noffsinger Chapter 477: Chase!
Chapter 477: Chase!
Prince Chenliu and his entourage quickly mounted their horses, even abandoning the carriages they had originally intended to use for disguise.
"Your Highness, we're taking the official road. If we continue this way, we'll probably run into people from the capital." Tie Zheng looked at the dark road ahead and said, "Should we turn back or..."
This official road is the land route leading to the capital, and there is no other fork at this point.
If they continued walking, they would really encounter people from the capital who came to ambush them.
Just as Prince Chenliu frowned, a dark shadow appeared in front of their horses.
This person was as silent as a ghost.
"Who is it!" Tie Zheng immediately became alert.
"Let's take the water route!" the man in black said in a hoarse voice to Prince Chenliu and his entourage.
"Your Highness, it's him!" Tie Zheng finally saw clearly what the man in black was wearing, and he lowered his voice and spoke to Prince Chenliu.
"My dear hero, we don't have a boat!" Prince Chenliu knew that this person was the master sent by Marquis Zhenbei who sent a message to Tie Zheng after fighting with him.
"We have arrangements. Just take the path to the dock ahead," the man in black said in a deep voice. "Leave the rest to me! Hurry! There's a boat waiting for you at the dock. Tomorrow morning, we'll take you to the dock outside the capital. When the city gates open in the morning, you can enter the city directly!"
"Okay!" At this time, Prince Chenliu had no other choice. He just thought about it for a moment and did not stay any longer.
Xu Jiashan had already released the pigeon that was carrying the message, and he believed that people from the capital would come after him soon.
They need to leave here quickly.
Prince Chenliu glanced at the man in black and said, "I am grateful for your kindness." He bowed to the man, then turned back from the official road with his men and took a small path to the location of the dock pointed by the man in black.
Wait until Prince Chenliu's men leave.
The man in black then took off the black hat on his head, revealing a handsome and innocent face.
He blew a whistle, and then several horses came galloping out from the depths of the forest.
"Create an illusion and let the pursuers think that Prince Chenliu and his entourage have turned around and run back!" Wei Ling gave the order.
"Yes!" The men responded promptly, and then someone dismounted to chop branches. They first used the branches to wipe out the horse hoof prints left by Prince Chenliu and his party. Then they mounted their horses and stepped out a circle of messy hoof prints, and then everyone rode their horses away in the opposite direction of the official road.
While they were doing this, Wei Ling checked one by one the corpses left behind by the Prince of Chenliu and his men after they had strangled the traitors.
Prince Chenliu was still inexperienced. If one of these people pretended to be dead, their whereabouts would be exposed again.
Sure enough, among the bodies of those people, one was found who was not completely dead. Although a sword was stuck in his heart, the sword was stabbed shallowly and did not really pierce the heart. He just held the sword with his hand, making people mistakenly believe that he was dead.
Wei Ling raised his sword and chopped off the man's head cleanly. Then he mounted his horse and rode away.
Following the instructions of the man in black, Prince Chenliu arrived at an inconspicuous little pier after running along a small road for more than ten miles. It was more like a small ferry than a pier.
Even during the day, this ferry is inconspicuous.
As soon as Prince Chenliu arrived, two lights were lit at the ferry.
"My master ordered us to wait here. Please get on board, distinguished guest." A man in plain blue clothes stood at the ferry. He did not look very old, and his face looked very ordinary at first glance, but upon closer inspection, he exuded a sense of shrewdness and competence in his ordinariness.
Behind him were two large black-sailed boats with only a lantern hanging on the bow.
"Your Highness, can we trust that man?" Tie Zheng looked at Prince Chenliu hesitantly.
"If he wanted to harm us, why would he resort to such roundabout tactics?" Prince Chenliu smiled calmly. "He could just watch us fall into his trap!"
Tie Zheng was stunned for a moment. What his prince said was true!
"Thank you, your master." Prince Chenliu bowed on his horse, then dismounted directly with Tie Zheng's company.
"Dear guests, just get on the front boat, and your horses can get on the back boat." The man in blue stepped aside, and someone immediately brought a wide visiting boat over.
Tie Zheng helped Prince Chenliu directly onto the boat.
Seeing their prince boarding someone else's boat, the other guards dismounted and followed their prince.
Prince Chenliu discovered that although there were not many boatmen on the two ships, each of them was very skilled and did everything very quickly and methodically. Especially from their actions of driving the horses scattered on the shore to the second ship, it could be seen that these people had received special training.
Even the navy under his command might not be as fast as them!
The King of Chenliu had to look at the Marquis of Zhenbei's strength with new eyes again.
In less than half an hour, the two boats quietly left the ferry in the dark night and sailed towards the capital city under the cover of darkness.
Soon after Chen Xinghe and his men left Furong Town, they received news from Xu Jiashan via carrier pigeon.
He led his men and rushed towards the place pointed by Xu Jiashan, but when he arrived, he could only see carriages scattered on the side of the official road and the dead bodies lying all over the place!
Xu Jiashan died the most tragically. Not only was his head cut off, but even his limbs were chopped off.
As soon as Chen Xinghe saw Xu Jiashan's body, he knew that the person who killed Xu Jiashan was protesting against him! Killing someone only requires one knife, so why chop him into so many pieces?
There was also a blood letter written on Xu Jiashan's body, written with the blood of an unknown person. "You will not die well!" These four words caught Chen Xinghe's eyes under the light of the torch.
The King of Chenliu chopped Xu Jiashan into pieces like this to tell him that traitors would be torn into pieces by five horses! Although the four words "not a good death" were written on Xu Jiashan's body, they were a warning to him!
"Prince, the horse's hooves are running back!" Someone identified the hoof prints on the official road and then said.
"Chase!" Chen Xinghe was so angry about Xu Jiashan's death and those words that his hair stood on end.
He knew that if he couldn't catch up with Prince Chenliu tonight, he would have no chance of capturing or killing him before he arrived in the capital!
The Prince of Chenliu obviously knew who he was, and the four words he left behind, "You will not die a good death", were obviously a warning to him!
Chen Xinghe and his group jumped on their horses and chased in the direction of the horseshoe prints.
After Chen Xinghe and his group left, a man jumped down from a nearby tree. It was Wei Ling!
It was he who chopped open Xu Jiashan's body, and left those words there just to piss off Chen Xinghe.
If Chen Xinghe hadn't been upset by the princess earlier today, he might not have been so angry about Xu Jiashan's body and those words! But what happened to him today at Ximoxuan and in the capital, as well as the way Qin Wanfang was beaten, irritated him...
So when he saw Xu Jiashan being tortured to death, he would definitely chase him!
Wei Ling had calculated this, so he disposed of Xu Jiashan's body in this way, in order to guide Chen Xinghe along the official road and go in the opposite direction of Chenliu Prince and his entourage.
By the time Chen Xinghe remembered that there was a waterway nearby that could lead to the capital, it was probably too late.