As both Shan Congli’s tone of voice and his mien were uncharacteristic, Yuwen Tong was on the alert and unnoticeably motioned for Jiang Xi standing beside him to go and guard the front gates of the royal palace, in case anything unexpected happened.
Jiang Xi gave a slight nod and then secretly made some arrangements, cautioning everybody to stay vigilant.
Given the number of the palace guards present, Shan Congli could do no more than put up a deathbed struggle, but apart from anything else, this place was the royal palace of the Wan Kingdom, and there was no telling whether or not Shan Congli, as the owner of this palace, had anything else up his sleeve that he might resort to to do them harm.
…
After the south city gates were opened, the troops waiting outside charged into the city and took control of the south city gates and the whole south street.
There were not many surviving enemies left, so there was no longer any necessity for Ling Zhang to stay involved. Still worried about the situation in the royal palace, he hurried towards the palace with his bodyguards.
When he reached the palace, he saw that the front gates were open. There were Great-Wen soldiers standing guard both in and outside the palace, the sound of fighting issuing from inside, but he was unable to tell what was happening in there.
“I’m honored to kneel before you, Your Highness,” chorused the soldiers guarding the front gates at the sight of Ling Zhang.
“How’s everything going in there?” asked Ling Zhang.
“Shan Congli has summoned his palace guards and put up fierce resistance. The fighting is continuing. His Majesty and General Jiang are both inside,” answered a soldier.
Ling Zhang nodded, looked up at the towering front gates of the Wan royal palace and then resumed riding forward. When going through the gates, he inexplicably felt somewhat unnerved as though there was something dangerous inside.
Ling Zhang, who had been having mounting confidence in his occasional forebodings, found his heartbeat quickening in spite of himself and he immediately spurred Snowflake and galloped into the royal palace.
Wang Dashan and the others, unaware of why Ling Zhang had suddenly picked up speed, hastened to follow in his wake.
There were dead bodies on the ground inside the palace, which clearly had witnessed an intense fight not long ago.
They detoured around another palace wall, rode through another pair of gates and were greeted with bright firelight. The troops of the Great Wen and a number of Wan palace guards were engaged in a full-on fight. Shan Congli was in the middle of his palace guards. They were surrounded by troops of the Great Wen.
Yuwen Tong was on his horse at the foot of a palace wall, under the protection of some soldiers led by Jiang Xi.
Ling Zhang glanced around the scene and let out a sigh of relief as he saw that Yuwen Tong was safe and sound. “Gee–up!”
Snowflake, without slowing down, made a beeline for Yuwen Tong.
“Sire, His Highness is coming.” Jiang Xi was the first to notice Ling Zhang and hastened to tell Yuwen Tong.
Yuwen Tong twisted his head around and saw Ling Zhang galloping towards him on Snowflake, who was all white and very conspicuous, but who was overshadowed by Ling Zhang’s great presence. Yuwen Tong’s attention was instantly drawn to Ling Zhang.
Ling Zhang galloped up and reined in Snowflake a couple of paces away from Yuwen Tong. Snowflake reared and then abruptly put her front legs down with a long neigh.
“How’s it going? Are you hurt?” Ling Zhang inquired immediately after his horse halted.
Yuwen Tong shook his head and looked Ling Zhang all over as the latter’s eyes appraised him. Having sensed Ling Zhang’s even and steady breathing, he knew that Ling Zhang was unharmed.
“How did it go at the south city gates?”
“We’ve taken control of the gates. Right now General Xiao and his men are hunting the surviving enemies in the city.”
Ling Zhang glanced at Shan Congli who was in the middle of the surrounding circle under the protection of his guards resisting desperately. “Why is he still alive?” he asked.
Yuwen Tong said, “The situation here is quite messy, but he’ll be either captured or killed in a few moments. You’ve just been through a fight. You should get some rest.”
Ling Zhang shook his head. “No. I’d just come in here when I felt there’s something wrong with this place. You need to be extra careful.”
Yuwen Tong slightly furrowed his brows. A moment ago Shan Congli’s inexplicably confident manner had struck him as weird and put him on the alert, and now Ling Zhang was giving him a forewarning …
“I want you to get out of this place first. I’ll retreat after capturing Shan Congli.”
Ling Zhang disagreed, turned on his heel and instructed his bodyguards, “Search this place and nearby palace walls immediately.”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Wang Dashan answered and promptly left to carry out the order with his fellow bodyguards.
Then Ling Zhang glanced at the palace wall behind him. It struck him that standing in that spot made him feel somewhat subdued and uncomfortable, so he said to Yuwen Tong and those beside him, “You guys should move elsewhere. I have a sense of foreboding.”
Yuwen Tong immediately cast a backward glance at the palace wall behind him. His piercing eyes swept around the scene and with that he said to Jiang Xi, “Let’s go somewhere else. Tell our men to stay away from palace walls.”
Jiang Xi nodded and immediately gave the order.
The soldiers changing their positions was a noticeable activity, one that Shan Congli in the middle of his palace guards observed. His face promptly changed and with that he yelled at a man beside him, “Shoot it right now!”
The bodyguard beside him quickly pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back, nocked it and raised his bow, but surprisingly, he was aiming at a bell hanging from a palace wall rather than Yuwen Tong or any of his men.
He loosed the arrow which then whizzed through mid-air like a shooting star.
Ling Zhang and the others also saw it immediately. Having an intuition that there was something wrong with the direction the arrow was going, he shot out a hand and grasped Yuwen Tong’s wrist. “GO!” he shouted.
Yuwen Tong flung an arm around Ling Zhang’s waist and with that the two of them leapt up from their horses and swooshed in another direction.
Jiang Xi, who also had very quick reactions, rapidly left that spot.
At the same time the arrow went into something attached to the outside of the bell with a great peal.
“RUN!” Ling Zhang shouted at his bodyguards.
Wang Dashan and the others were just about to climb up the palace wall when they heard Ling Zhang’s cry, promptly kicked the wall and flew backwards.
The next moment, a bizarre fizz was heard, which was closely followed by a loud explosion.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The whole palace wall was blasted. None of them knew what it was that was so powerful as to reduce such a thick palace wall to rubble. Broken stones carried by a violent shock wave shot outwards in all directions. All those who were too close to the wall to run away in time were hurled away by the blast.
Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong both felt the shock wave pushing them, but thanks to their consummate kung fu skills, they instantly extricated themselves from the area where the blast was the most powerful.
Wang Dashan and his fellow bodyguards were fairly unlucky. Though having evacuated quickly, they were still wounded. A couple of them, who had been hit hard by shooting stones, sustained severe internal injuries and spat out several mouthfuls of blood.
The whole royal palace was quaking violently. After a while, the ground on the scene also blew up as the palace wall had.
Yuwen Tong, carrying Ling Zhang, went up to the rooftop of a palace with a couple of flying leaps. Looking at the soldiers wounded by the explosion from underground, they both had grave faces.
“How many explosives did Shan Congli bury in this place exactly?!” Ling Zhang was confused with anger.
Yuwen Tong made no reply, because Shan Congli had not survived the explosion either. He had not prepared any escape routes for himself, presumably determined to die with his enemies. A pointed broken stone sent flying by the explosion had gone into his temple only a split instant before he kicked the bucket.
“That bastard!” Ling Zhang was so angry he had an urge to go down there and chop Shan Congli’s body into pieces.
Yuwen Tong could have been among the victims of the explosion had he not had the foreboding feeling beforehand … As this thought crossed his mind, Ling Zhang felt cold sweat breaking out over his back, his hand holding his sword trembling from rage.
Yuwen Tong gently hugged him, patting his back. “I’m fine. Let’s get this matter settled first.”
Teeth gritted, Ling Zhang cooled down and gave an “Um” of agreement with a head bob.
Yuwen Tong let Ling Zhang out of his embrace. At this time the explosion had stopped. The square was strewn with bodies blown apart, some of them palace guards, the others soldiers of the Great Wen.
As Ling Zhang landed on the ground, he caught sight of a Great-Wen soldier whose leg was wounded, but who was still alive. He hurried up, removed the rock pinning the soldier’s leg to the ground, hit a particular acupoint of his to slow down the bleeding, tore a piece of cloth off his robe and quickly tied it around the top of the soldier’s thigh. “Hang in there. You’re going to be all right.”
Groaning in pain, faced covered with blood, the soldier nodded at Ling Zhang feebly, clenching his teeth to stifle a pained cry.
Jiang Xi, along with those of his men who could still fight, went to kill the surviving palace guards. Each of those unequal to moving due to their injuries received a fatal stab. When all enemies had been finished off, Jiang Xi disgustedly glanced at Shan Congli’s body on the ground and let out a “Faugh!”
Soldiers outside the palace had heard the loud explosion and many of them came to help. Yuwen Tong directed them to give first aid to the injured.
Ling Zhang found his bodyguards. A couple of them had suffered rather severe internal bruising, and Qiu Bing had had them take some medicine which could help to heal internal injury, but he had not found the time to treat their trauma.
Ling Zhang crouched down to bandage Yang Liuzi’s injured arm.
“Young Master, I can manage it myself,” said Yang Liuzi, feeling overwhelmingly flattered.
“Sit still,” said Ling Zhang, his face grave. His bodyguards wouldn’t have been wounded had he not sent them to check the palace wall.
Ling Zhang glanced up at Qiu Bing dressing someone’s wound and said, “Qiu Bing, you hurt your thigh as well. Dress that wound of yours first.”
Qiu Bing looked down at his wound and smiled fairly nonchalantly, “I wouldn’t have known had you not told me, Young Master.”
With that he casually tore a strip of material off his robe and tied it tightly around his thigh.
Wang Dashan, who had been hit by flying rubble and spat out a mouthful of blood, was faintly ashen-faced. Having taken a pill which helped to heal internal bruising, he had regained his mobility. He walked up to Qiu Bing, snatched the vulnerary from his hand, untied the strip of cloth binding Qiu Bing’s thigh, ripped Qiu Bing’s pant leg, carefully applied the vulnerary to the wound, and then tore a piece of cloth from his own robe to bandage it. “Just because you’re a physician doesn’t mean your wound will heal without medical treatment,” he said.
Fairly abashed, Qiu Bing scratched his head. “I’ll keep that in mind, Chief.”
All twenty-four of them, to a greater or lesser extent, were wounded. After receiving quick first aid, they went to help the other injured soldiers with those who had just entered the palace to rescue their comrades-in-arms.
Wang Dashan and Liu Yi stayed, because Ling Zhang was still here and they could not leave their young master unprotected.
His bodyguards being pallid but still insisting on protecting him gave Ling Zhang a headache.
Fortunately Xiao Jiangyue and his men, after hearing the explosion, immediately came to help. With the efforts of a great number of rescuers, the injured were soon transferred. The remaining task was to clear the palace of the dead, including the handling of Shan Congli’s body.
Jiang Xi, filled with fury, had taken some men and set out to search the royal palace for Shan Congli’s offspring, knowing that one mustn’t cut a tuft of grass only, but must uproot it, that all those who might be a recipe for disaster must be eliminated.
With the death of Shan Congli and the fall of the Wan capital, the Wan Kingdom was subjected to thorough subjugation.
It had been quite some time since Yuwen Tong had led his men north, but considering they had annexed a nation, the mission had been fulfilled in a very quick manner, for which Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang who had spent three years planning it out deserved most of the credit.
“You may go and have some rest. I can handle this. We’ll talk about the rest after daybreak,” Yuwen Tong said to Ling Zhang.
Ling Zhang, face covered in dust and etched with weariness, shook his head. “No. I’ll stay here keeping you company.”
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