The originally dull and silent deck was suddenly excited by the words of the young man in white. This group of soldiers from the Ye Kingdom who had been wandering at sea for many years seemed to have rediscovered the meaning of joining the army at this moment.
Seeing that his soldiers no longer obeyed his orders, Zhuo Xiukuo was completely panicked. He stood there, the expression on his face changed from shock to bewilderment, and then turned into extreme anger:
"Are you stupid? Now as long as we take this kid into the city and present it to the king, there will be countless glory and wealth waiting for us! There are only more than a thousand people on these ships, even if you take one for a hundred
, how can we compete with the tens of thousands of well-equipped imperial troops under the leadership of the king?"
However, no matter how coercive and tempting this once mighty general was, or how furious he was, the sergeants on the ship just looked at him angrily, and no one responded.
Zhuo Xiukuo was not willing to let it go. In a rage, he actually pulled out his sword and stabbed the boy in white: "You kid, you are deliberately trying to ruin my good deeds. You must accept your fate!"
Qi Ziyin immediately took half a step to the side, but the opponent's blade still cut through his clothes, leaving an obvious blood mark on his chest. The surrounding soldiers immediately rushed up with angrily shouting, trying to tie Zhuo Xiukuo up.
.Unexpectedly, the young man shook his head vigorously, had his shackles removed, and actually planned to challenge:
"To bully the few with more, you can win without force. Zhuo Xiukuo still doesn't repent until now. Today I will personally replace General Baili and remove this black sheep from our Ye Kingdom's fleet!"
"No, Ziyin, your injuries haven't fully healed yet!"
When Leng Jiayun saw this, she immediately opened her mouth to stop her, but the young man's firm eyes made the general in green suddenly flash before her eyes:
"A great leader should know when to shoulder his responsibilities! Let him do it. The disciples I taught will never be defeated by such a coward!"
A layer of mist suddenly filled the woman's eyes, blurring her vision. She quickly reached out to wipe it away, only to see that Zhuo Xiukuo had already swung his knife directly towards the defenseless young man in white. He was actually the first to strike!
Leng Jiayun broke out in a cold sweat, but did not dare to speak to Qi Ziyin anymore. The young man seemed to be angered by his opponent's sneak attack. He ducked short and dodged the opponent's continuous chops, and then shouted at the woman:
"Sister Jia, hurry up and get Yin Ya for me!"
Only then did the Dongli woman come back to her senses, and hurriedly asked the sergeant in charge of guarding the soldiers to fetch Xiang Baili's double blades. Qi Ziyin repeatedly avoided Zhuo Xiukuo's sharp edges, and ran in front of the sergeant with a low body.
After passing by, he stretched out his hand and heard two clanking sounds. The long sword was unsheathed, red as blood and inky as night.
Zhuo Xiukuo saw the young man holding the sword to the left and right, and once again attacked the young man with all his strength, all his moves were critical. He simply did not understand why this young master, who seemed a bit dull, would give up his advantage and choose to fight with him.
Although he was facing a duel, he also understood that the opponent was Xiang Baili's disciple and did not dare to be careless. He only wanted to give Qi Ziyin a fatal blow before he could get out of his stance.
The two fought with all their strength in a three-foot-square area surrounded by the officers and men on the ship. However, after only two or three rounds, the long knife in Zhuo Xiukuo's hand was broken by the boy in white on the spot. He was immediately frightened.
He retreated to the edge of the crowd. Qi Ziyin in front of him did not move a step, but looked at him coldly with a pair of tawny eyes:
"I would like to advise you, general, to find out when you have lost your way. It is not too late!"
"Damn it, you just got lucky this time!"
Zhuo Xiukuo cursed in a low voice. He didn't know who he was talking to, but he didn't mean to admit defeat at all. Immediately, he reached out and snatched a pair of armor-breaking hammers from the hands of the soldiers who were watching the battle on the sidelines.
He rushed towards the young man again.
The armor-breaking hammer weighed more than thirty kilograms, and even the boat master's black armor could not withstand its full blow. After several exchanges, sparks flew, and the young man in white looked at the two extra streaks that instantly appeared on the blade.
When the weapons met, he realized that he could no longer fight with him head-on. He made a feint with the mysterious sword in his hand, but he avoided the reality and turned around. At the moment when the weapons met, he turned his body half a circle, like the impeller of a windmill, using the blade's spine.
It caused the heavy war hammer to lose its accuracy.
There was a loud "click", and the warhammer hit the ground and penetrated the deck, causing wood chips to fly. However, Zhuo Xiukuo was not frustrated by this. Instead, he seemed to have come up with some new trick. He struggled to remove the weapon from the broken wood on the deck.
He pulled it out, but did not launch an attack. Instead, he swung the lifting hammer and swung it with all his strength towards the deck beside him!
"Ziyin, be careful, he wants to trap you!"
Leng Jiayun was the first to react, but it was too late when he spoke to warn. After another loud noise, a large hole was opened in the thick and hard deck, and underneath it was the deck supporting Qi Ziyin's feet.
A wooden citron lost its support. No matter how thick the plank was, it could not maintain its own stability and fell straight into the belly of the ship!
The young man in white also realized that the situation was not good, and immediately tried to pull away, but he felt as if he had stepped on a ball of cotton under his feet, and he could not use any strength at all. Then his left foot suddenly sank down, and half of his leg actually
It was completely trapped in the gap in the deck, and it was firmly stuck, making it difficult to escape!
"Kid, do you know that those who once blocked my promotion and fortune will only die in the end!"
Zhuo Xiukuo held the heavy hammer high and approached the young man step by step. Seeing this, Leng Jiayun on the sidelines quickly asked Fan Zhen to come forward to rescue him, but before they could take action, they saw the trapped Qi Ziyin holding his hands.
The knife suddenly inserted into the gap in the deck where his left leg was stuck, and then he thrust it upward with force, breaking the main citron supporting the entire deck!
There was a loud sound of landslides and ground cracking, and countless wooden boards that were several feet long around the two men began to tilt up, as if they had been bombarded by stone crossbows. They collapsed from the center of the deck to both sides. They were hit hard.
Qi Ziyin and Zhuo Xiukuo, who were inseparable, suddenly disappeared from people's sight and disappeared!
Leng Jiayun lifted up the hem of her skirt and ran forward in panic. She lay down next to the gap of more than ten feet wide exposed after the broken board and looked down. She saw among the turbulent dust that Qi Ziyin had already used the long knife in his hand.
, pressed against Zhuo Xiukuo’s throat:
"Do you know why you failed today?"
Zhuo Xiukuo was pinned down by the heavy hammer and a pile of broken wood in his hand. His strength was exhausted and he couldn't move at all. However, he still gasped and cursed shamelessly:
"It's because of you damn brat's deception! If we fight again, you will definitely be the one trapped here right now!"
Qi Ziyin snorted at him contemptuously: "Wrong! The reason why you were defeated today is because apart from fame and fortune, you no longer have any kindness and righteousness in your eyes! To fight for fame and fortune, you can only rely on a moment of bloody courage. If you suffer a slight setback, you will be defeated.
He will retreat again and again. But when he fights for his parents, relatives, and the common people in the world, he will become more and more courageous with every setback, and even his personal life and death can be left behind!"
"Bah, what kind of people in the world! Born in troubled times, I only care about myself, how can I care about so many things!"
"From the first day you had such thoughts, you are no longer worthy of being our Yeguo Zhoushi. General Baili once ordered the entire army to keep in mind the eight-character motto. I'm afraid you have long since forgotten it, right?
!”
"What a motto, I have never heard of it!"
Facing the angry rebuke of the young man in white, Zhuo Xiukuo still argued in every possible way. Qi Ziyin stopped paying attention to him, but raised his head, looked at the soldiers wearing black armor around him and asked loudly:
"Soldiers, it's up to you to tell him!"
"The brave have no fear, the benevolent are invincible!" the soldiers on the ship raised their arms and shouted loudly.
Facing the deafening shouts, the expression on Zhuo Xiukuo's face gradually solidified, and then he seemed to have changed into a different person. He changed his previous ferocious look and actually started crying in front of everyone:
"Young Master! Young Master, I know I was wrong. Please spare my life. From now on, I, Zhuo Xiukuo, will be loyal to you and follow your lead!"
"No need. I can't tolerate villains by my side. But I didn't intend to kill you in the first place. I will take you into custody now and make a decision after the war subsides!"
Qi Ziyin said, slightly restraining the sharpness of the Yin teeth in his hand. Then he ordered the sergeants on the left and right to step forward and move away the heavy hammer and the several wooden boards that were pressing on the opponent.
Unexpectedly, Zhuo Xiukuo, who staggered up from the ground, punched one of them in the face before the sergeants tied him up. Then he jumped from the side of the cabin like a huge rat.
He got out of Fang's porthole, plunged into the sea, and swam far away in the blink of an eye.
"We must not let him go like this, otherwise there will be endless trouble!"
Leng Jiayun immediately signaled the crossbowman to take the arrow, intending to shoot him on the spot. But the boy in white just looked at the small black spot rising and falling in the sea, and shook his head with a wry smile:
"Now, even though he has been deprived of his military status, he is still a subject of our country, Ye. Just run away. What awaits us next will be a hard fight, there is no need to start killing each other now..."
"But what Zhuo said before does have some truth to it. With just a few people on board, how easy is it to break into Mulu City, which even an entire army has failed to capture?"
The woman in purple frowned, then raised her eyes to look towards the distant sea level in the direction of Mulu City, with worry on her face. But the boy in white beside her seemed to have already made a plan:
"Most of the soldiers in the Royal Ling Army and the Marine Division are from General Baili's old corps, and the Baisha Camp is located outside the city. Now that the country is in crisis, after we get ashore, we only need to use the General's pair of Xuanchi long swords as our weapons.
Token, I believe many of them will come back to our side!"
"Young Master is right! In fact, as soon as we brothers heard the news about Cheng Ye's war, we thought about coming back as soon as possible every day and night. But Zhuo Xiukuo had to lead everyone all the way north, so we had no choice but to come back as soon as possible.
Deserters! Now that we have returned to the young master's command, our brothers will move forward bravely and fight to the death!"
Before he could finish his words, the vice-admiral on the ship stepped forward, performed a standard military salute, and swore allegiance to Qi Ziyin.
"Little ghost head, when you said you wanted me to trust you earlier, did you mean this? Where did you get the confidence? These soldiers on the ship will follow you without hesitation, even risking their own lives and fortunes.
Is he, Qi Shouyu, turning against him?"
"Sister Jia, haven't you noticed? Every word, deed, and action of the many officers and men on the ship actually carries the legacy of General Baili. This is another precious gift he left for us in this world.
!With the boat commander here, we are not fighting alone, the general’s heroic spirit will also protect us in the sky!"
The young man in white walked slowly towards the bow of the ship, raising his head high in the sea breeze. It seemed that he saw the always smiling face of his mentor in the high sky.
It was night, and Qi Ziyin was sitting alone in the cabin. The sound of repairing the deck outside the cabin was still clearly audible, but he closed the doors and windows tightly and stared blankly at a bronze mirror on the table that reflected the candlelight, like a statue.
As motionless as a statue.
Suddenly, he raised his hand and took off the layers of fine cloth wrapped around his face. Now the wound on his face has long healed, and the medicine may not have been used for a long time. But since the last time he was publicly humiliated by Zhuo Xiukuo, the young man
People have been asking Leng Jiayun not to take off the fine cloth. To this day, he has even become accustomed to seeing his face covered with it every day.
What slowly appeared in the bronze mirror was a face that had long since changed beyond recognition. On the right cheek, a long dark red scar ran from the corner of the mouth to the base of the ear. The tip of the nose was cut off, and now only two are left.
The flesh hole is exposed on the face. Even if the wound has healed, the scar that is difficult to erase still makes the originally handsome boy look as ferocious as a ghost crawling out of the grave!
"ah--!"
Qi Ziyin roared, grabbed the bronze mirror in front of him, and threw it out. The mirror hit the beams in the cabin and made a clanging sound. This sudden strange scream also caused the soldiers who were busy outside the cabin to
It suddenly became quiet.
Soon, a man dressed in purple pushed open the young man's cabin door, walked to him and sat down next to him. He didn't say anything, but hugged him gently and stroked the top of his head.
"Sister Jia, I - right now - I have turned into a monster!"
The emotions that Qi Ziyin had suppressed in his heart for a long time since leaving Qingwan suddenly broke out completely at this moment. He fell into the woman's arms and burst into tears.
"If you enter the city like this, what will the civil and military officials of the court think? What will the people in the city think? How could they accept such an ugly monster as their king?!"
"Don't cry, don't cry. Look at all the soldiers and generals on this ship, has anyone ever laughed at you? No matter what you look like on the outside, it can't replace your true self on the inside. Besides, Fan Zhen and I went out of our way to
You prepared this—"
Leng Jiayun persuaded softly, then took out a small box and handed it to the young man's hand.
The young man in white wiped his hazy tears and opened the box, only to see inside was a mask made of sterling silver according to his original appearance!
"Sister Jia, this is-"
"If you need it, wear it into the city. But never forget that the person under the mask is the real you! Try to be a wise monarch, that is what you should do!"
Qi Ziyin took the mask hesitantly, caressed the mask with his fingertips, and fell into deep thought for a long time.
The woman in purple didn't say anything more, but left the young man's cabin quietly. However, she didn't close the door tightly, but opened a small gap and stood outside the cabin, looking around.
After a long time, the young man in white raised his hand and put the silver mask on his face. His head, which had always been lowered, was lifted up. The two golden pupils shone like stars again, as if they were no longer there.
Feeling confused and scared about the uncertain road ahead.
Seeing this, Leng Jiayun finally turned around, muttered to herself and walked away slowly, but there were some tears in her eyes at some point:
"Baili - the child you entrusted to me has finally grown up!"
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