Zu An chuckled and said no more. He wrapped his arms around her, and slowly moved her on top of him.

Zheng Dan’s entire body shook. How could she possibly have the energy to resist? She bit her lip tightly, afraid that she would unwittingly make a sound.

Huang Huihong’s voice cut in suddenly. “Miss Zheng, are you okay?”

Zheng Dan’s mind trembled. She quickly controlled her voice to stop it from shaking. She pretended to be calm as she replied, “I’m… I’m fine. Why would you ask that?”

“Ah… I didn’t hear anything at all for a while, so I thought that something might have happened. I’m just asking out of concern for you,” Huang Huihong said with a smile. He was the one supervising them after all, and Zheng Dan was the wife of an official. It wouldn’t be good for his reputation if he let something happen to her.

Zu An immediately became upset. “Commander Huang, what the heck are you saying? Do you think I’m that sort of person?”

Zheng Dan hit his chest with her fist. 

It would be stranger if you weren’t that sort of person!

She really didn’t know where he got the audacity to say such nonsense. What if this rascal ended up pushing that commander to check on what was happening inside?

This thought made her extremely nervous, and her body shook uncontrollably.

Zu An had a strange look on his face. He sucked in a deep breath.

Huang Huihong snorted and said, “Miss Zheng, if anything at all happens, just yell for us.”

He clearly didn’t want to acknowledge Zu An, but he didn’t want to provoke him either. This fellow was just too hard to deal with, with all those weird tricks up his sleeves. He definitely didn’t want to bring any trouble upon himself.

“I understand. Thank you, Commander Huang,” Zheng Dan replied in a refined and courteous manner. At the same time, she hit Zu An a few more times. This guy really was annoying!

Sang Qian craned his neck to look in their direction. Unfortunately, besides the carriage rocking a little, he didn’t see anything else.

“Stop looking. It’s meaningless.” Sang Hong couldn’t resist offering him a reminder. Their throat acupoints had already been undone.

Sang Qian gritted his teeth. “Are we going to just let Zu An bully Dan’er?”

Sang Hong glared at him. “Can’t you see what situation we’re in right now? How can you still be concerned about relationship matters?! We should be looking for a way out of our current crisis! Given your father’s own skills, we’ll bounce back from this sooner or later. If worse comes to worst, won’t it be enough if I get you ten such distinguished daughters?”

“But I still feel like Dan’er suits me the best,”

Sang Qian mumbled to himself. “Besides, I don’t want to see that bastard Zu An get his way.”

Sang Hong could only shake his head in despair.

This child was hopeless. The two of them were facing death, yet he was still so concerned about such petty things.

He completely abandoned all hope for his son. He just hoped that his daughter would be a little more decisive and not as stupid as her older brother.

A glimmer flickered within Sang Hong’s eyes as he looked towards the direction of the capital, his thoughts moving rapidly.

…

Their convoy soon entered a valley. Suddenly, countless boulders tumbled down like a landslide.

“Be careful!” Huang Huihong yelled out in warning. He flung a Soul-reaping Chain towards the boulders in the sky.

The force of his chain smashed the falling boulders to pieces.

The other Imperial Guards also unsheathed their weapons and thrust out. Most of them were able to destroy the boulders falling towards them, but some unlucky individuals were struck by these rocks.

The entire convoy was thrown into chaos. Suddenly, a massive rock fell from the mountaintop, threatening to crush the carriage that Zu An was in.

Given the weight and size of the boulder, Liu Yao’s carriage would be squashed flat as a pancake no matter how tough it was.

Alarm bells rang in Huang Huihong’s mind. They were still dealing with the other rocks, and there was no way they could deal with this boulder in time.

Suddenly, a greenish blade appeared in midair, slicing through the giant boulder.

“It’s the Guard General’s blade ki!” Most of them recognized this blade ki, and excited cries filled the air.

Even though this boulder was massive, there was no way it could endure the full power of a ninth rank cultivator!

It was cleaved in half by this formless blade ki. The two halves tumbled to the side and exploded with a huge crash.

Liu Yao rushed into the sky. His feet tapped lightly against the mountain cliffs, quickly bringing him to the very top of the slopes.

There came the brief sound of weapons clashing, which quickly morphed into miserable screams. Then, everything became quiet.

King Liang had brought a bunch of men to check on the carriage that Zu An was in. He flung open the carriage door, and Zu An and Zheng Dan both sat up.

He sighed in relief when he saw that Zu An was unharmed. The emperor would never forgive him if something happened to Zu An.

His gaze fell on Zheng Dan, who was beside him. The Sang clan really had found a good daughter-in-law. She was indeed quite the beauty.

Why was her face so red, though?

He was about to ask her about this when Liu Yao flew down, dragging a few captives behind him. These captives all had horrified expressions on their faces.

“Who are you? Who sent you?” King Liang demanded.

Faced with the pressure of a master rank cultivator, the individuals eagerly blabbered, “We are from the Blackwind Stockade! We heard that Zu An killed our master Chen Xuan, and that he is to blame for our miserable lives. We heard that he was passing by, so we brothers came here to get revenge. We set up this trap, but we never expected that his escort would be… would be so strong…”

“Blackwind Stockade?” King Liang was puzzled. Someone immediately rushed over to inform him about the Blackwind Stockade.

“You all dare attack the Imperial Guard with your measly cultivations?” Liu Yao was so baffled that he laughed. He hadn’t even seen many fourth rank cultivators in the battle earlier. 

“We’ve fought against officials before, but none of them were as strong!” Those people quickly replied. Back then, with their boss to lead them, they were always the ones putting the hurt on Brightmoon City’s officials. None of them expected they would suffer so disastrously without their boss here.

It was all that bastard Zu An’s fault for killing their boss!

You have successfully trolled the Blackwind Stockade for 233… 233… 233…

Zu An was speechless as well. Even after all this time, no one had been able to find the Blackwind Stockade’s nest. 

What’s wrong with keeping a low profile? Why did you have to run all the way over here and lead your group to destruction?

Your boss Chen Xuan was only at the sixth rank, but you guys decided to fight an armed troop led by a master and a ninth rank cultivator. What the heck were you guys thinking?

When he saw that he wouldn’t be getting any more information out of them, Liu Yao snapped their necks and tossed them aside. “We’re continuing with the journey!”

This small incident wasn’t worth any further attention.

As their convoy started to move again, Sang Hong said from inside his prison carriage, “Qian’er, what have you noticed from this matter?”

“That the Blackwind Stockade overestimated themselves?” Sang Qian replied. This was a group that even he had faced before. Unfortunately, after Chen Xuan’s death, these fellows had dissolved into a disorderly mob, and their strength was greatly decreased.

Sang Hong shook his head and said quietly, “It’s not just you. King Liang and Liu Yao have likely overlooked something important as well. Earlier, the men of the Blackwind Stockade said that they’d heard Zu An was passing by. They didn’t mention who it was that told them, nor did they say why they trusted the one who told them.”

It was still pretty noisy after the chaos of the attack, so he wasn’t too worried about others overhearing what he was saying.

Sang Qian was shocked. “Dad, are you saying that there is someone else behind them?”

“Of course.” Sang Hong sniffed. “That person probably wanted to use the Blackwind Stockade as cannon fodder to test the waters. This would have provided them with a wealth of information that they can then use to make their own plans.”

Even though their cultivations were high, it seemed that neither King Liang nor Liu Yao understood the art of war, and they were poor at strategy as well. They had only sent out several scouts to conduct a rough and careless survey before entering such a dangerous valley. This was, in his opinion, an extremely rudimentary mistake.

They had also missed out on the clue that the men of the Blackwind Stockade had let on…

It looks like we’ll have quite a few surprises waiting for us during this journey.

The smile on his father’s face confused Sang Qian. “Dad, why are you so happy? If they aren’t as wary as they should be, wouldn’t that be bad for us? We’ve offended quite a few clans ourselves. If one of them takes advantage of the situation to attack us, won’t we be done for?”

“You don’t understand anything,” Sang Hong snorted. “If they were too smart, we wouldn’t even stand a chance.”