Chapter 98 - About the Situation (1/2)

Shi Qingxue was surprised. “What are you doing?”

But Mo Junhao held her more tightly and said seriously, “There is such a fierce fire. It’s dangerous to walk downstairs in the house. Perhaps many people are waiting for us on the first floor. I will take you to jump from the window to the back yard and then ride away.”

Then he hugged Shi Qingxue and jumped to the stable in the back yard.

Without giving Shi Qingxue any chance to protest, he held her waist and flew to the horse’s back. Before the assassins waiting in the front yard chased them, they left the hotel on horseback.

Mo Junhao was excellent at riding and soon the hotel disappeared from sight.

Shi Qingxue looked back and could only see some red light indistinctly, but the way ahead was in the darkness.

She could do nothing but hug Mo Junhao and remain still, but later she felt something wrong.

That group of assassins was chasing them.

Qingxue raised her head and met Mo Junhao’s dark eyes. They noticed the worry in each other’s eyes, but the way ahead was uncertain.

“Let’s…”

Mo Junhao hesitated for a while.

Shi Qingxue said immediately, “Go to the left. I hear the water, and it must be a river.”

Mo Junhao was still confused as why a river was a way to escape, but he still rushed to the left as she said.

They rode for a distance and found a surging river. They moved forward along the direction of the flowing water.

Three sharp arrows flew to them from the sky, and Mo Junhao waved his long sword to resist two arrows, but the last arrow was low and shot the horse’s leg.

“Hiss!”

The horse screamed sadly and lost its balance. Mo Junhao had to hold Shi Qingxue and give up the horse, jumping to the ground.

They rolled on the ground and then managed to stand steadily, but four or five assassins from behind caught up with them and surrounded them.

Mo Junhao protected Shi Qingxue in his arm and wielded his sword to resist the assassins’s attack.

They fought for nearly fifteen minutes, and the two realized that the group aimed at Shi Qingxue and didn’t want to hurt Mo Junhao. As long as he let her go, he could escape.

Mo Junhao had several wounds on his body. Even when Shi Qingxue thought he might be unbale to endure it and would give up, he kept fighting at the risk of his own life. Blood could be seen everywhere.

“Take a breath!”

As soon as he stopped saying, Mo Junhao held Shi Qingxue, jumped into the raging torrent and disappeared soon.

The three assassins left on the bank were petrified.

The leader was in a rage and slapped the fatty in his face, cursing, “Bastard! Our master said he just wants to take Shi Qingxue’s life. Who permitted you to hurt His Highness?”

The fatty covered his face and felt wronged. “But you have seen that His Highness protected her as if she is his child. He would rather get injured than…”

Before he finished his words, the other side of his face was slapped. “If there is something wrong with His Highness, you can’t even pay with your life.”

The shorty next to them said in a hurry, “His Highness is skilled in martial arts and wasn’t seriously injured. He must be all right. But Shi Qingxue is a girl who doesn’t know any martial arts. She would surely die in the surging river. How about we go to receive His Highness downstream and collect Shi Qingxue’s body?”

The leader glanced at the shorty and remained silent. He thought, “It makes sense, but we can’t be sure if there will be something different. If His Highness is really wounded, we will surely die. In another word, even if he is safe, would he treat us well after he knows that we are the chief criminals?”

He pondered for a while and coughed. “We have followed the master’s order and tried to assassinate Shi Qingxue all the way, but His Highness insisted on protecting her and ran away with her. That’s what happened today. Do you understand?”

The two were stunned. The fatty still wanted to say something, but the shorty stepped on his foot and answered hurriedly, “Yes, I understand. We will say as you told.”

“Okay, go back to report.” The leader took another look at the rapid stream and then walked back with the two.

Three days ago, in a hidden forest at the foot of the Qingluo Mountain, the Shi Army had set up a camp here.

“We have been here for more than half a month and attacked several times, but every time, the surrounding mountain defense would be in the way, or we would be tricked by the weird array on the mountain. Now His Majesty has sent three imperial edicts successively and told us to conquer the Qingluo Mountain within one month. What should we do?”

A deputy general of the Shi Army, Liu Caishu sighed with a worried face.

Another deputy general Fu Chuan was more nervous than Liu Caishu. “His Majesty doesn’t know about Qingluo Mountain’s terrain but pushed us so hard. Before we got ready, he just forced us to attack. We are not from his army, so he won’t suffer any loss, right?”

“Fine. Stop complaining,” Shi Junhe interrupted them indifferently and looked at the map. “Now we have more than ten thousand soldiers. If we confront a group of bandits with bare hands, it’s very easy to defeat them. Even if they have extremely solid defense installations, we have capable men to break them. Only the array with five elements is weird and hard to attack.”

He thought for a while and then added, “Yesterday, I told someone to send a letter at top speed to a good friend of mine in Fan City, Shang Ping. He is proficient in strange defense and armor. If he can come, we might be able to defeat the Qingluo Mountain.”