The coachman heard the rush of wind behind him, and every hair on his body stood on end.
He stepped his left foot onto his right, and his entire body rose more than ten feet into the air.
Three streaks of blood-colored saber Qi skimmed past the soles of his shoes and slashed savagely into a distant rooftop.
Gray tiles exploded, wooden beams snapped, and a great cloud of dust billowed up.
He landed on a rooftop on the other side, staggering.
Lin Yuan watched his movements and raised an eyebrow.
Why did that movement technique look so familiar?
He suddenly drove his feet down, blasting a deep crater into the ground.
The next instant.
Lin Yuan shot like a cannonball onto the rooftop, blocking the coachman's path.
Barely twenty feet separated them.
Lin Yuan looked the unfamiliar face up and down.
"Who exactly are you?"
The coachman shrank back half a step and glanced at the saber in Lin Yuan's hand, knowing how formidable he was.
With a bitter chuckle, he felt around behind his ear and peeled off a human-skin mask.
It revealed the sharply defined face of a middle-aged man.
He cupped his fist toward Lin Yuan.
"I am Sun Wu. Greetings, Young Master Lin."
Recognizing that face, Lin Yuan looked startled and blurted out.
"It's you!"
Wasn't this one of the deserters who had surrounded him in the woods outside the city a few days ago?
Back then, seeing things going badly, this fellow had also relied on his strange lightness skill to flee across the treetops.
Doubts stirred in Lin Yuan's mind.
"What are you doing at the Lin estate?"
Looking wistful, as though the past was too painful to revisit, Sun Wu tipped his head toward the sky and heaved a long sigh.
"Ah, it's a long story..."
Before his words had faded.
Lin Yuan raised his hand and slashed.
Saber light flashed and vanished.
They were so close that Sun Wu had no time to react before the saber Qi cut him in half at the waist!
He stared at Lin Yuan with wide eyes, his face blank with incomprehension.
"You..."
Lin Yuan sheathed his saber and strolled forward.
"If it's a long story, don't bother telling it."
Sun Wu spat out a mouthful of blood, his head lolled, and he breathed his last.
Lin Yuan crouched and deftly began searching inside Sun Wu's robes.
His fingers touched a stiff booklet.
He pulled it out and saw three large characters on the cover: "Flowing Cloud Steps."
Lin Yuan's eyes lit up, and he eagerly opened it.
As the pages turned, a flash of red light passed before his eyes.
[Martial arts: Flowing Cloud Steps (uninitiated 1/8) (Human Grade)]
Lin Yuan nearly laughed aloud. It was actually a Human Grade martial art!
He had coveted this lightness skill for a long time, and to think it had delivered itself to his doorstep today.
Delighted, Lin Yuan tucked the manual into his robes and leaped back into the rear courtyard.
He swept his gaze over the dense crowd, then pointed at Lin Liu and Yunniang.
"You two stay. Everyone else, leave."
At his words, everyone froze, then was overcome with joy, scrambling and stumbling as they fled.
After a few steps, someone suddenly remembered that this month's wages had yet to be paid.
But the thought of Lin Yuan's murderous savagery sent a shudder through them, and they ran without looking back.
In the blink of an eye, the spacious rear courtyard emptied.
Lin Yuan rolled his neck and began taking back everything that belonged to him.
After searching and gathering everything, Lin Yuan found only seventy thousand taels in banknotes. Zhao Yan had probably spent most of the rest on grain and refined iron.
Fortunately, the Lin estate still had quite a few businesses, particularly the Lin Clan Cloth Shop.
Lin Yuan sent Lin Jiu to take over the businesses, with Lin Liu assisting him.
As for Yunniang, Lin Yuan had her return to the residence in the north of the city first.
Without a woman in the house, even the mice were male.
With a deep gaze, Lin Yuan looked toward the city walls.
The sounds coming from there were growing fainter, and he did not know how the battle was going.
The moment he turned onto the main street, Lin Yuan frowned.
The once-deserted street was now full of people running wildly about.
The doors of several rice shops had been smashed to pieces, and a dozen thugs were charging out with sacks of rice in their arms.
A shopkeeper lunged forward to stop them, only to be kicked into a street corner, cracking his head open.
"Nobody move! How dare you!"
A squad of county constables charged over with iron rulers in hand. The entire street erupted into chaos, every sort of noise mingling together.
Lin Yuan's expression darkened. Sure enough, before disaster struck, order was the first thing to collapse.
These beasts most likely wanted to indulge themselves without restraint before the city fell.
Lin Yuan quickened his pace and turned into an alley.
The alley was dim. He had only walked a few steps when two burly men suddenly sprang out ahead.
Both reeked of alcohol and carried gleaming butcher knives.
Seeing Lin Yuan's fine clothes, the man on the left immediately lit up and raised his butcher knife toward Lin Yuan's neck.
"You little bastard, hand over your silv-"
Clang!
Saber light flashed.
Two large heads shot skyward. The headless bodies swayed, then collapsed.
Lin Yuan walked between them.
Halfway down the alley, a strong stench of blood assailed him.
Lin Yuan glanced toward the corner at the deepest end of the alley.
A woman's corpse lay there on its back.
The coarse clothing on her upper body had been torn into strips, exposing large patches of bruised, purplish skin.
Her lower body was completely bare, and blood trickled slowly down from between her thighs.
Beside her lay half a basket's worth of green vegetables, scattered across the ground.
Lin Yuan stopped and remained silent for a long time.
When he moved again, his steps were noticeably heavier.
Passing through the alley, he saw the towering city walls. In a few bounds, Lin Yuan leaped onto the battlements.
The atmosphere atop the wall was stretched taut, and the thick stench of blood was enough to make people retch.
Several hundred city guards gripped their longbows and spears tightly, leaning behind the crenellations and gasping for breath.
Lin Yuan walked to a crenellation and peered down.
Hundreds of corpses lay strewn beneath the wall, nearly filling the moat.
On the open ground in the distance, a dark mass of men and horses stretched as far as the eye could see.
Heavy footsteps sounded beside him.
Shen Qing walked over, dragging her saber. Blood had seeped through the bandage on her right arm again, and she was utterly exhausted.
"You're here."
Lin Yuan nodded and tipped his chin toward the area outside the city.
"How are things?"
Shen Qing rubbed between her brows, her voice hoarse.
"We just repelled an assault. The roaming bandits are the main force attacking the city. Zhao Wuya's troops are only harassing us."
Before her words had faded.
A bowstring suddenly rang out below the wall!
Whoosh!
A cold glint tore through the air with a shrill scream, shooting straight toward the battlements!
"Watch out!"
The surrounding soldiers' expressions changed drastically.
Shen Qing lifted her eyelids. Her left hand darted out like lightning, firmly catching the still-quivering arrow.
A letter was conspicuously tied to its shaft.
Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.
"Looks like Zhao Wuya has already guessed something happened inside the city."
Shen Qing snorted coldly, pulled off the letter, and unfolded it.
The wildly cursive strokes seemed to pierce through the paper. There was only one simple sentence:
Release the Zhao Clan members, or I will slaughter the city!
The two exchanged a glance, neither speaking.
Release them?
Leaving aside the fact that every Zhao Clan member inside the city was already dead.
Even if they really released them, Zhao Wuya would not retreat.
On the road of rebellion, once an arrow left the bow, there was no calling it back. There was only one path to follow into the darkness.
Shen Qing drew a deep breath, turned the letter over, and wrote eight large characters:
I'll consider it. Wait there!
After writing, she tied the letter back onto the arrow shaft and snatched a stiff bow from a soldier beside her.
She nocked the arrow, drew the string, and bent the bow into a full moon!
Twang!
The arrow became a black streak, plunging from the battlements like a shooting star and driving into the open ground before the central command tent with unerring precision.
"We'll buy time first. We just need to hold out until Uncle Fu brings reinforcements."
Lin Yuan looked at the distant central command tent and shook his head slightly.
"Get ready. He's about to attack the city again."
Shen Qing froze, disbelief written all over her face.
Lin Yuan pointed at the great banner bearing the character "Zhao" in the distance.
"Zhao Wuya didn't become the General of Far-Reaching Might and command thirty thousand troops by being a fool."
"When there was no support from inside the city during the earlier assault, he was already suspicious."
"Besides, would someone pursuing great ambitions care about a little family affection?"
Bwooo, bwooo, bwooo.
Low, urgent horn blasts rang out, and war drums thundered!
Shen Qing jolted and whipped her head around to look below the wall.