We quickly moved out and began to walk fast. Because of our hiding, I have had enough time to get my thoughts together.

"The city's wall close to my house has cracking signs. We can make a hole and escape to the mountain in secret."

What I didn't tell her, was that we would have to cross a big street, an open field area with nowhere to hide. But even with that risk, we still had a higher chance of living than trying to go through the front gate.

Just when I was about to turn the corner leading out the big street, I stopped and pulled both of us to a nearby house. There were footsteps in front of us. I peeked through a crack to see what was going on. Civilians were walking in lines with their hands chained up. Ly's soldiers were taking them to the big street.

Someone riding a horse showed up. "Kneel!" he yelled, and the other soldiers pointed their weapons at the civilians until all of them kneeled.

That person continued to speak loudly, "I am Commander Tu Tri under the army of Great General Ly Va. Your city is now under our control. You do not have any other choice but to follow us. As long as all of you don't do anything out of line, you will be accepted as the citizens of Ly."

Seeing no sign of fighting back, he signaled the soldiers. They nodded and commanded the people to move.

When all the civilians went away, another person riding a horse came beside him. The commander then told him something I couldn't hear since it was too far away.

We still couldn't move because the commander remained on the big street. Not only that, there were soldiers scattered everywhere. As time went on, I began to feel my plan of escaping wouldn't be possible at all, I had to find another way. Hiding in the house meant I still had some time to think, but it wouldn't be long. Who knows when a soldier may randomly show up?

I turned to Lady Ly Giai and said, "Let's wait. Too many soldiers right now."

She nodded. From a glance, it seemed like she was now driven to escape South City. That was a good sign.

A few hours passed. I've been watching through the small crack the entire time without rest, trying to find a gap to escape. I still couldn't come up with any other plan either. I was starting to think we were hopeless.

Then, I witnessed something strange.

On the big street, a few civilians, with their chains off, were walking around carrying wine. They stopped by the soldiers to offer them drinks. The soldiers, seeing the wine, happily dropped their guard and drank.

"Our general is the best!" a soldier shouted.

"Thank you general!" another added.

The drinking went on for another hour. More and more soldiers started to appear to enjoy the drinks. Slowly, one by one, each of them fell as they passed out.

Then, many more civilians showed up and began to move. Seeing that, I tapped Lady Ly Giai, who was asleep while we waited. We stepped outside as well and blended ourselves into the crowd of people. I was afraid that any of the people there would recognize me and start trouble. But luckily, they didn't have the spare energy to look out for a nobody like me. We were all wanting to get out of this city by any second.

I peaked to check the soldiers at the gate, they were drunk as well. In fact, every single soldier was either drunk or passed out. Still having suspicions in mind, I waited to see what the civilians would do. What surprised me was that they went right out of the gate without any trouble at all.

Slowly, we began to move the front gate too. I had my alert on the highest level until we were actually out for quite a distance. The crowd was walking up the mountain. I decided to follow them as well since it was my intention anyway. Although we went with the crowd, we kept our distance so that they wouldn't notice us.

As we were walking, I still found it strange about what just happened. Out of curiosity, I turned back to the city and saw that, on top of the city's gate, someone was looking in our direction. He wore sophisticated armor, even more than the soldier that rode a horse I saw earlier.

"That's their general." I realized.