The Price

Out of concern over falling rocks, the village had been built far from the cliff. However, following the man's pointing finger, everyone saw that a short stretch of the mountain path was lit by two torches. Four bandits stood there, holding two children between them. The children were very young, looking only four or five years old. The bandit on the east side of the boundary line asked Zhu Xiu'er, "Are those two your children?" Zhu Xiu'er's eyes had gone wide, fixed unblinkingly on the two children. Yet she shook her head frantically. "No! They're not!" "Not yours?" the bandit chuckled. "Then this has even less to do with you." He Yue also realized something was wrong and shouted urgently, "Wait, you can't—" Before he could finish, the bandit raised a hand in a signal. Two tender shrieks echoed down the mountain path as his accomplices lifted the children and hurled them straight over the edge! That was a cliff fifteen zhang deep! Zhu Xiu'er screamed, rolled her eyes back, and fainted. Zeng Feixiong caught her in a single sweep and handed her off to his subordinates to keep steady. He Chunhua raged, "Outrageous! Children are innocent! What grudge could justify such a monstrous deed?!" "Children are innocent?" A voice retorted—it was Lu Yao, stepping out from behind a house with a cold sneer. "It seems Lord He knows this woman isn't so innocent, then. Let me ask you, Lord He: we clearly agreed to divide the village east and west, so what do you mean by secretly kidnapping my man?" He Chunhua's heart sank. Lu Yao had indeed discovered Fat Wang was missing and vented his fury onto Zhu Xiu'er. This bandit chief was utterly ruthless—the moment he realized he'd been played, he killed to vent his rage without a second thought! "That fat bastard tried to harm Zhu-shi, which is why we stopped him, and that happened before we drew any boundary." He Chunhua lifted his chin slightly. "You killed her children—do you not care about your subordinate's life anymore?" "Why wouldn't I?" Lu Yao snorted. "Hand him back, or I'll slaughter the lot of you right now until you run with your tails between your legs!" "Hm?" He Chunhua suddenly shaded his eyes with a hand and pointed behind him. "What is that?" "Lord He, don't try to change the subject." Lu Yao offered a humorless smirk. Did he take him for a toddler with such cheap tricks? Yet the words had barely left his mouth when an agonized scream rang out from one of his men not far away: "Aargh—!" At the same time, the whistling rush of air pierced behind Lu Yao. He didn't turn around immediately. Instead, he dropped into a crouch and spun, conjuring a giant axe in his right hand from who knew where to block in front of himself. The surface of this weapon was nearly the size of a buckler. While nowhere near as exaggerated as the giant axe Meng Shan wielded in He Lingchuan's dreamscape, when Lu Yao curled his body tight, the axe head could at least shield his vital upper body and his knees. *Clang! Clang!* Two arrows struck the axe face and were deflected harmlessly. Yet another arrow silently grazed past above him. Had Lu Yao turned around directly, that arrow would have driven straight into his throat. This triangular three-arrow pattern was rather familiar... A fierce glint flashed in Lu Yao's eyes, and he roared, "Hold your fire! I'm Lu Yao! We're on the same side!" Just then, He Chunhua bellowed as well, "Rebels! General Lu, quickly seize the rebels!" Atop the several houses in the western half nearest to the boundary line, over a dozen imperial archers sprang up. Prone on the rooftops, they loosed volleys of arrows with sharp whooshes, returning the ambushers' fire in kind. Shouting at the top of his lungs, He Chunhua clutched his head and retreated, his body glowing with a pale cyan light. That was the halo activated by the State Token. In an instant, all the imperial soldiers began to glow with the same light. Seeing this, the attackers harbored no further doubt. Aside from officials appointed by the royal court, who else could command origin power? The moment He Chunhua fell back, Zeng Feixiong and the others rushed forward to cover him, deflecting several stray arrows with their astral qi. Moving like greased lightning, they withdrew behind the houses before Lu Yao's men could even react. Only then did a troop burst from the darkness, flooding Xianling Village like a tidal wave! Tonight had neither moon nor stars; the open wilderness was pitch-black. This force hadn't even lit a single torch. Coupled with the commotion in the village drawing everyone's attention, Lu Yao's sentries hadn't noticed them until they were already right at the village gates! Spotting the man at the front, Lu Yao shouted furiously, "Wu Shaoyi, have you lost your mind?! How dare you shoot at me!" He whirled and pointed toward the west of the village. "Your target is over there!" "You're the one I'm shooting!" Wu Shaoyi laughed heartily. "Brothers, charge! Kill this treacherous bastard!" He gritted his teeth on every word. Under Hong Xiangqian's thumb in the past, he hadn't been able to deal with Lu Yao, but the bad blood between them had festered. By the end, they could barely stand the sight of each other. Seeing him again now, fury surged straight to his head, utterly uncontrollable! He excelled at using the spear. Because he had come on foot, he had traded his long cavalry spear for a shorter one. Without another word, he thrust straight for Lu Yao's eyes, his speed kicking up an afterimage. Lu Yao naturally raised his axe to parry. But by the third blow, he had been forced to hold it right before his face. The tip of the spear tapped lightly against the edge of the giant axe, bounced, and the shaft bent into a curve, snaking past the axe like a venomous viper aimed straight at his eye! This was Wu Shaoyi's signature technique, dubbed 'Flood Dragon Explores the Sea,' which had claimed the lives of countless imperial soldiers. Fortunately, Lu Yao had once served in the same camp and knew it well; he jerked his head sharply to the side, escaping the fate of being blinded. Even so, the needle-sharp astral qi radiating from the spearhead carved a long gash beneath his eye, deep enough to expose bone, despite never directly touching the skin. Lu Yao cried out in pain and swung his axe-shield backhanded. Wu Shaoyi didn't dare take it head-on and backed off two steps. Lu Yao's temper flared completely. Without bothering to wipe the blood from his face, he charged forward with three furious axe swings—a vertical chop followed by two horizontal sweeps—cursing loudly, "I kindly invited you to join forces! I kindly invited you to fight the imperial soldiers! And all you fucking know is infighting? Did dogs eat your brains?!" "You ambushed seven hundred men at Shaozi Crag—you call that kindness?!" Wu Shaoyi couldn't be bothered to waste breath on him, merely commanding his men, "Kill! Slaughter every last one of Lu Yao's dogs!" *Seven hundred men?* Hearing those words, Lu Yao shuddered, sudden realization striking him. *Damn it, I walked right into that dog official's trap!* "It's a scheme to drive a wedge between us! Those seven hundred men were meant to ambush the dog official!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Boys, seize the dog official!" Then he looked behind Wu Shaoyi. With well over two hundred men streaming in behind him, outnumbering his Lu family troops by more than three to one, he roared in fury, "Didn't you bring all your men, too?!" "You ambushed seven hundred men first, so don't blame me for bringing everyone!" Old enemies met with burning eyes, and the clash between the two rebel generals grew white-hot from the very start. Within just a few exchanges, Lu Yao had already taken a hit to the face—a puncture through his cheek—and two bloody gashes on his right leg, deliberately dealt to slow his mobility. But his counterattacks were fierce; Wu Shaoyi fared little better, suffering an axe wound to his left arm that nearly severed a tendon, and taking a heavy blow from the axe face to his chest that broke at least one rib.