After a spring rain, the mountain’s vegetation grew even more lush.

In recent days, the soldiers often went hunting all around and were already very familiar with the nearby forests. They dug pits and made some traps for catching beasts, but perhaps because they had been hunting in the same area for several days in a row, when they went to several of the pre-set traps, there was little to be gained.

Along the way, Fan Changyu did not even see a single rabbit.

The young officer leading the group said, “If we want to hunt something worthwhile, I’m afraid we’ll have to split up and go deeper into the forest.”

After pondering for a moment, he divided the hundred or so men who came with them into small teams of ten each. A few were left behind in the forests where they had hunted before to continue searching for game, while the rest followed him toward the deeper mountains.

Fan Changyu and the two personal soldiers secretly sent by Gongsun Yin were assigned to one group, hunting along the outer perimeter. It was obvious they had received orders—afraid Fan Changyu might encounter danger if she went deeper into the woods.

Fan Changyu actually proposed to switch places with some of the soldiers heading into the old forest, but with one word of military command from the young officer, she knew that here in the army, she was still in the guise of a small soldier from Jizhou, and thus it would not be proper to insist further.

The group circled through the woods for a while and only hunted a few pheasants. They even dug up a nest and collected quite a number of pheasant eggs; one soldier took off his clothes to carry them.

Fan Changyu had experience hunting in the mountains with her father before. Along the way her eyes remained alert, scanning the surroundings. The soil in the mountains after rain was soft and damp, easily leaving traces.

She noticed at the junction of the shrubs leading deeper into the forest some signs of a large animal clawing and pawing at the pine needles as it climbed the slope. She said to the squad, “These look like wild boar tracks. If we follow them, we might find a boar’s nest.”

One of the personal soldiers looked toward the dense forest ahead and hesitated. “But Miss Fan, Officer Yang ordered us to hunt and stand by along the outer edge…”

Fan Changyu thought for a moment and said, “How about this—you all wait outside, I’ll go in alone and take a look. I’m not one of your army men, so Officer Yang’s command naturally doesn’t apply to me. This way, it wouldn’t count as disobeying orders.”

The two personal soldiers groaned inwardly. They knew Officer Yang had told them not to go into the deep woods precisely because he feared something might happen to Fan Changyu. If they let her go in alone, that would truly be asking for death.

One of them said, “Then please wait here, Miss Fan. We’ll find a few brothers to go in and look for the boar’s nest ourselves.”

The scouts in the army were as sharp as hair strands—they would not miss the trail once they followed it.

Their constant attempts to stop her made Fan Changyu feel like she was just a burden tagging along. Looking at the personal soldier, she said, “I’ve gone hunting with my father many times. I have experience. You don’t need to be so cautious just because I’m a woman. If I were the sort to cause trouble, I wouldn’t have come with you in the first place.”

In truth, Fan Changyu was already feeling a bit of regret—these men were far too fussy. Had she known, she would have acted on her own.

The two personal soldiers had no way to refute her. Along the way, they had already noticed that Fan Changyu was not a delicate woman. After walking such a long distance, she did not even pant once—it was clear she was a trained fighter. After a moment’s hesitation, they followed her into the dense forest.

The ancient trees reached high into the sky, and since it was early morning, the forest carried a light mist from the rain. The two personal soldiers kept calling out for those behind them to stay close.

Fan Changyu followed the tracks for a while, marking trees along the path with her butcher’s knife as she went.

When she noticed claw marks on a pine tree, she suddenly stopped, crouched down to examine them, and frowned. “These don’t seem to be from a wild boar…”

Before she finished speaking, a thunderous roar split the air ahead.

A large, sturdy black bear stood not far away, a bloodied half of some unknown bird’s wing dangling from its mouth as it stared at them. Its eyes were feral and reeked of blood, clearly guarding its food.

The personal soldiers and common soldiers all felt their hearts tighten. One of the personal soldiers grabbed Fan Changyu’s sleeve and pulled her back. “Miss Fan, go quickly—it’s a black bear!”

Fan Changyu had experience trapping wild boars and oxen with her father, but she had never hunted a black bear before.

The soldiers were panicking, but she only frowned slightly, calculating whether or not to hunt it. Killing such a bear would take considerable effort. She had never eaten bear meat and didn’t know whether it was edible in its entirety—if only the paws were worth taking, that would be far too wasteful.

As they were being pulled backward, she hesitated for a moment, then turned to the two personal soldiers and said, “Why don’t we just kill it? It’s not easy to find prey like this.”

The personal soldiers and common soldiers all stared at Fan Changyu in disbelief. For a moment, they couldn’t tell whether she was frightened senseless or simply fearless out of ignorance.

Among all ferocious beasts, bears and tigers were the hardest to hunt. They were only ten people, armed merely with swords and ordinary bows—no crossbows or long spears. How could they even talk about hunting a bear?

Their movement backward must have provoked the beast. The black bear suddenly flung aside the crane it had been holding in its mouth and charged straight at them.

Everyone was startled and scattered in all directions, making it difficult for the bear to give chase.

The more agile ones leapt up trees like monkeys, but the bear rammed the trunk with its massive body, knocking down a tree as thick as a bowl. The soldier clinging to it screamed as he fell.

To keep that soldier from dying under the bear’s paw, Fan Changyu, knowing how nimble a bear’s limbs were, decided a pig-binding rope would be difficult to use—but she still tore the long rope from her waist and flung it toward the bear’s neck.

She planted one foot against a towering old tree, looped the rope once around each palm, and with all the strength in her body, yanked backward.

The bear’s neck was caught; before it could bring down its paw, the enormous force from the rope jerked its massive body backward. It crashed heavily to the ground with a loud thud.

The panicked soldiers were all stunned. None of them had expected Fan Changyu to possess such strength. When they regained their senses, they rushed forward to help pull the rope.

The two personal soldiers, more experienced in combat, quickly lunged forward and stabbed at the bear with their weapons.

The black bear rolled and flailed its great paws, forcing the soldiers to stay back. They managed only to stab its back twice, drawing blood—but the bear’s hide was thick and its flesh tough; such wounds did nothing to its life. Instead, they drove it into a frenzy. With a swipe of its claws, the bear tore the rope apart.

Fan Changyu and the soldiers who had been straining on the rope all stumbled and fell.

Without the choking restraint of the rope, the bear turned its rage on the two personal soldiers. They clearly could not face it head-on, relying only on agility to barely dodge its claws, yet they still shouted toward Fan Changyu, “Take Miss Fan and go!”

But how could Fan Changyu abandon them and flee? She seized the heavy bone-cleaving knife and hurled it at the bear. It sank into its back, but not deeply enough to kill.

The act, however, drew the bear’s full attention. It roared furiously and turned, charging straight toward her.

Fan Changyu shouted for the soldiers to scatter, then led the bear herself, retreating toward the bamboo grove. Along the way, she slashed at its chest with her butcher’s knife, but the cut was not deep.

The bear, enraged by pain, crashed through the undergrowth, smashing bushes and bamboo alike. When Fan Changyu reached the edge of the grove, she raised her knife, chopped down a thick stalk of bamboo, and with a few swift cuts, shaped one end into a sharp spearpoint. Instead of retreating, she advanced—gripping the bamboo spear and charging straight at the bear.

The bamboo spear, with its superior length and her running momentum, pierced the bear’s heart through the wound she had made earlier. The bear let out a guttural, agonized roar, its claw snapping the bamboo shaft in half.

Fan Changyu stepped onto a nearby bamboo stalk and used it to vault upward, driving her butcher’s knife once more into the gaping wound in the bear’s chest. The stench of blood splattered across her body—her face was flecked with it too.

She did not even blink, fierce as though she were a leopard locked in a life-and-death struggle with the bear.

When the black bear crashed heavily to the ground, Fan Changyu merely shook the blood from her butcher’s knife and muttered almost to herself, “Hunting a bear really does take more effort.”

Years ago, her father had also hunted a bear or two to supplement their household’s income, but back then she had not realized how dangerous the act truly was.

Only now did the personal soldiers and common soldiers rush over. They looked at the fallen black bear and at Fan Changyu—her clothes spattered with blood—and swallowed hard in unison. Their shock was tinged with disbelief; it all felt like a dream.

That gentle, well-behaved girl before them had single-handedly hunted down a bear?

If this were told in camp, no one would believe it. What kind of prodigy—or monster—was she?

The two personal soldiers who had previously followed Xie Zheng to Qingping County had once seen Fan Changyu toss a man single-handedly off a boat. Their expressions now were still somewhat restrained, yet when their eyes met, the same thought flickered in both: If this girl ever fought our marquis one day, who could say who would win?

Fan Changyu wiped the blood from her face with her sleeve; the killing aura faded from her eyes, and once again she looked harmless and mild. She asked them, “Should we just cut off the bear paws to take back, or bring the whole bear?”

The common soldiers had no opinion, and one of the personal soldiers said, “The provisions on the mountain are already scarce. We’d best bring the whole thing back.”

All agreed. Soon, they chopped bamboo and vines to make a simple drag cart, laid the dead bear upon it, and took turns pulling it back. Fan Changyu was not made to exert herself further.

Dragging the heavy load naturally slowed their pace. On the way, they met the young officer returning with a wild boar he had hunted. When he heard that Fan Changyu had killed a black bear, his jaw nearly hit the ground.

The group walked back with a mix of joy and disbelief. But just as they emerged from the woods, the horn of distress echoed from the foot of the mountain.

The young officer said, “This is bad! The rebels are attacking the mountain!”

He quickly ordered a dozen men to continue hauling the prey back to camp, while the rest followed him to reinforce the main path up the mountain.

As expected, Fan Changyu was assigned to remain with those transporting the spoils. She hadn’t planned to go down anyway—but her nose caught a familiar scent of roasting meat.

She asked the personal soldiers and the others, “Do you smell something delicious?”

The soldiers, who hadn’t had a proper full meal in ages, all swallowed audibly. After so many days of thin porridge and vegetables on the mountain, the very thought of salt made their mouths water—let alone such a rich aroma of meat.

One personal soldier questioned a runner hurrying uphill with a report and came back saying, “The rebels are roasting meat below while assaulting the mountain—trying to tempt our men into surrendering and disturb our morale.”

Fan Changyu thought the tactic was vile. She wondered whether Old Tao and the reinforcements from Yan and Ji Prefectures at the foot of the mountain could come up with a countermeasure.

Seeing the worry on her face, a personal soldier said, “The lads of Yanzhou have backbone. Even if we’re left with only bark and grass roots, none would surrender to such petty tricks!”

They were right at the boundary between the camp and the forest—an open area where they could see the rebel encampment sprawling below.

Fan Changyu saw that the number of tents belonging to the Chongzhou army was more than twice those on the mountain. She frowned. “The rebels outnumber us, they’ve blocked off every route.”

The personal soldier said, “Miss, don’t judge by the camp layout alone. The rebels withdrew half their troops, yet the number of tents hasn’t decreased. First, they fear we’ll launch a night raid from above, so they leave the tents to confuse our sight. Second, it’s to intimidate our new recruits—make them think the enemy force is still vast and keep them from daring to fight.”

Fan Changyu had heard Old Tao say a few things about warfare on the way here, but at that time there were no concrete references, and she only understood them half.

Hearing that even a common soldier in the Yan army knew so much, she couldn’t help but praise, “You know a lot!”

The personal soldier, realizing he had spoken too freely and fearing trouble, hurriedly said, “Being in the camp for a long time, one more or less learns some things.”

Fan Changyu asked curiously, “Then how do you distinguish their exact numbers?”

The personal soldier answered, “Watch the cooking smoke. The number of tents can be faked, but the smoke from fires used for cooking cannot be faked; how many people eat requires that many hearths—estimate the hearths and the number comes out.”

Fan Changyu looked at the place down the mountain where thick smoke rose, then at the place behind the hill with only a few thin threads of smoke. She drew out her butcher’s knife, stared with her honest apricot-shaped eyes, and earnestly proposed, “There are fewer people over there, why don’t we sneak-attack that side?”