Chapter 219: Clue
Translator: Myuu Editor: Myuu
There were also burning torches and braziers that lit up the top of the Hui Clan Gathering’s mud wall at regular intervals. From afar, the Hui Clan Gathering looked like an unremarkable gray lump in the darkness.
Aligujin observed the Hui Clan Gathering on his rhinodrake steed from a thousand meters away. His face was covered by a black veil and his eyes were gleaming with cruelness and slyness.
Aligujin’s vision wasn’t as powerful as Yan Liqiang’s. Hence, he could just barely spot the flickering shadows of people on top of the outermost mud wall of the Hui Clan Gathering from this distance. Among those figures, the people of the Hui Clan Gathering were the easiest to recognize because they were nothing more than inferior rats in Aligujin’s eyes. The clothes they wore were so worn out and dirty that their original colors were beyond recognition. However, there was another group of rather conspicuous people on top of the mud wall. They were all dressed in official uniforms. Due to the obvious difference in color and style, they were very easily distinguishable from the people of the Hui Clan Gathering.
There was no mistake about it — Sun Bingchen and his guards had gone inside the Hui Clan Gathering.
Aligujin muttered under his breath. He couldn’t help but lift his head up to look at the skies as though there was something there.
Everyone else around him stared at him in silence. Their rhinodrake steeds were lightly stamping their hooves restlessly on the ground, snorting occasionally.
A few moments later, Aligujin finally cast a glance at one of his subordinates closest to him. Upon receiving Aligujin’s signal, the Blackwind Bandit let out a whistle. He then shook his reins and swiftly rode toward the Hui Clan Gathering.
Another hundred mounted Blackwind Bandits followed the man by riding behind him.
Those Blackwind Bandits let out all sorts of howls as they charged toward the Hui Clan Gathering like a pack of wolves.
Beneath the black veil, a bitter and cold expression flashed across Aligujin’s face. He looked forward to finding out just how many experts in archery there were around Sun Bingchen, and how impressive they were. With that information, he’d naturally be able to find a way to deal with them.
Between the options of retreating or continue pursuing Sun Bingchen and his party, Aligujin chose the latter. If he were to retreat from a battle, it would be difficult for him to make his report. Therefore, he had no choice but to brace himself and pursue Sun Bingchen all the way here. Fortunately, Priest Sadu had expressed his full support in a.s.sisting him in his quest to behead Sun Bingchen, so Aligujin steeled his nerves once again…
Currently, his party had gained a few more guards who served Priest Sadu. Those few guards were all servants of the Sacred Flame. Priest Sadu himself had come with his party here and he was right behind them.
Aligujin wasn’t sure why the barely remarkable Hui Clan Gathering suddenly seemed like an eyesore to him now that he took another look at it. It made him feel strangely uncomfortable.
…
Yan Liqiang watched the hundred Blackwind Bandits charging toward their location with a slight frown. He initially thought all of them would come rus.h.i.+ng here together. Contrary to his expectation, only a hundred of them were rus.h.i.+ng toward them. Not only that, those hundred men were charging in an extremely loose formation and the main group of Blackwind Bandits also stayed right outside of his shooting range from the Hui Clan Gathering. Connecting these two points together, Yan Liqiang instantly caught on to something.
The Blackwind Bandits had already determined that there was a powerful archer in Sun Bingchen’s party.
However, they couldn’t have possibly known that he was that person, and they might even think that there wasn’t only one powerful archer in Sun Bingchen’s party.
Therefore, that explained this!
Yan Liqiang immediately squinched his eyes as he looked at Aligujin in the distance.
…
When those Blackwind Bandits were just about four hundred meters away from the Hui Clan Gathering on their steeds, the group suddenly split into two — one group went toward the left and the other to the right. They didn’t continue straight ahead — they instead rode swiftly around the Hui Clan Gathering while maintaining their distance. The Blackwind Bandits raised the warbows in their hands on top of their galloping steeds, and launched the first round of arrows in the Hui Clan Gathering’s direction at a large elevation angle…
“WATCH OUT FOR THE ARROWS…!” Unbeknownst to anyone, Chang Lu, the chief of the Hui Clan Gathering, had made his way to the top of the mud wall. He yelled at the top of his lungs when he saw the Blackwind Bandits fire the first set of arrows.
Every man from the Hui Clan Gathering took cover behind the mud wall in a practiced manner when the old man yelled. Many even instantly raised the shabby, wooden or rattan s.h.i.+elds they had with them over their heads.
Although shooting an arrow at a large elevated angle could increase the shooting range, its aim would suffer greatly because the arrows would follow a curved trajectory. Therefore, under normal circ.u.mstances, people who took cover behind a wall or a s.h.i.+eld could disregard these types of arrows as long as they weren’t too unlucky.
Yan Liqiang and Sun Bingchen’s guards all knew about this principle too. Thus, every single one of them hurriedly took cover behind the mud wall when they saw those Blackwind Bandits starting to shoot the arrows.
However, two people were counterattacking. One of them was Liang Yijie and the other was an archer from the Hui Clan Gathering — the person whose bow was broken by Yan Liqiang’s arrow earlier.
Liang Yijie stood fearlessly behind the mud wall. When those Blackwind Bandits drew their bows, he released an arrow too. On the other hand, the archer from the Hui Clan Gathering also released an arrow in the direction of those Blackwind Bandits from an embrasured watchtower behind the mud wall…
The arrows from both parties landed almost at the same time.
The first round of arrows released by the Blackwind Bandits rained down against the mud wall, over the mud wall, or on the roofs at the back. None of the arrows. .h.i.t any targets. The only arrow which landed behind the mud wall was blocked off by a wooden s.h.i.+eld, and it didn’t manage to penetrate through the three-inch-thick shabby wooden s.h.i.+eld.
Both of the arrows released by Liang Yijie and the archer from the Hui Clan Gathering hit their targets. Among those two groups of Blackwind Bandits which were galloping around the Hui Clan Gathering, one person fell off his steed, and at the same time, another steed suddenly collapsed, sending its rider flying over a huge distance.
With this torrent of arrows raining down, the battle between both parties kicked off. The Blackwind Bandits didn’t gain the upper hand, but lost two men instead. Everyone in the Hui Clan Gathering cheered at the same time.
Just when Liang Yijie was just wondering why Yan Liqiang, who was beside him, didn’t make any moves, he turned his head around only to find that unbeknownst to him, Yan Liqiang had left the mud wall and was running into the distance with his Horned Python Bow.
When Yan Liqiang noticed that Liang Yijie had turned his head toward him, he made a gesture to tell him to not worry about him. He then ran into an alley in the Hui Clan Gathering and vanished without a trace, all in just the blink of an eye…
If it were someone else, Liang Yijie might have suspected that the person had wimped out. However, Yan Liqiang had already proven his strength and courage in the previous battle. Hence, Liang Yijie didn’t think that Yan Liqiang was fleeing from the battle. Since Sun Bingchen had given Yan Liqiang the freedom of action and the permission to act accordingly to any situations that may arise, Liang Yijie didn’t bother to stop Yan Liqiang.
Just when Yan Liqiang sank to the depths of darkness, the Blackwind Bandits circled around the Hui Clan Gathering on their galloping steeds and drew in a little closer toward the mud wall.
In just the blink of an eye, both parties started shooting each other, with one side attacking on their steeds and the other defending behind the mud walls.
…
Yan Liqiang was running through the shadows of the low houses in the Hui Clan Gathering while blending himself into the darkness. In just a flash, he had made a big round and arrived on top of the mud wall at the other side of the Hui Clan Gathering.
Just when Yan Liqiang was about to stealthily flip over to the other side of the mud wall, he abruptly stopped. He quickly hid himself behind a pile of harvested shrubs that would be used for firewood. That feeling of being spied on, which had appeared over the past few days, emerged in his heart once again. Like a stone that had been tossed into a pond, the subsequent ripples sent a s.h.i.+ver down Yan Liqiang’s spine.
The feeling of being spied on was a fleeting one this time. It vanished after a few seconds, and Yan Liqiang quietly poked his head out from the pile of shrubs and scanned his surroundings.
There was nothing unusual in the surroundings. No one had infiltrated the Hui Clan Gathering either. However, there was a black speck was flying in the sky.
It was an owl. It was flying around in the sky, hovering above the mud wall that Liang Yijie and Sun Bingchen’s guards were currently defending. After flying around for a moment, the owl perched itself on a big tree nearby and continued observing the fight between both parties…