Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Close female friends?” Cloud Soul suddenly snorted, as though this line had touched her nerve. Her voice quickly turned shrilling as she yelled, “Get out now, I’m waiting to kill people!”
Meng Fuyao stuck her tongue out. She dragged Zhan Nancheng along, shouting, “Get out now, or are you waiting for me to carry you?”
When they exited Xihua Palace, everyone was stunned.
Meng Fuyao smiled from ear to ear as she stood on the steps, pushing along Zhan Nancheng who had obvious slap marks on both sides of his face. She spoke, “Comrades, it’s been tough for you but hang in there and put down all those arrows, bombs and whatnot. As for the tunnels and booby traps, go switch their locations.”
She ordered around the soldiers to stick the arrows into the barrels, and then activate the barrels in the direction of the man-made pond, successfully causing both to blow up. Then, the weapons were thrown into all kinds of booby traps, and successive cracks sounded, signaling the destruction of the majority of the traps. Even the musket team that came later was not spared. Their guns were thrown into the pit under the fallen steps, and Zhan Beiye kicked a slab into it, utterly wrecking all the precious guns in it as a plume of ash rose.
The leader of the musket team was Zhan Beiheng who rushed back after going to his home. This was a man with long, narrow and slightly uplifted eyes, with a pale complexion and cold expression. He glared icily at Zhan Beiye in silence, and though he seemed he liked he wanted to express his opinion when Zhan Nancheng ordered his team to disarm, he remained quiet.
Cloud Soul kept her hands in her sleeves as she looked on nonchalantly. She was worshipped by the old Emperor in numerous ways before she agreed to save the lives of Emperors in times of emergency. She’s too lazy to bother about other issues.
Surrounded by tens of thousands of soldiers, the group walked out slowly. From the top view, it looked like a huge group of golden things engulfing and following the movement of a small group, but not nearing it.
Once they were out of Xihua Palace, Meng Fuyao ordered, “Bring me a horse, I’m tired from all the walking!”
Zhan Beiheng waved his hand, and a soldier promptly brought over a few handsome horses. Hugging his mother tightly, Zhan Beiye smirked while Meng Fuyao laughed, and they happily mounted on the horse.
Seeing that Meng Fuyao was mounting on the horse, Zhan Beiye’s eyes shone. But Meng Fuyao did not sit down. Instead, she pushed Zhan Nancheng down on the seat of the horse.
“Ah!”
Hearing the loud cry and seeing a few drops blood, Zhan Beiheng’s expression changed. Zhan Nancheng was shivering, and a narrow stream of blood flowed down from his robes, along his leg, and onto the ground. His face was scrunched up in pain, and he looked grudgingly at Zhan Beiheng, causing the latter to step back and mutter, “Emperor… I…”
“Hey Emperor, where did it poke you? Hopefully not your reproductive organ?”
Meng Fuyao roared with laughter. However, she had lost her tooth, there was a big hole in her mouth, and the badly beaten face was really gross to look at; she was laughing, but that lopsided and horrendous smile sent chills down the soldiers’ spines.
This bold yet meticulous, presumptuous yet cautious woman!
Meng Fuyao gave Zhan Beiheng a look of despise. “Trying to play underhanded tricks on me? You’re too amateur for that,” she scorned as she threw the needle-filled saddle on Zhan Beiheng’s face. “Change the horses! Replace them with the ones under your butt!”
New horses were brought over, and Cloud Soul rode on one too. The soldiers followed in close proximity, but they had just reached the second Palace door when there was a sound of a bomb coming from the front. Then, there were shouts and the thumping noises of hoofs, so violent that it was as though the ground was shaking. In the sky, bright fires emerged, causing a red luminescence to appear on faces.
Everyone looked up sharply and saw soldiers who were guarding the front few doors running and tumbling back in a mess, shouting, “The Black Wind Horses are attacking the Palace!”
As though to respond to his shouts, a loud sound of a huge crash rang in his ears, like thunder crash bombs breaking apart the thick Palace walls. At the same time, thousands of people shouted at the walls, “Kill! Slaughter that sickening Emperor!”
“You all are revolting!” Zhan Beiheng barked in anger, as his complexion turned stale green. “You have merely 3,000 people, and you dare to forcefully break through the Palace, do you treat my 30,000 imperial guards and soldiers stationed in the City as nothing? Someone, issue my order-”
“Sigh, since when has the Heaven Demon Emperor changed to a different person?” Meng Fuyao yelled even louder than him. She blinked at Zhan Nancheng with feigned ignorance and asked, “Have you stepped down? No? If you haven’t, why is there someone so eager to play your role?”
Zhan Nancheng gave her a deadly stare, but he still looked at Zhan Beiheng with a cold expression. Meeting his brother’s gaze, Zhan Beiheng’s heart sank, and he knew that he had completely offended his brother. If he was able to survive past the night, he would definitely face torture. Zhan Nancheng had ultimate power, while he was only a symbolic Prince who acted as a figurehead for the imperial guards that only listened to the Emperor. As for the soldiers in the City, if there wasn’t the Emperor’s decree or the signatures of all three Premier Ministers, no one could order them around. Thoughts ran through quickly in his mind, but he could only give up and lower his head silently.
Zhan Beiye pointed his sword towards the soldiers who were guarding the front door and ordered, “Open the doors!”
Zhan Nancheng flicked his hand in silence, and the doors opened up one by one. As they galloped outside, thousands of soldiers trailed them as if they were being escorted out. As the last door opened, they saw the Dark Wind Horses armed with swords and arrows, chasing the soldiers on duty with a murderous aura. Capitalizing on the opportunity that most soldiers were gathered in the Palace, they were able to kill the remaining ones to their heart’s’ content. Even after the doors opened, they were still engrossed in their own world, chopping soldiers away at the speed of a whirlwind. One could see that on the big quadrangle in Sky Street, there were huge clots of blood everywhere.
When the Dark Wind Horses finally looked back and saw the sight of Zhan Nancheng being held as hostage, they gave out loud cheers in happiness.
On the other hand, Zhan Beiheng asked in a murderous tone, “We have dropped our weapons and gave up on the battle. Are you still going to use the Black Wind Horses to bully the weak?”
He did not know the identity of the person – Zhan Beiye had worn layers of human-skin masks, spoke very little and changed his pitch. More importantly, he and his brothers rarely met due to resentment. They were not even considered acquaintances.
In the eyes of the Zhan brothers, Meng Fuyao and this stranger were a pair of subordinates who came to take revenge for Zhan Beiye and rescue Consort Dowager.
Zhan Beiye smirked, “Only the Zhan royal family can bully the weak, but others can’t?”
At that moment, the Dark Wind Horses had fallen into formation and dashed into the Palace to receive Zhan Beiye. The murderous aura of the horses could travel miles away, but when ordered to stop, the horses braked neatly and cleanly.
The front two of the pack came over, and they were both teens with superb riding skills. One of them was clean and sharp in his movements, with a wild and deadly aura. The other had eyes that looked like the night sky, and it was not hard to tell that he was a handsome lad even from a far distance.
When Meng Fuyao saw that person, she almost blurted out in shock.
‘Yun Heng!’
‘What is he doing here?’
Yunheng first saw Meng Fuyao’s horrified expression. He was dumbfounded at first, but his eyes traveled across Meng Fuyao’s beaten face and looked into her eyes.
Then, his eyes lit up brightly. Those dark eyeballs were like meteorites; once they brightened, they were as beautiful as a glass filled with all the stars in the sky.
Meng Fuyao knew that he recognized her and she immediately showcased a perfect one-and-a-half-teeth smile.
Yun Heng scrutinized her face again. He sighed in resignation and walked over to Zhan Beiye to bring Consort Dowager away. She instinctively wanted to avoid his touch, but Zhan Beiye gently whispered in her ear, “He’s my brother.”
This line made her stand still and allowed Yun Heng to touch her. A group of Dark Wind Horses promptly rode over and escorted them away.
Meng Fuyao’s eyes sparkled. She had always felt that Zhan Beiye had magical strength which was beyond the limits of a figurehead Prince. For example, how did the Dark Wind Horses use such advanced equipment? One needed not only money but also connections, to obtain supreme arrows, top-tiered armour, and precious thunder crash bombs. Zhan Nancheng definitely did not give him these, and his salary was pathetically meager, so how did he get all these things?
Also, how did the Dark Wing Horses hide in Pandu, when security was so tight? How did they quickly receive the news to gather? They seemed to have a detailed plan to rescue Consort Dowager, so where did they stay in the City?
How many hidden forces exactly had his grandfather given him?
However, this was not the right time to question. Meng Fuyao met Yun Heng’s concerned gaze, and she smiled. Turning to Cloud Soul, she suggested, “Senior, it’s really too petrifying to fight in the City. Why don’t we go to the outskirts to fight?”
Cloud Soul nodded in a daze. Her attention was on the fading moonlight, which she stared at with sadness.
Then, Little Seven whispered to Zhan Beiye, who quickly added on, “There is a space in the western suburbs of the Fallen Phoenix Mountain, and it is suitable for battle.”
Cloud Soul nodded again as she continued to look at the sky casually. She did not feel that these two young juniors could escape from her palms.
Zhan Beiye then reminded the vice-captain, Little Seven, to lead the Dark Wind Horses to retreat. That young lad crossed his arms and said, “I refuse. There must be some people following you.”
Zhan Beiye was about to reject, but that lad added, “To bring back your corpses.”
Meng Fuyao chortled – Zhan Beiye was too embarrassing a Prince. Her chuckle had not yet subsided, but Yun Heng suddenly neared her, and a certain Lord slowly crawled out of his sleeve.
Now it was Meng Fuyao’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘Wasn’t Lord Yuan Bao sleeping in the inn? They went to the inn?’
With great skill, the guinea pig scurried his way up to her shoulder. Holding her face in his paws, he meticulously peered at her broken tooth, broken finger and disheveled face. His protective “only me and my master can bully this woman” sentiment suddenly erupted, and he turned to the nearest person, Zhan Nancheng, whom he straightaway identified as the culprit. Leaping into the air, he showcased a “backward somersault with a 180-degree split”.
Immediately, a light-red mark of a claw appeared on Zhan Nancheng’s face, and interestingly, it looked complimentary with the five finger mark that Meng Fuyao gave him.
The guinea pig’s gym session was not yet over. He pounced on Zhan Nancheng’s head, shamelessly digging away all the gemstones on the Nine Dragons Jade Crown. Plucking these priceless gems down, he placed them all in Meng Fuyao’s sleeve.