Chapter 431: Faking Death and Escape (5k)
No... This offer is different from what we agreed upon... How could a senior from six hundred years ago be even worse than the old Heavenly Master, raising the price at the last minute and extorting money? Can I refuse...
Zhao Duan's expression was dull, and the villain in his heart was roaring wildly.
Naturally, he also made corresponding preparations for this surprise arrest, such as communicating with Pei Niannu in advance and rescuing him at a critical moment.
At this time, seeing that Zhao Duan remained silent, Pei Niannu tacitly assumed that he agreed.
The eyes behind the dark gold mask swept over everyone, and suddenly strands of red silk flew out of the wedding dress on her body, wrapping around several important figures in front.
"We are going to fall!" Haitang could hardly stand and looked terrified.
She was rushing in the front, when the rock under her feet broke and she fell off the cliff into the abyss.
At the critical moment, a "rope" made of flames was suddenly wrapped around the waist of the female police officer, and she was pulled up.
"ah!"
Next to him, the man with the expressionless face, who was also in a desperate situation, was hanging in the air in the same posture.
The two men turned their heads in shock and looked back with wide eyes. In their sight, Zhao Duan was floating in the air, with a faint crimson light surrounding him.
At this moment, his eyes were cold as he looked down at everyone. The end of the illusory "red silk" was held in his hand - as a spirit, Pei Niannu could not be seen by warriors or mortals.
Among the people present, except Ji Yue who was knocked down by the pillar, everyone saw the "ghost" floating behind Zhao Duan in a daze.
The others thought that Zhao Duan was using some magic weapon to perform magic.
“Squeak—”
The third red silk shot out, smashing the pillar with a "bang" and pulling Ji Yue up.
The fourth dish followed, and Zhuang Xiaocheng, whose smile had suddenly stopped, was picked up.
The old tutor had already prepared to die, but unexpectedly something unusual happened. He tried to struggle violently, but ended up wrapping Pei Niannu up like a dumpling with red silk.
At this time, the entire mountain had collapsed, and rocks were falling. Some of the young members of the Kuangfu Society had already fallen into the abyss with screams.
"No--"
Yunxi fell to the ground, her calf was broken by a stone and she could not move. Her hair was disheveled and she looked blankly at her "companions" who were falling like a group of ants.
Fear was revealed on her beautiful face. Just when she thought that she was going to die here, the fifth piece of red silk wrapped around her slender waist.
Pulling her into the air, Yun Xi turned her head in surprise and looked at the godlike Zhao Duan who was smiling at her with his lips moving:
"I'm not Zhuang Xiaocheng. I won't abandon you."
Yunxi felt a lump in her throat and tears welled up in her eyes for some unknown reason.
"We can't stay here. Senior, please help us leave here and hide our bodies temporarily."
Zhao Duan wanted to ask for a ride, but then he realized that Pei Niannu's spell consumed his strength, and with his current level of cultivation, it was not enough for the sorceress to exploit.
I had to settle for the second best and wait a while.
Pei Niannu said nothing, and the crimson light followed the silk, enveloping the few people. Then, amid a deafening roar with huge smoke and dust, the few people disappeared out of thin air.
…
"Boom..."
On the mountain road, Gongshu Tianyuan and others witnessed the entire mountain collapsing, and countless bricks, tiles, and buildings fell into the abyss like an avalanche.
Due to the distance and the smoke and dust from the explosion, we did not see Pei Niannu saving people.
Almost in the blink of an eye, a piece of the steep and majestic mountain was missing, and soon after, a dull roar came from the valley.
quiet.
Silence.
"They...are dead..." Gongshu Tianyuan's Adam's apple rolled and he murmured dully on his fat face.
Jin Jian's face was pale, and he waved his staff in vain, almost falling down.
Lang Shiba rushed to the edge of the mountain path in a few steps and looked down at the abyss below. He knelt on the ground, leaning on his scimitar, and was stunned: "Dead..."
Without a doubt.
Even Ji Yue, who was caught in a landslide of this magnitude, couldn't survive, let alone the others? From such a height, even if they didn't die when they fell, they would be buried by the huge mountain and there would be no hope of survival.
"Dead..."
Qi Yuchun and Ren Kun were also stunned. How could they have the thought of continuing to fight?
"Go down! Take me down!"
Qi Yuchun suddenly turned around and shouted loudly at Ren Kun.
The latter opened his mouth, wanting to say it was too late, but he still gritted his teeth, grabbed the former commander, and the two of them jumped into the canyon!
Qi Yuchun would also fall to his death from this height, but Ren Kun, as an earth magician, could wait until he hits the ground and perform "earth escape" to soften the ground and relieve the impact.
In the blink of an eye, only three people were left in the Forbidden City Villa.
Lang Shiba was helpless. The golden tablet's magic power was almost exhausted. Although Gongshu Tianyuan still had some magic weapons, he knew very well that in this situation, he and others would be committing suicide if they went down.
"How could this happen?" Gongshu Tianyuan murmured. The three of them stood quietly on the top of the mountain, unable to accept it for a moment.
“Plop!”
At this moment, the sound of falling was heard behind everyone, accompanied by screams of "Ouch" and curses of "Woo woo".
The trio turned around in shock, only to see Zhao Duan and others lying on the ground behind them.
"Brother Zhao?! You are not dead?" The short and fat priest was overjoyed, Jin Jian's eyes lit up, and Lang Shiba also staggered to his feet.
“Huff…Huff…”
Zhao Duan lay on the ground with his arms and legs spread out, gasping for breath and feeling dizzy.
Pei Niannu has disappeared, and the energy in his sea of qi is almost exhausted.
He didn't expect that just moving a few people a short distance would consume such a terrifying amount of energy. Suddenly, he began to understand why Ren Kun refused to take Yun Xi with him when he rescued Zhuang Xiaocheng in the Temple of the Earth.
"Zhuang...don't let him shout..." Zhao Duan struggled to get up.
At this moment, Zhuang Xiaocheng was no longer wrapped in silk and regained his mobility. Although a hairpin was still stuck in his back, Yunxi avoided the heart in order to capture him alive. He now opened his eyes wide and was about to shout.
"Bang!" Zhang Han smashed his sword sheath at him, "Behave yourself!"
Zhuang Xiaocheng’s eyes went dark and he immediately passed out.
"It was a close call... I was almost killed by this old dog. Luckily you had a trump card on you." Haitang looked scared and glanced at Zhao Duan, not too surprised.
She thought that this guy dared to leave the palace to arrest people, maybe he got some protective treasure from the emperor.
"Take the medicine quickly to restore your strength and prevent Qi Yuchun and the other two from coming back!" Zhao Duan took out several bottles of pills from the space scroll and distributed them to everyone.
Everyone immediately wolfed down the pills, racing against time to recover their cultivation - with their numerical advantage, as long as they recovered 50%, they would not be afraid of two powerful enemies.
After a while, Zhao Duan regained some strength and felt confident. He stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
All I saw was a large cloud of smoke and dust, almost like a sea of clouds, which blocked my view and made it impossible to see what was happening at the bottom of the cliff.
"It seems those two won't be coming back anytime soon. They'll have to search the rubble of the mountain carefully for your 'corpses' first."
Gongshu Tianyuan came over and said in amazement: "Do you want to go down and find them?"
"No," Zhao Duan shook his head and said seriously, "The mastermind has been captured. There's no need to create any more complications."
Well, the main reason was that he was not sure... Although he had more people on his side, it was really difficult to keep the enemy.
"Everyone, go into the villa first and search quickly to see if there is any important information." Zhao Duan hesitated and gave the order without immediately going down the mountain to escape.
The group nodded, and Lang Shiba tied Zhuang Xiaocheng on his back - unfortunately, neither the "Taixu Painting Scroll" nor the "Black Turtle Seal" could hold living people, otherwise it would be easy to carry too many.
Everyone quickly entered the remaining half of the village and searched as quickly as possible.
"No, nothing. There are braziers in the room, and many letters were burned." Haitang returned from the direction of the study.
"The accounting office is empty. There are only a few hundred taels of silver in the entire villa." Zhang Han also walked back.
Zhao Duan gathered intelligence and was not surprised:
"As expected, it seems Zhuang Xiaocheng's words were true. The Forbidden City Villa was indeed the location he had prepared for the decisive battle with me. Therefore, all the key items were moved away in advance. This headquarters, apart from him as the 'leader', has become almost an empty shell."
After a pause, he smiled again:
"But now that we've caught this old dog, we should be content."
As the saying goes, to catch a thief, you must first catch the leader. Although Zhuang Xiaocheng is just an ordinary man, his life alone is enough to be worth half of the entire Kuangfu Society.
"Let's go. We can't stay here for long. We need to return to the city as soon as possible to prevent Qi Yuchun from coming back."
Zhao Duan's eyes were filled with excitement, revealing a calculating look:
"However, we have to keep a low profile when we go back this time."
…
…
Fengcheng County Government Office.
Prefect Luan Cheng stood behind the desk in the lobby of the yamen, constantly dealing with the information that came in.
The atmosphere in the entire county government office was extremely restless, with soldiers from the imperial court and the military government shuttling back and forth inside and outside the courtyard.
After Zhao Duan took Gongshu Tianyuan away, Luan Cheng no longer had any need to stay at the execution ground.
He immediately returned to the county government office and learned from Lihuatang Jinyi that "Zhao Shaobao" had already made arrangements for the attack on the rebels and told him to be patient.
After that, Luan Cheng would see a team of soldiers escorting the captured "rebels" to prison every once in a while.
The county government jail cells were soon overcrowded, and as a last resort, all the rooms in the county government office were used as temporary "prisons."
Thanks to the obstruction of many spies and the timely handling of officers and soldiers, the damage caused by this massive attack was not great.
However, there were a few places where fires were successfully started, but Luan Cheng was already satisfied and even felt fortunate.
"Sir, we've brought back a few more prisoners. This should be the last batch. Many rebels have taken advantage of the chaos to escape or hide. My soldiers are searching, but it's unlikely we'll find anything significant."
Deputy General Yuanji, wearing heavy armor and holding a war hammer, walked into the yard.
Hou Renmeng and the others who were bored under the eaves stood up and said with a smile:
"Leave the rebels to us."
Governor Luan didn't care about the rebels. He said hurriedly:
"Have you seen any trace of Zhao Shaobao?"
Yuanji shook his head.
The round-faced secretary Qian Kerou smiled and said:
"Don't worry, my Lord. My Lord always plans before he acts. If he has made any arrangements, it must be something important to do."
"This government knows about the talent of Zhao Shaobao, but... I can't help but worry about him." Luan Cheng sighed, waved his hand, and sent Yuanji away.
Sitting in the court, he was full of anxiety. He stood up from time to time to look outside, paced back and forth and sighed, feeling extremely anxious.
After an unknown amount of time, several guards from Lihua Hall suddenly walked out of the door and returned a moment later to clear the area of the place.
He closed the lobby door again, and under the doubtful gaze of Magistrate Luan, he said to the air:
"Sir, everyone has been cleared."
Suddenly, a huge "red veil" as big as an umbrella appeared in the air, and Gongshu Tianyuan raised his hand to put away the invisible amulet.
In the court, Zhao Duan and his group lost their invisibility and revealed themselves.
"Ah, Lord Zhao? You're back?"
Governor Luan was taken aback for a moment, then showed a look of delight. He was not surprised by this method of cultivation.
"You have no idea how worried I am, afraid... Eh? This is..."
Magistrate Luan noticed that Lang Shiba was carrying an old scholar with white hair and beard, and he looked familiar.
"Zhuang Xiaocheng?!" Luan Cheng had met this Grand Tutor before in the capital. He was horrified and approached in disbelief. He stared at the unconscious old Grand Tutor for several seconds before looking at Zhao Duan in astonishment.
"Sir...you...you have captured this thief?!"
Zhao Duan smiled and nodded: "Lucky."
It’s true!
The rebel leader was captured!
A smile of surprise emerged on Magistrate Luan's dull face, and his cheeks were visibly flushed, as he was both surprised and happy.
Three years after the Xuanmen coup, Zhuang Xiaocheng was hunted down by the whole country. He came and went without a trace. What a cunning man who has three burrows!
When Luan Cheng first learned that Zhao Duan was coming for the bandit leader, he had no hope and only hoped that nothing would happen to this young guard.
Finally, what did he see?
Zhao Duan had only been in the city for seven or eight days when the rebel leader, who had left the entire court helpless, was captured alive.
“Unbelievable!”
"Supernatural means!"
This local official, who was also a well-known official in Binhaidao, admired it with sincere admiration and a complicated expression.
Hearing about someone is not as good as meeting him in person. Although he had heard of many deeds of this "King of Hell Zhao", he couldn't help but doubt whether they were exaggerated.
But after seeing it with my own eyes today, I realized that the rumors were not false at all.
"I beg you to give me some advice on how to capture this thief?" Magistrate Luan asked seriously.
Although Haitang and others experienced it personally, they actually didn't know the whole story.
Now that the person has been captured, Zhao Duan thought about it and simply sat down and narrated the whole story. He only concealed the ability of the "Mirror of Wind and Moon" and said only that Yunxi left marks along the way.
After hearing the entire game, everyone present had a changed look in their eyes. They looked at Zhao Duan, including Zhuang Xiaocheng who was unconscious on the ground, with extremely complicated expressions.
Is this the power of civil servants in the court?
Each of them is deep-minded, scheming, plotting within a trap, being real within lies, and sowing discord again and again.
Although the process was not complicated, looking back, Zhao Duan and Zhuang Xiaocheng started the game when they exchanged prisoners last year.
Everyone used their own methods to make today's seemingly lightning-fast arrest possible.
Everyone wondered, if they were to face off against that old villain Zhuang Xiaocheng, would they be able to win? The answer was no.
"Brother Zhao, you are still the cunning one." Gongshu Tianyuan praised sincerely.
...If you don't know how to praise, you don't have to. Keeping your mouth shut is also a virtue... Zhao Duan's mouth twitched, and he coughed lightly and changed the subject:
"Everyone, this matter is far from over. Not to mention that some important members of the rebel party evacuated early and have yet to be brought to justice, just bringing Zhuang Xiaocheng back to the capital is a difficult problem."
Such an important person certainly cannot be killed with one stabbing.
Not to mention whether it is possible to dig out information from this old thief, his identity as the leader alone is of great significance.
Bringing the living Taifu back to the capital is worth far more than a corpse.
"Although many rebels were arrested today, most of them were abandoned by Zhuang Xiaocheng. Many members of the Kuangfu Society are scattered across the country, and the two masters Qi Yuchun and Ren Kun are still there. The journey back to Beijing is long, with mountains and rivers along the way...
"Oh, the last time I returned to the capital from Huting, I was assassinated and nearly died... I don't want to fall into the same trap a second time," Zhao Duan said calmly.
Haitang analyzed:
"Are you worried that if the news leaks on the way back to Beijing, it will attract a frenzied attack from the Kuangfu Society along the way?"
"It's not just Kuangfu Society." Zhao Duan's expression was serious.
The implication is: If the Eight Kings knew, they might all take action.
At least for now, the existence of Kuangfu Society is beneficial to the Eight Kings rather than harmful.
"The young guard's concerns are justified," said Magistrate Luan, frowning.
"This is indeed a difficult task. What if we gather a large army to escort them? Using the golden medal in the hands of the Grand Protector, can we summon the military headquarters of Binhai and Linfeng to escort them along the way?"
Zhao Duan rejected it:
"Not appropriate. Even though I have the gold medal, I can't mobilize too many troops... Even if we have a large number of people, we can only march along the way. It's not like we're standing in formation on a battlefield. A strong enemy can easily launch a surprise attack, and no matter how many troops we have, it's difficult to defend against it. Furthermore, the more people we have, the greater the losses we'll suffer in terms of food and fodder along the way."
The national treasury has just recovered, so there is really no need to make a big fuss.
"This..." Everyone looked at each other, unable to think of a solution.
Sitting in the corner of the crowd, Yun Xi, who had been silent, suddenly raised her head and stared at Zhao Duan with her bright eyes:
"You already have a plan, right?"
Zhao Duan smiled and glanced at the girl who had proven her loyalty and reliability through her actions, then nodded and said:
"That's right, I'm going to go with the flow and fake my own death."
"suspended animation?"
"That's right. Apart from those of us in this hall, no one else knows the details of what happened at the Forbidden City Villa. Qi Yuchun and Ren Kun witnessed us perishing together with Zhuang Xiaocheng."
Zhao Duan said seriously:
"I was thinking, what if we announce to the public that Zhuang Xiaocheng and I fell off a cliff together and our bodies were nowhere to be found? At the same time, we send a large army to escort the many rebels captured in the city to the capital to attract attention.
Is it feasible for the four of us, Brother Gongshu, Junior Sister Jinjian, Jiyue, and I, to secretly escort Zhuang Xiaocheng back to the capital?
Well, we can tell others that the two Heavenly Masters were invited by me, and now that I'm dead, they want to continue traveling around the martial arts world, so they didn't return to the capital with the main group. This reason makes sense."
Well, to use the idiom he is familiar with, it is:
Repairing the plank road in public while secretly attacking Chencang!
"This...but can we trust Ren Kun? Didn't he go to the bottom of the canyon to look for..." Haitang questioned.
Zhao Duan turned his head and looked at Gongshu Tianyuan:
"I estimated on the way back that the collapsed mountaintop is extremely massive. With Ren Kun's cultivation at the 'Worldly' level, how long would it take him to fully explore it?"
Gongshu Tianyuan thought for a moment and said:
"It will take a long time. He's only at the mortal realm, not the celestial realm. He's not that powerful. Earth escape and stone escape aren't that difficult. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had to fight us on the mountain path before. He could have just escaped into the mountain..."
Besides, I doubt they would be foolish enough to dig deep into the ground to look for your 'corpses'. In a collapse of that scale, the chances of survival are already extremely slim."
"That's all!" Zhao Duan said with a smile:
"As long as they are not completely sure, they will tend to believe what they see. Combined with the information we spread, it is enough to mislead people."
Magistrate Luan hesitated and said:
"It sounds feasible. But is it really necessary? Even if the death news is fake and can be quickly dispelled, rumors will definitely spread faster than you can travel..."
Zhao Duan smiled indifferently:
"If I die, the people of the world will only applaud and the stability of the court will not be shaken. As for the real important figures, when I return to the capital, they will naturally know that it is just a rumor. In comparison, if Zhuang Xiaocheng is rescued or dies on the way, the loss will be much greater."
After a pause, he said seriously:
"Zhuang Xiaocheng will definitely die, but there's a world of difference between dying quietly on the road and being publicly executed in the capital, exposing his fabricated lies about the Xuanmen coup!"
In the courtroom, several decision-makers looked at each other and nodded silently:
"If you decide, we will cooperate."
Zhao Duan smiled slightly and discussed the details of the fake death with a few others. After they finished discussing it, he turned back and said with a smile:
"I almost forgot. You have to come with us, too. After all, you're also going to die at the bottom of the cliff."
Yunxi looked calm:
"This is so complicated. You can just kill me. I'm no longer useful to you."
After completing the backstab, she was in a state similar to "Sage Time" and felt that her life had no purpose.
Zhao Duan smiled and pinched the girl's face:
"You underestimate yourself too much. Don't you want to witness Zhuang Xiaocheng's beheading with your own eyes?"
There was a slight glimmer in Yunxi's eyes, and she was a little moved.
"It's decided!"
Zhao Duan stood up and raised the corner of his mouth: "We have to act quickly."
…
P.S.: I saw the end of the previous chapter and it said... I am honest, please forgive me. Ten chapters are beyond the human limit. I will try to force myself to write a big chapter tomorrow and the day after tomorrow... I will try to write as many words as possible.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
