Nightfall

Just one word: umbrella.

There wasn’t a verb before it.

Also, Ning Que didn’t call out the name of Sangsang.

Ning Que and his handmaid had been living together since childhood. After spending several difficult years in the mountains and forest and on the grassland, the two of them could easily understand each other and exhibited great teamwork. Just eye contact, a gesture, or a word was enough to clearly convey what one wanted to do.

The moment the word “umbrella” was uttered, Sangsang, like a squirrel, quickly ran beside the maidservant and shook the umbrella hard, with two hands holding the handle. Then the black umbrella, dramatically huge compared to her thin body, was opened with a “Hu” sound, as if a dark sky-curtain had suddenly appeared over the thick forest of the Northern Mountain Road at night, blocking the light of the stars.

Two kerosene grenades fell on the ground and ignited rapidly. The blazing fire rolled the fallen leaves up which further aided the combustion. All at once, the area was surrounded by the unstoppable raging flames.

The live bodyguards and grassland barbarians around the carriage team looked at the fierce fire and thought of the noble that was hiding there. They were seized by trembling from head to foot. Unable to help the noble due to their serious injuries, they, desperately screaming, had no choice but to helplessly watch as the incandescent fire was engulfing everything inside it.

However, they didn’t notice that the big black umbrella still remained intact. The incandescent and ferocious fire grotesquely became weak when it touched the oily and sticky curtain of the black umbrella. What on earth was the umbrella’s cover made of? Miraculously, not only could it block stars like a black sky-curtain, but also ward off the fierce fire!

Below the big black umbrella, Sangsang, who was thin and nervous, lowered her head as she closed her eyes and lips. Her two hands tightly held the handle of the umbrella, which withstood the horrible fire close at hand. Her left hand held the handle head tightly, but then became temporarily relaxed again. It seemed that she was very tense or was struggling with something in her heart.

The maidservant, with her slightly curly hair swinging between her delicate eyes, was also sheltered by the black umbrella. She became extremely nervous with the intensely high temperature and the sight of the blaze sprawling across the black umbrella. Then, a sense of confusion and shock appeared in her eyes the moment she noticed, through the side of the black umbrella, that the fighting was about to unfold.

The assassins in black had hidden and prepared in the forest for a long time. They finally figured out where their target was after silently watching and analyzing the countermeasures of the princess’ guards. Then, with the Great Sword Master and the giant cultivator managing to distract Lyu Qingchen, they gradually moved towards the target area and suddenly launched an attack.

Countless sawdust from the trees fell to the ground. The two assassinators in black made a relentless and accurate raid with perfect timing. After throwing two kerosene grenades, they quickly attacked Ning Que from a short distance. In this way, it was impossible for Ning Que to make use of his excellent archery.

They were not mighty cultivators, but they were much more professional being assassins than the cultivators.

On this night with the stars filling the sky, there were few changes or signs of panic appearing on Ning Que’s face as the two assassins suddenly appeared. He just threw away his bow and arrows like shabby shoes, and then jumped with force just when the two kerosene grenades touched the fallen leaves.

The muscle in his waist, abdomen, and legs tightened and relaxed suddenly. Without any run-up or preparation, his legs, as if equipped with a spring, leaped from a still condition.

At the very same time, the kerosene grenades began burning and his shadow was just over the fire. It looked like that he, stepping on the incandescent fire, was drifting through the flames.

Ning Que forcibly flew through the violent blaze, with his hollow fists swinging naturally from the side of his face to behind his body. His legs inclined backward and his body slanted forward in a very natural and coordinated movement, like a bird attractively gliding. Meanwhile, his hollow fists were close to reaching the two hilts that were resting askew on his back.

As he leaped through the fire and into the air, Ning Que kept his attention on the two assassins in black. Only calmness, concentration, and peace could be seen from his expression, without any distracting thoughts.

The black maidservant, looking through the tiny gap of the black umbrella at Ning Que’s figure jumping out of the flame and the calmness on his face, somehow, felt extremely cold from head to foot.

At this moment, it reminded her of what she witnessed as she followed Chanyu to hunt on the grassland half a year ago.

In that situation, a young and fierce tiger leaped through the shrubs and pounced on her, with its forepaw slightly holding her and its hind legs gently and deftly contracting. However, only extreme calmness and concentration appeared in its eyes, without any cruel and bloody expression. For one fleeting moment, a quality of calmness, even grace, was attached to the beast. For her, unfortunately, the expression in its eyes was the most formidable one she had ever seen, and sometimes she was even woken up by the calm and peaceful staring of that tiger in her midnight dreams.

Calmness without any emotion represented mightiness and confidence, and concentration signified volition and determination. As tigers went for prey, they attacked in a focused and sober, but not grim, way. It was just their talent and instinct for survival to tear all enemies into pieces, not that they want to release its anger, they just had to be clear about their gift or aptitude.

That memory and thought appeared in her mind when the maidservant saw Ning Que’s face reflected from the blaze.

…

…

The assassin who had been killing other people at night their whole life was the most sensitive creature to danger. Even the maidservant could feel the resolution and cruelty hidden behind Ning Que’s calm and concentrated expression. The two assassins in black, as they watched the lad leap over the fire, were also subconsciously shocked and nervous, even more nervous than the time they had assassinated Yan cavalrymen in the past. Their hands had strangely become a little stiff as they held onto their long swords.

Accompanied by a whistling wind, Ning Que jumped between the two assassins, with his burning cotton-robe tails depicting several feeble flames among the thick forest at night.

Two rusty podaos were quickly pulled out from behind his shoulders and went straight at the enemies. Then, a string of impact sounds made by metal blades suddenly occurred in the forest. When the wind became more violent, the feeble flames were divided to subtler sparks, which brightened the battlefield more than before.

The podaos and swords furiously collided. Ning Que bounced forward, landed on the fallen leaves, and then forcibly stepped into the middle of the two assassins after several paces. His wrists controlling the podaos changed their direction, slantingly dragging his weapons up, like lightning, to the enemies through back edge of their swords. Completely outperforming his opponents, Ning Que directly gashed into their ribs accompanied by two sounds, leaving no chance or room for them to respond!

The heavy blades diagonally and violently chopped apart the assassins’ sternums and into their chests, with their blood and flesh squeezed out from the blades. The two assassins in black tragically uttered a howl. However, before their lives ended, they threw away their swords and caught Ning Que’s two podaos with their hands and bodies, showing the strong willpower of Tang soldiers!

Just at that moment, another assassin in black appeared, like a ghost, with a sharp, short sword held firmly by both his hands and chopped straight towards Ning Que’s nape!

There was a third assassin in the forest!

From any perspective, the two assassins should have been the last attempt. But surprisingly, they still kept another as a backup, which, while seeming needless, was full of ruthlessness and determination at the cost of the whole group’s lives!

Nobody had ever predicted such a circumstance, except Ning Que or his handmaiden under the black umbrella.

“Six! Two!”

The handmaiden, nervously huddling and closing her eyes as the third assassin chopped towards Ning Que, exclaimed the two words with all her strength.

What could the two simple numbers warn of Ning Que? Were they a type of code or direction hint? In fact, she shouldn’t have caught sight of that assassin. Even if she was able to accurately figure out the location of the assassin, what could Ning Que do as his two podaos were still stuck in the first two assassins’ chests and hands full of blood?

“Six? Two? It’s surprisingly high.”

Upon hearing Sangsang’s anxious shout, Ning Que made a complaint in his heart and then loosened his hands without hesitation—leaving his two podaos with the outraged assassins in black, who, before dying, tightly held the two podaos with their hands and lives. The fire was getting weaker and the sky was becoming darker. He raised his two emancipated hands over his head, gripped the hard hilt covered by a cloth bandage, and suddenly pulled out his last podao that was on his back!

Firmly holding the long hilt, Ning Que quickly unsheathed his podao with a “Shua” sound. Without looking back, he turned around with all the strength from his waist and abdomen, and then powerfully struck the long podao in full strength, into the night sky!

As if there was an eye on the back of Ning Que’s head, the violent attack accurately chopped at the rapidly falling assassin in black, with the sharp blade fiercely throwing away the short sword held by the assassin!

Then, Ning Que’s podao straightly and smoothly hacked into the killer’s neck bone!

The podao kept its momentum without stopping, until it wedged halfway into his neck!

The assassin, having no time to utter a hum, plummeted on the fallen leaves from the treetop, and then weakly kneeled down on the ground.

Ning Que stepped back to reach the hilt stuck in the previous assassin’s chest and then forcibly pulled the podao out. Then he returned to the third assassin and chopped backhanded, with the blade penetrating from the other side of the neck and encountering the previous blade’s path at the neck bone.

With the blood spraying, the assassin’s head dropped down with a click. The head rolled past his knees and the fallen leaves, and then went very far into the forest.

In the past war between the Tang and the Yan Kingdom, the vanguard group led by General Xia Hou once assassinated a great number of Yan cavalrymen. The secret group, having no cultivators, was made up of elite soldiers. But the group performed very intrepidly in the battlefield and had even managed to assassinate cultivators.

The common people had no idea about the system of the mysterious group headed by General Xia Hou, but Ning Que knew clearly about it.

He knew that each assassin team of Xia Hou usually undertook any action with three assassins.

Therefore, since he was very young, Ning Que had been carrying three podaos on his back.