Zhang Bao received the horse and the knife, the rest of the Feng soldiers also followed what he did. Ning royal guards originally wanted to get close to Tang Yin. In the end, not only did they failed in their plan, they had their knives snatched away by Feng soldiers.
After they returned with the horses, Tang Yin held Yu Shang’s neck with one hand and got onto a horse with him.
Before he gave the order, Zhang Bao and others got onto the horses too. They all looked at Tang Yin and waited for his next order.
After getting on the horse, Tang Yin placed Yu Shang on the saddle horizontally. He then said to Yuan Kui, “Ask your men to give way to us, we want to go through the checkpoint.”
“What about our prince…”
“After the clearance and when we’re safe, I’ll eventually let him back!” said Tang Yin.
Yuan Kui yelled, “Why do I believe in your words?!” If Tang Yin were to keep Yu Shang or to kill him after he went passed the checkpoint, Yuan Kui would have no one to argue with by that time.
Tang Yin shrugged and said, “If you don’t believe it, I can’t do anything. Then the only thing I can do is to die together with him.” He beat Yu Shang in his back with the reins as he spoke.
He didn’t exert a great force, but Yu Shang didn’t live up to expectations and screamed like a pig that was about to get killed. He waved his limbs and wailed, “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me-“
The spoiled Yu Shang had always been living his life in the palace where he was well protected by people around him. He had never seen anything like this before. He was scared to the core and couldn’t think straight. He shouted, “Yuan Kui, do as he said, just quickly do as he said!”
Yuan Kui’s head was aching from Yu Shang’s piercing screams, he couldn’t think of a solution.
In the end, he sighed. All he could do now was to proceed without a proper plan! He waved and shouted, “Let them pass.”
The military order could not be defied.
With Yuan Kui’s order, Ning State soldiers around them backed off to the sides like a tide, leaving open a two-meter wide passage.
Tang Yin did not hesitate, he signalled his men, “Let’s go!”
With Yu Shang as their trump card, Tang Yin and his men walked out of the encirclement unimpededly and rushed towards the exit gate of the checkpoint on their horses.
Yu Shang was still in their hands, Yuan Kui couldn’t let them leave with him. He brought a team of soldiers and generals with him and went after Tang Yin quickly.
Now, Tang Yin and dozens of his men were in front, Yuan Kui and a few thousand of Ning soldiers were chasing behind them, between them was only a distance of around ten meters.
After they had cleared the checkpoint, Tang Yin saw that Yuan Kui was still pursuing after them. Tang Yin pulled the horse reins and stopped. He turned around and shouted, “Stop chasing after us!!”
“You let go of our prince first!” Yuan Kui refuted.
“No way.” Tang Yin refused firmly.
“Then I can’t let you leave like this!” Yuan Kui said.
Tang Yin squinted his eyes and looked straight into Yuan Kui’s eyes. He saw Yuan Kui’s determination in his eyes. He knew that this should be the bottom line for him.
As he was contemplating on how to get rid of them, he could hear some faint screamings from the south. Because they were too far away from the source, he couldn’t hear it clearly.
He frowned. Is there someone else trying to break through Ning’s checkpoint too? After thinking for a while, he suddenly remembered Wu Mei and Wu Ying.
It seemed that even if he had attracted the main force of the Ning people, the progress of Wu Mei’s force was not as smoothly as they thought.
Tang Yin intended to go straight to the east to Tongmen initially, but now he had changed his mind and gave Zhang Bao a signal. They started rushing towards south side along the Ning checkpoint.
Zhang Bao was puzzled and hurriedly caught up with Tang Yin and asked, “Big Brother Tang, are we not going back to Tongmen? Where are we going now?”
Tang Yin said, ” We’re going to Wu Mei. Without their assistance, I am afraid that it’s very difficult to get back to Tongmen with just a few of us.”
“General Wu?” Zhang Bao was in doubt, “General Wu should have already passed through the checkpoint!”
“Not necessarily!”
Tang Yin had extraordinary sixth sense and auditory sense, that’s why he could hear the faint noises from afar. Zhang Bao on the other hand didn’t hear anything.
Sixteen of them with thirty horses rushed towards the south of the checkpoint.
Yuan Kui and others were also reluctant to give up and they followed closely behind them.
After rushing for about ten minutes, he looked again into the Ning checkpoint. It was dusty and full of waving weapons inside; everyone was screaming and killing. People inside were undergoing a fierce battle.
Looking from afar, he could see bloody mist splashed into the air from time to time.
Tang Yin looked at it and was speeding up on the horse, rushing forward in full speed.
It didn’t take long for him to approach the edge of the battlefield. He tightened the reins and shouted, “Everyone stop!”
His voice acted like a bomb out of nowhere, bringing the chaotic and disastrous battlefield to a stop instantly.
Without waiting for Tang Yin to take a good look at it, someone in the crowd exclaimed, “Tang Yin!”
Tang Yin searched for the source of the voice as he saw a warrior in golden helmet and armor looking back at him with a pair of shimmering eyes. The warrior was covered in gold armor from top to toe and was even wearing a golden mask, leaving only the eyes visible from outside. Although he couldn’t see the warrior’s appearance clearly, Tang Yin could still tell the identity just by looking at the eyes.
After all, there were not many people with such seducing eyes.
Wu Mei!
She was originally wearing Feng State’s black helmet and armor, but the golden armor on her body now was a spiritual armor of her own.
Spiritual practitioners released Reiki [1] out of their bodies and it condensed into a solid armor, and this was called the <Spiritual Armor>. As for the color of the spiritual armor, it depended on the nature of the practitioner. There were five different attributes, namely, metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The colors of spiritual armor could be divided roughly into gold, white, blue, red, and black.
<Spiritual Armor> was a basic skill for spiritual practitioners, and it was much easier than the <Transform Spirit of Weapons>. Even juniors of spiritual art could perform a partially or half completed <Spiritual Armor>. However, in order to master a whole body <Spiritual Armor> like Wu Mei did, and to maintain it for a long time in battle, one would need a higher Reiki cultivation.
Tang Yin looked to the side and saw a transformed sword held by Wu Mei. The sword was four feet long, the blade was broad and thin, with one side as a sharp edge and the other was a sawtooth edge. The strangely looking weapon was obviously a spiritual weapon that had undergone the <Transform Spirit of Weapons>.
Looking at how she executed the <Spiritual Armor> and <Transform Spirit of Weapons> at the same time, Wu Mei’s Reiki cultivation would have at least reached the tier of Transform Spirit.
Tang Yin was a little surprised. He really didn’t expect that the eldest daughter of Wu family who was luscious and had an unrestrained personality, would be a spiritual practitioner with deeply cultivated Reiki.
A warrior in black spiritual armor who fought side by side with Wu Mei did not show the face, but Tang Yin could tell that she was Wu Ying from her cold eyes.
What a good pair of extraordinary sisters! Looks like the Wu family is worthy of their fame as a noble family in Feng State.
Tang Yin didn’t talk immediately. He glanced at the Wu sisters and other Feng soldiers, wanted to find out Qiu Zhen, whom he worried about the most. He couldn’t see Qiu Zhen anywhere.
Just as he was thinking worriedly about whether Qiu Zhen had met with accidents during the battle, a small head squeezed out of the crowd. The crafty eyes looked at Tang Yin and he immediately put on an extremely excited look, shouted, “Big Brother Tang, you… you’re alive?!”
Tang Yin took a closer look, the one who spoke was none other than Qiu Zhen.
Seeing that he was alive and there was no injury on his body, Tang Yin’s cold expression finally changed, the corner of his lips were naturally lifted.
He laughed in his heart, It seems like I’ve underestimated the ability of Qiu Zhen to protect himself.
“Who are you?”
Before Tang Yin managed to say anything, a Ning general who was riding a black horse pointed his sword at Tang Yin’s nose and questioned him fiercely.
Tang Yin was wearing Ning’s uniform, the Ning general initially thought that he was on their side. However, when he saw that all his enemies seemed to recognize him, and he realized that something was wrong.
Without saying any nonsense, Tang Yin lifted Yu Shang from the saddle and shouted, “Make all your men stay off and let go of them immediately!”
“Bullshit!”
The Ning leader was not of a high status and he didn’t know about Yu Shang. He didn’t even know that he was the third prince. He listened to Tang Yin’s arrogant words and got furious. He yelled to his men, “Go around and trap them!”
“Wait!”
The person who spoke was not Tang Yin, but Yuan Kui who had caught up with them.
The Ning general didn’t know Yu Shang, but he did know Yuan Kui. When he saw his boss, he hurriedly got off the horse and bowed, “General Yuan, you… what makes you came here?”
Yuan Kui ignored him and looked up at the battlefield. There were hundreds of bodies lying messily on the ground, most of them were Ning people. Obviously, they had already suffered a big loss.
Seeing Yuan Kui’s expression got increasingly colder, the Ning general was frightened. He said quickly, “General Yuan, they have spiritual art masters with them. Although we have suffered some casualties, we have already trapped them…”
Before he could finish, Yuan Kui interrupted, “Let them go!”
“Yes……”
The Ning general responded instinctively, but then he was shaken and was in disbelief. He stuttered, “Let… let them go? General Yuan, they… they’re Feng people, they’re enemies!”
“I know that, you don’t have to tell me!” Yuan Kui scolded. He then looked at Tang Yin, tried to soften his tone and said, “Tang… General, I can let all of you go, but with a condition that you’ll leave the hostage behind.”
Tang Yin smiled lightly and said, “If I return him to you, will you let us go?”
“Of course!”
“But I don’t believe what you said.”
“How can you believe it then.”
“You have to wait for us to return to Tongmen safely.”
“You…you want to bring Your Highness to Tongmen?”
“Yes!”
“This…you’re daydreaming.”
“You don’t believe me, I don’t believe you either. If we continue to get stuck with this, I can guarantee that the first person who dies must be him!” Tang Yin sneered and twisted the fair cheeks of Yu Shang.
The conversation between the two of them was extremely fast, and also attracted the attention of Wu Mei and Wu Ying.
The two sisters carefully looked at Yu Shang who was held hostage by Tang Yin. Judging solely from his clothes, the two could be sure that his identity in Ning State must be exceptionally noble, especially the belt around his waist with water ripple patterns which was something that only Ning royal members could wear. Moreover, Yuan Kui addressed him as His Highness. An idea flashed across the two sisters’ minds, Could it be that he’s someone close to Emperor Ning?
[1] Reiki: Japanese, a universal life energy