After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

The candlelight flickered in the dimly lit room.

The burly man chuckled and picked up the key to unlock the wooden fence gate.

"Don't come any closer!"

Gongsun Heng was visibly terrified, her voice filled with sorrow, yet she still stood firmly in front of Ning Nan.

The cave was narrow, so she could only kneel with her knees bent. The scarf above her head made a rubbing sound against the uneven cave ceiling. Her body was cold, and she involuntarily leaned her back against Ning Nan.

"Hey, I heard your father is some kind of Zhejiang Provincial Governor, and your grandpa is the headmaster of some kind of academy. He's really something. Yu Dayong is going to give your Gongsun family a son-in-law today! And produce a little prince."

"Get behind me!" Ning Nan whispered.

"No!" Gongsun Heng said stubbornly.

Ning Nan's forehead veins throbbed violently, his fingers trembled uncontrollably behind his back as he frantically fiddled with the wood shavings, trying to make the handcuffs behind him look more and more distorted the more he tried.

Yu Dayong inserted the key and turned it, and the large black lock opened.

Gongsun Heng bit her lower lip, her face was deathly pale, and her arms were trembling.

The wooden fence that imprisoned them became their protective wall, and with a creak, it was opened a crack.

The city wall collapsed with a roar.

Gongsun Heng gritted her teeth, bit her lower lip until it bled, and pulled her handcuffed hands over her head, removing the handkerchief to reveal her long black hair.

With a flick of her hair, it landed on Ning Nan's sweaty face. In that split second, Ning Nan noticed a gold hairpin in the hair of his unadorned female disciple. His hands, which had been fiddling with wood shavings behind him, stopped abruptly, and he looked on in astonishment.

The female disciple removed the gold hairpin.

"If you dare come any closer, I'll... I'll stab myself to death!"

The woman, tears streaming down her face, pressed the gold hairpin against her throat.

She knew that she couldn't kill the big man with the gold hairpin, so she might as well use it to end her own life. She felt extremely wronged and thought she couldn't protect her master.

Holding a black stick in one hand and gripping the wooden door with the other, Yu Dayong glanced at the woman with her hair completely disheveled. He chuckled, his heart burning with desire. He muttered something under his breath and burrowed deeper into the cave.

The woman's eyes flashed with anger, and she pushed her hand inward, causing a few drops of blood to be drawn from her throat by the gold hairpin.

Yu Dayong stepped back, stared wide-eyed at the oblivious woman, and cursed, "You bastard."

The stalemate lasted for quite a while.

Seeing that the woman was still half-dead, Yu Dayong's expression was unpredictable, and he muttered a few curses, "I'll get you sooner or later, you bastard."

I closed the wooden fence, locked it, and pondered some thoughts.

Thinking that when I deliver the water later, I will add a little bit of the nun's anesthetic powder to the water.

No matter how strong the anesthetic smell is, even a young woman needs to drink water.

Thinking this way, he couldn't help but feel smug again, and he chuckled coldly a few times before standing up.

"I'll take care of you first, then I'll smash this pretty boy's knees right in front of you!"

He uttered a harsh statement.

Yu Dayong picked up the stick, pondering how to get the anesthetic from the nun Xu's jar, and stood up to walk towards the door.

Just as my hand touched the door latch, a "bang" sound came, as if someone had kicked the wooden fence.

The scholar who had killed Master Xiao and was trembling behind the woman roared angrily, "I don't care what you say!" The woman's aggrieved cries then rang out.

Yu Dayong turned around and saw the scholar, his hands cuffed behind his back, leaning his head against the wooden fence, his shoulder against it, and shouting at him with a ferocious expression:

"Come on, you bastard! You bunch of vermin with Xiao Chun, I could crush you with my feet alone, without even using my hands!"

Yu Dayong glanced at the scholar, whose face was flushed and who was still trying to be tough, and his expression became somewhat surprised. After a few breaths, he shook the black wooden stick in his hand and laughed out loud.

Feng Yu raised a glass of wine and toasted the tall, thin man opposite him with a smile, saying, "Master Shen, you flatter me."

The tall, thin man with a long face surveyed the five or six people at the table, then called out to the seven or eight people sitting or standing around the farmhouse:

"Brothers, do you think I was exaggerating at all when I said 'Master Feng is a master strategist'?"

"No!"

Everyone praised him in unison, and Feng Yu smiled wryly, downing the freshly warmed, top-quality sacrificial wine in one gulp, saying, "It's all thanks to the brothers' help!"

A slightly overweight old man with piercing eyes at the same table pouted in dissatisfaction.

He held down the roast suckling pig on the table with one hand, and with the other hand, he cut a piece of meat off the pig's hind leg with a knife, muttering:

"He's just a drunken scoundrel. If you ask me, Ning Baixuan is all talk and no action. If it were me, I'd just knock him out with a stick and bring him back. Why bother with all this trouble?"

"Bang!"

Yu Dayong slammed his stick into the wooden fence, causing it to tremble violently. A clump of rock dust fell from the ends of the hardwood embedded in the cave.

Gongsun Heng, looking aggrieved, huddled in a corner with her hair disheveled, wiping away tears with both hands. Ning Nan, with his hands cuffed behind his back, leaned against the cave wall, his legs tucked in and his thighs taut, seemed ready to kick the vicious man outside to death the moment he entered.

Yu Dayong squatted down, glanced at the pretty Gongsun Heng, then looked at the stubborn scholar and chuckled:

"Where is her gold hairpin?"

Ning Nan was covered in cold sweat. He swayed slightly, showing the other person the gold hairpin he was clutching tightly in his hand, and said sharply, "..."

"This little wench looks down on me. Do you think I need her to save me? I'll kick her over and then stab her to death with this hairpin! What's the point of having her commit suicide?"

When Yu Dayong saw the gold hairpin in the scholar's bound hands, his eyes lit up even more.

"What a hero!"

Yu Dayong praised him. He looked at the ignorant scholar, then at the pretty woman who was hugging her arms and crying. His heart was filled with passion, and his tiger eyes flashed as he said, "I'll grant your wish!" He unlocked the black lock again, pulled open the wooden fence, picked up a black wooden stick, and stared at the two sheep waiting to be slaughtered inside with a chuckle.

Feng Yu raised the dagger and plunged it in; the dim yellow light outside reflected off the dagger.

After several back-and-forth cuts, a piece of the fine roasted pork that was originally intended as a sacrificial offering was also cut off.

He sliced ​​off a piece of pork with the blade of his knife, put it in his mouth, and ate it with gusto, laughing nonchalantly, "Brother Peng is absolutely right."

The tall, thin man scoffed, "What's the point? It's true that Ning Baixuan is a useless scholar..."

As he spoke, he glanced apologetically at Feng Yu, after all, the other was also a scholar. Feng Yu waved his hand, and the tall, thin man sneered and continued:

"But that brat is surrounded by Imperial Guards! Old Peng, you old codger, how many can you kill? Even if you can, can you capture them alive? Can you lead that Ning fellow out of the capital? How many heads did your mother give you to carry on your neck?"

The others in the room, especially the few people who had Feng Yu's jar, immediately nodded in agreement, saying, "Master Feng's plan is truly brilliant," and "Master Peng is just worried about those three jars of wine."

Peng Liangang chewed on a piece of fragrant pork, sneered, and said, "What can't we kill? The Embroidered Uniform Guards are nothing but a bunch of good-for-nothings manipulated by the Right Protector. All I need to do is take my men and ambush him on the road, shave his head, disguise him as a monk, give him a certificate of ordination, hold a knife to his back, and order him to come out of the city with us, or else we'll kill him. Wouldn't this coward be wetting his pants while following us?"

Upon hearing this, everyone in the room burst into laughter again, saying, "This scholar is probably so scared he'll wet himself!"

The cave was narrow. Yu Dayong bent over, grinned maliciously, and raised the black stick, stabbing it fiercely into the scholar's heart!