Abducting the Bride, Raiding the Carriage

The bustling market Denglai Mountain Market.

A caravan of carriages and horses was moving slowly amidst various hawking cries.

A rough estimate suggests that there were fifty or sixty people in the group, almost all of whom were riding fine horses from the north.

Each of them wore a straw hat, had a robust build, and was dressed in a gray, fine cloth outfit. They had a string of prayer beads around their left wrists, and anyone could tell that they were a group of monks.

There were two carriages, surrounded by riders in the middle.

The carriage was decorated like brocade, with Shangdu the curtains and drapery. The two men driving the carriage held whips with silver threads twisted in them.

The curtain of the car in front was lifted, revealing the face of a middle-aged woman adorned with jewels. She chuckled and spoke to the person outside.

"I had long heard that Denglai Mountain Market place of great prosperity, but now it seems that it is nothing special, far inferior to Jiankang City, and probably not even as far as the capital of the Northern Dynasty."

"Fortunately, my Xiao Clan is here, which gives us a convenient advantage. We'll stay there temporarily later and won't neglect Fa'en."

The last four generations of Celebration of the Sage Temple have been ranked according to the generational name "Wusheng Faren".

The people riding horses were mostly monks of the "Fa" generation, and the leader was called Fa'en.

This person has a protruding forehead and thin cheeks, making his eyes appear deep-set and his face rigid. On the prayer beads in his left hand, there is a slightly yellow round bead that is glowing.

"No need, I have a junior brother here, I can stay at his place for the night."

In Denglai Mountain Market, there is a Fahui living here for a long time. We took the opportunity to contact him through the relics, to welcome him back, and to rest for a night.

With someone familiar with the local area to meet them, it would be easier to cross Denglai Mountain Market and return to the territory of the Northern Dynasty.

Although they had traveled together, Fa'en clearly trusted the Xiao Clan less than he trusted his own junior brother.

The woman in the car was still smiling, about to say something more, when she suddenly saw a building by the roadside.

The building's doors were wide open; passing through the lobby on the first floor, one could see the courtyard behind it, and even the large house further back in the courtyard.

All the windows of the large house were open, and swords hung under the eaves overlooking the river.

The woman's expression changed slightly, and she flung her hand down the carriage curtain.

A monk beside Fa'en rode closer to his horse and asked curiously, "Why does this woman stop making a fuss as soon as she sees that tavern?"

Fa'en glanced intently into the building. "That must be Xiao Liang's property."

"Xiao Liang, the sworn enemy of the Xiao family of the East Sea Xiao Family?"

The monk asked doubtfully, "But isn't the one in the carriage from the Xiao family, who control the court? He's not from the family in the East Sea."

Fa'en glanced at him sideways, said nothing more, and continued to gaze at the relics, feeling somewhat puzzled. Why hadn't the Fahui come to greet them yet?

Feeling awkward, the monk started chatting with his fellow disciples.

"I've heard that Xiao Liang wasn't originally the Marquis of Pengcheng, but he insisted on living in Pengcheng. Local sects flocked to him, and now everyone knows that Pengcheng has become his territory. Even the emperor of the Southern Dynasty can only grit his teeth and accept it."

The monk laughed heartily, "The emperor is, after all, the face of the Southern Dynasty, yet he is so weak, unable to find anyone to stand up for him. It's truly laughable."

The Grand Preceptor of the Northern Dynasty in Celebration of the Sage Temple, though not a member of the royal family, had married a princess.

Now, three emperors of the Yuan dynasty have come and gone, but the Imperial Preceptor is still alive and has become the most senior member of the Northern Dynasty Dynasty's royal family.

When members of the Northern Dynasty's royal family traveled outside, they had a lot of leverage because of their kinship ties.

This monk, who was not only from a collateral branch of the royal family, but had also successfully entered the temple, bringing them even closer, and he had always been proud of this.

After a few words of conversation, he indeed brought up the family ties again.

"Once we escort the one behind back back, if the Ancestral Master is merciful, I wonder if he might hold another marriage Fahui, summoning all the beauties to gather, ordering the lotus pond to bloom, and enjoying the wondrous fragrance. We could also benefit from it..."

At this point, the monk suddenly felt a chill in his ribs.

Just then, a burly man with sallow hair and a dirty coat brushed past the monk.

The monk was on horseback, while the blond-haired man was on foot.

Although they said they just brushed past each other, the blond man's head only reached the monk's waist.

The blond man had to raise his hand to touch the monk's ribs.

When the monk felt a chill in his ribs, he instinctively turned his head to look, only to see the blond man with his hands hanging down, showing no signs of distress.

The horse took a few more steps, and suddenly the monk fell off the horse.

All the monks in the horse team changed their expressions. With a raise of their hands, serrated blades popped out from their straw hats and were held in their hands.

The people on the street realized something was wrong and panicked, scrambling to hide in the surrounding restaurants and shops.

Exclamations, footsteps, shouts, pushing, cursing, and the sound of things being smashed filled the air in chaos.

Fa'en suddenly turned around, his figure leaping into the air, his toes stomping on the saddle again, making him even faster.

In the blink of an eye, he was shot backwards to the very back of the carriage behind him.

The curtains on the carriage behind were actually fake.

Only the curtain directly in front can be lifted; the curtains on the other three sides are all lined with iron plates, making it a complete cage.

However, now, the iron plate directly behind them has been silently and silently carved into a perfect circle with finger force, creating a large hole.

A blond man darted out of the car, carrying a little girl with dark hair and a red dress under his left arm.

As soon as he came out, he came face to face with Fa'en, who had seemingly fallen from the sky.

"You audacious thief, how dare you rob my Celebration of the Sage Temple's Wondrous Fragrance Wisdom Maiden!"

Fa'en's face was as black as iron, and he struck out with both palms, his hands moving horizontally and diagonally.

More than a dozen large black handprints, shaped like palms cut from an iron plate, pressed down with Sha Qi intent.

The blond man pointed his fingers like a sword and suddenly drew a pale crescent moon.

He shattered more than a dozen palm prints with a single sword strike.

At that moment, Fa'en grabbed his wrist with one hand, then suddenly released his grip, avoiding the pale Sword Qi piercing the pressure point on his wrist. But his other hand then grabbed his elbow from below.

The blond man roared.

Everyone on the street, inside and out, felt a shiver run through them.

It wasn't because the sound was particularly loud or possessed any extraordinary offensive power, but rather because the roar was utterly desolate.

It sounded like someone who hadn't drunk water for three days and three nights, straining to make a sound.

Those who heard this sound felt a phantom pain in their throats, as if they were bleeding.

After the blond man roared, his entire right arm, from shoulder to wrist, emitted pale, chopstick-thick sword Sword Qi from every acupoint.

Fa'en was startled, feeling a strong Dao Qi rush towards him, which seemed to be even purer than his own power.

"Set up the formation!!"

As soon as Fa'en shouted this, he had already retreated ten feet.

Celebration of the Sage Temple has a "Great Mount Sumeru Heavenly Soldiers Formation" that requires fifty-four people to form a complete formation.

It is said that on the eve of the Northern Dynasty Dynasty's royal wedding to the princess, the Grand Preceptor did not personally take action, but only sent fifty-four Mount Sumeru Heavenly Soldiers to fight against the 30,000 elite rebel troops of the Northern Dynasty.

Once this formation is deployed, it resembles several layers of rotating discs, with experts shifting positions between different layers to constantly fill in, creating an extremely strange and illusory atmosphere.

When outsiders engage him in battle, they are immediately struck by a dreamlike vision of Mount Sumeru, a fleeting illusion of flowers and shadows.

Thirty thousand elite troops were overwhelmed by the great formation, entering and exiting several times. The formation was a maze of illusions, sometimes rotating clockwise and sometimes counterclockwise. In the end, they killed thousands of enemies and wounded over ten thousand, causing the rebel army to collapse.

To this day, Celebration of the Sage Temple has more than 600 disciples who have been selected as "Mount Sumeru Heavenly Soldiers".

Although many outsiders doubt that the vast majority of these 600 people are not as skilled or determined as the first batch of Mount Sumeru Heavenly Soldiers back then.

However, as long as fifty-four heavenly soldiers successfully set up the formation, very few people below the Attaining the Dao being can break through the formation and survive.

Fa'en's group has sixty monks. One of them just died, but they are still enough to form an array.

But as he shouted this, he suddenly noticed that more than a dozen people had rushed out from the surrounding streets, entangled the monks, and started a chaotic battle.

One of the young men in white landed on the roof of the rear carriage, waving his fan and chuckling softly.

"The prestigious Xiao Clan actually sent a beauty to the Northern Dynasty Dynasty's Grand Preceptor. Just how stunning must this beauty be? And what tempting benefits would come from having relations with her?"

The young man looked at the blond-haired man, "Those fellow wanderers in the martial world who enjoy picking flowers have followed me all this way, but none of them are confident enough to make a move."

"This gentleman is truly a hero among us, exceptionally bold in love and ruthless in his methods, but unfortunately, with a beauty by his side, he can hardly use his arms."

"How about I take care of it first, and we all work together to break through? Then we can talk about the benefits, okay?"

No one noticed.

Chu Tianshu stood on the highest eaves of the gatehouse of Pengcheng Tavern, holding the relic, gazing at the battlefield.

"Another Demonic Dao cultivation technique?"

He was mostly focused on the blond man, marveling at him.

"It seems that the Sword Qi used to neutralize the moonlight's pollution comes from this person's own pain and hatred."

"To exploit a heart filled with suffering, to subject it to the pollution of moonlight, and then to become even more tormented—this method is pure perversion; it will only kill a person..."

In the streets.

Fa'en's face was already ashen, and his expression remained largely unchanged as he coldly swept his gaze over the crowd.

"These are all familiar faces. Are you really here just to rob us of our virtue, or to ruin the important plans of our two families?"

Fa'en's gaze fell on the blond man. "You're a new face."

Inside the carriage ahead, the woman from the Xiao Clan shattered the carriage, knocked away a lecherous thief, and rushed over.

The blond man seemed to sense something; his gloomy eyes darted around, fixing on the woman's face.

The woman could vaguely make out the man's features, and was immediately startled. "How could it be you?"

"Robbery and lust—are these things only done to disrupt the grand plan, for the sake of robbery and lust?"

The blond man's voice was like the scraping of rusty iron; his face was contorted with rage and his expression was dark and menacing.

"But she's my daughter!"

Many people present were taken aback. Fa'en hesitated and asked, "Are you a Xiao Clan?"

"My daughter has never had the surname Xiao."

The blond man had bloodshot eyelids as he looked at the Xiao Clan woman.

"I found the baby next to a woman's corpse by the roadside and we depended on each other for fourteen years. You took her away from me!"

(End of this chapter)