The horse bandits moved far too quickly.
The panicked villagers barely had time to react before they were upon them.
Several households near the village entrance had already been raided. Horrified screams rang out from their courtyards.
“Ah! Help me!”
“Don’t kill me!”
“Waaah! Let go of my daughter! She’s only ten!”
By the time Su Yunhai had gathered more than a dozen men, the horse bandits had already rampaged through four or five households.
Seeing the villagers charging at them with sickles, hoes, and wooden clubs, the horse bandits sat on their horses and laughed arrogantly.
“Hahaha! You bunch of useless peasants actually think you can fight us?”
“If you know what’s good for you, drop your weapons and hand over your grain, water, and women. Maybe we’ll consider letting you live!”
Su Yunhai had been a soldier in his previous life. Seeing this scene, his blood boiled.
He drew an arrow, nocked it, and fired without hesitation at the man who had spoken.
*Thwack!*
The arrow pierced straight through the man’s chest. But it didn’t stop there—it continued forward and struck the man behind him in the chest as well.
The horse bandit behind him had never imagined that this villager could possess such incredible strength. The arrow had gone straight through one man before embedding itself in another.
The bandits, who had been looking down on the villagers without a care in the world, immediately changed expressions.
They no longer dared to let their guard down.
“Kill them! Kill the one with the bow first and avenge our brother!”
In an instant, the horse bandits spurred their horses and charged toward the villagers.
Fortunately, in the few seconds it took for this to happen, the old village chief had already organized another group of villagers to come to their aid.
Seeing that they now outnumbered the enemy, the villagers’ fear diminished somewhat, and they charged forward to fight the horse bandits with everything they had.
If they didn’t fight now, the horse bandits would eventually go from house to house and turn their blades on every one of them.
They would die sooner or later.
They might as well fight for their lives now!
The entire Su family had already hidden themselves away.
Only Su Ping’an, who frequently practiced martial arts, had mustered his courage and joined the battle.
Shen Shuli wasn’t idle either.
She leaped onto the wall and climbed onto the roof of the eastern wing. There, she set up a sniper rifle and aimed toward the horse bandits.
By now, the two sides were completely tangled together.
The horse bandits had a huge advantage on horseback. It took three or four villagers working together just to barely hold off one bandit.
Unable to reach the bandits themselves, the villagers stabbed at the horses beneath them instead.
Su Yunhai had managed to shoot three bandits before they realized what was happening. But then four horse bandits surrounded him, leaving him no chance to continue using his bow.
He drew the sharp Tang sword he carried at his side and engaged the four bandits in close combat.
His movements were agile and nimble, completely unlike what anyone would expect from a two-hundred-jin man.
Seeing her father gradually fall into a disadvantageous position, Shen Shuli waited for the right moment and immediately fired.
Su Yunhai watched as the head of one of the bandits in front of him exploded.
He immediately turned toward the direction of the shot.
In the distance, he could vaguely make out a figure standing on the roof of his own house.
He didn’t need to guess.
His daughter was secretly helping him.
Su Yunhai’s fighting spirit surged instantly. He stopped defending and launched himself into an all-out attack.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
In a short span of time, Shen Shuli had shot and killed seven or eight horse bandits.
Not only had she rescued Su Yunhai from danger, she had also saved several villagers who had nearly died beneath the bandits’ blades.
Two quarters of an hour later, all thirty horse bandits had been killed.
At Su Yunhai’s insistence, two of them were left alive.
Peach Blossom Village had narrowly won the battle.
But eight villagers had died, five were seriously wounded, and nearly every other villager who had fought had suffered some kind of knife wound.
The old village chief was already nearly sixty and hadn’t participated in the battle, but he had hidden nearby behind a wall, watching the fight anxiously the entire time.
He had never imagined that the villagers would actually manage to kill every single horse bandit.
When he saw that the danger had finally passed, his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground. He clutched his pounding heart and gasped for breath.
“We won. We actually won…”
Su Yunhai wiped the blood from his face.
Seeing the villagers collapsed all over the ground, the survivors’ faces filled with relief at having escaped death.
As the person with the most authority at the scene, he had no choice but to take charge and assign tasks to everyone who was still able to move.
He had people notify the entire village and call everyone out to help.
The dead needed to be buried, and Doctor Zhang from the village needed to be summoned to treat the wounded.
They also needed people to dispose of the horse bandits’ bodies.
Every one of the horse bandits had owned a horse.
More than half of the horses had been killed during the battle, but twelve remained unharmed.
Those horses were the greatest spoils of the day.
Su Yunhai was currently searching the dead bandits one by one.
The haul was substantial.
The loose silver, copper coins, and banknotes they found added up to more than a thousand taels of silver.
Who knew which village these bandits had robbed most recently?
The old village chief had also regained his composure and hurried over to help organize everyone.
When he saw the large pile of silver and banknotes Su Yunhai handed him, he immediately waved his hands and refused.
“Dahai, you deserve the most credit for helping the village resist the horse bandits today. Keep this silver for yourself.”
Su Yunhai shook his head and refused, stuffing the silver into the village chief’s arms.
There was simply too much of it. The village chief hadn’t been prepared, and more than half of the silver spilled onto the ground.
“Chief, a lot of people in the village contributed today, and several even died beneath the bandits’ blades. You’ll have to take the trouble of figuring out how to divide the silver, horses, and other spoils among everyone who contributed.”
Su Yunhai had no intention of taking on that headache.
He couldn’t be bothered dealing with all the petty disputes that would inevitably arise if someone thought the distribution was unfair.
The old village chief felt that Su Yunhai had a point.
He would have to think carefully about the fairest way to distribute everything.
Villagers gradually emerged from their homes to help.
Before long, they had carried all the horse bandits’ bodies to the back of the mountain.
The cries of the families who had watched their husbands and sons die in battle echoed throughout the village.
The entire village seemed shrouded in dark clouds. Everyone worked in silence.
Su Yunhai had deliberately kept two horse bandits alive. He dragged one in each hand to a secluded place, intending to interrogate them.
Today’s incident was far too strange.
According to the information his daughter had given them, nothing like this should have happened today.
Shen Shuli and Shen Yuehua found Su Yunhai among the crowd and hurried over to check on him.
When they saw the long bloody gash across Old Su’s back, their eyes immediately reddened.
“Old Su, is your injury serious? Why haven’t you gone to get it treated? What are you still doing here? Those bandits’ blades were filthy. What if the wound gets infected?”
Tears streamed down Shen Yuehua’s face as she grabbed Su Yunhai and tried to drag him toward the doctor.
“Ahem, don’t worry. It’s only a superficial wound. I’ll go after I deal with these two men.”
Su Yunhai hurriedly explained to his wife and daughter.
“Mom, don’t panic. Let Dad drink some spiritual spring water first.”
Under the cover provided by the two of them, Shen Shuli took out a liter of spiritual spring water and watched as her father drank every last drop.
Su Yunhai felt warmth spread through his heart at his daughter’s concern.
Wasn’t she much more thoughtful than those other good-for-nothing sons of his?
“Hehe, my daughter really is the sweetest. Then your old man won’t stand on ceremony.”
With that, Su Yunhai tipped his head back and drank the entire liter without hesitation.
It was quite a lot, and he couldn’t help letting out a satisfied belch afterward.
“Dad, the effect might be a little too obvious. Remember to hide it,” Shen Shuli reminded him.
“Don’t worry. I have experience.”
At that moment, his second son, Su Ping’an, came over with his lips pursed.
The nearly six-foot-three Su Ping’an bent down and craned his head toward the three of them, asking in his deep voice,
“Dad, Mom, what are you whispering about over here?”
Only then did the three of them notice the two wounds on Su Ping’an’s body.
They immediately realized that he had taken part in the battle as well.