Chapter 52: One Hundred Thousand Taels of Silver Delivered

Just past the hour of Zi.

The Zhang family estate was brilliantly illuminated.

More than twenty carriages, flying escort flags, slowly rolled out through the vermilion gates.

The carriages were heavily laden and covered with burlap, concealing their contents.

Master Zhang stood at the main entrance, watching the carriages gradually recede into the distance.

Success or failure hinged upon this single move.

Counting the days, that person should be making his move as well, shouldn't he?

"Steward!"

"Master..."

"When will that person strike?"

"Replying to Master, it should... probably be in the next two days?"

"Mmm..."

Master Zhang let out a cold snort, shifting his gaze toward the south of the city.

For the past few nights, he had been unable to sleep; the moment he closed his eyes, he saw Lin Chuan's piercing gaze.

Iron Forest Fortress hung over his head like a suspended blade, robbing him of peace and rest.

Servants in the estate had also reported frequently that unfamiliar faces were constantly loitering around the grand mansion.

He knew he was being watched.

Yet, the Tatars' deadline of five days could not be delayed.

As long as he could restore his relationship with the Tatars to how it once was,

never mind an Iron Forest Fortress—

even if it were the frontier military camp, he would not fear it!

This brilliant stratagem of "feigning a military advance while secretly marching through Chencang"

had been devised by that private counselor from the county yamen.

The counselor truly lived up to his reputation.

A few hours ago, the scouts he had dispatched returned with a report:

the forces of Iron Forest Fortress had poured out in full strength, heading straight for the official highway.

The heart that had been hanging in his chest finally settled back into place.

Hidden inside those twenty-some large carts were a hundred blade-and-axe wielders,

prepared specifically for Iron Forest Fortress.

The assassin hired at a heavy price served as his second line of defense.

With these two barriers placed before Lin Chuan, there was simply no possibility of him surviving.

"No matter how shrewd you think you are, Lin Chuan..."

Master Zhang clapped his hands together and sneered, "In the end, you cannot escape the palm of my hand!"

"Master... the time is drawing near..."

The steward gently reminded him.

"Prepare the sedan chair!" Master Zhang snorted coldly, "To the southern villa!"

...

The moonlight shone brightly.

More than twenty carriages advanced slowly along the official highway.

The wheels crushed the gravel, producing a dull, grinding sound.

Lin Chuan stood in the middle of the road.

Behind him stood a few combat soldiers of Iron Forest Fortress, clad uniformly in black armor and long sabers, silent as iron.

"Whoa—"

The lead driver pulled back the reins, squinting to size up the man blocking the path ahead.

"Sir soldier, are you here to inspect the cargo?"

Lin Chuan did not speak; he merely raised his hand slowly.

The driver leaped down from the carriage, gripped the dagger tucked into his lower back, and stepped forward.

"Sir, we are from a legitimate escort agency..."

Before his words could fade, Lin Chuan's hand slashed sharply downward—

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!"

The piercing sound of arrows tearing through the air suddenly shattered the night.

A dense cloud of arrowheads, thick as locusts, erupted from both sides, instantly blanketing the foremost carriages.

"Puff, puff, puff, puff!"

The muffled thuds of arrows embedding into flesh echoed one after another, accompanied by a succession of miserable screams.

Blossoms of blood instantly bloomed across the burlap coverings.

The blade-and-axe wielders hidden beneath the fabric had no time to react before sharp arrows pierced right through the cloth, pinning them to the wagon beds.

"Kill—!"

The convoy in the rear immediately plunged into chaos.

The burlap was violently ripped away, and dozens of blade-and-axe wielders roared as they leaped from the carts.

Their brown armor gleamed like a tide, and their ghost-head sabers reflected the cold moonlight as they swarmed overwhelmingly toward Lin Chuan's position.

Yet, before they had taken more than a few steps, a second wave of arrows came hurtling through the air with a roar!

"Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff!"

Several men charging at the very front tumbled to the ground one after another.

Those behind them trampled over the corpses of their comrades to continue the charge.

Suddenly, dozens of Iron Forest Fortress combat soldiers materialized like phantoms, instantly forming a wedge-shaped battle array before Lin Chuan.

The front row of four men half-knelt and raised their shields, the middle row thrust six long spears outward at an angle through the gaps in the shields, and the rear row of archers had their bowstrings drawn, their triangular arrowheads all aimed squarely at the incoming enemy.

"Charge and kill—!"

The blade-and-axe wielders threw caution to the wind and rushed forward.

The most robust of the brutes swung his ghost-head saber in a full arc, hacking fiercely down upon a shield.

"Clang!" Sparks flew amidst the din of clashing metal and iron, yet the shield formation remained completely unshaken.

Suddenly, a cold light flashed violently, and three long spears thrust out through the shield gaps like venomous snakes!

"Splat!"

The spear tips accurately pierced through throats, armpits, and the vulnerable seams of the leather armor, sending the burly man stumbling to the ground.

"Rotate!"

At the command, the battle array shifted instantly.

The front-row shield-bearers abruptly rose and pushed forward, slamming into the enemy and forcing them back;

the middle-row spearmen pulled back to gather strength, while the rear-row archers unleashed a rapid succession of arrows.

Amidst shrieks of agony, the momentum of the blade-and-axe wielders' charge came to an abrupt halt.

"Wedge formation! Advance!"

The twenty men moved in perfect unison, executing commands as smoothly as moving one's own limbs.

The shields pressed against the enemy, constantly compressing their living space, while the long spears targeted vital joints and weak spots.

One blade-and-axe wielder roared fiercely and leaped into the air, attempting to clear the shield wall, only to be impaled simultaneously through the chest and abdomen by several long spears.

"Change! Wild geese formation!"

The battle array suddenly split to the left and right, and the blade-and-axe wielders, unable to check their momentum, crashed into one another.

The warriors of Iron Forest Fortress had already swept around to both flanks, their long spears stabbing out like a disordered forest of trees. The archers in the rear never missed their mark.

Those struck by arrows collapsed to the ground, howling, only to have their hearts immediately pierced by a follow-up spear thrust.

Lin Chuan stood with his arms folded across his chest, grasping his saber without even drawing it from its scabbard.

Under the moonlight, the battle array advanced like a meat grinder; any blade-and-axe wielder who collided with it was either killed or crippled.

Some attempted to flank and launch a sneak attack, only to be swatted flat by the revolving shield formation; others tried to break through, only to be driven back into the spear array by the rain of arrows.

In less than half a quarter of an hour, the official highway had transformed into a bloody marsh.

For some inexplicable reason,

as he watched the one-sided slaughter unfolding before him,

Lin Chuan felt a faint, latent surge of excitement rising within his heart.

Those near-death wails, the muffled sounds of flesh and muscle being torn apart, the warm liquid splashing onto his body...

burned through his veins like strong liquor, making his blood race.

He did not know where this feeling came from; he only knew that from the moment he picked up his saber, he had stepped onto a path of no return.

Who wouldn't want to live a peaceful life?

If anyone was to blame, they could only blame this era.

This inhuman era.

How many living, breathing souls had it reduced to ghosts that grinned at the sight of blood...

Amidst severed limbs and broken bones, the last blade-and-axe wielder was hoisted up by a long spear

and heavily slammed down onto the blood-stained escort flag.

"Break formation."

The combat soldiers of Iron Forest Fortress retreated in silence.

Aside from a few whose armor was stained with blood, not a single man was lost.

"Commander," Hu Dayong wiped away his sweat, "shall we clear the battlefield?"

"No need." Lin Chuan kicked a corpse at his feet, "Just a pile of garbage!"

He looked toward the south of the city:

"Let's go, rendezvous with the General."

...

The hour of Yin had already passed.

A funeral procession marched in silence along the borderlands.

More than a dozen coffins swayed slightly atop the wagon beds.

The mourners were all dressed in coarse white hempen mourning garb, yet short blades were concealed at their waists.

Funeral banners fluttered violently in the wind, with ink-brushed characters starkly contrasting against the white silk.

"The Soul Returns Home."

Master Zhang rode on horseback in the middle of the procession,

clutching a sheepskin map tightly in his hand.

As long as this batch of coffins was delivered to Eagle Beak Gorge, thirty miles away,

this critical hurdle would be successfully crossed.

"Aoo—"

A shrill horn blast suddenly tore through the dawn.

In a mountain col in the distance, dust billowed into the air.

Hundreds of heavy cavalry, like a descending blanket of dark clouds, poured down from the ridge.

Their black cloaks snapped loudly in the wind, resembling a flock of spreading vultures.

The procession instantly fell into turmoil.

The horses pulling the carts neighed uneasily, and the young porters had already turned deathly pale.

"Don't panic, none of you panic—" the steward screamed at the top of his lungs.

He narrowed his aging, dim eyes, staring fixedly at the banner drawing ever closer.

It was a wolf-head banner dyed in blood.

The wolf's head upon the standard was ferocious and terrifying.

"It's the cavalry of the Blood Wolf Tribe!"

The steward finally let out a breath of relief, turning to whisper to Master Zhang:

"Master, they have arrived."

Master Zhang straightened his attire, forcibly suppressing his racing heart.

He noticed that at the very front was a chiliarch—a commander of a thousand men.

He stood half a head taller than the other cavalrymen.

A jagged scar stretched all the way from his left temple down to the right corner of his mouth.

At that moment, he was sweeping his gloomy, predatory gaze across the funeral procession.

The wind seemed to grow even fiercer.

Master Zhang practically tumbled off his horse.

He scrambled and crawled forward in a hurried run:

"Milord! One hundred thousand taels of fine, pure silver—this humble servant has brought it all!"