"Officers and soldiers, the divine archers are too sharp! Captain Zhao has also been hit by an arrow!"
"Ah! Save me quickly, my knee is pierced!"
"Not good... There might be more than one divine archer from the officers in the woods. How could a single person shoot so fast otherwise?!"
"Disaster—over thirty have already fallen!"
"Where is this ambusher hiding? Can we drag him out?"
"I’m hit! Aaaah!"
The bandits’ initially orderly formation collapsed into chaos. Their leaders had all been shot in the knees by Jiang Liuer, leaving no one to command.
Some bandits trembled and retreated, their fear spreading like wildfire.
The already disordered ranks dissolved further into pandemonium.
Seeing this, the Tang soldiers, who had been desperately holding their ground, recognized their chance and rallied.
"Change formation! Charge!!!" roared their leader.
"Charge!!!" The soldiers surged forward, their long spears impaling a dozen bandits in moments.
The old prisoner in the cart screamed frantically, "Don’t retreat! These imperial dogs are nearly finished! Kill them all and free us!"
But his voice drowned in the battlefield’s cacophony, unheard by the fleeing bandits.
From the shadows, an archer loosed arrows every few breaths—each strike unerring.
Miraculous.
Terrifying.
Meanwhile, the Tang soldiers pressed their advantage.
Another clash, another dozen bandits slain.
"Retreat!"
Someone finally broke, abandoning weapons to flee faster.
The rest scattered like frightened beasts—capture by soldiers meant death; capture by the archer meant shattered knees.
To survive both...
They fled.
Jiang Liuer nocked another arrow, its tip glinting coldly as he aimed at a fleeing bandit.
But he held fire.
Only when the figure vanished into the distance did he release the arrow harmlessly into the ground.
"Whew..."
He exhaled slowly. Dozens of shots with that monstrous bow had drained even his prodigious strength.
Yet they’d won.
Bandits who could still run had fled. The rest lay crippled, groaning.
Clutching the oversized bow, Jiang Liuer leapt down from the treetops.
He emerged from the woods.
"Benefactor!" A red fox scampered over, wide-eyed. After verifying Jiang Liuer remained unharmed, Hu Yuyu sighed in relief.
"Your archery was divine!" the fox exclaimed. "You alone could’ve routed them!"
Jiang Liuer scratched his head. "I... actually learned today. My first arrow hit someone’s rear."
Hu Yuyu’s eyes sparkled. "Natural genius!"
......
"Captain... the fox... it talks..." A wounded soldier gaped, momentarily forgetting his injury.
The captain spat blood—two teeth lost in the fray. "So?"
"Eh?"
Ignoring his baffled subordinate, the captain approached Jiang Liuer.
"Young Jiang!" Bloodied but resolute, he clasped his hands. "Your intervention saved us from slaughter. Though a man’s knees bear gold’s weight, a life’s debt outweighs ten thousand taels!" He knelt. "Yin Zhao thanks you!"
Jiang Liuer hurriedly raised him. "An elder kneeling to me? You’ll curse my longevity!"
So the man was named Yin Zhao—sharing his mother’s surname.
"Which Yin character?" Jiang Liuer asked.
Yin Zhao fumbled for words, then showed his military tally.
"This Yin."
"My mother shares it!"
"Fate," Yin Zhao marveled. "Perhaps we shared ancestors centuries past."
His expression darkened as he surveyed the carnage. "Thirty-two brothers dead. Thirteen remain. How... how do I face their families?"
Jiang Liuer followed his gaze—corpses littered the ground.
Thirty-two Tang soldiers slain. Thirteen survivors, all wounded.
Bandits too lay in heaps. The living among them clutched arrow-pierced knees, moaning.
A hellscape of severed limbs and anguish.
Jiang Liuer sighed, clasping hands like Monk Faming during rites. He murmured the Earth Store Sutra: "Thus I have heard. Once, the Buddha spoke in Trayastrimsa Heaven..."
Unconsciously, his chant shifted to the Karmic Slaughter Sutra.
Agitation from wounding dozens refined into mana, coursing through his meridians.
After completing both texts, his cultivation had visibly deepened.
Strength partially restored.
"Captain Yin—"
"Brother Jiang," Yin Zhao interrupted. "I’m barely twenty. Let’s speak as siblings."
Jiang Liuer paused—loneliness had been his constant companion. A brother?
"Brother Yin... can the wounded be saved? Some are Tang soldiers."
Yin Zhao grimaced. "No villages for miles."
Jiang Liuer glanced at the bleeding bandits. "Then those I shot..."
They’d bleed out within hours.
If only he’d shot faster, fewer soldiers might’ve died.
Guilt gnawed.
[Jiang Liuer]: "Elders... I killed today."
[Cleansed Altar Envoy]: "Eh? Stepped on ants? No matter! As Cleansed Altar Bodhisattva, I decree it harmless!"
[Jiang Liuer]: "Not ants. Dozens... of people."
[Cleansed Altar Envoy]: "Peo... PEOPLE?!"
......
