Mortal practice

When the proprietress got up early to settle accounts in front of the counter, she saw a young man standing straight in front of the counter, who seemed to be the man who came to stay overnight.

"Guest officer, are you up so early?"

Su Jue looked at her and asked, "Miss Boss, do you have any extra horses here?"

A look of surprise flashed across the face of the proprietress: "Guest officer... didn't you just come here on horseback?" She seemed to realize something at this point: "Where is the guest officer who came with you?"

Su Jue had no expression on his face: "He has something to do, so he will leave first on horseback."

The proprietress still had doubts in her eyes, but seeing the other party's expression, she still didn't ask any more questions.

The young man in front of her didn't look like a liar full of nonsense, and his companion looked gentle and gentle, and she didn't look like a bad person, so she still said: "There is no more here, but my family's officials are not far from here. A horse-breeding place has a trustee to raise horses, but I can lend that horse to you, guest officer, and I will ask someone to help you get it later."

"Thank you, lady boss." Su Jue nodded. After thinking for a while, he still took out the coil that the original owner was carrying, took a piece of silver and handed it to the lady boss: "This is the deposit."

"No need." Seeing this, the proprietress smiled and waved her hand: "I trust you."

Su Jue was startled, and said in confusion: "But..."

"I see, guest officer, you have come from a long way, and you still need some money on the way?" The landlady said, "You should keep the money for yourself first. As for the horse, you can pay it back later when you find a time."

Su Jue understood that this was the other party's good intentions. There are always such people in the common world, and it is always good for him. He solemnly looked at the other party and thanked him: "Thank you very much."

……

After about half a month.

Yancheng, the most famous capital of hundreds of flowers in the south of the Yangtze River, is a bustling scene as usual. Various small businesses and hawkers on the street are shouting one after another.

In the center of Yancheng, a magnificent house stands quietly.

Although it is midsummer and May now, the sunlight can't penetrate through the luxuriant branches and leaves somewhere in this mansion, and only some light spots are leaked from the gaps, projecting on the lake deep in the mansion, revealing a breath of light. Cool.

By the lake, a man with handsome eyebrows and gentle breath was sitting leisurely by the tree, feeding food to the goldfish in the lake from time to time.

"Young master." An attendant appointed by King Anyuan came to Xiao Yue in a hurry, and reported in a low voice: "The forces on our side have almost assembled according to your instructions, and everything is ready for the prince. , the army can start at any time."

Xiao Yue nodded, and threw all the bait left in his hand into the lake: "Has the re-improved crossbow been distributed?"

"Yes."

"Hmm..." Xiao Yue stretched his waist, "Then it seems that I have nothing to do here."

"But..." The other party was startled when he heard this, and then hesitantly said: "Didn't the prince say that he hopes you, Mr. Xiao..."

"Okay, Xiao Yue! You're slacking off here again!" A clear and sweet female voice suddenly interrupted.

Xiao Yue's stretching motion froze.

A girl with a pretty face, who looked like she was no more than cardamom years, stood by the lake angrily and stared at this sloppy-looking man.

"Princess, I'm tired of work on weekdays, and now I just take a nap here, how can I be lazy?" Xiao Yue touched his nose innocently: "And I was still dealing with business just now, right Yang Jiu?"

The attendant named Yang Jiu was taken aback for a moment, but after realizing it, he quickly said: "Yes, Mr. Xiao has been busy with many affairs recently, and he is very tired. Just now, my subordinates have to come to trouble him with something else."

The beautiful princess raised her eyebrows: "Really?"

"Naturally." Xiao Yue said naturally.

"Then why, every time I find you, you always 'take a nap' here?" The girl squatted beside Xiao Yue with a smile, and asked closer.

Xiao Yue coughed dryly: "Really? That's too coincidental."

"Hmph, you are not loyal to your duties. I will tell my father to tell you to pack up and leave." The girl smiled maliciously.

Xiao Yue remained unmoved, just smiled and cupped his hands: "Then please trouble the Princess."

"Hey, why are you so boring? I'm joking with you." The princess Mu Banting looked bored, and seemed to think of something in an instant, and the corner of her mouth twitched: "I heard that a few days ago, there were many women outside. Confidant? I thought you would come back here now, and go to those dubious places again, but looking at you recently, it seems that you have become more pure-hearted and ascetic? Are you going astray? "

Yang Jiu saw that the topic seemed not suitable for him to listen to, so he resigned.

Xiao Yue smiled, and was not surprised that this woman was different from other daughters' frankness, so he omitted the vague inquiring sentence behind the other party and said: "I am not joking, this is not just a little troubled, how to bid farewell to the prince, if If the princess can say a few bad things in front of the prince, I can leave with peace of mind."

"You!" Mu Wanting glared at him angrily: "You really want to leave?!"

Xiao Yue looked at her inexplicably: "I'm just a quack, now that this matter is over, I naturally want to go back to live my own life."

"I don't allow it!" Mu Wanting grabbed his sleeve and protested: "For so many years, I haven't seen you a few times every year. If you leave, then I won't be able to see you even more! And ..."

Speaking of this, her eyes rolled slyly: "I have already told my father that I want him to give us a marriage, and my father agreed immediately."

"Give..." Xiao Yue was stunned for a moment, then laughed, and said, "How come I don't have the slightest impression of the prince saying that he wants to give you a marriage? Besides, how old are you, Little Princess?"

Mu Wanting's face turned red with anger from the other party's unscrupulous attitude: "When the matter is over, I will go and tell my father! He will definitely agree!"

Xiao Yue patted the leaves of grass on his body, and while he was about to get up, he said: "You haven't arrived yet, your father won't agree to such nonsense, let alone..."

He got up, looked at the girl with a light smile and said, "I'm not interested in the little girl's movies either."

"You!" Seeing the other party standing up, Mu Wanting was anxious, and also stood up suddenly: "I'm not young anymore!"

However, she was too anxious when she stood up, and the stones by the lake were slippery, her feet slipped for a moment, she jumped forward, and accidentally pushed Xiao Yue and bumped into the tree trunk behind.

Xiao Yue was hit hard on the head all of a sudden, he almost cried out in pain, opened his eyes and saw that Mu Wanting was also falling towards him with a panicked face, and with this momentum, his lips were afraid of bumping into each other, Xiao Yue didn't have time to think about it. Thinking about it, he pushed back, Mu Wanting was pushed away by the opponent and took several steps back, almost falling to the ground.

She looked at Xiao Yue in a daze: "Brother Xiao Yue, you..."

Xiao Yue was also stunned.

In fact, he was also very confused.The reaction at that moment was almost instinctive, his hand pushed the girl away one step ahead of his brain - even in the case of threatening to hurt the other party.

"Do you hate me so much?"

"No...it's not." Xiao Yue glanced at his hand, his eyes were a little dazed.

With his sympathetic style, he would never do this.

why?

Just because when the other party approached, a person flashed in his mind, and the sudden panic in his heart made him have no time to think about it?

Annoyed, Xiao Yue reached out to pat himself on the head, but stopped when he was about to hit himself, and rubbed the back of his aching head instead.

Mu Wanting stood there with an ugly expression.

"Princess, you go first, Xiao wants to be quiet here." Standing here with the other party without words for a long time, Xiao Yue said helplessly.

He felt that he was greatly influenced by Su Jue, a well-dressed beast with a pure appearance... (Su Jue expressed his innocence)

……

At the same time, a man in black wearing a bamboo hat led a horse into the gate of Yancheng.

The reason why Su Jue wore a hat to cover up his appearance was due to the blessing of Tianyuan Pavilion - he has now become a wanted criminal with a very high reward, and his portraits can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys.

Along the way, he has escaped no less than three pursuits.But when you get here, you should be relieved, right?After all, this is the territory of King Anyuan, and there will be no Tianyuan Pavilion branch here.

Half a month passed, and he finally found out that King Anyuan sent a young man surnamed Xiao to come to Yancheng to handle errands.Thanks to Xiao Yue's recent actions, some well-informed ordinary people spread gossip everywhere.

If he can't find the other party again, Su Jue really doesn't have the patience to spend it here, and the important thing is to go to the next world earlier.

But after staying here for so many days, he finally understood another truth. Teahouses, taverns and gambling houses are always the places where gossip is the most well-informed. Many people like to talk about recent events in this area in such places— ——Ordinary people always seem to have one thing in common, whether it is the last world or this world, they can never escape the nature of gossip.

He asked the boss for a pot of tea, sat by the window and listened to the people behind him chatting about recent anecdotes with great interest. After talking about the topic, he finally had something he wanted to hear.

"These things you are talking about are trivial things," a man's voice implied excitement: "Do you know what will happen in the near future? It's about that general."

"Which general?" Everyone's interest was immediately aroused, and Su Jue guessed that they were talking about King Anyuan.

King Anyuan is very popular here. Although the palace is no longer in Yancheng, all the people in Yancheng sing praises to him so much that they almost kneel down and proclaim him king.

"That's right, my elder brother, who was a guard in Anyuan Palace a few days ago, went home and told me that the prince is gathering people to go north recently!"

"Ah?!" Everyone exclaimed: "Is this true?"

"Can there be fakes? And he doesn't seem to be afraid of spreading this matter at all."

"The matter is obvious. The prince is following the will of the people and doing justice for the heavens! Who do you need to be afraid of?"

"Wouldn't that be great!"

"With the prince here, we will not have to live a hard life soon."

Su Jue took a sip of tea with a calm expression, but a little turbulence arose in his heart.

The words Nan Yan said to him before leaving made him suspect that the matter of King Anyuan raising his troops might not be so successful.

At the same time, two ordinary-looking men were sitting in the corner of the teahouse, looking at him from the corner of their eyes from time to time, as if they were whispering something.

After Su Jue finished his tea, he asked those people about the location of the mansion that King Anyuan built here, so he got up and planned to do business.

For him, the only business right now is to find Xiao Yue, ask him what he wants to ask, and confirm what he wants to confirm. As for the raid on King Anyuan's mansion that Nan Yan said, it is necessary to inform him by the way.

Raising troops or not raising troops, success or failure, to him, they are all just useless backdrops in the illusion.As long as important people don't die, it doesn't affect your practice.

It wasn't long after he walked out of the teahouse that he noticed someone following behind him.

Su Jue was still a little impatient at first. After all, this kind of thing had happened several times before, but after a while he realized that the people who followed him today seemed to be different from before.

The number of them Su Jue can't be sure for the time being - there are three people following him now, but at the beginning there were only two people, and it's hard to say how many people will join him after that, and the other party's footwork following him is so clever that most people will never notice it. The academic attainments are definitely not comparable to those of the previous mob.

Su was determined to know that getting out might not be an easy task, but head-to-head encounters were also impossible. After a while, the other side would come with more people, and he probably wouldn't be an opponent. Not only that, but there might even be no chance of getting out.

Judging from the direction Su Jue was heading for, there were fewer and fewer people on the street. Apart from the fact that it was getting late, it was probably because this place was not far from the mansion he originally planned to go to. It shouldn't be easy to make noise nearby.

Su Jue's footsteps that were going to the gate of the mansion changed direction and walked towards another street.

The people behind followed without hesitation.

Most of the people living in this neighborhood, there are so many streets and alleys, several people followed Su Jue and turned left and right for a while, finally realized something and looked at each other.

"Su Jue was born as a senior disciple, and his martial arts accomplishments are not inferior to ours. If we followed him, we might have been discovered long ago. It's just that this guy is a coward and refuses to confront him head-on. Let's kill him directly. There will be a very high reward at that time. Say, you can still make meritorious service in front of the pavilion master." One of the men who seemed to have the right to speak said.

The latter half of the sentence was obviously very provocative, and several people were beaten like chicken blood, and they all accelerated their speed to catch up with Su Jue in front of them.

Su Jue noticed the change of the people behind him, frowned, and suddenly noticed two figures appeared in front of him, probably the opponent's soldiers divided several paths to stop him, Su Jue rushed forward without hesitation.

Taking advantage of the fact that the two men had no time to react to his menacing approach, he slipped out the dagger in his cuff and grabbed it in the palm of his hand, and slashed the throats of the two blocking the way with lightning speed, his figure didn't seem to have moved at all. Pause and move on.

The people who followed behind saw their expressions froze.The opponent's speed was terrifying.

The leader said loudly to the front: "Brother Su, why do you need to make useless efforts to escape? Although you know Tianyuan Pavilion, we will intercede for you, and the Pavilion Master will give you a lighter punishment."

The corner of Su Jue's mouth twitched into a sneer, using such nonsense to coax the other party to think he was a three-year-old?

"Senior Brother Su, you can't run away. Our people are coming soon. If you surrender today and help us solve that house tomorrow, you have done meritorious service. Maybe you can make up for it?"

Su Jue listened to the other party's words, Xindao Nanyan's words were probably indistinguishable, the branches of Tianyuan Pavilion have already started to take action, intending to destroy King Anyuan's forces distributed in various places in the south of the Yangtze River , which must include the mansion where Xiao Yue is likely to be.

After crossing a fork again, Su Jue wanted to choose a detour and get rid of the lingering guys behind him, but he stopped in the end.

There is no other reason, there is only a wall in front, and there is no other way.

The author has something to say:

Due to the word count allocation problem... slightly changed