At the road junction, Tingwei Army Senior Officer Dou Hongtu raised his hand and pointed at the wine-buying merchant convoy, and his subordinate Tingwei troops immediately stepped forward quickly, halting the column.

Zhuge Jingzhan looked toward Fu Baiyu. Fu Baiyu gave him a slight nod — nothing to worry about.

Tingwei Army men were naturally all exceptionally capable. But Zhuge Jingzhan’s standing meant that the personal guards at his side would be still stronger.

Zhuge Jingzhan was Yang Xuanji’s foremost advisor. Had the Divine General Gongshu Yong listened to anyone other than Yang Xuanji, Yang Xuanji would have sent even Gongshu Yong to protect Zhuge Jingzhan.

To Yang Xuanji, Zhuge Jingzhan was irreplaceable — no one could substitute for him.

If it were not for the need to defeat Tang Pidi as quickly as possible, Yang Xuanji would never have been willing to dispatch Zhuge Jingzhan for fieldwork.

At this moment, Zhuge Jingzhan had only some ten men at his side — but those ten men were all genuinely formidable.

In truth, Li Chi too had many people from the martial world at his side, such as the disciples of the Hanging Blade Sect — yet relatively speaking, the martial world figures Yang Xuanji employed likely outnumbered Li Chi’s by several dozen times.

Since ancient times, Shu Province has produced outstanding martial world fighters in abundance — perhaps related to the fierce customs that come with ten thousand great mountains.

So although Dou Hongtu appeared to have over thirty Tingwei men with him, Fu Baiyu and his group didn’t take the opponents at all seriously.

And equally, as a Tingwei Army senior officer, Dou Hongtu had handled many, many cases — he wore the pride of the Tingwei Army, and he had no regard for those ten or so men either.

The Tingwei Army had always been proud.

“There’s no need to keep up the act,” Dou Hongtu said, looking at Fu Baiyu with a slight frown.

Fu Baiyu shook his head. “I don’t understand what you mean, sir. We are legitimate businessmen — has there been some misunderstanding?”

Dou Hongtu had no interest in further words with him. He pointed at Fu Baiyu: “Take him.”

Two Tingwei men immediately stepped forward.

Fu Baiyu suddenly burst into loud laughter, thrust both hands forward — and from his sleeves, a hidden mechanism released, firing several sleeve arrows in rapid succession.

At this range, the sleeve arrows reached the two Tingwei men in an instant. The two had let their guard down, not expecting this manner of attack — they had no chance to dodge. Several sleeve arrows embedded themselves in their throats respectively.

At this speed, with this suddenness, even if the two men had not been off guard, they still could not have evaded.

Both men, in near-identical motion, raised their hands to clutch their throats, then collapsed in near-unison.

“Outrageous!”

Dou Hongtu’s fury ignited.

His long saber left its sheath.

A slash of brilliant light drove straight down at Fu Baiyu’s crown. Fu Baiyu burst into loud laughter and tapped the ground with his foot, his body drifting backward.

When engaging an opponent, he always laughed loudly — perhaps from excitement, perhaps to distract his opponent.

Airborne, he reached both hands behind him, unclipped several flying blades from his lower back, flicked his wrist, and the blades screamed toward Dou Hongtu.

Dou Hongtu did not dodge. He took one step forward and swung his long saber down in a powerful chop.

That chop was not a straight vertical fall — it shifted as it descended. Clang, clang, clang, clang — every single flying blade was knocked down by that one stroke.

“Move!” Fu Baiyu called out the moment he landed.

The ten or so men surged forward as one, each launching a barrage of hidden projectiles that flew in a dense swarm toward the Tingwei Army.

“Blade formation!”

Dou Hongtu bellowed.

Every Tingwei man drew their saber simultaneously. In a curtain of blades, the projectiles were knocked down in rapid succession — sparks scattered through the air before them.

But not every projectile was deflected. Several Tingwei men were hit, and before long could no longer hold their ground.

“Poison!” one of the Tingwei men cried.

Dou Hongtu’s gaze sharpened. He swept his saber low along the ground in a powerful arc — small stones on the road were flung up in a cloud of dust.

Zhuge Jingzhan’s men scattered to avoid it; the hurled stones came fast as arrows, and being struck would certainly cause injury.

The debris clattered against the carriage sides, splintering the wood.

In the cloud of dust, Fu Baiyu suddenly shot through. He drew the flexible sword at his waist and thrust it at Dou Hongtu’s throat.

Dou Hongtu knocked the flexible sword aside with his saber. But in the next instant, Fu Baiyu’s blade came like a storm of thrusts.

Dou Hongtu spread his feet wide into a firm stance, rooted like a horse. His long saber whirled up, down, left, and right — every thrust of the rapid sword was blocked by the saber’s light.

“Some ability,” Fu Baiyu said.

His sword drove straight at Dou Hongtu’s chest. Dou Hongtu raised his saber upright to block; the sword tip pressed against the blade with a sharp ring.

In the next instant, Fu Baiyu closed his left hand around the flexible sword. The sword split in two.

His right hand still drove the long portion of the sword against Dou Hongtu’s saber, the flexible blade held perfectly straight — which showed the depth of his inner force.

Fu Baiyu’s left hand thrust the short half — it pierced through Dou Hongtu’s lower abdomen with a dull thud.

Dou Hongtu’s eyes shot open. He drove forward with full force, shoving the sword free, and swung his saber in a horizontal arc at Fu Baiyu’s neck. Fu Baiyu laughed as he backflipped out of range.

Dou Hongtu looked down. The wound in his lower abdomen was welling blood steadily.

He drove his saber point-first into the ground, swiftly tore both sleeves free, knotted them together, and bound them tightly around the wound.

And at this moment — seemingly deliberate — Fu Baiyu made no rush to press his attack.

Because his blade carried poison.

With the poison already working, why was there any hurry?

Everyone in Yang Xuanji’s household knew it: the one with the most methods of killing was Fu Baiyu. This man not only had his endlessly shifting disguises, but a limitless repertoire of killing methods.

He never cared whether a technique was honorable or not. As long as it could put his opponent to death, it was a good technique.

Dou Hongtu turned to look behind him. His subordinates were already locked in combat with those ten or so men, and it was clear his men were at a disadvantage.

So Dou Hongtu knew: if the tide was to turn, his only recourse was to cut down the enemy before him as quickly as possible, then go aid his subordinates.

He seized his saber again and strode forward.

But after two steps, he suddenly lurched, and his vision went dark.

Fu Baiyu burst into loud laughter again — grating and harsh.

“Aah!”

Dou Hongtu bellowed, then bit through his own lip. His mind cleared for just a moment.

He charged forward with a saber chop — Fu Baiyu refused to engage him directly, only continuously retreating. Dou Hongtu struck again and again, each slash faster than the last.

“Foolish, aren’t you — the more you move, the faster the poison spreads.”

Fu Baiyu dodged and laughed. “Everyone says the Tingwei Army are all formidable — but it seems they’re nothing special.”

From the distance came a cry of agony — a Tingwei man was hacked down, half his shoulder sheared away, blood pouring freely.

Hearing that heartrending scream, Dou Hongtu seemed unable to restrain himself and turned to look.

Watching his subordinates being cut down one by one, Dou Hongtu let out a roar and turned to go to their aid.

In the very instant he turned, Fu Baiyu drove off the ground and launched himself forward — a sword thrust straight through Dou Hongtu’s back.

But in this very moment, Fu Baiyu suddenly felt a premonition that something was wrong.

The sword had entered through Dou Hongtu’s back and emerged from his chest — and Dou Hongtu’s left hand shot up and seized the blade. He wrenched it savagely toward himself, pulling the sword through his body entirely.

Fu Baiyu was yanked a step forward. Dou Hongtu’s saber reversed and drove backward — its point stabbed into Fu Baiyu’s lower abdomen…

But the tip had only just broken skin when Fu Baiyu kicked Dou Hongtu hard in the back. He used the force to drift backward.

Landing, he immediately examined his wound — a small cut had opened in his lower abdomen, not a full stab-through.

Had Dou Hongtu not been poisoned beforehand, his movements already slowed — that mutually-fatal exchange would truly have traded life for life with Fu Baiyu.

But the poison had taken effect before all this — reaction, speed, strength, all were significantly diminished.

Even so, Fu Baiyu still did not go at him openly. He first took a pair of gloves from his breast and put them on, then scooped a handful of poison powder from the deerskin pouch at his hip and flung it into Dou Hongtu’s face.

Dou Hongtu had no strength left to dodge. The poison powder covered his face — some got in his eyes. Moments later, already gravely wounded and wracked with excruciating pain, Dou Hongtu let out another anguished cry, squeezing his eyes shut — yet the blood at the corners of his eyes still seeped out regardless.

Two bloody tear tracks ran down his face.

Fu Baiyu still did not approach. He raised his hand and fired another sleeve arrow.

The arrow pierced Dou Hongtu’s throat. His body swayed, then fell backward.

Only then did Fu Baiyu step forward. He pulled the arrow free from Dou Hongtu’s throat — a gush of blood followed it out.

Fu Baiyu burst into loud laughter.

And at that very moment, Fu Baiyu suddenly felt danger again. He immediately dove forward, rolling away from where he had just been standing.

A tree as thick as a man’s wrist flew through the air and drove into the ground with a thud.

Master Wu was still ten zhang away.

Mid-sprint, he had kicked a roadside sapling in two, and as it flew forward, he seized it by the trunk and hurled it like a javelin.

Had Fu Baiyu been a fraction slower to react, he would have been speared to death by a tree.

In that instant, Fu Baiyu was afraid.

In all his years, that fear had appeared only when facing the Number Four Under Heaven.

The Number Four Under Heaven was a demon — simply not human.

And so in that split second, Fu Baiyu made his decision — and in his cunning, called out as he did:

“Protect Master and get clear — I’ll draw this one away!”

Then he wheeled and sprinted off.

By calling this out, he had deliberately redirected the arriving pursuer’s attention. Whoever that pursuer was, upon hearing it, would certainly know that Zhuge Jingzhan was the one who mattered.

If the pursuer went for Zhuge Jingzhan, Fu Baiyu could naturally escape cleanly. When life was on the line, what did he care about Zhuge Jingzhan?

But Master Wu’s only thought was to seize the killer.

He had seen in the distance that the Tingwei Army’s senior officer had fallen — and so at this moment, only the desire to kill occupied his heart.

Seeing the man turn and run, Master Wu drove off the ground and wrenched his direction of movement around, giving chase.

Mid-sprint — a kick against the handle of Dou Hongtu’s saber where it lay on the ground.

The saber shot forward like a bolt of light.

Not aimed at Fu Baiyu — aimed at Zhuge Jingzhan.

He was giving chase; this saber was to kill.

The two guards still at Zhuge Jingzhan’s side saw it, and moved simultaneously.

The forward guard moved to chop it down with his own saber — but had no time. He could only bring his blade up in front of himself…

A clang — the saber launched by Master Wu drove straight through this guard’s own blade and then through the guard’s body.

The blade passed through him entirely.

The second guard behind him was shocked beyond words, eyes wide — the man in front hadn’t been fast enough, but thankfully he himself had reacted in time, and brought his saber down with a chop.

Another clang — this saber was knocked to the ground. But the recoil split his own grip open.

When he looked again, Zhuge Jingzhan’s face had gone white with terror.

Fu Baiyu glanced back and saw this, and the fear in his heart grew sharper. He thought to himself — what kind of monster is this, so terrifyingly powerful?

He gritted his teeth and surged forward in full flight, with Master Wu behind him like his shadow.

—