Chapter 52: The Death of Tian Shenwei

When Tian Shenwei returned to the camp of the Tian family assassins, he was nearly struck dumb with shock.

The campsite was in utter ruin; shattered tents lay scattered across the beach, and the ground was littered with corpses and uncoagulated blood. This presented a stark contrast to Yun Zheng and An Miaotong, who stood effortlessly in the center of the camp like hunters waiting by a tree for a hare, their garments unstained by blood.

Of course, both of them had sustained injuries yesterday, but once the rain stopped in the morning, they had taken the opportunity to change out of the rain-soaked outer garments.

Tian Shenwei had brought a full two hundred men—virtually equivalent to a small army—to annihilate Yun Zheng and An Miaotong, mere two individuals.

Yet now, the elite fighters of the Tian family were either dead or had fled, leaving him entirely alone.

Tian Shenwei knew he was already a bird caught in a net, with nowhere left to run.

"I... I am willing to surrender!" Tian Shenwei raised his hands and shouted loudly, "If you wish to attack the Ghost Fortress, or even capture the eldest lady of the Tian family alive, I can guide the way for you."

"I know far too much about the Tian family, and even the Yang family. I am useful; I am useful to you."

As an assassin, the most important thing Tian Shenwei had to consider now was undoubtedly how to stay alive first, regardless of the means.

As for backbone, it was hard to find the word backbone in an assassin's dictionary.

"Surrender?" An Miaotong cast a cold glance at Tian Shenwei. "The dignified master of the Ghost Fortress wants to lead us to attack the Ghost Fortress? Does that mean Lord Yang of Bozhou can also lead us to attack Hailongtun?"

"I am not a direct descendant of the Tian family," Tian Shenwei explained eagerly.

"Yet your standing in the Tian family is certainly among the highest." An Miaotong’s gaze was frosty, and beneath that frost lay an unmaskable intent to kill. "Furthermore, your reputation in the pugilistic world is truly abyssal."

The Tian Fortress had committed every evil imaginable; who in the world did not know of it?

"Grandfather, Great-Aunt, spare my life! This lowly one does not want to die yet!"

With a thud, Tian Shenwei’s knees suddenly buckled, and both legs hit the ground. Tears and snot streaming down his face, he began to howl heart-rendingly. He kowtowed heavily, turning his backside toward the sky.

"Grandfather, let this humble slave live! I will be an ox, a horse, a pig, or a dog—it matters not. This humble slave is truly useful to you... useful..."

This was Tian Shenwei’s code of conduct.

Once dead, nothing remained, and history was written by the victors.

Therefore, surviving by any means necessary was, in his view, the greatest form of courage.

However, Yun Zheng loathed such greasy performative acts.

There were two possibilities: Tian Shenwei was preparing to launch a sudden hidden weapon attack while kneeling, or he intended to use his lowered posture to dart away and flee.

Or perhaps he genuinely just wanted to beg for his life first and figure things out later.

Yet in Yun Zheng's eyes, doing this was utterly meaningless. When encountering someone truly possessing both wisdom and valor, would they ever be swayed by such a performance to harbor womanly mercy or feel a sense of contempt?

Even a lion uses its full strength to capture a rabbit; not only did Tian Shenwei believe this, but it applied equally to Yun Zheng and An Miaotong.

Thus, the two figures closed in from the left and right, trapping Tian Shenwei between them like two walls.

The moves executed by Yun Zheng and An Miaotong were both pressed downward toward the ground, specifically guarding against a sudden low-ground attack from Tian Shenwei or an escape hugging the earth like a slithering snake.

Tian Shenwei fell into absolute despair.

The performance he had rehearsed so many times now proved utterly useless.

Gritting his teeth, Tian Shenwei lunged forward like a cannonball leaving the barrel, brandishing his ghost blade straight at Yun Zheng’s face.

This was a do-or-die tactic. His face twisted ferociously, and his left hand curled into a claw, willing to tear and bite like a beast.

Objectively speaking, if his opponent had been Yun Zheng alone, this might indeed have bought him a sliver of survival.

When not invoking his Asura mode, Yun Zheng's strength was greater than Tian Shenwei's, but not by a wide margin.

However, An Miaotong, whose strength also surpassed Tian Shenwei's, was standing right beside him.

Having abandoned his flank defense, the consequence was that An Miaotong's twin daggers flashed out simultaneously, piercing with uncanny precision into two vital acupuncture points on Tian Shenwei's body.

The excruciating pain caused Tian Shenwei to instantly freeze. Then, he watched with wide eyes as Yun Zheng drove a broadsword straight into his agape mouth, piercing through his windpipe into his chest cavity, and violently twisted it.

Yun Zheng did not use the Seven-Star Saber because he did not wish to soil his precious blade.

The broadsword struck brutally against Tian Shenwei's ribs several times, snapping three or four of them.

When he pulled it out, Yun Zheng saw that the broadsword's edge had completely rolled.

This was entirely normal; unless it was a treasured weapon, ordinary blades and swords on the battlefield were consumables, fundamentally no different from arrows.

Legend had it that an ancient king of old, in order to rescue a close friend about to be beheaded in the execution grounds, brought along a dozen pointed knives.

This was precisely why the demand for weapons far exceeded the number of warriors.

Tian Shenwei’s eyes bulged like those of a bullfrog. Carrying his final malice, his body slumped limply to the ground.

Yun Zheng nimbly sidestepped the spray of blood foam and flesh fragments spewed from his mouth.

When the severed heads of Tian Shenwei and five of the Twelve Pengs of Yin Mountain were hung upon the city gates of Tongren Prefecture, the news quickly spread like wildfire.

The head was promptly retrieved by the Tian Fortress, but people's mouths could not be plugged.

Blocking the people's mouths is harder than preventing a river from flooding. The more the Tian Fortress attempted to threaten the populace, the faster the news disseminated.

Tian Shenwei, master of the Ghost Fortress, had led the vast majority of the Tian Fortress's elite—a full two hundred men—to ambush a mere two individuals, only to suffer a disastrous defeat with not a single leader surviving.

It would be no exaggeration to say that after this battle, the Tian Fortress had been crippled.

How could such a miraculous victory of the few over the many fail to make the blood of the common folk oppressed by the Tian family surge with passion?

In truth, Wei Ruzi, formerly the deputy leader of the Tian Fortress and now its interim lord, felt utterly powerless at this moment.

He had never been a particularly decisive person, largely because Tian Shenwei's gloomy and domineering personality brook no independent thinking among his subordinates.

Furthermore, he possessed no blood ties to the Tian family; he was merely an invited guest.

Just as Yun Zheng was pushing the battlefront forward in full swing, Ye Xi’s exploration fell into a stalemate.

The interrogation of the assassin captive did not yield the results Ye Xi desired.

Song Yiyi feigned a sigh and said, "What a pity that this assassin is not a local and has no idea where the Medicine King Valley is located."

Yet within her eyes lingered a visible trace of delight, as if to say, "Now Young Master Ye has nothing to do and can only accompany me to play."

The assassin whom Ye Xi had pinned to the ground with two arrows was by now convulsing in all four limbs and foaming at the mouth, clearly having undergone cruel torture.

The possibility of the assassin lying could basically be ruled out, as the assassin had even confessed to coming from the Yang Estate in Bozhou.

*(Yang Yinglong...)*

Ye Xi pondered silently: In the real world, Yang Yinglong had never meddled in the inheritance of the Medicine King Valley. But in this realm, an even more powerful Yang Yinglong had the spare capacity to dispatch a large number of assassins to intercept anyone interested in the Medicine King Valley's legacy.

Over there, Song Yiyi continued to chirp endlessly: "What should we do, Young Master Ye? Shall we find a picturesque place first and ponder our next move at length?"

At that moment, Song Yiyi vaguely caught sight of a flash of snowy white fleeting through the forest.

She paid it no mind, for in her eyes, the Ye Xi before her was the most beautiful being in the world.

Yet she noticed Ye Xi’s eyes suddenly light up.

As someone of mixed elven heritage, how could she possibly fail to recognize this magical creature?

Fur as pure as snowflakes, soft and lustrous white scales, and a spiraling single horn upon its forehead...

*(All historical records indicate that the great upheaval of heaven and earth first appeared during the Wanli era, and my grandfather's journal once mentioned seeing a unicorn near the Medicine King Valley. Although the Classic of Mountains and Seas long ago recorded the existence of the unicorn, named Huanshu, a unicorn entirely snow-white represents that the upheaval of heaven and earth has already begun to manifest in scattered occurrences.)*

At this thought, Ye Xi smiled faintly, causing Song Yiyi to freeze on the spot as if struck by a petrification spell.

Naturally, Ye Xi had recalled some amusing memory—for instance, the tales of how his grandfather had once tried to ride a unicorn, only to be bucked off and sent flying time and time again.

And Ye Xi, possessing half-elven blood, naturally did not face this problem.

More importantly, Ye Xi knew that unicorns favored activities in areas teeming with exotic flowers and rare herbs. And the place nearby with the most exotic flowers and rare herbs was undoubtedly the Medicine King Valley—there must inevitably be vast quantities of such flora cultivated by the inhabitants of the Medicine King Valley.

Moreover, any exotic flowers and rare herbs in other nearby regions would surely have been picked clean by the Medicine King Valley, leaving virtually no possibility of heading in the wrong direction. Therefore, the unicorn served as the finest current guide.