Chai Shao sought out Old He to inquire carefully about the house matter. He felt Old He was profiting too much while his soldiers were getting shortchanged. He said those were all old houses that couldn’t be lived in for more than a few years before needing to be rebuilt. Unless Old He gave him a solution, he would exchange all the soldiers’ rewards for higher quality weapons instead.

Old He came crying and wailing to Yun Ye for help. What use did he have for weapons—he wasn’t planning to rebel. But the contract had already been signed. According to Chai Shao’s method, he wouldn’t earn a single coin and might even lose money. These days his business had been smooth sailing—how could he bear such a catastrophic loss? His first thought was to find Yun Ye to help him figure something out.

Looking at Old He with his running nose and streaming tears, Yun Ye sighed helplessly, pulled out a piece of paper from his bosom, and handed it to Old He.

Old He’s fat face changed faster than a Sichuan opera mask-changer—first surprise, then solemnity, followed by relief, and finally joy, until his huge mouth occupied a third of his face area, as if the person who’d been wailing just moments ago wasn’t him but someone else entirely.

Chai Shao was very satisfied with Old He’s new proposal. He specially doubled the reward. From that diagram one could see that Old He would demolish all the old houses and rebuild new ones, all two stories high, except all the houses would be connected together. This would save a lot of materials, and the houses would look sturdy and attractive. In fact, this was the tube-style building that had long been eliminated in later generations, famous worldwide for housing the most people in the smallest area. Although Old He now had to rebuild the houses, he saved much more land. Chai Shao didn’t understand the reasoning behind this—he only saw that his soldiers would live in new houses that were also much more spacious.

When people’s spirits were good, everything they did was especially pleasant. When Chai Shao described the houses to the soldiers, it drew thunderous applause. For them, having property in Chang’an was legendary. Just think—coming and going to Chang’an whenever they pleased, no longer having to run desperately out of the city like other countryfolk when they heard the eight hundred drum beats announcing curfew. Those who ran slowly would even be caught and whipped. Now they didn’t need to worry—once they reached Dunhua Ward, they could lie peacefully in their own houses listening to the rhythm of the drum beats.

Wasn’t the ultimate goal of earning military merit to obtain rewards? For common soldiers, trying to get ahead through military merit was truly too difficult. This time they’d won a battle, and the general’s reward was unprecedentedly generous. As garrison soldiers, they were all sons of prosperous farming families near Chang’an. As long as their service exempted their families from taxes, they’d fulfilled their complete responsibility. Other matters had nothing to do with them. Having houses meant they could live in Chang’an City—this attraction was fatal for them.

The horse hooves galloping homeward seemed much lighter. The soldiers all looked forward to returning to camp early to have the rewards distributed, so they’d each have a house in Chang’an—and a two-story building at that, they’d heard.

Over ten thousand warhorses advanced toward Shuofang like a flood, drawing the attention of many small tribes. They emerged from unimaginable places, jumped onto one of the warhorses and ran. Although many died under powerful crossbows, many succeeded as well. The Tang soldiers were extremely angry. In their view, these horses were all part of their Chang’an housing. In two days, over a hundred horses had been stolen by barbarians—this was intolerable. You damned bastards steal my windows today, steal my door tomorrow—if this continues, what will I have left?

Captured barbarians at first just had their heads cut off, then came waist-severing, and later drawing and quartering by five horses. Broken corpses were dragged by warhorses through the snow in procession. Along the way, Yun Ye saw no fewer than a dozen sets of various body parts. The garrison soldiers casually kicked a head or a leg to the roadside snow, their eyes full of hatred.

Cheng Dong no longer had a fever and had regained consciousness. It seemed anti-inflammatory medicine had excellent effects on ancient people. Their bodies had no drug resistance—only very small doses would work. One anti-inflammatory pill could save an ancient person’s life. For example, Cheng Dong had only taken one pill, yet the effect was astonishingly good.

There wasn’t much left. Yun Ye was choosing medicines with the nearest expiration dates to give him. Those with over a year left on their expiration dates needed to be carefully preserved.

Another head fell in the middle of the road. A young auxiliary soldier jumped down from the sled, clamped it between his feet like playing cuju, and kicked it up before it hit the ground. He kicked it in midair, forgetting it was winter and the head had been frozen on the road for over an hour—it was now as hard as stone. Yun Ye frowned, waiting for the auxiliary soldier’s scream. Sure enough, a scream came, very shrill, causing everyone to burst into laughter. Closing his eyes, Yun Ye dared not imagine what it would be like if heads kept appearing on roads in his previous life.

Something was pressed under a stone by the roadside. The auxiliary soldiers curiously went forward to observe. Gou Zi, who’d been silent these days, suddenly fell to the roadside and vomited violently. Yun Ye turned his head away, not looking. He worried he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

“This is called ‘Ox-Turtle.’ A person’s limbs are nailed to the ground with wooden stakes, and a large stone is pressed on the body. At first he can still breathe, but after a while the air in his belly gets less and less. The stone squeezes all the air out, so the person needs to struggle to inhale. Each breath requires all his strength. The person isn’t crushed to death by the stone—he’s worked to death. His internal organs all come out through his mouth. My lord, you’re not often with the army. Last time in Longxi, the Duke was also afraid you couldn’t adapt, so you don’t know about these things.”

Seeing Yun Ye’s expression turn ugly, Cheng Dong spoke to comfort him. Unexpectedly, after the comfort, Yun Ye’s expression became even worse.

The military was an organ of violence, not a place for soft-heartedness. Yun Ye was well aware of his weakness, so he tried to avoid battlefield slaughter—he didn’t want to see the phenomenon of rolling heads, no matter whose. Historically, breaching a city was more terrible than massacring it. The killing in a city massacre still had time limits; the killing when breaching a city had no time limits. Without needing to think about it, Xiangcheng belonged to the category of breach and entry. Within two days, it had become an empty city.

This seemed to be an age of killing. Xie Li killed Han people in Guanzhong, so Chai Shao killed barbarians on the grasslands. There was no reason to speak of—killing people was like cutting grass. You cut mine, I cut yours—perfectly fair. The killing had never stopped and would continue a thousand years later, except killing people would become more efficient. When atomic bombs appeared, it finally quieted down. No one dared kill anyone anymore, because at that point, killing others equaled suicide.

History was like a greedy child—taking advantage of no one disciplining it yet, it indulged recklessly. Xie Li would soon pay the price for his actions, but the Tang Dynasty would have to wait several hundred years to pay an even more terrible price.

Fatalism appeared in Yun Ye’s mind for the first time. How much the present resembled walking a huge circle—from the beginning all the way back to the beginning, cycling endlessly. Yun Ye was an ant outside the circle, an ant that could see the entire circle clearly. He wanted to turn the circle into a straight line but didn’t know how to do it. The difference in strength made him feel despair. Fortunately, he hadn’t been assimilated by the circle yet—he’d stopped at the last moment before stepping in.

He opened his eyes wide, staring woodenly at the corpses hanging by the roadside, as if they weren’t corpses but a string of wind chimes. He wanted to temper his heart to be incomparably hard. This effort continued until he saw that shepherd girl, when it crumbled into a puddle of muddy water.

She stood by the roadside with her younger brother, stretching her neck. Seeing Yun Ye arrive, she actually became shy, stuffed a string of something into Yun Ye’s hand, then twisted around and ran off, leaving Yun Ye bewildered. Her brother shouted something in a foreign language at Yun Ye and also ran off. However, the shepherd girl ran back, searched through Yun Ye’s person for a long time, finally saw Yun Ye’s jade pendant, held it in her hand, nodded with satisfaction, and ran off again…

All the Tang soldiers stared wide-eyed at this most terrifying female bandit in history. Even the wounded soldiers who’d been groaning constantly stretched their necks to look, forgetting to cry out. Not until the girl ran behind the hill did everyone begin to laugh uproariously. The wounded laughed until tears streamed—half joy, half pain.

Yun Ye looked at what was in his hand—a string of sheep bones, joint bones from sheep hooves, long since polished to an oily shine with a sense of antiquity.

“My lord, that girl likes you. She gave you her gala khan, which means she very much hopes you’ll go to her home to propose marriage. She’ll wait for you all along. My lord, you don’t plan to marry a shepherd girl? Her brother said if you dare not come, he’ll kill you.”

After explaining these words, Cheng Dong immediately laughed while gasping roughly. He had a wound on his belly—this bout of laughter caused him immense pain.

A huge loss! The jade pendant on his body was something Grandmother had carefully selected before hanging it on Yun Ye. The price must be considerable, especially since it also had the Yun family mark carved on it—the rolling cloud symbol. The price wouldn’t be less than a hundred strings of cash. Thinking of the jade pendant, then looking at the bones in his hand, Yun Ye stuffed the bones into his bosom, muttering to himself: “A loss, a huge loss.”

The weather on the grasslands changed unpredictably. Just moments ago it was light snow; in an instant it became goose-feather snow. Visibility was no more than ten meters. Yun Ye could no longer distinguish where the road was and where the grassland was. He took out his compass, found Shuofang’s direction on the map, and could only advance slowly. They couldn’t stop—otherwise such heavy snow would obliterate all vitality. Moving forward slowly, walking with extreme care.

Suddenly singing came from ahead—a young girl’s song. Yun Ye suddenly ordered everyone to advance following the song. The entire army went on alert—swords drawn, crossbows loaded. If it was an enemy trap, they’d be prepared. Everything would become clear once the snow stopped.

The singing appeared and disappeared but never ceased. Everyone advanced following the song. Two hours later, the snow stopped, but there was no singer ahead.

In the distance they could see a fortress standing there, and cavalry were galloping out from it. The snow impeded the horses’ hooves, so they dismounted and ran over. It was Cheng Chumo.

Yun Ye turned around but couldn’t see the singing person. He only heard a shrill call from far away.

“She says she’ll never see you again,” Cheng Dong translated.