Traveling back in time to Liu Feng, starting with rescuing soldier Guan Yu.

The setting sun, like blood, spilled across the ridgeline of the Wuxi Mountains.

Liu Feng and Sha Moke led the allied forces day and night, passing through dense forests and valleys, and retracing their steps back.

The barbarian soldiers left home full of vigor and high spirits, but when they returned, every step they took was shrouded in silence.

The trees on both sides of the mountain path became more and more familiar. They were the ancient trees they had climbed since childhood, the paths where their mother would pick wild fruits in the forest, and the streams where they used to chase and play with their friends.

The closer they got to the mountain stronghold, the stronger the acrid smell in the air became. When the ruins of the first stronghold came into view, the entire group stopped.

That was the stockade of the Chenxi tribe.

The wooden buildings that once stood against the mountain have been reduced to charred ruins, with a few broken pine beams sticking out of the ashes, emitting wisps of smoke.

The stockade wall was mostly destroyed, and among the rubble were scattered broken pottery jars, trampled animal hides, and hunting bows with their strings cut.

In the open space in front of the village gate, several corpses lay in a pool of blood—one was an old woman with white hair, still clutching a short axe for chopping wood, the blade stained with a few drops of dried dark red blood; beside her was a child, holding a stone in his hand.

More corpses were scattered throughout the village. Some were huddled by the fire pit and burned to a crisp, while others lay face down by the stream, with arrows from the Wu army stuck in their backs.

Suddenly, someone in the group let out a heart-wrenching scream.

A barbarian soldier from the Chenxi tribe threw down his spear and stumbled towards the ruins. He knelt on the ground and desperately tried to pull at the burnt wooden beams with his hands, his fingernails breaking and blood staining the charred wood.

More barbarian soldiers began to rush into the village. Some were calling for their mothers, others were calling for their wives and children. The shouts and cries of pain mingled into a sorrowful, angry tide above the ruins.

Liu Feng stood on his horse at the edge of the ruins, his face ashen. His gaze swept over the corpses, over the collapsed stockade wall, and then stopped on a row of wooden stakes on the outer side of the wall.

The row of wooden stakes was originally used to hang prey, but what was hanging on them now made his pupils suddenly contract—it was the severed heads of several children, strung together with hemp rope and displayed on the stakes.

The youngest one looked no more than three or four years old, with five-colored silk threads woven by his mother tied to his braid.

Shamoke dismounted and stumbled toward the row of wooden stakes.

He looked at them one by one, his lips trembling, and suddenly stopped in front of one of them. It was a boy of seven or eight years old, whose features resembled his own, with a faint scar on his forehead—a scratch from a wild boar's tusk during a hunt last year.

Shamok stretched out his rough hands and gently picked up the small head, his whole body frozen in place like a stone statue.

He didn't cry or shout, but the bloodshot eyes were more terrifying than any cry or scream.

The combined Han and Manchu forces lingered in front of the ruins of the mountain stronghold for less than half an hour. The veteran hunters among the Manchu soldiers wiped away their tears and lay on the ground, searching for traces.

The traces left on the mountain path were extremely obvious—numerous footprints, cart tracks, mule and horse hoofprints, and furrows carved into the soil by women and children being dragged along.

All these traces point eastward, towards Wuyang.

"Barbarian King!"

An old hunter looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. "Wu Gou is taking our woman, pushing their cart, and heading east! They're not going fast, at most half a day's walk!"

Shamok handed the small severed head he held to a member of his tribe beside him, who carefully wrapped it in a piece of animal hide. When he turned around, the grief on his face had been replaced by a terrifying rage.

"Young men of Wuxi, heed my command—" His voice was low and hoarse, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth, "Follow me to hunt down Wu Gou! Leave no one alive!"

The barbarian soldiers roared in unison, their voices echoing through the mountains and forests.

Several of the most hot-tempered young men had already rushed out, galloping eastward along the cart tracks. Shamoke strode onto his warhorse, his hundred-refined steel sword unsheathed, its blade gleaming with a blood-red light in the twilight.

"Wait a minute."

Liu Feng rode his horse to block Shamoke's path.

Shamoke's horse reared up abruptly, but he forcefully reined it in. He stared intently at Liu Feng, his chest heaving: "Liu Feng, are you going to stop me?"

"I won't stop you from taking revenge."

Liu Feng's voice was not loud, but it steadily suppressed the surrounding noise.

"But look at these ruts on the road. The Eastern Wu raided four mountain strongholds, taking thousands of women and children and countless riches. With such a large caravan of supplies and prisoners, if he were in a hurry to escape, he should have abandoned the supplies and traveled light. But not only did he not abandon them, he deliberately made the ruts deep and wide, and his footprints dense and messy, as if he wanted to tell everyone which direction he went. Commander, you've been hunting for half your life, can't you see that the prey's abnormal behavior must be a trap?"

Shamok gripped the knife handle tightly, the tattoo on his knuckles twisting from the force.

Liu Feng dismounted, walked to the deep rut, and squatted down.

"Pan Zhang is no ordinary man. Before he looted the mountain stronghold, he should have foreseen that our army would return from Yuanling to reinforce it. Since he dared to stay in the mountains for an extra day and night, he must have already made arrangements for his backup plan."

He gestured with his hand to indicate the depth of the tire tracks, saying, "These tire tracks are intentional; they're pointing you in the right direction."

Shamoke dismounted, squatted down and stared at the rut for a moment, then looked up at the ridge shrouded in twilight ahead—that was the mountain road leading to Wuyang. There was only one extremely narrow pass in the mountain road, with the mountain walls on both sides narrowing like a gate, making the terrain treacherous.

He suddenly looked at the old hunter beside him. The old hunter understood and led several of the most skilled trackers ahead, not taking the main road, but climbing over the dense forest on both sides of the ridge.

The combined Han and Manchu forces advanced slowly.

Although the barbarian soldiers were filled with rage, they managed to suppress their pursuit and maintain basic formation under Liu Feng's strict orders.

As dusk deepened, the shadows in the valley grew ever darker. Not far ahead, an extremely deep and narrow ravine stretched between the mountains, its sides sheer cliffs as if carved by a knife and axe, covered with slippery moss. The bottom of the ravine was unfathomable, with only the faint sound of water emanating from the darkness.

A lone eagle swept across the mountain stream, circled twice, and then flapped its wings and flew away, as if even it was unwilling to linger in this desolate place.

Samokor stopped the horse.

"Eagle's Sorrow Gorge".

He pointed to the mountain stream ahead and said in a deep voice.

"We, the people of Wuxi, call it Eagle's Sorrow Gorge. This gorge is extremely deep, and the stream at the bottom is an underground river; once you fall in, you can forget about coming back up. There is only one vine bridge across the gorge, which is the only way to the official road to the east."

Liu Feng rode forward, not looking at the bridge, but his gaze fell across the mountain stream to the dense forests layered on both sides of the stream.

The trees on both banks were so dense they resembled walls, enough to conceal countless soldiers. He listened intently for a moment, then suddenly said, "It's too quiet here."

Shamoke was taken aback. "The mountains are naturally quiet."

"wrong."

Liu Feng raised his hand to stop the vanguard behind him who was about to cross the bridge. "We've come all the way from the mountain stronghold. Every time we pass through a forest, there are birds chirping and insects buzzing. Even when our troops pass by, we startle countless birds into flight. But look at the trees on both sides of this mountain stream, there isn't a single bird."

He turned to look at Shamoke.

"There can only be one reason. Wu Bing set up an ambush here, and to prevent startling the birds and revealing their location, he killed or drove away the birds and insects on both sides of the ravine beforehand. This Eagle's Sorrow Ravine was the ambush site chosen by Pan Zhang."

Following Liu Feng's gaze, Sha Moke looked towards the dense forest on the opposite bank and suddenly remembered that when he led his barbarian soldiers on hunts, he would first send people to drive away the flocks of birds that the prey would inevitably pass through.

"You mean, Wu soldiers are hiding in this forest?"

"It's not just about hiding it."

Liu Feng lowered his voice, "Pan Zhang lured you here so that he could wait until half of your men had crossed the vine bridge before launching a sudden attack—cutting the vine bridge and attacking from both sides to annihilate you on both sides of this mountain stream."

Shamok's expression changed drastically.

He stared at the desolate, dense forest, a cold sweat beading on his back. If Liu Feng hadn't stopped him, he and his eight thousand able-bodied men would probably have already rushed onto the vine bridge, becoming live targets for Wu's soldiers.

Shamok turned his head, the rage in his eyes had subsided considerably, replaced by a clear-headedness that came after surviving a catastrophe.

"General, what do you suggest we do?"

"Use their plan against them."

Liu Feng turned his horse around, his voice steady and cold, "Order the majority of the barbarian soldiers to camp in front of the mountain stream, beat drums and shout, pretending to cross the bridge. At the same time, send out two teams of two thousand barbarian soldiers each to cross the mountain ridges on both sides and outflank the back of the mountain stream."