The night is as dark as ink, with red clouds in the sky, and in the wilderness, the sound of the north wind is as loud as a roar of a cow.

The most painful day of the year in Yezhi City has arrived, and the day is so short that only four hours left. As soon as the sun sets, the temperature immediately turns into ice. However, the cold wind always blows snow foam and ice slag from the surface of Saiyechuan and Rehai, and spreads it into the city. It takes away the last bit of heat in the air, turning all the buildings in the city into ice sculptures.

What is colder than the weather is the hearts of the people. Since evacuating into Yezhi City, more than 300 people have been executed in just over a month. A small half of them are deserters, while a large half are elders, generals and hard-core confidants of the tenth Khan Soge.

Although several elders and generals may have been wronged. However, the decisive and bloody killing successfully strangled all the rebellions to death. So far, Soge's status is still as solid as a god. Although he promised his tribesmen to spend the winter in Kucha when he sent troops in summer. Now, not only have everyone retreated back to the shore of Rehai, but also thrown the Thunder Ye City to the Tang army that suddenly emerged.

The chief general of the Tang army was very sinister. In the past ten days, he had always sent scouts to shoot archery books in secret in the city. He persuaded the elders and generals to kill Soge to surrender to the Tang Dynasty and avoid the disaster of the entire clan being destroyed.

Unlike the official announcements of the Tang Dynasty, they always make people confused. The words on these arrow books are easy to understand and are equipped with very exaggerated but extremely vivid pictures, which can be understood even if illiterate people pick them up. However, the role played by these arrow books is very small. Apart from making the ten surnames Khan Sage very angry, there was no wave in the city.

The elders and generals who had the courage and strength to betray Soge had already been killed by Soge. The rest were either his hard-core direct line, or the direct line at hand was only a few hundred people, and they were powerless. And Soge knew that it was not just killing. After bloody cleaning up potential political enemies, he immediately distributed all the gains of the plunder to his supporters, and he almost didn't leave any of them.

This generous act won a lot of people's hearts for him. Three days ago, the last few elders and generals in the clan, led by the priest Yemo, swore blood. The Tukki Shiren would not be as unreliable as the Turks, and conspired to murder their khan in exchange for the forgiveness of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. They would fight to the end until the last man fell!

"Then you have to have enough food. Otherwise, there is no need for a bloody battle, everyone will starve to death in the city." Xiao Jian Mohe shrank his head in the Sheepskin Derree, muttering in a low voice to walk up the city wall, his heart full of despair and helplessness. (Note: Pidler, a fur coat facing outwards.)

Behind him were ten brothers from his own headquarters, each wearing oily sheepskin, bloated and slow to move. Everyone's face was covered with frostbite. Yellow water was slowly seeping in the ears, back of the neck, etc. Soon, Pidley's hat was moist and wet and cold. However, none of them dared to stop, let alone hide in the enemy building to be lazy.

A team that was afraid of the cold and did not go to patrol was ordered by Soge to beheaded collectively. The body was thrown into the ice hole of Saiyechuan to feed the fish, and its head was tied with a rope and hung at the battlement of the city wall. Under the interaction of cold wind and moisture, the heads of those who died with their eyes closed were soon large ice lumps in the frozen city. No one could see the appearance of the dead, but the ice lumps could be preserved for more than three months and the fear that was forcibly stuffed into everyone's hearts was exactly the same as death.

"Mo He, Mo He Xiaojian, there is movement, outside the city!" A brother behind him suddenly leaned forward and reported in a low voice, "The left front, inside the snow outside the city on the left front."

"What did you say?" Mo He was so scared that his body shivered and almost fell down. Then he quickly squatted down, holding the battlement of the city wall with one hand, and trembling with the other hand, and trembling with the other hand, the special horns used for warning from his arms. However, when the horns were halfway through, his hands, which were full of frostbite, were stuck in Pidler.

It is easy to warn, as long as he takes out the ox horn and blows it. The big arrow Yeda, who lives in the nearby warm house, will immediately respond with the ox horn after hearing the first ox horn and passes the warning message to the state office and into Soge's ears. However, if all the people in the city are awakened and there are no enemy troops in the wild, and he will be held accountable, his head will probably be with those heads hanging on the city wall!

Soge, who has accumulated a lot of evil fire and has nowhere to vent, will not care about whether a small arrow issued a wrong warning, whether it was an unintentional mistake or intentional teasing him. He will only make the person who makes him angry pay the greatest price.

"Nick, you can hear it clearly, don't talk nonsense! Who would be outside the city in the middle of the night when the bears are frozen to death?" Several other brothers also squatted beside Mo He. While guarding against being attacked by cold arrows, they reminded their companions who were initially warning.

"Just, right in front of the left, outside the city, there is the sound of snow stepping on. I must have heard it right. My ears have always been working!" Shi Xiaobing, who had previously warned Xiaojian Mo He, Nick, had a pale face and a hoarse voice. "And more than one sound."

"Now, listen again!" Xiao Jian Mo He took out the ox horn with his body temperature and held it in his hand, and whispered to the low order.

"Yeah!" The soldier who was called Nick whispered, then took off Pidler's hat, held his red and swollen ears, and slowly turned his head.

This time, after listening to thirty breaths, he didn't hear any new movements. He had to lower his head again and explained with a red face, "Mo He, there is no movement. It is probably because of the Tang army scout who secretly shot archery books in the city. He found that we noticed him and ran away first!"

"Where is it? Where did the abnormal movement you said come from? Stand up and show it to me!" Xiao Jian Mo He breathed a sigh of relief, quickly stuffed the horns back to Pidle, and ordered in a deep voice.

"Here, here!" Nick's face suddenly became no longer as pale as before. He stood up, bent his body, and led his fellow men to the top of the city to the closest position to the source of the sound. "That's it, outside the city!"

Recently, there have always been scouts of Tang army secretly shooting archery books in the city, but the soldiers responsible for night patrol rarely find them, and there is no chance to fight with them. The night is too dark, and neither side can guarantee the accuracy of the feather arrows. Moreover, the scouts of Tang army were stepping on two long wooden boards. After being discovered, they could slide on the ground with a wooden spear in their hands and fly on the snow. They would not leave time for night patrol soldiers on the city to shoot the second arrow.

"Damn Tangren!" Xiao Jian Mo He cursed, squatted down for the second time, took out a fire note with body temperature from his arms, and at the same time, he ordered in an extremely low voice, "Torch, the kind with oil. Nick, you are ready to shoot an arrow!"

"Yes!" A brother agreed, and took out a torch wrapped in a linen strip from his Pitel, and handed it to Mo He. With the help of the city wall stents to block the wind, Mo He quickly ignited the fire stick. The linen strip soaked with harsh tinder oil was immediately ignited by the fire stick. Mo He threw the fire stick, grabbed the torch, and waved his arms hard while standing up.

"Hu——" The torch flew out from the top of the city with a spiral, landing twenty steps away. The snow fields along the way were quickly illuminated, flat and smooth, like a mirror!

No, nothing is invisible. I didn't even find footprints or gliding marks, let alone a living person. Nick, who was holding a bow and arrow and was about to kill the Tang army scout, looked as embarrassed as a piece of red cloth, and his mouth was stuttering repeatedly, but he couldn't say a complete word.

"It's okay, just a torch." Xiao Jian Mo He was quite responsible. Wudi Nick made any accusations, but instead extended his hand and patted the man on the shoulder. "Continue to listen, tell me no matter what the movement is. It's better for us to be smarter than let Tang Jun touch it into the city!"

Although he spoke generously, he and the other brothers did not believe that in such cold weather, there would be a large number of Tang troops coming to Yezhi City.

First, Ye Zhi and Sui Ye were separated by dozens of miles. Even if the Tang army had something called sled to help, they had to walk for at least one day and one night. Secondly, in such cold weather, unless the Tang army could put the charcoal basin on the horse's back, they would have been half frozen before they arrived at Ye Zhi. Again, the most important point was that there were not many people in that group of Tang soldiers, and even if they were out of their nests, they might not be the opponent of the defenders in the city. Instead of taking the initiative to come to Ye Zhi to die, it would be better to squat in Sui Ye City and wait for other Tang people in the south of the Tianshan Mountains to come for reinforcements.

The torch that was thrown outside the city was roasted into the snow, and then soaked in snow and quickly extinguished. Outside the city wall, it immediately became darker and colder than before. Xiao Jian Mohe retracted his gaze from outside the city, picked up the fire note, and then led his brothers to continue staggering along the city wall. He was bloated and staggering, like long-tailed marmots before hibernation.

As their footsteps gradually moved away, close to the base of the city wall, a piece of white snow suddenly rose up. Then, there was the second, third, and fourth... Under the sheepskin covered with snow, Luo Huaizu took out an extremely small glass bottle from his arms, opened the plug, and swayed it gently.

In the glass bottle, the ointment specially made from the rotten bones of animals was immediately exposed to the air. It was very faint, but it was enough for people in the woods to see clearly.

In the woods, Zhang Qian responded with the same method. Then, a brother who was good at ventriloquy pinched his mouth with his hands and made a series of crows screams, "Cow, Cow, Cow..."

The sound of crows penetrated the north wind and came into Luo Huaizu's ears. The latter smiled, stuffed the plug of the glass bottle tightly, and hid it in his arms. Then, he put on the sheepskin covered in snow and continued to stick to the wall. Guo Jing and Ren Qi followed closely with more than 20 elite soldiers. In a blink of an eye, the group arrived at the exit of the sewage drainage channel in Yezhicheng.

Because of the cold weather, there was no water in the sewage canal. The snow was blown by the wind but it was level with the edge of the canal. Luo Huaizu stepped on it and disappeared. However, he was not in a hurry and leaned back, while gently pulling the rope tied to his waist.

Guo Jing, who was also wearing sheepskin covered with snow, had a rope tied around his waist, immediately felt his request for help, stood on the edge of the canal, crawling in the distance with his hands and feet. The brothers stepped forward to help pull the rope, and in a blink of an eye, he pulled Luo Huaizu out of the snow and slid on the snow like a boat.

After making a stop gesture to Guo Jing, Luo Huaizu stood up again and slipped into the snow pit again. Then he used his hands and feet to quickly dig a passage in the sewage channel to reach the iron fence that isolates the inside and outside of the city. The iron fence was extremely strong, and there were copper bells hanging on it. However, the copper bells had been frozen firmly by the ice and snow, and could not make any sound at all.

Luo Huaizu took a deep breath and cleared a three-foot-wide area around him again, revealing four adjacent pig iron railings. Then, he took out a gourd from under the sheepskin. He skillfully pushed the mouth of the gourd and pulled out two cowhide ropes soaked in oil from the inside. One left and one right, he carefully wrapped the ropes on the fences on the left and right sides, pairing them in pairs.

Ren Qi jumped down quietly to help, and used a thick wooden stick to twist the rope. As the stick rotated, the iron railing that looked thick and strong and hard to smash with an iron hammer gradually deformed. In the end, two three-foot wide passages were created on the fence!

"I'll go in and explore the way first, you're here to wait!" Luo Huaizu smiled at Ren Qi, untied the rope around his waist, and entered the city alone. The snow quickly separated beside him, as if two waves of water were split.

Guo Jing, Ren Qi, and the other twenty brothers in sheep's clothing held their breath and waited. The time suddenly became extremely slow, maybe just a few short snaps, maybe half a stick of incense or a stick of incense. Suddenly, Luo Huaizu appeared in everyone's sight again with an ice slag and waved to everyone. His face, which had long been no longer young, was full of pride.

Guo Jing quickly slid into the snow in the sewage drainage channel with more than 20 personal soldiers, and then drilled through the deformed fence. He joined Luo Huaizu and drew his sword to warn him. Ren Qi took out a small glass bottle, stood beside the iron fence, and repeated Luo Huaizu's previous actions.

The orchid ghost fire flashed quickly at the sewage drainage channel. Wang Zhihuan responded with the sound of ghost fire and crows in the woods. Immediately afterwards, Zhang Qian, with three hundred carefully selected brothers, threw away the sheepskin covered with ice, snow and frost. With the protection of the night, he quickly slid towards the city wall, slid one by one into the sewage drainage channel, disappeared behind the iron bars.

"Hu——" The cold wind whistled, rolling up snow foam and ice slag, blocking the traces they left behind.

Tonight, Yezhi City is particularly quiet.
Chapter completed!