The next day, the rare rainstorm ended, and the bright morning sunshine shone directly through the hotel curtains.

When Bai Chuan got up, Sterling and Wen He were gone. Their beds were neatly folded, as if they had never slept at all.

Looking at the empty bed, Bai Chuan felt lost. She couldn't even tell if the encounter last night was a dream.

But fortunately, there is still something to prove.

When Baichuan came downstairs, a tall and thin man dressed as a villager came up to say hello: "Sir Baichuan? My subordinate is Sergeant Brown of the Southeast Army. Mr. Sterling asked me to lead the way for you, and I will respect your instructions."

"Ah, thank you so much!" Bai Chuan looked at the sergeant. With his dark complexion, thick lips, honest and honest face, and his rustic dress, he was no different from a local farmer.

"Then, shall we set off now?" Bai Chuan asked.

Brown smiled honestly: "Sir, I don't know how you got here. But if you continue to walk forward dressed like this, you will be stopped by a demon patrol within ten miles. Your Excellency has already

I've told you to change your clothes, I'm ready."

When Baichuan and the accompanying Far Eastern Army masters went upstairs, changed clothes, and came down, everyone couldn't help but look at each other and laugh.

Brown was a genius at makeup. He made everyone wear tattered clothes and smeared their faces with a layer of dirt.

Immediately, everyone's temperament was completely different. Their vigor and fierceness were all covered up by their shabby clothes, and they looked like a group of villagers going to the city to go to the market.

But Brown was still not satisfied. He looked at Baichuan carefully for a while and sighed: "The people look alike, but your mounts are so good. How could a group of farmers ride into the city on war horses?"

He brought over some lively donkeys and said to Baichuan in a kind and innocent tone: "How about you replace your war horses with donkeys? Ah, don't look at me like this. In order to collect intelligence, I am here

There is a donkey shop in the town as a disguise, and this is with Lord Sterling's permission."

"Then our war horses..."

Brown laughed naively and said: "The donkey shop can occasionally switch to selling war horses. Everyone is contributing to defeating the demons, so I made a sacrifice and didn't charge you any handling fees. A war horse can be exchanged for a high-quality blue and white donkey!"

"

Looking at his majestic and handsome horse, and then at those sickly "high-quality blue and white donkeys", Bai Chuan looked at him for a long time and asked: "Did your Excellency work for a guy named Zi Chuanxiu before?"

Did your subordinates do it?”

Brown was surprised: "Oh, sir, how do you know? I used to be in the Black Flag Army, but I was reorganized into the Southeast Army this year."

After changing their clothes, Shirakawa and his party set off leisurely on donkeys.

When the demons attacked, the soldiers and civilians of Ankara Province put up fierce resistance, and the demons responded with brutal suppression.

Along the way past Baichuan, there were destroyed country houses everywhere, leaving traces of the brutal claws of the demon army everywhere.

Many towns were burned to the ground, and all the residents were killed using the most brutal methods. Not even anyone was left to collect the corpses.

Baichuan passed through a village. Everything in the village was burned down. The trees on both sides of the road were covered with rotting corpses. It was the demon soldiers who hung all the villagers, men, women, old and children, alive on the trees on both sides of the road.

, groups of wild dogs were gnawing at the corpses, large groups of crows and vultures were hovering in the sky, and the pungent smell of corpses made it difficult to breathe.

The group of people walked silently through the path of corpses. Baichuan made a rough calculation and found that at least two to three hundred civilians were massacred in this village alone, and there were countless such villages on the road.

The houses were razed to the ground, all the people were slaughtered, the fertile fields were turned into scorched earth, and the once prosperous and fertile land turned into scorched earth ruins thousands of miles away. No natural disaster, not even earthquakes and floods, could cause this.

of destruction.

It is unimaginable for the soldiers of Xiuziying that the demons were so cruel and massacred like crazy.

Even the most ferocious beasts cannot do it, yet an intelligent creature can do such an inhumane act!

Passing through one uninhabited village after another, ruins and scorched earth, with grief and anger growing in their chests, the Xiuziying soldiers tightened their weapons and vowed to make the demons pay for their blood debt.

After passing the Ankara Province, there are two roads leading to the imperial capital. One is to take the Os Province, which is still in the hands of the Zichuan Army. However, since Os is still a war zone and must pass through the battle line, the demon clan's blockade is very tight.

Having met Sterling, Baichuan did not go through the Oss Province, but went to the Imperial Capital through the Bartley Province.

When passing through the capital of Battery Province, Baichuan deliberately went into the city for a walk.

Because the city was surrendered to the demons by Ma Wei, compared to the ruins of the city after repeated battles between the defenders and the demons along the way, the city is still intact and relatively densely populated.

Bartley City is one of the ancient cities with the longest history of the Zichuan family. Baichuan once visited this city when she was a child. At that time, she was intoxicated by this ancient city. Now, when she returns to her hometown, she feels completely different.

The city is still a city, with pointed roofs, green chimneys, arcades covered with ivy branches and leaves, and the poplar trees at the entrance to the park in the city center still scatter light poplar flowers, spinning and falling over the streets like warm rose petals.

to the roof.

Everything is exactly the same as it was a few years ago, except that the rulers of the city have changed.

The city is full of demons. Demon soldiers of all colors are wandering arrogantly on the streets of the city. When they see a demon approaching from a distance, humans must immediately avoid the road and bow. If they are even slightly disrespectful,

, ranging from a severe beating to death.

Among the residents of the city, the enthusiasm, cheerfulness, hospitality and other beautiful expressions of the past can no longer be seen today.

The residents were wary and suspicious of strangers, and people walked in a hurry, as if there was an invisible devil chasing behind them.

In this city, there is only one type of people who are happy, and that is the demons, and perhaps those scum who have taken refuge in the demons.

In the city, Baichuan encountered the demon supply and baggage convoy passing through the city more than once. They were supplying the demon army fighting on the front line.

The long convoy was filled with rice and wheat, and the demons followed behind, shouting at the cattle and sheep, and the demon soldiers on horseback were all fat, arrogant, and extremely proud.

The demon soldiers and generals who were originally from a poor land entered the blessed land of mankind, and they quickly became prosperous.

Look at the pride on their faces, their fierce murderous aura, and their calm expressions. It is obvious that they have regarded themselves as the masters of this land.

The sound of the iron hooves of the demon cavalry's horses treading on the stone pavement seemed to be the groaning sound of the stone slabs under the iron hooves of the invaders.

Further back, there were a large group of human men with their hands tied behind their backs. The demon cavalry was driving them forward with whips, just like driving cattle and sheep. The faces of those men had dull and indifferent expressions, as if they were numb to everything.

On both sides of the road, the human populace bowed like straw weighed down by the storm.

Bai Chuan asked passers-by in a low voice about the situation. The passers-by told her that these were strong men who were forcibly recruited by the demons in the occupied areas. They would serve as laborers to help the demons build fortresses and camps.

Bai Chuan was shocked and said: "Oh my god! How could a strong man be tied up with a thin rope? Wouldn't he resist or run away? How can you endure such ravage and torture?"

"What can we do?" The passerby showed a wry smile: "The family army was repulsed, and it is said that the demons even captured the imperial capital! Originally, everyone was counting on General Sterling, but it is said that he also defeated the demons.

If they are captured alive, what can we common people do? We have no weapons and no one to lead us. Whatever the demons want, we give them. They plunder and plunder, and we obediently give it to them. If they want food, we have to pay for it.

If they want livestock, we have to open the pen door, drive out all the pigs, sheep and cattle, and say with a smile: "Please, gentlemen! Feel free to invite me!" If you dare, we can even hide it and stay.

Just a little piglet, the consequences are unimaginable, the demon soldiers will hang the whole village. Even though they plunder our property, we still have to wait beside us with smiles on our faces, praising the 'wisdom of the gods',

Call the lawsuit 'Long live my emperor'!"

The passerby said, showing a sad smile.

Bai Chuan did not expect that people's fear would reach such an extent that they would lose all their fighting spirit.

She wanted to tell him that the imperial capital had not fallen, that General Sterling had not been captured, that the family was still fighting, and that there were still unyielding warriors resisting the advance of the demons on the banks of the Vane River, but for some reason, the words came to nothing.

It was on my lips, but in the end I didn't say it out loud.

What made Bai Chuan most angry was not seeing the demons, but meeting those scum among humans.

In Bartley's hotels and hotels, she listened and observed carefully, and there were always some shameless humans surrounding the demon officers.

They smiled flatteringly, clinked glasses with the demon officers, and stammered in the demon language they had just learned. Their weird accents made the demon officers and soldiers laugh, and they played with him like a puppy.

They gathered around the demons, happily and drunkenly, constantly proposing to "drink a toast to the great victory of the gods", and they were as warm to the demons as they were brothers.

What shocked Shirakawa was that many of these scum were not ignorant people. On the contrary, they had all been nobles and family officials.

In a certain hotel, Bai Chuan once saw a man imitating the barking of a dog and picking up the bones thrown by the demon army officer.

Seeing that man, Bai Chuan quickly turned her face away, for fear of being seen by him: she knew this man. He was from a prominent family with a long history in Battery Province. He was also an earl and a member of the Senate of the Zichuan family.

!

The reason why he despised himself to this extent was not because he was under coercion or because his life was at stake, it was just to obtain a letter of appointment to guard a place under the rule of the demon army.

The nobles and officials who once served the Zichuan family saw the family losing power and quickly fell into the arms of their new masters.

Even if it is an ordinary demon soldier, they will treat it like a god. They have no other purpose. They just hope to get a position under the rule of the demon army, gain glory and wealth, or join the demon army to plunder and gain benefits from their intervention.

What they did was even more cruel and unscrupulous than the demons.

They took the initiative to guide the demons to their enemies, reported that the guerrillas of the Zichuan family were being sheltered here, and then worked with the demon soldiers to kill the whole family. They knew all the places that the demons didn't know, and brought the demons with them.

The clan was ruined in the past.

They rob the most ferociously, burn houses the most, and rape women most vigorously. A regular demon officer and soldier may have military discipline, and there are some upright generals like Yun Qianxue who restrict them from doing too much, but these scum of the human race,

No matter what they do they are not punished.

Seeing these people, Bai Chuan's hands were itching terribly, and he was breathing heavily. He couldn't help but touch the sword in his arms. Brown and his subordinates were so frightened that they pulled her hard: "Sir, you must not! You are going to do it."

We are all ruined!"

In Battery City, Baichuan felt a suffocating smell, a stench of corruption. She didn't want to stay in the city for a moment and passed through the city quickly.

That night, they spent the night in a village outside the city.

Brown knocked on the door of a farmhouse and told the owner bluntly: "We are officers of the Zichuan family. We want to stay at your place tonight. Can you take us in?"

The owner did not dare to take them in, so he "invited" them out in panic, and continued to ask the fourth house. The male owner replied without hesitation: "Okay, warriors who resist the demons will always be welcomed here!

"

Brown stared into his master's eyes: "But before you, three families have already rejected us."
To be continued...