Fang Qin buried his head low. At an angle where others could not detect, his lips revealed a slight smile.
____
Liu Chong Shan just finished, a ‘Dong Ying assassin’ had broken through the Imperial Army and boldly rushed towards the imperial road. Liu Chong Shan grinned and pulled out the sword on his waist, pointing to Li Feng: “Your Majesty rest assured, I will not let them touch even one of your hairs.”
There was a scream behind Li Feng. He looked back in a hurry and saw that the officer who was overseeing the ceremony was killed by the assassin, the blood on his neck poured down the stone steps.
This horrifying scream was like a command. Liu Chong Shan immediately swung his sword down. Li Feng did practice martial arts for several days as a child. Unfortunately, with no talent for it, his ability was very ordinary, neglecting for many years, he had soon returned everything he learned to his Master. In order to avoid it, he took several steps back in a panic, stumbling over the stone steps without paying attention. Everywhere his hands touched was hot blood, the sacrificial attire immediately stained.
In this situation, if it were to be replaced with a timid person, they would pass out from fright. But thanks to the hard-headed and stubborn personality of Emperor Long An, not only did he not faint, he even dared to point at Liu Chong Shan and burst into a rage, “Traitorous subject, are you not afraid of punishment coming down on your entire family!”
The Son of Heaven did not have three heads and six arms. With no one here to protect him, did he not stretch his neck out to be cut? Liu Chong Shan missed his first slash, a little fear of rebellion in his heart has already vanished, pursuing him to the end: “Then for the sake of my entire family of young and old, I shall charge forward without turning back!”
Under the sword, the Son of Heaven was still a mortal body of flesh and blood. The wind brought by the sword slash coming down on his head, Li Feng cannot avoid it, but still refused to insult his royal lineage, he was silent, but his heart was filled only with sorrow — he did not die from his brother who wanted to seize power and usurp the throne. He did not die in the siege of the Western Army. Now that the country was starting to stabilize, wanting to rest and recuperate, he would die in the hands of his traitorous underlings… he did not even know the reason for why they rebelled.
At that moment, a strong wind came from the side, sweeping by the tip of Li Feng’s nose. The steel blade in Liu Chong Shan’s hand which almost injured the dragon body was hit by a two-and-a-half-inch Xiu zhong si. At last, Shen Yi, who accompanied him had arrived.
The generals who accompanied the Emperor on the altar did not carry swords, their armor was only for show. No one expected that Shen Yi’s iron wrist bracelet had a Xiu zhong si.
Liu Chong Shan saw how close he was to succeeding, but was suddenly interfered by Shen Yi. He could not help but cursing inside. Before he came, Lu Chang had said it clearly — he already tried to test the reaction of Shen’s family, they would not cause any trouble. They would only shrink back and watch on like the surname Fang, why did this suddenly happen?
Shen Yi stooped down and helped Emperor Long An up. He and Jiang Chong, who had trotted all the way with their robes, surrounded him in the middle, appearing very isolated and helpless in this moment. Only in difficulty could one see loyalty and treachery. Li Feng’s heart was full of mixed feelings for a moment, he lamented awkwardly, “The two subjects have a heart.”
Jiang Chong did not know martial arts and was somewhat nervous. General Shen, however, was the one who returned from the southwest with an army of defeated soldiers to relieve the capital. His face remained unchanged: “Your Majesty does not need to worry. There are many people here today. In order to prevent accidents, many lords have sent their family guards to mix up with the crowd of commoners, it will be enough to deal with this. Even if I was any more useless, I can still clean up this young masters army, protecting Your Majesty thoroughly.”
A while ago, Fang Qin secretly went to the Northern Camp with a letter from his sister sent to his Mother*. The things mentioned in the letter were very frightening.
*The word here refers to a mother who is the illegitimate wife of his father.
A young girl who had just been bought by the Fang lady to serve as a maid accidentally broke into the study room from not knowing the rules and was beaten to death. Yet this was not the most frightening thing, even the Fang lady who was married properly got confined to the inner courtyard for this trivial matter and had to appeal to her mother’s family for help. The letter mentioned that there were many guests that day, including Liu Chong Shan, the commander of the Imperial Army.
It also happened that Emperor Long An had just announced that he was going out to offer sacrifices to the heavens on his birthday. Such coincidence could not help but make one think.
However, after all, this was only a vague home letter, which could not be used to reported to the Emperor – otherwise, if nothing happened, would it not become an accusation based around rumors?
Li Feng hated forming parties and fighting among each other. The reason as to why the Imperial Censorate had been humiliated by the Emperor many times was due to them unable to bring forth any true accusation towards Yan Wang.
Nobody dared to take the risk rashly.
However, the Northern Camp was not allowed to enter the palace unless summoned. If an accident were to happen when the Emperor left, water from far away will not be able to put out this fire.
Thus Fang Qin came up with an idea to let the Northern Camp wait outside the nine gates. Once there was a disturbance, they could force their way into the city and come to rescue in an incense time. Before that, they borrowed a group of powerful generals from military families such as the Shen’s and the Marquis’s manor. They would also be mingled with the spectating crowd. In case of an accident, they only needed to prolong it for a while to wait for the rescue of the Northern Camp.
Although Shen Yi did not like Fang Qin very much, he had to admit that the old man did things very thoroughly.
Liu Chong Shan could not bear to look at Shen Yi’s leisurely appearance. He sneered and said, “Then allow me to observe the General’s skills!”
After that, several rebels in the imperial army together with the assassins rushed up behind him. The officers Fang Qin arranged in advance came back to their senses and ran up to the altar on both sides, beginning to clash with the rebels.
Shen Yi pulled Li Feng behind him, grabbed an assassin’s wrist and broke his arm, taking the sword with a strange shape in the hand of the assassin. The heavy Dong Ying blade then lightly bounced out of his palm and cut right into Liu Chong Shan’s face.
“Observe my skills?” Shen Yi shook his head and sighed like a good old man. “I’m afraid Commander Liu doesn’t have what it takes.”
Liu Chong Shan and Shen Yi were both descendants of noble family. Growing up with the grace of their ancestors. Graduated in the same year, the difference was Shen Yi went with literary, while Liu Chong Shan followed the true school of martial arts. Later, he entered the imperial army by the influence of his family background. With incredible glory, why would he ever put Shen Ji Ping, who had never had a proper career, in his eyes?
But in the past few years, the imperial army was full of young master soldiers, Liu Chong Shan had endured hardship until now, honing his experience and finally becoming a small commander. What the hell was that Shen Yi? He was only a mechanic serving royalty who changed his career halfway through, stepping on a pile of feces and getting on the boat of the Gu family by chance, yet he managed to become a Governor in the end.