John Lewis was overjoyed and dashed toward the fork in the road. After running about a hundred paces, he saw a small river about three meters wide, winding its way through the woods. Moonlight filtered through the treetops, casting a mysterious, half-lit, half-shadowed glow along the riverbank.

But John Lewis suddenly stopped running a dozen steps away, his gaze fixed intently behind a clump of bushes...

Behind the bushes was an overturned ox cart, one of its thick wooden wheels jutting high into the air. Several corpses lay scattered around. An old man lay beneath the wheel, hacked so badly he was a bloody mess. The driver hung from the cart shaft, his back pierced by several arrows. Not far away, a man in white lay sprawled on the ground.

Inside the cart was another corpse—a youth, about fifteen or sixteen, roughly John Lewis's age and quite tall, just a little shorter than him. He had been stabbed several times and was covered in blood.

John Lewis sighed. In these chaotic times, people were worth less than dogs. This group seemed to have some status, but what good was that? In troubled times, you still had to be able to run and hide like him if you wanted to survive.

At that moment, he suddenly noticed the man in white seemed to move. John Lewis froze—was this man actually still alive?

He hurried over. The man was middle-aged, the back of his head smashed by a club, a bloody mess, but seemingly uninjured elsewhere. John Lewis reached out and felt for his breath—he was still breathing, just unconscious.

He tore off a strip of the man's robe, dipped it in the river, and slowly squeezed some water into the man's mouth, then wiped his forehead.

Perhaps the water worked, for the man slowly opened his eyes. He looked at John Lewis in a daze and murmured, "Encountered... Cao army cavalry, tell Governor Lewis..."

As soon as he finished, he fainted again. John Lewis scratched his head, feeling a headache. Which Governor Lewis was he talking about? He didn't even specify—was it the governor of Yuzhou, Abraham Lewis, or the governor of Jingzhou, William Lewis, or the governor of Yizhou, David Lewis? All three were called Governor Lewis.

John Lewis set the man down and searched the ox cart, but aside from some broken, scattered bamboo slips, there was nothing else, which disappointed him. Even a knife would have been nice!

He looked around again, trying to scan as far as possible. Suddenly, he seemed to spot something in a patch of grass a dozen steps away.

John Lewis hurried over and found a leather pouch in the grass. The pouch was heavy, filling him with delight—how had it ended up here?

He quickly opened the pouch, and a short sword caught his eye. The scabbard was luxuriously decorated, wrapped in gold and silver threads, and inlaid with several gems. He drew the sword—the blade gleamed white and was exceptionally sharp, clearly a precious weapon.

Just then, he felt a sudden alertness—a survival instinct honed from countless hunts. This instinct made him roll instinctively to the left, tumbling a full three meters away.

"Whoosh! Whoosh!" The sound of arrows slicing through the air—two arrows shot one after the other, striking exactly where he had just been.

Only then did John Lewis realize that two Cao army soldiers had appeared, one in front and one behind, armed with spears and crossbows, silently surrounding him.

These were two Cao army cavalrymen. The leather pouch in the grass was their hiding place. When they quietly returned to retrieve it, they found someone else had picked it up, filling them with rage.

"Kid, put it down!" one of the soldiers snarled viciously.

John Lewis put down the pouch but drew the short sword, his gaze sharp and fixed on them. The two had blocked his escape—if they weren't planning to kill him, what else could they want?

He was ready to risk it all. Even if he died, he would take one of them with him.

"Kid, you really have a death wish."

One of the soldiers threw down his bow and arrow, shouted, and charged forward, thrusting his spear fiercely at John Lewis. These two soldiers were cavalry scouts under Henry Clark, originally from the Qingzhou army, well-trained and skilled in combat. However, their discipline was lax, and looting and killing during wartime was routine for them.

If they hadn't feared that the sound of hooves would alert John Lewis and let him escape by swimming, they would have ridden over and killed him already. Even without their horses now, they were still ferocious.

John Lewis dodged the thrust, rolled forward with lightning speed, and in a flash was right in front of the soldier, slashing fiercely at his lower leg.

Chapter 4: A Monumental Gamble

In both his past and present lives, his body had always been exceptionally agile. In this life, he was a young hunter with rich experience in the wild. This experience was ingrained deep in his subconscious, always surfacing naturally in moments of danger.

He could tell at a glance that these two were cavalrymen—their legs bowed from riding, making their footwork sluggish. He remembered this was a common weakness among cavalry.

His lightning speed caught the soldier off guard. More importantly, he looked like just a boy, so both cavalrymen underestimated him a little.

A shrill scream rang out—the soldier's right lower leg was severed with a single stroke. Even John Lewis hadn't realized how sharp the short sword was; his surprise lasted only a moment before he pounced like a tiger, knocking the soldier to the ground and driving the sword hard into his chest.

He whirled around, staring at the other soldier like a leopard, slowly wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand. This was his experience from hunting beasts—after killing one prey, you couldn't linger for even a moment, or you'd end up in the jaws of another.

The other soldier was a dozen steps away. He had realized what was happening, but it was too late to help. John Lewis had killed too quickly, giving him no chance at all.