across the Quartet

Chapter Six

As soon as these words came out, Ge Nie's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately guessed about the origins of these people.But he is qualitatively comparable to other people, even though the cold blade is at his side and under the control of others, he speaks more steadily without any setbacks: "The most important treasure of the country should be kept in the palace."

There was a soft cracking sound, and an oil lamp was lit in the house.Ge Nie's eyes burned, and he saw the surrounding situation clearly - this place is an adobe dwelling, the room is small and there are only four walls.It was the middle of the night, and the dim light revealed two figures: a short, lean man with sharp eyes, a dagger protruding from his sleeve stuck to his neck, it was the assassin who followed behind Young Master Jia. The other person is of medium build, standing a little far away, took half of Ge Nie's saber "Nine Deaths" out of the scabbard, and inspected it under the light; the third person who could feel the breath was not inside the house, and must have been guarding the door.

Gai Nie thought of the two schoolboys who had persuaded him to go down to the tower for a rest; one of them had handed him a bag of kumiss. He was hungry, thirsty and sleepy at the time, seeing that it was his own, he drank it without thinking.Afterwards, he will sleep unconsciously and be captured, which shows that most of the wine has done something wrong.

"Why put on an act." The man holding the short sword spoke again, his voice was shrill: "If you, Ge Da, don't know where He Shibi is, then no one in the whole Zhao country will know. You should know better than anyone else why Guo Kai Hurry to escape from Handan."

Gai Nie frowned, and said: "The traitor took a heavy bribe from the Qin people and framed and slandered Lord Wu'an in front of King Zhao, causing the general to die in vain; he was afraid of revenge from his brothers in the army, so he ran away."

"Mr. Wu An came back from Jingxing this time, and he only brought dozens of entourages with him; if Guo Shangqing is still the king's favorite, he only needs to hide in the palace, with the royal city's forbidden army as his backing, so why should he be afraid?" the short assassin said. He narrowed his eyes disapprovingly, "But, another thing he did, but even the king can't tolerate him no matter how hard it is."

"another thing?"

"Half a month ago, the palace discovered that the treasures of the Chuanguo and the Clans were stolen. The young master speculated that the Qin kings of all dynasties had long coveted the He Clans, but they were afraid that the Zhao people would have a strong temper and destroy the treasures when the city was broken. Therefore, let the intermediaries cooperate with each other and steal it before the war. The inner courtyard of the palace is heavily guarded, and there are only a handful of people who can easily enter and exit the inner palace treasury. Among these few people, Guo Kai is the most capable of stealing Heshi Bi’s suspicion. What’s more, he left his title and fled in a hurry, which is even more confirmed.” Speaking of this, the assassin turned his wrist and deliberately rubbed the sword against Gai Nie’s neck slowly. "A few days ago in Handan, there were many rumors, saying that a righteous man chased thousands of miles alone, fought hundreds of people in blood, and finally beheaded the traitor of the country, and came to sacrifice to the spirit of Lord Wu'an - it must be something proud of your life."

Gai Nie suddenly said: "The reason why you sent everyone here is because I was the last person to see Guo Kai. You think that He Shibi is very likely to fall into my hands."

"Are you going to deny it?" The man sneered, "In my opinion, when you chased and killed Guo Kai, what you said about avenging Lord Wu An was just to deceive people, and the real purpose was to snatch Heshibi; with this in your hand This treasure, no matter which country’s monarch it is dedicated to, will definitely be rewarded.”

Even Gai Nie couldn't help feeling angry after hearing this: "If this is the case, I should run away as soon as I get the Heshibi. Why go back to Handan and throw yourself into the trap? I have been fighting the Qin people at the top of the city these days. If you don't pay attention, you will be hit by arrow stones, and your body will be smashed to pieces, so what's the use of that He's Bi?"

The short assassin was at a loss for words.But he coughed twice, and immediately said: "You don't have to quibble with these fallacies. Before you woke up, we had searched your clothes and found no trace of Baobi. You must have hidden it elsewhere. Is that right? If you refuse to tell the truth, then don’t blame the brother for being vicious.” As he spoke, the tip of the dagger moved up slightly, pointing at Ge Nie’s left eye. "If I count to one hundred, if you don't answer, I will goug out your eyes; if I count to two hundred, I will chop off your hands; if I count to three hundred, I will chop off your feet. I have no choice but to take your head back to pay a job."

Gai Nie said coldly: "Why do I have to lose to Zhao, my lord wants to treat me like this?"

"You stole the national treasure, and you still dare to feel resentful?"

"The Qin army is just outside the wall. Day and night, tens of thousands of brothers died under the powerful stone; every time I live an extra day, I don't know how many lives I got in exchange for it!" Gai Nie couldn't help but sternly said, his true energy was rushing all over his body, "I don't see you going to fight the Qin people, and you are very good at manipulating your own people. You are a good man who values ​​jade and despises soldiers. How can you be a king like this?!"

The short assassin saw Ge Nie lying on the ground, but his robes were bulging, his veins were bursting, his complexion was sometimes bright red and sometimes pale, he couldn't help but secretly startled, thinking: This man is very powerful in martial arts. The great master Qi Shang is not his opponent, if he is really asked to break free from the chains, he is afraid that if he is not careful, he will end up with his own life; the matter has come to this point, I have to perfunctorily say that this person refused to reveal the whereabouts of He Shibi until his death, and killed him. He calculates again.His mind turned, and he was determined to commit the crime—suddenly he raised his elbow and swiped down, and the dagger swiped from left to right, almost cutting off Ge Nie's neck.

Gai Nie struggled vigorously with all four limbs, as if he wanted to forcibly break the iron chain, but in fact it was just a cover-up.When he first joined the "Mountain Ghost", Zhongshan Wolf often asked him to spy on heavily guarded places because of his excellent lightness kung fu, so he specially taught him several secret escape techniques from the scout camp.When Gai Nie was imprisoned by Wei Zhuang in Chu State, he once said that he would go if he had to, no matter what kind of iron chains shackle him, he couldn't stop him.

He hid his hands behind his back, stretched out his left and right fingers to pinch the root of each other's thumbs, with a forceful pull, the thumbs of both hands were dislocated at the same time, and then the whole hand was pulled out from the shackles.This method is extremely ingenious, without the slightest sound, the two people sent by Gongzi Jia were concealed even though they were within easy reach.When the assassin's short sword touched him, Ge Nie stretched out his left arm like an arrow, and twisted his wrist.The short assassin subconsciously swung his left hand to grab the opponent's arm, but Ge Nie's right hand came after five fingers and grabbed his left wrist.The assassin's pulse gate was restrained, and his whole body became sore and weak, and he could no longer stab with the short sword.He couldn't use his hands, so he yelled, "Brother Fox! Brother Fox!!".

The accomplice in the house who was holding the Nine Deaths immediately rushed to Gai Nie's eyebrows in two steps, drew out his long sword.Gai Nie shrank his neck, and took advantage of the opportunity to lift the assassin he was holding with both hands upwards, and Nine Deaths had no choice but to retract.The man immediately changed his move and slashed at his feet. Ge Nie used his knees hard, and used his hands and feet together to push the assassin down, barely blocking it.All of a sudden, that accomplice had stabbed about ten swords. Although Ge Nie was much taller than the person he was holding, he used him flexibly as a shield. Cover up tightly.The man holding the sword is a ruthless character. He was afraid that something would happen again if he procrastinated, so he simply stabbed his sword straight into his accomplice's vest and passed through his chest. He said in his heart that you can't see where my sword came from this time. But there is no doubt that he will die.

Ge Nie suddenly saw the assassin who was being used as a meat shield let out a scream, the muscles on his face trembled, and his facial features were out of shape. He was extremely hideous and terrifying. He had already guessed what happened in an instant: he saw a white and miserable sword blade falling from the flesh. He pierced through and approached his own chest inch by inch. He suddenly had a flash of inspiration in a desperate situation, and poured his true energy back into the body of the assassin lying in front of him; He died, but his whole body tensed up, his muscles stiffened, and he firmly clamped a long sword that passed through his body.The man behind the sword couldn't penetrate to the end, so he had to increase his strength frequently, and Gai Nie kept using his strength to counteract it.But he knew that once the "meat shield" died, he would have to stab himself with the sharpness of near-death, so he looked for an opportunity to push with both palms, but he kicked hard on the muddy ground, and the whole person lay on the ground and jumped back half a foot. .

Seeing his accomplice's corpse rushing towards him, the sword-wielding man suddenly backed away, but at this moment Ge Nie's body rolled away from his original position, his right hand quickly reached out, and he punched his side rib.The Guigu Sect learned from all the martial arts masters, and the two disciples also achieved their own accomplishments other than swordsmanship. Among them, Wei Zhuang is more proficient in concealed weapons, while Gai Nie is slightly better at fists and feet.This punch seemed to be unable to touch the opponent, but the wind of the punch was fierce, like a bull hitting head-on; if it was hit for real, at least two or three ribs would be broken.The man holding the sword knew how powerful it was, because the long sword was still trapped in the body of his accomplice, so he had to abandon the sword and run away.He pressed his left palm to the ground, and in a blink of an eye it bounced back, his right hand turned into a palm and slashed towards his knee; this palm used the rough and shallow halberd technique used in the army, and it was specially aimed at the lower body of people and horses.Gai Nie didn't have any weapons, so he used his bare hands instead of a halberd, but his palms were strong and powerful.The man had fled seven or eight steps away. He thought Ge Nie's legs were still tied and he would never be able to catch up, so he hurriedly stood still, took the arrow and opened the bow. Unexpectedly, he felt a shock in his knee, severe pain, and howled. He fell to the ground with a sound.Gai Nie rubbed his body and went up, his left hand turned into a claw to grab the back of his neck.Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark figure outside the door, and then disappeared. He knew that it was the third person outside the door, and he felt a little anxious.

However, no one came in afterwards, only a few whizzing sounds of piercing through the air, several feathered arrows were nailed to the opposite wall one after another, the arrows sank four inches into the adobe; Arrow clusters protruded from behind.Seeing this, Gai Nie was secretly startled: these people were fighting one by one, regardless of the life and death of their accomplices.

He knew that the person outside the door was very shrewd. He pretended to be hit by an arrow and screamed at this time. If the timing was not coordinated, it would arouse the other party's suspicion; One after another fell to the ground.At this time, Zhongjian's body was half covered Gai Nie's body, covering his vitals, but it also greatly restricted his sight, so he couldn't see what was going on near the door.

Gai Nie held his breath and listened, but he didn't hear the slightest footsteps - but he had an intuition of a warrior, the gaze and weapon of the third person outside the door had firmly covered him.

The third person peeped out the door, and saw that the three people in the room were all down on the ground, and two of the "corpses" overlapped; but he didn't dare to neglect, he still drew his bowstring, and moved into the door without a sound .The name of this person is Hu Qing, and Hu Yan, who was shot dead by him just now, is a pair of brothers with the same surname and different clan. People in the world often compare the two with each other, and the two of them served under Gong Zijia's command, vying for fame and merit, but they refused to accept each other, and instead accumulated deep grievances.He peeped from outside the door that his clan brother was controlled by the enemy, he didn't want to rescue him, instead he removed them all. It was originally the intention of acting for the public and benefiting personal interests. Of course, Gai Nie had no way of knowing the twists and turns.

Hu Qing is famous for his marksmanship, and his vision is so sharp. As soon as he entered the room, he saw that his two accomplices had passed away, but the person he wanted to deal with did not know whether he was alive or dead, and he was hiding behind a dead body. He thought: "So I have to kill two birds with one stone." So he pulled the bowstring back an inch.Just in the snap of his fingers, a palm wind came through the air, and there was something gray and white mixed in the palm force, which made him turn sideways to avoid it.Hearing a "hoo", the palm wind swept down the oil lamp on the table, and the room was once again plunged into darkness.

Hu Qing saw clearly before the lights went out that the gray thing turned out to be the feather on his own arrow, and suddenly thought: So the man was hiding behind the corpse, he pressed my brother's chest with his palm, and shot me in. The arrow rebounded out.But he immediately thought again: It is rumored that Ge Da is the most skilled in swordsmanship, but this man's long sword was stuck behind Yu'an's back, and he had no weapon at hand, so he had to use the arrows from the corpse to launch a sneak attack; it can be seen that he is now With bare hands, the internal strength of the fist and palm will be greatly reduced if it is sent out two or three feet away at most. As long as I prevent him from approaching, I will not be afraid of other methods.

He retreated to the door while thinking, so that he only had to guard the front all the way, and at the same time, he had two arrows on his bow ready to go, as soon as he heard the movement, he would shoot immediately.At this moment, a gust of wind "swished" directly to the face door - Hu Qing fell down to dodge in shock, but still couldn't catch up - the thing penetrated into the jaw in an instant, and spurted out a blood arrow in an instant.He fell back in disbelief, and when he was dying, he was still thinking hard: Where did he get the hidden weapon? ! !

It turned out that when Gai Nie fell down while grabbing Hu Yan, two fingers stuck into the wound, pinched the arrow that pierced through the corpse, secretly used his strength to break off the arrow, and held it under his hand.Afterwards, he wiped out the oil lamp with the wind of his palm, the real intention was to prevent Hu Qing from seeing that the arrow flying over had lost its head.Hu Qing thought that he could only fight in close quarters, but unexpectedly he had another sharp weapon in his hand.

At this time, Gai Nie had time to untie the shackles on his legs and feet, and stood up.In less than a moment, the three people who were sent to torture him all died violently, but No.1 died in the hands of the second person, and the second person was plotted against by the third person; Do any high-quality martial arts, but don't be thrilled.He looked at the bodies of the three people, he didn't feel any pleasure in his chest, he just smiled wryly: the three people's skills are very good, if they shoot arrows on the city wall with him, how many enemies can be killed.Zhao Guo has no shortage of master heroes, but each has his own secrets and infighting, no wonder he will lose in the end.

He was worried that Young Master Jia would send someone again, so he pulled out Jiusi and walked through the window; it was about midnight, the crescent moon was hidden, and the city of Handan was mostly dark, only the torches could be seen patrolling around from a distance on the four walls.The streets and alleys are very quiet, and people's voices and dogs' barking can be heard occasionally.

Gai Nie was already very familiar with the paths in the city.He raised his breath and ran quickly along the way, turning around deliberately, but he didn't find anyone following him, so he finally felt relieved and jumped over the wall into Li Mu's mansion.He was worried about the remaining poison of the bag of wine he drank, so he sat on the ground and adjusted his breath for a while: the true energy went up the Shanzhong, out of Jianjing, passed through Chize, Shaochong, and was withdrawn from Neiguan, and it would be recovered after three weeks of operation. Dantian—feeling unimpeded, just stood up and walked to the front of the hall.

He went straight to the place where the sacrifice was originally held in the hall, and lifted something from the altar with the hilt of his sword-it was a human head that had never rotted!This is exactly the head of Guo Kai that he personally placed here a few days ago.Although the Li family was empty at this time and everything in the house was cleaned up, no one would take this "sacrifice" away.Gai Nie held his breath, drew his sword and lifted the topknot from the back of the head's head, and pulled out a piece of white biscuit from the messy hair.

It turned out that after fighting hard that night, Gai Nie finally killed Guo Kai, the culprit, and avenged Lord Wu An; when he cut off Guo Kai's head with his sword, he found a brocade pouch tied around his neck, which was bulging inside; When I opened it, I saw a white biscuit inside, crystal clear and flawless, with warm tentacles, it must be a rare thing.Gai Nie's heart moved, and he thought to himself: Although this piece of jade is precious, with Guo Kai's wealth, what kind of treasure has never been seen before, and is worth keeping by himself?Could it be that there are some important secrets hidden in this wall?He had been skeptical at the time, and it was not until today when he fought against three of Gongzi Jia's subordinates that he was convinced that this was the priceless piece of He's Bi.

At that time Gai Nie thought that the treasure might have other secrets, so it was inconvenient to leave it to others, so he tied Guo Kai's disheveled white hair into a bun, and just hid the white biscuit in the bun, and poured snow water on it. It was frozen into a whole block of ice and brought back to Handan overnight.When he returned to the city, he didn't think about what to do with this thing, so he simply used it as a sacrifice and placed it on the altar together with Guo Kai's head.Afterwards the ice melted and everyone came in and out, but who dared to stare at a bloody head?Now that Young Master Jia sent people to secretly persecute him, he made up his mind—although Heshibi originally belonged to the royal family of Zhao, Wang Qian of Zhao was the real culprit who killed General Li Mu and ruined the [-] Zhao army in Jingxing. Offer the treasure with both hands?And Gong Zijia's character is so low, it's hard to make a big deal.

Gai Nie originally planned to try to sneak into the enemy camp and subdue the general of the Qin army. He used both soft and hard tactics to force the opponent to swear not to slaughter civilians—but this was a very risky move. If you can't rush to the front of the Chinese army's tent, you will be treated as an assassin and cut into pieces.He remembered what his younger brother had said about the Suihou pearl when he was in the state of Chu: "If my elder brother doesn't believe it, I have someone who believes in it; if the person who believes happens to be a prince, then even a mere bead will be bloody and bloody." The power of the wind."

Regardless of whether the rumors about Heshibi and Suihouzhu are true or not, at least the nobles of the royal family like Gongzi Jia are very convinced of this rumor; I believe that the King of Qin will not be unmoved.If he claimed to know the whereabouts of He Shibi in the name of "Xianbao", maybe he could directly meet the general of Qin.Although this move lacks a bit of heroism, it has a lot more chances of winning.Gai Nie thought to himself: I am a vertical and horizontal lineage, winning with words is the right way.When seeing Wang Jian, it's best to pretend that he doesn't know martial arts, so that he loses his guard; it's just that I'm not good at this, and it's easy to be seen through.If Xiao Zhuang changed places, he would probably be able to pretend to be flawless.

He stood there thinking wildly for a moment, and he thought it was funny, and decided to act on camera later.He also thought that Young Master Jia urgently sent people to torture him, and he was afraid that the day of fleeing the city would be imminent; by that time, Handan would be empty and must fall.He considered it again and again, and finally dug three feet into the ground in the backyard, put He's Bi in a wooden box, buried it in the soil, and marked it.Then he found a random room, lay down with all his clothes on, rested his energy, and waited until dawn to continue fighting.

However, less than an hour later, dense drumbeats suddenly came from the north of the city, followed by people shouting and neighing, smoke and dust rose everywhere, and flames blazed into the sky.Gai Nie jumped up awe-inspiringly, thinking: Qin Jun attacked the city at night?Or is it——Young Master Jia opened the city gate and broke through?He ran out of the house with his sword in his hand, and galloped all the way to the north.Although the city is still dark, the distant sky is a bit paler than before.Dogs barked loudly on all sides, mixed with panicked footsteps, screams, and moans.And those refugees and beggars who had nowhere to live, even helped the old and the young, running around indiscriminately, not knowing where to go.Gai Nie saw that the road was very chaotic, so he had to jump on the roof and look north.I only heard the shouts of killing near the city gate, and the horseshoes came trampling, shaking the ground.From north to south, a group of ups and downs shouted, sweeping through the crowd like a stern north wind:

"Handan City is broken! Handan City is broken!!"

At this time, the dawn finally broke, and the sun rose in the eastern sky, casting thousands of golden threads.Gai Nie's whole body trembled, feeling cold from the bottom of his heart.

TBC