Mu Lingsu looked at Shen Hanyan's back kneeling on the ground, feeling pain and regret in her heart, and felt that her and Yu Linzhi's efforts had gone to waste. They hadn't given up yet, but Shen Hanyan was no longer willing to struggle.
She could actually understand Shen Hanyan's thoughts. She knew that Shen Hanyan bowed to Sutiga because she didn't want to continue to drag others down, but bowing at this time was completely meaningless.
Shen Qingyu was injured, and the Imperial Guards also suffered casualties. Since a considerable price has been paid, why not continue to gamble?
Yu Linzhi looked at the current situation and had no time to stop Shen Hanyan. Even if Shen Hanyan begged for mercy, Shen Qingyu would not be able to recover immediately. Seeing that Shen Qingyu was already dying, he signaled Mu Lingsu to go with him to take a look.
Mu Lingsu walked over to Shen Qingyu and squatted down, feeling his pulse, breathing and heartbeat, and took out a pill to strengthen his blood from his bosom and gave it to him to swallow. Then he said to Yu Linzhi, "Although Prince Yi Yang has lost a lot of blood, I am using the Gu Yuan Pill to stabilize his breathing and heartbeat. As long as he doesn't suffer any more external injuries, he should be able to hold on until we can get back to Dunhuang within three days."
She looked at Yu Linzhi, and the worry in her eyes could no longer be hidden.
Their lives are hanging by a thread, but they cannot die. If they die, all the hard work and happiness along the way will vanish into thin air. She is now afraid of death and is unwilling to miss every day in the world because Yu Linzhi is with her.
Therefore, even if we cannot return today, we must return. If Prince Yiyang dies here, all the people will suffer a catastrophic disaster.
Sutijia heard what Mu Lingsu said and laughed sarcastically, "Miss Mu, you think too highly of your own abilities. Although we are not as advanced as the Royal Guards in terms of firearms, they are leaderless now and are like a pile of loose sand. They can no longer defeat us."
After receiving Mu Lingsu's angry eyes, he turned to Yu Linzhi confidently, "Brother, I still want you to stay in Kushan, so that I can find you at any time and talk about the relationship between brothers. Although Kushan is not as prosperous as the Central Plains, you will not suffer any loss."
"No need." Yu Linzhi also squatted beside Shen Qingyu. He clasped Shen Qingyu's wrist with his hand, keeping an eye on Shen Qingyu's pulse at all times.
He looked up at Sutija, who was confident of victory, and said, "Three years ago, you told me that you would go out to sea for a while. Were you lying to me?"
If he guessed correctly, Sutijia should be the behind-the-scenes supporter of the evil cult Chongguang Sect that he personally wiped out three years ago.
For several years, Sutijia has been doing business in various parts of the Central Plains, but he did not export silk to the Western Regions like other Western merchants. Instead, he resold iron ore, steel, and fireworks. Perhaps, he was not doing business in this area, but was always serving himself.
The Chongguang Sect had previously been robbing trade vehicles outside Yumen Pass, killing people and stealing goods, and committing all kinds of evil. Although Sutijia was occasionally robbed, his caravans never suffered any casualties. Most importantly, it was rumored that the royal family of the Kushan Empire had colluded with the Chongguang Sect, squeezing goods from various countries and collecting heavy taxes. Sutijia is now the new king and has a large number of firearms in his hands, which explains everything.
"So what, Brother?" Sutijia bent down and picked up Shen Hanyan, who was still kneeling in front of him, with a smile of victory, looking down at Yu Linzhi, "Although you almost died from that sword in the chest, the Chongguang Sect has been destroyed. You still won three years ago."
Although Yu Linzhi already had the answer in his mind, he still didn't expect that Su Tijia would openly acknowledge all of Yu Linzhi's guesses.
He suddenly remembered that three years ago, he was stabbed in the chest by a guardian of Chongguang Sect with a sword, and he almost died on the way back to Central Plains. It's not that he didn't have doubts in his heart, but there was no evidence to support his speculation.
"Three years ago, it was you who almost killed Lin Zhi?" Mu Lingsu had the answer in her mind after listening to the conversation between the two.
She still remembers that the Wulin League came to Suzhou to pick her up overnight, and it took her seven days to get her from Suzhou to Chang'an. At that time, Yu Linzhi was already very weak.
She heard from Yu Jianwu that it was a guardian of Chongguang Sect who hurt Yu Linzhi. It was not until today that Mu Lingsu knew that the so-called guardian was Su Tijia.
Sutijia kept smiling, because in his opinion, there was no joy greater than that of finally defeating Yu Linzhi once.
Sutijia smiled and looked at Mu Lingsu: "Yes, but at that time I was busy returning to the Chongguang Sect's headquarters to compete with others for the Sect Leader's Token, so I didn't fight."
Having said that, even if he didn't want to be the leader at that time, Yu Linzhi wouldn't die. He was already injured at that time, and he was physically exhausted, so he might be dragged to death by Yu Linzhi.
But now, the past is no longer important, because all the grievances will be settled today. The final winner is still him. Today, he is the king of Kushan and the leader of Chongguang Sect. He has everything he wants in his hands.
"Sutiga, are you laughing too early?"
A powerful male voice came from a distance through the secret voice transmitter. Sutijia had never heard this person's voice before. He looked around but could not find .
The information reported by Tang Rudai did not mention any forces other than the Imperial Guards, and he did not know what other forces were on this side outside Yumen Pass.
He hugged Shen Hanyan, who was like a clay puppet, in his arms and looked around for the person who spoke: "Who is it?" Apart from the sounds of fighting and killing, there was no other voice to answer his question.
Perhaps it was just a breath, a series of roars sounded one after another, followed by screams. In an instant, the Kushan army suffered countless casualties, smoke and fire lit up the sky red in the daytime.
Sutija was stunned by the scene before him. He had already used up most of the gunpowder reserves of the Royal Guards according to the information provided by Tang Rudai. But now, the sky full of flames caught him off guard.
Mu Lingsu and Yu Linzhi were also very surprised. Although they could tell that the voice was from Wulin leader Yu Jianwu, they didn't know where the gunpowder came from.
"Lin'er!" Yu Jianwu came galloping from a distance on a fast horse, and behind him were nearly 500 well-equipped imperial guards' artillery teams.
"What's going on?" Sutija was very flustered. He looked at the situation in front of him and was at a loss. The situation was quickly reversed, and the victory just now was gone. He was about to turn around and ask the butler, but found that the butler had already been shot to death.
Seeing that the situation was gradually turning in his favor, Yu Linzhi stopped hesitating, picked up the unconscious Shen Qingyu, grabbed a horse nearby, put Shen Qingyu on the horse, and then picked up Mu Lingsu and put her on the horse. He looked at Su Tijia and said, "Junior brother, maybe soon you will understand that blindly pursuing winning or losing is actually meaningless."
After saying this, Yu Linzhi also jumped on his horse and headed towards the Imperial Guards.
Shen Hanyan was already a little unconscious. Although she was lying in Sutijia's arms, she was still thinking about her brother.
"Let me go, let me down..." Shen Hanyan struggled in Sutiga's arms, trying to break free from his arms and find her royal brother.
The emperor was clearly lying there just now, where could he go?
But the more she struggled, the tighter Sutija held her. She turned her head and looked helplessly at Sutija, whose face was as cold as stone, and begged, "I... Eleventh Brother is missing, please let me go, so I can go find him..."
Sutijia wanted to refuse outright, but the look in her eyes almost broke his heart. It's not like he had never encountered such a heartbreaking look before, but he had never been moved by it before. Tang Rudai also looked at him like this before, but he had never felt this heartbroken.
He took back the refusal that was on the tip of his tongue and gently explained to Shen Hanyan: "Your eleventh brother has been rescued by Mu Lingsu and the others, don't worry."
Hearing that her brother was out of danger, Shen Hanyan felt relieved. Just as she was about to nod and say "OK", her eyes began to darken and everything in front of her became blurry.
Shen Yanran turned her head and looked at Sutijia, her voice so weak that it was barely audible: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, my eyes...seem..."
Sutijia noticed that something was wrong with her and was about to get closer to observe her more carefully when he suddenly felt a lightness on his waist. When he came to his senses, Shen Hanyan was already holding the dagger he carried with him against his neck.
Sutijia was very surprised. He had never thought that Shen Hanyan was so skilled: "Yan'er, how could you..."
The point is, when he felt her pulse before, he clearly didn't notice any Qi flowing in her body, so why did she suddenly...
"My biological father is the mighty general who protects the country, Prince Duanjing." Shen Hanyan was quick to press Su Tijia's acupoints and successfully got off his body.
Now the followers around Sutijia were all caught up in the fierce battle and had no time to care about them. The imperial guards who were close to her naturally recognized her as Princess Yongjia and dared not approach her easily. The two people seemed to be ignored by everyone, confronting each other alone, without anyone disturbing them.
Sutijia thought that he was being schemed against and didn't take it seriously: "Then, I really have to admit defeat. In terms of scheming and plotting, Princess Yongjia is still the best."
He had always thought that Shen Hanyan was a well-behaved girl who lived a life of luxury, but he didn't know that she hid her true self so deeply. She didn't even want people to discover her inner strength.
"Now that I can help my royal brother to eradicate you, my efforts are not in vain and I have stabbed myself in vain." Shen Hanyan took a few steps back and took out a cylindrical object from her sleeve. She unscrewed the lid, and a wisp of smoke floated out of it and rose into the air.
She looked at Sutijia and said, "Your Majesty, don't you think about it? How could I, a princess, enter the palace so easily to please the queen, be crowned a princess, and grow up in Fengzao Palace?"
As she was speaking, the maroon donkey that Shen Hanyan usually rode had arrived beside her. She mounted it lightly and asked, "Your Majesty is so smart, how come you didn't notice that there was such a strange donkey following you?" After saying that, she patted the donkey's head without waiting for Sutiga to answer, and rode away.
Sutijia watched Shen Hanyan riding the donkey farther and farther away, and used his inner strength to open the acupuncture points. But he still stood there, ignoring the bodies of Kushan soldiers scattered around him. He seemed to have forgotten that he was defeated, and the only thing in his mind was the helpless look of Shen Hanyan when she was in his arms just now.
Even though he now understood that Shen Hanyan had been pretending and deceiving him, he still couldn't hate her at all. His soul seemed to have been taken away by Shen Hanyan's cold eyes that melted everything, and he couldn't find it back no matter how he tried. Perhaps, from the beginning, he didn't just want to possess Shen Hanyan, but fell in love with her and wanted to be with her.
He had previously mistakenly thought that Shen Hanyan and Tang Rudai were the same, and were just toys of his desires. He had wanted to make Shen Hanyan a princess, just because Shen Hanyan was a princess and Tang Rudai was just a subordinate who followed him around.
It was not until now that he realized that he made such a decision not because of Shen Hanyan's noble status, but because the person he loved in his heart was Shen Hanyan, not Tang Rudai. So, let alone saying that Shen Hanyan deceived him, even if Shen Hanyan used that dagger to kill him now, he would not have any complaints.
For the first time in his life, he fell in love with someone, although she didn't love him.
"I've been waiting for you for a long time, Senior Brother, Uncle Yu." Tang Rudai led nearly a hundred people to guard a trumpet-shaped area on the mountainside. When she saw Yu Jianwu and his son leading the Royal Guards towards the mountainside, she shouted loudly.
She looked for but couldn't find her. "Is Miss Mu here? I have something to say to her. Can you please let her know for me, Senior Brother?"
Yu Linzhi knew that Tang Rudai had come with bad intentions, so he secretly put his hands behind his waist and signaled the people behind him to cover up the carriage that held Mu Lingsu and Shen Qingyu. He said frankly, "You don't have any reason to see her. If there is anything personal, I can convey it to you."
Tang Rudai saw that Yu Linzhi was very cautious and had a very firm attitude, so she didn't intend to hide it and said, "Miss Mu just woke me up. I specially let her go. Not only will I not hurt her life, but I will also personally send her back to the Central Plains after everything is over, just as a way of repaying her."
After she left, she rushed back to the Chongguang Sect headquarters, gathered all the remaining followers, brought all the available weapons and gunpowder, and rushed to support Sutijia. She happened to meet Yu Linzhi and his men here, so she planned to kill them here to take credit in front of Sutijia.
"Looking at your current condition, Xiao Mu doesn't seem to have woken you up." Yu Linzhi looked at Tang Rudai coldly and said sarcastically.
Although he didn't care about Tang Rudai's situation, he didn't understand why Tang Rudai was still working for Su Tijia.
In his logic, any normal person would leave that person immediately after discovering that the person he likes not only dislikes him or her but also uses him or her, instead of being like Tang Rudai.
Tang Rudai didn't want to have such a meaningless argument with him, so she repeated her question: "Is Miss Mu here?"
Yu Linzhi didn't want to waste time talking to her: "Junior sister, you'd better get out of the way. You only have about a hundred people under your command now. If we take action, it would simply be bullying the minority with the majority."
What he was worried about now was Shen Qingyu. Although Mu Lingsu was guarding beside him, there was no guarantee that Shen Qingyu would arrive in Dunhuang completely safe and sound. Instead of wasting time here with Tang Rudai, it would be better to fight quickly and gain as much life as possible for Shen Qingyu.
He said: "Please get out of the way. Sutija is doomed now. If you know what to do now, we can let you go and not hold you accountable for your crime."
Only when Sutija is removed will Tang Rudai be touched. She seems to only care about Sutija.
Tang Rudai was only thinking about supporting Su Tijia, how could she have guessed that Su Tijia had already lost while she was traveling back and forth between the two places?
Hearing the news that Yu Linzhi told her, she was incredulous: "The king is wise and powerful, how could he lose to you? Yu Linzhi, don't try to trick me into surrendering!"
She pretended to be willing to die rather than surrender, raised the soft sword in her hand and pointed it at Yu Linzhi: "I will remember the account of you cursing the king today. When I come to settle accounts with you in the future, I will cut off your tongue and hang it at Yumen Pass for public display!"
Less than a minute after these harsh words were spoken, everyone heard Shen Hanyan's voice coming from a distance: "Eleventh Brother, Eleventh Brother!"
Yu Linzhi looked up and saw Shen Hanyan riding the same red donkey they had when they met again. He didn't know if it was because of the yellow sand that blinded his eyes, but looking at Shen Hanyan, who was so rare and "heroic" at the moment, he actually had the illusion that he saw a peerless female hero.
"Mr. Yu, is my eleventh brother still here?" While everyone was stunned, Shen Hanyan had already arrived in front of Yu Linzhi.
She got off the donkey, threw the reins in her hand to the Imperial Guards lieutenant who was about to greet her, and looked up at Yu Linzhi on horseback. She didn't dare to have too high expectations that her brother was still alive, so she asked this question.
In her impression, Shen Qingyu's injuries were very serious. Coupled with the bumpy ride along the way, even if Mu Lingsu had the ability to bring the dead back to life, it was difficult to guarantee that Shen Qingyu would be fine.
Yu Linzhi was really not used to Shen Hanyan, who looked as mature and calm as a woman in her twenties. He always felt that someone else was impersonating her in disguise. But this donkey was indeed Shen Hanyan's.
Yu Linzhi thought for a moment and pointed to the carriageway that was specially blocked at the back: "Reporting to Her Royal Highness, the Princess, Prince Yi Yang is in the carriage at the back. Mu Lingsu is taking care of him inside. If you are worried, go and take a look."
Shen Hanyan got the message and was about to run over when she heard Tang Rudai say behind her: "Then I will kill King Yiyang first and cut off his head as a gift to the king!"
"You dare!" As soon as Shen Hanyan finished speaking, a black shadow flashed before Tang Rudai's eyes, and a pain like a burning fire quickly crept up her cheek.
When Tang Rudai came to her senses, Shen Hanyan already had an extremely thin nine-section whip in her hand.
Shen Hanyan raised her chin slightly, looking down at Tang Rudai with the arrogance that only a royal family could have: "In terms of hierarchy, I am still the principal wife of the King of Kushan. Although you are the concubine, you are still a concubine. How dare you threaten to kill my brother in front of me?"
Tang Rudai covered her face, which was in pain from being whipped by the nine-section whip. She wanted to retort, but when the words came to her lips, she was frightened by Shen Hanyan's eyes when she looked into hers, and had to remain silent.
Seeing that Tang Rudai didn't dare to speak, Shen Hanyan put away the whip and walked towards the carriage.
"I didn't expect her to be so powerful." Tang Rudai was still unwilling to accept it. She looked at Shen Hanyan's back with a tone full of resentment.
Yu Linzhi didn't have the leisure to care about how powerful Shen Hanyan was. He just wanted to quickly solve Tang Rudai's not-so-small trouble.
He said, "Even Princess Yongjia escaped from Sutijia, don't you still believe that Sutijia has been completely defeated?"
"She..." After Yu Linzhi's reminder , Tang Rudai realized that Shen Hanyan was very likely to have escaped. But she was still unwilling to admit that Su Tijia would fail.
Tang Rudai argued forcefully: "Didn't you see just now? This princess appears to be weak on the surface, but in fact she is a martial arts expert. She wants to escape..."
As she was talking, she could no longer continue. The uneasiness and doubt in her heart became more and more serious, and she had no way to convince herself or deceive herself.
Su Tijia thought Shen Hanyan was so important that he even let her escape. What does this mean? Of course, it means that Su Tijia was already too busy to take care of himself and couldn't even take care of Shen Hanyan.
Seeing that she was silent, Yu Linzhi knew that his chance had come, and hurriedly said, "Sutijia was obviously defeated. Now the Royal Guards' artillery and other things have not been transported back yet. If you go now, you may be able to bury him."