Chapter 14 Eating at Sun Lianren's

The next day's lunch was indeed eaten at Sun Lianren's place, of course, only Zheng Fan and Sun Lianren ate, because Si Niang was beside him and could use silver silk threads to help Zheng Fan test for poison, but even so, Zheng Bo-ye didn't eat much, just a little bit to show his appreciation.

Sun Lianren was indeed very enthusiastic, and even took the initiative to offer his concubine to accompany Zheng Bo-ye for a nap.

Zheng Bo-ye naturally refused and continued on his way.

Along the way, what he saw and heard clearly showed the extent of the Fan family's infiltration and control over the area from Lian River to Meng Mountain.

To dare to engage in smuggling, one must naturally have official backing; otherwise, one would be caught and killed as a warning to others sooner or later.

Here, from the boatmen to the water bandits to the village leaders, squad leaders, centurions, garrison commanders, and so on in various forts and villages, almost everyone was standing on the Fan family's smuggling chain, getting a share of the pie.

Those born from the same womb may not be as close as brothers;

But those with whom you share interests can often "share weal and woe."

It was absurd, yet very realistic.

Zheng Bo-ye, as the general and earl of the Yan Kingdom, was actually treated as an honored guest in the territory of the Chu Kingdom with an army.

The next part of the journey took another two days because the mountain roads were rugged, and in many places, it was impossible to ride horses at all, so the marching speed was naturally not fast.

Zheng Fan had also thought about the issue of deploying troops from here, but it was just a thought, like why the Barbarian King had to gnaw on Snow Sea Pass instead of taking the road to Shengle City in the first place?

It was possible to pass, but the logistics supplies, various guarantees, and efficiency required for a large army to fight all determined that this road could not be chosen as the main attack direction.

Even Zheng Fan's thousand-man march sometimes seemed a little difficult, let alone more troops. If the main force came, to say nothing else, if the Chu people were to cut it off with an elite force at the front, they could directly trap your entire army, making it impossible to advance or retreat.

"Bo-ye, after passing Meng Mountain, we will reach Xia Yong. My Fan family's main clan is in Xia Yong."

"Are you suggesting that I should be a guest at the Fan family?"

"Now that Bo-ye has come, how can we not offer hospitality? My family head has long been waiting respectfully."

"Heh."

This Fan family was quite bold. If it were an ordinary big merchant family, they might offer some superficial flattery, but to invest so much capital and adopt such an attitude, it would be impossible without some courage.

Perhaps from the perspective of the Chu people, this kind of Chu traitor was naturally extremely heinous, but from Zheng Fan's perspective, the Fan family members were quite lovable.

If you don't reward such a sensible "dog" with some bones, you would feel embarrassed yourself. You wouldn't even feel comfortable gnawing all the meat off the bones; you'd have to leave more for it.

Tonight's campsite was in a horse farm, yes, a horse farm in the mountains.

This place was a depression between two mountains, considered a rare plain within the mountains. There were not many horses in the horse farm because this place was a transit point for the Fan family's trade route in the Meng Mountain area, so having this horse farm made things much more convenient.

Although there were some Fan family members here, the Snow Sea Pass soldiers under Jin Shu's command still camped in the same way as they had in recent days.

The outer perimeter was guarded, and the commander's tent was protected on all sides, all done in a very orderly manner.

Zheng Fan sat in the tent as usual, while Si Niang was cooking noodles.

This scene was quite reminiscent of a man in later generations returning home and lying on the sofa while his wife busied herself cooking.

The experiences of these days in Chu were indeed far different from what he had originally imagined, but once he entered the Xia Yong territory and visited the Fan family, he would officially leave the rugged environment and be able to ride horses freely.

A'ming lifted the curtain and walked in.

He looked like an addict, yawning and looking very listless.

"My lord, San'er sent someone to send a message earlier, saying that there were no signs of Chu troops mobilizing in Xia Yong."

Zheng Fan nodded to show that he understood.

Si Niang looked at A'ming and said, "The horse farm gave us some blood curd. Do you want me to cook some for you after my lord eats his noodles?"

A'ming "heh"ed,

Just as he was about to speak,

Suddenly,

He and Si Niang simultaneously focused their gaze.

At the same time,

The magic pill inside Zheng Fan's chest also trembled suddenly.

"Buzz!"

"My lord, be careful!"

Si Niang spread her hands, and strands of silk quickly extended upward to the tent. At this moment, a huge arrow had already pierced through the tent and was heading directly downward.

Si Niang's silk threads did catch the ballista arrow, which should have been used for city defense, in the first instance, but the arrow was actually wrapped in a layer of something. The silk threads were very sharp, and naturally cut open the thing on it during the interception. What followed was a splash of pieces of foul-smelling liquid.

"Oil!"

Zheng Fan immediately shouted, "Retreat!"

Immediately afterward,

Zheng Fan pushed off the ground with his legs, and the magic pill in his chest exerted force at this time, and the father and son worked together to knock it back.

The tent was not strong and was directly knocked open by Zheng Fan, and he rolled out.

Over there, A'ming did not hesitate to block in front of Si Niang with his back, Si Niang cut off the connection between the silk threads above and herself, and began to quickly retreat.

"Boom!"

The oil encountered the charcoal fire in the tent and immediately ignited, and the entire tent was instantly set ablaze.

On Zheng Fan's side, fortunately, Si Niang had given an early warning to slow down the arrow, and with the help of the magic pill, he left the "fire" in advance.

Si Niang also escaped under A'ming's protection. Si Niang herself was fine, but A'ming's clothes on his back were already burning.

After coming out, A'ming immediately rubbed his back against the ground frantically to extinguish the flames on his body.

After it was extinguished,

A'ming lay on the ground somewhat helplessly,

Because compared to this kind of burn, he preferred to be shot by arrows.

How simple it was to remove arrowheads, pull them out, one, two, three, four, ding ding dang dang;

But with this burn, he would have to ask Si Niang to help him clean out the embedded sand, gravel, and cloth scraps from the wound on his back later; otherwise, he would become a sandwich cookie inside after the skin and flesh grew back.

Oh, that would definitely be an extremely terrible experience.

"There are assassins!"

"Protect Bo-ye!"

"Protect Bo-ye!"

A group of soldiers immediately swarmed over, and Zheng Fan, who had just gotten up, was immediately protected by three layers of his own soldiers.

The soldiers on the outer perimeter quickly formed a formation and went out, with horizontal sabers in the front row and bows and crossbows in the back row.

The Fan family members over at the horse farm were also alarmed by the commotion and immediately came over under the leadership of Fan Yongxin, but were directly stopped by the soldiers on the outer perimeter.

Meanwhile,

Si Niang first cursed:

"Xue San, you good for nothing!"

Immediately afterward,

She gritted her silver teeth,

Looked upward,

Threw her body forward, and actually stuck directly to the cliff, using the silk threads released around her to wrap around the edges and corners, and quickly climbed upward.

Clearly,

The previous ballista came from the cliff!

At the same time, two more people drilled out from among the soldiers and climbed up the cliff like spiders. They were from the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion.

After Zeng Shulang, an elder of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, joined Zheng Fan, he and his subordinates were responsible for the defense construction of Snow Sea Pass and the modification of siege equipment. At the same time, in order to express his loyalty, two of the last three protectors of the entire Heavenly Mystery Pavilion followed Zheng Fan's team into Chu this time.

The one remaining was Zeng Shulang himself, he did not come.

Jin Shu's reaction was a little slower than Si Niang's. After all, he still had to gather the soldiers, but he quickly assigned tasks.

"You protect Bo-ye! Ke Yan Dongge, you take people to the west side! The rest of you, follow me to the east side! The assassins are on the mountain!"

Soon,

The soldiers below immediately split into three groups.

Five hundred people stayed to protect Zheng Fan and at the same time be wary of the Fan family's side,

The rest were divided into two parts and surrounded the mountain from both sides under the leadership of Jin Shu and Ke Yan Dongge.

For a time,

The sound of armor was solemn.

…

"Niu Zi, let's go! We don't want this ballista anymore!"

"Chieftain, how can we not want it? This is our stronghold's treasure! How can we not want it? No, I have to take it back!"

"Bullshit, get out of here now! If you don't leave, you won't be able to leave!"

"I'm not leaving! I'm not leaving! This ballista is more precious to me than my wife! I can't leave! Chieftain, take another look! Is that Yan dog official dead? Is he dead? He should be dead, right? I reckon he's almost cooked by now."

"Chieftain, it's bad! Yan dogs are rushing up on the west side of the mountain road!"

"Chieftain, there are Yan dogs coming on the east side of the mountain road too!"

The man called the chieftain was burly, and even though it was winter, he was still only wearing a bare-shouldered hide. After hearing his subordinates' report, he immediately roared at the subordinate who had used the ballista earlier:

"Niu Zi, let's go! We don't want the thing; otherwise, everyone will die here!"

The skinny man who was called Niu Zi also nodded immediately, no longer fussing with the ballista, and instead said:

"Damn it, the Yan dogs are coming so fast."

The group did not go down the mountain from the east and west sides but chose to continue up the mountain. The biggest feature of Meng Mountain was that the mountains were connected to each other. If you couldn't go down this mountain, going to the opposite mountain to go down was the same.

However, just as the group had only taken a few steps upward, they suddenly heard a scream.

The chieftain turned his head to look and found that Niu Zi, who was walking at the back, was clutching his neck.

When a brother next to him wanted to reach out to pull Niu Zi, he was shocked to find that Niu Zi's head had actually left his neck and floated away.

This scene was too terrifying because no one had clearly seen what had happened.

Immediately afterward, Si Niang's figure appeared. She had just climbed up and was obviously still a little breathless, but Si Niang's eyes were full of killing intent.

"Dare to touch my man!"

As soon as she finished speaking, two more strands of silk shot out, directly piercing into the bodies of the two bandits in front. They had no armor on their bodies at all, so the silk threads entered with unusual ease.

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

The two bandits immediately screamed.

Immediately afterward,

Two puppets crawled out from the cliff and pounced forward without hesitation after landing, like two cheetahs.

The chieftain hardened his heart,

And jumped down with his knife and slashed at Si Niang.

Si Niang did not dodge. Now that he was following Zheng Fan, his strength was also rising. How could a well-known sixth-rank strength, coupled with her demon king experience and ability, not be able to defeat even a bandit leader?

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

For a time,

Strands of silk densely formed a surface in front of him.

The chieftain's knife slashed down but dented, and the force was therefore unloaded. When the chieftain wanted to pull out his knife, he found that he couldn't pull his knife out at all.

Fortunately, the chieftain was considered decisive and immediately abandoned his knife. His body quickly retreated, avoiding the subsequent siege of silk threads.

The two protectors of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, after killing two bandits with puppets, rushed towards the next target without hesitation.

There were less than twenty bandits in total, and they didn't light any lights in order to hide themselves, so under the cover of darkness, they were rushed by Si Niang and the two Heavenly Mystery Pavilion protectors in this way, and were directly frightened out of their wits, and the remaining people began to flee frantically.

But because of this delay, they were unable to run up the mountain in time and were intercepted by the Snow Sea Pass soldiers who rushed from the mountain roads on the east and west sides.

How could these bandits be a match for these elite soldiers who had been on the battlefield?

Moreover, they were at an absolute disadvantage in numbers, and they were immediately hacked down. If Jin Shu hadn't shouted to keep them alive, they might not have been able to keep a single one.

The chieftain, after finally escaping Si Niang's offensive, was stopped by two soldiers with knives after only a few steps. Two brothers followed, one kicking and one pressing his head, completely holding him to the ground, no matter how hard he struggled, it was useless.

Since then,

Except for three or four who were captured alive, all the other assassins were killed.

Si Niang walked up to the chieftain with murder in her eyes.

In the past two years,

Si Niang had rarely gone to the front line to fight. Most of the time, she stayed behind to manage money and food, but this did not mean that Si Niang's temper had been smoothed out.

After all, a Demon King was a Demon King. How could the arrogance in his heart be wiped out so easily?

Jin Shu was obviously a little afraid of Si Niang at this time. After all, even if he didn't look at Si Niang's strength, just looking at the fact that she was Bo-ye's concubine and the identity of the mistress of the family, Jin Shu didn't dare to be disrespectful to Si Niang;

But at this time, he still plucked up the courage to remind:

"Mr. Feng, should we leave it to Bo-ye for interrogation?"

Si Niang heard this,

The sharpness in his eyes gradually disappeared,

And nodded slowly.

On Si Niang's side, the two Heavenly Mystery Pavilion protectors raised their heads. They were also wearing Snow Sea Pass armor, and they were no different from ordinary soldiers on weekdays, but at this time, like two spiders, they supported the ground with their limbs, raised their heads, and their faces were covered in blood, but they were still showing Si Niang a flattering smile.

…

"So, the ones who attacked me were a bunch of bandits?"

Zheng Fan was a little surprised by this result.

Si Niang, who had just finished interrogating the bandit, reported back:

"Yes, my lord, your subordinate used torture. What he said should be true."

Zheng Fan knew about the Demon King's methods of torturing people.

Si Niang added: "There is no collusion with other forces. They are purely aware that you are from Yan, so they wanted to assassinate you."

"So pure?"

"If nothing else, it should be this pure. They are bandits from Whirlwind Fortress, and their nest is in Meng Mountain. They should have seen our team a few days ago."

"Heh, that's a little interesting."

Zheng Fan shook his head. He originally thought that some force had attacked him, perhaps from the Chu Kingdom, or perhaps from the Qian Kingdom. Even, to be a little more dark-hearted, it was not impossible for it to come from the Yan Kingdom.

But suddenly, things became so clean, it was really a little uncomfortable.

A'ming, who was sitting next to Zheng Fan, spoke at this time:

"Hey, Si Niang, can you help me treat the wound on my back? It's really painful for me to control the wound from healing right now."

The wound hadn't been cleaned, so he had to control it from healing, which meant that the injury was always maintained, and he naturally had to endure the pain all the time.

But if it healed, it would be even more painful to break the skin later and clean the inside, so A'ming would rather endure it now.

"Si Niang, help A'ming treat his wound. I'll go see the assassin."

"Yes, my lord."

When Zheng Fan walked out of the tent, it was actually already dawn.

Fan Yongxin had asked to see him several times, but Zheng Fan had refused. Zheng Fan even took a nap while Si Niang was interrogating the prisoner.

Maybe,

He had really experienced too many battles,

And had been tempered,

After all, he didn't die,

And A'ming was the one who was injured,

So he didn't feel much emotional fluctuation in his heart, and he could fall asleep quickly.

So,

It was already noon at this time.

Because of the assassination last night, the level of alert around the camp was very high, and no one from the Fan family was allowed to approach. Violators would be killed directly.

Zheng Fan walked into the tent where the bandit leader was being held.

Even before walking in, he could see bloodstains on the tent from the outside.

After walking in, he realized that the bandit chieftain was lying there covered in blood.

In fact, this chieftain was also pitiful.

When Si Niang had just interrogated him,

He had said early on that "the wronged have their avengers, and the debtors have their creditors. A man does things alone, and a man does not change his name or surname." This matter was done by him, and no one else instructed him.

Then,

Si Niang didn't believe him and used torture, torture, torture, torture, torture...

Finally,

Seeing that there was really no second answer,

This chieftain had been tortured to the point where he couldn't bear it anymore and started calling Feng Si Niang grandma,

Si Niang then confirmed that his first answer earlier was the true answer.

At this time,

Seeing Zheng Fan come in,

The chieftain opened his eyes weakly, glanced at Zheng Fan, and seemed to guess Zheng Fan's identity. Si Niang was not around, so he became a little tougher again, and tugged at the corner of his mouth, barely and with difficulty revealing an expression of "contempt".

"Why did you want to kill me?"

"Kill... Yan dogs."

"Presumptuous!" Jin Shu, who had followed Zheng Fan in, cursed.

Zheng Fan raised his hand to stop Jin Shu, nodded, and said:

"He can be considered a tough guy."

He had been in Chu for a while, but he didn't expect that the first crisis would actually be brought to him by this bandit.

"How about this?" Zheng Fan smiled and said, "Let me give you a quick death?"

Obviously, this chieftain of Whirlwind Fortress had been tortured by Si Niang's methods and was now terrified. When he heard Zheng Fan's words, he actually revealed a look of relief on his face,

Even,

He said something soft:

"I... appreciate your kindness."

"You're welcome."

Zheng Fan said to Jin Shu: "Go and ask the people at the horse farm for some wine and feed it to him, and then send him on his way."

"Yes, Bo-ye."

After ordering these things,

Zheng Fan walked out of the tent, the stench of blood was gone, and he couldn't help but stretch.

At this time, Fan Yongxin was shouting outside: "Bo-ye, Bo-ye..."

Zheng Fan waved his hand, signaling the soldiers in front to let him pass.

Fan Yongxin came over with two Fan family members and immediately said:

"Bo-ye, I deserve to die, I deserve to die. I made Bo-ye have a fright last night. I deserve to die for my crimes."

"It's okay, it's okay."

Since this matter had nothing to do with the Fan family, Zheng Fan was too lazy to pursue it further. After all, the Fan family's performance along the way had been very good.

"But Bo-ye, rest assured, this morning, the garrison commanders of the forts in front have already dispatched troops to encircle and suppress Whirlwind Fortress. News just came that everyone from Whirlwind Fortress, from top to bottom, including the old, the weak, women, and children, has been killed, and not even a dog or chicken was left. Please calm your anger, calm your anger."

Zheng Fan heard this,

Reached out and patted Fan Yongxin's shoulder,

Fan Yongxin was so flattered that he squatted down a little more.

Zheng Fan then turned his head,

And glanced at the tent stained with blood;

"Heh."