Chapter 278: They All Arrived in the Imperial City (I)
Translator: Storm in a Teacup
“There are a lot more people than last time,” Liu sneered.
“Mhmm,” Ouyang said calmly, “We are approaching the imperial city. They are naturally anxious.”
“Tsk.” Liu curled his lips. “They’re finally anxious. Kill two more before retreating.”
Ouyang responded and began to fight more fiercely.
So far, none of the fifteen Shadow Guardians had been killed. Two of them were injured earlier, but they recovered soon.
Therefore, Liu and Ouyang still had enough men following them.
Moreover, they only needed to take care of themselves. The Shadow Guardians didn’t need anyone’s protection, because they were dexterous and quick in action just as Liu and Ouyang.
So things had been very easy for them.
After each of the seventeen people killed two more opponents, they all retreated under Liu’s order.
“Damn! Damn!” Mr. Chen was so angry that he almost wanted to eat people, but he was not stupid. There were not many men left, so he couldn’t act recklessly.
Moreover, all of his subordinates were quite panicky. He naturally couldn’t make them feel worse.
Therefore, Mr. Chen had been restraining his desire to eat people these days.
At this moment, he was extremely furious. He hit the big tree beside him with great strength and the branches were almost broken.
All of his subordinates were sacred stiff and dared not speak with him, because they didn’t want to be killed.
Liu and the others retreated to a safe place.
After all of them stopped, Ouyang said, “Those people didn’t catch up.”
Liu sneered. “That’s because they’re useless!”
Ouyang looked at him. “Don’t be too careless. How many people are left?”
“Six,” Liu said, “After we kill these people here, there’s only one city left and we are getting close to the imperial city.”
“Well, let’s complete the task as soon as possible,” Ouyang said, “I have the feeling that something will happen to the imperial city if we’re too late. We should be more careful.”
Liu narrowed his eyes. “Brother Ouyang, do you feel like that?”
Ouyang nodded after some hesitation. “I have an intuition.”
“Okay.” Liu nodded. “We’ll speed it up.”
In the next five days, Liu and the others acted very smoothly. They not only reached the last city, but also eliminated most of the people on the list.
However, the remaining ones were nowhere to be found.
“I suspect that those people have been taken away by Mr. Chen,” Ouyang said.
Liu nodded. “It’s highly possible.”
“Moreover, Mr. Chen didn’t try to assassinate us these days. He’s probably planning something more serious.”
Liu nodded again. “I originally thought that he would be anxious when we were close to the imperial city. Now it seems that he is indeed anxious, but he doesn’t plan to kill us on the road.”
“Right. They are probably already in the imperial city now!”
“There’s no time to lose. We can’t waste time here. Let’s go to the imperial city!”
“Yes. Go to the imperial city!”
When Liu and Ouyang decided to go to the imperial city, Long and Shi were busy in the imperial palace.
In the past few days, several spies had been found.
Those spies were executed under the orders of Long and Shi.
In addition, their bodies were hung up at the gate of the palace for two days.
Therefore, all the maids and eunuchs in the palace had been very cautious these past two days. They were afraid that they’d say or do something wrong, and then they’d be killed as well.
The remaining concubines in the palace were all very sensible. At least no one had gone to disturb Long.
Long was very satisfied with this.
At this moment, Long and Shi were busy with the matter about Shi Qingshan.
The Shadow Guardians had arrived at Shi Qingshan’s place. In these days, three assassins had been caught there.
The man who failed to kill Shi Qingshan earlier went to assassinate him again.
Fortunately, Ying Qiu and the others arrived, so they rescued Shi Qingshan at the critical moment.
If it hadn’t been for Ying Qiu and the others to arrive in time, Shi Qingshan would have been killed by that assassin!
The assassin was arrested by Ying Qiu, but they didn’t get anything useful, because the assassin committed suicide after being caught.
After that, two more groups of people attempted to assassinate Shi Qingshan, but with Ying Qiu and other Shadow Guardians, none of those assassins had succeeded.
After all that, Shi Qingshan finally confirmed who was that spy.
The previous night, Shi Qingshan arrested that man.
That was actually a general who had worked for Shi Qingshan for ten years!
In the tent, that general was caught, looking upset, while Shi Qingshan was very disappointed.
“General Zhou, why did you do that?” Shi Qingshan felt heartbroken.
General Zhou lowered his head. “I’m sorry. Commander, if I could choose, I wouldn’t have done that… But I had no choice.”
“What did they threaten you with?” Shi Qingshan asked.
General Zhou took a deep breath, “My whole family.”
Shi Qingshan frowned. Suddenly, he became suspicious of him. “Your whole family? How could it be? You haven’t been married and only have two adopted sons. You even don’t have a wife. What family do you mean?”
General Zhou smiled bitterly. “Commander, do you still not understand? I’m not from this nation at all, so I can’t work for you. I know you’ve been treating me very well. What a pity. I really have no choice. Commander, I’ll repay you in the next life.”
After finishing speaking, that general took the poison which he had hidden for a long time and killed himself.
Shi Qingshan looked very bad.
The general who had worked for him for more than ten years… was actually from another nation!
Shi Qingshan gasped in astonishment and the Shadow Guardians were also very shocked.
They sent the news back to the imperial city through special channels.
Late at night more than two days later, Long received the message from Shi Qingshan.
“That spy was arrested, but he wasn’t from our nation… He’d been hiding so well,” Long said meaningfully.
“Indeed.” Shi nodded. “He could be able to lurk in my father’s army for so many years. He was indeed very powerful.”
Long held Shi’s hand.
“Qingzhou, don’t worry about your father. He’ll be fine.”
Shi looked at Long and nodded. “I know.”
Long leaned and kissed Shi on the cheek. “It’s so late. Let’s go to sleep.”
Shi dropped his eyes and answered softly, “Okay.”