"Ah! Help!"
"Who?!"
"Spare me, sir! I'm not a bad man!"
"I'm a law-abiding citizen! Spare me!"
At first, everything was normal. There were only scattered cries of alarm, the reactions of ordinary guests.
"Could they not be inside?" Ma Shunde had heard no sounds of fighting and was growing somewhat anxious. Yet just as the thought crossed his mind, several screams suddenly rang out from within the inn!
One of those screams was so loud that it could be heard both inside and outside, utterly miserable. Even the dogs in the distance began barking wildly.
Ma Shunde frowned, unable to tell whether those screams belonged to enemies being slaughtered or his own men being taken out.
It was still difficult to distinguish from the sounds alone.
Mixed with those screams came the clash of armored soldiers in battle, the ring of weapons striking one another. Those sounds were distinctive; anyone who had experienced them would never mistake them.
"So they truly are rebels, daring to resist with blades." Ma Shunde's heart settled at once, and he sneered again. It seemed quite a few people inside were martial artists, perhaps even battle-hardened soldiers.
He had not surrounded the wrong inn this time. Anyone capable of putting up such resistance was indeed no harmless sort!
The sounds of battle did not continue for long. Before even the time it took to burn a stick of incense had passed, the fighting inside abruptly ceased.
From the previously empty entrance came a chaotic clatter of footsteps. At a glance, one could tell that a large group of people was running out.
The armored soldiers outside, including the men from the Imperial City Office, all stared silently at the entrance. They neither moved nor spoke.
The torches crackled and hissed as they burned.
Liu