Before the Wen family's carriage even emerged, Xuesu arrived, blending into the accumulated snow with absolute silence. She gave me a start when she suddenly appeared, though at least she was finally following the rules of an assassin or guard, having obediently changed into night-traveling attire for the late hour.
"Tracking?" I didn't speak, but she sent a telepathic transmission to me.
"Yes. A standard carriage."
She stared at me quietly for a moment before saying with disdain, "Your movement technique is too slow."
My temper flared instantly. Just as I was about to snap back at her, the Wen family's carriage rolled toward us. Wen Gan and her maid waved farewell by the side of the vehicle; inside were Wen Jiang, Wen Qi, Lingqing, and Chaoyun.
Xuesu and I set off almost simultaneously. If not for the carriage's slow pace making it difficult to exert full power, I would have certainly let her witness my Snow-Vanishing Movement today!
But after running for a while, I realized there was indeed a gap between us. After all, our cultivation levels were different, and she possessed a speed for long-distance raids that could outpace even the Yingzhao Temple's intelligence network...
Halfway through, Xuesu glanced at me and actually reached out to pull me along. This was a matter of dignity, a question of pride. I indignantly slapped her hand away and channeled a few more measures of strength... nearly overshooting and ending up in front of the Wen carriage.
A dozen or so hidden guards from Yingzhao Temple followed silently behind us.
After fifteen minutes, I estimated we were nearing Yonghe Bridge. Beyond that, the Wen residence wouldn't be far. However, as I looked at the roadside, we had only just passed through the wealthy Yongjia Ward. Sensing something was amiss, I felt a burst of cold air and snowy light brush past me. Xuesu was like an arrow leaving a string; she leaped with her blade drawn, severing three heads in an instant. The sound of scarlet, hot blood splashing on the ground and the three thuds of bodies falling were almost simultaneous. She had already dashed another ten paces, striking at her next target.
At the same time, the Wen carriage was ambushed. Its four walls collapsed outward, and the people inside screamed as they were thrown from their seats.
I had no time to dwell on my earlier unease. Drawing my sword, I flew to the front of Wen Jiang and the others, forcing back three assassins who were closing in. The Yingzhao hidden guards swarmed forward, quickly subduing the three, who—true to form—died the moment they were captured.
Except for the unconscious Wen Jiang, the other three were in a daze. I pulled down my veil to reveal Su Zhenzhen's face and said to Wen Qi, who was peering out from the wreckage in terror, "Don't be afraid. Follow me."
Wen Qi knew she was the pillar for the four of them right now. Though her lips were pale with fright, she steadied herself and nodded.
I was just about to order the hidden guards to use their own flying palanquins to send the four away so I could help Xuesu—who, despite killing several lackeys, was clearly pinned down by a few experts—when a familiar, pungent voice sneered, "How leisurely. Still thinking you can sit in a flying palanquin and go home?"
This was an old acquaintance I knew all too well: Meng Tingwu. She was leading a dozen people, slowly flanking us from the direction we had come.
Unfortunately, while I recognized her, she didn't recognize me. During our battle years ago, I could only break her amateur illusions and had to rely on Wei Qingming for the actual fighting. Now, I could easily handle both roles; times had changed. She, however, had only advanced by a minor stage, remaining at the Late Cloud-Swallowing Stage like me. Thinking that my opponent was someone so dim-witted actually put me in a rather good mood. I said with a smile, "Hello, Miss Meng. Will you be playing the flute for me again today?"
Meng Tingwu froze. "You know me?"
I maintained the air of a hidden master, giving a profound smile without answering.
She huffed coldly, preparing to strike, but one of her sharp-eyed subordinates looked at Wen Jiang and the others protected by the hidden guards and frowned. "Elder Meng, something's wrong. We... stopped the wrong ones."
I truly couldn't help but laugh. First, I laughed because this fool had actually been promoted to Elder—it seemed the Thousand Colors Palace truly had no worthy successors. Second, I laughed because her competence in carrying out missions was even worse than six years ago; at least back then, she had found the right target.
"Wrong or not, kill this woman first!" Familiar toxic purple mist daggers, familiar arrogant bluster.
Though the situation seemed farcical, the reality on the field was not optimistic for me. On Xuesu's side, she was relying on her extraordinary skills to hold off three Late Cloud-Swallowing cultivators, two of whom were at the Perfection stage. Combined with seven or eight sacrificial warriors of the Middle Cloud-Swallowing stage, if not for her ice and snow divine arts creating a barrier, they would have broken through her defense and reached my back long ago. The dozen or so killers Meng Tingwu brought were no commoners either; in terms of numbers, the Thousand Colors Palace had more than double our force.
As I used sword qi to sweep away her daggers, I pondered: bringing so many people to strike so close to the Imperial Street meant they were taking a desperate risk regardless of the cost. For what? They "stopped the wrong ones"—who were they originally meant to stop?
After trading five or six blows, Meng Tingwu realized I was also an illusion cultivator and far more skilled than her, so she abandoned that approach. Using a combination of illusions and assassination arts, I closed in on her within ten moves, my sword flashing twice to pierce both her legs. She shrieked in pain, her stance faltering, but her savage nature took over. She clapped her hands together to summon a first-rank explosive talisman, intending to blow my vitals to pieces. I didn't give her the chance to land it, drifting back a dozen paces to narrowly avoid the blast.
The hidden guards followed my orders, defending Wen Jiang and the others to the death. Ten against twenty, very few could be spared to help Xuesu or me. I slightly regretted not thinking more carefully before leaving and bringing Lu Kaifeng and Lu Lingfeng along. But who could have predicted that escorting a few young ladies home right under the Emperor's nose would result in an ambush—and that the target wasn't even me, but them!
The reason Meng Tingwu and I could fight one-on-one was that I had hastily set up a small illusion array to hinder her guards. I had intended to capture the leader first, then kill the lackeys. However, the explosion from her talisman forced me out of the array's range. Being separated from the array master for just a breath or two caused the illusion to dissipate on its own, as if swallowed by some higher-level illusion. I realized then that a master of illusions from the Thousand Colors Palace, likely Yin Huadi, had already assisted in setting up a massive illusion array near the Imperial Street to avoid alerting the night patrol.
Breaking a grand illusion array under such chaotic conditions was impossible. Meng Tingwu's subordinates began to surround me. I channeled the last of my true essence to cut down three or four men before retreating to the carriage, clutching a spirit crystal to recover my strength. This was a corner the hidden guards were defending to the death; of the ten, four were already dead or wounded. On Xuesu's side, even with her and a few hidden guards, they couldn't entirely withstand the siege of ten men. The two Cloud-Swallowing Perfection experts she was fighting were, first, the Esoteric Monk whose four fingers had been sliced off by Wei Qingming years ago, and second, a tall warrior with a hooked nose and a bushy beard. Together, they tore through her wall of snow, letting their subordinates rush past. They seemed to have made Wen Jiang and the others their highest priority, fighting with such bloodlust that they hadn't even noticed they had the wrong targets.
If the target were a person, it would be easy to tell if they had the wrong one. This meant they were after an object. Could there be something important in the carriage...? I hurriedly crawled inside, intending to summon my bronze mirror to check the spiritual energy distribution, when I felt a violent jolt and a wave of dizziness. The shafts snapped, the four wheels shattered, and the entire carriage cabin was hoisted up by something, rising rapidly into the sky!
Chaoyun and Lingqing, who were sitting near the door, were caught off guard. Unable to grab the seats, they were flung out of the carriage. I was deep inside the cabin searching at the time and only managed to hook one hand into the thick felt wrapping Wen Jiang and grab Wen Qi's arm with the other to prevent them from being tossed out. Fortunately, when Chaoyun and the other fell, they weren't far from the ground. If the hidden guards caught them, they should be fine.
I had released a signal the moment Xuesu drew her blade; Lu Kaifeng and the others should come to the rescue once they saw it. Even so, leaving only Xuesu and a few hidden guards behind made the situation far more perilous than expected. In truth, I shouldn't have had the luxury of worrying about others. I was alone with two weak women, one of whom was unconscious, heading toward some unknown dragon's pool or tiger's den. I should have been more concerned for myself...
The thing that had snatched us was some kind of bird of prey; I could hear the powerful, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh of wide wings flapping against the roof. After everything she had endured, Wen Qi's emotions had shifted from shock and terror to a forced calm, and now to a dazed helplessness. She simply held the roundly-wrapped Wen Jiang, who was still crying and delirious, and stared at me blankly.
I asked her, "Are you alright? Did you hit anything or get hurt?"
She shook her head and forced a smile, indicating she was fine.
I pushed aside the carriage curtain to look outside. What I saw gave me a fright—we had actually passed the East City Gate and even flown over the southeastern suburbs. We were on the verge of leaving Pingjing! Although I couldn't distinguish directions inside the carriage, I could roughly estimate our flight speed. There was no way we could have left the city from Yonghe Bridge and reached the eastern suburbs in less than half a cup of tea's time!
There was only one possibility... The thought sent a chill down my spine. We must have entered an illusion array the moment we left Xixi Tower. We had been going the wrong way entirely—instead of heading west toward the official residence district, we had been heading east out of the city! No wonder Meng Tingwu had no scruples about ambushing us; the place where we had fought wasn't inside the city at all!
It sounds simple, but the details would be incredibly difficult to execute. For an illusion array to be seamless, the hardest part would be passing through Hanhui Gate, which had its own gate-keeping arrays and guards from the Imperial City Guard on duty. Such a grand scale... I could only say it was the handiwork of yet another of my Cloud-Eating Realm martial uncles.
So, we had been schemed against from the very beginning... Was someone plotting against me, against Wen Jiang and Wen Qi, or against something inside the carriage?
Since there was nothing I could do while in the air anyway, I continued using the bronze mirror to search every corner. Wen Qi watched quietly, occasionally using a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat from Wen Jiang's face.
My proficiency with runes wasn't high—it was just a side-interest from my study of arrays. If Lord Wei were here, he
