Chapter 3

In the midst of cherry blossoms dancing in the wind, Misaki opened the old diary and read the words of promise written there.

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The dual-eyed rifle once again demonstrated its power, as two rapidly charging Hun knights were riddled with bullets. Taking advantage of the momentary shock of the others, he quickly ran behind the hay pile to reload, while the old man fended off a Hun knight. Two other Hun knights spurred their horses and charged at Yun Xiao again, showing no fear of the gun in Yun Xiao's hand.

The dual-eyed rifle did not disappoint Yun Xiao; there was no jamming or misfire. After two gunshots, the Hun knight fell off his horse.

The last Hun knight, clearly the leader, was already wounded in several places, with blood staining his chest and back. But the old man still held his guillotine knife and fought to the death without retreating.

Loading the last bullet into the dual-eyed rifle, he ended the duel.

The old man, leaning on his guillotine knife, sat on the ground, panting heavily, his breath sounding like a bellows. The wounds on his back and shoulder were shocking, with the flesh torn and flipped outward. However, the old man seemed very excited. After a brief rest, he picked up the saber, swiftly beheaded the leading knight, and held the head to admire it, his face full of joy.

"Damn, that's too intense. The guy is dead, and you're going to desecrate the body?"

Yun Xiao, watching the old man who was excited like a child who found a candy, involuntarily took a few steps back.

"Don't be afraid, boy. With this head, I can be ennobled. Do you know who he is? He is the Left Great Commandant of the Xiongnu Chanyu." Saying this, he searched the body and soon found a gold plaque, two inches wide and three inches long. The old man weighed the gold plaque in his hand.

"This is the gold plaque of the Left Great Commandant. With these two items, we can live a life of ease. Hahaha," he laughed wildly, which caused his wounds to reopen, and fresh blood flowed out again.

The old man wiped the blood and started searching the ground. He hesitated to pick up the plastic bag that the Hun man had discarded, seemingly very curious about the transparent bag. He examined it repeatedly, tried to put the head and the gold plaque into the plastic bag, and after shaking it a few times, he felt it was sturdy enough to put his mind at ease.

He refused Yun Xiao's offer to bandage his wounds, tucked the head under his arm, and began to harness the horses.

"Boy, the women and children of this family have gone to the sacrificial ceremony. We need to leave quickly. If they all come back, we will die a terrible death."

Yun Xiao hurriedly gathered the scattered items. Fortunately, practical items like the entrenching tool were not lost. As for the compressed biscuits that were ruined, he had to discard them. The dual-eyed rifle also needed to be discarded; without bullets, it was just a useless piece of metal. Yun Xiao did not think he could make bullets in the distant Han Dynasty.

After putting on his backpack, he looked at the sleeping little white cat in his arms. It seemed that the nocturnal habits of felines had not changed.

The old man had successfully harnessed four tall horses, the most robust stallions in the herd, a rare breed on the grasslands. If sold in Chang'an, each horse could fetch the price of a BMW, and it would have to be an X6; anything less than a 750 would be out of the question.

Just as Yun Xiao was about to mount the horse, he suddenly realized there were no stirrups. The horse's back was higher than Yun Xiao, making it difficult for him to mount.

The old man noticed Yun Xiao's difficulty and, with one arm, lifted him onto the horse.

"Boy, hold the reins tightly; falling off is no joke." The old man then leaped onto his horse with a graceful and agile motion, showing his excellent riding skills.

Yun Xiao almost cried. In his previous life, he had only ridden a few times for fun. Now, the old man was clearly treating him like a professional, and with his riding style, falling off was the norm, and not falling off was a stroke of luck.

"Uncle, I don't know how to ride a horse."

"Ah, we Han people suffer because we don't know how to ride horses."

The old man, somewhat helplessly, took out a rope and tied Yun Xiao securely to the saddle. "Boy, there's no time. Whether you live or die is up to your fate." He then whipped Yun Xiao's horse, and the stallion galloped off.

The scenery around them quickly receded, and Yun Xiao felt his buttocks and thighs were no longer his own. Little White also felt uncomfortable, poking its head out of Yun Xiao's arms, only to be frightened by the rapidly receding scenery and quickly retracting its head.

They rode without stopping for a whole day, and Yun Xiao felt like he was about to die. This was not a human's suffering; his thighs were already a bloody mess. He would probably be the first person to die from riding a horse if he continued. If not for being tied to the saddle, Yun Xiao would have given up long ago.

However, the one who could not hold on the longest was not him but the old man. The intense movement caused his shoulder and back wounds to bleed continuously. The instinct for survival drove him to run desperately. But humans are not made of iron, and the old man fell off his horse with a thud. Yun Xiao's galloping horse trampled him hard on the chest, and Yun Xiao clearly heard the sound of his ribs breaking.

Without a rider, the horse soon stopped, clearly exhausted, with white foam coming from its nose and mouth.

Yun Xiao's horse also stopped, and he struggled to free himself from the loosened ropes. He went to check the old man's injuries.

His ribs, broken by the horse's hooves, likely pierced his lungs. The old man was spitting out large amounts of blood with each breath. Such severe injuries would have been difficult to save even in the future.

The old man's hand trembled as he pulled the plastic bag from his waist and handed the head to Yun Xiao. His mouth opened and closed, but only a gurgling sound came out. He wanted to say something, but Yun Xiao could not understand a word. He weakly pointed to his chest, and Yun Xiao tore open his robe. A wooden plaque, one inch long and half an inch wide, hung around his neck. The writing on the plaque was so blurred that it was unreadable, having endured much hardship.

The old man's eyes flashed with a strange light. He suddenly sat up, facing east, and shouted "Han" before collapsing.

This roar was not shouted but spewed from his chest, a cry from the heart of an old Han slave.

He once had a family, perhaps a beautiful wife and lovely children. The nomadic tribes of the grasslands mercilessly plundered his homeland. These nomadic tribes had no progress or development, only robbery, slaughter, and destruction.

Yun Xiao did not understand the great historical significance, but he knew that history books wrote that wherever the Xiongnu cavalry went, there was no advanced productivity, no national production index, no economic trade, only corpses, ruined houses, and fields turned into wastelands, with civilians becoming slaves.

The Xiongnu were never good neighbors, and such neighbors should be forcibly removed. Decades later, when the iron cavalry of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing trampled this grassland, that was the triumph of justice. Evil should not be punished by heaven but by people, and the hatred formed by bloodshed can only be resolved by more bloodshed.

Yun Xiao's heart was filled with savagery, for no other reason than the old man, whose name he did not know, a free Han man turned into a slave to be beaten and driven by the Xiongnu. He did not know how many more such people there were, but he knew that as a Han man, he had the responsibility to end this history.

The innocent souls under the saber and the arrogant ones on the saddle were no different. All lives are equal, and no one has the right to take them without cause.

No one can casually bully the people of Han, and no one can plunder and kill on Han soil. No matter how powerful our enemies are, the Han bloodline will always inspire us to take up our swords and fight for our dignity and honor.

We must make these grassland barbarians understand the bravery of Han men, and with their mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, we will forge the glory of the Han nation.