Jiangshan Fengwuzhi

Chapter 17 Feeding
It was three o'clock in the morning and the night was getting darker.

A laborer urinated in the bushes. He looked back and saw that the supervisor didn't notice him, so he walked into the darkness and tried to hide.

To be fair, although working in Wanchun Palace was tiring, it was not difficult. The food was even very good, with meat and vegetables available for every meal. He had gained a lot of muscle in the six months he had been there.

Suddenly, he felt a pain at the back of his head and fell unconscious to the ground.

Gu Jingnian rested for two hours and his wounds had healed. He went forward, stripped the laborer of his clothes, put them on, and joined the laborers, looking for Master Ma's whereabouts.

The construction of the palace was huge, and countless people had to work hard at night.

This time, Gu Jingnian noticed that the supervisors were not harsh in their treatment of the labor and rarely whipped the workers to speed up the work.

A few laborers in front were thirsty, so they patted their companions and walked towards the shed next to the lumberyard.

"Let's go and have a drink of water."

The shed was built over a well and was guarded by an overseer. There was a wooden barrel next to the well and many small bowls on two tables. Any soldier or laborer who was thirsty could go up and scoop a bowl of water to drink.

Gu Jingnian saw the guard soldier sleeping on the table, and suddenly thought of something and walked over there.

"Woo——"

Suddenly a long horn sounded, and teams of soldiers came rushing over.

"Immediately impose martial law and take everyone back!"

"If anyone moves around casually again, they will be killed without mercy!"

Gu Jingnian was forced to stop. The surging crowd pushed him in the opposite direction, but he kept looking at the supervisor at the well.

The horns and shouts were still ringing. Despite such a loud commotion, the overseer was still lying there, showing no sign of waking up.

In this way, Gu Jingnian had roughly guessed what Master Ma was doing.

When he turned around, he was already in the middle of a dense crowd of people, tens of thousands of them.

"Behave yourself! Go back to your own cell!"

It was a group of huts, and it was hard to imagine that there would be such simple buildings next to such a majestic palace.

The laborers didn't seem to have any fixed beds, and they streamed into the cells like water.

As Gu Jingnian walked, he looked inside from outside and saw that many people were already sleeping there. They must have worked during the day. Their straw mattresses were dirty and worn, but they all had wooden barrels for drinking water.

When he saw two laborers carrying empty buckets to fetch water, he followed them. It turned out that there was a well within the area of the shed. Several guards were sitting by the well drinking water and chatting. When they saw someone coming, they started cursing.

"Go back! Martial law!"

Gu Jingnian's eyes fell on the hands of a guard, who were clapping a pair of dirty deerskin gloves, which were used by Master Ma to hold pool water.

"What are you looking at?" The guard raised his head and cursed, "Bastard, try looking at me like that again!"

Gu Jingnian thought that Master Ma might be among these people doing the labor, so he turned around and went to look for him.

He had sharp eyes and would look over there whenever he heard the sound of scooping water.

After searching for a long time, he finally saw a short figure chatting in the crowd.

"Drink some water."

Master Ma was very excited and tried hard to spread his enthusiasm.

Gu Jingnian quietly stepped forward, came up behind him and suddenly attacked, trying to lock his neck.

But Master Ma reacted quickly, jumped to the ground, and crawled directly under the two men, shouting: "Master Gu, I didn't lie to you, just wait, and you will see!"

Gu Jingnian pushed through the crowd and caught up with him, as if he was catching a mouse. The two of them chased each other among the laborers, causing a commotion.

Some people called it a great show and kicked the agile Ma Shi from time to time to prevent Gu Jingnian from losing him. Others applauded and pointed the way for Gu Jingnian.

The carnival of the poor only requires a little simple fun.

Master Ma finally ran out of the cell and dived into the crowd in front. Gu Jingnian caught up with him, but for the time being he could not see which crotch Master Ma had gotten into.

This group of people were being led by the supervisor and standing there stupidly, and then a team of silver-armored guards came over.

"take away!"

A laborer looked over and muttered, "Another group of people were released. Did those two escape on purpose?"

"It's so nice to stay here..."

A group of people were escorted deep into Wanchun Palace and divided into three groups to enter different palace gardens.

Gu Jingnian was still looking for Master Ma when he and everyone else were driven into an empty and dark hall.

"Oh!"

It was unknown what the palace door was made of, and it made a deep muffled sound when it was closed. Then, the sound of it being locked could be heard from the outside.

Only a ray of moonlight came in through the crack in the door.

Gu Jingnian tried hard to adapt to the darkness. He could vaguely see an iron cage in the darkness. Something was twisting in the cage, making a dull roar.

As everyone was muttering to themselves, there was a loud bang and the cage door deep in the hall was suddenly pulled up.

"what!"

There was a scream, and the crowd exploded.

With the help of that pitiful moonlight, Gu Jingnian saw a leech that was much more robust than the one he had seen before.

The bloody mouth rushed towards me...

--------

The blade pierced the flesh, and the leech bit down fiercely with its ferocious mouth.

Just as Yu Gui was about to be pierced, Huang Hu pounced forward and blocked the heavy blow with his body.

He has always been at the forefront, and this time is no exception.

"Use its horn! Cut off its head!"

Pei Nian shouted and kicked the big man from the imperial army, pushing him away and preventing the blade of the leech from completely piercing Huang Hu's body.

In a flash, Huang Hu grabbed the leech's head tightly with both hands. Although he could not use his innate strength for the time being, he gritted his teeth and held it down so that it struggled madly but could not break free.

The next moment, two more leech heads burst out of Huang Hu's belly and pierced through his sturdy body.

"Come!"

Pei Nian and You Gui rushed forward immediately, grabbed the head of the leech in Huang Hu's hand, held its bloody mouth, and used their bare hands to twist its blade to cut the throat of the big man from the imperial army.

The leech had not yet sucked blood. Although its strength was strong, it was not exaggerated. It struggled frantically but could not break free.

It seemed to be angry as well, and the other two heads were about to tear the yellow tiger to pieces.

"what!"

Huang Hu felt that his body was about to be torn apart. He roared and let go of his hands. He then wrapped his arms around the two heads on his body and tried to press them down.

His whole body was lifted up and hit against the cage with a loud clang. The cage was small and the leech could not unfold its snake-like body.

Pei Nian and You Gui held the leech's head tightly in their hands and pushed the blade little by little towards the big man in front of the emperor. Finally, the blade pierced into the big man's throat.

The leech was furious and let out a terrible roar, then it threw Yougui out.

Pei Nian was also knocked against the cage, but he tried his best not to let go.

This time, Yugui, who always just wanted to live a carefree life, did not let her down and immediately pounced on her again.

There was blood on their heads.

That was Huang Hu's blood. He was pushed against the top of the cage, his lower abdomen was torn apart, and his eyes were bloodshot.

The leech was sucking his blood, and as the blood flowed, its size and strength increased.

Pei Nian and You Gui were grief-stricken, and finally they mustered up all their strength and stabbed the blades in their hands into the neck of the big man in front of the emperor again.

Once, twice...the messy neck was finally broken by Pei Nian's elbow.

The yellow tiger also fell to the ground, the leeches on its body still twisting, until it gradually calmed down, leaving behind a horrible scene.

"Pah, pah, pah."

Liu Ziyan clapped his hands slowly and said, "As expected of the Kaiping Division, he was able to kill a leech with his bare hands. This is the first time I've seen one. He's a real warrior!"

Although he was praising, the mockery in his eyes became stronger. He took a few steps back and disappeared into the darkness.

"Yellow Tiger!"

Yougui rushed to Huang Hu and reached out to close his eyes, but he saw that his eyes were wide open and he was looking at him, and he couldn't help feeling sad.

Pei Nian was silent for a while, then said, "We have to chop off his head."

Yugui didn't move and said, "What's the use?"

Pei Nian refused to give up. She had recovered some of her strength and raised the head of the leech again, pointing the blade at Huang Hu's neck.

A cloud of smoke sprayed down from above, knocking them out again.

--------

The smoke was sprayed down, and standing in the smoke was a very burly man, and a huge leech that had merged with him. Its body was as thick as a tree trunk and had four heads.

It pierced the bodies of everyone in the hall, but stopped sucking blood and devouring flesh because the mortal bodies it inhabited could no longer bear it.

Finally, it bent down in the smoke and fell asleep.

When the smoke dissipated, the palace door was pushed open.

It was already daybreak, and under the shining sunlight, several silver-armored guards came in and put the monster back into the cage.

"You stay and clean up. These are no good. Chop them up."

"Yes."

The last silver-armored guard left closed the cage door, took out an iron chain to lock it, then drew his knife and chopped off a head.

He didn't check if there were any survivors. There was never any chance of anyone being alive here.

Suddenly, someone behind him sat up, and with a flash of cold light from the dagger in his hand, he cut the throat of the silver-armored guard.

Gu Jingnian held the silver-armored guard's head, stabbed him again, and slowly put down the body.

He stripped off the silver armor and put it on, which fit him quite well. Gu Jingnian then took the bunch of keys, picked up the knife on the ground, opened the cage, and chopped off the head of the man in whom the four vipers were living.

Having vented his anger, he ignored the corpses on the ground that might have mutated, walked out of the hall, turned around and looked, there were four or five similar halls in a row, he went to look for Master Ma one by one.

Occasionally, a guard would pass by and, seeing him wearing silver armor, would politely avoid him.

Gu Jingnian searched two halls in a row, and the key could open any door. He went straight to killing the three-headed viper and the four-headed viper in the cage, but he did not find Master Ma, nor did he see his body or his head.

He walked towards the deeper palace at the back and saw the three big characters "Gongdeyuan" on the plaque, and then saw a young man in a gray robe walking out.

Gu Jingnian immediately remembered that this was the Liu Ziyan that Pei Nian mentioned, so he followed him quietly.

A team of guards came towards them. When they saw Liu Ziyan, they hid on the side of the road. When they saw Gu Jingnian passing by, they also stopped and saluted.

"you……"

Suddenly one of the guards exclaimed, took two steps forward, pointed at Gu Jingnian, and looked him up and down.

Gu Jingnian did not recognize this man until he caught a glimpse of a pair of deerskin gloves hanging around his waist and remembered that he had seen him by the well in the cell.

The other party was now certain that the silver-armored guard in front of him was the laborer who had looked at him with sharp eyes at night, and was about to exclaim.

"It's you……"

"puff."

Gu Jingnian chopped the guard to the ground with one blow.

"Yes, they are my gloves."

The guards were all surprised and drew their swords. In front, Liu Ziyan also turned around and looked at Gu Jingnian with a puzzled look.

"What's wrong?" Liu Ziyan asked.

"This person is a thief, stealing my things."

Gu Jingnian leaned over and pulled off the deerskin gloves around the guard's waist. He took a look and found that the saliva of the leeches inside had dried up.

One guard was immediately angry and shouted, "He just picked it up! How can you kill people so casually? Is Silver Armor so great?!"

Gu Jingnian casually threw it at the corpse's face.

"Okay, I'll send him off."

He appeared calm on the surface, but in fact he was ready to kidnap Liu Ziyan at any time.

It was only because he saw that human lives were worthless in Wanchun Palace and the silver-armored guards were obviously of much higher status than ordinary guards that he tried to get away with it.

Seeing this, Liu Ziyan seemed to admire the silver-armored guard's decisiveness and waved, "Come here."

"Yes."

"I heard some noise last night." Liu Ziyan asked as he walked, "Did something happen in Chunchi?"

"Yes, four of our people died."

"Who did it?"

"I don't know. We are still searching."

"There will be some good news in Gongdeyuan at night, so keep an eye out and prepare some food."

"Yes." Gu Jingnian's mind moved, and he reminded: "Wanchun Palace is not safe at the moment, sir, you should be careful."

Liu Ziyan hummed and said, "In that case, you protect me first."

(End of this chapter)