Scourge Messenger

Chapter 101 Shut up
Damn it, we've run into a Foundation Establishment messenger!

The Foundation Establishment Messenger and the Third-Tier Messenger are so easy to distinguish. They may seem to differ by only one job advancement, but their levels are worlds apart. No matter how powerful a Third-Tier Messenger is, he can only "take the enemy general's head from among ten thousand troops," while a Foundation Establishment Messenger only needs to make a slight move to unleash "a volley of arrows and a full-scale army charge"!
One man can form an army, turning the world upside down, like a god or a demon, like an abyss or a prison!

Having witnessed Chen Liexia's destructive power in the Mansu Forest, Yan Qing understood one fact clearly: let alone the two of them, even a group of third-tier messengers couldn't possibly contend with Foundation Establishment messengers. A level 39 messenger was merely the most powerful mortal, while a level 40 Foundation Establishment cultivator, revered as an Arhat or Bodhisattva by Buddha, or a True Cultivator by the Dao, was a being of profound spiritual transcendence, a deity walking on the earth!

Yan Qing didn't dare to say a word. He swallowed back the blood surging in his abdomen and tried to minimize his presence. He ran to Shang Xinlei's side as fast as he could, pulled her off the wall, carried her on his shoulder like cargo, and ran away without looking back!

A woman dressed in simple palace maid attire, appearing to be around fifty years old, emerged from the broken wall. Her aged silver hair was as smooth as silk polished by time, with wisps of starlight flowing through it. Her face was thin, and the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes were clearly visible. She had lost the beauty of her youth, but neither the young emperor beside her nor the vibrant palace maids not far away could match her presence.

Compared to this elegantly aging nanny, even the pampered prime minister Shang Xuanwen seemed like a disheveled old farmer from the countryside. She watched Yan Qing's fleeing figure. Although she didn't know who he was, how he infiltrated the palace, or how he damaged the walls of Chengqian Hall, all the problems could be solved with one simple method: destroy them.

Just as she was about to activate the token, a palace maid stumbled over, sobbing, "Auntie, I... I was grabbed by that man in black when I went to get something. I thought I was going to die..."

The old woman was taken aback. Yinping had been captured but not killed?

That's right, this is the main city. Unless you use oil or a self-harm token, no one can hurt another.

With this thought in mind, the old woman decided not to waste her spiritual power. Since it would be useless to fight anyway, she decided to send the guards to arrest the group of assassins.

"master."

The young emperor pointed to the palace wall not far away and laughed, "Look at that assassin, you've knocked him into the wall."

"Being hit head-on by the Heavenly Gang Battle Qi and not dying means their defensive tokens are of a very high level... Hmm?" The old woman suddenly realized something halfway through her sentence. She turned her head to look at the human-shaped hole in the palace wall and immediately understood something.

If the main city's laws were truly followed, an assassin struck by the Heavenly Qi would at most be sent flying, but would suffer no damage whatsoever, including impact and fall damage, let alone denting the wall. In fact, from the very beginning, the opponent couldn't possibly penetrate the walls of Chengqian Hall; the building is protected by the main city's laws and cannot be destroyed by brute force!
"They are not assassins."

The old woman turned to look in the direction Yan Qing had fled, but after so much time, there was no sign of them. She knew she had missed a golden opportunity, but she wasn't too angry. Instead, she laughed and scolded, as if she had seen two stray cats causing trouble in the house.
"Instead, they were a group of lawless thieves."

……

...

"Second team, this way; fourth team, that way. Don't miss any trace. If you see an assassin, fire arrows immediately! This is His Majesty's decree, and Yu Li Jushi's order. You must understand the importance of this order. If anyone dares to shirk their duties, don't blame this commander for being ruthless. Do you understand?!"

"understand!"

Hearing the hurried footsteps outside, Yan Qing felt a lightness on his shoulder. Shang Xinlei climbed off him, sat down against the corner of the wall, and asked in a low voice, panting, "Where are we?"

“I just randomly picked a house to hide in. I didn’t see any name on it, but there was a well in the middle of the yard, and lots of clothes were hanging out to dry.”

Using the light from the window, Shang Xinlei saw various fabrics and clothing in the house and breathed a sigh of relief: "It's the Laundry Department. The guards shouldn't be able to find us for a while."

"You're familiar with this place, so what's the next step?" Yan Qing was glad his teammate had cheered up so quickly; otherwise, he would have been the only one facing such a dire situation. "Since you've made a detailed plan, you must have an escape route, right?"

However, Shang Xinlei shook her head: "We can't leave."

Yan Qing raised an eyebrow, lowered his head and leaned close to Shang Xinlei, trying to put psychological pressure on her with the dog-head mask: "Do you still want to stick to your assassination plan? If you insist on courting death, I won't stop you, but as teammates, you should be willing to attract the guards' attention and help me create an opportunity to escape, right?"

Shang Xinlei suddenly started coughing repeatedly. Yan Qing immediately panicked, secretly regretting that he didn't know how to use a karate chop to knock someone unconscious. Otherwise, he could have knocked Shang Xinlei unconscious to prevent her from coughing. Unfortunately, he didn't know how, so he could only pull Shang Xinlei close, open his coat, and hold her head to minimize the sound she made. When she stopped coughing, she didn't sit up. He didn't know if she was tired or her injuries were too severe. She buried her face in his chest and breathed slowly. Yan Qing felt that his clothes were wet. He hoped it was blood she had vomited, or maybe it was her saliva.

“We can’t escape like this,” Shang Xinlei said in a low voice. “The guards are definitely watching the palace walls right now. It will take us time to climb over the walls. As long as they keep us occupied, Yu Li Jushi can get here quickly.”

"Who is Layman Yuli?"

"The Shao family's ancestors were from the imperial family, and it's said they were the granddaughter of Emperor Taizu of Liang. Their seniority is terrifying." She slowly exhaled a breath of hot air and said with a bitter smile, "If I had known she had already returned to the capital, how could I have come up with such a suicidal plan?"

"We can't escape, and we can't hide for long. It seems we have no choice but to cut off our tails," Yan Qing said. "One of us will deal with the guards, and the other should run away as quickly as possible. What do you think?"

Suddenly, Yan Qing felt her waist being grabbed tightly. Shang Xinlei said in a muffled voice, "I have a better plan. If you dare to abandon me... I won't let you get away with it!"

This is truly a case of the farmer and the snake. In fact, Yan Qing meant for him to deal with the guards, since he had the order to return. However, he did not expect Shang Xinlei to have such a strong reaction, and even wanted to bite him. But this threat was not powerful at all. If it were Yan Qing, he would definitely say, "If you dare to abandon me, I will call for help so that no one can leave."

"What plan?"

"There's a place the guards will never search; we can hide there for a long time." Shang Xinlei struggled to sit up, wiped the blood from her mouth, and looked at Yan Qing, saying:

"The Royal Treasury!"

A quarter of an hour later.

Yan Qing and Shang Xinlei pressed themselves against the wall, listening to the footsteps on the other side gradually fade away, and both breathed a sigh of relief. The imperial power hadn't even taken it seriously yet; they were barely able to cope with just the awakening of the emperor—hundreds of guards and palace servants were conducting a carpet search of the palace, and they might encounter a search party every few steps. If it weren't for Shang Xinlei, a local, they would have been discovered long ago.

But we've reached our limit in terms of safety; now we have to take a gamble.

Yan Qing grabbed the wall tile and climbed up to peek. He saw that the central square was full of people. They were not patrolling here, but the central square was the intersection of the various palaces, so naturally many groups would pass through the square.

The good news is that there's no one in the very center of the central square. After all, you can just walk along the edge of the square, so who would bother to cross into the very middle? But the bad news is that there are too many people and too many lanterns, so they might get seen when they run past.

After waiting for three minutes, Yan Qing finally saw the opportunity when there were fewer people around the square. Although some people were still holding lanterns, a completely dark and safe route had appeared!

"Let's go." Yan Qing climbed up the wall and reached out to pull Shang Xinlei over. As they jumped down the wall, Shang Xinlei stumbled and almost lost her balance.

Before Yan Qing could speak, Shang Xinlei said, "You go first, I'll follow." She paused, then added, "I'm not afraid of being caught. I'm the fourth young lady of the Shang family, the royal family wouldn't dare to do anything to me."

If it weren't for the second half of her sentence, Yan Qing might have run away immediately. But he was a sensitive person, sensitive enough to understand the girl's sense of atonement in her words, yet he couldn't accept it with a clear conscience. Thinking about it carefully, how could someone like Shang Xinlei, who staggers with every step and needs his help to climb a two-meter wall, possibly help him deal with the guards while he was running away?
Yan Qing placed Shang Xinlei's right hand behind her neck and her left hand on her waist, leading her to run towards the center of the square.

"you……"

"Shut up! Who do you think I came here for?" Yan Qing roared in a low voice. "If you have the energy to talk, you'd be better off running!"

Shang Xinlei paused, head drooping, and said softly, "Next time this happens, just carry me on your back..."

"I'll dump you next time this happens. I don't need a teammate who causes me trouble twice."

(End of this chapter)