Healing Wounds

The instant he landed atop the city wall, Yang Yi withdrew Mountain Suppression. This thing offered formidable protection, but correspondingly, it also consumed a great deal of his qi and blood.

With the situation still unclear, he naturally had to conserve his strength wherever possible.

With a mere lift of his hand, he seized the nearest man and, as though throwing a stone, hurled him forward.

A string of miserable cries rang out, and it was unknown how many people were knocked down.

He suddenly turned around and did the same to the enemies behind him.

His immense strength showed its full advantage at this moment. In just two moves, the area to either side of him was cleared, while everyone else stood mute as cicadas in winter, not daring to step forward.

Only then did he have time to look below. He saw Qin Siniang leap from the rooftop nearest the city wall. While suspended in midair, the qi and blood around her legs condensed to an extreme degree. She stepped onto the wall, kicking a dent into the thick stone blocks to use as a foothold.

She repeated this maneuver, her feet striking the wall as her body continued to rise with astonishing speed.

"Trying to run?" Seeing this, the pursuer hurled an iron ball from his hand, sending it smashing toward Qin Siniang's back.

Qin Siniang judged its position by sound, her pretty face turning deathly pale. In midair, she had no room to maneuver and could only take the blow head-on.

The fist-sized iron ball struck her heavily. The tremendous force carried her body into the city wall, and after rebounding, she plummeted downward.

At that critical moment, she flicked the long whip in her hand upward.

A large hand steadily caught the tip of the whip. With a fierce pull, it flung Qin Siniang high into the air as though swinging her on a swing.

Having taken a blow to the back, her organs had nearly been knocked out of place, and her qi and blood refused to settle. Qin Siniang could not stabilize herself at all. As she fell straight down, she suddenly felt her body grow light as someone gathered her into his arms.

Between breaths, she saw Yang Yi's face.

"Go!" She suppressed the surging qi and blood in her throat.

Yang Yi turned his head and glanced at the unwilling pursuer on the rooftop. Holding Qin Siniang, he leaped from the city wall without hesitation and fled outside the city.

Another wave of arrows rained down behind them.

Less than half a day later, forty li from Clearwind City, Yang Yi entered a dilapidated house with Qin Siniang.

This was the meeting point Lü E had designated for their retreat, as well as a hiding place in case anything went wrong.

On the way there, Yang Yi had already asked Qin Siniang about the situation and learned that they had indeed walked straight into an ambush this time.

They had thought Eternal Celebration Tower contained only Song Huaijin. In truth, eight Lan Blood had been lying in wait there.

Not only had they failed to capture Song Huaijin, but the five of them had suffered instead.

Fortunately, Lü E had sensed that something was wrong. Combined with her considerable strength, she had managed to lead them out through slaughter.

They were all old hands of the martial world and knew that too many people together would draw attention, so they had scattered and fled at once.

As for how many of them had escaped, no one knew.

"Yang Yi, help me apply the medicine." While Yang Yi was still pondering, he heard Qin Siniang call out to him.

When he turned, a swath of snowy whiteness filled his vision.

Qin Siniang had actually loosened her clothes and turned her back toward him.

Her back was covered in bruises, along with two wounds carved by sharp weapons, their flesh rolled outward.

That patch of bruising had undoubtedly been caused by the final pursuer's strike.

Yang Yi's heart skipped a beat. In all his years in this world, aside from his earlier dreams, when had he ever seen such an enchanting sight in reality?

Though Qin Siniang was of the martial world, she was still young and took excellent care of herself. Her skin was fair—not quite delicate enough to break at a breath or shatter at a touch, yet still glistening and full. Especially that waist, with its exaggerated curves...

The visual impact of this scene was rather overwhelming.

"Stop dawdling..." No matter how carefree she had been before, even riding a single horse with him, Qin Siniang still felt somewhat embarrassed now. After all, men and women were different, and Yang Yi was no true child.

But under the present circumstances, if she did not let Yang Yi help, there was no one else to turn to.

"I'm coming." Yang Yi answered in a low voice, took the wound medicine from her hand, scooped out a portion, and smeared it over Qin Siniang's injuries.

His hand was steady, and he had already suppressed the stirrings in his heart.

After applying the medicine and roughly bandaging her wounds, Qin Siniang leaned against the side, her eyes dark and distant. "I wonder whether they can make it out."

She had been lucky to encounter Yang Yi. Otherwise, she would have had little chance of survival. The others might not have been blessed with such luck.

Yang Yi said nothing. Judging by the tight arrangements in Clearwind City earlier, it would likely be very difficult for the rest to escape.

His heart remained calm. He was unfamiliar with the other four. He had helped Qin Siniang earlier mainly because she had done him a small favor before. Since it was within his ability, he naturally could not stand by with folded arms.

"If they have not returned before dawn tomorrow, we'll go back to the Qiao Household!" he said slowly. The reason for waiting until dawn was naturally because they had discussed it beforehand, and Qin Siniang needed time to recover from her injuries.

Qin Siniang had no objections.

What happened next was somewhat beyond Yang Yi's expectations. He had assumed the others would be doomed, yet by evening, Lü E and Zhuang Laosan returned one after the other.

Both were injured. Zhuang Laosan's injury was relatively minor, though it was still more serious than Qin Siniang's.

Lü E was in the worst condition!

As the Qiao Household's eldest young lady's guard, she was extremely capable and had naturally been singled out by Clearwind City. Three people had besieged her. When she returned, she was covered in blood, her face pale as paper.

Upon seeing Yang Yi, she only had time to say, "I've been poisoned. Help me detoxify," before collapsing unconscious.

Since they had traveled out, they had naturally brought all kinds of healing and antidote medicines. Yang Yi had no idea whether they matched the poison, but he fed her every antidote they had.

Qin Siniang helped Lü E treat her external wounds.

Only then did Yang Yi learn more information from Zhuang Laosan.

Shadow Hall had intervened! The two additional Lan Blood in Eternal Celebration Tower were Shadow Hall's people.

"So the moment we entered Clearwind City, they already knew?" Qin Siniang's face was full of fury.

Zhuang Laosan snorted. "Shadow Hall's spies are spread throughout the world. They probably knew the moment we left Qiao'an City. Eternal Celebration Tower was a trap laid specifically for us."

"Hasn't Shadow Hall always refused to help either side? Why would they interfere this time?" Qin Siniang was thoroughly stifled. If they had merely been plotted against by those people from Clearwind City, it would have been one thing. The key was Shadow Hall's intervention, something even the Qiao Household likely had not anticipated.

That was why they had suffered such a huge loss without any preparation.

This defeat was not due to poor fighting. It was entirely because the information between them had been unequal.

Yang Yi listened silently from the side. Only then did he interject, "What exactly is this Shadow Hall...?"

Qin Siniang and Zhuang Laosan exchanged a glance. They secretly thought that the news they had heard was indeed true: Yang Yi had come from a small mountain village and had never encountered these things before, so he knew nothing about this common knowledge.

"Shadow Hall is an underground force. It could be said that every bandit, gang, and person from every walk of life in cities large and small throughout the realm either belongs directly to Shadow Hall or is affiliated with it. That is why they have so many spies." Qin Siniang gave a brief explanation. "But in the past conflicts between the Liu Lineage and the Qiao Household, Shadow Hall had never intervened. Why this time...?"

Zhuang Laosan said strangely, "What else could it be? Of course it's because Old Master Qiao is advanced in years."

That one sentence left Qin Siniang silent.