Under the Southwest Garrison’s attack, the dense forest was like a sieve leaking water everywhere. The believers of the Baifu Sect were washed away and scattered, and all of their checkpoints were utterly defeated. The ferocious beasts were repelled by Liang Shu’s giant crossbow, and the net of strange poisonous flowers and plants erected between the canyons was also removed by Ku You. Oil poured down like a waterfall, and with a boom, a sky-high flame was ignited!

The screams were endless. Liu Xian’an followed the military doctors who were moving the injured to a safe place in the rear. A-Ning said: “Young Master, you should go to the prince’s side. I will make arrangements here.”

“Okay.” Liu Xian’an handed him the medicine bag in his hand, mounted his horse, and turned around. He asked: “Where is the prince now?”

“Gray Jade Wall.” An Imperial guard said, “To the south. There is dense forest on the way, which may be dangerous. If you want to cross directly, you will need to be more cautious.”

Liu Xian’an ordered: “We’ll just go through the dense forest to save time.”

The silver-white war horse took him on its four hooves to lightly cross the withered vines and ancient trees in the forest, followed closely by the Imperial guards. The farther the group traveled in, the thicker the white miasma in the air became. Various poisonous insects, rats, and ants crawled away quickly into the fallen leaves. Venomous snakes coiled in the treetops, flicking their tongues with their big mouths open. Thick mucus flowed out of their mouths and they were greedy for prey, but after sensing the aroma of medicine on Liu Xian’an’s body, they all retreated and fled.

Ahead, a group of strange black birds were also frightened into flight.

An Imperial guard was keenly aware of the abnormality, and raised his hand to signal the entire team to stop. Liu Xian’an tightened the reins of his horse with a slight frown and listened carefully. There were people hiding in the woods, and they were not few in number. There were numerous rustling sounds, mixed together with the strange sound of the wind. Among them were the slight sounds of swords being unsheathed, and the deliberately suppressed heavy breathing of men.

Soon after, there were more footsteps, getting closer and closer!

The Imperial guards had a tacit understanding. They all drew their swords in unison, polished gold ringing with a cold light! At the same time, the people in the forest rushed out with a roar! This was a group of Baifu Sect followers. Perhaps they had been defeated and were trying to flee, or perhaps they were rushing elsewhere as support. In short, the two sides met on a narrow road in this quiet forest.

There were a lot of people on the other side. An Imperial guard stood guard in front of Liu Xian’an and asked sideways: “How will the young master deal with these people?”

Liu Xian’an let go of the horse’s reins and let the war horse take him two steps forward. Sunlight penetrated the ancient trees and fell on his silver-white battle armor, reflecting a halo of soft, shimmering light that made his whole person look more and more like beautiful jade. Those believers had never seen such a handsome figure, like an immortal in a painting. They stopped for a moment and hesitated to move forward. When one of them stepped back, he accidentally let go of the long sword in his hand, and it hit a large rock with a clang and startled him. His heart was tense, and his knees felt weak, so he simply knelt on the ground.

As soon as he knelt, the astute people around him who didn’t want to be beaten also knelt down with him. The worst thing that must be avoided while marching was the collapse of morale. Now the two sides had encountered each other for the first time, and before a word could be said, one side was already a head shorter than the other. What was there to fight for? Thus, another group of people abandoned their swords and surrendered. In the end, only those with hard bones and brains like elm wood were left still shouting “Baifu Buddha Mother,” but before they could finish the word “Buddha,” they were coldly cut off.

Liu Xian’an looked down at the other party in the sunshine and said with displeasure: “Not to mention whether your Buddha Mother really exists, even if she does, she is extremely greedy and ugly. From the moment she came into the world, she has disturbed the entire southwest, causing chaos and rebellion, deceived thousands of believers into neglecting work, and caused the originally fertile fields to be filled with weeds. Up to the destruction of the land and down to the disruption of four seasons, she is simply unethical and immoral to the extreme! Take a look at yourselves again. You are in your prime, but you have no families and no jobs, and spend your days cowering and hiding in the dense forest. Where are you still half a human being? The Baifu Buddha Mother should indeed bless you, because there are only so many fools in the southwest. As long as she has a bit of brains, she should know how to use you sparingly.”

His voice was as clear as a cold spring, his posture elegant when he cursed, and his words were as distinct as colliding jade. It was pleasant to the ear, but hearing it really took away a person’s breath. The Imperial guard raised his sword and pointed it at the last group of people standing, saying in a cold voice: “Surrender or die!”

In the end, everyone surrendered, because it was obvious that the Baifu Buddha Mother was no more like a god than the young man in silver armor before them, and they could not defeat the enemy’s elite soldiers.

“I have something else to do, and I don’t have time to take you away.” Liu Xian’an looked everyone in the face one by one and said, “Just wait here. The army will come to take over arrangements today.”

He pulled the reins of his horse and continued toward the other end of the forest, leaving the followers of the Baifu Sect to look at each other, dumbfounded. Why….why did he just go without leaving anyone to watch us? Only a fool would stay where he was and continue to wait. One person immediately stood up from the ground and took a step away. Liu Xian’an turned around and said: “If he runs away, I call on the remaining 421 people to stop him. If ten run away, it is up to the remaining 412 people to arrest them. If all 422 of you run away, you will all be punished according to military regulations.”

When he finished speaking, without further delay, he waved his arm and left the dense forest like a sharp arrow, and the wind blew his white clothes up high. The first priority of the Imperial guards was to protect him, so they naturally would not waste time on this group of believers. Everyone galloped to follow closely, thinking in their hearts, no wonder such a person can manage to make His Royal Highness Xiao Wang docile, ah. Very capable, very capable!

This was their first time seeing someone use words to defeat the enemy.

But perhaps there were not just words. After all, when Second Young Master Liu put on his battle armor, he truly looked like an immortal, overflowing with holy light from head to toe. Every move he made was filled with brilliant light, and he always appeared as if he was flying through the sky ninety thousand li away, which was quite intimidating. 

It was too scary, His Royal Highness Xiao Wang must be kept under guard.

And those believers also stopped their feet. Even they didn’t know how many people they had in total, so they counted each other first, and after counting four or five times, they finally discovered that there really were four hundred twenty two.

“T-Then, do we still go?”

“……”

There was silence.

Nobody mentioned leaving again, because everyone knew that His Royal Highness Xiao Wang’s military regulations were extremely strict. If they escaped and were found again, they would be parted from their skin even if they did not die.

Therefore, they just stayed on the ground honestly.

At the Gray Jade Wall area, huge boulders fell to the ground like rolling thunder, violent and earth shattering.

This was the Baifu Sect’s last barrier, and Dayan’s seven teams had also wiped out the surrounding areas. Many of the leaders were dead, injured, or had surrendered, leaving only Mu Zhe.

He normally kept to himself and only drove Wumeng Yunyou and others to kill people, and looked like a gentleman who had no knowledge of martial arts. Now, for the first time, he took out the weapons that had long been covered in dust—two long snake-shaped swords.

The first wave of the Yan army that attacked were knocked off the cliff. Liang Shu flew to catch a soldier and threw him into the crowd, then unsheathed his sword and walked straight to Mu Zhe’s door!

The other party dodged like a snake and sneered: “His Royal Highness Xiao Wang is indeed as the rumors say. He wields soldiers like a god and is ruthless and bloodthirsty.”

“For a wicked leader like you, even if you were given death by a thousand cuts and your blood sacrificed to the entire southwest, it would not be too much.” Liang Shu said, “This lord has come to take your life today!”

Mu Zhe didn’t want to die, but even if he must die, he wanted to drag the person in front of him into death together. The soil of the mountains and fields was dyed red with blood. Calls for the Baifu Buddha Mother had changed from the momentous roar at the beginning to a sparse cry now, and soon, even this sparse cry would be cut off by the spears of the Yan army. The time of the Baifu Sect had passed, and the great cause it had worked hard toward for more than ten years had collapsed, the glory and ambition of the past finally becoming an illusion.

He no longer had the next ten or twenty years to build a new undertaking. He couldn’t march straight into Wangcheng and sit on the coveted throne. He couldn’t regard his lover as the mother of the world. She was a despised prostitute when she was alive, and a despised prostitute after death. In the future, when people mentioned the name Ying Yuyan, they would always associate her with the business of selling one’s body, and their tones would carry scorn and obscenity.

She could no longer become the most noble woman in the world.

This knowledge filled Mu Zhe with overwhelming fear, and this overwhelming fear soon turned into overwhelming fury.

He looked at Liang Shu and said word by word: “All right, then I will kill you to avenge my A-Ying!”

With that last word, the two snake-shaped swords shook and roared as if they were alive. Gao Lin had never seen such an evil trick before, and quickly shouted: “Your Highness, be careful!”

Liang Shu clenched the hilt of his sword. He had witnessed the tragic scene of Tan Manor with his own eyes. How could it be summed up by the two words “corpses everywhere?” It was not just the Tan family who died at that time, but also many watchmen and Imperial guards. To be able to take more than a hundred lives in one night, the opponent’s martial arts should be exceedingly high.

What’s more, that had been ten years ago, and the murderer ten years later should only have become more unfathomable.

Mu Zhe swung his swords and howled, moving on behalf of his beloved. Like a wild beast with red eyes, he just wanted to completely tear apart the person in front of him who had broken his perfect plan into pieces. His internal strength swept across like a venomous snake. Liang Shu leaped out of the way, the cold light in his hand dazzling.

Boom!

The collison produced an earth-shattering sound.

Chang Xiaoqiu finished cleaning up the group of cultists in front of him, and without stopping for a moment, he also rode toward the mountainside. He originally wanted to assist Liang Shu, but before he could reach him, he was carried away by Cheng Suyue through the air. The frightened war horse fell down the mountain, breaking one of its hind legs, and immediately behind it was Mu Zhe’s terrifying sword, which penetrated into the place he had been with a thud.

The young man broke out in a cold sweat. Cheng Suyue had raised her hand to block with her sword, but the sword, clang, broke into two pieces!

Seeing that Mu Zhe was about to strike down with the second sword, Liang Shu arrived in time at the critical moment. His long sword pierced the sun, leaving a deep, bloody groove in Mu Zhe’s shoulder, but the other party seemed to have lost all sense of pain, and instead turned around with an eerie smile.

There was a soft rustling sound in the grass.

Like poisonous flowers spawning by the scent of blood, the entire land suddenly became unstable, as if something was about to bloom. Liang Shu frowned and sent Cheng Suyue and Chang Xiaoqiu to safety with one palm. At the same time, he struck backhand with his sword, and a venomous snake landed on the grass like a soft noodle.

Other snakes and insects immediately swarmed in and ate up their companion until only a pale, thin skeleton remained.

Gao Lin couldn’t see clearly from a distance: “What is that on the ground?”

He thought his eyes were blurry, so he took out his looking glass to see, and suddenly sucked in a breath of cold air.

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Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One << Table of Contents >> Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three