Chapter 279: Vengeance on the Spot

Tao Ze feinted with his halberd, then yanked the reins to bolt.

He Lingchuan raised his arm and fired a sleeve arrow at his back.

Hearing the sharp hiss of something cutting through the air behind his head, Tao Ze twisted, lifting his halberd to knock it aside. The arrow pinged away. However, in the next moment, his vision was filled with the cold light from Fleeting Life as it spun toward him.

Tao Ze hunched down hard, barely dodging the spinning saber.

He Lingchuan had thrown the saber almost the instant after he had shot the sleeve arrow.

He was sure that one attack or the other would land.

The treasured saber arced past Tao Ze, then twisted in mid-air, abruptly angling back from a vicious, unpredictable angle.

Tao Ze’s face became filled with absolute horror and despair.

There was nowhere left to dodge. He forced himself to bend at the waist and suck his gut in, but agony ripped through his abdomen a moment later.

Fleeting Life sliced across his belly, carving a gash a finger deep!

That was with armor taking part of the blow.

His organs had been cut. If he moved the wrong way, his intestines would spill out.

Tao Ze screamed in utter pain.

By then, He Lingchuan had already sprinted to Rising Dragon, which was still quivering in the tree. He wrenched the spear free and whirled back, thrusting straight at Tao Ze.

Tao Ze’s soul was halfway out of his body from the pain. He barely managed to bat aside Shan Youjun’s changdao. There was no strength left to defend himself properly.

He Lingchuan’s spear struck just as Tao Ze opened his mouth to howl.

The bright spearhead punched into his jaws and tore through the back of his skull.

He Lingchuan did not even bother to pull back. He lifted the corpse on the spear tip, wheeled his mount, and bellowed as he charged, “If you stand in my way, you die!”

It had taken only a couple of exchanges for their commanding officer to be killed. The Xun Province soldiers in front of him were scared witless. None of them dared bar his path; they flung themselves toward the sides of his path, terrified of being even a moment too slow and ending up skewered next.

Shan Youjun reacted quickly. He snatched up the fallen Red Tiger halberd and spurred after his master.

The two of them galloped out over thirty meters before He Lingchuan finally flicked his spear.

Tao Ze’s corpse dropped with a wet smack.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

By the time the Xun Province riders rushed forward to retrieve their commanding officer’s body, all they could see of the killers were the twin plumes of dust rising from the hoofbeats of the galloping bo beast.

Only a few dozen breaths later, the main force of Xun Province’s roving cavalry came thundering back.

The repeated whistle blasts earlier had signaled extreme danger, a situation beyond ordinary control. Hong Chenglue had personally turned his unit around.

He saw Tao Ze’s corpse, and he saw the savage hole bored through his skull. When he saw the state the corpse was in, he fell silent. Only after a moment did he ask what had happened.

Tao Ze’s men hurried to recount the events.

“The one who crippled General Baili was among them?” Hong Chenglue’s brow furrowed. “According to the reports from Xinhuang, that boy is He Chunhua’s son.”

So, He Chunhua actually sent his own son to Bailu Town to scout us out?

Xu Yingxian, who had been a close comrade of Tao Ze, flushed red to the eyes and stepped forward to request battle. “General Hong, give me twenty men. I swear I’ll grind that brat’s bones to dust!”

“He rides a bo beast. You won’t catch him,” Hong Chenglue replied, still calm. “Do you remember what our mission is?”

Xu Yingxian opened his mouth to argue, but Wu Qing tugged on his sleeve. He swallowed the rest of his words.

“...I remember.” Their mission was to sabotage and ambush behind enemy lines; in other words, to assassinate and conduct grain raids.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Hong Chenglue tilted his head slightly. “We’re short on time.”

The Xun Province roving cavalry turned east again, picking up speed.

Another hour passed before the rearguard galloped up with an update: no more enemy pursuit. No trace of the two riders.

Have they given up?

Hong Chenglue’s expression only grew more somber. He ordered the roving cavalry to pick up speed again.

He had underestimated them, and those two Xia Province scouts had slipped the net. The follow-up ambush had been a fine move on the board, but now it might not land.

With the time they had lost, he could only hope the window of opportunity was still there.

* * *

He Lingchuan and Shan Youjun rode over a kilometer before finally reining in, seeing no sign of any pursuers behind them.

“They seem to be in quite a hurry. They didn’t even bother chasing us,” He Lingchuan remarked, glancing over. He eyed the arrow still on Shan Youjun’s back. “Hold still. I’ll pull that out.”

“Thank you, Master.”

He Lingchuan cut the shaft with one saber stroke, then helped him take off his outer armor. The movement pulled at the wound, and pain twisted Shan Youjun’s face.

He Lingchuan shook a pinch of fine white powder into his palm and gave it to Shan Youjun. “Take this.”

It was stone lump powder, a substance that could be used both internally and externally. Its hemostatic effect was modest, but a few seconds after Shan Youjun swallowed, the pain in his upper back dulled and faded.

He Lingchuan pressed around the wound a few times, sealing off the surrounding meridians. Only then did he take out a small knife and dig out the arrowhead.

Watching his hands move with practiced precision, Shan Youjun could not help feeling a flicker of emotion.

Back when he had served as a private guard for the Li Family, he had seen clearly enough what kind of people those of the Li Family were. The old master of the Li Family still had some substance to him, but his sons and grandsons got weaker with every generation. They read books and recited principles, yet they were useless when things really came down to it. In contrast, Governor-General He had a ferocious eldest son and a sharp younger son, each with their own strengths. He found it to be only natural that their family was on the rise.

During the ambush, the medicine ape Ling Guang had immediately dived into its master’s robes to hide. Now it popped back out, grabbed a waterskin, and helped rinse the blood from Shan Youjun’s wound. Then it began applying medicine and bandages with nimble hands.

Once the medicine ape had taken over, He Lingchuan could spare his attention to watch the surroundings.

Night had already fallen. A cool wind slithered through the trees, setting the grass whispering. It sounded like ambushers could be hiding everywhere.

He Lingchuan tore off a few pale new leaves and scrubbed the blood from his spearhead. As for Fleeting Life, he simply held it point-down for a while. By the time he flicked it back up, the blade was clean as new.

He said very little now. His face was calm, but Shan Youjun could feel the anger and grief roiling beneath that stillness.

“Master,” he said hoarsely. “You already avenged Mao Tao on the spot.”

Vengeance taken as soon as the wrong was done—few people ever had that chance. Most grudges forged on the battlefield went unpaid for a lifetime.

He Lingchuan’s eyebrows were drawn together. He nodded.

The archers who had killed Mao Tao. The officer who had led the ambush.

They were all dead by his hand.

Yet the rage and sorrow in his chest had barely eased.

Mao Tao had been with him since the Panlong Illusion Realm. It might not have been long in terms of years, perhaps, but Mao Tao was loyal to the marrow.

With his death in this battle, there would be no one left to call out “Young Master!” with that cheerful grin every single day.

Ling Guang, quiet for once, finished dressing Shan Youjun’s wound. The latter carefully donned his armor again and asked, “Do we keep tracking them?”

“We keep going,” He Lingchuan answered. He had already calmed down. “Our task isn’t done.”

They turned their horses and once more set off in pursuit of the Xun Province roving cavalry.

When they neared the site of the earlier battle, both men grew more cautious, afraid of blundering into another ambush. The ground and the grass were still stained with blood, the signs of combat everywhere. However, there were no bodies.

Drag marks scored the dirt.

Following them, He Lingchuan found a cave not far off. Every corpse had been piled inside. Something acrid had been splashed at the entrance to keep scavengers away.

“They didn’t even have time to bury their own dead,” Shan Youjun murmured. “They’re in a rush.”

“They might come back later, but not now,” He Lingchuan said, swinging back onto the bo beast’s back. “Let’s move.”

Tracking troops through a dark forest was no easy feat, even for locals. But He Lingchuan had spent so long hunting monsters in the Panlong Dreamscape that he had learned no shortage of pursuit and tracking skills. Without Mao Tao, they would be slower, but that did not mean that they would be helpless.

An hour later, he realized something was off.

Judging from the tracks, the Xun Province cavalry had turned.

They turned east.

What?

Could it be a false trail? A deliberate misdirection?

However, Shan Youjun scouted the area as best he could and found no sign of trickery.

East?

Why east?

The two looked at each other. Even Shan Youjun, a veteran roving cavalryman, was baffled. “Could it be... they’re going to raid Xinhuang Town?”

“But...”

But Baili Qing, Dong Rui, and all those wounded are still being treated here. Is Hong Chenglue really just abandoning them?

The thought hit He Lingchuan like a bucket of cold water. He shivered and blurted, “You’re right!”

That Hong fellow has a vicious mind.

In sheer will to win and the lengths he would go to achieve it, he was not far behind He Chunhua.

The problem was that he had already sent Jiao Tai back to Xinhuang with news. Knowing his father, the man was more likely than not to march out hunting the enemy.

Who knew how far He Chunhua’s army had gone by now?

“Forget them!” He Lingchuan said decisively. “We go back to the main road and try to intercept Father’s unit.”

They had chased east; He Chunhua would be marching west. Both sides were closing the distance, but on different routes. Hong Chenglue had chosen a longer, safer path, so they would never cross.

What He Lingchuan needed to do now was hit the official road, take the shortest way possible, and get this news to his father before the armies passed each other in the dark.

They lashed their mounts on, racing like arrows let loose.

In unfamiliar mountains, riding at night was no trivial matter. Even born-and-bred mountain folk could get lost.

Only now did He Lingchuan truly appreciate the strength of his growing spiritual sense. Every landmark along the way was etched clearly into his mind. Otherwise, one or two wrong turns would have delayed them enough to ruin everything.

After roughly an hour, they finally broke out of the mountains and onto the official road.

Speed was everything in war. The Xia Province army would certainly have chosen the fastest, flattest, most direct route.

He Lingchuan’s judgment proved correct.

Two hours later, hoofbeats thundered from the far side of a mountain gap ahead, the sound rolling like distant thunder. Dust billowed up, and soon a large force came into view.

He Chunhua rode at the front, with Jiao Tai guiding the way.

When the two parties met, He Chunhua’s heart clenched instead of relaxing at the sight of his son. “Chuan’er, why are you out here? What happened?”

Shan Youjun thought,

Truly a family.

They’re all exactly the same.

“Hong Chenglue left bait in the mine to lure us in,” He Lingchuan said. “He’s taken the remaining Xun Province cavalry and gone to Xinhuang.”

The words landed like a boulder. The officers around them gasped. He Chunhua’s eyebrows knitted so tightly together that they nearly tied in a dead knot. “You’re sure?”

“They circled around, but the final trail points east. And they were in a hurry; they didn’t even bury their dead.”

“Feint west, strike east, so that’s it.” He Chunhua was no fool. He had it all sorted in a heartbeat. Xinhuang was poorly defended now; he himself had taken most of the elite troops out, but the grain was still in camp!

If Hong Chenglue struck at the root and burned his supplies, this grain run north would be a complete, total, unmitigated failure.

Cold sweat prickled down his spine at the thought.

But with so many eyes on him, he could not afford to show any alarm.

He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. The pain and the surge of blood in his mouth helped steady his mind.

He quickly asked about the situation at the mine. When he learned that only the wounded, the weak, and fewer than a hundred guards remained, he made a snap decision and called to Zeng Feixiong. He sternly ordered, “Take four hundred men with you to capture the mine and capture Baili Qing—alive or dead!”

Zeng Feixiong accepted the order and was about to turn away when He Lingchuan stripped a ring from his finger and tossed it over. “Borrow this for now. There are several jars of strong black powder inside. You should know how to handle it.”

“I do,” Zeng Feixiong said, taking the ring, puzzled. “Where should I use them?”