Chapter 397: Chapter 393: Unawake_1
Cao Can was leading several hundred men around the village, attempting to find a weak point.

But the village was rather peculiar, as it was entirely surrounded by a circle of tall, soapberry trees. There were high walls inside the soapberry trees, mainly made of earth, but they were tall and wide enough to accommodate many people throwing stones from above.

Their arrows could not reach the top, many were blocked by the branches of the soapberry trees.

Even if they burned down the trees, they probably couldn’t climb over the wall behind them.

Cao Can furrowed his brows, a hint of retreat began to sprout in his mind, he regretted rashly bringing his men to attack the village.

However, remembering that the sworn advisor of the new king was watching beside him, he immediately dispelled the thought of withdrawal.

If he can’t even take down a small village, wouldn’t he become a laughing stock?

“Attack from different directions!” Cao Can ordered his two lieutenants, “I refuse to believe that a wretched mountain village with no more than two or three hundred people can resist my thousand plus men.”

Consequently, the three entrances to Dongchen Village were forcefully breached by Cao Can’s men, many rushed in, but arrow towers guarded both sides of each door, the sound of yelling and fighting filled the air.

Some finally broke through the barriers of the soapberry tree branches and headed into the village, clashing with the team led by Chen Zhu.

However, as the rebel numbers grew, Chen Zhu and his men began to struggle.

Seeing this, Jiang Sanlang immediately rushed down from the arrow tower, leading the twenty-odd villagers hidden inside to lend aid.

Yingbao and her mother stayed in the arrow tower, throwing stones at the incoming rebels.

Her aim was precise, sometimes when the number below grew, she would throw ten or more bowl-sized stones all at once, knocking down several people in one hit.

With her assistance, the pressure on Chen Zhu and Jiang Sanlang quickly diminished.

Along with the support from the archers like Zhang Meng, they soon scared away the rebels.

However, the situation at the other two entrances was not as promising. Hundreds of rebels had entered the village.

Once into the village, they dispersed into groups of tens and started smashing villagers’ doors, attempting to loot wealth and food.

That’s right, the purpose of Cao Can’s expedition was to gather provisions for the king, and incidentally, plunder civilian wealth.

From the beginning, he went straight for Dongchen Village, complying with the requests of Yan Jinshan.

Because everyone knew that the disciple of the new emperor lived in Dongchen Village, capturing her wouldn’t necessarily threaten the new emperor, but it would certainly boost the morale of the king’s troops.

Seeing large numbers of rebels entering the village, Yingbao’s eyebrows furrowed.

They outnumbered the villagers able to fight by several times.

She grabbed her mother, pulling her into their shelter, before she herself descended from the arrow tower.

Below the tower were two or three young men from the Martial Arts Hall. Yingbao told them to shut the stone gate under the tower properly before she rushed out.

She was dressed in black, her hair tied up like a young boy, her face concealed by a cloth, except for her two eyes.

Yingbao picked up the large stones she had knocked down, gathered the abandoned swords and spears of the dead rebels and even collected their arrows.

She quickly sprinted towards a few rebels and unexpectedly swung her sword at them.

Several people fell at the sound.

Yingbao, cold-faced, picked up their swords and swiftly ran towards her father.

On her way, she came across several rebels and killed them effortlessly.

Yingbao glanced at her broadsword, still dripping with blood, and suddenly felt a strange sensation. It was as if she were a veteran soldier who could easily annihilate all the rebels in the village if she so wished.

And indeed, it was true.

Yingbao decided to surrender to her heart’s desire and began to kill freely. Everywhere she passed, bodies lay strewn across the ground.

It was as if she was born to be a warrior, fearless and unstoppable.

“Sanlang, look at Yingbao!” Chen Zhu seemed to see a killing god, wielding a scythe as if chopping melons and vegetables. Her speed was so fast that it was not clear how she was swinging the scythe, and countless rebel soldiers had already fallen around her.

Jiang Sanlang turned to look and saw his daughter moving like the wind, swiftly sweeping through the rebels, causing them to drop like flies.

The rebels from afar saw this scene. Their faces drastically changed, and they turned around to flee in panic.

Mother! What kind of monster is that? It seems like a blade spinning at high speed, harvesting lives in swathes.

“Baobao!” Jiang Sanlang shouted loudly, rushing towards the small figure.

Something was wrong with his daughter. The state she was in was terribly frightening.

Yingbao suddenly halted, a moment of confusion flashed through her mind.

“Baobao! What’s wrong with you?” Jiang Sanlang sprinted up to his daughter, gently lifting the headgear on her head.

He wanted to see if this was indeed his daughter.

Upon removing the bloody headdress, he saw her face was covered with fresh blood. She looked at him indifferently, her eyes, a fathomless black, looking at him as if he were a stranger.

Jiang Sanlang became more frightened. He used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his daughter’s face and cautiously asked, “Baobao, I’m your father.”

Slowly, Yingbao’s consciousness returned. She blinked, then turned to look behind her.

Behind her, there were no living people left. Those rebel soldiers had been thoroughly frightened off by her.

“Baobao, let’s go home.” Jiang Sanlang was genuinely concerned, cautiously persuading her, “Most of them have already run away, we’ll deal with the rest.”

Yingbao scanned around and saw that the rebels were indeed retreating. She nodded in agreement.

Upon returning home, Yingbao let her mother out of hiding, and then dozed off herself.

Seeing that her daughter was covered in blood from head to toe, Chunniang was terrified and quickly checked for injuries.

She then heated some water to wash her daughter and change her clothes.

Lady Wang and Mother Wen were also residing in Jiang Sanlang’s house and were shocked to see Yingbao drenched in blood.

Mother Wen checked Yingbao’s pulse while she was sleeping. Seeing that it was stable, she felt relieved. “It’s fine. She’s just tired. A good sleep will do her good.”

Lady Wang asked, “Should we prepare some medicine for her? I think she looks stunned. Could she have been scared?”

“No need, her pulse indicates that she’s not frightened. She doesn’t need medicine,” answerd Mother Wen.

Lady Wang tucked the blanket around Yingbao. “In that case, let her sleep properly.”

“Hmm.”

The room was left as they went outside to observe the situation.

They saw the villagers clearing the battlefield, and all the rebel soldiers had disappeared.

“The rebels are gone!” Wen Shu tiptoed to see outside the village. She could barely see the people running down the slope.

Lady Wang and Mother Wen also saw it and couldn’t help but sigh in relief.

What they didn’t know was that Yingbao alone had killed nearly a hundred rebels and scared off half the rebel army. Regardless of how Cao Can and the village chiefs were scolding, they ran off without looking back.

Watching most of his troops flee, Cao Can didn’t dare to stay and had to flee in humiliation, leaving more than three hundred corpses and wounded behind.

Jiang Sanlang ordered the people to finish off the severely injured without blinking an eye, then dragged their bodies to the cemetery for burial.

There were also casualties in the village, but quite few. Jiang Sanlang took out the Injury Medicine Powder and internal medicine that his daughter had given him and asked Mother Wen and Wu Si to treat those people.

He then ordered the villagers to repair the damaged entrance of the village and redeploy traps and obstacles.

The whole village was busy until the next day, Yingbao still did not wake up.

Chunniang panicked and hurriedly called Mother Wen, “She’s been sleeping since yesterday and hasn’t woken up since. She’s not responding when I call her, what’s going on?”