Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 398 392. Choice
The Han army returned to Jingzhou in a mighty force, and Meng Huo and his family were naturally arranged by the Han army, ready to be escorted back to Jingzhou.

Unlike the march of a large army, for captives like Meng Huo, the faster the better, so Feng Xi only sent a small team to escort three important figures, Meng Huo, Meng You and Madam Zhu Rong, back to Jingzhou first.

This team was small, with only ten people. Normally, ten well-trained Han soldiers escorting three prisoners with shackles and limited mobility was basically a sure thing.

Meng Huo and his two companions were taken by the Han army and traveled by boat through the territory of Zangke County. They then entered the territory of Wuling County directly from the Panggou River in the northeast of Zangke County, and then went upstream along the Yuanshui River, passing through Dongting Lake and returning to Jiangling, which was exactly the same route Feng Xi took when he came.

At nightfall, the two boats escorting Meng Huo and his two companions also anchored on the river. Most of the Han army soldiers were already snoring, except for two soldiers on Meng Huo's boat who seemed unable to sleep. They sat at the bow and chatted idly.

The two started talking about their previous lives, their experiences in joining the army, and then their dreams for the future, and naturally they talked about some obscene topics.

But as they chatted, the two finally got back to the real thing.

"Brother, the one imprisoned in this cabin is the King of South China. Do we need to be more careful?"

"It doesn't matter. His hands and feet are tied. What can he do? Even if the key is right next to him, he can't get it, right?"

The one with the mature voice sneered twice, seeming to be extremely disdainful of Meng Huo.

Inside the cabin, Meng Huo gritted his teeth when he heard the words of the two Han soldiers outside, and exerted slight force on his wrist, trying to move.

The cage where Meng Huo was imprisoned was like the ones commonly seen in TV dramas, with a large board on the top, and his head and hands were fixed on it, making it difficult to move at all.

However, it seemed that these Han troops were a little lax. Meng Huo keenly discovered that his shackles did not seem to be very strong, and he would feel loose when he moved his wrists.

Meng Huo did not tell anyone about this, not even Meng You, who was sleeping in the next room with simple shackles on.

While Meng Huo was trying to move his wrists to loosen the already loose shackles, he also pricked up his ears to eavesdrop on the noise outside to make sure no one noticed his actions.

The two Han soldiers outside seemed to have no interest in checking on Meng Huo's condition and continued to talk about the situation of the southern expedition.

Meng Huo listened to them bragging about how brave they were on the battlefield and gritted his teeth when the Nanzhong soldiers fled, because to Meng Huo this was undoubtedly a mockery of him.

Meng Huo's eyes kept glancing at the wooden wall behind him. Just as the old Han soldier had said, the Han army seemed to be too careless about Meng Huo's situation. When he went to bed at night, the key was hanging on the wall behind him, but no one paid any attention to it, as if they were sure that Meng Huo could not escape.

"Crunch... crunch..."

As Meng Huo exerted force, the shackles that bound him made a harsh sound of wood rubbing against each other, which startled Meng Huo. He quickly calmed down and observed the movements around him.

Naturally, there was still a lot of snoring on the boat, and no one noticed Meng Huo's behavior. Meng Huo was secretly delighted. During the day, a Han soldier came to check his yoke. It would have been better if he hadn't checked it. Instead, because of the collision, the yoke was much looser than a few days ago, which gave Meng Huo an opportunity. Now Meng Huo had made a huge gap in the yoke, and both of his hands were retracted from the yoke, so that only his head was exposed outside the cage, and his hands could also exert force normally.

The veins on Meng Huo's hands were bulging in the cage, and he used all his strength to pull his head back into the cage.

Meng Huo had been uncomfortable with being in the same position for the past few days. He moved his neck and wrists, and his joints made a few crisp sounds. Now that his limbs were free, this broken cage was nothing.

Meng Huo looked at the key hanging on the wall and tried to reach it, but found that it was still half a palm away. Meng Huo had no choice but to stretch his arm as far as he could, and even his joints felt sore because of this stretch, but in the end Meng Huo still gritted his teeth and took off the key that symbolized freedom.

As for those Han soldiers, Meng Huo didn't take them seriously. Whether he waited for them to fall asleep and then quietly escaped, or waited for an opportunity to kill them, it was all within Meng Huo's ability, and Meng Huo was hesitant.

Meng Huo was struggling to reach his hand from inside the cage to the yoke above, trying to open the yoke that locked the cage, when he suddenly heard the two Han soldiers outside talking about himself again, or to be more precise, his wife.

"Come to think of it, the woman on the next boat is really quite exotic. Oh, when will I ever have a woman like her?"

"Don't talk nonsense. She is the wife of the King of Nanzhong. The Grand Commander has issued a clear order to forbid disrespect to her. You know the Grand Commander's military discipline. If you want to lose your head, do it yourself. Don't implicate me."

Hearing that these two soldiers were actually eyeing his wife, Madam Zhurong, Meng Huo became so angry that his teeth were itching, and his hands moved even faster.

Meng Huo made up his mind that he would quietly kill all the Han soldiers, then sneak onto the next boat to rescue his wife, take his brother with him, and the three of them would hide in the mountains and remain anonymous for a while.

"Of course I know that. I was just sighing. By the way, that lady seems to have been asking our leader to be nicer to Meng Huo, saying that Meng Huo has repented and is now willing to come to Jingzhou to start a new life. She is willing to guarantee it with her life."

"Alas, those who are not of my race must have different hearts. I heard that Meng Huo is a guy who never admits defeat. How could he change his mind just because of a few words from his wife?"

The older soldier sighed, seemingly giving up hope.

Meng Huo in the cabin was silent. He thought of his wife and brother begging him to stop making trouble and surrender to the Han army and go to Jingzhou.

He could still hear the snoring of his younger brother Meng You who was sitting next door. It seemed that apart from the shackles on his hands that proved that he was a prisoner, his treatment was quite good. At least the Han army on the road would not treat him badly in terms of food.

Meng Huo hesitated. He was not sure whether he should open the shackles and escape. He was not even sure whether his wife would escape with him even if he went to the next ship.

Based on Meng Huo's understanding of Madam Zhu Rong, the probability that she would show disappointment was greater than the possibility that she would be willing to escape with him.

Meng Huo was silent for a moment, then pulled his hand back, looked at the key in his hand, and casually threw it to the ground.

(End of this chapter)