The rampant bandits and thugs in the Central Plains made Cai Yin very upset. After all, General Cai was old. The Central Plains army under his command seemed mighty and majestic, but in fact it was also called the "retirement army". Their garrison was located in the middle of nowhere, and except for occasionally suppressing riots, their purpose was basically to provide reinforcements to the border.

At this time, most of Cai Yin's troops were tied up in the two northwest areas. He did not have eagle armor and was cautious by nature. He did not dare to take any risks and was annoyed by the harassment of the mob.

Gu Yun spent three to five days to figure out the ins and outs of this group of rioters. He personally explored the terrain based on the map, and then sent someone to contact General Cai to prepare two pot stickers.

The rebel bandits didn't know who was leading the team from the capital, but after several attempts, they found that this group of people were more arrogant than Cai Yin. They used heavy armor and guns to scare people, but they never opened fire. They only sent out light cavalry, and each time they chased for a mile or two, they would sound the call. They believed that this army was a useless bunch and were planning to surround them when Cai Yin suddenly went crazy and changed his previous style of only fighting but not chasing. He sent out all the troops stationed in the Central Plains to suddenly attack and surround the rebellious mob.

In fact, there were not many troops stationed in the Central Plains. If they were to fight, neither side would necessarily suffer. It was just that the gang was used to the idle way of you advancing and I retreating. They thought they were slippery loaches and were reluctant to risk their resources in a head-on fight. Therefore, they used the same old trick, fighting and retreating, and sneaked around Cai Yin. However, on the way back, they encountered Gu Yun who had been waiting for them for a long time.

Gu Yun ordered the heavy armored troops to set up their guns and aim at the bandit gang. The big bandit leader saw that the young masters' soldiers were coming to scare people again, and immediately ordered his men to charge into the heavy armored formation. The heavy armored line of defense was broken as soon as the charge was made, and the light cavalry charged forward in a "horrible" manner. The bandit leader saw that there was really nothing in the muzzle of the gun, it was purely made of paper. He was overjoyed and became even more unscrupulous, and directly led his soldiers to charge forward with light armored troops.

When the whole gang of bandits was trapped in the trap, those "paper" heavy artillery suddenly fired, and the bandits were caught off guard, and they were thrown to the ground. Before they could retreat, the light cavalry who had been dodging just now and the Cai family army who had arrived surrounded them from both sides and really surrounded them.

The gang was completely routed, and the legendary "Fire Dragon" leader was captured alive. Gu Yun was so ugly that his eyes hurt because of the bumpy bandit leader. He planned to throw him to Shen Yi to play with him, and ordered: "Ask him where his accomplices are, who is instructing him, where his lair is, and whether there is anything that can help us rob the gangsters..."

Shen Yi choked on his breath and started coughing violently: "Marshal, you are crazy because of poverty!"

Gu Yun waved his hand: "Let's not talk about beating him...torturing him, I'm going to catch up with Old Cai."

Just as he was about to leave after he finished speaking, he suddenly saw a personal soldier holding a peculiarly shaped short sword. It was slightly longer than a dagger, with a slightly curved tip and a graceful arc on the side. It was very different from the short swords in the Central Plains. Gu Yun felt that it looked familiar, so he reached out to take it.

"Marshal, this was found on the bandit leader."

Gu Yun pulled out the dagger, scratched the blade with his finger, narrowed his eyes and whispered: "Barbarian's stuff?"

"It's the short curved sword of the Eighteen Tribes." At this time, Chen Qingxu came over and asked, "My Lord, is the steel plate loose?"

"No, Miss Chen, please help me running around with us in the middle of the night." Gu Yun shook his head. He grasped the handle of the short knife, "Well, the handle is so short, won't it get stuck in my hand?"

"The handle is not short. This is a woman's knife." Chen Qingxu took the scimitar and held it in his hand to cushion it. "The eighteen tribes of the Northern Barbarians eat wind and drink dew, and compete with the beasts on the grassland for food. Therefore, there is often such a groove on the handle. In case of encountering a strong beast, it can prevent it from slipping out of the hand during the fight. The steel edge of this knife is very good. The original owner must be of high status. The handle is probably tailor-made for her. Then her hands must be very small, about the same size as mine. She must be a woman - Lord, look here."

She turned the handle of the knife to show Gu Yun, and saw a complex pattern under the handle, like a totem with countless flower vines entwined, with a flame shape in the middle.

Chen Qingxu said, "I have seen this flower vine pattern in an abandoned ruin of the Eighteen Tribes. I heard from the kidnapped Han slaves that this seems to be the symbol of the Eighteen Tribes' goddesses."

"I know," Gu Yun's expression suddenly turned serious, "I also know who the symbol in the middle represents."

Shen Yi came over at some point and took a deep breath when he saw the pattern: "Heart of the Earth?"

Chen Qingxu was puzzled and asked, "Who?"

Shen Yi: "Hu Geer...Xiuniang, she...she has been dead for many years, hasn't she? How could she..."

Gu Yun waved at him, picked up the dagger, turned around and walked into the place where the bandit leader Huo Long was imprisoned, and sent all the guards away with a wave of his hand.

He held the short knife, his face showed no emotion. The slightly curved knife was already very old, but still sharp, with a ruthlessness that would tear off a piece of flesh if it stabbed into the flesh. Gu Yun pinned the tip of the knife on Huolong's chin: "I heard that you refused to tell us the base of your rebel army, and you refused to tell us who instigated you to take advantage of the situation and harass the Cai family army?"

Fire Dragon: "Bah, pretty boy!"

Gu Yun smiled upon hearing this, feeling somewhat pleased - in his opinion, calling a man a "pretty boy" and calling a woman a "fox spirit" were the same thing, it only meant that the person being scolded was good-looking.

"You can say it if you want," Gu Yun said calmly, turning to Shen Yi and saying, "The country is in crisis, this person is colluding with foreign countries and has an affair with the northern barbarians. Your barbarian fathers haven't entered the country yet, but you've already been licked by someone here... It's a waste of my time to try you, I'll announce it to everyone tomorrow and torture you to death!"

Huo Long was confused at first, then his expression became more and more horrified. Seeing that Gu Yun was not joking and was really going to leave with a contemptuous attitude, he struggled hard: "Slander! Dog officer! The brothers all know that I am a man of integrity. How dare you slander my reputation with such nonsense..." "Slander?" Gu Yun shook the Eighteen-part Woman's Knife in front of Huo Long twice, "People in the Central Plains call this thing wolf tooth steel. The crescent-shaped tip in front is a typical barbarian product. Is this yours?"

The fire dragon was stunned.

"The scabbard and the grooves are specially made. The leather scabbard is top quality. The totem on the handle is so detailed that it must be made by a famous craftsman. Ordinary barbarians cannot afford this. The original owner must be rich or noble..." Gu Yun raised his chin slightly, glared at the fire dragon and said, "Ugly freak, your brothers all know that you carry this thing with you all day long, but no one knows where it came from, right? Tsk, a bunch of mud legs who don't know the value of it..."

"Wait! Slow... wait!" the fire dragon shouted, "That's... that's my enemy's thing, not..."

Gu Yun laughed and said, "Yes, it sounds so real. I've seen people carry their lovers' things with them, but this is the first time I've heard of someone who is so obsessed with their enemies. What kind of hatred is so lingering? Come and show me."

"That woman drugged and knocked down more than a hundred of my brothers in the village. She stabbed them one by one, and finally set a fire, burning the mountain clean. Even the birds were burnt to death. Then I escaped and got all these scars. I don't even know where she came from, or that she was a barbarian. I carry this knife to remind myself of the shame in the past!" Huolong was furious and roared, "You dog official, you can slander me anything you want, but if you dare to put the blame on me, I will bite you to death even if I become a ghost!"

Shen Yi smiled wryly beside him and said, "You are still a very good old man. Keep making up a story. A barbarian woman sneaks into a bandit's den for no reason and burns all the bandits on a hilltop by herself? It's new. Marshal, does the opera troupe you hired have such a good script?"

Gu Yun sighed, "I can't even afford meat, and I'm fed porridge every day at home, and there's also a theatre troupe..."

Huo Long said with a straight face, "Marshal... which Marshal?"

Gu Yun spun the dagger in his hand and smiled maliciously at him.

Huo Long suddenly came to his senses and took a breath of cold air: "You, you are Gu...Gu..."

"Don't try to claim relatives randomly. Who is your aunt?" Shen Yi interrupted him, "Tell me how you colluded with the barbarians and bullied the people in the village."

Huo Long's face suddenly turned red: "I told you I'm your enemy! If you say one word wrong, I'll be struck by lightning!"

"That woman was following a small caravan. It seemed that she got separated from her family. She paid someone to take her for a ride, but we didn't know where she was going. We intercepted the caravan on the way. We saw that she was pretty, so we took her up the mountain together. She was carrying a baby in a cradle, who looked like he was not even one month old. She was also pregnant..."

Shen Yi was secretly surprised, but he tried to remain calm and asked, "When did it happen?"

The fire dragon said: "Nineteen... twenty years ago."

Under the dim light, Gu Yun and Shen Yi exchanged a hidden look - it sounded just like what happened when the Barbarian Goddess escaped, so the baby at that time should be Chang Geng, but what about the one in Xiuniang's belly?

Shen Yi: "What happened next?"

The fire dragon leaned back and said in a hoarse voice, "Most of the others who were tied up on the mountain wanted to die, but she was different. The woman had a nice face, but her brain didn't seem to work very well. She didn't respond when others talked to her, didn't cry out in pain when she was hit, and didn't resist when she was asked to do anything. A few months later, she gave birth to a premature baby."

Gu Yun tightened his grip on the dagger slightly. For some reason, when he heard this, he suddenly felt a sense of fear and fright—the intuition that he had not missed for so many years seemed to be plucking the string in his heart again.

"They say that women who have just given birth are unclean. No one touched her or cared about her for a while. They just locked her feet in the house for fear that she would run away. They fed her a little food every day, and she didn't die... After a while, one of my stupid brothers was obsessed with the beauty of the woman, so he secretly ran over to see her. When he came back, he told me in shock that only one of her children was left, and the other one was gone."

Shen Yi almost forgot he was trying to trick her and blurted out, "Which one is missing?"

"Who the hell knows? They are all half-dead kids, skinny as rats." The fire dragon immediately became alert, "Why are you asking this?"

Shen Yi paused for a moment, then threw the whip in his hand hard to the side, and said coldly: "You don't know anything, what are you talking about? What's so strange about one more or one less barbarian kid? I asked you to explain something, what are you waiting for by talking nonsense?"

The fire dragon was not angry, his face tightened: "... No, the death of a child is not uncommon. These kids are worthless. One dead and one alive are not much... What is strange is that my brother said that he didn't see where the body was. The woman was locked in the house and couldn't get out at all. It was impossible to bury it in the ground, but she didn't throw it out, nor did she leave it in the house. The child... just disappeared out of thin air. At that time, a brother who was on guard said that he saw a fire in the woman's room in the middle of the night. At first, he thought she was secretly cooking something to eat. Later, I heard that there were many crows flying around on her beams all day long..."

Shen Yi got goosebumps all over his body and glanced at Gu Yun subconsciously.

The corners of the fire dragon's eyes that were burned twitched a few times: "This matter once caused panic among the people. Some people said that this woman was a weirdo and abnormal, and they wanted to kill her. There were also a few lustful people who were reluctant to let her go. They argued for a long time but didn't come to any result. At that time, my eldest brother saw that she was what she said, could work, and was also good in bed, so he decided to keep her, including the half-dead cub. He kept her for a few years..."

"That person is really a monster..." Fire Dragon sighed, "Really. If no man comes to find her at night, she will torture the little ones around her in various ways. The howling can be heard across the mountain. Several times, the brothers in the Sanfan Village couldn't stand it anymore and asked her to restrain herself. She agreed on the surface, but then she would do it again."

Gu Yun stood up suddenly.

Shen Yi's heart was in his throat when he saw Gu Yun reluctantly putting his hand holding the dagger behind his back, with veins almost popping out from the back of his hand.

Fortunately, Huolong didn't notice it. He seemed to be immersed in his memories, muttering, "As the old saying goes, even a tiger won't eat its own cubs. Although we are all cruel and ruthless and don't fear retribution, we have never seen a woman as cruel as this... But I don't know what kind of bewitching potion she had poured on our eldest brother. He insisted that women like this who were not from good families should stay in the mountains and were destined to be ours. He was bewitched for a while and lost his life!"

Gu Yun's voice was slightly dry: "How did you send it?"

"Poisoning. Barbarian women are full of poison. She endured it for many years in our village without revealing her tracks. Gradually, our brothers stopped guarding against her and fell into her trap easily. She killed everyone in the village, including the women, slaves, and hostages who were captured like her. She didn't let anyone go, and finally set a fire to the mountain." A look of pain flashed across Huolong's face, and he started cursing, saying a long and obscene language.

This time no one bothered to interrupt him, and Gu Yun's expression was so ugly that he could hardly hold it back.

"I had a stomachache that day, and I didn't dare drink much wine or water. I was able to muster up enough strength to crawl out of the sea of ​​fire and save my life. That knife... that knife was pulled out from my eldest brother's chest. If I see that woman again, I will cut her into pieces!"

Gu Yun whispered: "She brought a young child with her to kill people and burn the mountain."

"She put the kid in a basket," Fire Dragon said, "and carried him on her back. The kid always looked half dead, lying in the basket like a boneless person. He kept looking at the dead bodies on the ground, but he didn't even cry. If he hadn't died in the hands of that woman over the years, he would have become a bloody monster."

Gu Yun turned around and left without saying a word.

Shen Yi hurriedly chased after him: "Marshal, Marshal!"

"We can't keep this person here," Gu Yun said quickly in a low voice, "Old Cai is still here. While he's not noticing, let this hot-head shut up forever. Do it cleanly."

As he spoke, Gu Yun suddenly remembered something, and his steps paused, his brows filled with gloom: "No, I forgot about Jialai Yinghuo. When we were in Yanhui, he and Xiuniang had been secretly negotiating the terms. That barbarian must know something."

Shen Yi said terrified: "Marshal..."

"He never told me," Gu Yun's shoulders suddenly slumped, but the steel plates on his body prevented him from bending down, and his standing posture was indescribably stiff, "He never told me, never even mentioned it... I know that barbarian woman is obsessed with restoring her country and taking revenge, and she won't be too nice to him, but after all, we are connected by blood..."

Shen Yi hurriedly said, "You don't know what that crazy woman Hugel did. Twenty years ago, you were still writing big characters with a runny nose. Come on, Zixi, this has nothing to do with you!"

"The time we found him in the snow, it wasn't because he was young and ignorant and ran away to play," Gu Yun whispered, "He clearly couldn't stand the abuse, so..."

And they were "kind" enough to send him back.

Shen Yi was speechless.

After a long while, Shen Yi whispered, "What if... I'm saying this as a hypothesis, suppose the child left behind is not the son of the Imperial Concubine..."

Shen Yi couldn't help but recall the scene many years ago when the young Chang Geng calmly said in front of him that he was not a prince and that the disability on his foot was caused by being hit by Xiuniang.

Gu Yun raised his eyes suddenly: "What do you want to say?"

"It doesn't matter who the mother is. There's not much difference between a witch of the Eighteen Divisions or a witch's sister. The question is... whose child is Huger pregnant with?" Shen Yi licked the corner of his mouth with difficulty.

At that time, the Imperial Noble Consort's sister lived in the palace and was to marry a member of the royal family. Would Emperor Yuanhe do such a thing as embezzlement?

If the late emperor was really that shameless, then everyone would be relieved, but what if... not?

If it wasn't the late emperor, then the most suspicious person would undoubtedly be the one who helped them escape back then - someone with evil intentions, yet able to enter and leave the palace, and even capable of letting the witches of the eighteen tribes escape, and taking over the secret line left by the two in the palace many years later...

All these conditions combined really make it easy to remind people of Master Chi and his large group of Japanese spies.

Shen Yi's body was cold: "Marshal, this..."

Gu Yun raised his head and glanced at him, his eyes like knives, and Shen Yi suddenly fell silent.

"It's rotten in my stomach." Gu Yun lowered his head, stroked the short knife in his hand with both hands, and said firmly, "I will deal with the Northern Barbarians sooner or later. Don't mention this matter again."

Shen Yi: “…Yes.”

Gu Yun walked away with a gloomy face. His back, which was propped straight by the steel plate, looked particularly thoughtful. He went straight to Chen Qingxu.

"Miss Chen, can you please spare me a moment to talk?" Gu Yun said.

Chen Qingxu didn't understand what was going on, so she followed him to the side.

Gu Yun said, "Miss Chen is well versed in medicine, and has spent more than half a year in the barbarian land. I have a question I would like to ask you."

Chen Qingxu hurriedly lowered his collar and said, "I dare not."

Gu Yun absentmindedly supported her: "Do they have any special witchcraft...that can be used on babies?"

Chen Qingxu was suddenly startled.

Gu Yun immediately caught her surprised expression at that moment: "What?"

Chen Qingxu was silent for a long time, paced restlessly for two steps, and then sighed deeply: "Marshal... have you heard of Wuergu?"