After the martial arts conference held at Zangjian Villa came to an end.
Shortly after the painting appreciation party started.
In the dark night, a group of people walked quickly on the winding mud road.
They were heading in the direction of Hidden Sword Villa.
There were more than twenty people on this trip.
Among them, more than ten people were divided into two columns, riding horses in an orderly manner. They were wearing gorgeous splendid blue robes with flying swallows embroidered on them, and each of them carried two long swords on their backs. The long sword is one long and one short. The long sword is three feet and six feet long, and the short sword is only two feet short.
The two swords are equipped with vermilion tassels, which flutter in the wind.
The waistband of Feiyan suit is uniformly equipped with a waist tag, and the waist tag is engraved with the word "mi".
Feiyan clothing, long and short swords, and the "secret" sign. These three characteristics highlight the identity of this group of people - a secret factory.
After the demise of the Dasheng Dynasty, the Daqian Dynasty emerged to replace it.
At the beginning of the dynasty, in order to stabilize the court and supervise the subjects, the emperor set up a "secret investigation factory", referred to as "secret factory". Responsible only to the emperor, he has special privileges and can inspect his subjects at will. He has great power in the court: arrest first and then interrogate, interrogate before reporting, and behead without refutation.
The horse's hooves splashed mud in the dark night and galloped forward.
But those running at the front were not the cavalry.
The four of them were also dressed in Feiyan clothes, carrying a sedan chair on their shoulders, and they were lifting as lightly as they could. On the muddy road, he can run faster than a horse.
At this time.
The sound of rapid horse hooves came from afar. Six people rode together and met Mi Chang and his party on a narrow road.
"The Overlord."
Among the four people carrying the sedan, one of them asked the person in the sedan for instructions in a low voice. His voice was high-pitched, and he turned out to be a woman.
"Stop it."
A soft and cold voice came from the sedan, and it was difficult to distinguish between male and female.
"We are working in a secret factory, stop immediately! Otherwise, we will kill without mercy!"
As soon as the person in the sedan chair, known as the "Governor", finished speaking, more than a dozen "Secret Guards" dispersed on horseback, blocking the way forward and stopping the six people moving forward.
"It's a secret factory!"
"He's a lackey of the imperial court!"
"Why is your mother so unlucky!"
"Stop talking! They're close!"
These six people were clearly martial arts figures who had just come down from Hidden Sword Villa and were not qualified to stay until the end. One of them has a heroic appearance and a nine-section whip hanging on her waist. She is clearly the iron lady who was bullied after using a fatal scissor kick on the "Xiao Thief" at the martial arts conference.
After the martial arts competition, they walked together with some of their friends who had certain friendships on weekdays, and headed south to go home. Unexpectedly, they ran into someone from a secret factory halfway. The Iron Lady secretly thought that she was unlucky, and with a cold look in her eyes, the people from the secret factory surrounded her in the blink of an eye, disturbing the horses, knowing that the person coming was not good.
However, the secret factory's behavior has always been arrogant and domineering, and it is not directed at any one person. The few of them looked at each other for a while, and then the Iron Lady raised her hand to signal her friends to be silent and stop talking nonsense. She gritted her teeth and dismounted from her horse. She cupped her hands in the sedan chair and said: "My lords of the secret factory, I am an idle knight in the world. I have not violated the king's law, and I have never been punished." We are wanted, we are innocent, I wonder why the adults stopped us?"
】
The Iron Lady held the horse rope hard. For some reason, when the people from the secret factory appeared, the horses were particularly panicked and panting heavily, which was different from the past.
The other five people also noticed that the horse's reaction was wrong, and they didn't think much about it for a moment. They just said that the horses' sharp senses and the murderous aura on the secret guard had frightened them.
"Don't be nervous, just ask for directions."
The person in the sedan chuckled lightly, lifted the curtain, stretched out a white and slender finger, and pointed at a mountain.
"Excuse me, everyone, is this Hidden Sword Villa in front of you?"
Ask for directions?
When Iron Lady and the others heard this, they breathed a sigh of relief.
One person replied: "Returning to your lord, the Hidden Sword Villa is in front of you."
"The martial arts tournament is over?"
The man in the sedan asked again.
The iron lady's eyes flashed, and she thought that she was indeed a royal eagle dog, with a keen sense of smell, and she actually knew about the martial arts conference. Although there was no hint of murderous intent in the other party's words, private gatherings in the martial arts world were indeed against the royal family's taboo, and they didn't know how to respond.
"I understand. Hey, let's go."
The curtain that was raised at a corner fell down, and the woman carrying the sedan covered her mouth with a smile: "The governor has spoken, and you still won't leave? When will we wait?"
Lord!
When the Iron Lady and others heard this, they shrank and felt horrified.
The man in the sedan was actually called "The Governor" by the secret guards?
In the entire secret factory, there is only one person who can be called the governor, so the identity of the person in the sedan chair is already obvious.
There are rumors in the world that that man is cruel and ruthless, how can he be so easy to talk to?
"Thank you, sir!"
The Iron Lady and the others looked at their noses, mouths, and hearts, not daring to say anything. After making eye contact, they got on their horses and were about to leave.
But they have countless doubts in their hearts. Doesn't that person live in seclusion and live far away in the imperial city? Why would you risk traveling so far to come to Hidden Sword Villa? Looking at the direction he came from, it was clear that he was coming from the south, not the northern capital.
What is the governor of the secret factory doing at Hidden Sword Villa?
The Iron Lady and her group of six people passed by the secret guards.
A faint sigh came from the sedan: "It's too late."
The person carrying the sedan said in a low voice: "Master Governor, it is better to go early than to go wisely."
The governor smiled lightly: "That's right, you will be rewarded when you go back."
"Thank you Lord Governor!"
The two groups of people separated from the north and the south and drifted apart.
"call--"
On the martial arts side, three or four people exhaled at the same time, and when they raised their foreheads, they were startled to realize that they were covered in cold sweat.
After dozens of steps away, the panicked horse gradually calmed down.
"Iron Lady, he..."
Some people lowered their voices to say something.
"Shh!"
The Iron Lady raised her index finger and said in her eyes: hurry up and don't get into trouble.
Just when a few people were thinking about leaving quickly.
The governor who was hiding in the sedan suddenly asked a question. Although his voice was small, it spread far in the night, like a basin of ice water being poured down.
"Just now, who said 'the court lackey'?"
The expressions of Iron Lady and the others suddenly changed, but beside Iron Lady, a knight, for some unknown reason, actually raised his hand and admitted loudly: "Me! Pei Rushi!"
After saying these words, Pei Daxia covered his mouth in horror.
stop!
A leaf penetrated the sedan silently and passed between Pei Daxia's eyebrows, splattering a trace of blood.
The governor twisted another leaf.
"Then who said the word 'unlucky'?"
The martial arts warriors had never seen such a weird thing before. Iron Lady, including the Iron Lady, noticed the strangeness. When Pei Ru fell from the horse, the remaining five people tightly covered their mouths and noses.
But when the governor said these words, another person was covering his mouth and nose, opening and closing his teeth, and involuntarily made a strange sound of "I'm woo woo..." from his fingers.
"honest."
The Governor smiled and popped out another leaf.
The Iron Lady turned her hand and shook out the nine-section whip, and was about to block it.
"Don't move, it's not good to live."
The Governor smiled, and the Iron Lady paused in her strange movements. Everyone watched helplessly as another person fell from the horse, and they refused to close their eyes.
Two leaves, two chuckles, killed two people.
When the second knight was killed by Ye Zi, the horses underneath the four Iron Lady foamed at the mouth one after another, knelt on the ground and rolled around in panic, throwing the people off the horses.
The secret factory did not kill them all. After killing two people, they rode away.
Getting up from the ground covered in mud, the Iron Lady just stood up, her feet gave way and she fell down again.
Thinking of what just happened, it was like in a dream, I couldn't believe it.
…
Mi Chang and his party boarded the Hidden Sword Villa.
"The secret factory is doing business, please open the door quickly. Otherwise, we will kill without mercy."
The gatekeeper disciple of Hidden Sword Villa changed his face when he heard the name of "Secret Factory", but he quickly calmed down.
"My lords, please wait a moment while I go inside to inform the head of the family."
"The Governor?"
There was silence in the sedan for a moment.
There was a crisp sound of knuckles tapping on the wooden table.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Thank you."
The Governor smiled.
…
When Xie Luohe said the word "chaoting".
Zheng Xiu's first reaction was "the army".
The plot of a hero breaking the law with force and being brutally surrounded and suppressed is quite normal.
"It's a secret factory!"
After Dugu Xiang whispered to his disciple for a moment, Dugu Xiang's expression changed: "Our Hidden Sword Villa once provided weapons and armor for the imperial court. The water in the river has never disturbed the water in the well. How could the secret factory come to visit us in the middle of the night?"
"Oh? People in the world say that your Hidden Sword Villa has a close relationship with the imperial court. It is indeed true."
When Bai Xiaosheng heard this, he smiled without surprise.
"It's just business. People can't help themselves in the world. What's more, Hidden Sword Villa is famous for its casting. If you don't compromise, there is only one way to die." Bai Xiaosheng's expression was strange. Dugu Xiang didn't know what he was thinking, so he answered calmly. After saying a sentence, he pointed to one of the tunnels in the secret room: "Go forward on this road, turn right on the third fork, then go forward two more forks, turn left and then go down, go all the way to the end, you can hear the sound of water. That's it. There is a sword-shaped handle on the right hand side. Turn the sword hilt three times to the left and two times to the right. After hearing an abnormal sound, you can open the secret door and leave the villa."
Dugu Xiang told Qing Mimi how to leave the villa in one breath. Fatty Jiang was dumbfounded. He stood there for a moment and was overjoyed. He quickly took out a pen and paper from his arms, wetted it on the tip of his tongue, and jotted it down quickly.
After a few breaths, Fatty Jiang closed the notebook with satisfaction: "This can be sold for money."
Zheng Xiu: "..."
Dugu Xiang wanted to ask "Have you written it down?", but when he saw Bai Xiaosheng frantically writing cheat sheets, he swallowed this sentence alive. He took away the "Picture of Plum Blossoms and Snow" and said: "Today's matter, God knows Only the five...six people present here know about it, so I hope you will never spread it outside."
Zheng Xiu nodded: "That's natural."
Bai Xiaosheng sneered: "Who could be so stupid?"
"Xiao Tao, put the painting away." After Xie Luohe ordered, he sighed softly: "What a pity."
Dugu Xiang walked up: "Dugu will deal with the people in the secret factory. For the sake of business, they will not make things difficult for me. It takes ten days to go to Bashan. It will be at the foot of Bashan in fifteen days." Let’s get together, with Bai Xiaosheng’s ability, it shouldn’t be difficult to find us.”
"Then it's settled!"
Bai Xiaosheng reluctantly moved away from several paintings. When Cheng Xiao put away his share, Bai Xiaosheng was the first to slip into the secret passage.
Several people followed, and the candlelight in the secret room went out.
In the secret passage, Zheng Xiu looked at the back of Xie Luohe walking in front. Seeing that Xie Luohe had no intention of actively explaining, he couldn't help but ask, "You just said it was a pity. What's the pity?"
Xie Luohe didn't look back and replied with a smile: "It's nothing, it's just a 'feeling', which is a pity."
Zheng Xiu: "Feeling?"
Xie Luohe: "Feeling."
Zheng Xiu was helpless: "I don't like it when someone hides me."
Xie Luohe covered his mouth and smiled: "Perhaps, one day, you will be happy about this."
"Absolutely impossible."
"Haha, who can say for sure."
The secret passage was dark and lightless, but none of them were mediocre. They relied on the flow of air and the sound of wind in the secret passage to distinguish the path. Not long after, they followed the instructions left by Dugu Xiang and reached the exit of the secret passage.
Bai Xiaosheng had been waiting here for a long time. He turned on the machine and opened the secret passage exit. A gurgling stream flows out of a narrow river, with shadows of trees on both sides. The moonlight is sinking and dawn is approaching.
The sky is dim and white, and it looks sparkling when it shines on the flowing water.
From the outside, the entrance to the secret passage looks like an ordinary boulder. Soon after a few people walked out, the boulder moved with a rumble, and the secret passage closed on its own. This secret passage can only be accessed but not entered, but it is designed to be safe.
Bai Xiaosheng deeply understands the principle of "walls have ears" and does not foolishly talk about secrets outside. He glanced at the three people in Xie Luohe, looked sideways, at Xiao Tao, at Xie Luohe, and finally at Zheng Xiu. He patted Zheng Xiu hard on the shoulder: "Brother Gongsun, take care."
Zheng Xiu: "?"
Bai Xiaosheng's chubby body walked on the water, and he disappeared into the jungle in the blink of an eye.
Let's talk about Dugu Xiang arranging his clothes, carrying the sword box on his back, and calmly arrived at the door of Hidden Sword Villa.
"Several adults have come from afar. Please forgive me for not being able to welcome you from afar." The door was open, and the lights were brightly lit inside. Dugu Xiang pointed inside and explained with an apologetic expression: "As the adults have seen, there was a thief in the villa. Several armor castings and a batch of fine tea were lost. We searched the villa for traces of the thief all night long, so we just I neglected the adults."
Dugu Xiang bowed with his fists in a neither humble nor arrogant manner, staring at the airtight curtain on the sedan. The curtain was tightly closed, but it gave Dugu Xiang a strange uneasy feeling, as if there was something scary hidden inside.
"I wonder why the adults from the Secret Factory visited Hidden Sword Villa overnight? Could it be that my Dugu family has inadvertently broken some laws?"
The people in the sedan were silent.
Dugu Xiang added: "The Dugu family has close contacts with the Department of War and Treasury. I hope you will be aware of this."
At this time, Dugu Xiang moved out of his backing in the court.
Because of their "business", their family naturally had a certain relationship with the Ministry of War.
"Haha." The governor hiding in the sedan chuckled: "The law of Daqian has already expressly prohibited illegal private gatherings. Two people are called 'conspirators', three people are called 'public', ten people are called 'chaos', and a hundred people are called 'bandits'. Among them, 'rioters' can be fined silver, and 'bandits' can be punished with a stick or jailed, and in more serious cases, troops can be sent out to encircle and suppress them, and it is difficult to escape the death penalty."
Dugu Xiang's eyes flashed, he had already thought about what to say, and said: "My lord, you are serious. There have been many happy events in the villa recently, so I made an appointment with my friends from the martial arts world to appreciate paintings, discuss martial arts, and compete in physical fitness. I invited them with invitations, and it was fair and square. It's all innocent and can't be considered a 'private gathering'."
"That makes sense." The governor said happily, "I am worried too much."
This governor?
When Dugu Xiang heard this, he took a sharp breath, it was that person!
"Walk."
The secret guards carried the sedan and left. Before leaving, a question came from the sedan: "Excuse me, which direction are they going?"
Dugu Xiang replied blankly: "At the foot of the mountain, in the northwest, by the river."
The governor asked again: "Again, have you ever found that place?"
Before Dugu Xiang finished his last sentence, he covered his mouth and nose in shock. The next moment, Dugu Xiang hammered his heart and spit out a mouthful of blood. The movement of vomiting blood stopped him from blurting out the words.
"That's all."
With a bang, a figure smashed the roof of the sedan, passing through the sky like a swallow paddling water, heading straight to the northwest.
"Let's burn this shitty place, so there will be less trouble."
The governor blinked and disappeared into the night sky, leaving behind a sentence.
The remaining secret guard reached into his arms, took out a small tube at the same time, and pulled off the rope. The banging sound sounded almost at the same time, and bright fireworks shot straight into the sky.
Brilliant fireworks bloom in the sky, like delicate flowers.
"No!"
When Dugu Xiang reacted, his eyes were about to burst. Several secret guards laughed and flew up, stabbing out with cold light from their long and short swords.
…
Not long after Bai Xiaosheng and Cheng Xiao left respectively.
Xie Luohe, Xiao Tao, and Zheng Xiu walked downstream along the river.
After daybreak, I looked for a few horses and planned to set off for Bashan.
After walking a hundred steps, Xiaotao was panting.
Zheng Xiu originally wanted to ask thoughtfully if he wanted to carry you on his back.
Xie Luohe suddenly stopped, took out the long bow behind him, and at the same time shouted to Zheng Xiu: "Protect Xiao Tao, the enemy is coming from the southeast, on the mountain!"
Without saying a word, Xie Luohe's beautiful black hair moved automatically without any wind, bent his bow and set an arrow, and the long arrow shot through the air, shooting high into the sky like a cannonball.
Xie Luohe spoke very fast, but Zheng Xiu was considered experienced in many battles and did not waste any time. He pulled Xiaotao behind him, faced the southeast, bit his finger, and the faint red light on the tip of Luohe's pen painted the ground as a prison, surrounding the three of them in a circle.
"Well done!"
In the sky, only one person was seen flying across the treetops, as if walking on flat ground. This person wears a crown hat and a green flying swallow suit with a collar. The pure white mink fur is particularly eye-catching.
Xieluohe's arrow was very fast, but the attacker's movements were even faster. He turned around and dodged Xieluohe's terrifying arrow, grabbed a handful of green leaves with his backhand, and shook them towards several people.
Tsk tsk tsk!
Each leaf makes a sharp sound as it cuts through the air.
Zheng Xiu's eyes narrowed and he waved the Luohe pen to block the incoming leaves one by one.
The visitor approached, and while moving at high speed, Zheng Xiu and Xie Luohe vaguely saw each other's faces.
The other person's face is pale, with extraordinary handsome features, but there is a feminine temperament. If it were not for the male disguise, this face would be indistinguishable from male to female.
Ten steps closer, the man opened his hands, his long sleeves bulged, and fell straight down like a flying kite gliding.
Xie Luohe and Zheng Xiu were stunned at the same time.
From a distance, they were still a bit disbelieving, but when they got closer, they finally saw each other's faces clearly.
Xie Luohe looked disbelieving.
Zheng Xiu was dumbfounded.
Xie Luohe only thought of one person.
Zheng Xiu thought of two people at the same time.
That face is...
Xie Yunliu’s face!
At the same time, it is also the face of a monk!
