The sudden barrage of arrows had caught the White Lotus bandits completely off guard. With Sun Shaozong leading the charge himself, the battle had almost instantly entered its final stages.
By the time Feng Xin and Zhang Cong emerged from above and below the carriage respectively, the dozen or so Jurchens following Sun Shaozong had already begun cleaning up the battlefield.
"My lord!"
Feng Xin clasped his hands and reported jubilantly, "This bandit leader goes by Zhang Talented Scholar and seems to hold considerable standing within the White Lotus. Earlier, on the road..."
"How did you know we intended to take him out of the city?"
Before Feng Xin could finish, Zhang Talented Scholar stared stiffly at Sun Shaozong and demanded, "Even Feng Xin himself had no idea of our plan from beginning to end!"
By now, he naturally understood that Feng Xin had merely played along.
Especially after leaving the city, when Feng Xin had lifted the curtain and seemed to be staring blankly outside, he had actually been watching for coded marks along the roadside, waiting for a chance to lure the White Lotus rebels into the ambush.
Yet this plan to use Feng Xin as a pretext to provoke conflict between the two nations had been known to only a handful of people, even within the White Lotus.
And Feng Xin himself had only learned of it on the road.
So why had Sun Shaozong laid an ambush outside the city so early?
Was there a traitor at his side, or did the legendary Three-Eyed Divine Judge truly possess the ability to foresee the future?
"It was merely a simple deduction."
Leaning on Frostmourne, Sun Shaozong said indifferently, "You risked exposure to arrange a meeting with Feng Xin outside. There were only two possible reasons: one, to