The carriage traveled smoothly along the official road. Wen Yu secretly estimated the distance the carriage had traveled since leaving the camp.

To prevent reinforcements from the garrison from catching up too quickly, whether it was the Liang camp’s people coming to abduct her or Pei Song’s people who had received news and were unwilling to give up trying to kill her, both would likely choose to act after getting far from the garrison.

The Wei army now seemed to have marched nearly thirty li. Logically, whichever side’s forces they were, they should have acted by now.

Just as she thought this, the carriage suddenly jolted violently.

Fortunately, Wen Yu had been prepared. With one hand, she promptly grabbed the copper-cast handle fixed to the carriage wall for holding lamps, while her other hand tightly protected the one-chi-long wooden box in her embrace. Only then did the contents avoid falling like the trunks and wooden boxes piled in the back that were shaken by the jolting.

Immediately, both carriage walls resounded with “bang bang” sounds like hail pelting down. The force was enormous, creating sharp protruding marks even on the iron-water-cast carriage walls.

Arrows.

Crossbow bolts shot through the wooden windows without iron plate protection penetrated three cun into the carriage floor, their tails trembling continuously.

Wen Yu clenched her teeth, pressing her body as close as possible to the corner of the rear wall, which was also cast with iron water, staying away from the windows on both sides damaged by arrows.

Though she had long anticipated this escape wouldn’t be peaceful, for Pei Song’s people to strike with such deadly force from the start was still somewhat too desperate.

Wen Yu’s gaze was sharp and deep. Having experienced the previous siege by the hunting dogs, she was ultimately calmer in this situation.

After the arrow rain stopped, she didn’t go to the window to look outside. She only released the hand gripping the box and pulled from her hair a hairpin whose tip she had sharpened to be sharp enough to injure, concealing it in her sleeve.

Outside had long descended into chaos. She heard the neighing of warhorses, chaotic battle cries, and the clashing of weapons—it seemed several parties were engaged in a melee.

But for some unknown reason, there also seemed to be many ordinary commoners’ frightened cries for help.

Wen Yu was puzzled. The official road the Wei army traveled was surrounded entirely by barren mountains and wilderness—how could there suddenly be so many commoners?

Amid that chaos, sharp bird calls rose and fell one after another.

Wen Yu’s taut nerves finally relaxed slightly.

The Azure Cloud Guard was also here!

Could Bronze Sparrow and Zhaobai both still be alive?

Thinking to this point, the palm gripping the hairpin couldn’t help but slowly seep with sweat.

Outside the carriage, Yuan Fang and Wei Ang were utterly frantic. Their contingent had collided with a team of mixed genuine and fake refugees. They simply couldn’t distinguish which were real refugees and which were bandits disguised as refugees.

Wei Ang swung his blade to kill a “refugee” attacking him. As his blade edge was about to slash toward another “refugee,” the other party suddenly cried out in panic, saying he wasn’t an assassin but had heard there would be another war and was following other refugees to evacuate with the army.

Nearby, other refugees were screaming in panic, trying to flee, but were struck in the back with a blade by Wei army soldiers who couldn’t distinguish true from false.

Wei Ang shouted loudly: “Don’t harm genuine commoners…”

Before his words finished, a refugee who was limping and also seemed to want to flee this battlefield suddenly lowered his body while running toward Wei Ang in panic, drawing a blade to slash at Wei Ang’s unarmored lower leg.

Wei Ang only felt his leg turn cold. In an instant, blood soaked through his dark military trousers. Meeting that “refugee’s” ferocious eyes, Wei Ang squeezed out a curse from his throat before cleanly swinging his blade to sever the other’s head.

Yuan Fang wielded his long blade on horseback, prohibiting anyone from approaching the carriage. Although the carriage behind him had long been shot into a pincushion, with the iron-skinned outer wall covered densely in crossbow bolts and the arrow-destroyed carriage windows fallen off, he had no idea whether the person inside was dead or alive.

Seeing Wei Ang secretly injured, he was so angry his teeth nearly shattered. After ordering a personal guard to check if Wen Yu in the carriage was still alive, he stretched his throat to shout to Wei Ang: “Old Wei, how are you?”

Wei Ang’s lower leg had been cut quite deeply. Not knowing if the tendons inside had been injured, he could now only lean half-supported against an overturned carriage with his blade for leverage while responding to attacking “refugees” and shouting back: “Damn it, those bandits are mixed with real refugees—we can’t distinguish them at all. The Young Lord is still in the carriage. We absolutely can’t let the Young Lord be injured. Old Yuan, you take the carriage and go. I’ll stay to cover the rear!”

After that initial arrow rain, Yuan Fang had also given orders to use bows and crossbows to kill back at those refugees holding crossbows and shooting arrows. But those vicious criminals quickly hid among the real refugees, leaving only some old, weak, women, and children with families looking pitifully and helplessly at the gleaming arrows on their crossbows. Yuan Fang ultimately couldn’t give that order to shoot and kill indiscriminately.

The situation had now reached an impasse. He knew continuing to drag on like this wasn’t a solution. Since those people were coming for that woman, they had to take her away to separate those bandits from genuine refugees and prevent Wei Pingzin from being implicated.

For this journey, to guard against abduction, they had prepared several iron-skinned carriages with identical exteriors.

Last time, the Liang camp’s people disguised as righteousness army—to avoid arousing suspicion—hadn’t covered the carriage with iron skin, allowing the Pei hunting dogs to use eagle-claw hooks to tear off the carriage walls to find people.

Their military carriages, however, had been reinforced with refined iron by craftsmen. Earlier, when the bandits’ eagle-claw hooks were thrown, they couldn’t penetrate the iron skin and couldn’t directly remove the carriage walls, which is why they changed to arrow rain coverage.

Fortunately, before personally going to check inside the carriage, the bandits had no idea who was in the vehicle or whether the people inside were dead or alive.

This way, they could conveniently drive the carriages in different directions to lead the bandits astray.

Yuan Fang killed off several hunting dogs disguised as refugees, shouted “Good,” then loudly ordered subordinate officers to separately escort several arrow-riddled empty carriages to flee.

The personal guard Yuan Fang had sent to check on Wen Yu opened the iron-skinned wooden carriage door to look inside. Seeing things scattered all over the floor but Wen Yu still wrapped in her cloak, sitting properly in the corner with a pair of cold, clear eyes, his spirit was shaken. But at this moment, he couldn’t spare thought for why this woman was so calm. He only turned to shout toward Yuan Fang not far away: “General, the person is still alive!”

Yuan Fang shouted: “Drive the carriage away!”

That personal guard then “bang” closed the iron-skinned door and cracked the whip, following the several carriages opening the way ahead to leave this chaotic battlefield.

The carriage traveled urgently, jolting severely. Wen Yu’s spine was repeatedly slammed heavily against the carriage wall by inertia. Fearing the Azure Cloud Guards were also confused by the visual deception, she still calmly placed her hand to her lips and, following what Zhaobai had taught her before, blew out a clear whistle.

In this chaos of battle cries and wailing, almost no one paid attention to where that whistle came from.

Zhaobai, disguised as a refugee still engaged in melee with Wei army forces, was about to send Azure Cloud Guards to chase the carriages. After keenly catching that whistle, she immediately locked onto the carriage where Wen Yu was located.

Hearing the whistle, Bronze Sparrow was also extremely pleased. After killing off a hunting dog disguised as a refugee, she pressed her back against Zhaobai’s: “It’s the Princess!”

This whistle was their Azure Cloud Guard’s unique signal—only they understood the coded language represented by the pitch and length of the tones.

But Zhaobai didn’t immediately chase that carriage. She didn’t even glance at it. Her gaze fixed deadly on Pei Fifteen through the crowd.

Pei Fifteen had obviously recognized her too and, while attacking, kept watching her movements.

Zhaobai lowered her voice to Bronze Sparrow: “You lead people to chase the Princess separately, dispersing the hunting dogs’ attention. That running dog under Pei Song recognizes me. If I go personally, he’ll certainly follow.”

Bronze Sparrow had witnessed the terrifying nature of those hunting dogs under Pei Song. Last time, she and Zhaobai had already retrieved their lives from death’s door. After rendezvousing with other Liang army units that had turned back upon receiving news, they disguised as refugees and had been recuperating in nearby villages, gathering intelligence about the camp.

If not for Wei Pingzin fearing death and always traveling with over a hundred people, and their fear of alerting the enemy and having the Wei camp confirm Wen Yu’s identity, they would have wanted to directly abduct Wei Pingzin to exchange with Wei Qishan.

Today was an excellent opportunity to rescue Wen Yu, but Pei Song’s people came to disrupt things again, and had even deceived many refugees into coming as human shields for them. Their methods were so vicious—clearly intending to take advantage of this chaos to eliminate both Wen Yu and Wei Pingzin together.

Fortunately, the Wei camp’s people also had some brains, preparing multiple carriages and reinforcing the carriage walls, preventing those hunting dogs from immediately determining which carriages held Wen Yu and Wei Pingzin respectively.

Bronze Sparrow said no more. Using the back of her blade to strike aside a Wei soldier, she seized a warhorse. After blowing a whistle, she went to chase the carriages.

Several Azure Cloud Guards heard the whistle and immediately also seized horses to follow.

Pei Fifteen had indeed been watching Zhaobai’s movements the entire time. Seeing Zhaobai didn’t move, he also didn’t leave this place. He only regarded Bronze Sparrow and the others as going to chase those carriages as a precaution. With a lift of his chin, he signaled a wave of hunting dogs below to follow those Azure Cloud Guards.

Zhaobai feigned ignorance. Leading the remaining Azure Cloud Guards, almost killing gods and buddhas in her path, she attacked toward the carriage most heavily guarded by Yuan Fang and the others.

When the bright blade edge struck the carriage window, directly smashing apart the iron-skinned wooden window, Wei Pingzin, protected inside the carriage by several personal guards, had never seen such a scene. Frightened, he screamed: “Uncle Yuan! Uncle Ang! Save me!”

Zhaobai didn’t linger in battle. After smashing open that carriage’s window, she seemed only to check who was in the carriage.

Seeing it wasn’t the person she sought, she attacked toward another carriage that hadn’t yet left this place. But with the breach she and the Azure Cloud Guards had opened, and Pei Fifteen having seen Wei Pingzin in the carriage, he wasn’t willing to easily let this opportunity pass. He immediately led the hunting dogs in attack.

If Zhaobai’s earlier offensive only carried intimidating intent, Pei Fifteen truly wanted Wei Pingzin’s life.

After several personal guards died under the hunting dogs’ insidious blade techniques, Wei Pingzin nearly screamed his throat raw.

Yuan Fang and Wei Ang were also badly frightened. Fearing something would happen to Wei Pingzin, they could no longer care about other matters and personally returned to guard the carriage front.

Seeing the situation turning bad, Pei Fifteen wanted to withdraw, but Yuan Fang didn’t give him that chance again, leading over a hundred elite soldiers to trap him tightly.

Having such a major mishap today, he would need to give Wei Qishan an explanation after returning to Weizhou.

The refugees deceived by the hunting dogs into serving as human shields had already died or fled during the melee. Most of those still in the military formation now were Pei soldiers disguised as refugees. The soldiers below no longer held back. To ensure this journey was without trouble, they had originally brought three thousand troops. Now that the situation had stabilized, they gradually gained the upper hand.

Zhaobai knew when to stop. After tricking Pei Fifteen into assassinating Wei Pingzin, she led the Azure Cloud Guards and Liang soldiers disguised as refugees to withdraw along with the refugees.

Facing the extreme fury in Pei Fifteen’s gaze as he was encircled and killed, she only glanced coldly before turning her horse to chase Wen Yu’s carriage.

—

Xiao Li’s blade thrust down. The hunting dog fallen on the ground spat fresh blood and lost all life.

On the carriage door stopped by the roadside, a spurt of fresh blood splattered. The Wei soldier driving the carriage lay sideways at the carriage shaft, his eyes still wide open.

After Song Qin kicked aside another hunting dog’s corpse, he closed the eyes of that Wei soldier who had died at the hunting dog’s hands, saying: “This is the third carriage.”

The violent energy around Xiao Li had never been this heavy. The hand gripping the blade showed protruding veins on the back, his murderous aura so thick it seemed even the snow flying all over the sky avoided falling on him.

He sheathed his blade and mounted his horse. A black cloth covered the lower half of his face. The wolf-like eyes exposed outside were full of determination and ferocity: “Keep searching!”

Just at this moment, a signal flare exploded in the distant mountain bend.

They had seen that signal flare before—it was precisely what the Pei hunting dogs used to contact each other upon discovering a target.

Song Qin’s expression changed.

Xiao Li, almost the instant he saw that signal flare, fiercely kicked his horse’s belly and charged out.

Song Qin also hastily mounted his horse, calling to the brothers below: “Chase quickly!”