Chapter 32: Countermeasure

Who is the man with the scarred face?

Jin Fangyan was completely unprepared for this question.

"What, you don't even recognize your own personal guards?"

"His name is..."

"You don't need to make up a name for me," Huyanjun chuckled again. "Otherwise, it would be too embarrassing when you're exposed on the spot."

"..."

Jin Fangyan sighed, helpless. "What makes you say that?"

"What makes me say that? The movements, the expressions, the demeanor. I, Huyanjun, have seen everyone from Chanyu and princes down to farmers and serfs, but this is the first time I've ever seen someone as arrogant as that scarred man, as if he looks down on everything. How could such a person be a mere personal guard? And who would be worthy of leading him? You, Master Jin?"

"Just based on his expression?" Jin Fangyan was speechless.

Huyanjun sneered. What he didn't say was that the moment his eyes met Su Yao's, he felt a flicker of fear. He couldn't see any respect for a chiliarch in those eyes; it was as if he were looking at a dead thing, or perhaps... an object without life or emotion.

He shook his head, casting off the strange feeling. "Forget his expression, let's talk about habits. Look at your posture, standing so straight. Can this be the posture of someone who grew up on horseback?"

Prairie herdsmen spent their lives on horseback and were almost all bow-legged; this was not something easily explained away.

"...Could it be that he comes from a noble background?" Jin Fangyan struggled to justify it.

"Still refusing to admit it? You have too many flaws." Huyanjun patted Jin Fangyan's shoulder and gestured toward the Han soldiers. "You said they were remnants of a defeated army, but when have defeated soldiers ever had such high morale? Do you think I didn't see how that bunch of yours was wailing and howling yesterday?"

"Is it impossible that we are all elites?" Jin Fangyan turned his face away, knowing he was just being stubborn.

Huyanjun smiled in response: "They are indeed elites, I can see that. That is why, just to be safe, I had them dismount, didn't I?"

It's over...

Jin Fangyan’s face turned ashen. He knew this smiling tiger had planned to round them all up from the start, and bringing him over was merely to toy with his prey.

"One last chance: tell them to surrender and state your purpose, and I might spare your life."

As he spoke, Huyanjun drew his sword. With a wave of his hand, the scouts who had been watching his movements blew their horns. The Hu cavalry, who had been spread out along the sides of the road, suddenly swarmed out, advancing from the north and south to surround Su Yao and his men.

"Otherwise, I will start by executing you, the traitor to the Great Xiongnu!"

Huyanjun held his sword against Jin Fangyan's throat. In this life-or-death moment, what choice would Jin Fangyan make?

The answer was that Jin Fangyan didn't need to make a choice, because the moment the blade touched his throat, a sharp, piercing whistle tore through the air beside his ear.

Immediately after, the wolf-skin pointed helmet on Huyanjun's head went flying...

"What?!"

Huyanjun's pupils dilated in shock. He slowly turned his gaze. Under the sunlight, the man with the scarred face, whom he had just been mocking with a playful tone, was staring coldly back at him.

A second arrow was already on the string.

The air froze, as if asking a silent question: Do you dare to move?

He dared not move. He absolutely dared not move...

Even without thinking, Huyanjun knew this first arrow was a warning. Otherwise, why was the second arrow drawn and ready? No, more than that...

"He’s an Eagle-Shooting Archer too?!"

Those deserters have doomed me!

Even so, cautious as he was, Huyanjun had deliberately kept a distance of over a hundred and fifty paces and used Jin Fangyan as a shield. At this distance and position, even if the man were truly an Eagle-Shooting Archer, he shouldn't be able to hit his mark, right?

Luck? It must be luck, right?

Huyanjun tried to deceive himself with thoughts of good fortune, but he dared not gamble. His arm, holding the sword, went completely rigid; he didn't know what to do.

While Huyanjun fell into a vortex of confusion, Jin Fangyan, standing before him, was even more stunned. His eyes were locked on the feathered arrow that had buried itself in the tree trunk, still vibrating with a dull hum.

It wasn't that the brush with death had scared him senseless; rather, as an Eagle-Shooting Archer himself, he could see the power behind that shot better than Huyanjun could. How could a human being possibly fire a shot like that?

To hit the tip of a helmet with such precision from that distance, providing a lethal warning without harming the man—he knew for a fact he could never do it.

Power, accuracy, and mastery of the wind—if any one of these had been off, the arrow would have missed. Most importantly, the man had fired without any preparation or time to aim; he had released the shot almost the instant Huyanjun made his move...

No wonder those captives called him a monster.

He is truly inhuman.

"What are you dazed for? Plan B, move!"

Su Yao shouted, looking at the useless "Eagle-Shooting Archer" standing there in a daze, feeling a sense of frustration that his subordinate was so inept. The AI of this NPC was not up to par; it required manual command.

Hearing Su Yao’s shout, Jin Fangyan snapped out of his trance. Whispering an apology, he immediately snatched the sword from Huyanjun and turned the tables. Meanwhile, the Han soldiers disguised as Hu began shouting in the Hu language:

"Don't move! The chiliarch is in our hands!"

The Hu cavalry fell into an uproar. Most of them had been focused on their encirclement duties; hearing the sudden shout, they were all startled. They couldn't understand how they, who were supposed to catch these suspicious characters off guard, had suddenly become the ones caught off guard themselves.

However, the situation was not hopeless. They had already completed the encirclement, bows drawn and ready. They believed that with one command from an officer, one whistling arrow, this group of fewer than a hundred would be turned into hedgehogs.

The cavalrymen instinctively looked toward their officers. But the centurions, now the focus of everyone's attention, struggled to make a decision while Huyanjun was being held hostage...

Hostage—yes, this was Su Yao's Plan B. A mature player never prepares only one strategy, and Su Yao had naturally made contingencies for possible accidents. The moment he saw Jin Fangyan’s negotiation fail, Su Yao had intervened, securing a "Great Success" on his intimidation check with that thunderous shot.

"Will they actually obey?" Song Xian felt uncertain.

Having remounted in the chaos, they now followed closely behind Su Yao, surrounding Huyanjun tightly. Although their commander's shot had been a stunning display of skill, the crisis was far from over; they were still deep in enemy territory.

Could capturing a single chiliarch really solve the problem? What if someone on the other side decided to be ruthless, prioritizing the state and the tribe, or simply used this as an excuse for personal vendetta to sacrifice their superior?

"They have no choice but to obey. Don't you agree, Jin Fangyan?" Su Yao patted the loyal man on the shoulder, full of confidence.

Jin Fangyan shrugged helplessly. After using the Hu language to threaten Huyanjun into ordering his troops to clear a path, the centurions obediently followed orders and let them pass.

Who would have thought that capturing one chiliarch could control an entire chiliarch-level unit?

This was due to the difference between the Xiongnu military system and the Great Han's. Unlike the Han's conscription system, the Xiongnu utilized a tribal system where every citizen was a soldier. Whether it was a chiliarch or a centurion, they were organized by family and tribe, led by their own chieftains, with deep-seated ties of personal loyalty.

A chiliarch was not just a military commander; he was the leader of a tribe. Unless these centurions were prepared to openly rebel and settle the leadership of the tribe through force, they had to obey. If they abandoned their leader here, they would inevitably face brutal retaliation upon returning home.

Tribal armies were not public instruments of the state, but the private property of their chieftains.

This was also why, despite the status of an "Eagle-Shooting Archer"—no matter how skilled—they were only respected in matters of ritual. Without control over a tribe, an Eagle-Shooting Archer was not even qualified to lead a centurion unit in ordinary times.

A living Huyanjun was clearly far more useful than a dead chiliarch.