Cao Anmin sensed the murderous intent, slapped the car floor with his palm, and used the force to lift her into the air.
As they left, a loud crash resounded, and the carriage instantly shattered into pieces. The assassin who had been hiding under the carriage was also smashed into a bloody pulp with a single blow.
As dusk fell, a dozen men in black suddenly emerged from the woods and began fighting with members of the Eastern Depot.
"Strangle the eunuch!" Another group of men in black, hoping to reap the benefits, roared and pounced on Cao Anmin as he came out.
Unfortunately, the men who came were killed by the Eastern Depot before they could even get a few steps closer to Cao Anmin. These small fry were no match for them.
Even so, the ever-growing number of assassins was a problem, showing that the wanted poster with ten thousand taels of gold was still effective.
Moreover, Cao Anmin vaguely felt that there were more people coming tonight than just these few.
At this moment, Xia Yixin felt like a piece of merchandise, dizzy and disoriented. She managed to break free from Cao Anmin's grasp during a brief moment of distraction and tried to escape, but before she could run a few steps, her vision blurred, and when she regained her senses, he grabbed her and pulled her back, even throwing her onto the horse's back.
She had barely settled in when he had already knocked away an assassin who had attacked him, jumped onto the horse, tightened the reins, and turned the horse around, galloping towards the city gate, with seven or eight assassins hot on his heels.
"Don't move, or I'll throw you down," he warned her.
At such a high speed, without any superhuman strength, if she fell off, she would have her ribs broken by the horse's trampling. She stopped stiffly and let him hold her.
Fortunately, the man didn't do anything excessive; he simply tightened his grip on her.
He sped off for over ten kilometers in one go, leaving only one of the seven or eight assassins who had been chasing him in hot pursuit.
The sky was completely dark, with only the stars and the crescent moon shining over the wilderness.
The galloping horse suddenly stepped on something and let out a pitiful cry.
It's a horse trap!
It seems that this was not just a few groups of martial arts practitioners who came together temporarily, but rather a premeditated plan.
In the instant he fell, Cao Anmin threw the woman in his arms away. Right in front of them was a surging river, its surface shimmering in the moonlight.
Xia Yixin didn't even have time to react before she fell into the river, which was more than a meter deep, and struggled for a while before finally floating up, completely soaked.
The water in April was still icy cold, and her little face turned pale instantly.
All that could be heard was the whooshing sound of arrows cutting through the air. From the dense forests on both sides of the river, a barrage of arrows shot towards the man who had just climbed out of the pit, but they still couldn't trap him.
He drew his blade, and the first volley of arrows rained down on the ground, not a single one getting close to him. At the same time, more than forty hidden assassins rushed over from all sides.
These people are much more skilled in martial arts than the previous ones.
Xia Yixin had never seen him truly make a move before, and only now did she realize what a real master was. In the blink of an eye, half of the attacking assassins had fallen, and all of them had broken arms and legs. None of these masters could even last three moves against him.
Gradually, only Cao Anmin and the other man in black who had been chasing them on horseback remained on the field.
The man was masked, but his martial arts skills were no less than Cao Anmin's. The two fought fiercely for a while. Xia Yixin, soaking in the water, felt that the man in black looked familiar, but she couldn't remember him for a moment.
She was startled when she suddenly heard several splashes as people fell into the water; the assassins were coming towards her. Terrified, she turned and swam to the opposite bank.
Unfortunately, she had only swum halfway when something suddenly tangled her foot. In her struggle, she discovered that it was an assassin.
It's likely that the assassin saw Cao Anmin "protecting" her all the way and concluded that she might be his weakness, wanting to use her to threaten Cao Anmin.
In a moment of desperation, she kicked him in the head with her foot. The man in black didn't expect her to retaliate, and she actually managed to break free.
Then, there were several more thuds; they were all trying to find Cao Anmin's "weak point."
Alarm bells rang in Xia Yixin's mind, and she took a deep breath and submerged herself in the water, preparing to swim away from the group's pursuit.
She didn't know that her actions would lead Cao Anmin to misunderstand that she had been dragged into the river.
Even while fighting the masked man in black, Cao Anmin was first shocked by the man's martial arts skills, which were no less than his own, and then he wondered when such a person had appeared in the martial arts world.
At that moment, the splashing sound of water behind him drew his attention.
He happened to see Xia Yixin "sinking" into the water, and when he saw that she hadn't surfaced for a long time, he suddenly felt a surge of anger.
By the time he realized what was happening, he had already knocked his opponent away with a single palm strike and jumped into the turbulent river.
He finished off several men in black who couldn't dodge in time, then held his breath and sank into the murky river.
At night, the river was dozens of meters deep, making it impossible for ordinary people to see objects clearly. However, Cao Anmin, with his keen senses, found the person he was looking for much faster.
When he realized that there was no danger around her and that she had already swum more than ten meters away, he was both amused and exasperated, but he couldn't let her get away now.
Using his inner strength, he followed the current and caught up with her even faster. It had rained a few days ago, and the current was very fast. In the blink of an eye, he had left the group of men in black far behind.
Xia Yixin had just swum to the surface to catch her breath, relieved that her underwater swimming plan had succeeded, when suddenly someone grabbed her arm. Startled, she instinctively pulled out a dagger from her storage ring and stabbed it into the other person's abdomen.
Blood instantly stained the river red.
It was only then that Xia Yixin realized who she had stabbed.
Good heavens!
Why is it Cao Anmin?!
The latter's face had darkened considerably, and he looked extremely menacing.
"Sir, would you believe me if I said it was an accident?"
She still held the dagger in her hand, and the two floated on the slightly calmer river.
The moonlight was unbelievably beautiful, but she felt chilled to the bone. Just as Cao Anmin grabbed her by the neck, she suddenly felt something wrap around her feet and pull her down rapidly—it was the undercurrent of the river!
She instinctively grabbed Cao Anmin, and the two of them were instantly submerged in the river, gurgling as they were sucked into the undercurrent.
Shortly after they disappeared into the river, a tall, slender man in black arrived at the riverbank with several of his men.
Looking at the calm river, he removed his mask.
If Xia Yixin were here, she would definitely recognize him as Shen Shaoyang, but there seemed to be something different about him. He had shaved off his beard, and although his skin was already dark, he had regained some of his gentlemanly air.
"Master, what should we do?" the assassin asked respectfully.
Shen Shaoyang said in a deep voice, "Investigate this riverside road. He has been poisoned. Even if he doesn't die, he certainly can't have gone far."
After the other men in black left, Shen Shaoyang covered his abdominal wound, his face slightly pale.
His martial arts skills were even higher than he had imagined.
If it weren't for the divine water that Ruyu borrowed from the "immortal" that truly increased his martial arts skills more than tenfold overnight, he probably wouldn't have been able to withstand more than ten moves from him.
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