The short scene finished and the picture returned to the Ji family courtyard. Ji Zhao regained control of the character and immediately sent him running outside.
The situation out there was very bad indeed. Anchun County had never had many soldiers to begin with and had been relying entirely on the local fortifications to hold. Now that the gates stood wide open, its defenders had no will to resist whatsoever... so it would be no overstatement to say that Anchun County had already been taken by the Black Cavalry.
— Absurdly enough, since this was a night raid, since they were no regular army, and since the black cloth wound about their shoulders was not especially conspicuous, most of the Black Cavalry's dead and wounded that night came from failing to tell friend from foe and from infighting over the loot.
"If I survive, will anything bad come of it?" Ji Zhao asked, steering his character carefully around the Black Cavalry as they burned and killed and looted.
"No. Your surviving is nothing but good." The white-haired man paused. "Every scrap you learn is a scrap gained. There's no telling whether it will do any good, but if it does, that's profit... assuming you can survive."
Even without being told, Ji Zhao knew: at the very moment he should have been racing the clock, this man had been in a room clutching his own second sister's body and weeping his eyes out. Trying to run now was hell difficulty indeed.
【"Still, with my hands on the controls...?!"】
Ji Zhao was about to work wonders when the Ji Zhao inside took action of his own... Passing a house, he happened to hear the sounds of Black Cavalry bandits violating a woman within.
【Having just been through what happened to Ji Tan, Ji Zhao felt a particular fury at the violation of women. Hearing this now, a nameless fire rose in his chest. He gritted his teeth in silence, softened his steps, and slipped into the house.】
"..."
The Ji Zhao outside kept a blank face and turned as though to bolt from the room himself.
【Ji Zhao: "This is no time to run!"】
"I know. You're certainly thinking, 'This is exactly the time to run'... But your enemies are not only those Black Cavalry." The white-haired man spoke. "Heaven help you."
Ji Zhao clicked his tongue and moved the character forward in the dark. The house was small, and the smell of blood hung thick inside it; a short, stocky man already lay in a pool of it. In the dim room the voices of two men and a woman rose together, three blobs of mosaic mixed into one, and two weapons had been tossed carelessly under the bed... but reaching those weapons was out of the question.
Ji Zhao moved his character cautiously along the shadows, but the Ji Zhao inside was not used to this sort of thing, and his clothes let out an occasional rustle as they rubbed. With the wailing and the slaughter outside shaking the heavens, and this racket in here besides, there was no way those two would hear it.
【"That'll do."】
Ji Zhao had spotted a hoe propped against the wall and immediately steered the character over to pick it up — but the Ji Zhao inside, perhaps from sheer nerves, failed to get a proper grip and actually knocked the thing over.
The hoe hit the floor with a CLANG... However hard those two Black Cavalry bandits were thinking with their dicks, there was no chance they had missed that.
【Ji Zhao: "Crap!"】
The two bandits caught on, and the screen cut immediately into combat mode.
During the loading, a tip appeared below the progress bar that had not been there before.
(Tip: The Unique Trait "Peerless Under Heaven" allows its holder to trigger "Duel" and "Peerless" at the same time.)
Combat began. The art style had changed a great deal, but the action bar system was exactly as before. Ji Zhao swept his eyes over it, confirmed there was no running, and forced himself to pour the inner breath to full and swing.
On screen, Ji Zhao raised the hoe high and brought it down at one of the bandits in the most amateurish posture imaginable.
BANG!
A peculiar impact sound rang out, and a damage figure popped up over the bandit's head.
-46%!
Taking nearly half a man's life off in one blow from a posture that amateurish was a respectable result; had it landed on the head, it might well have put him out of the fight on the spot... But that swing spent everything Ji Zhao had left. The bandit who had taken it was no master of the martial arts, and he stumbled back howling under the pain — yet the other one came to his senses, shocked and furious, and while Ji Zhao's momentum was spent he drove a backhanded kick into his belly and took the hoe away with it.
-3.4%!
With no weapon and the strike thrown in haste, the blow did not carry much power — but the Ji Zhao outside knew the game was up. Disarmed in a situation like this... if his true self had been the one in there, he could have won.
Sure enough, the bandit with the weapon swung it backhanded at Ji Zhao, the back of the hoe slamming into his shoulder with a dull thud.
-21.5%!
The blow knocked Ji Zhao to the ground with a wail, and his charge bar dropped to zero, while the bandit seized the moment and swung the hoe down at him again.
Had that one landed, not even the immortals could have saved him. Fortunately Ji Zhao saved himself, forcing through the pain into an ugly roll that barely took him clear of the killing blow.
The hoe slammed into the ground, and the enormous shock of it left the bandit's wrist numb and aching, his charge bar stalling briefly. Ji Zhao shouted aloud: "The blade! Give me the blade!"
He was shouting at the woman on the bed. The weapons the two bandits had discarded were right under it, and with one of them still howling and the other's hand not yet recovered from the overexerted swing, getting hold of those two blades might have given him some chance of winning. But the woman seemed frightened by Ji Zhao instead. She flinched, and rather than fetching him a weapon she sobbed twice and shrank back onto the bed as though afraid.
...Even if she had abandoned Ji Zhao and fled on her own account, Ji Zhao would not have called her ungrateful. He would have praised her as brave and quick-witted — at least that way he could have run too.
With no other option, Ji Zhao could only send the character running for the weapons, but the moment had long since passed. The bandit who had taken the heavy blow at the start forced down the pain and got a hand on the sabre, which stopped Ji Zhao from advancing another step, while the one behind pressed in with the hoe. In an instant Ji Zhao was in a dead position.
Just as the two of them closed in front and behind, on the point of beating Ji Zhao to death, a fierce whistle of air split the room. The roof was punched through and a figure came tumbling down — and in that one startling glimpse it was unmistakably Ji Zhao's sister, Ji Bei. Her eyes swept the room, her hands moved at once, and with inner breath surging she struck both bandits down in a heartbeat.
【Ji Zhao, shocked and overjoyed: "Eldest Sister?"】
【Ji Bei, brief and to the point: "I heard your voice. Where is your second sister? She didn't leave with you?"】
【Ji Zhao: "Second Sister is dead... she took her own life. She said she would not be dishonored."】
【Ji Bei: "..."】
【Ji Bei: "Is that so. I understand. Uncle Wang is dead as well. Walking out of here tonight is truly no easy thing... If I take you with me, I fear it will be harder still."】