“Uncle” was an honorific, but somehow, Lie Ziying found it offensive to his ears.
“How dare you be so disrespectful to me, the block captain here? Are you tired of living?” Lie Ziying sneered as he stared straight at the young man.
Then, he turned to the lackeys beside him and commanded, “Seize him!”
“Whoever wants to capture my young master has to get past me first!” Xiaoman put herself forward once more, standing in front of Yang Wu.
The young man pulled her aside, saying, “Move away, Xiaoman. Your master here doesn’t need you to shelter him from danger!”
“Tsk tsk, it’s hard to imagine a felon having such a devoted follower. Since you are so attached to each other, then I’ll just arrest the two of you together!”
Now that Lie Ziyang had the Eagle Knights’ commander’s backing, he no longer feared Wan Lanxin. He would make sure to pile as much dirt on Yang Wu as possible and send the latter down the road of no return.
The young man stood in front of Xiaoman and commented, “Uncle, it’s sufficient to arrest just me; there’s no need to involve the innocent!”
“Anyone who stands up for you is an accomplice!” Lie Ziyang retorted haughtily.
“I’m a childhood friend of Big Sister Lanxin. She has been good to me despite my landing in prison. Uncle, I’m afraid Big Sister Lanxin won’t be pleased if she hears how you’re treating me now,” Yang Wu added with a frown.
“Hehe! Let’s see what she can do this time!” the captain answered with a nasty laugh.
He waved his hand, signaling his men to arrest Yang Wu and Xiaoman.
“I’m sorry I got you into trouble,” Yang Wu apologized.
A smile spread across Xiaoman’s pretty face. “No, Young Master, Xiaoman here isn’t afraid of death as long as I can stay by your side!”
Right at that instant, the young man’s heart warmed as he stared at the girl’s sooty face.
A friend in need is a friend indeed!
Just as Lie Ziying was about to take Yang Wu and Xiaoman away, he glanced at the stone hut and waved his arm. “Demolish the stone hut!”
“No!” the young man immediately objected nervously.
“Destroy it!” The captain was adamant, though.
“You’ll regret it!” Yang Wu declared, a strange smirk curling the corner of his lips.
The other man mocked, “Viscount Yang, it looks like you still have no awareness of your status as a prisoner. You aren’t qualified to make me regret anything yet!”
The guards surrounded the stone hut and started shoving its walls to topple it.
The hut was merely piles of slabs, sufficiently stable to weather the storms and rains but hardly enough to withstand the brute force of so many guards.
But just when the guards were about to exert all their strength, a loud voice came booming from the hut. “You are seeking death!”
The voice was like a landmine exploding inside their ears. Their eardrums ruptured and bled. Their minds went blank, and the men fainted all at once.
The golden-maned lion Lie Ziying rode was shocked into trembling and abruptly hunkered on the ground, sending him tumbling off its back.
Without warning, all the guards surrounding the hut were sucked inside by a great force, and in the next moment, a strong, acrid stench wafted into the distance. Broken limbs then flew out of the hut, presenting a horrifying and revolting scene.
“It’s a…K-King!” exclaimed Lie Ziying, scared out of his wits.
It was said that a furious King would leave thousands of corpses in his wake.
If the Warrior Lie Ziying could not sense the power of the being inside the stone hut, then he had wasted his years of cultivation.
Still, he did not expect the person to be a King—and one far stronger than even the warden.
“Uncle, do you still want to destroy the hut?” Yang Wu asked again casually.
Besides Skinny Monkey, Wang Jiuzhong was also inside the stone hut. Although the King did not nitpick Yang Wu, that did not mean he would go easy on others.
That King was no kind soul in the first place.
The captain wasn’t a fool, either, and he could guess by now that the skin-clad skeleton whom Yang Wu had carried out of the blood pit was the King.
He pulled his lion, urging it to retreat, but the animal was too scared to stand up. Finally, the man gave up and ditched his mount, rushing to escape at the fastest possible and stumbling in the process.
Watching the captain in desperate flight, Yang Wu could only let out a heavy sigh. “More trouble again. This viscount does not want to resort to fleeing the prison one day!”
He knew that he would not be able to shed his identity as a felon if he ran away from prison—this was the last thing on his mind.
Meanwhile, Xiaoman, standing beside him, could not stop vomiting. She looked utterly scared.
Patting her back in consolation, he said to her, “You’d better stay away.”
“Young… Young Master, I’m… I’m not afraid!” The young woman tried to put on a brave front.
“This may be for the better. You might need to face worse situations in the future, so you’d better get used to it now!” After saying that, the young man looked at Sooty, which was sashaying its way to him, and asked the puppy with concern, “Are you alright, Sooty?”
Xiaoman ran over and gently took the dog into her arms. After a thorough check, she was surprised to discover that the little animal was unscathed.
Woof woof! Sooty shook its head and barked. Its fiery glare evinced its indignation at receiving that brutal slash from Lie Ziying’s sword earlier.
Yang Wu walked over and stroked the dog, making a solemn promise, “I’ll avenge that injustice one day!”
Sooty nodded its head with humanlike understanding, then stuck out its tongue to lick his outstretched palm. Yang Wu beamed, setting all the past woes aside.
For now, he could only hope for the best and prepare for the worst. As long as he was still alive and kicking, he would find a chance to shed his prisoner status.
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Disregarding the broken limbs strewn across the ground, Yang Wu walked toward the stone hut, worried that the King might have finished off Skinny Monkey.
Fortunately, his sworn brother was safe and sound inside. However, the latter dared not look directly at Wang Jiuzhong, only managing to spit out with much difficulty, “Cannibal!”
When the King saw Yang Wu walk in, he stared daggers at him and asked, “You still have the courage to enter this place? Did you really think I’d let you go?”
The young man bowed and said, “It’d be very easy for you to kill me!” After a momentary pause, he continued, “Senior, the imperial court has sent some experts. I’m afraid it’s not convenient for you to stay here any longer.”
With Lie Ziying running away after the fiasco with the King, the young man knew peace would be impossible.
Wang Jiuzhong wiped off blood from the corner of his mouth and commented nonchalantly, “I’m not afraid. If they’d dared to step in, I’d have killed them off without hesitation. Do you really think a King like me would cower in their presence like a puppy or a kitten?”
A King ought to behave like one. If he were to run away now, wouldn’t his reputation be ruined?
Sooty, however, was extremely upset when it heard those words; the puppy snarled and flashed its sharp claws at him as if raring to fight the King.
“Alright, since Senior isn’t going anywhere, then I’ll keep you company!” Honestly, Yang Wu was only too happy for the King to stay. Nobody dared to offend a King, and even the imperial household would need to treat one with respect. The young man believed that things might change for the better because of him.
Yang Wu took the jade bottle of earthly spirit essence, which Sooty had finished drinking from, to Wang Jiuzhong.
The latter raised his eyes to glance at the young man before saying, “If the earthly spirit spring were of any use to me, do you think I would have ended up looking like this?”
“This is the real deal!” Yang Wu emphasized.
Wang Jiuzhong no longer held back. Opening his mouth wide, he guzzled the spring water in the jade bottle down to the last drop.
The young man felt a pinch in his heart. He had wanted to leave some for Wan Lanxin and Xiaoman to consume.
“This is the real stuff, indeed!” the King marveled softly, his face lighting up with pleasant surprise.
“Then, please rest first, Senior. I believe we’ll have visitors soon. I beseech you to show mercy!” the young man said.
Yang Wu wasn’t being magnanimous when he made that request. He was just afraid the King would take too many lives, and he would shoulder the blame. If that happened, redemption would be impossible; he would forever be a criminal.
Soon enough, eight eagles bearing humans, high above the sky, swooped toward the stone hut, looking proud and majestic!
In the forest, Lie Ziying trailed behind his father, riding on a horse, with over a hundred prison guards following speedily behind the two of them.
Instantly, the atmosphere inside block 68 turned heavy with tension.
Standing on his eagle, Meng Helang asked the father-son pair, “Is the person inside there?”
Lie Ziying wiped cold sweat off his face as he stammered, “Yes…he…he’s there.”
“What lack of guts! How do you expect to rise to greater heights with this kind of behavior?” His father snorted with great dissatisfaction.
“Father, he is a cannibal!” Lie Ziying protested, wanting to cry.
Meng Helang walked up to the stone hut with his seven men. Each one released a thick sheath of metal armor to wrap around the body in preparation for the upcoming battle.
With a wave of his hand, Lie Feng ordered the troop of five hundred soldiers behind him, “Nock arrows!” Standing in neat rows, they drew their bows, ready to release their arrows at his command.
“Shoot!”
Five hundred arrows shot into the sky in synchronicity. Every arrow flew with sublime momentum and lethality, ready to burst through any obstructing mountain rocks. No mere stone hut could withstand their attack.
Just as the arrows were about to hit the hut, a thunderous voice boomed, “Get lost!”
The roar shook heaven and earth, and the arrows instantly shattered, shocking everyone.
This development caught everyone by surprise. They did not expect the Scarlet Steel arrows to be so fragile before sound vibration.
“Shoot again!” Lie Feng ordered, blank-faced.
Another dense barrage of arrows flew, looking like flashes of light in the air.
This time around, a terrifying, humongous hand appeared out of nowhere as the arrows rose into the sky. The hand caught all the arrows in midair and waved, sending them flying back.
“Oh no! Everyone, hide!” Lie Feng yelled at the guards around him as he brandished his saber at the onslaught of arrows shooting toward his men.
As for his son, he was again thrown off his mount in fright. “We…we mustn’t offend that…that King!”
“Aaaah!”
“Argh!”
Many guards could not escape in time and were either killed or heavily wounded.
The eight Eagle Knights watched the scene from above with solemn faces. They could tell that a formidable King was inside the hut.
“Let’s see how accomplished this King is!” Meng Helang told his team, harboring none of the fear that the presence of a King would normally inspire. He was, indeed, an expert who had been through countless battles.
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All seven of them nodded in agreement. Falling into formation with their commander, they drew their weapons simultaneously and launched an attack on the stone hut.
Right then, something exploded inside the hut.
Bang!
——
I’m going to try to maintain a mon-wed-fri release schedule if I have chapters. But still no guarantees yet.