Seeing a winding line of torches in the distance, everyone's hearts pounded in their throats.
Qin Sang estimated that there were no fewer than a thousand people, exceeding her initial estimate, and a light sweat broke out on her palms.
Qin Sang used her Binoculars to see Tian Hongmei at the end of the line, whipping women and children who couldn't keep up with a rattan cane.
Qin Sang's eyes narrowed. It seemed Tian Hongmei had joined the Rebel Soldiers and was helping them oppress the common people.
They were bothering to carry 'rations' on their journey, which meant these Rebel Soldiers had come with a determination to win.
Tian Hongmei seemed to sense Qin Sang's gaze and subconsciously looked up at the hillside. It was pitch black, and she couldn't see anything, which made her afraid of being abandoned by the Rebel Soldiers. The rattan cane in her hand whipped even harder:
"Hurry up! If you don't, you'll be the first one eaten tomorrow."
The child, wanting to cry from the whipping, had his mouth quickly covered by his Mother, who then sped up her pace.
Tian Hongmei enjoyed watching these women's awe of her. After she fled Tianjia Village with food, she met villagers from another village and begged their Village Chief to take her in and bring her into the mountains with them. She originally thought she could live a few peaceful days, but unexpectedly, the Rebel Soldiers found their camp first after entering the mountains.
She could only offer all her food to save her life. She was also a good cook and knew how to work, which won over the leader. However, she suffered a lot serving these stinky men, and she knew that only by preventing these victims from escaping could she continue to live.
So, the suffering she endured from the Rebel Soldiers, she would take out on these victims.
"All of you, hurry up! If anyone dares to run, you'll see what happens!"
Tian Hongmei yelled, but the next second, a clattering sound suddenly came from the front of the line, followed by the screams of the Rebel Soldiers:
"Ah..."
"Help..."
"There's a trap! It's a trap! Everyone be careful..."
Tian Hongmei looked up ahead, unable to see clearly, but she knew something bad must have happened.
Seeing the victims beside her stir, Tian Hongmei's rattan cane whipped into a blur:
"Don't move! Everyone stand here! If anyone dares to run, I'll kill them!"
After speaking, she drew the kitchen knife from her waist with her other hand and brandished it threateningly.
Several sections of the Rebel Soldiers' formation were missing, like a fish chopped into pieces by a butcher, unable to move freely. Only the nearby Rebel Soldiers knew what had happened.
Large holes suddenly appeared on the ground, and their men had fallen into them.
There were wooden spears at the bottom of the traps. Those who fell in, even if not immediately dead, had their intestines pierced and would not live.
The Rebel Soldiers who were close to the traps but didn't fall in were all shaken. If they had walked two more steps, they would have been dead.
"Don't push! Damn it, if you push me down, I'll definitely drag you down as a cushion!"
The Rebel Soldiers didn't know if there were more traps, and they vigilantly stared at the forests on both sides.
The forest Qin Sang chose was a location with two slopes sandwiching a gully. The gully bottom was wide and flat, suitable for travel and also for setting traps.
The Rebel Soldiers quieted down after their initial panic, gripping their sword hilts. They were ready to meet the enemy at any moment, but they didn't know where the enemy was.
Soon, whistling sounds of something cutting through the air echoed in the forest.
Wooden spears, over a meter long, were hurled from both slopes, raining down on the Rebel Soldiers like dense hail.
Again, screams rose and fell. Some quick-thinking Rebel Soldiers immediately pulled a companion in front of them to block, but unfortunately, these wooden spears pierced through two people directly.
Those who were lucky enough not to die didn't even have time to celebrate before a new round of arrows began to precisely harvest lives. Although there were only a few archers, one arrow hit one person, and they didn't even know where the people were.
This fear of impending death enveloped everyone in the gully.
Someone shouted:
"They're on the slope! Kill them!"
The remaining two to three hundred Rebel Soldiers desperately charged up both slopes, but what awaited them were not wooden spears or arrows, but rolling logs and huge rocks.
"Ah... run!"
"Pardon..."
"Don't kill me, I don't want to..."
Many Rebel Soldiers' words were cut short, their voices swallowed by the rolling logs and huge rocks.
Finally, fewer than a few dozen slower-running Rebel Soldiers remained. They dared not move or run anymore; they knelt down.
They threw their weapons to the ground and pleaded for mercy to the darkness on the slope:
"Don't kill us."
"We were forced too."
"Please spare us. We promise we will never harm anyone again."
The answer to them came from several women.
Tian Hongmei had immediately fled when she saw the rolling logs and huge rocks coming down the mountain.
These women and children had personally witnessed these Rebel Soldiers die so easily, and the hatred in their hearts gave them immense courage.
Remembering their relatives being eaten and their blood drunk, this hatred could not be suppressed.
They rushed forward, picked up the weapons on the ground, and stabbed them into the kneeling Rebel Soldiers begging for mercy:
"Give me back my son and husband's lives!"
"My daughter also cried and asked you to spare her, but what did you do?"
"Go let King Yama forgive you!"
A Rebel Soldier reacted and counterattacked, grabbing a woman's neck, but an arrow immediately plunged into the man's back.
His fingers loosened, and the woman plunged her knife deeper into him, her eyes filled with tears.
She pulled the long knife from the man's chest, blood splattering her face, and she smiled brightly:
"My child, wait for Mother.
On the Road to the Underworld, don't be afraid. Mother is coming to protect you."
After the woman shouted, she seemed to have released all the bitterness of these past days, and with a sorrow that saw through everything, she closed her eyes.
With a twist of the long knife in her hand, it sliced across the woman's neck.
She committed suicide.
Another woman, thinking of the humiliation she had suffered during these days, also wanted to follow them in death, but a pair of tender arms hugged her, and the child cried loudly:
"Waaah, Mother..."
That cry of Mother made the woman unable to hold the knife in her hand. The Broadsword fell to the ground, and she slowly squatted down, tightly embracing her child:
"Don't be afraid, my dear. Mother is here. All the Bad Guys are Dead. Mother will protect her Precious Baby..."
Qin Sang watched the woman commit suicide from the slope, powerless.
For a woman who had lost everything and didn't want to live, forcing her to live would be torture every day.
Qin Sang swallowed the dryness in her throat, stood up, and loudly said:
"Clean up the battlefield, dispose of the torches, bury the bodies, do not harm these women and children, and give them some food and drink."
"Also, twenty people from Tianjia Village, come with me to catch Tian Hongmei."
Qin Sang had just seen Tian Hongmei and the last ten Rebel Soldiers flee early. However, with the Rebel Soldiers not yet dealt with, she could only watch them escape. This troublemaker must pay the price.
Da Zhuang, Xu Hu, Heizi, and the others immediately followed Qin Sang, chasing in the direction Tian Hongmei and her group had fled.
It wouldn't take more than a cup of tea's time; they couldn't have run very far.