DLERB -Chapter 97 I Tried to Convert Them With Benevolence—They Responded With Curved Blades?

Northern border, Shangjun.

Thick black smoke stretched across the sky like tentacles reaching out from hell itself.

The city walls were covered in dark red bloodstains.

Fusu, dressed in a white Confucian robe, stood behind the battlements.

That robe, against the backdrop of blood and fire, looked almost laughably out of place.

“Stop!”

His voice was hoarse from shouting.

“Friends of the Xiongnu below! Listen to me!”

He called down toward the dense, surging mass of cavalry beneath the walls.

“War only brings death and hatred!”

“My Great Qin is willing to open border markets with you—exchange silk and tea for your cattle and sheep!”

“We can be friends! Why must we fight?!”

Beside him, a battle-hardened deputy general looked frantic.

“Your Highness! Stop shouting!”

“These beasts don’t understand human language! They only recognize blades!”

Fusu ignored him.

He still stubbornly believed that the teachings of sages could move all hearts.

“Put down your weapons! We can talk!”

Below the city—

A Xiongnu centurion wiped the blood from his face.

He couldn’t understand what the man in white was shouting.

He only found him noisy.

He raised his bow.

“Loose arrows!”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A black rain of arrows poured into the sky like locusts.

“Your Highness, watch out!”

The deputy general roared.

Without hesitation, he threw himself in front of Fusu.

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Dozens of wolf-tooth arrows pierced straight through his armor.

Turning him instantly into a bloodied figure.

“Ugh…”

He looked down at the arrows embedded in his chest.

He opened his mouth as if to speak.

But only a mouthful of scorching blood came out.

It splattered across Fusu’s face and body.

Fusu froze.

He reached out, trying to catch the collapsing body of his deputy.

But he only grasped a piece of cold armor.

Thud.

The deputy general’s body fell heavily at his feet.

It was covered in arrows like a porcupine.

“Why…?”

Fusu murmured blankly.

His mind went completely empty.

At that moment—

BOOM!!!

A deafening crash.

A section of the city wall nearby was smashed open by a massive siege ram.

“Kill!!”

More than a dozen Xiongnu cavalry roared like beasts and charged through the breach.

They swung curved blades, slaughtering anyone in sight.

A laborer carrying a boulder couldn’t dodge in time—his head flew into the air.

A woman holding her child screamed in despair.

The next second—

The sound was cut off.

Blood dyed the streets red.

Fusu saw it all.

He saw everything.

Suddenly, he turned and grabbed a trembling Confucian scholar by the collar, his eyes blood-red.

“Teacher!”

He roared.

“Tell me!!”

“Is this what you meant by ‘If distant people do not submit, then cultivate virtue to attract them’?!”

“Why don’t they submit?!”

“WHY?!”

The Confucian scholar who usually lectured with confidence and grand theories now had a face as pale as paper.

A foul smell spread from his trousers.

He was shaking so violently his teeth clattered.

“Th-this… this is… barbarians… they… they do not understand ritual…”

“Understand ritual?!”

Fusu shoved him away violently.

He looked at the burning city.

At the slaughtered civilians.

At his comrades lying in pools of blood.

Twenty years of Confucian teachings—

Burned into ashes in a single moment.

“Haha… hahaha…”

A Xiongnu centurion laughed wildly as he stepped over corpses and climbed the city wall.

He saw Fusu.

Saw the white robe that didn’t belong on a battlefield.

Saw the confusion and pain on his face.

The centurion grinned savagely.

He loved killing these delicate Qin nobles the most.

He raised his curved blade, carrying a stench of blood and wind, and swung it down toward Fusu’s neck.

“Your Highness!!”

A personal guard rushed in from the side and violently knocked Fusu away.

Splat!

Blade light flashed.

Half of the guard’s shoulder was cleanly severed.

Fusu fell awkwardly to the ground.

His Confucian cap rolled aside.

A horse hoof stepped on it, crushing it into pieces amid blood and mud.

His long black hair scattered, stained with blood and dirt.

He lifted his head.

He saw the Xiongnu centurion spit on the ground and raise his killing blade once again.

Fusu’s hand touched something cold.

A sword.

It was the deputy general’s sword.

The blade was still stained with the deputy’s scorching blood.

He had never truly used a sword before.

He had studied the Six Arts of a gentleman—governance, virtue, and peace.

Killing was the work of brutes.

But now—

Fusu gripped the hilt tightly.

He looked at that grinning, savage face.

The confusion in his eyes faded.

What remained was blood-red resolve.

With all his strength, he let out the most un-Fusu-like roar of his life.

That voice did not belong to the gentle scholar.

It belonged to a Qin man!

“Kill!!”

He did not retreat.

Instead, he charged forward with the sword toward the curved blade.

Splat!

The long sword—clumsy, yet unwavering—pierced the Xiongnu centurion’s chest.

The centurion’s savage grin froze on his face.

He looked down at the sword in disbelief.

He could not believe it.

This Qin noble who looked as harmless as a sheep… had dared to resist.

Fusu pulled the sword out.

Warm blood sprayed across his body.

He did not look at the collapsing corpse again.

He turned instead toward the Qin soldiers who were already beginning to break formation.

He raised the bloodied sword.

“Hold the line!!”

He roared.

“For Great Qin!!”

“For our families behind us!!”

“Hold the line!!”

He threw the sword aside and lifted a massive boulder, staggering toward the wall.

With all his strength—

He smashed it down.

BOOM!

A scream echoed from below.

The Qin soldiers all stared in shock.

The next moment—

Someone shouted.

“Hold the line!!”

“Kill these bastards!!”

Morale reignited.

The battle on the walls erupted once more.

But human strength has its limits.

Below the city—

At the rear of the Xiongnu army.

A massive wolf-head war banner slowly advanced.

Touman Chanyu had personally come to the front line.

He looked at the crumbling city with an impatient expression.

He drew his golden blade and pointed forward.

A deep horn sounded across the battlefield.

MASSIVE ASSAULT—BEGIN!

Tens of thousands of Xiongnu cavalry surged forward like a black tide of death.

The walls groaned.

The earth wailed.

Fusu leaned against the battlements, gasping for breath.

His body was now drenched in blood—no longer distinguishable as his own or the enemy’s.

He looked at the unstoppable flood rushing toward him.

It was over.

Everything was over.

He closed his eyes, preparing for death.

Then—

Thud… thud thud… thud thud thud…

A strange sound came from behind the Xiongnu army.

It was extremely orderly.

Like countless giant war drums beating in unison.

Or muffled thunder rolling beneath the horizon.

The ground began to tremble with a strange rhythm.

The battle on the walls paused for a split second.

Both Qin soldiers and Xiongnu warriors alike.

Everyone instinctively turned toward the direction of the sound—

Toward the empty edge of the horizon.