Nobody knew when the wind had started to pick up. Outside Pingtao City, stones were driven along and sand was whirling around, hitting people’s faces. Dark clouds were slowly massing on the sea’s horizon, threatening rainstorm.
Only a small number of Mu Rongfeng’s men were still standing. All of them were crack marines of the Luohai Kingdom, but on this day they were all going to die in this place, which naturally made Mu Rongfeng’s heart ache. He’d waited for a very long time, yet there was still no sign of backup from Wang Xiangxin. If he didn’t reveal his identity right away, he would have to die with his men.
“Your Highness, you must not delay any longer. The Great Wen clearly premeditated and pre-planned this attack. There’s no way Wang Xiangxin could extricate himself and come to our help, Your Highness!” admonished one of his henchmen in a terribly anxious tone. “We can’t afford to let anything happen to you. You must return home safe. There are so many people coveting your position back there. Don’t you remember?!”
Mu Rongfeng gritted his teeth. After a fierce, long, internal struggle, he finally spoke.
“Stop! All of you!”
“I’m Mu Rongfeng, the crown prince of the Luohai Kingdom! None of you are to lay a finger on me!”
Mu Rongfeng? The crown prince of the Luohai Kingdom? Common marines and port guards of Pingtao City, all of whom were unaware of Mu Rongfeng’s identity, were somewhat surprised to hear his yell.
The general directing the siege had received the order from Yuwen Tong to spare the pirate kingpin’s life and was ready to instruct his men to stop after most of the other pirates were taken care of. On hearing the pirate kingpin claim to be the crown prince of the Luohai Kingdom, he came to understand what was going on.
“Stop.” He gave the order and with that all the soldiers attacking Mu Rongfeng’s men paused. “You said you’re the crown prince of Luohai. Do you have any proof?”
“Your Highness?” one of Mu Rongfeng’s bodyguards turned to look at him.
Mu Rongfeng removed his disguise and produced his ID plate. “This is my ID plate. There are only two plates of this kind in Luohai. One of them is kept in the palace; the other is in my hand. If you don’t believe me, you may send someone to Luohai to verify it.”
“Give me the plate.”
Mu Rongfeng disagreed. “This ID plate means a lot to me. I can’t trust anybody with it. You’ll have to take me to your commander first if you want to see it.”
Wu Zhuo had come ashore. After hearing the conversation between the two men in the front, he made towards them. The crowd of soldiers parted to make way for him. Wu Zhuo walked straight up to Mu Rongfeng, looked from him to the ID plate in his hand and then said, “I’m the commander of Haizhou navy. You claimed to be Mu Rongfeng, the crown prince of Luohai, but why did you and your men attack Pingtao City posing as pirates? What does the Luohai Kingdom mean by doing this?
“On top of that, if my memory serves me well, the crown prince of Luohai was the one leading a diplomatic corps to our country to sign a ceasefire agreement. One moment you were signing the agreement; the next you were making trouble. Don’t you think you people of Luohai are too supercilious?!”
“Now that things have already come to this, it’s unnecessary for you to make any more remarks in this regard. You may restrain me, but you must not hurt me. And, I want to see your emperor,” said Mu Rongfeng.
Wu Zhuo snorted coldly, “We haven’t confirmed your identity yet, and an audience with His Majesty is not something you can have as you please. Guards, restrain him. Make sure he’s under constant watch!”
“Yes, Commander!”
…
Wu Zhuo had Mu Rongfeng restrained and escorted into a heavily guarded detention room in Pingtao City.
“Sire, Mu Rongfeng identified himself and is requesting an audience with you. What are your orders?” Wu Zhuo hastened to see Yuwen Tong after having everything handled.
Yuwen Tong replied, “There’s no hurry. Just keep a close eye on Mu Rongfeng. Don’t let him die. Someone will take care of the rest of it.”
Wu Zhuo, who was a sensible man, asked no more questions. “Yes, Sire.”
“Clean up the mess outside Pingtao City first, then go and give Hai Mu a hand,” instructed Yuwen Tong.
“Yes, Sire,” Wu Zhuo answered and quickly made arrangements for his lieutenant to enter into the clean-up, and then he himself took some men and went to help Hai Mu.
Meanwhile, Wang Xiangxin and his men were still trapped in the containment formation.
As though providence was doing Ling Zhang a favor, the dark clouds in the sky above the sea were thickening and edging towards the shore. The sun had been concealed, and the whole Pingtao City was overshadowed by the clouds, the wind freshening, sand and dust filling the air. The favourable weather doubled the effectiveness of the containment formation Ling Zhang was using to keep Wang Xiangxin at bay, which was why Wang Xiangxin and his men still hadn’t cracked the formation after such a long time.
When Yuwen Tong arrived with some men, Ling Zhang was considering whether or not he should have Wang Dashan and some others go into the formation and kill Wang Xiangxin. The reason why he hadn’t sent anybody into the formation yet was because Wang Dashan and some others needed to stay outside to keep the formation in working order, and the rest of his bodyguards were unfamiliar with the formation and could easily get trapped like Wang Xiangxin and his men if they entered it.
“You’ve come. How’s Mu Rongfeng?” Ling Zhang immediately asked as he saw Yuwen Tong coming.
“In custody. I need him alive to make a deal with Luohai,” replied Yuwen Tong.
The capture of Mu Rongfeng indicated that the fighting at the port was probably over. Feeling somewhat relieved, Ling Zhang suggested, “Wang Xiangxin is still in there. This is a very good opportunity. I think we should take it and kill him.”
Yuwen Tong gave a bob of the head and then had Yao Yi lead some others into the containment formation.
Before deploying the formation, Ling Zhang had briefed Yao Yi and the others on it, so they all had some acquaintance with this formation, and Ling Zhang didn’t have to worry about any of them being trapped in it. However, the killers working for Wang Xiangxin were pretty good at kung fu and also adept at dirty tricks, so Ling Zhang informed Yao Yi and the others of the characteristics of those killers’ fighting styles that his father had disclosed to him, and cautioned them to take them seriously.
“Don’t worry, Childe Ling. We’ll be cautious,” Yao Yi said and then led his men towards the formation.
…
Wang Xiangxin had been stranded in the containment formation for quite some time, unable to figure out a way to crack it. The look on his face was getting uglier and uglier, anxiety building up in him.
Seeing this, the man beside him, who was wearing a black skintight outfit and had some totemic markings on his face, observed, “We can’t afford to be trapped in this place for long. If we get out of here too late, we’ll end up like fish in a barrel. Lord Commander, I suggest you use your men to clear the path. Just adopt the clumsiest method – have them close their eyes and walk straight forward. We may just follow in their wake. This is just a stony area outside Pingtao City. Someone deployed a formation here with the mere advantage of the favourable terrain, but they couldn’t have made it large, which means we’ll be able to walk out of it if we keep going in one direction.”
Wang Xiangxin hesitated. All the men he’d brought with him this time were crack soldiers, an elite group that he heavily relied on. If he treated them as cannon fodder…
“Stop dithering, Lord Commander. Otherwise it’ll be us rather than them who’ll end up dead, and we won’t even be able to make it back to Jiangzhou, let alone get to Pingtao City!” snapped the man in black.
Wang Xiangxin gave a shudder, the look in his eyes instantly becoming sepulchral. “Let’s do it your way.”
If these crack soldiers died, he could groom more men to take their place, but if he died, he’d lose everything.
…
When Yao Yi and some others entered the formation, Wang Xiangxin had just made up his mind to use his elite soldiers as human shields to force his way out of the containment formation.
With the advantage of their familiarity with the formation, Yao Yi and his men made one kill after another, appearing and disappearing mysteriously.
“Ah!”
“Assass–AARGH!”
“Who’s there?!”
“Assassins! Everybody stay alert!”
Wang Xiangxin hadn’t got his men into proper marching formation yet when the situation changed. Originally they’d merely been trapped, but now his men was going down one after another, the smell of blood spreading.
To make things worse, Wang Xiangxin found that many of the crack soldiers behind him were gone. Most of them had dropped out and got lost in the weird, enigmatic formation!
“We’re running out of time. Forget about those men. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. Some others have entered this formation,” remarked the man in black beside Wang Xiangxin.
Wang Xiangxin immediately gave the order for his surviving elite soldiers to gather around him. Then he commanded some of them to blindfold themselves and progress non-stop.
At first some of them were scared, but after the man in black killed a couple of those too frightened to follow the order, all the rest blindfolded themselves and began to proceed tremulously, not daring raise any objections.
“Why are you going so slowly? Start running! Or else I’ll kill you where you stand!”
Under duress, the blindfolded soldiers began to run, Wang Xiangxin and the killers following in their wake. Most of those at the front bumped into obstacles and broke their heads. Some even fell into pits that suddenly appeared out of thin air, but there were also some things that seemed to be traps but were actually deceptive tricks. Just like this, at the cost of many soldiers’ lives, Wang Xiangxin and those killers actually found a way out.
Ling Zhang, who was outside the formation and saw the whole thing clearly, knitted his brows in the knowledge that at this rate, Wang Xiangxin would make good his escape. With some prompt adjustments to the containment formation, he would be able to trap Wang Xiangxin and the killers in there longer, but Yao Yi and some others were also in the formation and would very likely be trapped as well if he altered the formation at this point in time.
“Don’t worry. Let them flee. Wang Xiangxin is doing this at the cost of his own men’s lives. Even if he manages to get out, he wouldn’t have many soldiers left. Wu Zhuo is already on his way to this area with his marines,” Yuwen Tong consoled Ling Zhang.
Unsurprisingly, before long, Wu Zhuo arrived with the main force of the navy, who, by order of Yuwen Tong, got into an array and blocked all the paths Wang Xiangxin might take after exiting the containment formation.
Wang Xiangxin believed that he had finally found a way out of the predicament, that he would be able to extricate himself from the cursed place. However, he was unaware of what was waiting for him outside. His crack soldiers were going down constantly, either wounded or killed. Those who dared disobey had all been disposed of already.
After a Joss-stick (a unit of time used in feudal China; how long it takes for a joss stick to burn itself out), Wang Xiangxin was very close to the edge of the containment formation.
“The fog ahead is lifting. We’ll soon be rid of this formation,” said the man in black delightedly.
They were good at hiding and some underhand tricks, but this containment formation was something they’d never seen before. The man in black, along with his underlings, had sworn allegiance to Wang Xiangxin, but he’d done that only because he wanted to indulge in a gay life and debauchery. He had no intention to die for Wang Xiangxin. He was fully aware that during the long period of time when Wang Xiangxin had been trapped in this place, the situation outside had undoubtedly changed dramatically. What was happening on this day was too weird, and Wang Xiangxin’s day had gone. The man in black decided to take his men and leave immediately after they got out of this containment formation, lest they die with Wang Xiangxin.
However, the good mood of the man in black didn’t last long. What they’d seen a moment before was indeed an exit, and they finally got out, but the sight of the large army ahead, who were in battle array and waiting for them, told them explicitly that they wouldn’t be able to escape even if they were provided with wings.
“Wu Zhuo?! It’s you?!” exclaimed Wang Xiangxin through gritted teeth, his face instantaneously blanching, his eyes reddening with fury as they fell on Wu Zhuo who was leading the army. Every one of his elite soldiers who had just fled out of the formation with him was a sorry sight, their faces registering despair as they saw the scene in front of them.
Thunderous beating of battle drums and battle cry filled the air once again. Behind Wang Xiangxin was the main force of his army intercepted by the Haizhou garrison; ahead of him were the main force of the navy in battle array, who had been waiting for them to get out of the containment formation and then walk straight into another trap. A sudden twitch of fury gave Wang Xiangxin a throbbing pain in the heart and he was nearly reduced to spitting out a mouthful of blood!
