Consort Yuan was coming to Qingming for a spring outing. This was a major affair. Zhao Tong had arrived in Qingming ahead of time to find Wei Yuan and discuss the preparations for receiving her carriage.
Wei Yuan had no desire to wade into such muddy waters. He hurriedly shoved over a box of immortal silver and said, "Chief Steward Zhao, as you can see, this territory of mine is fraught with turmoil, crawling with routed soldiers and horse bandits everywhere. If Her Ladyship Consort Yuan comes, her safety would be in serious jeopardy!"
Zhao Tong beamed, yet he made no move to accept the immortal silver. "The King also stated that Consort Yuan must be properly kept safe and sound. Why else would this servant come ahead of time? It's precisely to give you some time to prepare and get everything in order."
Seeing that Zhao Tong would not take the immortal silver, Wei Yuan's heart sank. Refusing bribes usually meant trouble had escalated.
He hardened his heart and said, "I truly do need time to prepare. Only once everything is ready can I receive her carriage."
With a faint, knowing smile, Zhao Tong asked, "How long?"
"Half a year!"
"Half a day!" Zhao Tong countered.
"What?" Wei Yuan thought his ears were playing tricks on him.
Zhao Tong said, "Consort Yuan's carriage is likely barely a hundred li from Qingming right now. In half a day at most, she will enter Qingming. Once inside Qingming, her safety rests entirely on your shoulders."
Wei Yuan's thoughts stirred. Suddenly catching an unusual scent from Zhao Tong, he grabbed the eunuch's hand.
"Aiya! What are you doing? Mind your manners..."
Zhao Tong tried to pull away, but Wei Yuan was no longer the fledgling cultivator of the past. His dharma physique was formidable, his strength boundless; giving Zhao Tong no room to resist, he pulled up the eunuch's arm.
Zhao Tong's hand had originally been tucked inside his sleeve. Now exposed, a large patch of mangled flesh was visible past his wrist, the tissue bruised dark azure and resisting healing.
Wei Yuan's expression turned grave. "You were attacked on the road?"
Zhao Tong sighed. "Rather... we successfully broke through."
"Why didn't you say so earlier!"
With a flicker of Wei Yuan's figure, he vanished.
Zhao Tong was startled. When he looked for Wei Yuan again, the man was already gone.
He froze for a moment, then gave a self-deprecating laugh. "It seems this servant is no longer a match for Lord Military Commissioner... Ah!"
Shaking his head, he sat down in the room. Just as he picked up a cup of tea, his whole body stiffened. Across from him sat a cultivator, having appeared without a sound. She looked extraordinarily pure and lucid, without a single speck of impurity inside or out.
Strangely enough, though this cultivator clearly was not high in cultivation, Zhao Tong felt as if he were sitting on pins and needles, gripped by an indescribable unease.
Composing himself, Zhao Tong asked, "How might this servant address Senior? I don't believe I have seen you before."
The cultivator said flatly, "Let me ask you this: who were the people ambushing Consort Yuan?"
Zhao Tong answered, "They shouldn't be the King's men, but they are numerous, highly trained, swift as the wind, and leave no trace behind. In the Great Jin, only the Lu clan and the Xu family possess such methods."
The cultivator nodded. Her figure slowly faded away, leaving only the afterimage of an immortal sword on the seat, which then dissolved like sea foam.
Cold sweat abruptly broke out across Zhao Tong's back. He muttered to himself, "This Military Commissioner's domain truly hides dragons and crouches tigers!"
Wei Yuan unleashed all eight thrusters at full throttle, shooting across the sky like a falling star. In the blink of an eye, he had crossed a hundred li beyond Qingming.
Along the imperial highway, a contingent of the Imperial Guard escorted several carriages, hurtling at full gallop. Flanking the road were several hundred masked horsemen, who hounded the convoy with relentless volleys of arrows, shooting the escorting guards from their horses one after another.
Seeing the situation deteriorating, an Imperial Guard captain leapt onto a carriage roof, propped up a flying-sword gun, and channeled his Dao power. With a thunderous boom, a flying sword impaled two masked assassins clean through.
However, several masked horsemen suddenly took to the air, each casting out a rope. The Imperial Guard captain let out a fierce shout and severed two ropes with the blade on his gun, but the remaining two ensnared him. He tumbled off the carriage, poised to be minced into paste by the pursuing masked riders right behind.
The carriage window suddenly flew open. A jade-like hand reached out and beckoned gently, pulling the guard captain flying back. Just then, a raven with blood-red plumage materialized in midair, alighted upon her wrist, and pecked viciously, instantly tearing open a bleeding hole!
The hand trembled, but it still tore apart the ropes binding the guard captain before withdrawing and shutting the window.
One of the masked horsemen barked, "We're not far from Qingming! All-out attack!"
No longer skirmishing, the riders charged en masse, instantly inflicting heavy casualties on the Imperial Guard.
A soft, wistful sigh drifted from inside the carriage: "Cousin, are you really going to stand by and watch me fall into their hands? I'm afraid... they won't observe any propriety."
Atop the crown of a nearby tree, a swordsman robed in green with a sword on his back appeared, his features handsome and chilly.
The swordsman snorted, his voice cold as ice. "So you remember you have a cousin? Hmph. For the sake of that 'cousin,' I'll help you this once more."
He let out a long whistle, drew his blade slowly, and began to chant a poem: "Frost chills the scabbard, long un-..."
Before he could finish even half the verse, a thunderous roar erupted in the sky: "You mongrels are courting death!"
Then, a greatsword massive as a door plank tore across the sky, plummeting down to plunge squarely into the highway behind the convoy!
As the greatsword struck the ground, the earth seemed suddenly to turn immensely supple. Centered on the greatsword, a colossal shockwave rippled out in all directions. Wherever the wave washed, masked horsemen and their steeds were violently hurled into the air.
By now, all these riders had taken flight, still relentlessly pursuing the carriages. Yet they slammed into an invisible wall, dozens of riders flattening together against the empty air in a single spread.
The immense impact made the greatsword tremble slightly. In the next instant, Wei Yuan's figure appeared. Gripping the hilt of the greatsword, he exhaled, voiced a power shout, and rammed outward with ferocity!
With an almighty crash, dozens of masked riders went flying backward, spitting fountains of blood.
By this point, the carriage convoy had also been blasted into the air. Imperial Guards and the riders pursuing them were scattered everywhere, with only a single carriage touching down smoothly.
Drenched in murderous aura, Wei Yuan hefted the greatsword, preparing to hunt down the rest. But the moment the greatsword lifted three inches from the ground, he calmly thrust it back down, switching instead to a slightly slimmer greatsword before marching murderously toward the leader of the masked riders.
The leader was astonishingly also a dharma idol cultivator. Wielding a dharma artifact spear and clasping a golden bead in his left hand, he enveloped his entire body in protective golden radiance and said coldly, "Wei Yuan! I advise you not to wade into these muddy waters. This game is not something you are qualified to participate in!"
Wei Yuan did not utter a word. Wielding his sword with both hands, he unleashed Beginning of a Thousand Autumns. The masked leader was yanked forward against his will, and then looked up to see a greatsword descending like a comet from beyond the heavens, right above his head!
Frightened out of his wits, he raised his spear to parry while frantically activating the golden bead. His protective golden light blazed as brilliantly as a sun.
Yet the greatsword bore down with the might of mountains and seas. Under the horrifying pressure, the golden light melted away like snow. The instant the leader's spear clashed against the greatsword's edge, it bent and warped, turning into a hook!
With the strike finished, Wei Yuan pulled back his greatsword and said chillingly, "A mere dharma idol. You're the first one who dared talk so big in front of me!"
Staring at Wei Yuan with an ashen face, the leader trembled from head to toe, unable to utter a single word.
Suddenly, with a loud bang, his body burst into a cloud of bloody mist in midair. A sword shadow flickered through the mist. Wei Yuan seemed to move, yet seemed not to have moved at all, but the leader's dharma idol was already gone.
Wei Yuan held his sword upright before him once more, planted it loosely into the earth, and flicked his finger against the blade.
The sword chimed like a great bell. Within a radius of a li, all the Imperial Guards and masked riders swayed as though drunk, collapsing to the ground one after another. At their strongest, they were merely Dao Foundation cultivators; how could they withstand Wei Yuan's End of Ten Thousand Generations unleashed in wrath?
Seeing the surroundings fall quiet, Wei Yuan's fury subsided slightly, and he walked up to the carriage.
Before he could knock, the carriage window opened. Behind it was Consort Yuan's breathtaking, kingdom-toppling face. With a faint, teasing smile, she said, "Why did you only arrive now? Any later and I would have fallen into their hands. Who knows what they would have done to me..."
At her words, Wei Yuan—who had once also been an evil cult master—felt his dharma physique heat up, blood surging hot.
He hurriedly suppressed those improper thoughts, silently cursing Dream Eater for leading people astray, while saying aloud, "You arrived out of nowhere without even giving prior notice. Eunuch Zhao was talking in riddles too; it was fortunate I noticed his injury and managed to rush here in time. Why didn't you send word ahead? That way I could have dispatched troops to escort you along the way."
"If I had sent word ahead, would you still be in Qingming? You would have hidden yourself away goodness knows where."
Then, Consort Yuan lifted up a child. He was only about a year old, but was already strikingly handsome, his eyes like stars, astonishingly bright. The moment the child saw Wei Yuan, he stared at him, looking left and right, unable to take his eyes away.
Consort Yuan pinched the child's little cheek and said, "Call him Daddy!"
Wei Yuan was frightened out of his wits. "Don't, don't, don't! That's not something to joke about!"
Consort Yuan rolled her eyes at Wei Yuan, gently nibbled the child's snow-white cheek with her red lips, and said, "Do you think I'm joking with you?"
Wei Yuan's heart plummeted, his face alternating between pale and green.
Consort Yuan suddenly laughed. "I was just messing with you!"
Only then did Wei Yuan's heart settle back into place, though such wild emotional swings were more than even his sturdy heart could easily bear.
Consort Yuan pecked at the child's cheek twice more. Seemingly not satisfied, she pouted her lips at Wei Yuan and said, "Haven't seen you in so long. Come give me a kiss."
Wei Yuan's blood rushed up all over again. He hastily said, "There are so many people watching here!"
Consort Yuan chuckled. "If you stick your head inside, won't they be unable to see?"
Wei Yuan could only smile bitterly. Wasn't that just burying one's head in the sand? If he stuck his head through the carriage window, anyone with eyes would know nothing wholesome was going on.
"Hmph, what is there to fear? Get in the carriage!"
With a click, the carriage door cracked open.
In Wei Yuan's eyes, this carriage cabin was a dragon's pool and a tiger's den—how could he dare step inside?
Moreover, Wei Yuan had vaguely caught sight of a swordsman earlier, with a grim face as if the entire world owed him tens of thousands of taels of immortal silver.
That swordsman's strength was quite formidable; Wei Yuan felt he might not be able to cut him down in a single blow. Furthermore, the man's background was unknown, and his whereabouts were now a mystery. With someone like that lurking in the shadows, Wei Yuan could not feel at ease doing anything.
Consort Yuan stretched out a hand, small golden bells dangling from each of her five fingers. With a gentle shake, a tinkling chime rang out. Even Wei Yuan felt his mind spin with dizziness, while everyone else fainted dead away, unconscious to the world.
Then the carriage door swung open. A slender hand reached out and scooped Wei Yuan right into the carriage.
A few breaths later, several Imperial Guard captains slowly came around. Seeing assassins and comrades collapsed across the ground, they were all startled.
Consort Yuan's voice carried from the carriage: "Leave the others. Set off at once and reach Qingming as quickly as possible."
The guard captains asked for nothing better. Without giving a damn whether their comrades lived or died, they whipped the horses and bolted.
The carriage sped forward, jostling all the way, until it finally entered Qingming.
Chapter 662