Chapter 4: 第一章 穿越乱世

Blood filled the sky, smoke drifted everywhere, and a biting cold wind pierced through the deafening cries of slaughter in Didu City. The Northern Ying army had completely massacred the Shu Kingdom's Didu, leaving no gap for survival.

At a street corner drenched in blood, a ten-year-old child's eyelashes trembled slightly, and her stiff fingers moved as faintly as a feather.

Zhen Yue felt a splitting headache, her entire body feeling as if it had been crushed by a giant boulder. Her consciousness was hazy, and the tearing screams from all directions pierced her eardrums. The pungent smell of blood choked her, making it impossible to breathe. The viscous sensation against her cheeks and nose made her feel even more miserable. She wanted to move her aching body, but she was pressed down by something even tighter, warm and heavy.

Zhen Yue frowned and slowly opened her stinging eyes. Everything in her sight was a wash of crimson, and the soft thing pressing down on her was actually a person!

Blood! Her heart skipped a beat. She saw a man with drooping eyes, drenched in blood. Her brain went blank for a moment due to the sudden terror, followed by a frantic urge to flee. She tried to scream, but it was futile; her mouth was full of sticky blood, clogging her throat.

"Shh... Yue'er, don't... don't move." The man's exceptionally weak voice came clearly through the earth-shaking slaughterhouse, but the effort of speaking pulled at the knife wound on his back. Blood flowed down his dark green brocade robe, dripping onto Zhen Yue's pure white forehead.

Suddenly, her heart jolted. A real warmth spread through her senses via her pores. Bewilderment, terror, and complex emotions surged in her heart. Fragments of memories from her past life flashed by like a whirlwind. Logically speaking, she should already be dead. Before waking up this time, her last memory was being pushed from a thirty-four-story building, her body shattered into pieces; there was absolutely no possibility of survival.

Immense confusion and panic made it hard for her to breathe. She exerted all her strength to push away the man, who felt like a rock, wanting to find out what was happening.

But as she struggled with difficulty, a severed head that had just been cut off rolled inauspiciously into her line of sight, and her eyes suddenly became bloodshot.

A massive fear gradually devoured her nerves. Her entire body went stiff. Having lived in peaceful China for over twenty years, facing such a bloody scene so suddenly would have caused an ordinary person to faint long ago. However, she had been forcibly subjected to several years of training by her uncle in the Ordnance Department since childhood, making her braver and more acute than most. Instinct told her that she could not act rashly at this moment.

She struggled to lift her eyes. Everywhere were soldiers in green armor and black plating, their faces hideous like death-bringers from the depths of hell. With a lift of a blade and a fall of a knife, they killed weeping women, children, and sturdy men in a single stroke. The screams were incessant, and the entire street was strewn with corpses. Above the heavens, carrion-eating eagles and vultures enjoyed a gluttonous feast; this was nothing short of a living hell!

She trembled all over, her head buzzing. The cruel reality continuously struck her. At this moment, she truly realized the gravity of the situation. The only explanation was that she had transmigrated—reborn into this slaughterhouse after death.

She instantly cleared her mind and temporarily maintained her position of being pressed down to observe the changes first; this was the wisest choice she could make with her remaining consciousness.

Immediately, the entire army roared past, and the screams gradually subsided. The sound of hoofbeats receded, and the tearing sounds vanished with them. After an unknown amount of time, the intermittent moans of pain seemed to have fallen silent for a long while, and the surroundings fell into a deathly stillness.

For some reason, she still did not dare to move an inch. The alertness cultivated since childhood told her that this was only the beginning.

In an instant, another group of people approached on horseback in an orderly fashion. Zhen Yue let out a long breath; as expected.

This group of riders stopped not far from Zhen Yue in an instant. She held her breath and listened intently.

"My Lord, your subordinate is incompetent. General Zhao Ping used a diversionary tactic, and the target at Yuandao Cliff has been lost." A man in black fur knelt on one knee, his expression cold and respectful. It was not hard to hear a slight tremor in his tone, seemingly carrying suppressed terror.

Zhen Yue was trembling all over, oppressed by an extraordinarily powerful fear. She knew the source of her fear came from this group of people. She followed the sound with her eyes, catching a glimpse of the group through the gap in her arm. There were about twenty people in long black fur robes, all with cold expressions, standing respectfully with heads bowed on both sides of the carriage.

The north wind howled, the eagles cried shrilly, and heavy snow fell upon the dark red steeds, melting instantly, suggesting their temperature was extremely high—they must have been running for a long time. No one dared to move a muscle in the cold wind, waiting for the Lord inside the carriage to speak. The surrounding air seemed to grow even colder.

A man in dark green fur robes stepped forward and shouted sternly, "You should be very clear about the rules of the坊 (Fang)!"

The man kneeling on one knee shuddered, yet remained as steady as Mount Tai. He said to the person in the carriage, "It was my failure to handle matters properly. I am already a useless person. I thank My Lord for the grace of your cultivation; I shall serve My Lord again in the next life." Having finished speaking, he pursed his lips, his eyes bulged and bloodshot, and black blood overflowed from the corners of his mouth. He collapsed instantly, without a sound.

Zhen Yue nearly screamed in shock. She hurriedly bit her lip, staring at that chilling carriage with utter horror. Who exactly was inside?

The man in dark green fur robes said respectfully, "My Lord, the object has been lost. How shall we deal with Zhao Ping and the others?"

"Those who block the way—leave none alive." The voice was low and cold, incomparable even to ten-thousand-year-old ice.

"Yes." After the man in dark green fur robes responded, he gave instructions to the guards behind him, then said cautiously, "The Didu border city and the plank road fortress have been strictly blockaded. A weak craftsman carrying a little girl shouldn't have gone far. Zuo Can has already rushed to Yiean City to deploy forces."

The man pressing down on Zhen Yue's eyelashes trembled, and he pressed her down even tighter, fearing her breathing might alert the others. Zhen Yue frowned and thought to herself, *If he's afraid, there should still be hope.*

"Return to Yiean." The voice was as dark as ever.

In an instant, on the desolate street, all the men in black fur spurred their horses and departed abruptly.

The horses neighed, the snow mist churned, and the biting wind blew up the patterned carriage curtains. The person inside the carriage was also captured by Zhen Yue's startled gaze. The man wore a large fur robe of silver jade and sable; his face was handsome, his nose high and straight, his eyebrows like swords, and his jet-black hair flowed behind him, loosely tied with a black silk ribbon. At a single glance, he was like a celestial being.

The carriage sped away, and though it was only a moment, it caused one to sink in unconsciously. Zhen Yue had never known there could be such a transcendent man in this world, yet he carried a sharp danger and a frozen chill.

The snow mist dissipated, and the surroundings fell into a deathly gray silence. If not for the pungent smell of blood at the tip of her nose, for a moment she thought this was merely a hallucination.

Zhen Yue let out a long breath, muttering to herself as she used all her strength to push the man on top of her. "You're crushing me to death! Since when did my strength become so small?"

The man seemed to have also let down his guard, lightly releasing his restraint.

She struggled to sit up. For a moment, the wide view caused her discomfort; her eyes were filled only with severed limbs and broken bodies. She forced her trembling legs to stay steady, but the fear accumulated in her heart could no longer be suppressed, and she let out a piercing scream toward the sky.

A pair of cold hands gently pinched her slender little hand, signaling her not to make a sound. She was still immersed in the grief of her transmigration. Following the man's hand, she looked down and was shocked to realize her palms were like a child's, and her estimated height was less than three feet. Was this not a small child!

She broke down again, wanting to cry but having no tears.

"Hey... are you dead yet? Don't die."

The man's features were clean and handsome, looking to be about sixteen years old, but his breath was as thin as silk. She had to accept this absurd reality and decided to leave this dangerous place first. Zhen Yue attempted to help the man up, but the disparity in their strength was too great.

The man held her hand and said weakly, "Yue'er... go to Gumie... find Uncle... take the thing..."

Before he could finish, his words were interrupted by the sudden sound of hoofbeats. Zhen Yue's whole body shuddered, sensing something bad was coming, but the man was at death's door and could no longer exert strength to protect her.

She turned to look and saw a Northern Ying soldier holding a bloody blade stepping through the blood toward her. His killing intent was overwhelming, laced with sharp blade edges and excited sneers, startling a large flock of vultures.

She had escaped death to gain new life; was she to die at the hands of this bloodthirsty butcher?

A wave of immense resentment churned within her resilient eyes.