Chapter 75 Part 3: Thrilling
Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it! ^^ I’m craving those Christmas fare, leg of ham, roast pork loin with gravy… Somehow when I searched for roast pork loin in my area, what came up is that Chinese style roast pork belly T^T.
Jiang Li wasn’t aware of everyone’s thoughts. The reason why she kept a distance from Meng Hong Jin was merely because she saw that Meng Hong Jin might do something. Perhaps dying once caused her sense towards conspiracy to become especially keen. Earlier today, she had found Meng Hong Jin’s abnormality. After thinking about it, most probably Meng Hong Jin was about to move her hand and foot; or perhaps she might have done something. At this time, Jiang Li still didn’t know what it was, so all she could do was just stay away from Meng Hong Jin for the time being. If Meng Hong Jin didn’t succeed, she would deliberately approach her.
Sure enough, after running for a stick of incense, Meng Hong Jin gradually slowed down. Jiang Li was vigilant and immediately reduced her pace, maintaining the same distance with Meng Hong Jin as it was before. This made the situation somewhat weird, so much so that Jiang You Yao and the others who were originally lagging behind caught up, nearly running neck to neck with them.
“What’s going on?” The people watching didn’t understand: “Are the military horses unable to do it anymore? Did they not feed them in the morning?”
“Nonsense!” Kong Liu heard what was said and disregarding his position as the examiner, he stood up and turned his head around to scold the crowd: “Last night, I, your father, added several tufts of gra.s.s during the night, how could they be hungry?”
“Then it’s because they’re so full that they can’t run?” Everyone roared with laughter.
Kong Liu was rendered speechless from anger. He blinked and unknown since when, Ji Heng who was beside him had opened his eyes and was staring thoughtfully at the several rear views of the people in the racecourse.
Kong Liu’s heart thumped and after a while faintly aware of something.
Even if Jiang Li reduced her pace, her distance with Meng Hong Jin gradually shortened. It seemed that at the beginning, Meng Hong Jin was too vigorous and now was somewhat tired and thus slowed down.
It’s finally the second half of the racecourse. Very soon they would approach the place where the targets were.
Consequently, the racecourse’s pa.s.sage became extremely narrow. Jiang Li and Meng Hong Jin almost reached the entrance of the pa.s.sage.
Jiang Li pulled the reins with one hand while her other hand stretched towards the arrow tube. From inside, she took out an arrow and prepared her bow to shoot. The most difficult part of equestrian archery was shooting while on horseback. Both the hands were needed to hold the bow and arrow, there’s simply no way to hold the reins. It was even more difficult to steer the horse. When it’s time to shoot the arrow, many of the n.o.ble ladies continued to hold the reins with one hand. As a result, there’s no way to aim accurately at the target and everything became disorderly. Or else, not daring to put the reins away and directly gave up shooting the target. Some had a bit more courage and without holding the reins, grabbed the bow and arrow with both hands, shot the arrows with lightning speed before quickly grabbing their reins again.
It went without saying that a bit of time was needed to take aim. With such great rush, how could they hit a bull’s eye? Therefore, up until now, there weren’t any bull’s eyes.
Jiang Li actually put the reins aside, both her hands held the bow and arrow and took aim.
“Big courage.” Zheng Hu Chen gave a rare praise.
The brave troops in the surrounding crowd cried out in surprise: “She’s really not afraid. You see how long she has put the reins aside? She’s the longest one up till now, right?!”
“Indeed. Take a look at how stable her riding skill is, she is sitting so steadily. The way I see it, Jiang second miss is also an expert in horsemanship. The person doesn’t panic easily.”
There really was no trace of rush in Jiang Li’s riding and shooting. It could even be considered confident and calm. Such an urgent matter was made to be more relaxed by her, making many people’s impatient hearts slow down.
Her movements were very stable as she rode astride her horse. Both her legs pressed the stirrup tightly. Her hands holding the bow and arrow were also very steady. Although Jiang second miss’s body wasn’t as fit as her previous body, she had strived very hard to nurse it these days and it had become much better.
Her gaze was fixed on the center of the target. In her eyes, the target had already transformed into a bouncing hare, a yellow fox, or a bird, just like the many times she went hunting with Xue Zhao.
Take aim, shoot!
With a woosh, the arrow shot out from her hands, eagerly piercing through the sky, producing a hissing sound.
Afterwards, the arrow with the red mark settled in the heart of the target!
全中！
Bull’s eye!
There was a short silence in the examination field, n.o.body could believe their own eyes.
Kong Liu patted his thigh and shouted: “Beautiful!”
Before he finished speaking, he saw Jiang Li rapidly took out another arrow, aimed at the center of the target and shot!
Bull’s eye!
Without stopping, Jiang Li took out another arrow from the tube.
It’s still another bull’s eye!
In a short moment, Jiang Li had shot three arrows in succession, all of them hitting the bull’s eyes!
The silence turned into an uproar, the uproar turned into cheers.