He took two steps forward, his boots splashing mud and water.
"Lift the carriage curtain."
Yang Tie pressed hard on the black lacquered wooden box on his lap, his eyelids twitching wildly, cursing the steward who had kidnapped him a thousand times over in his mind.
They left in such a hurry; they should have just drugged all these girls!
What if I don't lift it?
"Then you'll have to suffer the consequences if you refuse a polite toast."
Xue Huan slowly raised her right hand.
"Click--"
Behind them, more than a dozen crossbows were simultaneously drawn to full draw, the creaking of their mechanisms creating a continuous chorus of sounds, instantly enveloping the mountain valley in a murderous aura.
One of Yang Tie's stewards was so frightened by the scene that his legs went weak and he instinctively wanted to draw his sword.
"Call out!"
A crossbow bolt whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the deck behind him, its fletching still buzzing.
The steward screamed in agony, clutching his blood-soaked ear as he collapsed to his knees, the knife falling into the muddy water.
Yang Tie's face was even more ashen than a dead man's.
He knew that this time, he was completely trapped.
However, just as he was about to surrender and try to save his life, something unexpected happened!
The cold wind on the old timber road in West Mountain was suddenly torn apart by an even sharper whooshing sound.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh--"
From behind the dead trees on both sides of the road, a dozen or so black-clad assassins wearing demon masks suddenly emerged.
They carried crossbows in their hands and concealed poisoned darts in their sleeves.
Arrows rained down like a storm.
"There's an ambush! Spread out!"
Xue Huan's pupils contracted, and he shouted sharply, while simultaneously rolling to the side to dodge several stray arrows aimed at him.
The prince's crossbowmen were well-trained; they immediately sought cover and began to fight back against the masked assassins.
Amidst the chaos of battle.
The steward, who had just been terrified and knelt down, hadn't even had a chance to get up before he was riddled with crossbow bolts, his body twitching twice before going still.
Yang Tie was terrified and desperately shrank deeper into the carriage, trying to use the two tied-up girls as human shields.
However, a fast and powerful arrow still pierced through the thin wall of the carriage and struck his shoulder accurately.
"Puff--"
Yang Tie clung tightly to the black lacquered wooden box filled with " Red Lead Pill," spitting a mouthful of black blood onto the cart floor. The excruciating pain nearly made him faint.
With his last ounce of strength, he peered over the chaotic crowd and fixed his gaze on the hunter on the hillside, who should have been his last lifeline.
Why haven't the underground martial arts masters he hired at great expense made a move yet?
Hearing Yang Tie's scream, the hunter finally stopped.
He slowly raised his head and ripped off the greasy, smelly sheepskin coat he was wearing.
Beneath the sheepskin coat, there was no cotton-padded clothing, only mounds of strong muscles, crisscrossed with strange Tubo Tantric totems.
A steel grappling hook with barbs and a dark blue sheen silently slid into his palm.
He was ostensibly an assistant hired by Yang Tie.
In reality, it was a top spy planted by the Tubo Silver City in Jiannan Circuit, specifically to search for the most ingenious and cunning skills of the Great Yan Dynasty. He had long been eyeing the pharmacy in Cypress Village that could refine "divine pills"!
"Drink!"
The grappling hook lashed out with a piercing whistle, like a venomous snake spitting its tongue, instantly severing the necks of two masked assassins who were about to deliver the final blow.
The hunter moved like a furious snow leopard, leaping and bounding across the muddy mountain road before smashing the already dilapidated carriage to pieces.
He cleaved open the skull of another assassin with a single palm strike, not even glancing at the two terrified girls inside the carriage, before bending down and grabbing the broken arrow from Yang Tie's shoulder.
That hand was large and powerful, like an iron clamp, and it forcefully pulled the dying man, along with the wooden box in his arms, out of the pool of blood and slammed it onto its shoulder.
"Put the person down!"
Xue Huan shouted sharply, and the crossbowmen of the Prince's Palace had already reorganized their formation and lowered their swords.
A dense barrage of arrows blocked all escape routes.
The Tubo scout let out a beast-like roar, neither dodging nor avoiding, but instead using the bulging muscles on his back to trap the two crossbow bolts, his blood instantly staining the totem on his back.
He stomped through the mud and water, using a broken piece of cart shaft as a springboard to leap into the air, carrying Yang Tie's body, and plunged headfirst into the dense forest at the bottom of the steep cliff beside him.
"Don't pursue a cornered enemy! That totem... he's Tubo!"
Xue Huan immediately made a defensive gesture, stopping his men from giving chase.
The area at the bottom of the cliff is densely forested and overgrown with grass, and the terrain is unclear. Moreover, the enemy is a Tubo expert, so pursuing them rashly will only increase casualties.
He strode over to the corpses of the masked assassins, squatted down, tore off the mask of one of them, and pried open his mouth with a dagger.
It has no venom sacs.
He then checked the other person's collar and the soles of their shoes.
The clothing was made of common coarse cotton, and the soles of the shoes were covered in mud from the unique red soil of Yi Prefecture City.
Xue Huan's brows furrowed into a deep frown.
"Take all these bodies back; don't leave a single one behind."
He stood up, looking at the bottomless darkness at the bottom of the cliff, and had a vague feeling that the game in Yi Prefecture was getting more and more chaotic.
We must return immediately to report to the Prince.
The old prince's mansion, the study.
The candlelight cast flickering shadows on the window paper, and the air was filled with the faint scents of ink and tea.
Gu Moran tapped the armrest lightly with his fingertips as he listened to Xue Huan's report, who had just returned from West Mountain.
Yun Zhengze stood to the side, his face ashen, his fists clenched tightly.
"... When my subordinates arrived, Yang Tie's convoy had already been ambushed by a group of masked assassins. Yang Tie himself was shot by an arrow and was later kidnapped along with his belongings by a Tubo spy who was lying in wait. The car then fell to the bottom of the cliff in the West Mountain."
Xue Huan's voice was steady and powerful as he recounted everything that had happened in the mountain valley.
"My subordinates have inspected the area. The masked assassins' clothing is mostly in the Anyang style, but the soles of their shoes are covered in local Yi Prefecture red soil, indicating they have been lying in wait for several days."
Gu Moran's fingers stopped.
Anyang?
Yun Zhengze gritted his teeth.
"Could it be that Prince An has also come to join the fun?"
Gu Moran frowned.
His second elder brother, who lived far away in Anyang, had lost power in the capital and suffered a setback upon returning to his fiefdom. Now, disregarding all dignity, he directly used assassins to kill and rob.
"He probably believed Chen Qing's letter full of nonsense, thinking that Yang Tie really had some Heavenly Fire Divine Pill that could counteract this king."
Gu Moran's tone was very calm, as if he were talking about an interesting thing that had nothing to do with him.
"Send assassins to snatch it. If they succeed, the elixir is theirs; if they fail and the man dies in Yi Prefecture, the blame will still fall on me."
Yun Zhengze's chest heaved violently, clearly indicating that he was extremely angry.
"Your Highness, this matter must not be left unresolved! I will immediately write a memorial to report to the court about Prince An's privately harboring of assassins and his cross-border crimes!"
Gu Moran waved his hand, signaling him to calm down.
"We have both witnesses and physical evidence, but now is not the time to overturn the table. The emperor is paralyzed and cannot speak."
He looked out the window at the deep darkness of the night.
"Submitting a memorial at this time will only make the capital more chaotic and give others an excuse to attack us."
He turned to look at Xue Huan.
"Did you experience being a corpse?"
"It's been verified." Xue Huan clasped his hands in a fist and said, " Song Wan personally verified them. These people have all been trained as assassins, but their foundation is unstable. They seem to have been hastily assembled. They don't have poison sacs in their mouths, and they don't have any tokens of identification on their bodies."
"Display the body in public."
Gu Moran the instructions.
"Just say it's a fight among bandits roaming outside the city, put the case in the Provincial Surveillance Commission's files, and then 'inadvertently' leak this information to Anyang's informant in Yi Prefecture."
He picked up the tea on the table and blew on it to cool it down.
"I want Gu Mochen to know that the people he sent disappeared without a trace, leaving him to guess and fear."