Wang Yu walked in the center, flanked by Li Yunxiu and Ardai. Each held a lantern, leisurely strolling through the lantern fair.
Although Longshan Prefecture was far from the bustle of the capital and not quite as lively as Daxing Prefecture, as the premier bastion of the Northwest, its Shangyuan Festival lantern fair was still packed with people. Visitors wove past one another in unbroken streams, and with no small number of Western Regions foreigners mixed among them, the scene took on an exotic charm of its own.
"Tanghulu! Delicious tanghulu!"
A vendor along the street was selling candied hawthorns. A man with rough hemp wrapped around his head hoisted a bamboo pole studded with dozens of tanghulu skewers, hawking his wares down the street.
Having already eaten some earlier, Ardai paid the peddler no mind. Li Yunxiu, however, felt a sudden craving for something sweet and pulled Wang Yu over to the man.
"How much for a skewer?" Li Yunxiu asked, eyeing the tanghulu on the bamboo pole while reaching into her purse for coins.
The man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and hurriedly replied, "Ten wen a skewer."
Li Yunxiu nodded, produced ten copper coins, handed them over, and pointed to one toward the inside of the pole. "I want that one."
The man reached out, took the coins, and slid that skewer free to hand it to her. "Here you go!"
Li Yunxiu's brow quirked slightly. Taking the skewer, she glanced up at him. She caught the man instinctively averting his eyes, turning to look down the street ahead.
Lowering her lashes, she took the tanghulu, turned, and walked away.
Once they had put a little distance between them, Li Yunxiu said in an undertone, "That tanghulu vendor isn't right."
"Oh?" Wang Yu asked. "What's wrong with him?"
"He's an expert," Li Yunxiu said coolly. "And his target is us."
"Huh? Wh—" Ardai started to turn around, but Li Yunxiu reached across Wang Yu and caught her hand. "Don't look back."
Wang Yu cast a sidelong glance, catching a glimpse from the corner of his eye. "He's tailing us."
Li Yunxiu nodded. "His hands are covered in thick calluses—the kind that come from gripping weapons. When we drew close, he instinctively tightened his grip on that bamboo pole. And he didn't dare meet my eyes, afraid we would spot a flaw."
"I'll have Zhao Shan and Zhao He test him," Wang Yu said.
Li Yunxiu did not answer right away. Instead, she swept her eyes across their surroundings, her pupils contracting sharply. "Too late!"
In truth, she had felt puzzled the moment she noticed the man's peculiarities.
If he was only keeping watch, he shouldn't have approached so close and drawn their attention.
If he wanted to strike, they had already been right in front of him—so why hadn't he made a move?
Yet the moment Wang Yu said the man was following them, Li Yunxiu realized what was happening. They were indeed preparing to strike, but not with that vendor alone. They had set a trap and were waiting for them to walk right into it before springing it.
Li Yunxiu immediately looked up. Ahead to the left, a fortuneteller holding a banner was deciphering a hexagram for a burly man. Ahead to the right, a young gentleman was chatting up two women browsing the street.
And that fortuneteller, the burly man, and the young gentleman all kept casting faint, covert sidelong glances toward the three of them.
The instant Li Yunxiu noticed them, the fortuneteller realized it as well. His face shifted. Leaping up, he sprang beside two plainclothes imperial guards from the manor. With a thrust of both hands, the two guards tumbled to the ground.
"The mark spotted us!" the fortuneteller shouted.
Seeing him make a move, the burly man and the young gentleman did not hesitate for a moment. Both spun around and charged in unison. The burly man drew a ghost-head saber from beneath the divination stall and stepped forward with mountain-like weight, hacking down toward two of the manor's guards.
The young gentleman snapped open a wrought iron folding fan. Moving like the wind, he sought to bypass the peripheral guards and rush straight for Wang Yu.
Bringing up the rear, the tanghulu vendor gave his bamboo pole a violent shake, shattering its outer shell to reveal a solid iron staff within. Without a word, he swept it toward Zhao Shan and Zhao He.
Yet the manor guards were no pushovers either.
Though the fortuneteller had seized the initiative and taken down two men in a sudden ambush, the remaining guards reacted at once, drawing sabers and swords to block their path.
Zhao Shan and Zhao He reacted even faster. Zhao He spun around to confront the vendor, while Zhao Shan flicked his wrist, hurling three flying daggers in a triangular formation straight at the fortuneteller.
*Clang, clang!*
The fortuneteller drew a flexible sword from his waist. Dodging and parrying in rapid succession, he evaded the three flying daggers, but two more manor guards were already closing in.
"I'll hold them off!"
The burly man swung his ghost-head saber wildly, somehow keeping several manor guards trapped at bay. His martial skills had already reached the tier of a first-rate expert.
Finding an opening, the fortuneteller flickered like a shadow and slipped through to the inner circle.
On the other side, the young gentleman possessed extraordinary lightness skills. Though delayed for a moment, he soon skirted around the guards, lunging in alongside the fortuneteller from left and right.
Zhao Shan flung dagger after dagger, his expression filled with shock. "Where did so many experts come from?!"
The prowess of all four foes was by no means inferior to that of the two brothers. In particular, the tanghulu vendor at their rear had forced Zhao He onto the defensive the moment they clashed; Zhao He could only barely hold him off.
*Swish!*
The fortuneteller leveled his flexible sword directly at Wang Yu—only to see the stunning beauty beside him give a light flick of her sleeve, sending several streaks of golden light flashing before his eyes.
"Golden needle hidden weapons!"
The fortuneteller twisted midair to dodge the needles. With a maneuver like a flying swallow skimming water, he kicked off the ground and surged forward once more.
Li Yunxiu shifted her palms and drifted forward to meet him, cautioning Wang Yu at the same time: "Though these four are skilled, there is no way they could succeed in an assassination. Don't reveal your hand yet—beware of a master lurking in the dark."
The fortuneteller's pupils shrank. His sword thrust out furiously, whistling through the air and manifesting seven flickering sword tips aimed at seven major acupoints across Li Yunxiu's chest.
Yet Li Yunxiu's long sleeves billowed, her palms concealed within as she glided through the flurry of sword strikes. What appeared perilous was effortless and secure. With a flick of her finger, a golden needle shot forth abruptly, darting straight for his left eye.
"What a palm-hidden needle!" The fortuneteller somersaulted at top speed, evading it once again. No longer daring to underestimate Li Yunxiu, he focused all his senses, not daring to let his guard down for an instant.
Meanwhile, the young gentleman floated close, his eyes fixed on Wang Yu. He did not anticipate that the other young beauty beside Wang Yu would draw the scimitar at her waist—a weapon that looked far more like an ornament than an instrument of war.
Hearing Li Yunxiu's words, Ardai, who was already itching for a fight, grew even more spirited. Seeing the young man wielding an iron folding fan, she drew her scimitar and dashed forward. "I've got this one!"
Seeing Ardai's sweet, radiant charm, the young gentleman's peach-blossom eyes lit up. He chuckled teasingly, "Little miss, your prince is a dead man. Why don't you come with—"
Before he could finish, blade light flooded his vision. An icy chill even colder than the winter air blasted against his face, threatening to seep straight into his marrow.
"What?!" Startled, the young gentleman snapped the iron fan shut, using it as a sword. He exchanged nine lightning-fast clashes with Ardai's scimitar before dropping into a back-bending iron bridge stance, narrowly dodging an arc of blade light that slashed right past his face.
"Who are you?!" he asked, terrified and thoroughly shaken.
Ardai didn't answer. She simply rained down blade strikes, completely overwhelming the young gentleman. The sight left the nearby manor guards dumbfounded.
After all, Ardai was the direct disciple of a Xiantian Grandmaster and had cultivated the Ice and Snow Divine Art since childhood. Though she had not yet stepped into the Xiantian realm, both her internal energy and saber technique had reached an exceptional level.
This young gentleman was the weakest among the four, boasting only decent lightness skills. But his lightness skills gave him no advantage over Ardai, leaving him with no choice but to take a beating.
The surrounding commoners scattered in panic, leaving behind four separate skirmishes—and Wang Yu standing at the center of the battlefield.
Wang Yu looked left and right. There didn't seem to be anyone else around, did there?
Could Li Yunxiu have misjudged?
Just then, Wang Yu abruptly felt a gaze upon him. Snapping his head up, he saw a man in a bamboo conical hat step out onto the second floor of a building to his left. Beneath the brim, two cold glints locked firmly onto him.
The next instant, a crushing pressure descended upon him, half-real and half-illusory, as if seeking to force him to his knees.
Martial intent!
A Xiantian expert!
*Clang!*
A saber suddenly appeared in the conical-hatted man's grip—thick-backed with a razor-thin edge, gleaming with a purplish-gold hue beneath the flickering lantern light.
Wang Yu's eyes flashed. "Zhong Yulei!"
The man was indeed Zhong Yulei, and the other four were his sworn brothers. They hadn't died at Dulong Fortress; instead, they had traveled north to Longshan Prefecture to seek vengeance against the Prince of Zhenxi's Manor.
Gazing down at Wang Yu, Zhong Yulei's eyes burned with boundless hatred and venom. "Zhao Yu!"
It was this very man who had discovered the tracks of the stolen treasure, bringing down the combined encirclement of the imperial army and the Great Vajra Monastery before he was properly prepared.
It was this very man who, despite sending only five million in treasure, falsely claimed it was ten million, alienating many of his uninformed men and completely severing any possibility of his surrender.
Heaven had taken pity: Zongjian had shown mercy, allowing him and his four sworn brothers to escape safely, advising them to head west beyond Yumen Pass and live under assumed names.
Zhong Yulei had naturally accepted the kindness, fleeing far and wide with the four of them.
Yet before departing, they had to slaughter Zhao Yu—the chief culprit behind the fall of Dulong Fortress—on the spot to vent the hatred burning in their chests.
At this very moment, the enemy's guards were pinned down on the outer perimeter, and the two women who could have served as shields were tied up in combat. It would take time for a large detachment of manor guards to arrive. Only two men remained facing each other, separated by less than thirty feet.
Master of Dulong Fortress, Xiantian expert: Zhong Yulei!
The Prince of Zhenxi, decadent second-generation scion: Zhao Yu!
Murderous intent flared in Zhong Yulei's eyes. A flicker at the corner of his vision revealed two figures speeding toward them from the distance.
Hesitating no longer, he launched himself from the building, turning into an afterimage that closed the distance to Wang Yu almost instantaneously. The Fish-Scale Purple Gold Saber in his hand dissolved into a web of blades, out of which a divine purple-gold dragon surged, opening its gaping maw as if to swallow Wang Yu whole.
The moment Zhong Yulei moved, everyone noticed him.
"Husband!" Li Yunxiu spun around in alarm.
"Brother Zhao!" Ardai screamed.
"My Lord!" Zhao Shan and Zhao He cried, their eyes ready to burst with fury.
"Kill him!" the other four men brought by Zhong Yulei roared in exhilaration.
Seeing Zhao Yu seemingly frozen in place, Zhong Yulei felt a burst of vicious delight. Tightening his grip on the saber, his aura locked onto Wang Yu—only for him to realize Wang Yu had vanished.
"What?!"
Zhong Yulei's pupils constricted violently, his mind going blank for a fraction of a second. From the corner of his eye, he caught only a blur. Shaken to his core, the instant his feet touched the ground he wheeled around, slashing outward in all directions with Night Battle in Eight Directions.
Yet he still saw no sign of Wang Yu. All he felt was a hand resting against the center of his back.
Before the last spark of his consciousness faded, all he heard was a quiet murmur: "The Star-Chasing Steps really are quite handy..."
Chapter 106