Ambush

"Hmm?" A soft murmur of doubt slipped out, and Xu Yuan looked slightly surprised. "Aren't you blatantly sending them to their deaths?" Li Qingyan withdrew her fingertip and looked back, a teasing curl to her lips. "Prince Consort, are you trying to say Luo Qingfeng and the others will disobey orders?" Xu Yuan nodded as if it were obvious. "We're already in the heart of Tianshui Province. While there aren't any sect headquarters nearby, I seem to remember a county town called Pingcheng around here?" "Just like that saying of yours, Prince Consort—'a general in the field may decline imperial commands'?" "..." Xu Yuan's eyelid twitched. He felt as though Yuan Hao and his fellow generals had utterly worn that phrase out. With a dry cough, he said solemnly, "It seems you've already considered that, Qingyan." As the northernmost province of Great Yan, Tianshui Province spanned ten thousand li. Sparsely populated, ninety percent of its land was uninhabited wilderness, yet finding a city to requisition supplies from was not truly difficult. Just like what Li Qingyan had done back in Ningyuan Commandery. Of course, Li Qingyan dared to do that because of her royal status. In a transcendent feudal dynasty like Great Yan, every action she took possessed inherent legitimacy, to say nothing of the military might in her grasp. With a hundred thousand elite cultivators backed by the supreme pretext of state military affairs, if the local gentry didn't donate grain, their estates would be physically ransacked and confiscated. But if the sects dared to do such a thing, they would inevitably be held accountable afterward; unless forced to the brink, sects wouldn't dare. Yet the problem now was: they were being sent on a suicide mission, so why would the sects care about any of that? They weren't transcendent aristocratic clans—plundering them was just plundering them. They were merely mortal gentry hoarding coin and grain; after the war, it could just be wrangled over and compensated. Under such circumstances, it was highly likely that Luo Qingfeng and her fellow commander would simply run off with the twenty thousand routed troops and raid the town for grain. Li Qingyan gave a slight nod, glancing toward the northwest as she murmured, "My orders to Luo Qingfeng were to scout the approximate barbarian presence in that region, and I placed more than half the aerial scouts under her command. As long as they aren't completely foolish or overly reckless, they'll suffer heavy casualties, but there is still a chance of survival." Saying that, Li Qingyan broke into an amused smile. "Of course, I also informed that woman beforehand that a company of five hundred Beifeng troops has been stationed in Pingcheng County." Xu Yuan instantly grasped Li Qingyan's intention and chuckled. "Even with the local garrison, a company of the Beifeng Army wouldn't be enough to fill the cracks between their teeth. But the moment they make a move, it becomes outright rebellion?" "Yes," Li Qingyan replied calmly. Xu Yuan slowly closed his eyes, feeling the blade-like icy wind. "In the past, Luo Qingfeng definitely would have done it. But the northern sects have just lost over two hundred thousand elites and are at their weakest in a century. They... wouldn't dare give the imperial court an excuse." Opening his eyes, Xu Yuan sighed softly. "Unfortunately, they underestimate our imperial father's resolve." "Our imperial father?" "Yeah, our imperial father." "Which one?" "..." Xu Yuan. Turning stiffly, Xu Yuan stared dumbfounded at the woman in red before him. Her long black hair danced wildly in the mountain peak's freezing wind, her crimson eyes gleaming with an eerie light. Li Qingyan's gaze was placid. "Once the northern sects are wiped out, considering my imperial father's failing health, Duke Xu stands a very good chance of becoming our next imperial father, doesn't he?" Xu Yuan clicked his tongue. Hearing such treasonous words from the mouth of an imperial princess—especially one like Li Qingyan, who directly wielded military authority—was genuinely frightening. She had just forcefully kissed him a moment ago, and now she was bringing this up? Hah, women. After a brief silence, Xu Yuan wore a slightly teasing look. "Qingyan, as far as I know, my father doesn't seem to have that intention for now." He was telling the truth. In neither his past life nor this one had his old man ever shown such an ambition. Even across the numerous timelines in Cangyuan, although his father would prop up puppet emperors, he had never once usurped the Great Yan throne. With those words, they exchanged a silent look. Li Qingyan was the first to look away, speaking clearly, "Not having it for now doesn't mean he won't in the future. But it's too early to discuss such things." Seeing her steer the topic back, Xu Yuan gave a light chuckle. "You're right, Qingyan. Now that we've roughly confirmed the location of the barbarian main army, has Your Highness notified Mr. Zong to march south ahead of time?" "Naturally," Li Qingyan replied softly. "Mr. Zong will lead the main army south tomorrow." Xu Yuan grinned and looked out at the wind and snow toward where the barbarian army lay. "The moonless night draws to a close, and dawn has yet to break. It's about time this war came to an end..." "Come to an end?" Li Qingyan chuckled softly. Walking forward across the snow, she reached the edge of the sheer cliff, then turned around to look at Xu Yuan with a smile. "Why do I feel this is only the beginning?" "Pfft—" Xu Yuan froze for a second before letting out a soft laugh. "Your Highness makes a good point. With both the barbarians and the northern sects gone, the grand curtain of this world will be drawn wide..." Mid-sentence, Xu Yuan's voice cut off abruptly, replaced by a strange gaze fixed squarely on midair. The blizzard raged on, the wind piercingly cold. "The grand curtain drawn? I never imagined the Third Young Master of the Xu family would hold such insight into the state of the world." A crisp, indifferent voice drifted softly across the mountain peak. The change was so sudden it felt almost natural. A slender, graceful figure was silently and slowly congealing in the snow-swept air. A form forged from myriad flakes of ice and snow, as though it had belonged there all along... Appearing without the slightest warning. Never mind a weakling like Xu Yuan—not even Li Qingyan had detected the person's arrival. As the woman's voice fell, her silhouette fully solidified. A gorgeous woman with fox-like eyes and half-bare shoulders appeared before Xu Yuan and Li Qingyan. At the sudden arrival of this uninvited guest, Xu Yuan instinctively took a step back. He felt a long-absent sense of crisis from this woman. Death. Yet after glancing at the dashing figure standing not far away, Xu Yuan quietly shifted his feet back. There was a Transcendent Realm expert traveling with the Beifeng Army; with Li Qingyan, the supreme commander, venturing outside the camp, that expert would undoubtedly accompany her. Moreover, even separated by a dozen li, as long as Li Qingyan circulated her cultivation method, the camp at the foot of the mountain would sense it and instantaneously establish a cultivation resonance to bolster her. Still, why hadn't that Transcendent Realm expert appeared yet? The crimson within Li Qingyan's phoenix eyes flared in an instant. Staring at the scantily clad woman in midair, her voice carried a touch of amusement: "Whose family is so generous as to send a second-rank Origin Realm cultivator to her death?" "Hehehe~" With a light chuckle, Nan Jinxi descended from the sky onto the mountain peak, the fur coat slipping down to her elbows rustling gently in the wind. "Her Highness Wuyuan must be joking. That first-rank Transcendent expert in your army can't sense me. If you hadn't stepped outside the camp, it really would have been difficult for this humble one to make a move." As she spoke, she casually moved to walk past Li Qingyan without a care in the world. Li Qingyan's eyes grew cold. Shifting slightly to the side, she blocked the path between Nan Jinxi and Xu Yuan. The next instant— Whoosh! As if devoid of physical substance, Nan Jinxi dissolved into swirling snowflakes, effortlessly gliding right around Li Qingyan. The two women stood back-to-back, their figures lithe and graceful as the wind and snow whipped at their hair. Back turned, Li Qingyan pressed a palm gently against the hilt of the blade at her waist. Before the blade even left its scabbard, countless flashes of blade-light abruptly enveloped Nan Jinxi behind her. Yet Nan Jinxi remained as intangible as before, chopped by the blade-light into a flurry of snow, only to reconvene into human form an instant later. Though this flurry of blade-light did bring Nan Jinxi to a temporary halt. She chuckled softly, "This humble one isn't going to do anything to the Third Young Master. Why must Her Highness Wuyuan be in such a rush?" "A respectable woman wouldn't dress like that," Li Qingyan said, her figure arriving before Xu Yuan in a flash. Her crimson eyes coldly observed Nan Jinxi. "Much less cast flirtatious glances at another woman's husband." "Though the Third Young Master is handsome, this humble one already has a beloved~" Nan Jinxi's fox-like eyes narrowed into slits, tinted with faint sorrow. "So your beloved sent you to assassinate us?" Li Qingyan asked impassively. Ever since this woman appeared, she had felt utterly bizarre. She didn't feel like a physical body, but rather a strange avatar condensed of snowflakes. Source Qi could not detect her; when scanned with intent-soul, she was nothing more than a pile of snow, and qi aura simply couldn't lock onto her. However, there had to be a link between the true body and the avatar. She needed time to sense where the true body was located, and she also needed to wait for the military array at the foot of the mountain to spin up and resonate with her cultivation method. "..." Nan Jinxi offered no reply. For a moment, the mountain peak fell into an eerie silence following Nan Jinxi's arrival. Soon, however, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow. Crunch— Crunch— Nan Jinxi continued to step forward, while Xu Yuan, shielded behind Li Qingyan, looked at her with an increasingly peculiar gaze. He found her attire somewhat familiar; she must have left quite an impression on him in Cangyuan. After all, women this scantily clad yet generous weren't common in Cangyuan. Seconds crawled by like agonizing hours. Watching her draw nearer, Xu Yuan finally recalled the woman's identity and her lore in Cangyuan. Is this Nan Jinxi? One of the Three Fox Kings, a Heavenly Snow Spirit Fox, a neutral NPC. Her current body was likely just a Spirit Snow Avatar, the racial innate talent of the Heavenly Snow Spirit Foxes. It had severe limitations, as it could only be used amidst wind and snow. But as long as there was snow, a Heavenly Snow Spirit Fox could use this talent to infiltrate anywhere without a trace. And once the Spirit Snow Avatar fully solidified, Nan Jinxi could shift her true body over entirely. A divine-tier talent combining intelligence gathering, assassination, and escape. "..." At this thought, Xu Yuan's pupils suddenly constricted. Without thinking, he drew the Qingyu sword from his Sumeru ring. He remembered an even more critical matter: This damn woman had a grudge against the Chancellor's Manor, and killing her yielded a piece of designated-teleportation equipment. In other words, that gear had to be on her right now... BOOM!!!! The next instant, a torrent of Source Qi erupted around Xu Yuan as Nan Jinxi's Spirit Snow Avatar transformed completely into physical flesh. At that exact moment, Li Qingyan had also rallied the power of the military array. Her armor glowed with bloody radiance, and her qi aura locked dead onto the solidified Nan Jinxi. Her long hair fluttered, and Nan Jinxi's robes whipped in the howling gale. An antique hand mirror appeared in her palm. "Judging by your look, Third Young Master Xu, do you know me?" Seeing that small mirror, Xu Yuan's heart sank. In Cangyuan, Xu Yuan had almost always chosen to kill Nan Jinxi, precisely to obtain the mirror she now held. The Kunwu Mirror... A god-tier tool for targeted teleportation, an essential piece of cheese gear. Beyond absorbing certain bosses' ultimate moves and reflecting them in full, it could even teleport certain bosses out of their dedicated arenas to other places, pitting them against rival bosses while the player reaped the spoils from the sidelines. Li Qingyan's gaze remained flat. "Was the lesson taught to the snake demons not enough? You people from Guyuan truly never learn." Nan Jinxi shook her head with a soft laugh, watching her movements with interest. "What can we do when the Third Young Master is such an important figure? But Your Highness... are you preparing to strike?" Li Qingyan glanced at the small mirror in Nan Jinxi's hand and sighed softly. "I doubt a mere second-rank Origin Realm cultivator could shake the might of a military array. Did you dare to show yourself relying solely on that ancient treasure in your hand?" As the words fell, a circular crimson current from Li Qingyan coiled like a serpent from bottom to top, enveloping Xu Yuan's entire body. Seeing this, Nan Jinxi knew in her heart that Li Qingyan had fully channeled the strength of the military array. She shook her head gently. "Her Highness Wuyuan, you are far too confident—" Buzz—! Before Nan Jinxi could finish, the blade in Li Qingyan's hand cleared its scabbard. Crimson armor and raging flames instantly dyed half the pale sky blood-red! Four devastatingly fierce slashes hacked toward the fair, exposed limbs of Nan Jinxi in the blink of an eye. Li Qingyan was no conventional cultivator; the martial arts of military powerhouses were simple, brutal, and overbearing. If they landed clean, this scantily clad vixen would instantly be turned into a limbless torso. Li Qingyan had shown mercy, yet hadn't—she aimed to capture her alive for interrogation. Yet beyond anyone's expectations, those slashes—bolstered by the military array to lethal potency capable of felling a second-rank Origin Realm expert—were absorbed straight into Nan Jinxi's delicate body. Before Li Qingyan could react— The next instant, blade-light flashed anew. All four slashes reflected straight back toward Li Qingyan! The sudden turn of events caught Li Qingyan off guard. Her instinct was to dodge, but with Xu Yuan behind her, she couldn't. She had no choice but to face the overbearing slashes of her own creation head-on. Stepping back, crimson glow clinging to her blade, a tempest of blade strokes swept through the snow. Boom! With a roaring blast, Li Qingyan, bolstered by the military array, was unharmed, but she was sent flying several dozen paces by the violent impact of her own slashes. And now, with Li Qingyan knocked back, Xu Yuan stood completely exposed before Nan Jinxi. Seeing that the blade-qi shield Li Qingyan left around him remained intact, Nan Jinxi knew a brute-force kill was out of reach. Killing intent flickered within her alluring fox eyes. Forming a hand seal, she aimed the small mirror at Xu Yuan. Her qi aura locked on, and immense Source Qi surged into the mirror. A breath later, spatial force swept toward Xu Yuan! "..." To Xu Yuan, the clash between Nan Jinxi and Li Qingyan was like gods waging war. He hadn't even had time to warn Li Qingyan. From strike to finish, it had all occurred in the blink of an eye in his perception. All he saw was a blinding flash of visual effects, and then... And then Li Qingyan, who had been shielding him, was gone. Fortunately, Xu Yuan knew the Kunwu Mirror inside out. The moment he saw the figure before him vanish, he rapidly circulated his Source Qi. The teleportation power of the Kunwu Mirror surged forth— Void-Stepping Slash! The locked qi aura suddenly lost its target. As the spatial fluctuation swept past, a giant boulder on the mountain peak vanished into thin air! "..." Nan Jinxi. "?" The Barbarian Heterodox King. In a flash, Xu Yuan had shifted beside Li Qingyan. Seeing Xu Yuan appear so abruptly, Li Qingyan raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when an urgent shout cut her off: "Shut up! Get me out of here, quick!" "..." Puzzled, Li Qingyan didn't move. She glanced toward Nan Jinxi and murmured, "Though she has an ancient treasure protecting her, she is merely a second-rank Origin Realm cultivator. Slaying her is as easy as slaughtering a chicken. Better to capture..." Xu Yuan rolled his eyes, his face pale from overdrawing his Source Qi. He gritted his teeth and hissed, "The woman has a teleportation treasure!" Li Qingyan had naturally seen what just happened. "A teleportation treasure is indeed precious, but even you managed to dodge it, Prince Consort—" "Can't you listen to me just once, woman?!" Xu Yuan snapped, cursing. "..." Li Qingyan pressed her lips together. "My martial skill can break target-locks." Xu Yuan grabbed Li Qingyan's fair hand. "Hurry, that ancient treasure should have a cooldown between uses. Get me out of here, fast—" Mid-sentence, Xu Yuan trailed off. He felt himself being locked onto once more. His eyes fell upon the Kunwu Mirror in Nan Jinxi's hand, and he clicked his tongue. Dammit, does the Kunwu Mirror have no cooldown in real life?! The moment she was locked onto, Li Qingyan also seemed to realize what was about to happen. Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly, and she clasped Xu Yuan's hand in return. The Kunwu Mirror drained immense power. Nan Jinxi's face was slightly pale, but a faint smile touched her red lips. As the Kunwu Mirror shone with light, she whispered softly, "Her Highness Wuyuan, Third Young Master Xu, Jinxi wishes you the best of luck..." Before she could finish, Li Qingyan, propelled by the immense boost of the military array, dragged the half-dead Xu Yuan straight to Nan Jinxi's side in a fraction of a second, seizing her arm in an iron grip. And then, she narrowed her eyes at her with a grin. "..." Nan Jinxi. A spatial ripple swept past. With a flash of light, all three vanished simultaneously from the summit of Mount Beiting.