Chapter 24

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

In the middle of the afternoon, Cheng Ling and the others headed east along Mountain Pingming and walked another twenty miles.

When they left, they headed east while going down the mountain.

It would be too dangerous to sleep in the mountains at night.

It was better to go a little to the foot of the mountain and find a place not far from the foot of the mountain where she could escape at any time and had enough cover. If there was danger at the foot of the mountain, she could also quickly escape into the deep mountains.

This kind of location wasn’t easy to find. Cheng Ling had brought binoculars with her and only found a relatively suitable place before dark.

After finding a camp, she handed the composite crossbow in her hand, along with the fifteen bolts, to Sanniang Mu.

Mu Sanniang was determined to refuse, but Cheng Ling whispered, “Mother, have you forgotten about my Gu?”

“Mother, don’t make me worry,” Cheng ling said.

Finally, Mu Sanniang held the compound crossbow tightly in her hand and tied the quiver to her waist.

Cheng Ling taught Mu Sanniang how to fire an arrow. This kind of composite crossbow wasn’t complicated to fire, and one could pull the trigger with one’s hand. It wasn’t like the bow, which had high requirements for the user.

However, although it was not difficult to fire a crossbow arrow, aiming was not an easy task.

Even with the help of the aiming device, it would take a long time for Mu Sanniang to achieve high accuracy.

This was good enough. Cheng Ling didn’t expect Mu Sanniang to become a master instantly. She only needed Mu Sanniang to be able to use this weapon to deter the enemy at the critical moment.

At first, Mu Sanniang was worried about Cheng Ling, but after practicing a few times with the crossbow, her attitude changed.

She touched the cold body of the crossbow, her eyes full of determination and joy. She waved at Cheng Ling and said, “Quickly leave!”

‘F*ck, isn’t this forgetting the old love with a new love?’

Cheng Ling chuckled and, as expected, didn’t delay any further. She turned around and quickly walked away.

She didn’t see that just as her figure disappeared into the trees, Mu Sanniang suddenly put down the crossbow in her hand and turned to look in the direction she had disappeared.

Cheng Ling went down the mountain in the sunset.

She had to go west from the road at the foot of the mountain and turn back to Lu County.

On the one hand, she wanted to take the road at the foot of the mountain, which would make the journey short. On the other hand, Cheng Ling wanted to take the opportunity to see what the world below was like.

Her speed was breakneck. After walking for about 15 minutes, she could clearly see a winding path at the foot of the mountain. On the other side of the path was a large piece of farmland!

The sun was setting in the west, and the sunset glow was slightly hazy. The mountains were green, and the farms were endless.

Cheng Ling’s eyes lit up. Upon taking a closer look, she found that the rice stalks in the farmland were all over the place.

It turned out that these farmlands had been harvested by violence!

Cheng Ling immediately stopped in her tracks and took out her binoculars. Before completely descending the mountain, she looked around with the binoculars from above.

Soon, Cheng Ling discovered that a village had appeared in the field of vision of her binoculars not far to the west.

But… there was no smoke, no trace of people, no crowing of chickens, and no barking of dogs.

It looked like a peaceful and uninhabited village.

For a moment, Cheng Ling felt a chill run up her spine and up her body.

She put away the telescope, gritted her teeth, and changed direction. She ran towards the village with determined steps.

No matter what, Cheng Ling still wanted to take a closer look.

Half an hour later, Cheng Ling covered her nose and mouth and ran out of the village at an even faster speed.

What did she see in the village?

Cheng Ling almost didn’t dare to recall.

What she saw was a mess of corpses, an indescribable feeling of misery.

What made Cheng Ling feel like a disaster was that no one had cleaned up the corpses in the village. After being catalyzed by the high temperature in the summer, they had long been rotten beyond recognition.

There were mosquitoes and flies flying around and rats shuttling through. This was a breeding ground for a plague!

The army that had occupied Lu County had most likely left.

Cheng Ling could even imagine their route: after the locust-like army had ransacked Lu County, they left the city gate and headed west to east.

Along the way, they plundered food and resources and killed. Everywhere it passed, corpses were strewn all over the ground!

Cheng Ling felt her heart tremble at this very moment.

She followed the road back to Lu County and ran wildly. As she ran, she didn’t forget to take out the alcohol spray and spray it all over her body.

This time, Cheng Ling wasn’t stingy with her supplies.

She was pretty sure that the things she had eaten and used in her backpack would recover automatically after midnight. Therefore, she didn’t need to save anything for herself.

Finally, Cheng Ling washed her hands thoroughly with alcohol before putting the alcohol spray bottle back into her bag.

At the same time, she kept taking out convenient food from her backpack and stuffing it into her mouth.

There were chocolates, candies, energy bars, and, of course, compressed biscuits.

Basically, they were all high-calorie foods. In terms of replenishing energy, these things were good.

Cheng Ling felt like her stomach was like a bottomless pit. No matter how much food came, it could quickly digest it.

If there were any energy left, this energy would turn into essence Qi, which would be produced from the dantian and finally nourish the Yin and Yang Qi circulating in the body.

Cheng Ling ran and ate all the way.

She had actually come across several villages by the roadside during this time.

In short, the farmlands that she saw were all ruined.

As for the people in the village… Cheng Ling didn’t know if they had all been killed or if a portion of them had escaped and disappeared.

In short, nine out of ten rooms were empty. In this place, it was not an accurate description. None of them were complete.

Not a single survivor. What kind of road was this?

When they arrived at the edge of Lu County, Cheng Ling stopped.

And here, she finally met someone!

Cheng Ling stopped on a slightly high slope outside the city and used her binoculars to observe the city gate under cover of the trees.

He saw many soldiers with clear weapons stationed on the city wall. It was hard to say the exact number, but at a glance, there were at least a few hundred people.

The city gates were tightly shut, and not a single person entered or exited. Only soldiers and generals strictly guarded the gates, and the atmosphere was cold and somber.

Cheng Ling furrowed her brows slightly, thinking, ‘Did I guess wrong again? This army still hasn’t left?’

No, that’s not right!

She had misunderstood just now. There were still soldiers and generals stationed in Lu County, but that did not mean the rebel army had not left. There were many other possibilities.

At this moment, Cheng Ling’s binoculars moved, and she noticed something.