In a hurry and with no time to explain, he grabbed a handful of blood and smeared it across his own face, put on the helmet, picked up his sword, and left. He ran back to the main road.
Xu Fei bit down on his broadsword, put on his clothes while chasing after him, then picked up the sword and, steeling himself, scooped up some blood from the ground with his hand and wiped it on his face. He achieved the rugged jianghu look he wanted.
With this disguise, things became much easier. No one could recognise a blood-covered face. They could openly move from one carriage to another to check.
More and more soldiers came running out from the forests on both sides. Hearing military orders, they had no choice but to come out and gather.
Xu Fei followed behind Yu Qing, feeling extremely nervous, afraid they would be exposed.
Yu Qing completely ignored the puzzled looks from the gathering soldiers. He walked straight through the crowd, even pushing aside anyone blocking his way with a wave of his hand.
Xu Fei, trailing behind, broke into a light sweat. He realised that Brother Shiheng really had extraordinary boldness. Once he changed clothes, he acted without any restraint. Thinking back to the time he cheated at guessing riddles, Xu Fei increasingly felt that this Brother Shiheng was not doing something like this for the first time. He was very experienced.
Amid the sounds of fighting in the surrounding forests, a wave-like noise suddenly surged in. Yu Qing looked around, his expression slightly changing. He tugged at Xu Fei’s sleeve. “Let’s go!”
He ran straight to a nearby iron cage holding prisoners, leapt up, kicked off it, and landed directly on top of the cage. The examinees inside looked up at him with doubtful faces.
Xu Fei, who had followed, wanted to ask what was happening. Yu Qing beckoned. “Hurry up and come up.”
Xu Fei also jumped, kicked off the cage for leverage, and landed on the top. But the iron frame was not easy to stand on. One misstep and he could easily fall through.
Soon, the wave-like noise broke through the mist. It turned out to be countless rats squeaking and charging forward.
The scene was terrifying. It made people’s hair stand on end.
The reassembled soldiers immediately cried out in panic and fell into disorder again. They swung their weapons wildly in all directions.
Some powerful grey-clothed men flashed in and sent large groups of rats flying with palm strikes from a distance, but it was useless. Countless rats kept surging forward relentlessly, biting anyone they saw.
The examinees locked in the cages completely panicked. They could not run away. Facing the incoming rats, they could only jump around chaotically, hitting, slapping, pinching, and flinging them in desperation. Screams mixed with the rats’ squeaks into one chaotic mess. Everyone was nearly driven mad.
Seeing someone reach inside their clothes to pull out rats, Xu Fei almost broke down watching, but he had no time to care. Together with Yu Qing, he hurriedly swept away the rats climbing up.
Fortunately, the two were standing on top of the cage. It was inconvenient for rats to climb, and once up, walking on the steel bars was difficult. If they moved too fast, they would slip and fall through the gaps. With knives and swords, the two could basically block large numbers of rats by sweeping the edges around the iron frame.
Some people noticed the situation here. Soldiers immediately climbed up too. Later, when it became too crowded, others quickly ran to nearby iron cages.
The escort envoy Fu Zuoxuan had already been carried by Jin Huahai and flown up into a tree. Being in a tree made it easier to defend against the climbing rat swarm.
Seeing the countless rats and hearing the fighting sounds from the forest, Jiang Yinian suddenly realised what the fighting was about. The great archers ambushed around must have been exposed. They had probably already engaged the enemy in the first battle.
Great archers were not good at close combat. With these rats causing trouble, the outcome was obvious. Jiang Yinian waved his hand to blast away a group of rats and roared furiously, “Tell them to withdraw!” He then shouted urgently toward the tree, “Brother Jin, send your men quickly to support my people.”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Three signal arrows shot into the sky in succession.
Jin Huahai also knew the great archers’ lives were valuable. There were not many in the entire Liezhou. If Sinan Prefecture caused such a big incident and Liezhou suffered heavy losses, it would be hard to explain. He immediately shouted an order.
A group of grey-clothed men immediately charged against the flow into the forest, leaping onto trees. To avoid the rat swarm’s interference, they jumped from branch to branch.
Another group of grey-clothed men took emergency measures against the rats. They cut branches, sprinkled powder on them, lit them, and produced rolling yellow smoke. They threw the burning branches beside the iron cages holding the examinees. Wherever the yellow smoke reached, the rats fled in panic.
The Rat Granny, leaning on her cane and standing on a tree trunk, lowered her gaze slightly. A white-furred rat came swimming back against the flow, scampered up the tree, jumped onto the head of her cane, and chattered at her.
The Rat Granny listened with a frown, then swiftly flew away and arrived at a place of fighting.
She had no interest in watching several black-clothed people besiege one great archer. Instead, she landed beside Bai Lan, who was also standing on a branch, and questioned her, “What exactly are you and your husband up to? Are you sure you have figured out the escort situation? Those examinees are all protected by fine steel cages. You cannot take their heads at all.”
Bai Lan was stunned. “Where did these fine steel cages come from?”
The Rat Granny replied, “You are asking me?”
Bai Lan choked, then quickly changed her tone. “Do not panic. Just find a way to break them open.”
The Rat Granny sneered. “Even Gao Yuan’s aerial assault could not smash these iron cages. Do you think they will be easy to break? I am afraid they are waiting for you to open them! You had better go and see for yourself. Do not end up with countless deaths and injuries and get nothing in the end. That would be quite a spectacle.”
Bai Lan’s expression grew grave. She suddenly leapt down, joined the siege, and in a few exchanges smashed the great archer’s skull. Then she led several black-clothed people to check the scene.
The situation was obvious. The Rat Granny’s words were quickly confirmed without much effort.
With a heavy heart, Bai Lan hurriedly went back to find her husband and explained the situation in detail. In short, they had miscalculated. You thought the other side cared a lot about the examinees’ lives, but in fact, they could also not care about the examinees’ lives!
The escort team was clearly using the examinees’ lives as bait. With their current manpower forcing the issue, they might not gain much advantage!
Hei Yunxiao’s face flickered between dark and light for a long while. He suddenly looked up at the sky. “Tell Gao Yuan to make an aerial extraction. Grab both the people and the cages together!”
Bai Lan said in a low voice, “Doing that is too dangerous. Gao Yuan definitely will not agree.”
Hei Yunxiao replied, “First, let our people charge in to lure the enemy. With the mist for cover, take advantage when the guards are distracted and suddenly descend to grab them. There is still a chance of success.” He then sighed helplessly. “At this point, we have to try no matter what. Those three have already taken action and have no way back. Naturally, they hope to achieve something to seek protection from Lady Qixia, so they will agree.”
Bai Lan silently nodded.
In the thick mist, rolling smoke appeared again, yellow smoke this time. It choked people badly. The rats were clearly terrified of this yellow smoke and dared not approach the official road.
The examinees locked in the cages had no idea what sins they had committed in their previous lives. First bitten by rats and scared half to death, now choked until life felt worse than death. One by one, they collapsed inside the cages, coughing with tears and snot streaming down.
Those standing on top of the cages could not stand the smoke either. Yu Qing was the first to jump down. He grabbed a smoking branch, covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, and continued forward.
He still cared about his two thousand taels of silver and could not abandon it like rubbish.
Xu Fei was also overwhelmed by the smoke and jumped down too. Apart from following Yu Qing, he now had no idea what to do. He had completely run out of plans. He could only copy him, grab a smoking branch, and run along.
After some effort, the two managed to grope their way through the fog to the area near the carriages carrying luggage.
Strangely, there were no guards here, and no rats either. The surging rats seemed to target people specifically, so there was none of that choking smoke.
But the ground was covered with many corpses, mostly guards and bookboys. Most had been smashed to death by falling rocks from the sky. Some were so disfigured that it was impossible to tell who was who.
Although Xu Fei practised martial arts, he was only a martial artist. He had never seen such a bloody and brutal scene before. Earlier, when his life hung in the balance, he had forgotten to react. Now, slowly recovering from the shock, he found the gore in front of him hard to accept. He kept retching from time to time.
In contrast, Yu Qing puzzled Xu Fei. They were about the same age, yet this fellow acted as if nothing was wrong, looking around and running everywhere.
Not being afraid after seeing such a scene was naturally not innate. The Linglong Observatory deliberately arranged for true disciples to experience certain scenes. If someone panicked at every little thing, they could not concentrate to observe things properly. What use would cultivating the Observation Character Technique be then?
Remaining calm in the face of change was the fundamental quality for practising the Observation Character Technique!
In short, seeing so many bookboys dead or injured made both of them feel very heavy-hearted. They did not know what had happened to Chong’er. For Yu Qing, it was mostly because he could not find the luggage.
Most of the carriages here had also been destroyed by the aerial assault. Many pieces of luggage had fallen everywhere because the panicked horses dragged the damaged carriages around wildly. Searching piece by piece in the fog was very troublesome. If Chong’er were here, he might know where the luggage had fallen.
“Come here. This carriage is still relatively intact. See if your luggage is inside.”
In front of a carriage where the horse had fallen dead and the shafts were stuck in the ground, Yu Qing called Xu Fei over to help identify.
The two climbed into the carriage and rummaged around. Xu Fei looked at one piece and said it was not his, looked at another and said the same. In short, he could not confirm any of them.
He usually had people taking care of his food, clothing, shelter, and travel. He never worried about luggage matters. To put it bluntly, he had never paid much attention to these things, so it was understandable that he could not confirm.
But Yu Qing could not understand at all. Hearing this made him angry. “You tell me, is it reasonable for you to carry a sword and sit together with a bunch of scholars? If you had put your sword with your luggage, wouldn’t your luggage be obvious at a glance?”
Xu Fei was speechless. Honestly, he had started to see through it. This Brother Shiheng rummaging everywhere for luggage was not really worried about Chong’er. He was clearly looking for that twenty jin of spiritual rice.
He was more open-minded than Yu Qing, or rather, now was not the time to argue. He saw through it but did not point it out. The words reached his lips and he swallowed them back.
He had to admit he was impressed by this one. At a time like this, taking such huge risks to crawl around in this dangerous place, all for that bit of spiritual rice. Was life more important, or money?