Chapter Thirty-Four: The Extermination of the Xu Family Village

  Time went back one day later.

  Xu Village, Xuchang County

  Lü Bu rode his high-headed horse to the front of the village, his silver armor gleaming with a strange blood-red light in the sunset. He coldly looked at the villagers lined up in rows at the entrance of the village, and suddenly pointed at an old man at the very front, saying: "You, come here."

  The old man was taken aback at first, then saw that the other was referring to himself, and he too did not dare to be slow, hastily stepped forward with a respectful bow and said: "General, leading such a large army to come here, is there something?"

  He snorted and didn't immediately respond to the other's words. Instead, he said: "You're the village chief?"

  The old man said: "It is indeed under me."

  Compared to Lü Bu's arrogance, Chen Gong on the other hand appeared exceptionally polite and courteous. Seeing the old man somewhat flustered, Chen Gong hastily comforted him: "Old sir, there is no need to panic, we are government troops going to Chenliu to eliminate bandits, today we just want to station our army here and will not disturb the villagers."

  The old man suddenly understood as soon as he heard this, but seeing Lü Bu's cold and gloomy expression, he wanted to say something, but was immediately intimidated.

  It seems like he's taking everything for granted, Chen Gong said with a displeased tone: "Fengxian, you can't be like this..."

  Lü Bu nodded and reluctantly bowed his hands to the old man, perfunctorily saying: "Please, Village Chief, do me a favor..."

  "Of course, of course, General, please go ahead...General, please go ahead."

  Lü Bu finished speaking and left, Chen Gong sighed and shook his head. He then looked at the old man and said: "Village elder, can you ask the villagers to bring some water? We will set up camp not far from the village entrance."

  The old man nodded, agreed to everything, and watched Chen Gong leave with the army. He called out a young man from not far away, saying: "Ah Niu, have you seen my daughter Chu'er?"

  The young man shook his head and said, "I haven't seen him. He left early this morning to go hunting in the mountains and hasn't returned all day."

  At the same time, he shook his head and looked at the distant army dismounting to set up camp. The old man couldn't help but sigh: "I hope these people won't make things difficult for us..."

  Time passed for half a day.

  The sky grew darker and Lü Bu led his army to prepare food and fodder, settling down each military account of men and horses, preparing to start a fire to cook rice.

  However, at this moment, a soldier from the military camp ran to the front and knelt down, saying: "Report to the master, a batch of military rations has disappeared."

  A sudden sentence made Lü Bu stunned for a moment, but it was actually Lü Bu and Chen Gong who were originally studying the route of tomorrow's march, but at this moment, they heard this sentence and couldn't help but feel strange.

  Lü Bu coldly said: "Where is the Governor of Grain? Isn't he in charge of military rations? Where did he go?"

  The soldier listened and immediately pointed to the distance, saying: "The captain has gone to reason with the villagers. It seems that those villagers have stolen our army's grain and fodder."

  "This is impossible..." Before the little soldier could finish speaking, Chen Gong interrupted him and hastily said to Lü Bu: "Fengxian, how dare these common people steal our military's grain and fodder? This is absolutely impossible..."

  "Hmph!" Lü Bu ignored Chen Gong's words and instead said with some disgust, "These insolent commoners! Lord Cao, you shouldn't have been so courteous to them earlier. Since they've stolen our army's grain, they should be punished according to military law!"

  "Ziying! Absolutely not!"

  Lü Bu rode his Red Hare horse, holding the Guandao spear, and galloped towards Xuzhou Village in the distance with a fierce momentum, followed by a large group of soldiers.

  Seeing the situation, Chen Gong immediately stomped his feet repeatedly on the spot and hastily found a war horse to chase after Lü Bu.

  On the other side at this time.

  "You old scoundrel, you've taken our military rations and still dare to deny it! Believe me or not, I'll kill you!" The officer in charge of grain management kicked the old man hard, snatched a pile of food from his hands, and sneered coldly.

  The old man fell to the ground at once, and the young man Ah Niu beside him suddenly said angrily: "It was you who deducted some grain and grass on the way of marching and framed us! Bring our food here!"

  Na Zhi Su Wei heard this, seemingly somewhat guilty, immediately cursed: "I spit on you, you bunch of thieving commoners, stealing things and then shouting 'thief'! I... I... must tell Master..."

  "What's wrong?"

  Suddenly, just as the former was stuttering out these words, a general as cold as a mountain had already appeared behind him, narrowing his eyes and asking in a gloomy tone.

  In an instant, he shuddered, and although Zhang Liang didn't feel a little guilty, it was because of the opponent's cold face. Suddenly, his eyes rolled over, and he couldn't help but pretend to be wronged, saying: "Report to the master, these stubborn commoners robbed our grain and fodder, and they kept saying that we took theirs!"

  "Could it be?!" Lü Bu's eyes narrowed, a hint of murderous intent flashing across his cold and arrogant face as he spoke in an extremely gloomy tone to the crowd of villagers.

  "Obviously this person privately withheld grain and fodder, yet wants to shift the blame onto our heads. What kind of logic is this?"

  Lü Bu said: "So it seems I wronged you?"

  As soon as Lü Bu uttered these words, everyone present felt a thread of fear, and a strange killing intent suddenly swept over, even the governor of Jizhou couldn't help but shiver with a chill.

  Just then, from afar, Chen Gong was riding his horse at a rapid pace with an eerie expression, shouting "Ziying! Something's wrong!"

  Lü Bu was taken aback for a moment, and suddenly he saw Chen Gong rushing towards him on horseback, but couldn't help feeling suspicious.

  Chen Gong had just arrived in front of Lü Bu, and without mentioning the grain and fodder incident, his face changed greatly as he said to Lü Bu: "Just now an urgent report came from the rear, we had just left Rencheng for a short time... Rencheng has been lost!"

  "What!?" A sudden angry shout, Lü Bu had not yet reacted, looking at Chen Gong's pale face, a name suddenly emerged in his mind.

  "Who is it?"

  Chen Gong sighed and shook his head, saying: "Cao Xin... Within a few hours of our departure from Rencheng, Cao Xin led his troops to break through Rencheng in half an hour. Song Xian was also killed by Cao Xin on the spot, and the rest of the soldiers all surrendered to Cao Xin..."

  "Damn it! Isn't Cao Xin defending Chenliu?"

  Upon hearing this, Chen Gong couldn't help but sigh repeatedly. He said reluctantly, "Indeed, I had thought so too at first, but as I've also said before, Cao Xin is cunning in his military tactics. It's likely that he anticipated our army would attack Chenliu and deliberately abandoned it to counterattack our Ran city instead. Such strategic thinking is truly difficult to grasp..."

  "Hmph, so you're a defeated army, then get out of here quickly, what are you doing lingering around!"

  Suddenly, while Lü Bu was furious about the loss of Ren City, a young man named Ah Niu in the village still sneered coldly.

  Upon hearing this, Lü Bu unexpectedly did not get angry, but instead showed a hint of a smile on his face and said to Chen Gong: "He's right... We'd better hurry back to Puyang quickly..."

  He helplessly nodded his head and sighed, "Alas... it can't be helped."

  However, just as Lü Bu was about to leave, no one noticed that the hand holding the halberd was clenched even tighter than the smile on his face...

  An army of ten thousand marched overnight, Chen Gong's vanguard led the way, while Lü Bu's two thousand rear guard remained in Xujia Village...

  Lingered for a brief moment...

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