Dian Wei?

The current Dian Wei had not yet received Cao Cao’s evaluation of him as “the ancient evil,” nor had he completed the feat of killing someone in the street to become famous in Yanzhou and Yuzhou.

In the eyes of Liang Zhongning, who was in charge of a “region” at this time, Dian Wei was just a Chenliu man who didn’t know the height of the sky and the thickness of the earth.

At a time when the Yellow Turban Army was unstoppable, he actually served under the local powerful forces and dared to come and make trouble because he had some strength.

Such a person seeking death, wouldn’t he be the perfect target for him to take action against!

Moreover, the Tian family in Puyang had been rooted here for many years, and it was likely that they had a lot of grain and silver.

Although he had taken Puyang City, he had not yet attacked the Tian family’s stronghold outside the city, which was equivalent to a piece of fat that had not yet entered his mouth.

Before the report from his subordinates, there was a map of this area in front of Liang Zhongning.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, the powerful clans lived together, and the Tian family in Puyang was no exception.

Their stronghold was built ten miles outside Puyang City.

If it weren’t for the prohibition of knives and swords in the Han Dynasty and the lack of restrictions on bows and crossbows due to the discussions between Emperor Wu of Han and Gongsun Hong and Wuqiu Shou, which led to the powerful crossbows in the Tian family’s stronghold—Liang Zhongning had already surrounded the stronghold!

There was no need to hesitate now.

On one side was the approaching army of Bu Ji, with their prestige pressing down on him.

On the other side was the reckless man coming out of the stronghold to provoke him, who was very likely to be his breakthrough in capturing the Tian family.

On the front lines of the three routes of the Yellow Turban battlefield, which were set up in Guanzong, Yingchuan, and Nanyang, Liang Zhongning did not have the opportunity to directly face the imperial army in battle.

Since the beginning of the year, Liang Zhongning, who was quite confident in his abilities, had been anxious because he had no chance to achieve merit.

All these factors made Liang Zhongning deeply feel that if he did not seize this opportunity soon, when the Changshe Army continued to consolidate its victory after defeating Zhu Jun, he would truly have no place to show his talents!

“Fetch my spear!”

This was the decision Liang Zhongning made after thinking for a while upon hearing the name Dian Wei.

The next day, in order to prevent chaos in Puyang City, he left behind some of the Yellow Turban troops to guard the city, and led his five hundred trusted men and three hundred recruited Yellow Turban warriors out of the city.

Qiao Yan could only see from her locked position that this Yellow Turban leader did not seem to stay in place, but she could not know his latest movements.

However, she temporarily didn’t have the leisure to care about it.

Liang Zhongning was going to stir up trouble in Puyang City.

According to the system, although she was in a space that could be understood as a parallel world, she could still use historical records as evidence before she made enough butterfly effect impacts.

In this way, Liang Zhongning would not die at the hands of the famous Han general Fu Nanrong until August of this year.

At least for now, she didn’t have to worry about him losing his life and wasting her props.

Rather than worrying about that, she might as well worry about herself.

As she had previously guessed, there were many children around the age of ten like her in the Yellow Turban camp, so it wasn’t difficult for her to blend in.

With her face covered in dust and dirt, it was hard to tell if she was a boy or a girl, which made her look no different from the others.

Moreover…

There were more lone children here than she had expected.

This was because in the earlier battle to capture Juye, the refugees driven by the moth bandits had formed a front-line barrier, resulting in many casualties.

Although there were insiders assisting in Juye City, there was one thing that could not be changed—

For the Yellow Turban army, a non-regular army, combat was not an easy task.

Zhang Jiao had achieved something unprecedented in his religious preaching, deifying himself and rallying hundreds to his cause, but he had few disciples capable of marching and setting up formations.

Through the scattered hair in front of her, Qiao Yan looked at the team in front of her receiving food, and saw this even more bleak scene.

This made her, who appeared out of nowhere in the camp, not seem very conspicuous.

Scenes like these, where parents were deceased and children struggled to survive, were not unique to her route.

Qiao Yan couldn’t help but sigh countless times in her heart, but her feet didn’t stop.

Instead, she followed the team and received today’s ration.

With food shortages now, the Yellow Turban army naturally would not give these people good food.

The piece of cake that came into her hand had a more formal name called “qiu.”

It is made by cooking rice, adding water, pounding it into pieces, and then kneading it into a cake shape and drying it in the sun to make dry cake rations.

Although this method of production prevented the food from going bad, it was far less delicious than the future guoba, which was tasty because it was controlled in the production process, and even so dry that it was difficult to swallow.

Unfortunately, the only water available here was from the lakes in the great marshes.

Qiao Yan felt that she should really thank the system for giving her the novice protection period.

In the situation where there was no condition to boil water, the effect of “not affected by environmental diseases during the protection period” undoubtedly greatly increased her chances of survival.

System 068, this newcomer, perhaps had a slightly more conscience than Qiao Yan.

It watched with a sense of guilt as its chosen host filled her stomach with a piece of dry cake and raw water, without any complaints.

It then nestled in a corner, listening to the conversation of the other two boys who were not much younger than her.

The difficulty of swallowing the food made the faces of these two boys show some pain, but perhaps, the distortion of these expressions was more due to the undisguised feelings of resentment and bitterness.

The younger one choked back a sob, swallowed the last half of the dry cake, and said softly, “Brother, I miss our mother.”

The older one could only pat his shoulder, not knowing how to comfort him.

Then the younger one continued, “In the past, our mother made delicious dishes, much better than this dry cake. And on Dad’s birthday, she would make sweet wine and white cakes, but now… our mother and Dad are both gone.”

Now, only this pair of underage brothers were left to depend on each other.

But no matter how bitter it was, in the face of the threat of survival, they could only swallow the dry cake and raw water first.

Such scenes were not uncommon in the vast Yellow Turban Rebellion.

The voices of the two brothers gradually lowered.

Seeing a slight fluctuation in Qiao Yan’s eyes, the system suddenly stood up and hurriedly advised, “You must not try to persuade these two to join you at this time, especially when you don’t know their character…”

“Don’t worry.” Qiao Yan replied in a voice that only she and the system could hear, “If I were in a high position and had the capital to be moved by this scene, I might consider it, but now I can’t even guarantee my own safety. I won’t do such a foolish thing.”

Compassion at this time was a luxury.

Qiao Yan was a very rational person and knew her own weight.

She would never try to talk to them at this time.

“Then what will you do?” The system asked puzzled.

“I’m going to do something bad.”

Qiao Yan said she was going to do something bad, but to the system, there was no hint of burden on her face.

She first turned the ill-fitting clothes inside out, then tied them into a shorter style, gathered the messy hair behind her head, wiped another layer of mud and dust on her face, and after walking around the camp, took advantage of no one noticing her actions and stood back in line to receive food.

[…?]

The system stared blankly as Qiao Yan, without any burden, walked along the line to the person distributing the dry cakes and… took another piece of cake.

In ordinary disaster relief measures, it was common to prevent misappropriation by stamping the relief tickets or shaving eyebrows to receive rice.

However, in the complex Yellow Turban army, it was not easy to achieve such orderly management.

In such a situation, it was natural that some people would think of receiving two portions of food.

However, just now, the system saw a Yellow Turban soldier stab someone to death, claiming that the person had come twice and even said he had given relief porridge and rice to a rich merchant.

With a good ability to recognize faces, he made the team receiving the rice cakes have fewer people.

Now, seeing Qiao Yan make such a dangerous move, how could it not be worried!

No, it was wrong. It was a system; it had no heart or courage.

As if sensing the system’s thoughts, Qiao Yan walked to a secluded place and, as she stuffed the rice cake into her clothes, said, “Do you really think that person distributing the food can recognize people? He just randomly picked someone unlucky. In fact, with a little change of clothes, he wouldn’t be able to recognize anyone.”

The only unlucky one was the person selected to serve as an example.

Whether he had actually made the move to receive the food a second time was not so important anymore.

Because the dead cannot speak for themselves.

He would be chosen because he was alone.

Qiao Yan understood the twists and turns of this situation, but what was clearer to her was that she had no power to change the current situation.

The only thing she could do was to make her own life a little better, and then—

Continue with her plan.

She was still in Juye Marsh, but after half a day’s journey, they officially entered the territory of Dongjun.

After another half day, they arrived at the Hu Zi River.

Emperor Wu of Han had built the Xuanfang Palace in Puyang, which was located on the Hu Zi Dam.

From then on, the upper reaches of the river were separated by the river dam, with only ditches left.

This group of thousands of people could cross the river and pass through the ditches, making it much simpler than crossing a river.

Not far after crossing the river, the city walls of Yuncheng appeared ahead.

Among the three leaders of Yanzhou, Zhang Bo, who had come from Dongping Fan County, had already taken Yuncheng ahead of time and was meeting here with Bu Ji.

After the two sides met and continued westward, the combined force of over ten thousand people, along with Liang Zhongning who had already taken Puyang, made Linqiu and Juancheng county officials flee without a fight, allowing the Yellow Turban army to face two fewer battles.

This was good news for Qiao Yan, who was in the Yellow Turban army, but perhaps for those slightly more affluent in these two cities, this was definitely not a good thing.

Qiao Yan listened to the sounds of the Yellow Turbans entering the city, and there was a moment of tightness in her cheeks as she clenched her jaw to restrain her emotions.

The system had wanted to make a joke or two, but when she arrived here, if someone familiar with her had noticed,

they would have found that she had gained some weight in the past few days.

This was because she had tied an extra cake around her body at each meal.

Now, she simply remained silent.

“Zhang Jiao is a very capable person,” Qiao Yan said after sighing, “but unfortunately, he forgot one thing. With the current situation,

if the thirty-six teams fight separately, discipline will inevitably break down.

This is not the way to save the Han Dynasty from its imminent downfall.”

The setting sun reflected on a flag on the city wall of Juancheng, and she gazed at it for a long time.

Since the system couldn’t read her mind, it didn’t know what she was thinking.

All it could see was—

Its host once again touched the dagger in her arms, a sign of determination, and then left the group during the chaos of the Yellow Turbans’ looting.

This time was different from when she had tracked the Yellow Turbans before, enduring hunger and hardship.

She had a few pieces of hidden dry cakes with her, enough to last her for at least two days.

And in her sight, there was only a faint light coming from the marker that locked onto Liang Zhongning’s position.

---

Where was Liang Zhongning?

Under the night sky, this Yellow Turban leader was fleeing with his remaining troops.

Before leading his men to Tian’s Fort, he never thought he would face such a desperate situation.

The first time he heard the name Chenliu Dian Wei, it was far more than just his immense strength reported by his subordinates!

He was simply a freak of nature in combat!

The spear in Liang Zhongning’s hand had broken in half when he was struggling to escape, leaving only half of the spear shaft.

For a military commander, having your weapon break means that your head and neck are practically separated by just a step.

In the two days of stalemate before, with the assistance of the Tian clan’s hard crossbows, he had lost nearly half of his men even before breaking into the fort.

On the last day, he was confronted by a fearless strong man who grabbed his spear shaft and was about to bring him down.

Fortunately, one of his subordinates acted swiftly and decisively, cutting off the man’s spear shaft with a long knife and then confronting the “ferocious beast” for him.

If not for this, he would have died at Dian Wei’s hands long ago.

But his loyal subordinate died on the spot.

Liang Zhongning could only hold on to the idea of “as long as the green hills remain” and immediately turned his horse back towards Puyang.

But his feelings on the way back were completely different from when he had come.

When he came, he was full of hope to take Tian’s Fort, feeling as if it would be as easy as picking something from a pocket. But as he left, he was in a desperate state.

Even though it was still spring, there was a burning sense of shame on his face, and even the starlight and moonlight couldn’t change his extremely bad mood.

When he noticed a person standing in the way on the high mountain road ahead, this self-torturing bad mood reached its peak!

But before he could throw away the broken spear in his hand to teach the person blocking the way a lesson, he saw the face of the person clearly.

The moonlight falling between the trees on both sides of the mountain road happened to shine on the face of the person blocking the way.

What surprised Liang Zhongning greatly was that the figure was small, not because of any visual error in the night, but because it was indeed a child of no more than ten years old!

A child who should not be here!

Although dressed in ill-fitting clothes, the child’s demeanor and expression were quite different from those of a other child his age.

Showing a unique and mature demeanor beyond his years, which completely puzzled Liang Zhongning.

Just as he was about to stop his horse, facing the child who might provoke his anger at any moment, the child calmly smiled, bowed to him, and spoke loudly from the high ground:

“Lord Liang, I’ve been waiting for you.”