The sun rises and sets, and the day flies by. In the blink of an eye, it is sunset. The gate of Jiang Lin's outer city has been closed. The gatekeeper of the inner city is shouting and commanding his Qi Yunwei to close the gate of the inner city. One man and one horse, coming from the south to the inner city, the horses' hooves are wild, carrying the thin snow on the ground...
At that time, Xiao Yushen left Jianglin City, devalued himself and went to the bitter cold land of Weizhou, and guarded Shanhaiguan together with Wang Tian for eighteen years. Now when he returns to Linjing, things have changed.
The scattered inner city mansions all around make this small mansion with several courtyards extremely shabby, but no matter how luxurious the mansions are around, they can't hide the fact that above this courtyard, King Qi Yun personally mentioned the "Xiao Mansion" as the second The style of words.
The plaque is an ordinary wooden plaque. Even if the Ninth Five-Year Plan often sends people to clean it, it can't cover up the years of erosion and gradually showing signs of decay. On the left and right doorposts supporting the eaves of the entrance to the small house, there are still King Yun's vigorous and powerful couplets of dragons and snakes make the green tiles and red eaves around Jianglin's inner city eclipse.
"A cup of warm wine, chatting and laughing will set the world apart, and eight battles of talents will show off the past and present."
At that time, this small Xiao Mansion not only taught the world-famous Qi Yun Seventh Son, but also taught the "Returnless General" Qi Lin, not to mention the current Qi Yun Ninth Five-Year Master.
"Have you heard, Prime Minister Xiao has returned to the capital?" Nine guards, ten of them, patrolled the inner city of Jianglin. They walked with solemn expressions and swords in hand until they arrived at the Xiao Mansion Gate, which was incompatible with the grand mansion in the inner city. In front of the team, the junior colonel at the end of the team saw what seemed to be lights inside the Xiao Mansion. He quickly approached the leading colonel and spoke.
"Don't talk too much. You and I are not allowed to talk about the matter of Prime Minister Xiao. We should patrol carefully and be very vigilant. You must know that the unsolved case of 'Ghosts Walking at Night' has not been solved yet..." The leading captain lowered his voice. The voice shouted the small school back.
The remaining nine guards did not dare to say anything after hearing the reprimand from their captain, and braced themselves to continue patrolling. However, at night, the sound of horse hooves that was extremely inconsistent with the inner city of Jianglin resounded.
"Shuashua." The nine guards were well-trained. In just a moment, they had drawn their knives in their hands and spread out in an orderly manner, forming a network formation and sealing off the streets in the inner city in an instant.
"Stop." The captain of the group of nine guards held a knife in his hand and stood guard in the middle of the quiet street, staring intently at the approaching people on horseback running wildly under the cover of night.
"Huh..." The visitor came closer, and just then he saw that the nine guards had set up a defensive formation to seal the streets in the inner city. The horse's hooves were fast, and they were about to hit the nine guards before they saw it. This person He pulled the reins hard and immediately raised his hooves.
The horse's hooves turned, and he was only a few feet away from the Nine Gates Guards Captain. However, the Nine Gates Guards Captain was not afraid at all. He did not take a step back. He only raised his hand and looked at the person on the horse sternly. The remaining Nine Gates Guards He had already put away the knife in his hand and replaced it with a small crossbow. The cold light from the crossbow was pointed directly at the person coming on horseback. When the captain of the Nine Gates raised his hand and dropped it, he could shoot the person coming on horseback into a honeycomb in the blink of an eye.
"Who, don't you know the rules in the inner city of the imperial city? Riding a horse and running wildly, this is a serious crime, and you are enough to be sentenced to have your feet cut off." The cold sweat on the forehead of the Nine Gate Guards was enough to show how deep his heart was. Not as easy as he spoke.
The person coming on horseback was dressed in ordinary attire, and his face could not be seen clearly with the scarf. He did not know his age, but the embarrassment all over his body showed that he had traveled a long distance. When he heard the captain of the Nine Gates yelling and asking, he lightly He caressed the horse's back, soothed it and sat down. The horse neighed. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw the defensive formation of nine guards around him. Although he couldn't see his face clearly, he could hear the contemptuous laughter in his voice when he spoke.
"Ten-man formation, swords in front, spears and horses, crossbows to attack from a distance... Unfortunately, the peaceful days have been too long, and Jianglin City will not be attacked by war horses. The spears and horses are abandoned, and only waist knives and hand crossbows are worn. Although it is portable, it cannot shoot through heavy armor. If I had just put on heavy armor and charged into the battle on horseback, your crossbows would have been killed by my fast horse before I could take action... If you are so lazy, I think the commander of your nine guards... damn it."
This man could easily enter the city after sunset, and even rode his horse into the heavily guarded inner city of the imperial city. Now he had revealed the flaw in the nine-men guard's ten-man defense formation, and the leading nine-men captain was already frightened. , and when he opened his mouth again, he no longer had the momentum he had just asked about the man on horseback.
"Your Excellency...who is he?"
A man came on horseback, pulled off the wind scarf that blocked the entrance to the wind and snow, and revealed his face. He was about three or forty years old, with a resolute face as sharp as a knife, his brows were knitted, and his thin lips moved slightly and said: "What's the matter? When you joined the army, At that time, he was still a small colonel, but now he is a captain of a ten-man formation. Now that he has become a big official, he doesn’t even recognize me."
The leading captain was startled when he saw this man's face. The surprise in his eyes was instantly replaced by surprise. Unable to hide the emotion in his eyes, he unconsciously lowered his raised hand.
The remaining nine guards who stood in position didn't know what was going on. They only saw the captain's gesture fall, and he had already triggered the short crossbow mechanism. In an instant, the nine-handled | crossbow Hanmang suddenly appeared, carrying the sound of breaking through the air from the side of the nine captains. , roaring away towards the person coming on horseback.
"Wait a minute..." Only then did the Captain of the Nine Gates realize that his gesture had fallen. It was too late to turn around and try to stop the Nine Gates Guards under his command. The crossbow's cold light was about to shoot through the man on horseback in an instant.
Just for a moment when the captain of the Nine Gates turned around to stop him, the long sword hanging on his waist was attracted by a strong force and flew out of its sheath. Then he heard a "ding-dong" sound. When he looked back, he saw a group of Nine Gates guards holding short crossbows. All the cold rays shot out had been blocked by his own sword, and the sound just now was caused by the blade swinging and cutting off the fine steel | crossbow arrows.
The nine guards were all shocked. They were not surprised that this man had sharp sword skills and blocked all the crossbow arrows. They were surprised by the sword skills this man used... Each of the nine guards was an elite member of the army who had gone through several rounds of screening. Enter the Nine Gates, and the first thing you get after entering the Nine Gates is the sword manual passed down from the guards of the Nine Gates.
The sword techniques in the sword manual are very simple. It is so simple that anyone who has learned some gun and stick skills can understand it and learn it. It is so simple that all the nine guards are called it. This sword manual is really practical. It is an insult to the status of the Nine Gate Guards.
But it happened that the sword skills that these nine guards despised the most were so sharp when used by this man. Every sword he used had been read in the sword manual, but he couldn't use the power of his sword. .
After recovering from the shock, the nine guards saw that their crossbows were useless against this man, so they abandoned their crossbows and drew their knives, and moved into formation to surround this man.
"Presumptuous, you know he is..." The school captain saw this man deflecting the arrows fired from the crossbow. He just took a breath and saw that his nine guards had surrounded this man, and he hurriedly reprimanded him.
But when the words of reprimand were about to come out, the man raised his hand to stop him. He opened his thin lips slightly and said with a smile: "I am sore all over from riding a horse all the way. I just want to move around and unblock my muscles and bones." Come, let me see what the current Nine Gate Guards are capable of."
A group of nine guards wanted to take action together to capture this thief who dared to run wildly in the inner city and speak arrogant words. However, they heard the reprimand from their own captain. For a moment, you looked at me and I looked at you. You don't know what to do.
"What's the matter, the guards of the Nine Gates have become so cowardly now that someone is riding a horse late at night and they don't dare to take action?" Seeing that the guards of the Nine Gates were frightened by the captain's words and did not dare to take action, the man couldn't help but taunted.
As soon as he said this, the nine guards who surrounded him all showed indignation. This man was too arrogant, and no matter what his status was, the captain of the school was afraid of him, so he dared to speak to him for being so arrogant. He used the nine guards to stretch their muscles and wanted to teach him a lesson for these words. The nine guards exchanged glances, clenched their single swords in their hands, and moved towards the man to surround him.
When the visitor saw this, he smiled at the corners of his lips. He was satisfied with the performance of the Nine Gate Guards. Looking around with his peripheral vision, he had memorized the locations of the Nine Gate Guards. With a flip of his hand, he had already obtained the handle from the school captain's waist. The long knife is turned around, with the back of the knife facing outwards, and the sharp edge rushing inwards.
When the nine guards saw this, they were furious. This man looked down upon others so much that he even pointed the back of his sword at the enemy, and their faces turned red.
"Drink." The nine-men primary school commander who had just asked the nine-men captain in front of the Xiao Mansion could no longer suppress the anger in his heart. He jumped on the ground and struck down the head with a single sword in his hand, vowing to kill the powerless man in front of him. split into two.
The crossbar, arm grabbing, and sword swing were completed in one go. Xiao Xiao flew out upside down and fell to the ground. The moment this person took action to repel Xiao Xiao, the remaining Nine Guards quickly moved out, After slashing horizontally and vertically, several long knives suddenly formed into a net, covering the man's figure.
But before any of the Nine Gate Guards could react, I saw this man with the light of night in his eyes, and his body looked like a ghost walking through the net of sword light, looking at the Shenfa Saber that he had memorized when he entered With this move, the nine guards were just like the small school that had been repelled by the previous move. Before they could react, they felt their chests being hit with great force, and they all flew backwards. Without stopping, when he was repelling a group of nine guards, the man had put the single sword in his hand into the scabbard of the leading captain.
Thinking that they had been stabbed, the nine guards endured the pain and hurriedly checked their chests. They saw that the back of the knife in the man's hand had left a deep dent on the armor. Only then did they understand the meaning of him using the back of the knife against them. If he hadn't been merciful and used his sword to fight against the enemy, all of them would have been killed from the waist. For a moment, everyone didn't know whether to thank him for his mercy or to continue the roundup.
"Okay, everyone, get up. Why don't you quickly thank Master Duanmu for your mercy? Otherwise, your small lives will only cost your family members to go to Sizhong to collect pension money." The leading Nine Gate Captain shouted hurriedly.
Hearing their captain say "Sir Duanmu" bluntly, all the nine guards could not help but be dumbfounded. There was only one person who could be called "Sir Duanmu", and that was Duanmu Qiu. The favorite disciple of Prime Minister Xiao at that time, one of the seven sons of Qi Yun, the man who founded the Nine Gate Guards, and an important minister who is deeply trusted by the current emperor.
Qi Yun's Seventh Son, even the current sage once praised:
"One has two Wus and three Duanmu, four Chu, five guards and six Linghu. The seventh son, Shangguan, is good at divination. Together with Qi Yun, the sun never sets."
The praise in the words, the seven people assisting Qi Yun together, can make Qi Yun shine like the sun in the sky and never set. This kind of praise has fully demonstrated the virtuousness of Qi Yun's seven sons.
Everyone hurriedly stood up, rolled and crawled, put away their weapons, hammered their chests with their fists, knelt down on one knee, saluted Lord Duanmu, and shouted in unison: "Sir."
"Okay, everyone, get up. I am no longer the commander of the Nine Guards. I am not good at martial arts, but I can still practice. If I serve on the battlefield in the future, the enemy will not be as merciful as me." Duanmu frowned and taught, although now he is no longer The commander of the Nine Gate Guards, after all, was facing the Nine Gate Guards that he had founded, so his tone had softened a lot.
"I will obey Master Si Zun's order." Although everyone had never received personal instruction from Master Duanmu, they might have been honored to meet the legendary person mentioned by the old nine gate guards, so they all shouted.
Seeing that everyone was still kneeling and unwilling to leave, Duanmu Qiu finally understood the meaning of the nine gate guards. He stretched out his hand into his arms, and a gold medal arrow appeared in his hand...
The Holy Lord personally bestowed the golden arrow with the golden arrow, which was like the emperor's personal presence. No one dared to stop him from riding his horse into the inner city, even when he broke into the palace at night. All the nine guards kowtowed and shouted "Long live", and only left after receiving Duanmuqiu's orders. go.
After watching the nine guards go away, Duanmuqiu turned around to lead his horse and looked sideways at the Xiao Mansion with nostalgia in his eyes. He straightened his clothes, stepped forward and knocked lightly on the door of the mansion.
Some people died, but not completely...
