Nightfall

The Lad Running While Shooting Arrows

Exactly 100 feet away meant nothing to ordinary people, but it represented danger and even death to the cultivator at the Seethrough State. Because any of the Sword Masters, Talisman Masters, and Psyche Masters could assault any target within 100 feet as long as they stepped into the Seethrough State.

The pouring spring rain fell splashing on the carriage, on the body of the stalwart coachmen, and on the shafts of the cart. Nothing but a corner of a plain gown could be seen when the wind lifted the carriage curtain. The man inside wearing the plain gown was an aged man with a plain and simple complexion, with grizzled anxious eyebrows, and a face studded with wrinkles, just as anguished and miserable and sad as the old root of coptis.

He was called Xiao Kuyu, the powerful man supported by the military sources of the great Tang Empire, who had stepped into the Seethrough State 20 years ago. A few days ago, he was summoned secretly back to the capital from Yang Pass in the south by the Military Ministry due to tonight’s killing plan.

Chilly wind and wretched rain shrouded the carriage, in which Xiao Kuyu seemed to be unaware of at all, with his gaunt hands slightly trembling on his knees, and his thumb pinching on the four jarring marks of the forefinger and middle finger, like a withered tree branch unceasingly tapping onto the dry, yellow earth. Both of his eyes were closed, with the thick carriage’s curtain in front of his face. But with just a light pinch of the fingers, he could precisely see the main entrance of Chao Mansion, gazing at Chao Xiaoshu sitting cross-legged in the heavy rain.

The fine drizzle above the cross street of the Spring Breeze Pavilion began to flaunt and tilt, seemingly disturbed by an invisible force. Several fluctuations, which no one could see or even perceive, began to agglomerate in the Qi of Heaven and Earth.

Chao Xiaoshu sitting in the heavy rain slightly pursed up his lips. Up to this point tonight, the facial expression appearing on this middle-aged man, for the first time, seemed to be dignified and solemn on his slightly pale, handsome features. He had to gather himself together to cope with the Psyche Master in the mysterious carriage, so he looked down slightly so as not to look at the more than ten hopeless elite soldiers in front of him. His right hand exposed out of the sleeves thumped the accumulated water beside him, splashing up the muddy rainwater.

In the Rain-enjoying Building, the thin cyan-steel sword, that had deeply stabbed into the core of the eyebrows of the sadhu, retracted at high speed with a ripping sound. The sword turned around like lightning in the rainy sky, whistling sadly and shrilly, merging into a streamer, which instantly flew above the courtyard walls, stabbing towards the carriage in the rain.

An extremely indifferent word, “Tut-tut,” came from within the carriage in the quiet rain.

The cyan-steel sword, like a flowing iris, seemed to be hit by force held by the word, and seemed to be constrained by the invisible fluctuation of Primordial Qi in the rainy sky. It came to a pause abruptly after soaring over the courtyard walls, then glanced off, bumping against the wall opposite the streets and alleys, and fell to the ground along with the rainwater like a kite tied by a broken line!

The “tut-tut” in the carriage in the rain could have already detached from the domain of space and time, arisen from more than 100 feet away, but sounded in Chao Xiaoshu’s eardrums and mind like a thunderbolt at the same time.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Chao Xiaoshu felt his own heart seemingly being held by a formless hand, which began to beat violently like war drums incessantly thumping, instantly losing control of the flying sword. He knew that if he made no response to that, this war drum would then be cracked by the heavy drumstick, and his own heart would then be torn to pieces by the person in the carriage.