Chapter 503 – Assault on Fengyi County (11)
The woman was completely taken aback by the Female Soldier’s brisk response and blurted out instinctively.
“Why not?”
The person in front of her was also a woman, so why couldn’t they take them along?
The Female Soldier replied, “Marching into battle is no child’s play. You should find your own way out and hide somewhere until you hear news from Cheng’an County.”
Many women felt lost, unsure of where to go next. A few more assertive ones were frightened by the Female Soldier’s cold and dismissive attitude; they wanted to grasp any last hope and, in their desperation, fired off their words.
“Why don’t you save us? Are you scared we’ll steal your men, so you’re just talking nonsense?”
If this were any other time, encountering such a woman might have led to a full-on catfight.
Though the mountain folk were simple, simplicity didn’t mean they were not brutish, and that brutishness often targeted the weak.
The Female Soldiers were mostly aged between thirteen and fifteen, a time in today’s world when one could already be engaged. However, most of them were still unmarried and had no immunity to crude talk – they couldn’t compare to the real sharp-tongued women.
One of the Female Soldiers flushed and paled, as if some unpleasant memory had been stirred.
At first, the female camp had been mistaken for a brothel. When families sent their daughters there, they looked at them as though they were infectious, pushing them into the “fire pit” with barely concealed disdain, as if becoming a “camp prostitute” was their own moral failure.
Now, the female camp had been vindicated, and this surprise attack showcased their combat prowess. It seemed no male soldiers dared to underestimate the Female Soldiers anymore. Still, with feelings far from cheerful, being pointed at and subtly mocked was something hard to tolerate.
The Female Soldier gripped her spear tightly, the red tassel dripping fresh blood that hadn’t yet congealed, and shot a cold glare at the woman who spoke.
With a snort, she turned and walked away.
She had already made her point – if these women didn’t heed her warning and lost their lives, it was beyond her concern.
After the woman finished speaking, she felt more and more justified, and just as she was about to launch into a proper argument, the Female Soldier shot her a disdainful look and walked off… Off she went… not even bothering to spare a second glance.
Not long after, the woman plopped down onto the ground behind her, stretched out her legs, and started wailing, slapping her thighs while lamenting, cursing the Green Garment Army for their utter cruelty, bemoaning her own misfortune, and railing against the unfairness of the heavens…
“Did she get the message across?”
The Female Camp left a portion of their members behind as they retreated, and Nong Qin was one of them.
The Female Soldier stated, “The message has been delivered, but whether they heed it is another matter.”
Nong Qin maintained a cold expression and spoke in a flat tone, “Everyone has their fate. If they die here, so be it. In this world, a life is worth less than anything. Those who want to save themselves can do it; those who expect others to save them are already beyond help.”
Marching into battle was, after all, a business where heads were on the line, and the soldiers had no time to deal with such matters.
Didn’t they just see the Green Garment Army escorting the grain convoy being wiped out without leaving a single survivor?
Aside from the Female Camp being ruthless, those women were also delivering the killing blow to the now defenseless Green Garment soldiers. The reasons ran deeper.
Captives weren’t always needed; once captured, their lives could end at any moment.
Sometimes armies would opt for speed in their march, mercifully providing the less fortunate with a quick end, or, cruelly, burying them alive; in worse scenarios, if supplies ran low, captives might end up as rations themselves.
The Lord had ample resources and hadn’t yet reached the point of needing to make human jerky.
However, if captives weighed them down, Nong Qin wouldn’t hesitate to deal harshly with them.
Captives could serve as free labor; what use were these women?
They were just a liability dragging everyone down.
Anyway, they had already done enough; if the other side couldn’t get their heads straight, they could only wait for death.
Nong Qin retracted her gaze and calmly said, “Let’s go, catch up with the front troops.”
“Understood!”
Once everyone left, those women stared at each other in confusion. Some of the smarter ones began thinking of finding a place to hide, while those lost in their own thoughts cried and threw tantrums, hurling curses that ranged from the unseemly to the downright absurd, occasionally dragging in the Female Camp soldiers, never once considering that the Female Soldiers were real troops and not some courtesans.
Naturally, some had been tortured by the Green Garment Army until they were mere shells of their former selves, completely oblivious to the chaos outside.
“Those damned bastards—”
Someone coldly snickered, snarking, “You’re not exactly a stunner. Why would anyone look at you? Even cooking you would be a chore. The last time you were too dirty to even consider. When those beasts were on you, you weren’t so choosy about flattering this one and that one; I didn’t see you hate them so much then.”
The woman speaking had every reason to despise the tantrum-throwing woman.
Many of the women were from the same village, and when the beasts from the Green Garment Army descended, the woman, in a bid for self-preservation, carelessly spilled the beans about hiding women, placing many in danger just to curry favor with the Green Garment soldiers.
What a fool she was, her insides were as black as night.
If it weren’t for her, several women in the village might have escaped the catastrophe.
All thanks to that black-hearted widow, some couldn’t endure the humiliation and chose to end their own lives, while others died from brutal treatment, some gritted their teeth being bullied time and again, and others had limbs severed or flesh cut off their chests and tossed into the pot for soup…
How could such a woman not just go die?!
That woman appeared to be stepped on the tail, flailing and leaping at her opponent in a frenzy.
But she didn’t succeed; a rock flew in, knocking her forehead and splitting it open, blood streaming down.
She cried and wailed, tears and snot combining on her face.
Before the village fell to ruin, this woman loved to gossip, spreading lies about other women and their relationships with men, her mouth full of lewd remarks, even leading to deaths. She knew full well that the butcher at the village entrance was possessive of his wife and had a short fuse, yet she still spread talk, suggesting that the butcher’s new bride was fooling around with the village ruffians, always painting an extravagant picture.
The poor bride was defenseless, and the jealous butcher ended up killing her in a fit of rage, at which point the gossiping woman finally learned to shut her mouth.
Many women despised her duplicitous behavior; they silently wrapped themselves in clothing stripped from the Green Garment soldiers, preparing to flee. They had no intention of waiting around to die; as for those lost souls, they could just perish.
