Chapter 109: Thrilling

Zheng Fan felt these assassins possessed absolutely no professional ethics or professional ambition.

If you were going to assassinate someone, then assassinate them.

Why did you have to shout and curse the entire time?

Fine.

Even if you wanted to curse, why shout the target’s name so clearly, as though terrified that nobody else would know?

It made Zheng Fan feel extremely awkward at this moment.

Xu Wenzu and Zheng Fan stared at one another for a full three seconds.

The two comrades had barely reunited after a long separation and had not even had time to spark the unique pleasure of reunion before this sudden assassination attempt interrupted everything.

Xu Wenzu himself was utterly bewildered.

So bewildered that he could not even decide whether he ought to thank Zheng Fan or curse him.

The words jammed in his throat, impossible either to cough out or swallow down.

“Protect His Lordship!”

Zheng Fan had seen enough of the world by now.

At once, he drew his saber and shouted to Xu Wenzu’s personal guards.

Some of them were already dead.

At this point, Xu Wenzu’s guards did not bother debating who the assassins’ actual target might be.

When men began vaulting over the courtyard wall, the guards charged them immediately.

“My lord, inside!”

“Good!”

The courtyard descended into a chaotic melee.

Xu Wenzu did not make a fuss.

He and Zheng Fan immediately ran into the room.

The instant they entered, Zheng Fan shut the door and kicked over a table without hesitation, wedging it against the entrance.

“My lord, crouch here!”

Zheng Fan pointed toward a pillar.

Ancient wooden doors and windows offered truly pathetic protection.

If the assassins fired arrows from outside, they would barely slow them down.

Xu Wenzu immediately obeyed and moved behind the pillar.

“My lord, get down!”

Zheng Fan shouted.

The pillar had originally looked very thick.

The moment Xu Wenzu hid behind it, it suddenly seemed rather petite.

“Oh.

“Right!”

Xu Wenzu immediately lay down beneath the pillar.

Zheng Fan crouched behind Xu Wenzu, saber in hand.

Xu Wenzu looked toward the door.

Then he turned back and looked at Zheng Fan.

“Lieutenant Commander Zheng—

“No, Garrison Commander Zheng, you…”

What Xu Wenzu wanted to ask was:

Why are you hiding behind me?

In fact, when Zheng Fan had met Xu Wenzu for the second time, during that report at the yamen, he had already thought about what would happen if a group of assassins suddenly appeared.

Xu Wenzu was practically a naturally born defensive sandbag.

But Zheng Fan obviously could not say aloud that he was using Xu Wenzu as body armor.

Instead, he quickly raised a finger to his lips, signaling silence, then looked upward toward the ceiling.

Xu Wenzu’s eyes widened.

He immediately looked toward the rafters and pointed upward, silently asking whether there were assassins on the roof as well.

Zheng Fan nodded with utmost seriousness.

He adjusted the saber in his hand several times and assumed an intensely vigilant posture.

Xu Wenzu silently continued lying flat on the floor.

Extremely obedient.

The sounds of killing outside continued without pause.

It was impossible to tell which side held the advantage.

Zheng Fan did not know exactly how many personal guards Xu Wenzu had brought with him to take office.

As for Xu Wenzu’s current behavior, Zheng Fan did not find it shameful.

A civil official who knew no martial arts hiding in this sort of situation was perfectly normal.

Mm.

And a military officer staying beside him to protect his safety was naturally equally normal.

Zheng Fan knew the Blind Man and Xue San would certainly look for opportunities to act from the outside.

He trusted those two subordinates completely.

So for the moment, shrinking back here himself seemed much safer.

Still the assassins outside had shouted that they wanted to kill him?

Zheng Fan considered it carefully.

He had only decided at lunchtime, while eating tofu, to come to the relay station and meet Xu Wenzu in advance.

If the enemy’s true target really was Zheng Fan, then either they had spotted him among the refugees, or they had already placed watchers around Willow Fort itself.

But Zheng Fan’s decision to inspect the refugees had also been spontaneous.

So there was a very high probability that someone had been watching him for some time already.

Who exactly wanted me dead?

At last, the sounds of fighting outside subsided.

Zheng Fan and Xu Wenzu exchanged glances.

Both were privately guessing which side had won.

But nearly two minutes passed.

Nobody came to knock on the door.

That most likely meant Xu Wenzu’s personal guards had been wiped out.

Then, Zheng Fan suddenly heard a series of footsteps.

“Thump…”

Zheng Fan immediately pressed himself tightly against Xu Wenzu from behind and lay flat.

Even lying on the ground, Xu Wenzu’s immense body made an excellent trench sandbag.

“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!”

Crossbow bolts shot violently into the room.

The wooden doors and windows were pierced straight through.

Because Zheng Fan and Xu Wenzu had both prudently flattened themselves against the floor beforehand, the bolts merely flew over their heads and caused no injuries.

But in the next instant, the door was kicked open from outside.

Five wounded men carrying great sabers charged inside.

There was no longer any room to hide.

Zheng Fan slammed one palm against the floor.

His entire body sprang upward.

Black radiance burst from him, and the saber in his hand chopped directly forward.

Shooting A’Ming full of arrows every day and exchanging moves with Liang Cheng had brought Zheng Fan considerable progress recently.

At the very least, he no longer needed to roar every time he released his power like he used to.

His saber came down.

The man in front raised his great saber to block.

But he apparently was not even a ranked Martial Artist.

He could not withstand the brutal force behind Zheng Fan’s blow.

His arm twisted aside.

Zheng Fan’s blade slid down along the man’s right arm.

It failed to sever the limb completely, but sliced away a large strip of flesh.

The men beside him immediately raised their sabers and rushed Zheng Fan.

Having succeeded with his first strike, Zheng Fan immediately retreated.

“Whoosh!”

Suddenly, the man on the far left inexplicably slipped beneath his feet and crashed straight to the floor.

His head landed directly beside Zheng Fan’s foot.

The man’s companions froze.

Zheng Fan’s gaze sharpened as well.

Is he acting?

But how could Zheng Fan possibly reject a head delivered directly to his feet?

His saber swept sideways.

The edge slashed across the man’s throat.

Blood sprayed into the air.

Xue San’s figure suddenly appeared like a ghost behind the remaining men.

Holding a dagger in each hand, he drove them into the backs of two assassins.

Two screams immediately rang out.

Zheng Fan stopped holding back.

His long saber swept out once more.

When the final two men tried to resist, their bodies suddenly swayed as though severe anemia had struck them.

They offered almost no resistance before Zheng Fan chopped them down, one saber stroke apiece.

“Are there any assassins left outside?”

Zheng Fan asked.

Xue San shook his head.

“Master, this is exactly what the Blind Man and I found strange.

“A group of assassins charged in here and hacked people apart, but somehow these five little trash fish were the only ones still alive by the end.

“So the Blind Man and I waited a little longer.

“But we still didn’t see any second move.”

Hearing this, Zheng Fan nodded.

Then he bent down and helped Xu Wenzu to his feet.

Xu Wenzu was merely breathing somewhat heavily.

If you said he was terrified, that would be an exaggeration.

He was, after all, someone who had weathered his share of storms.

He simply happened to be a civil official without martial arts.

When it was time to be cautious, there was nothing wrong with being cautious.

The three walked out of the room.

More than twenty corpses lay scattered across the courtyard.

Near the entrance, seven or eight military crossbows had been discarded on the ground.

They had probably been thrown aside after the five men who charged inside finished firing them.

The Blind Man sat on the steps, playing with one of the military crossbows.

When Zheng Fan and the others emerged, the Blind Man said, “It’s a Qian military crossbow.”

The military officers and supervising civil officials along Qian’s frontier were actually more like merchants.

They were busy making money through trade.

Forget military crossbows.

They sold warhorses, armor, and every other sort of military equipment.

The commander of the fort Zheng Fan had destroyed during his last excursion had even needed to run a brothel tent to make money.

That more or less revealed the prevailing atmosphere.

Thus, what the Blind Man really meant was that using the military crossbows to determine where these assassins came from would be difficult.

Zheng Fan looked at Xu Wenzu.

“My lord, please give your instructions.

“Should we enter Yin City now, or should this subordinate directly escort you to Nanwang City?”

This relay station was not inside Yin City proper.

It stood in the outskirts.

Although the assassins who had suddenly appeared had already been killed, the place was obviously no longer safe.

Xu Wenzu’s lips moved slightly.

He appeared to very much want to say:

Little Zheng, these assassins seemed to have come here to kill you.

What does any of this have to do with me?

But Xu Wenzu was obviously not foolish enough to tell Zheng Fan to stay away from him.

His personal guards were already gone.

Other than the three hundred-plus jin of flesh still attached to his body, what did he have left to rely upon?

Besides, he also believed that if the assassins wanted to kill Zheng Fan, they probably would not mind casually giving Xu Wenzu a slash along the way.

Before attacking, those assassins had shouted the words “Yan dog” very clearly.

And Xu Wenzu was a considerably higher-ranking Yan dog than Zheng Fan.

“Nanwang City.”

Xu Wenzu made his decision.

Nearby Yin City might appear safest.

But if assassins dared openly attack a relay station in Yin City’s outskirts, who knew whether their people had infiltrated the city itself?

Better to simply go directly to Nanwang City.

At the very least, the Marquis of Jingnan and his Jingnan Army were stationed there.

It was also the territory Xu Wenzu himself was about to govern.

Only there would he feel genuinely secure.

But at that moment, the Blind Man’s voice suddenly sounded inside Zheng Fan’s mind.

“Master, that fat woman who knocked earlier was not among the assassins.”

Zheng Fan looked toward the Blind Man.

The Blind Man gave him a tiny nod.

Zheng Fan responded to show he understood.

This was a warning.

Some assassins might still be hiding.

The relay station’s stables were located west of the main gate.

A separate shed had been built there specifically for keeping horses.

The mounts belonging to guests and the fresh horses used by relay cavalry were all housed there.

So if they wanted to retrieve their horses, the shortest route was to pass through the relay station itself from the first-class courtyard.

When Zheng Fan and the others led Xu Wenzu out of the courtyard and entered the first floor of the building where they had stayed earlier, they saw row after row of corpses neatly arranged across the floor.

Some wore the uniforms of relay officials.

Some wore the clothes of relay soldiers.

Some were dressed like ordinary travelers.

Some… were even wearing official robes.

More than twenty corpses had been laid out neatly.

Earlier, Zheng Fan had wondered why the front portion of the relay station remained so quiet while the first-class courtyard was being attacked so openly.

Now he understood.

Everyone was dead.

“Sigh…”

The Blind Man sighed and stepped forward twice.

When Xu Wenzu returned, Master had gone directly to the first-class courtyard to see him.

The Blind Man and Xue San had left this building and hidden outside the courtyard to observe.

At that time, he could confirm that when the three of them left here, the relay station workers and other guests had still been alive.

In only this short interval, all of them had died.

That could mean only two things.

Either many assassins still remained, or the remaining assassin was extremely powerful.

After all, one of those conditions had to be met to kill this many people in such a short time.

Whichever possibility it was, neither sounded like good news.

At that moment, the fat madam appeared beside the railing of the second-floor corridor.

Her face remained buried beneath grotesquely heavy powder.

“Oh-ho-ho.

“You people really are a little slow.

“This old lady has been waiting here so long I nearly fell asleep.”

The Blind Man’s voice sounded again inside Zheng Fan’s mind.

“Master, this woman probably isn’t part of the same group as the previous assassins.

“They may be cooperating, but they aren’t from the same organization.

“There should also be assassins lying in ambush near the back entrance.”

The Blind Man had reached these conclusions from the woman’s words.

Earlier, he and Xue San had deliberately waited instead of rushing to act.

They had sensed that the assassins who stormed the first-class courtyard possessed little more than the opening advantage of crossbows and superior numbers.

They had managed to kill Xu Wenzu’s relatively small contingent of guards.

But the assassins themselves were not actually strong.

Not a single one of them could even glow.

Now they had their answer.

If the men from earlier had merely been small fry, then the boss was standing here.

Moreover, the fat woman did not care in the slightest whether those assassins lived or died.

She had not helped them earlier either.

So they were probably not truly part of the same faction.

Furthermore, Zheng Fan’s group had chosen the front route.

They could just as easily have used the rear entrance.

Yet the woman remained here without fear, leisurely waiting for them.

That meant she was not worried they might leave through the back.

In other words, another contingency was probably waiting there.

“This little master, I found all four mares you requested.

“Please take a look.”

The fat woman clapped her hands.

“Creeeeak…”

A harsh scraping sound rang out.

As though suspended by invisible threads, four women descended from above.

All four had their eyes closed.

Their clothes and adornments were completely different.

One wore the elegant dress of a noblewoman of Chu.

One wore leather armor like a woman from Yan.

One wore the dancing dress of Qian.

The final woman possessed the graceful, delicate figure of a beauty from Jin.

Who was Xue San?

Naturally, he would never lose his nerve.

At once, Xue San voluntarily walked several steps forward, one hand against his chin as he carefully admired them.

“Tsk, tsk.

“They look pretty good.

“Come on, come on.

“Why don’t you hurry up and send the girls down to serve Grandpa?”

Xu Wenzu looked at Xue San’s small back in astonishment.

Then he looked toward Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan took one step forward and positioned himself in front of Xu Wenzu.

Warmth immediately flowed through Xu Wenzu’s heart.

So he wants to shield me behind him.

In truth, after the Blind Man’s warning that another assassin was probably behind them, Zheng Fan had simply thought that keeping a huge mountain of flesh like Xu Wenzu at his back would prevent anyone from ambushing him from behind.

The fat woman on the second floor covered her mouth.

“Hehehehehe…”

Her laughter carried a greasy kind of seductiveness.

“My lord, look how impatient you are.

“The night is long.

“We have all the time in the world to play slowly.”

The Blind Man tucked both hands into his pockets and yawned.

Xue San grinned.

“Come on, come on.

“I used to play with inflatable dolls.

“But I’ve never tried ones this high-end and realistic.”

“What is an inflatable doll?”

Xu Wenzu asked Zheng Fan, who stood in front of him.

“An esoteric Eastern puppet art.”

“Oh.

“So that’s what it is.”

“Very well.

“Girls—serve him!”

The fat woman’s voice suddenly sharpened.

The four women suspended above abruptly opened their eyes.

Their eye sockets were empty.

No pupils.

No whites.

But almost immediately, a red flame began flickering inside each empty socket.

Their bodies also began shifting and trembling as though warming up.

At any moment, they could plunge downward!

Inside his heart, Xue San said, “Blind Man, make me a road.

“That bitch is a puppeteer.

“I’m going straight for the controller first!”

The fat woman had positioned herself on the second floor, deliberately maintaining distance.

And she appeared to have waited here at leisure for them to walk into her trap.

Who could say she had not been using that time to prepare her chosen battlefield?

Wasting effort entangling oneself with a puppeteer’s puppets was the stupidest possible move.

Kill the queen ant first, and the entire colony would collapse.

The Blind Man replied mentally, “I think it might not be that simple.

“If I were the puppeteer, I might hide my true body inside one of those ‘four mares.’

“The woman upstairs could simply be bait meant to lure you in.”

The blind old schemer began giving the short old schemer tactical analysis.

“How could it possibly be that complicated?

“Just send me up.

“I’ll put a dagger through her first!”

“That sounds terribly unlucky.”

Xue San readied himself.

Then he sprinted.

After charging ten meters, he suddenly sprang upward.

The two index fingers inside the Blind Man’s pockets pointed toward the sky.

Up.

Up.

“Buzz!”

A surge of psychic force directly wrapped around Xue San.

His entire body accelerated like a tiny cannonball.

In the next instant, he appeared directly before the fat woman on the second floor.

The dagger in his hand was hurled straight at her face.

The fat woman appeared completely stunned by the sudden attack.

She stood there without moving.

“Back!”

The Blind Man barked in a low voice.

Both hands shot out of his pockets.

His index fingers pointed down and slammed downward.

“Buzz!”

Xue San was violently yanked back by psychic force.

“Pfft!”

At that exact moment, the dagger Xue San had thrown stabbed into the fat woman’s face.

A cloud of foul-smelling, corrosive black liquid sprayed outward.

If the Blind Man had not forcibly dragged Xue San back, the liquid might already have drenched him into a human honeycomb briquette.

A’Ming could become a honeycomb briquette and still stroll around the garden drinking water as though nothing had happened, watering the flowers along the way.

If Xue San got hit like that, he would be completely finished.

After landing, Xue San retreated several steps in succession.

But instead of showing fear, he looked almost ecstatic.

“Hah!

“That was fucking thrilling!

“Blind Man—

“I want another go!”

(End of Chapter)