Love Lock

Chapter 256 Is this a traitor?
After the imperial army had gone far away, Zhao Zun breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the man in the three-wheeled vehicle behind him, saying, "Da Wu, well done."

"Hehe!" Da Wu chuckled twice and patted the modern sniper rifle in his hand: "Luckily I brought this, otherwise things would have been really difficult to handle today."

Zhao Zun nodded, his gaze contemptuous: "That young general even said the court wouldn't let this go, humph! I don't want to let it go yet! I wanted to play with Su Ce a little longer, but who knew your spear was too fast."

"Hahaha... The prince hadn't had enough fun yet when General Su's head exploded."

"It doesn't last long! Hahaha..."

"How about... we tell that young general when we get back that he can bring General Su back onto his horse so we can play again?"

"Hahaha……"

The entire convoy burst into laughter, and the atmosphere instantly lightened considerably.

The convoy headed towards Mianning County in Jingzhou, followed by a long line of surrendering soldiers.

This outcome was within Zhao Zun's expectations, but it completely exceeded the expectations of his deputy, Lu Heming, and even overturned his worldview.

He never expected that the righteous army of the imperial court, which had a legitimate cause, would not only be no match for the more than one hundred traitors Zhao Zun was trying to suppress, but also that Zhao Zun had almost tricked away half of his 100,000-strong army.

The one being attacked has the nerve to be right?

Has even justice betrayed us?

But everything that happened along the way was something he witnessed with his own eyes—

Jingzhou has suffered repeated disasters, yet the imperial court ignores the situation, Su Ce is selfish and indifferent, and the people have been oppressed and plundered along the way. Is this justice?

Faced with the disaster in Jingzhou, the King of Cangzhou not only provided his own relief supplies but also personally escorted them, befitting his status as a prince. Even when confronted by the imperial army, he refused to back down. Furthermore, he even killed General Su Ce's personal guard for the sake of a mere soldier.

Then look at the support and love that the common people and soldiers have for Zhao Zun, the King of Cangzhou.

Is this a traitor?
Lu Heming's belief began to waver!
He had always firmly believed that loyalty to the imperial court was equivalent to loyalty to the emperor and love for the country. But now, two questions were simultaneously popping into his mind—

Is everything the imperial court says necessarily correct?
Does something a traitor does necessarily mean it's wrong?
Watching the convoy of three-wheeled vehicles disappear at the end of the official road, Lu Heming, who had served as a deputy general for several years, suddenly realized that he had lost the ability to make decisions.

Should he lead his troops to continue the campaign in Cangzhou, or should he return to the capital with his army?

If the campaign against Cangzhou continues, Zhao Zun possesses a divine weapon capable of killing without leaving a trace; he certainly cannot win, nor can he survive.

If he were to return to the capital with the remaining army, needless to say, given the heavy losses suffered today, His Majesty would surely be beheaded in a fit of rage.

Lu Heming felt lost and uncertain about the future, having encountered the most difficult problem in the world.

dilemma!

He was so weak that he seemed unable to even ride a horse steadily.

He had no choice but to dismount and dejectedly walk to a large rock by the roadside to sit down.

Then, she turned her head and stared blankly in the direction where Zhao Zun had disappeared...

At this moment, the convoy of three-wheeled vehicles was very close to Mianning County. Zhao Zun, the King of Cangzhou, stood on the lead vehicle of the convoy, his coarse cloth coat fluttering in the cold wind.

He squinted at the distant, withered wheat fields where swarms of locusts stretched out like a moving dark cloud.

"Your Highness, we're just ahead in Mianning County." The captain of the first-year team wiped his sweat and pointed to the crooked stone tablet beside the official road.

Zhao Zun nodded, tapping his rough fingers on the carriage shaft: "No need to go into the city, go directly to the disaster-stricken villages outside the city."

He turned to the convoy and shouted, "Everyone, stay alert! As agreed before, five people per group, each group responsible for one village!"

The convoy kicked up clouds of dust on the dirt road, and the first destination they arrived at was Lijia Gou.

Under the old locust tree in the village, several thin, sallow-faced children were whipping a lone locust with branches. Hearing the sound of a three-wheeled vehicle entering the village, the children turned their heads and looked at them with fear.

Upon seeing a long line of red monsters charging towards them, the children, who had never seen anything like it before, scattered in terror. Some of the younger children were even frightened to tears by the approaching three-wheeled vehicles.

"Hey! Kid, don't be scared. Where's your village head? Go and call him here!" the team leader shouted as he jumped out of the car.

The children ran into the village like a gust of wind without stopping, and it's unclear whether they heard the captain's shouts.

The freshman captain turned to look at Zhao Zun, shrugged innocently, and indicated that he hadn't done it on purpose.

"It's alright, let's walk in and find the village head." Zhao Zun pursed his lips.

It's normal for these children to be frightened when they see so many "monsters" for the first time. Just go into the village and comfort them and they'll be fine.

As Zhao Zun and the others were about to enter the village, they saw an old man with gray hair and beard jogging over. He was clearly taken aback when he saw the convoy. Several villagers were following behind him, peeking out from a distance.

Zhao Zun strode forward, patted the three-wheeled vehicle beside him, and asked, "Old man, are you the village head?"

"Uh, yes!" The old man nodded blankly, "I wonder who you all are..."

"Old man, this is my prince—Prince Zhao Zun of Cangzhou," the freshman captain introduced.

"Ah? Oh dear!" Upon hearing that the man in plain clothes standing before him was actually a prince, the old man was so frightened that his legs went weak and he knelt down. "This humble subject pays...pays respects to Your Highness."

Before the old man's legs even touched the ground, Zhao Zun pulled him up.

“No need for formalities, sir. These chickens and ducks will be distributed to the village. And this—” He gestured to his guards to bring down several strange lamps, “Light these lamps at night to attract locusts.”

The village head tremblingly reached out towards the lit solar-powered lamp: "This...this is a celestial artifact?"

Zhao Zun laughed heartily: "I suppose so. But the real immortal artifact is right here..."

With a wave of his hand, the freshman team leader untied a cage. Chickens and ducks, starving for two days, surged out like a tide, swarming towards the locusts in the field.

A speckled pheasant jumped up to peck at a locust in mid-air, causing the children who had just cried and gone home to scream in surprise.

They saw that Li was talking to the strangers who had entered the village, and the monsters were motionless as if they were asleep. Some of the bolder children curiously approached them.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!" A little girl with pigtails suddenly rushed to Zhao Zun's feet. "My family's grain...can our grain be saved?"

Zhao Zun's heart softened, and he bent down to pick up the little girl, pointing to the flock of ducks that were feasting: "See? These flat-beaked generals are much more powerful than locusts."

The little girl stopped crying and started laughing, her face still wet with mud and tears.

The village head wiped the sweat from his brow and waved to the few teenagers who approached.

"Gouwa, Shuanzi, hurry back to the village and call all the adults! Tell them that the Bodhisattva has appeared and the King of Cangzhou has sent living creatures to help with disaster relief. Tell them to come out and express their gratitude!" His voice boomed in the hot, dry air, startling the locusts in the clumps of withered grass by the roadside.

"Understood!" Gouwa, with his pigtails sticking straight up, responded the loudest and ran barefoot along the dirt road.

The children following behind were like a flock of sparrows, chattering and chattering all at once. The sound of footsteps startled the locusts by the roadside, causing them to flutter up like wisps of yellowish-brown smoke.

A moment later, a crowd gathered under the old locust tree in the threshing ground.

Old Zhang, leaning on his cane, walked in a hurry, losing one of his shoes in the process; Aunt Wang was still holding her nursing baby in her arms, and bran was still stuck to her clothes; several young men were carrying brooms to drive away locusts, and their trouser legs were still dripping with mud.

"Fellow villagers, please be quiet!" The village headman stood on the millstone, striking a gong, with five or six bamboo cages covered with blue cloth behind him.

The moment he lifted the corner of the cloth, "clucking" and "quacking" sounds came from the cage, startling the Li family's daughter-in-law in the front row who cried out "Ouch!"

"The Prince of Cangzhou knows we've been hit by a locust plague," the village head said, his voice choked with emotion but unable to contain his joy, "and he specially sent five hundred chickens and ducks from Cangzhou to our village. These live animals are much better than us killing them by hand..."

"My God! Is this real? Thank you, Your Highness!"

"This might be a way out!"

"It's truly a miracle from the Bodhisattva!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

The villagers immediately cheered.

The village head, his eyes red, took a speckled rooster out of the cage. The rooster, with its bright red comb, had barely landed when it began fiercely pecking at the locusts jumping around, its iron-hook-like claws stomping them down one by one.

The crowd stirred with a buzz, and several teenagers began to cheer, imitating the crowing of roosters.

“The prince said,” the village head raised his voice, “these chickens and ducks have been starving for two days, and they are more attracted to locusts than to millet! Each family will receive five chickens per person. They can roam the fields during the day and hunt for food by lamplight or be caged and given water at night.”

"Your Honor, the Lord!" The white-haired Granny Zhou suddenly knelt down and kowtowed to the people in the caravan.

The crowd, like wheat fields blown down by the wind, knelt down in a flurry. It's unclear who started it, but laughter tinged with sobs gradually filled the threshing ground.

The old ox, tethered to the locust tree, was startled and let out a "moo," flicking its tail and kicking up a cloud of dust mixed with the corpses of locusts.

The flock of ducks in the cage suddenly started calling out in unison, which, combined with the rustling sounds of grazing in the distant fields, gave them a strange sense of life.

The team leader, along with his brothers from the Big Team, began teaching the villagers how to use solar lights.

As night falls, solar-powered lights illuminate the fields with a bright white glow.

Thousands upon thousands of locusts swarmed toward the light source, and five hundred chickens and ducks immediately joined in the frenzy.

The convoy took out the dry rations they carried and distributed them to the villagers. The villagers took the food and ate it heartily while holding torches and watching the chickens and ducks fight the locusts. Someone suddenly knelt down and shouted, "Long live the King of Cangzhou!"

Zhao Zun frowned and kicked the car wheel: "What are you yelling about!"

He turned and jumped into the lead vehicle. "Freshmen, three of you stay here to teach them how to rotate herds. The rest of you come with me." He gazed at the scattered village lights in the distance. "There are still many villages waiting for us."

As the convoy set off again, the village head and the villagers knelt by the roadside. Zhao Zun waved his hand without turning his head, and the sound of the three-wheeled vehicle's engine was drowned out by the cheerful quacking of the ducks.

Under the moonlight, the locust corpses piled up on the ridges of the fields gradually formed small hills.

The night was as dark as ink, and the biting north wind howled.

Han Lei pulled up the hood of her down jacket, her breath condensing into tiny ice crystals in the moonlight. She mounted her horse and galloped away.

After their marriage, he and Zhao Zun were almost inseparable. In their spare time, Zhao Zun also taught her to ride a horse. Little did they know that their first long journey on horseback would be to reach Jingzhou for disaster relief.

The sound of hooves from the four guards behind her startled the sleeping village, and a few barks from dogs broke the silence.

After tying her horse to a tree at the village entrance, Han Lei walked to an open space while her guards went to knock on the door. With a slight thought, hundreds of fluffy chickens and ducks, along with their bamboo cages, suddenly appeared on the threshing ground, making rustling noises.

"A miracle!"

Upon hearing the sound of horses' hooves, the old farmer who was the first to put on his coat and come out to check the situation saw this scene in the dim moonlight.

He fell to his knees with a thud, his chapped hands trembling slightly as he braced himself on the ground.

As the soldiers knocked on doors from house to house, more and more villagers gathered around, their gaunt faces illuminated by the torchlight.

"Fellow elders." Han Lei stepped out of the shadows, the moonlight casting a silvery glow on her.

She raised the uniquely shaped solar lamp, gently turned the switch, and instantly a dazzling white light, like the rising sun, startled everyone who stepped back.

"Monster! Monster!" A teenager snuggled into his mother's arms.

"Don't be afraid!" Han Lei squatted down and adjusted the light to a warm orange color. "This is called a solar light. It can be exposed to the sun during the day and will light up at night."

She handed the lamp to the child, who hesitated before touching the lampshade, then suddenly grinned: "It's hot! Like holding a little sun!"

The village head was a hunchbacked old man. Seeing Han Lei's kindness, he bowed tremblingly and said, "This lady..."

“This is our princess.” A soldier clasped his hands in greeting. “Hearing that Jingzhou was suffering from a locust plague, the princess specially brought her excellent strategies to provide assistance.”

The crowd immediately stirred, as they were at a loss to drive away the damned locusts.

Han Lei gestured to her personal guards to bring over the chicken coop: "These chickens and ducks love to eat locusts. Tonight, I will teach you how to use light to attract locusts so that the chickens and ducks can catch them."

As she spoke, she demonstrated by placing the solar lights at intervals. Where there were lights, locusts flocked to them. Some stayed in the area illuminated by the lights, while others kept bumping into the lights, making a "pop pop" sound.

"Your Highness," a woman wearing a blue headscarf asked timidly, "will these treasures... be taken back afterwards?"

Han Lei chuckled upon hearing this, and took a fluffy yellow duckling from the cage, placing it in the child's hand: "They're all yours. Once the locust plague is over, the hens will lay eggs every day, and the ducks... ouch!" She was suddenly interrupted by a sneeze, her nose turning bright red from the cold.

"The princess has caught a chill!" The village head hurriedly took off his tattered cotton-padded coat, but was stopped by his personal guards.

Han Lei waved her hand: "It's alright. But you..." She looked at the thinly dressed villagers, turned to her personal guards and whispered a few words, then led them into the shadows.

A short while later, Han Lei and her personal guards returned carrying several bundles. Upon opening the bundles, they found thick, coarse cotton-padded coats inside.

The small village of a few dozen households suddenly fell silent.

Han Lei and her personal guards distributed the cotton-padded coats one by one. As she stroked the new coats she had just received, an old woman with white hair suddenly knelt down, her withered hands touching the ground as she kowtowed: "A living Bodhisattva..."

That sob was like a floodgate opening; wherever the solar-powered lights shone, people immediately knelt down.