Chapter 104
In the dense forest of the mountains, Tang Yan was riding away when he suddenly heard footsteps not far away. The sound was chaotic and sounded like someone was running away.
Tang Yan immediately pulled the horse to a stop, dismounted, and slipped into the bushes to hide. The figure in the distance soon appeared, and Tang Yan's eyes instantly fell on the person walking at the front—it was Gui Luo, whom she had been searching for for so long.
Without much hesitation, she quickly pulled out a hidden dart and shot it accurately at the face of the person opposite her. Gui Luo in the distance barely dodged it. After taking care of the people around him, Tang Yan emerged from the bushes where she was hiding.
As she rolled up her sleeves, she drew her waist knife and stared fiercely at Gui Luo, who stood in front of several corpses, and said, "My cooperation with you ends here."
Tang Yan drew her sword, gripped it tightly, and thrust it at him without mercy: "Why did you massacre the city!"
The person opposite seemed stunned by her attack, unable to utter a word, and simply kept retreating.
"I warned you, if you dare to harm the people, I will take your life!"
Tang Yan's sword strikes were haphazard, but ruthless and powerful, seemingly intent on taking the opponent's life.
However, the opponent was clearly no pushover either. She was unsteady on her feet as she was learning swordsmanship halfway through her training. She could barely intimidate him with her first few moves, but as time went on, her flaws became impossible to hide.
Gui Luo seized the opportunity, grabbed her arm, and kicked her away with a powerful kick. Tang Yan rolled several times on the ground before using the momentum to squat up, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, and continuing to stare dangerously at Gui Luo.
For some reason, the person opposite didn't try to finish her off after kicking her; instead, they turned and ran, as if they just wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible.
Tang Yan naturally realized this as well, so he quickly caught up with them again.
"Gui Luo!" She leaped onto her horse and spurred it to a stop in front of the person opposite her. "Where is Sister Chen?"
The person opposite her seemed unwilling to talk to her. After glancing back, he tried to make a hasty escape, but Tang Yan naturally didn't give him a chance. Her hidden arrow locked onto his eyes again: "Answer me!"
She was determined to end his life here, even if it meant dying together with him.
Tang Yan took out a signal flare from his waist and lit it in front of Gui Luo: "I dared to let you into the Shuo Dynasty, so I was fully prepared for you to betray me."
Her eyes were devoid of emotion, her gaze fixed calmly on the people below: "I can't kill you, but someone else can. I've said it before, our cooperation cannot endanger the people. If you cross that line, I will not let you go."
The moment the signal smoke rose, the person in front of him suddenly became very strange. Tang Yan could clearly feel that he was starting to get anxious. The person in front of him looked back at the way he came—in the depths of the dense forest, apart from the rustling of the leaves in the wind, there seemed to be nothing unusual.
However, Tang Yan keenly sensed that the moment he turned around, an invisible, heart-pounding sense of oppression was coming from a certain direction.
It was at this moment that Gui Luo's eyes suddenly turned fierce, his gaze fixing on Tang Yan. She immediately sensed something was wrong and quickly drew her sword. However, before she could swing her sword, the other party suddenly moved and pounced on her.
Gui Luo kicked her almost violently, his target not Tang Yan, but the horse she was riding. The horse that was kicked off naturally realized his intention, and immediately scrambled to its feet the instant Gui Luo tightened the reins, gripping its sword and thrusting it fiercely at the horse's leg.
The horse neighed and collapsed to the ground, throwing Gui Luo off its back. Tang Yan continued to charge forward and wrestle with him: "What are you afraid of? You want to escape? Too bad, I won't give you that chance!"
Gui Luo rolled over to dodge, seemingly enraged by her actions. He became ruthless and disregarded everything. With a flick of his wrist, he twisted Tang Yan's arm, removed the knife from her hand, and pressed it against her throat. Just as he was about to slit her throat, a pebble struck the back of his hand, and soon a strange sound came from the forest.
"Don't move!" Gui Luo pressed close behind her, his breath heavy as he growled in the direction of the disturbance.
Tang Yan quickly recognized the people approaching; they were a group of soldiers dressed completely differently from them, and she recognized their attire as that of the Northern Dynasty.
“Take one more step and I’ll kill her.” A cold iron blade was pressed against Tang Yan’s neck, and thin beads of blood oozed out. She turned her head and spoke to the person behind her holding the knife: “Are you crazy? What are you threatening me for? I don’t even know them!”
This situation was truly absurd to Tang Yan. Gui Luo was actually using her to threaten the people of Bei Dai on Shuo Chao's territory?
She wanted to say something more, but Gui Luo's knife drew closer.
“I grant you permission to leave Chianan,” the leader said.
Tang Yan was stunned, and slowly turned his head to look at the person who spoke from horseback with disbelief.
"Knock knock"
An untimely heartbeat sounded.
She couldn't find another face similar to this one in her more than ten years of life. She tried to find a word to describe it, but everything else just passed by, and all that remained in her mind was the word "beautiful".
A goddess under the moonlight—that was Tang Yan's first thought. But this goddess…
It's a man.
"I will not set up troops to intercept and kill within the Jianan Pass."
Tang Yan noticed the knife at her neck loosen for a moment. Had Gui Luo believed her? Suddenly, a weight pressed down on her back, and when she looked up again, Gui Luo had already run several meters away. She stared at the receding figure, her heart tightening. This newcomer could actually frighten Gui Luo?
How much longer do you plan to stay on the ground?
Tang Yan composed himself and looked up at the horse.
"I remember I didn't teach you to just surrender. What, do you think I can chop your head off with a knife to your throat?"
Strange, she clearly didn't know this person, but why did it sound like they had a long-standing relationship based on his words?
Noticing Tang Yan's probing gaze, the man tilted his head and snorted softly, as if amused by his own anger: "You only recognize people by their masks?"
That sound...
"G-Kiluo?!"
Tang Yan was greatly alarmed.
The moment the name slipped out, her mind went blank. The face before her had nothing in common with the one in her memory that was always covered by the blue demon mask, but the familiar, mocking voice in his tone almost made his identity clear.
"You...you really are Gui Luo?" Tang Yan pushed herself up, her gaze fixed on the face on the horse's back, trying to find any trace of a lie, but to no avail. She had cooperated with Gui Luo many times, but she had never imagined that such a face lay beneath the mask.
Gui Luo's gaze swept past her and landed in the direction where the person had disappeared. His eyes were indifferent, as if he had only let go of an insignificant ant.
"You're Gui Luo, so what's his situation?" Tang Yan was stunned for a moment.
The man immediately threw something down, and Tang Yan looked down to see it was the blue ghost mask that Gui Luo often wore.
"It's just a name," he said, turning his gaze back to Tang Yan. "With this, you too can be Gui Luo."
The girl opposite him squatted down, picked up the mask, and looked back at him, asking, "Is it really okay to just let that person go like this?"
Gui Luo chuckled and said confidently, "He won't make it to Jianan."
"You really are 'a man of your word'." Tang Yan deliberately emphasized the last four words, laughing with a hint of sarcasm.
Gui Luo ignored her words and continued, "I'm not the only one who wants him dead. I don't have troops stationed inside Jianan Pass, but plenty of others do."
"Then you're just giving away all the credit for nothing." Tang Yan put on his mask, grabbed Gui Luo's outstretched hand, leaped up, and then—
"...Can't you get off and change to another horse? It's a bit crowded."
Laughing at the girl's self-righteous words, Gui Luo snorted coldly: "Where do you get the confidence to say that? This is my horse."
Tang Yan stroked the glossy black mane of the black horse, then put on his own blue ghost mask in front of Gui Luo, saying frankly, "Now I am Gui Luo, and Wu Sha is mine too."
The person behind her was silent for a moment before looking at her and speaking again: "Tang Yan, have I been a little too good to you these past few years?"
She wasn't frightened by Gui Luo's words. She just pulled on the reins and said, "You're not wearing a mask, so you probably don't want anyone to know you're Gui Luo here. Now I'm offering to be your target. I'm being too kind to you."
After saying that, she kicked the person behind her in the back of the foot, completely shooing him to another horse before finally patting Wu Sha's head with satisfaction.
Back then, she almost ruined both her legs in order to ride the Black Demon.
"You've always been adept at twisting the truth," Gui Luo casually remarked as he mounted another horse.
"Did you massacre the city?" Tang Yan suddenly asked without warning.
"A massacre of a city?" Gui Luo raised an eyebrow slightly, his expression filled with pure doubt, but it quickly turned into a knowing coldness: "They put on the blue ghost masks and did nothing like human beings. They really think they are ghosts."
"It really wasn't you?"
He slowly rode closer to Tang Yan, looking at her with a calm expression: "Massacring a city will not benefit me. Don't forget, I cooperated with you to use the Shuo Dynasty to eliminate Nanzhou. I have no hobby of killing people indiscriminately. Only those psychologically twisted people in Nanzhou would consider massacring a city an honor."
Tang Yan didn't speak, but Gui Luo tilted his head: "Still don't believe me?"
He sighed: "My goal is the same as yours, at least for a long time to come. You want to defeat the Southern Continent Army, and I want to kill the Southern Continent King. You and the Northern Dynasty are my best allies."
Speaking of the Northern Dynasty, Tang Yan glanced around and asked, "Why didn't I see Li Pingfeng?"
A soldier dressed in Northern Dai attire beside them finally couldn't help but sneer. Tang Yan's gaze shifted, and he suddenly realized what he meant and exclaimed in surprise, "You...you're Li Pingfeng?!"
Li Pingfeng nodded and finally laughed: "You're too slow to react, Sister Tang Yan. Do you think everyone in the Shuo Dynasty is as easy to fool as you?"
She had only seen Li Pingfeng three times in the past few years, and in her memory, he didn't look like this, especially—
"Are you a girl?"
Tang Yan stared in shock at the person in front of her. A few years ago, because of her young age, her voice was indistinguishable from her gender. When Li Pingfeng and Gui Luo came to Shuochao, they were also disguised. Tang Yan had no idea that she was actually a little girl.
Li Pingfeng was puzzled. He glanced at her and said, "What's so strange about that? My mother is the Queen of the Northern Dynasty, and I am the Young Queen, so naturally I am also a girl."
Tang Yan stared in astonishment, then quickly replied, "It's not that it's strange, it's that I didn't expect it."
She then turned her gaze to Gui Luo. When she saw Li Pingfeng a few years ago, she was rougher and rougher each time, but Gui Luo was surprisingly handsome.
"You really do keep all the good stuff for yourself, don't you?"
Gui Luo: "?"
"Let's get down to business," Tang Yan's tone finally lost its murderous intent: "The person impersonating you is the one who led the troops to attack Jue City? You managed to track him all the way here, so it seems you've already found his lair."
"Perhaps one of them, after all, the 'Ghost Luo' of the Southern Continent can never be completely killed." The person in front of him chuckled.
"I'm really curious, since you're no longer in Southern Continent, why are they making so many masks?"
"The Southern Continent needs 'Ghost Luo'. As for who is behind the mask, it doesn't matter at all."
"Next question: Your appearance here wasn't an accident, right? With Shuo and Nan in a standoff, it seems you brought Bei Dai into the city because you've already met Brother Ye Qian. You traded with him to find Sister Chen's whereabouts, right?"
At this point, she suddenly yanked on the reins and said coldly, "Since that's the case, then lead the way. If you were able to break into the lair, you must have found its whereabouts."
Tang Yan turned to look at the person behind him again: "I hope our cooperation is pleasant. If I find out that you have other plans for the Shuo Dynasty, I will still kill you."
Gui Luo ignored her warning and seemed to have finally become somewhat interested. He pulled on the reins and turned his horse around.
"What a pity, you're completely wrong. My deal with them was between you and Ye Jin."
The man paused, and then Gui Luo's voice came slowly again: "But you are right about one thing."
"Keep up." He urged his horse on again: "I have indeed found the whereabouts of another person."
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