The cold wind was biting, and the muddy road was blown white. The withered branches of the elms, willows, mulberries, and other miscellaneous trees on both sides of the official road were sparse, and broken branches would fall off from time to time. In addition to Lin Ge and the horse-drawn carriage team of the Jin'an Marquis's mansion, there were also more than a dozen ox carts loaded with charcoal crowded on the official road. After noon, there were not many people on the official road, and the horse-drawn carriages moved very slowly.

  Xue Mingyue felt the speed of the carriage slowing down, and she was getting impatient while waiting inside. She lifted up the curtain and saw Lin Xuan's gaunt and stern face, their eyes meeting for a moment. If it were another girl, she might have blushed and lowered the curtain, but Xue Mingyue simply turned her delicate face slightly to the side, avoiding Lin Xuan's gaze. She looked at the men on the side of the road who were leading high-headed horses, wondering about their identities. These fine horses were rarely seen in Dongming Jinan, and these six men each had one horse in hand, how could she not be curious?

  When Xiang Mingyue was young, a spirited little mare kicked her and her mother had the horse killed. When her father returned, he slapped her mother twice in front of the servants, and Xiang Mingyue realized that fine horses were more precious than ordinary things in Jinan.

  Lin Yu looked at the car window curtain being lifted, and saw two faces like flowers and jade inside. The girl's chin was slightly pointed, beautiful indeed, but a bit green; her eyebrows and eyes had some heroic spirit. The young woman, on the other hand, had skin as white as snow, plump and lustrous, with bright and clear eyes, and infinite charm in her eyebrows and eyes. Her nose, lips, and lightly flushed cheeks were all beautiful. When she suddenly saw Lin Yu looking at her, her eyes flashed with surprise, and then dodged, adding a few more touches of coquetry. Lin Yu looked and sighed inwardly: this woman is so beautiful.

  The horse carriage slowly passed by, and Zhao Hu and Lin Jingzhong couldn't help but stare at it with lingering thoughts. Zhao Hu asked in a low voice, "Who is this woman? She's even more beautiful than the Seventh Lady?"

  "Mrs. Qi is not here, be careful not to let her hear you, she won't take kindly to it, this woman can't stand being told she's not as beautiful as others." Lin Jingzhong joked, waiting for the carriage and cavalry to pass before saying to Lin Xie with a hint of surprise, "The matter of Shi Wen Zhuang's appointment as Marquis of Jin'an has not yet been announced to the world, but the Shi family is already brazenly sending an envoy to Jiangning, what are they trying to do?"

  Zhou Pu and Wu Qi also furrowed their brows, one Du Rong was already enough to deal with, but unexpectedly the Xie family openly sent these people in, and the imperial envoy might be the mastermind behind the Baisha County robbery case, the second son of the Xie family. The situation is getting more complicated.

  "It sounds like the Xie family is surrendering to the imperial court, but in reality, everyone knows that the imperial court has no power to fight back. They were forced to divide the land and grant titles to the Xie family," Lin Xiao shook his head and sighed, "For the Xie family, monitoring the situation in Jiangning is even more important than monitoring the situation in Yanjing..."

  "Are you saying that after this time's submission, the Jia family still won't calm down?" Lin Jingzhong asked.

  "Can we let Xia Jia rest assured and live in peace at dawn?" Lin Xuan asked back.

  "For over 200 years since the founding of the country, there has never been a family like the Xue family that has been granted land and titles, with power and influence rivaling that of the imperial court. It's not a matter of whether the court trusts them or not, but rather that the central government has to deal with more trouble than just the Xue family, so they need to temporarily appease the Xue family and free up their hands..." Lin Jingzhong said, "This logic is straightforward, once they have freed up their hands, the central government will still have to take care of the Xue family."

  "The Xie family also saw through the court's strengths and weaknesses, but they were wary of Li Zhuo. Li Zhuo and his tens of thousands of elite soldiers remained in Dongming, leaving them breathless. It was better to temporarily surrender and let the imperial court feel at ease, so that it could send Li Zhuo and his troops to JiBei to deal with the Eastern Hu people. They would then guard JinAn and wait for an opportunity; the central government couldn't possibly not be on guard against the Xie family, making Li Zhuo's appointment as JiangNing Minister of War and JiangNing Defender General a foregone conclusion. According to Gu WuChen, Li Zhuo's appointment edict would have been issued last year... but for now, it wasn't about who would come to DongNan to take charge." Lin Xuan let out a soft sigh and didn't continue speaking.

  Lin Jingzhong also shook his head and sighed. When he was in Shanglin, he had never thought that he would be so closely related to the great events of the court.

  Lin tied up his horse, at this time the front of the charcoal-carrying cow carts suddenly tilted to one side on the official road, several thousand catties of charcoal poured out from the cart and piled into a black heap. The dozen or so cow carts instantly became chaotic, completely blocking the entire official road, and naturally the Jin'an Hou Fu's memorial procession was also blocked tightly. The guards all rushed forward to drive away the charcoal-carrying cow carts.

  "No... " Wu Qi pulled back Lin Xie's horse head, letting him turn around and look towards the direction of the ox cart.

  A train of ox-carts loaded with charcoal moved slowly, but strangely, there were many pedestrians and horsemen on the official road who also followed behind the ox-carts at a slow pace, without any signs of impatience. Lin Xie and his companions had been focusing their attention on the carriage of the Jin'an Marquis's emissary, and hadn't noticed anything unusual about the charcoal ox-cart train until now, when they saw that the dozen or so carts were blocking the official road, and only then did they notice something was off.

  "Everyone get on horseback..." Lin Xuan said decisively. The She family has been causing chaos in Eastern Fujian for nearly ten years. How many men have died at the hands of the She family in the southeast? How many families have been ruined and destroyed because of them? Although the imperial court granted the She family land and titles, there are not a few people who hate the She family to the bone and would be delighted to see them killed. Just like Dong Yuan, the prefect of Yangzhou, who was willing to break off relations with Li Zhuo, the governor-general of Eastern Fujian, who had shown him kindness. Whoever wanted to assassinate the Jin'an Marquis's envoy in front of the East Huamen Gate in Jiangning, these six men would not be able to intervene. The key is that they themselves were horseback riders with swords at their waists, and it would be easy for them to get caught up in the crossfire if they didn't retreat. Lin Xuan pulled on the reins and said to Zhou Pu, "Take Jing Zhong and let's retreat a bit..."

  "I'll ride a horse..." Lin Jingzhong thought to protest, but before he could say anything, his thin body was clamped under Zhou Pu's armpit and placed horizontally on the horseback. Wu Qi led away Lin Jingzhong's mount, and the six of them rode five horses while leading one, heading towards the distance. They had only gone a hundred or so steps when sudden changes erupted ahead.

  Lin Xiele turned his horse's head to look back, and saw that more than half of the guards in the Jin'an Marquis' procession had been attracted to the front to drive away the ox carts. As they were about to enter Jiangning City, it was indeed the most lax moment for the procession's defense. It was hard to imagine that someone would attempt an assassination less than three miles from the East Huamen Gate of Jiangning. The dozen or so people scattered on both sides of the procession suddenly drew out their swords and rushed towards the lead horse carriage. Even more astonishingly, the dozen or so people disguised as charcoal carriers who were driving the ox carts ahead took out strong crossbows and shot at the guards riding in front. The Jin'an Marquis' procession was caught off guard, and more than a dozen people didn't even have time to draw their swords before they became victims of the crossbow bolts. Four or five assassins jumped onto the lead horse carriage, and in an instant, a stream of blood burst out from the window.

  Lin Tie had just succeeded in his assassination, but unexpectedly, the next moment a killer emerged from the carriage and shouted loudly at the front of the car: "Xiao Fei Hu is not on this car..." This killer was also very knowledgeable, jumped onto the carriage, and rushed towards the second horse-drawn carriage to find their target for this trip.

  The assassins suddenly panicked and rushed towards the remaining four carriages.

  At this moment, the second carriage suddenly turned around and rushed towards Lin's side. The assassins identified their target as being in this carriage and abandoned the other carriages to chase after it. The fastest assassin grabbed onto the rear wall of the carriage while it was speeding along and climbed aboard. Other assassins either chased after it on foot or went to grab the horses to ride them in pursuit.

  "What should we do?" Wu Qi and Zhou Pu both looked at Lin Xie.

  "Save him." Lin's eyes were fixed on the assassin who had climbed onto the carriage roof, and besides the coachman at the front of the carriage, there was also a guard warrior who had already drawn his sword and turned to fight the assassin.

  Wu Qi and Zhou Pu were stunned. They had originally planned to secretly create an obstacle to prevent the horse carriage from escaping, allowing the assassin to successfully kill a key figure in the Sha family, which would have been their heart's desire. But unexpectedly, Lin Xuan actually wanted to save someone.

  "Xue Fei Hu has an 80% chance of not being in the carriage, those two women are brave enough to use their bodies to attract the assassins, don't hesitate, prepare to rescue them." Lin Xuan stared at the direction the horse carriage was coming from, he had only seen the two women sticking their heads out of the window earlier, although he wasn't sure if there were any other people inside, but the possibility of Xue Fei Hu being in the same carriage as the two women when entering the city was relatively small. Looking ahead, the guards who were scattered and fighting in a mess had indeed prioritized protecting the fourth horse carriage that looked unremarkable, only sending 12-13 riders to chase after the assassins pursuing the second horse carriage, more guards were entangled with the assassins at the front, those dozen or so assassins chasing the second horse carriage hadn't discovered anything unusual yet.

  The first assassin to rush onto the horse carriage fought with his life, and did not dodge the guard's knife stabbing towards his left arm. With one kick, he knocked that guard off the carriage, and stabbed the coachman in the ribs with a short blade. He then slashed his knife towards the coachman's neck, but when he lifted up the curtain to enter the carriage, he hesitated for a moment.

  Wu Qi leapt onto the carriage and punched the assassin's occipital bone, while Lin Xie also jumped onto the carriage and pulled the unconscious assassin into the compartment. Seeing that there were only two pale-faced beauties inside, he turned to Wu Qi and said, "We'll take them away." Wu Qi nodded slightly and barely managed to stop the carriage from rushing into the ditch, then whipped the horses and galloped off into the distance. Zhou Pu and the others led Wu Qi and Lin Xie's mounts and followed the carriage as they escaped into the distance.

  Lin Jingzhong pressed Zhou Pu down on the horseback, making him feel so uncomfortable that he almost threw up his lunch. However, in this position, he could see what was happening behind them. The dozen or so assassins chasing after them were about to catch up with the ten-odd bodyguards. He thought to himself that as long as they blocked the carriage and stalled the assassins for a moment, they would be able to help the bodyguards rescue the people inside the carriage. Why did Lin Jingzhong want Wu Qi to drive the carriage far away? They also wanted to escape with them.

  Lin Xie put down the assassin who had knocked Wu Qi unconscious, and saw a beautiful young woman in the carriage take out a small silver dagger to stab him. He took the knife from her hand and threw it out of the carriage window, saying: "Madam, don't be too anxious, we are just passersby who happened to see an injustice and helped you, madam, please don't mistakenly harm good people." Feeling that this young woman's thoughts were hard to guess, he couldn't put his mind at ease, so he said: "Sorry, madam, Lin Xie doesn't want to be stabbed in the back while saving someone..." His eyes fixed on the girl, and with both hands quickly patted down the young woman's body, confirming that she didn't have any other hidden weapons.

  That young woman was unaware of Lin Xie's identity, and with a hand as quick as a spider crawling on his body, she searched him thoroughly, but unlike ordinary women, she didn't flinch or show any weakness. Still vigilant, she stared at Lin Xie and said: "As long as you save us, the Lao family will surely reward you handsomely!"

  "I dare not accept the generous gift from your family, but I have to save you. I don't know how many people I will offend." Lin Xie smiled silently and then searched the young woman's body with his eyes fixed on her.

  Although Lin Xie's search was very professional and didn't have any lewd or evil intentions, the young girl's body had been touched by a man, her face turned bright red as she scolded: "You rascal, you actually thought of taking advantage of me and my sister-in-law, be careful that our family will cut off your hands." The young woman knew that Lin Xie didn't have any lewd intentions when searching them, although being searched by a man was also humiliating, she could endure it without making a sound.

  "Miss, you're threatening me, so I'll just have to hand you over to the assassins." Lin Mou relaxed and sat down, laughing as he sat between the young woman and the girl, one foot resting on the chest of the assassin who had fainted dead away, letting Wu Qi ride ahead in front, only not allowing the two women to look at what was happening outside the carriage.