ZiLi fell off his horse, battered and exhausted, and rolled on the ground a few times. His body was covered in dirt and dead leaves, his elbows and knees were bleeding, and one shoe on his feet was missing. Half of the fake beard on his mouth was dangling as it was about to fall off, and the sweat running down his face made the mask made of human skin stick closely to his skin like a layer of glue, which was very painful. However, in the face of these four assassins who were approaching him step by step with bright sharp swords, none of this mattered at all.
“You― You all better not come near me, I― I still have more concealed weapons,” ZiLi threatened weakly as he staggered back.
“Well, then we will keep our eyes open and see what other unique concealed weapons you have to deal with the four of us!” the assassin said, staring at him with bitter resentment and gnashing his teeth. Who could have thought that someone who lacked the strength to even truss a chicken could wipe out seven of their best fighters in one go! The four men formed a half arc and cornered ZiLi under a large tree.
ZiLi swallowed his saliva and said as a last resort 1 , “I have no enmity with you, so what is worth the trouble that you do insist on killing me? I― I have a lot of money on me, so how about this, I will give you all my money and you will let me go, okay?”
The assassins sneered, “Money? We can get that if we kill you!”
Uh, ZiLi broke out in a cold sweat. Booohooo, they seem to be telling the truth, ah! It’s over, it’s over! Am I really going to die here today?
“Wait, wait a minute, be― before I die, can you tell me who exactly sent you to kill me?”
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 46 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
“You want to know?” the assassin gave another evil grin, “Then go to hell and ask Yama, the King of Hell, about it!” as he said that, he suddenly raised his double-edged sword and aimed at ZiLi’s heart.Looking at the longsword that could not be stopped, ZiLi closed his eyes tightly in fear and waited for his death to come in despair. He expected that the next moment he would hear the sound of flesh splitting open and feel a sharp pain, but after waiting a while, the other person’s sword still had not pierced him. ZiLi opened his eyes in bewilderment, and saw the assassin before him, who was frozen in a ready-to-kill stance, fall to the ground with a bang, with a fletching of an arrow, which had gone straight to his heart, sticking out of his back.
The assassins, who had already encountered too many unexpected situations today, had obviously recovered quickly from their initial state of shock, and they immediately turned their back to each other, forming a circle, and swung their swords, staring vigilantly at their surroundings.
“Who is there? The dirty little snakes and rats who are behind this, better show themselves!”
As soon as his words had fallen, several concealed weapons suddenly shot out of the trees and bushes from both sides.
“F•ck, there’s more?” the assassins cursed as their faces changed, but faced with those things, they really did not know whether they should block or slash them.
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 46 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
“Don’t touch them, just dodge.” one of the assassins roared, making a quick decision. The three of them swiftly dodged, and when they thought they were in the clear, the concealed weapon in the form of a sphere that had fallen to the ground suddenly exploded unexpectedly, and immediately, a burst of suffocating white smoke was released.*Cough, cough, cough, cough* F•ck, it was actually a smoke bomb!”
“Not good! Quick, keep an eye on that bastard and don’t let him get away.”
But how could they tell north from south and east from west, when there was thick smoke surrounding them? By the time they had made their way to the large tree, ZiLi was already long gone.
***
*Gasp* “I’m damn tired! But, in the end― in the end I managed to preserve my life!” ZiLi climbed off his horse and stretched out exhausted on the grass by the lake, saying to the two next to him who had also jumped off their horses, “You two, thanks a lot! By― by the way, why are you two here?”These two individuals were none other than the two brothers who had relied on ZiLi to meet the Emperor in the capital that day. So, how did they end up here? Well, that is a long story!
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 46 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
On that day, when they realized that the old man was ZiLi in disguise, they immediately went after him, but there were too many pedestrians in the market, so they could not find any trace of him for some time. After wandering around for a while, they finally saw ZiLi at the city gate rushing out of the city on his horse. Before they had time to pursue him, they suddenly saw another man on a horse arriving from outside the city with an Imperial edict in his hand, ordering the gates to be sealed off. All people entering and leaving the city had to go through a strict inspection, and a large number of soldiers were also searching the city. The people were tormented in panic for two days before the seal was lifted. Rumor had it that the Emperor was after a fleeing notorious criminal, but they could vaguely guess that it was not as simple as that. Since their goal was to see the Emperor to bring an accusation against someone, they did not care about the rumor. But the bad thing was that the one who could introduce them had escaped before the city gate was sealed off and without him, they were back to square one. Just when the two brothers were considering whether they should go after him or not, their enemies suddenly had discovered their whereabouts and an unavoidable chase ensued with the intention of killing them, forcing them to decide to leave the Capital for the time being, both to catch up with ZiLi and to avoid the chase. So, the two of them went on a non-stop journey looking for traces of ZiLi, while eating in the open air and sleeping outdoors. After being on the run for a few days, they arrived in a small town and upon asking around, they finally found out that ZiLi had spent the night there as he had sought refuge. When they got this information, the two knew that their target was not far ahead. To avoid any unexpected additional complications 2 , the brothers immediately went after ZiLi without staying in the small town. Who would have thought that the first thing they saw was the scene of ZiLi being chased to be killed by more than a dozen people! The brothers then decided to take a detour to the front to ambush them, and that was how the scene at the tree came about.Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 46 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
After hearing this, ZiLi’s heart was filled with regret and shame, to think that those whom he had deceived with his ugly heart had now saved his life instead! In any case, he owed them a favor. Knowing that they wanted to see the Emperor to bring an accusation against someone, ZiLi pondered for a while, then wrote a letter crookedly with a brush, sealed it, took a token from himself, and handed it to them, “I can’t go back to the Capital with you. You can take this sealed letter to the Ninth Prince, Hong Qing, and ask him to take you to see the Emperor. I think he will definitely agree. However, you absolutely must not divulge my whereabouts. If they ask for more details, you will say that I already handed these things over to you when I was in the Capital, understood?”The two brothers looked at each other in surprise and delight, but the expression on their faces soon became dejected and they said, “Even though we have your letter, we cannot return to the capital at the moment, for our enemies are surely waiting for us in an ambush by the side of the road and we will definitely die a horrible death as soon as we get close. So, Your Highness, let us follow you first, and when the right time comes, we will leave again, would that be okay?”
ZiLi looked at the two still dirty but expectant faces in front of him and felt obliged to give in and said, “Okay, fine! But from now on, I want you to address me correctly. You may no longer call me Your Highness anymore. My name is Su ZiLi and you can call me big brother ZiLi, understood?”
“Understood, boss Su!”
“No, it’s big brother ZiLi, but I like this title, so from now on you can call me boss Su!”
“All right.”
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 46 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
“Oh, by the way, I still don’t know your names yet, can you tell me?”“I am Lin CunGong.”
“And I am Lin CunShou.”
“Then, Xiao Gong and Xiao Shou, uh, it’s a little weird 3 to call you that! *Cough, cough* Are you two brothers?”
“Yes, we are twins.”
“No wonder you understand each other so well!”
“Heh heh!”
“All right, let’s get a move on, or there’ll be a whole bunch of chasing soldiers and assassins again! Qu Zi, let’s go, let’s go――”
“Go――”
The three of them rode their horses side by side into the orange sunset.
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