Chapter 78: The Law of the Survival of the Fittest will be explained to you step by step...
Unlike the common Sichuan and Yunnan horses, Feng Tan was fixed atop a tall northern horse, her toes more than three feet off the ground. Xiao Yinshi's iron-like arms were wrapped around her in front of him, securing her position and preventing her from falling off the horse.
Just now, a dense net swung down from above, causing Feng Tan and Shen Shiyi to brush past each other. At first, Feng Tan struggled fiercely on her horse, but then Xiao Yinshi thought she was too unruly. He brushed a finger across Feng Tan's chest, and she could only sit calmly on her horse. However, she was still angry and her anger rose to her face and spread all the way to behind her ears.
The girl in his arms had a blush of rosy clouds behind her ears. Xiao Yinshi took it in, tightened his grip on Feng Tan's chest, and pulled her close to him. He raised his hand to stroke the faint blush behind her ears, his voice filled with the pleasure of having obtained her, and said, "Stubborn as a bone, since you refuse to acknowledge your father, then I'll help you and make sure he never sees you again, okay?"
The redness on the skin behind the ear of the person in his arms deepened. Feeling Feng Tan's chest heaving with anger, Xiao Yinshi's dark eyes darkened, and he reached out to untie Feng Tan's acupoint.
The forest was deep and quiet, with only the sound of raindrops falling and the clatter of horses passing by. In the stillness, Feng Tan, holding a sniper rifle, leaned back with his elbow, and without hesitation, pressed the muzzle against the chest of the person behind him and pulled the trigger.
During the exchange, Xiao Yinshi seemed to chuckle lightly, quickly turned his gun around, and a shot rang out, piercing through the trunk of a sycamore tree diagonally behind him, leaving only the hole through which the bullet had passed.
Feng Tan never expected to be able to hit a ninth-rank martial artist at such close range. Taking advantage of Xiao Yinshi's moment of dodging, he leaped off his horse and fled into the depths of the dense forest.
Xiao Yinshi narrowed his eyes as he looked at her exhausted figure. He guessed that she must have been mistreated these past few days, as her speed using light footwork was not as fast as usual. When he held her in his arms just now, it felt like he was holding a scorching furnace. She still had a high fever... If he hadn't been worried that she would be unable to express her emotions due to the sealed acupoints, causing her face to turn red and her chest to feel congested, he would not have planned to unseal them for her on the way back to Hua.
However, such womanly compassion is only enough once; look how quickly she ran away. To deal with a wolf cub, you have to use his ingrained methods.
He tossed aside the net with some regret, toying with the special steel chain handed to him by his guards behind him. He waved for them to intercept him, his voice cruel, "You won't be able to bring it back without drawing blood. Go."
The various misfortunes suffered by the white crane in her dream have materialized today. In her dream, Feng Tan has deeply experienced the fate of being isolated and helpless, at the mercy of others. She runs forward desperately, but several palm strikes come from behind. Feng Tan turns around and dodges them, firing a shot at the attackers with her sniper rifle. However, more men in black surge forward. She feels as if she is trapped in a cage, her heart pounding. She knows that she must not be captured by Xiao Yinshi and taken back to Huachao, otherwise, with his cunning and methods, he will cut off all her escape routes.
In a do-or-die situation, it all comes down to who has the more ruthless heart. Feng Tan wants freedom, but she also wants to save her own life. Xiao Yinshi's goal is equally clear: he only wants this body; he may not necessarily like her as a person.
From the moment she first arrived in the capital and clashed with Xiao Yinshi, she gradually dissected his temperament and character. He was ruthless and cruel, and he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. She didn't know what he had experienced in the past or whether he was born evil, lacking any humanity or kindness. He was heartless and ungrateful, never leaving anyone a way out.
Therefore, if she couldn't escape his grasp today, her escape route would only become narrower and narrower. Even if she failed to achieve this, she would never allow herself to become a plaything on someone else's bed. There were still five grenades left in the subsystem and two magazines. Feng Tan simply took out all the grenades, leaped up with all her might, and then pushed one aside and threw it at the masked man in black in front of her.
An explosion rang out, smoke billowed, and Feng Tan drew the long sword from his severed limb, facing the remaining five men before him.
In close combat, there was no need to use the firearms of the future era. Feng Tan relied on the Yu family kung fu to withstand three moves from them. After three moves, the advantages of a high-level martial artist were fully revealed. Feng Tan suffered several knife wounds, but the wounds were not deep. Realizing that they had held back, Feng Tan's heart sank. Xiao Yinshi treated her as if he were playing a cat-and-mouse game.
But she refused to be a cowardly rat to be teased! A sharp glint appeared in Feng Tan's eyes, and amidst the bloody battle, her eyes grew increasingly red, as if all the wildness hidden within her had been unleashed. The sound of swords rang out, and the reflections illuminated the girl's unyielding eyes, like a trumpet creeper stained with blood.
Despite his fierce resistance, the disparity in strength was an insurmountable chasm. Feng Tan gradually lost ground and was wounded by the five men in black, leaving numerous knife marks. Then, the four of them each took one end of two steel chains, and with a snap, Feng Tan's wrists and legs were locked, forcing him to lie prone on the muddy ground.
Her clothes were covered in blood, rain, and mud. Feng Tan fell onto the weeds, the rain falling on her new wounds and staining the grass with a light red hue. The scene from her dream flashed back, as if she had returned to the blood-red sea of sin. Her chin was mercilessly grabbed, and she looked up to meet Xiao Yinshi's cold, dark eyes.
The wolf cub never knew fear of humans, but Xiao Yinshi was determined to make her tremble. The man's other hand gripped her wrist, which was bound by chains, pressing the steel chains forcefully against her tender flesh. Seeing her wince in pain, he then placed his fingers in her palm, tracing the lines within, and said, "A gun can't break it, but there's only one key. From this day forward, all the threads of your life will be under my control."
Feng Tan's heart skipped a beat. The material of the cold chain was exactly the same as the bullets in the sniper rifle magazine. The only time he had come into contact with the material of the bullets was when she killed the Japanese pirates in the waters off Linzhang. On that day, Xiao Yin threw the tinderbox on the corpse. How could he have had the chance to pull the bullet out of the corpse's chest cavity without getting any blood on it?!
"Furthermore," Xiao Yinshi said, looking at Feng Tan's pale face from blood loss, and tapped Feng Tan's palm with his finger, "if you dare to point this gun at me again, Meng Henabul will pay the price."
Feng Tan's pupils contracted sharply. Raindrops pattered against her cheeks, like tears streaming from bloodshot eyes during a battle. Having been taught by her master for many years, she knew that she should be rational in dealing with the enemy and wait for the day of escape.
But the heavy shackles binding her body made Xiao Yinshi's humiliation far more profound than when the case was overturned. It mingled with the pain of losing loved ones in recent days, and actually forced a tear out of Feng Tan's eye, creating a kind of desperate and fragile beauty.
From the angle from which Xiao Yinshi leaned over, he could clearly see a tear fall from the girl's cheek. Then, having exhausted all her strength, she lost her cold, hard demeanor and softly fainted in his palm.
Xiao Yinshi caught the falling tears with his fingertips, parted his thin lips slightly to lick them into his throat, and darkened his eyes. "There is no justice in this world, only the law of the jungle. I will slowly explain this to you."
***
A sharp crack shattered the silence of the Taiji Hall with the sound of a teacup breaking. Emperor Chongming roared angrily, "Have you found out who took the princess away?"
Yu Tianyin, the deputy commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, knelt on the ground with blood on his cheek from being knocked by a teacup. Hearing this, he lowered his head and replied, "Your Majesty, according to the commander's letter, the man was wearing a black mask and the soldiers behind him had skull insignia on their left shoulders. They seem to be from the Rakshasa Army of Dahua."
Emperor Chongming's voice was both cold and weak as he said, "The Rakshasa Army? How could it be the Rakshasa Army?"
Sheng Honghai, who had just recovered from a serious illness, said upon hearing this: "The Luosha Army is under the jurisdiction of the Hua Dynasty royal family. In the last battle between the two countries in the Linzhang Sea, they did not send out the Luosha Army until their defeat. In my opinion, the people who kidnapped the princess do not seem to be from the Hua Dynasty."
Emperor Chongming pondered, "Who could it be? Whoever it is, judging by their pace, they can't possibly leave the territory of my Great Han. Issue my decree immediately, with the princess's portrait, order all border defenses and city guards to check every passerby! Also, issue a decree throughout the Great Han: anyone who has seen the princess will be rewarded with one hundred taels of silver for providing clues, and any capable person who finds the princess will be rewarded with ten thousand taels of silver and will also receive official protection! Your Embroidered Uniform Guards continue the investigation. Tell Wei Shengxian that if the princess is not found, he need not return to the capital! In addition, send an elite force from the capital..."
Jiang Lili entered the hall, and Emperor Chongming paused in his speech, asking, "What is it?"
Jiang Lili said, "Yu Ruxi, daughter of General Yu, and Zheng Qingru, Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, are here to pay their respects."
Emperor Chongming waved for the two men to come in, and then waved for Yu Tianyin, the deputy commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, to go and carry out his duties immediately.
Yu Ruxi entered the palace. After the defeat of the Imperial Dragon Camp, she rushed back to the capital alone to request reinforcements. However, without the emperor's order, the Yu family army could not move out on its own. Just then, Zheng Qingru heard the news and also rushed over from home. The two met in the palace, both for the matter of Yongle.
Yu Ruxi’s voice was firm and resolute. “Your Majesty already knows that Feng Tan is Yongle and that she was kidnapped by villains during her escort. Since you are going to send the elite troops in the capital to rescue her, why not send me instead? I am Yongle’s close friend. No one knows her better than me. If she leaves any marks on her way out, only I will recognize them.”
Zheng Qingru rushed to pay his respects today, his hair disheveled and even his official robes forgotten. After hearing Yu Ruxi's words, he said, "Your Majesty, I am willing to accompany Miss Yu to retrieve Yongle. I have served as the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review for many years and have some knowledge of tracking techniques. I hope Your Majesty will grant me permission!"
Emperor Chongming gazed at the solemn mountains and rivers outside the palace. He recalled how Yongle had made a fuss in the Taiji Hall when he was a child, insisting that he play hide-and-seek with the three of them. The vivid expression on Yongle's childish face made his heart ache even more. He nodded in agreement.
Watching Yu Ruxi's departing figure, he called out to her and asked, "Before Yongle left, did he say anything about me...?"
Yu Ruxi turned to look at the lonely man standing in the golden light, a surge of disdain and resentment welling up in her heart. After a moment of silence, she said, "She said she doesn't want Your Majesty to be her father anymore."
After saying this, Yu Ruxi didn't linger. She pushed open the palace door and stepped onto the white marble steps in front of the palace.
Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongming slumped back onto his throne, his fingers, which usually held the vermilion brush with unwavering steadiness, trembling uncontrollably. His gaze followed the small figure running and laughing in the hall. After a moment of distraction, his eyes regained their composure and majesty. "Yongle, your father will bring you back. Anyone who dares to kidnap my daughter will pay a heavy price."
He would use every ounce of his power as emperor to search for his daughter—the border guards, the garrison troops of the Five Cities, the Yu Family Army, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and even the entire populace of the Great Khan Dynasty. Aside from Yongle, he had no other family in the world; Yongle could not be allowed to die.
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