Red Mansion: Picking up a Lin Daiyu

Chapter 158 Accident
The attacker attacked swiftly and Yue Ling dodged immediately.

He kicked up the wooden stool with his toes and placed it on the path of the boy's swing.

The sword was swung out, and the wooden bench shattered into pieces. The boy's face became more and more horrified.

He seemed to be very familiar with this scene, it was simply unforgettable.

When he was defeated for the first time, the situation was exactly the same as it is now.

Frowning, the young man swung his sword again, but the opponent caught his sword with two fingers and he could not move it.

The young man immediately dropped his sword, leaped back five steps, and then patted his chest.

Just now, the opponent's fist was only an inch away from his chest.

"Liu Xianglian, how long are you going to fight?"

The young man took a closer look and was even more shocked, "Yue Ling? Is it really you? Why are you here?"

Yue Ling said helplessly: "I was ordered by His Majesty to come to Cangzhou to provide disaster relief. What about you? Why are you so embarrassed?"

The shouts and screams outside the wall were getting closer and closer. Liu Xianglian couldn't calm down and said hurriedly: "I have my own difficulties. Yue Ling, don't stop me. I didn't do the evil things, but someone else did it!"

Yue Ling added: "I have already told you, His Majesty sent me to sit here. If you have any grievances, I will definitely redress them for you."

Liu Xianglian considered and said, "But, I used to work for Prince Kang's Mansion."

"So what? The Duke of Liguo's mansion has been promoted to a higher rank because of the merits of the battle in the capital. Will His Majesty care about a kid like you?"

"Just wait behind me. There is no one in this city that I cannot protect!"

Yue Ling threw the sword over and it just happened to fit into Liu Xianglian's scabbard.

Liu Xianglian let out a breath and felt a little relieved.

Soon, officers and soldiers gathered here, surrounding the place with three layers inside and three layers outside, making it impossible to get in or out.

"Listen up, everyone inside. Put down your weapons and surrender. Today, you can't escape even if you have wings!"

Yue Ling stood in front of Liu Xianglian and responded, "I am Yue Ling, the Marquis of Anjing. I am here on the orders of His Majesty to inspect Cangzhou City and give advice on all military and political matters."

Throwing the ID card on his waist to the leading military officer, Yue Ling shouted again, "As for the case of the bandit, I will personally interrogate him. You all leave!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the soldiers on the field were so frightened that they all shrank back their steps, and their arms holding weapons could not help but drop down.

The leading military officer looked at the badge from top to bottom, then threw it on the ground and stepped on it a few times.

"Marquis Anjing? I've never heard of him. There has never been an imperial envoy in the city. Stop talking nonsense! You are protecting the thief, you should be regarded as an accomplice and arrested together!"

"These two men are extremely evil. The prefect has ordered that they be executed on the spot!"

The officers and soldiers all boosted their morale and pressed forward again.

Liu Xianglian's heart sank, he drew his sword and asked, "Yue Ling, didn't you say you were an imperial envoy? Why don't they recognize you?"

Yue Ling curled his lips. He didn't expect that the prefect was so cruel that he dared to openly kill the imperial envoy.

Yue Ling also drew his sword and said to Liu Xianglian behind him: "It's because you are here that they don't recognize you."

Liu Xianglian is not a stupid person. He has been in the underworld for many years and has seen a lot of dirty things.

"Are you saying that they deliberately denied it and waited until we both died, so that they could put the blame for your death on me, a dead man?"

Yue Ling nodded slightly to show his agreement, and silently said in his heart: "Okay, if you want to use tricks, then don't blame me for using unscrupulous means..."

……

In an alley about a hundred steps away from the center of the conflict, a group of people were quietly observing the situation.

"Uncle, it seems that the senior official has had a conflict with the government troops. Should we go down and help?"

Someone nearby said, "It's strange, why would that person clash with the government troops?"

The sturdy man who was called Second Uncle by a group of young men frowned slightly and observed: "It's really hard to tell who that person is. At the moment, he is in conflict with the government troops, which is unusual. Even if all of us go out together, it will be difficult to rescue him from the government troops."

"There aren't many males in the family. If a few more die, how can I explain this to the young master?"

Someone interjected, "So what if they are government troops? These crooked officials are making a profit by taking a few people with them before they die!"

The man controlled the emotions of the younger generation accompanying him and said, "Let's wait and see. If the official is an imperial envoy, he won't be defeated so easily."

Everyone thought it made sense, so they waited for a while.

However, when they looked over again, the situation had changed rapidly.

The man immediately ordered, "Quick, Zhao family members, surround this group of government troops and don't let them get away."

……

"Where are the soldiers of the Beijing camp?"

Yue Ling shouted, and immediately a group of soldiers came out from outside the wall. They were all wearing iron armor, which was much stronger than the cloth armor and cotton armor worn by the patrol soldiers in Cangzhou City. "I am here!"

Yue Ling pointed his sword at the leading military officer and said, "Disrespecting the imperial envoy is disrespecting His Majesty. Kill everyone here without mercy, leaving only him alive!"

"As ordered!"

The soldiers of the Beijing camp immediately formed a circle, protecting Yue Ling and Liu Xianglian in the middle, and then moved forward with standard sabers to slash at the enemy.

The other side's military officers only realized at this time that something was wrong. They only knew that Yue Ling had arrived, but they didn't know that Yue Ling was bringing with him the elite troops of the Beijing Camp. This slight difference in information was enough to cause them to fall into the abyss.

"Go, go quickly! Don't be scared by them. If you don't fight back, you will die today!"

The military officer was already hysterical, but he still couldn't stop his side's decline.

How could the elite troops of the Beijing garrison be defeated by the local patrol soldiers? Moreover, they have the advantage of weapons and armor, and each of them is like a tiger among a flock of sheep, tearing the enemy to pieces.

Although the patrolling government troops were several times larger than Yue Ling's troops, the situation was still one-sided.

Seeing that he could no longer resist, the military officer jumped on his horse and tried to escape and report the incident.

Yue Ling immediately rushed out of the crowd, stepped over someone's shoulder, and leaped forward.

However, when he got close, the officer's horse's legs had been chopped off, and he fell headfirst, and was surrounded in an instant. The officer had no time to resist, and was tied up like a dumpling.

The first man immediately knelt down, clasped his fists with Yue Ling and said, "Zhao Yuanxing of the Yunxing Escort Agency greets you, sir."

He waved his hand, and the young man from the Zhao family behind him immediately presented the military officer.

Yue Ling raised his eyebrows slightly, "Do you know my identity?"

Zhao Yuanxing shook his head and said, "We don't know, but seeing that you are so dignified and can fight against the government troops, you must be no ordinary person. We are at a loss, please give us some advice."

Yue Ling put away his sword and said, "Well, I heard about your story the day I entered the city. I'm sure you have grievances too. You can tell him about it later."

"The most urgent thing is to clean up the battlefield and leave no traces. Since you have a request from me, just let them deal with these bodies. Remember to take off their clothes. I still need them."

Zhao Yuanxing bowed and said, "I will obey your orders, sir."

Leaving the room to be cleaned by the soldiers from the Beijing Camp and the people from the Yunxing Escort Agency, Yue Ling took Liu Xianglian to an empty room.

Seeing that he was in tattered clothes and had some scars on his body, Yue Ling sighed and said, "You have suffered a lot."

Liu Xianglian recalled that he was almost taken advantage of by a fool last night. He immediately felt nauseous and vomited twice before saying, "If you want to be a hero, why should you cherish your life? My Lord, your martial arts are getting better and better. I can't even catch up with you."

Yue Ling waved his hands and said, "No, it's just that I didn't use my full strength when I fought with you in Prince Kang's Mansion."

Upon hearing this, Liu Xianglian almost vomited blood.

As the leader of the younger generation of the Four Kings and Eight Dukes, he had never lost a martial arts competition in the capital since he was a child, and he rarely encountered strong opponents when he traveled around the world. But he was defeated in front of Yue Ling, and he really had no way to deal with it.

Liu Xianglian sighed and said, "This city is full of filth and dirt. It is far dirtier than what you have seen, my Lord."

"Human trafficking and forcing women of good families into prostitution are commonplace. The other day, I was recovering from my wounds in my room when a thief attacked me and tried to molest me as soon as he entered the room."

"I wanted to slash him with my sword, but the soldiers came after me. Alas."

Yue Ling tried hard not to laugh out loud at Liu Xianglian's pitiful experience.

"You have a feminine appearance. You should put on your mask."

Liu Xianglian smiled helplessly, "I asked around and found out that the playboy that night was Xue Pan from the Xue family in Jinling. Sooner or later I will go and settle accounts with him."

"Xue Pan?"

Yue Ling thought to himself, "Has the Xue family also come to Cangzhou City?"

Liu Xianglian took a few breaths and told Yue Ling everything he had seen and heard in the city.

"Since I left the capital, I have been wandering around. When I came to Cangzhou, I heard that there were many cases of children being lost in the city. Based on my experience in the martial arts world, I knew there must be something wrong. As I investigated further, I found that there was a group of thieves who specialized in buying and selling children."

"The children were sold all over the place, earning huge profits. I could only do my best to find where they were hiding the children and rescue them first. As for how many survived and how many were caught, I was powerless."

Yue Ling added: "But the wanted poster in the city now has you, which proves that this gang of thieves is colluding with the government?"

Liu Xianglian said: "Even if it wasn't led by the government, a lot of money must have been shared among them."

"Moreover, after the news of the imperial envoy's appointment, the secret activities in the city have become more frequent. In the past few days alone, I have rescued hundreds of children."

"The timing is so coincidental that it's hard not to connect the two."

Yue Ling pondered for a moment.

"It certainly can't be that they want to make a final profit just because I'm here."

Liu Xianglian also nodded, "It should be that the government's accounts are in serious loss, and there is no surplus grain in the warehouses and charity warehouses. In order to deal with the Marquis's inspection, they came up with this last resort."

"But what followed was the boiling resentment of the people in the city. They had no choice but to set up a few targets to shoot at. By killing us, the people also vented their anger. They kept their official hats and could earn money in peace."

(End of this chapter)