry foreign tribes.

“Although you claim to be the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, in my eyes, you are nothing at all.” The reason why I personally crossed the sea to chase you here is that I didn’t kill you with my own hands. Before the

words could be heard, he thrust his power, and the blade pierced deeply and came out through his back.

Liu Yan’s hands tightly covered his chest that was constantly bleeding outwards, his eyes were wide open, his lips were slightly fluttering, and his body trembled violently.

Wei Shao drew his sword, and with the hot blood spraying out with the tip of the sword, Liu Yan let out a loud cry and fell to the ground on his back.

Wei Shao lowered his head slightly, his face without expression, looking at Liu Yan’s convulsive body on the ground.

Until the body gradually stopped moving, he closed his eyes, let out a long sigh of relief, opened his eyes, and turned his gaze to Emperor Su’e, who was sitting paralyzed on the ground.

Su E’s head was scattered, the skirt was full of mud, and she was still holding the crying baby in her hands, and under Wei Shao’s incomparably cold gaze, she was placed on the ground in horror, subconsciously crawling back, taking a few steps back, struggling to get up from the ground, turning around and running, but was blocked by the sergeant behind her.

She suddenly cried bitterly, crawled to her knees toward Wei Shao, trembled and reached out her mud-stained hand and grabbed his ankle.

“Jiro! I know it’s wrong! Once upon a time, I was blamed for being blindfolded and doing something worse than a pig or a dog… But what I do is out of my love for you… Erlang, you have already severely punished me in the past, please look at your former feelings, spare me-”

She looked up at Wei Shao, tears rolling down her cheeks from the golden mask that had been twisted and deformed.

Wei Shao slowly leaned over, his hand probing towards her cheek, and suddenly removed her mask in its entirety, five fingers and one pinch, the butterfly cover quickly deformed in his palm and squeezed into a ball.

Emperor Su’e screamed and hurriedly covered her face with her sleeve.

Wei Shao stared at her expressionlessly, spreading out his five fingers, and Jin Tuan puffed and fell to the ground.

Wei Shao turned and strode away.

“Listen well, the central plains have been pacified, the whole world is one, and there will be no more wars in the future!” If you wish to return to your hometown, you can go ashore with the main battleship!

Lei Yan ordered the sergeant to untie the rope that bound the islanders and said.

The islanders did not believe it at first, but soon their faces were excited, and after a while of exchange of ears, they knelt down one after another against Wei Shao’s back, thanked each other loudly, supported each other, and rushed home to pack up their belongings and follow the boat to leave the island and return to their hometown.

……

Little Joe slept until the middle of the night, suddenly woke up, feeling a little restless, as if something had happened.

The tentacles touched the sleeping Philippi.

She leaned over her daughter’s warm, soft body and pressed her face to her little head.

Her nose was filled with the familiar frankincense smell of her daughter, and she felt that her mood was gradually calming back.

Closed my eyes again.

Wei Shao should be back soon…

Before going to bed, she had such a feeling in her heart.

[End of This Chapter]