Chapter 1153 The frightened bird
May 19th, night.

Under a bright moon, a group of dishevelled, ragged men were walking in groups of two or three, supporting each other and staggering along a secluded path leading to Lin’an city.

There were more than ten people in their group, all with cloudy eyes, panicked faces, dusty and dishevelled clothes, and they all looked shabby and destitute, like a group of beggars fleeing from disaster.

“My Lord, we…we really can’t walk any longer. Can we rest nearby for a night and continue our journey tomorrow…after dawn?

The dark-faced man, who was following the team at a distance with legs that felt like they were filled with lead and who was almost swaying three times with every step, finally couldn’t resist the waves of fatigue that were rising one after another, and begged desperately to the “leader” who was walking in front of the team with a hoarse voice.

In fact, the other people in the team were already exhausted and wanted to fall asleep, but because of the dominance of the “Marquis”, they had to travel day and night these days, relying on the instinct of survival to barely hold on, silently enduring the double torture of body and mind, and gritting their teeth to persevere until now.

Hearing the black-faced man complaining at this time, the other people’s inner defenses were instantly broken.

In an instant, a stone stirred up a thousand waves, and more and more voices of begging for mercy and mercy appeared in the team. Of course, there were also some grievances and complaints.

“My Lord, we have been traveling day and night since we left Luoyang City. The brothers haven’t had a good night’s sleep for several days.”

“Yes! We dare not ride horses or sedan chairs, walk through the streets, or stay in hotels… We have to rely on our legs to travel through mountains and rivers, and we can’t even rest properly. It’s even more miserable than ascetic monks. It’s bad enough to eat wind and drink dew, but we are often looked down upon… After all, we are officials appointed by the court. How could we have been humiliated like this?”

“That’s right! We men have money on us, so why should we pretend to be beggars and humiliate ourselves and suffer for nothing?”

“My Lord, we brothers are all people who care about our reputation. Now that we are back in Lin’an in this half-human, half-ghost appearance… not to mention that the people in other government offices will laugh at us, even the brothers in Tianji Pavilion… I’m afraid they will treat us as a laughing stock.”

“To be honest, I’m not saying anything disrespectful… My Lord has been carefully guarding against this and that, saying that we are surrounded by enemies and that the situation is extremely dangerous… But along the way, we didn’t even encounter a single bandit. My Lord is so worried… Could it be that he was frightened by Liu Xunyi in Luoyang City?”

……

Everyone was talking at once, wishing to vent all their grievances at once. For a moment, the conversation became more and more lively, and they felt more and more aggrieved and excited. They even began to speak without restraint and overstepped their authority.

The “Marquis” they were talking about had stopped and stood in front of the team with a gloomy face. He looked at this group of useless subordinates with complicated eyes and did not say a word for a long time.

If his identity had not been revealed by his subordinates, no one would have thought that the dusty, hunchbacked beggar in front of them was the same person as the majestic and handsome Marquis Tianji of the past.

In fact, Qin Wei cannot be blamed for being cautious. After all, his greatest backer in the Central Plains martial arts world has died in Luoyang. Qingfeng is not only dead, but his reputation has also been ruined. As his ally and accomplice, how can Qin Wei not be panicked?
Furthermore, Qin Wei had just experienced a thrilling life-and-death catastrophe in Danfeng Garden not long ago, and he was deeply impressed by Liu Xunyi’s current status and reputation in the martial arts world.

He knew that there were many people in the martial arts world who wanted to curry favor with Liu Xunyi, and they would do anything to achieve their goals. Although Liu Xunyi had given him a break, there were still some smart people who misunderstood Liu Xunyi’s attitude towards Qin Wei and took an extreme approach, using his life as a bargaining chip to get close to Liu Xunyi.

As the saying goes, “Once bitten by a snake, one will be afraid of ropes for ten years.” No matter what, Qin Wei would never dare to risk his life again. Therefore, he imitated the method used by Liu Xunyi when he sent his bride back to Lin’an, and carefully divided his men into three groups.

The first group had the largest number of people. They openly marched under the banner of “Tianji Hou” and paraded through the streets to attract the attention of others.

The second group had a medium number of people. They disguised themselves as merchants and would bypass any city or fortress they passed by, choosing to stay in inns in mountain villages to rest.

The third group had the smallest number of people, but was composed of Qin Wei and his confidants. They were the most important and the most low-key. They dressed themselves up as refugee beggars, and did not enter cities or villages, drink alcohol, or stay in hotels along the way. They traveled to Lin’an day and night, rested on the spot when they were tired and exhausted, and begged for food when they were hungry and thirsty.

Because of this, in just a dozen days, this group of people had been tortured and became haggard.

Although the conditions were extremely bad, Qin Wei was extremely determined. He would rather disguise himself as a beggar who was despised by everyone, endure hardships and escape back to Lin’an, than to indulge in temporary enjoyment and put himself in unknown danger.

Facts have proved that Qin Wei was indeed foresighted. The first and second groups of troops encountered different degrees of trouble on their way back to the south, but only the third group of troops led by him was able to survive safely until now.

Unfortunately, Qin Wei’s subordinates could not fully understand his good intentions, nor were they willing to share the hardships with him. They just thought that he was frightened by Liu Xunyi in Luoyang City, and since then he has become paranoid and fearful of everything.

“Bastard!”

“Snapped!”

Just as the complaints of the crowd were getting more and more intense, Chu Mao, who was Qin Wei’s confidant, suddenly shouted, waved his hand and slapped the black-faced man who was causing trouble with a loud slap in the face.

The crisp sound of clapping resounded through the night sky, making the noisy scene quickly become quiet, with only a few sharp chirps of insects occasionally coming from the grass beside the road.

“What humiliation? What hardship?” Tu Long took the opportunity to threaten the others, “The Marquis has been with us from the beginning to the end. He can endure the hardship, but you can’t? Are you more precious than the Marquis?”

“That’s right!” Tu Hu echoed sharply, “What face do you keep talking about? Do you have any face? Don’t forget that the face of everyone in Tianji Pavilion was given by the Marquis! Without the Marquis, you are worse than dogs!”

“Hey! When I was a lieutenant of the Golden Sword in the Tianji Pavilion, I often stayed up for days and nights in extreme cold and heat, and it was common for me to not eat or drink. I never complained about the world like you do.”

Maybe it was because Qin Wei was exhausted and couldn’t muster the energy to teach his men a lesson. Maybe it was because he had experienced many vicissitudes of life and his character had become more mature and he would no longer get angry easily. Maybe it was because the current Tianji Pavilion was short of talent, and he couldn’t bear to alienate these “own people” who had been cultivated with great difficulty.

Facing the constant doubts and complaints, Qin Wei neither used force to suppress them nor yelled at them. Instead, he looked at them with disappointment and warned them weakly in a low voice: “If you were so lazy in the past, you would have no hope of being promoted, and you wouldn’t even be qualified to work in Tianji Pavilion. I am from a humble background like you, so I am very kind to my subordinates. I am even willing to treat you as brothers, unlike the previous marquis who was so cold and strict. But you also have to know etiquette and know when to advance and retreat. Considering that you were loyal to me when I was in trouble and didn’t run away for your own lives, I will not pursue what happened just now, but I don’t want it to happen again.”

“My Lord, please calm down. We know our crimes!” Under the combined force of Qin Wei, Chu Mao and others, the others gradually came to their senses.

Although Qin Wei looked like a beggar in rags, he was not a real beggar. Once he returned to Lin’an City, he would still be the Marquis of Tianji, who held a high position and great power. He could still ruin the future of these people with just one word, or even take their heads off.

The reason why they spoke without restraint just now was probably because they were sleepy, tired, and in a trance, and temporarily forgot their identities.

Thinking of this, they secretly thanked Qin Wei for his magnanimity, but at the same time, they all felt a sense of fear.

Not to mention that Qin Wei could control their life and death after returning to Lin’an, even here, with Qin Wei’s martial arts, he could still easily send them to death.

After this commotion, everyone became more sober, and the tiredness and fatigue they had just felt disappeared in a state of confusion between “relief” and “fear”.

“It’s less than 30 miles from here to Lin’an. Why should we wait until tomorrow?” Chu Mao saw that the time had come, so he spoke to boost morale. “Besides, there’s no village or store in this place. Do you want to starve and sleep in the weeds and mud? And be accompanied by snakes, insects, rats and ants?”

“As the saying goes, ‘A journey of a hundred miles begins with a single step.’ Now that we have come a thousand miles, why should we worry about a mere thirty miles?” After saying that, the dragon slayer suddenly smiled slyly and added, “As long as we fight our way back to Lin’an, we will be able to eat delicious food before sunrise, and after we have eaten and drunk our fill, we can bathe and change clothes, and then… find one or two beautiful ladies to spend a night with. Hehe… hugging them left and right, and having a hearty and happy three days and three nights, wouldn’t that be great?”

“That’s right! That’s right!” Tu Hu echoed with a smirk on his face. “When I was imprisoned in Danfeng Garden, I was thinking, if I died in such a confused way, then the narcissus in Chunfeng Tower, the lotus in Xialingxuan, the hibiscus in Qiushang Garden, and the plum blossoms in Dongnuan Pavilion…wouldn’t they be sad?”

“Tu Hu, you really understand the four seasons and appreciate the flowers everywhere!”

“No wonder you couldn’t even hold a knife in Luoyang City. It turns out your body has long been hollowed out by the peonies and peonies.”

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

“Your ‘spring, summer, autumn and winter’ are already outdated! What is popular now is the flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water, the heaven and the earth.”

“Ha ha……”

As soon as Tu Hu said this, the interest of these rough men was immediately aroused. The tiredness and exhaustedness seemed to be swept away in an instant, and a group of people began to rush to tell their “experiences”.

As they traveled excitedly through the night, they made obscene jokes and secretly envisioned all the wonderful things that would happen after they returned to Lin’an.

“No, no! What you said is not good! If we talk about the best here, it must be the Wanxian Tower in Jinling and the Sushui Pavilion in Quanzhou. I have to say that Shen Dongshan and Lu Tingxiang are really discerning. There are beauties picked from thousands of miles away…”

“Cough cough!”

Hearing the words “Sushui Pavilion”, Chu Mao’s face changed quietly and he coughed a few times, as if to remind everyone not to get carried away and talk nonsense.

The root cause of this was that Lan Qi, the woman Qin Wei favored, was born in Su Shui Pavilion, and Chu Mao was worried that he had violated the taboo of Tianji Hou.

“Dragon Tu, you have survived this disaster, so you will have good fortune in the future. Why don’t you compare ‘Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter’ with ‘Mirror Flowers and Water Moon’ when you go back? It will be worth it for God to let you live again.” Qin Wei knew the principle of quenching thirst by looking at plums, so he did not spoil the fun and even joined in the teasing. “After returning to Lin’an, I will give you ten days of idle work and reward you two hundred taels each for spending. You are not allowed to return to Tianji Pavilion unless you are satisfied.”

“My Lord, you are wise! Haha…”

Qin Wei’s generosity immediately made the slightly awkward atmosphere lively again.

At this moment, their legs seemed to be less heavy, their stomachs seemed less hungry, the moonlight seemed to be bright and yet gentle, and even the bumpy gravel path became less difficult to walk on without them noticing.

“The master and his subjects are of one mind, and they are in great joy. How pleasant! How beautiful! How touching!”

Just as Qin Wei and others were talking and laughing on their way, a joking voice suddenly came from the front.

On a quiet, secluded path late at night, the chance of running into a fellow traveler is almost as likely as running into a ghost.

Therefore, when the sudden laughter reached the ears of Qin Wei and his group, everyone was startled and subconsciously stopped. They looked up and quietly reached for their weapons.

But under a full moon, on a narrow path, two figures, one tall and one short, stood parallel to each other, like two wooden sculptures or clay statues, motionless, blocking everyone’s way.

The short man was dressed in a short green coat and a bamboo hat with the brim pulled down so low that his face could not be seen clearly. He had his hands folded across his chest, a short sword shining coldly in the moonlight inserted diagonally between his arms. His seemingly casual posture contained a gait of a horse and a bow that could attack or defend.

The tall man was over ten feet tall, with a sturdy body, and terrifying muscles that were about to burst out, which made his robe bulge. He held a huge axe in each hand, standing proudly under the night sky, like a huge beast standing upright, enough to make people a hundred steps away feel the huge oppression and creepy chill.

“I really hope you can continue to be so carefree and happy! But… you have taken the wrong road. I will help you change it.” The sarcastic voice sounded again, floating like a ghost between the empty and lonely world.

“Who is pretending to be a ghost?”

Before Chu Mao finished speaking, the short man slowly raised his head, and Long Yu’s pale face with a strange and evil smile gradually appeared under his hat.

“Don’t be afraid! I’ll move quickly and try not to ruin your fun. We’ll continue our conversation on Huangquan Road in a while!”

……