A chill ran down his neck. The defending general turned his head slightly to look and was greatly shocked. He was already held at sword point and dared not make any sudden moves.
It was completely without guard. He had not expected this to happen.
Yu Qing forced him with the sword to the side of the door. Otherwise it would be easy for people coming and going on the road outside to see.
He then took direct action, channeled his inner force through the armour, and quickly struck several acupoints in succession.
After that he felt the pulse again to confirm the man was restrained before turning back to pick up the scabbard and sheathe the sword.
The restrained defending general looked around the warehouse again. Still seeing no other people, he asked in a deep voice, Where is high official Gao?
Yu Qing walked up to him and said calmly, Locked up. Then he pushed him into a stumble.
The defending general forced forward gritted his teeth and said, What do you want to do?
Yu Qing pushed him along and said, High official Gao said I cannot run away. I want to try.
The defending general snorted, He is right. You cannot run away.
With the whole city wanting to catch me, I have no choice but to run. Yu Qing did not believe in the slightest about this faction or that faction. Taking A Jiezhan’s caution as a lesson, he would not easily hand his own life over to others.
He pushed the defending general straight to the side of Gao Zeyu’s carriage. Suddenly he drew the sword with a swish, threw it out with a wave of his hand, then spun his wrist, grabbed from the air, and the sword flew back with a whoosh. He gripped it and returned it to the scabbard in one smooth motion.
Sword control. The defending general’s pupils shrank sharply. From the technique he saw this was not ordinary distant object manipulation and immediately felt the information provided from above seemed incorrect.
The superiors had reminded this side to be careful and said that according to some temporary information, this A Shihuang might have cultivation at the upper martial realm. They told this side to make full preparations to avoid any mishap.
Yu Qing, having shown his hand, warned him, You will escort me out of the city. If you cannot send me out, you will die with me.
Then he walked to the side, pulled over a hemp rope used for hanging cargo, lifted the hem of the defending general’s armour, tied one end of the rope around his waist, forced him to sit on the carriage shaft, and threw the other end of the rope into the carriage compartment.
The defending general understood. This person wanted to force him to act as coachman and personally drive the carriage to send him out of the city. He immediately said in a deep voice, It is useless. The court has made such a big show. Even if you get out of the city, you still cannot run away.
Swish. Thud.
The defending general let out a painful muffled groan and turned his head in disbelief to look.
Yu Qing had directly pulled out the sword and stabbed it into his lower back, then pulled it out. He tore a piece from a hemp sack nearby, lifted the defending general’s armour again, and stuffed the hemp sack onto the wound on his lower back. While helping to stop the bleeding he said, Do not talk nonsense. I say it again. If you cannot send me out of the city, you will die with me.
The defending general, whose facial muscles were twitching from the pain, closed his mouth. He had not expected this third place scholar to be so ruthless and merciless.
Yu Qing turned, picked up several large hemp sacks and threw them onto the carriage shaft to weigh down the rope behind the defending general so it would not be easily seen that he was tied up. He also stacked two sacks to cover the wound on the defending general’s lower back. You are injured at the waist. You can lean back.
After that he untied the carriage reins, jumped onto the carriage, lifted the curtain andé’» inside, tugged the hemp rope, then stretched a sword out from behind the curtain and knocked it on the defending general’s helmet with a clanging sound. I will count silently to fifty. If the carriage has not left the city by then, I will kill you first. Go.
The defending general’s face turned pale from the pain. He gritted his teeth, took the carriage whip, swung it with a crack, and the carriage immediately started rolling.
The carriage left the warehouse, turned onto the street, and headed straight for the city gate.
The guards at the city gate saw it was him and that he was driving himself. They were somewhat surprised.
The defending general kept driving with the whip without stopping and shouted at the same time, Make way, make way. All of you make way.
His subordinates did not dare to block him. Even the common people entering and leaving the city were urgently pulled to one side.
One of his men shouted, Sir, where are you going?
The defending general did not answer. With his back to the carriage door he kept making eye signals to his subordinates, pursing his lips to indicate behind him while repeatedly shouting to make way.
The carriage successfully left the city. It smoothly passed through the city gate blocked by large groups of soldiers. The archers on the city wall did not receive the signal to act and did not appear.
But the people at the city gate saw the defending general’s signals, sensed something was wrong, and after meeting up they quickly took action.
Before long, more than ten riders thundered out from inside the city in pursuit and began following at a distance.
Yu Qing parted the small curtain at the rear window of the carriage and looked back. He then used the sword to push open the front door curtain, looked at the defending general who was still driving, focused on observing the terrain ahead, and questioned at the same time, The people behind were summoned by you. You dare to play tricks?
The driving defending general quickly said, No tricks. Those are all my personal followers. Seeing me leave the city, they will definitely chase after me.
He thought to himself, if no one is watching, what if you kill me?
Yu Qing cut the curtain with one sword to make the view wider. The wind blown curtain came to his hand. He directly dug two holes in it, put it over his head, tied it at the neck, and wrapped his entire head, leaving only two eyes. He shouted, Faster.
The defending general looked back and felt somewhat speechless. It was the first time he had seen such a way of covering the face. While speeding up the carriage with the whip he shouted, When will you release me?
The running carriage became increasingly bumpy.
Yu Qing said, We will talk after your people stop chasing. Did you not still have men lying in ambush outside the city to deal with me?
That bastard surnamed Gao even told him about this matter too?
The defending general cursed inwardly and replied, The men to intercept you are ambushed not far outside the city. Just a small team lying in wait to guard against you escaping in several directions.
It is impossible to arrange them too far. If the range is too large it will be easy for you to slip through the gaps. At the same time it is not easy to gather too many trustworthy people who will not leak information to do this kind of thing. After all most of the military are from that side. We already passed it. The mountain entrance ahead is past the ambush point.
Yu Qing did not care whether what he said was true or false and kept staring at the terrain ahead.
Passersby along the way saw the strange combination of people inside and outside the carriage and felt it was odd, attracting a high rate of people turning their heads.
Seeing the mountain road ahead about to turn, Yu Qing quickly looked back by parting the small curtain at the window to check the situation behind, then looked forward again and began moving the hemp sacks from the carriage shaft one by one into the carriage.
The defending general looked back, realised something was wrong, and immediately warned sternly, Do not do anything rash.
Thud. Yu Qing stabbed him in the lower back with the sword again. Drive your carriage properly.
The defending general gritted his teeth in pain.
As soon as the carriage turned the corner on the mountain road, Yu Qing grabbed the hemp rope. Seeing there were passersby, he paused temporarily. After passing the passersby, he swung his arm and yanked the hemp rope hard.
The defending general flew straight into the carriage. The reins pulled from his hand nearly brought the horses to a stop. His face changed drastically while in the air. Realising what was happening, he opened his mouth and shouted loudly, Save.
Yu Qing hugged him with one arm, covered his mouth, twisted him to the side, pulled with the sword, and slit his throat. Hot blood sprayed all over the wall at once.
The fallen defending general clutched his neck and twitched.
Yu Qing flashed out, swung the sword across the horse’s rump, and the horse neighed in pain and immediately galloped at full speed.
Yu Qing flashed into the mountain forest on one side and quickly hid motionless.
Before long, after more than ten riders thundered past, he quickly got up, darted deep into the mountain forest, and then fled desperately in an emergency escape towards the direction of the high mountains and dense forests in the demon realm.
At the city gate, more than ten riders had already arrived. They reached there almost right after Yu Qing’s group had just left, practically one after the other.
More than ten people jumped off their horses and ran all over the top and bottom of the city gate, asking about the situation everywhere and looking for where Gao Zeyu was.
Someone saw Gao Zeyu go towards the warehouse and pointed it out to explain.
Several people immediately ran quickly into the warehouse and finally found Gao Zeyu in one of the rooms inside.
The city gate quickly became lively and was urgently sealed off.
The Xuan duke’s carriage arrived. It was not too late because it was an emergency rush.
The people secretly protecting Yu Qing also followed and came.
As soon as Ying Xiaotang showed up at the Zhong mansion, the people secretly protecting Yu Qing saw the signal and immediately appeared to contact him.
The people secretly protecting Yu Qing had discovered Yu Qing changing carriages at Longyuan Mound and secretly followed back to the Zhong mansion, but they did not discover that Yu Qing had disguised himself, changed into yamen runner clothes, and left with Gao Zeyu.
There was no way around it. They could mix into Longyuan Mound, but the Zhong mansion was a private residence with quite a few guards, so some situations could not be grasped.
Ying Xiaotang could understand and did not blame them. The opponent had schemed so deliberately just to avoid alerting the enemy and quietly lure A Shihuang away, right?
Once the direction Gao Zeyu took was confirmed on the way and the time was estimated, although Ying Xiaotang still urged them to hurry with faster horses, his heart had already gone cold. He estimated that A Shihuang was probably already beyond saving.
Ying Xiaotang came with grief and indignation.
A Jiezhan being taken out back then was already a defeat. Now A Jiezhan’s son entered the capital, passed the palace examination with absolutely superior results to become first class, and was taken out again. Father and son being targeted one after another, was this not deliberately slapping this side in the face?
Regardless of old feelings, just ask one question. Anyone standing on the opposing side ends up like this. In the future who would not weigh the consequences?
People in officialdom often cannot see the truth clearly and are used to watching the so called wind direction.
Yet the scene before them left Ying Xiaotang and Pei Qingcheng greatly surprised.
The two had already been brought to that room with blood all over the floor. Thirteen bodies of Ministry of Justice personnel, piled or scattered.
The Gao Zeyu they were looking for was among them. Only A Shihuang’s body was nowhere to be seen.
This group had a clear count of how many people there were, including the checkpoints along the way. One person was missing.
Looking at Gao Zeyu’s corpse with eyes wide open, Ying Xiaotang and the others felt speechless.
Coming out of that room, Ying Xiaotang asked, Where did A Shihuang go?
The subordinates who arrived first said, We do not know. The others simply did not know A Shihuang had come. Those who basically knew are all dead here. The archers prepared on the city wall only knew there might be a fugitive trying to escape and were ready to shoot to kill upon order, but they did not know who the fugitive was. The defending general Li Qi did drive a carriage out of the city from here. No one knows who was in the carriage. A group of his subordinates also chased after it. Your subordinate has also ordered a team to pursue.
Was the person in the carriage A Shihuang? Pei Qingcheng said in surprise, then looked back at the room giving off a bloody smell. The people inside were not killed by A Shihuang, right? Does he have the guts? How much skill does it take to kill more than ten people without making a sound?
Ying Xiaotang could not help glancing at him. Whether it was A Shihuang who killed them, he dared not confirm. But if saying A Shihuang did not have the guts, he, who had seen Xu Fei’s confession, did not agree.
The former said, From the current view, according to the eyewitness statements, it is most likely the defending general Li Qi who came here and the missing A Shihuang who took action.
Who can prove the missing yamen runner is A Shihuang? Ying Xiaotang asked back, then said in a low voice to the people beside him, Before the other side has reacted, immediately send a group of men to guard the Zhong mansion to prevent anyone from forcing a confession. What needs to be explained must be clearly explained to the relevant personnel of the Zhong mansion. Words cannot be spoken randomly.