Martial Arts World Assassin

Chapter 197: Snakes and Bamboo Formation

Huang Sixi flew north on an eagle.

The destination of this trip is Taiyuan City in Jinzhong.

He set sail from Heilongtan and had to travel three or four hundred miles north to reach his destination.

Heilongtan is located in the southern part of Shanxi Province and is not experiencing war at the moment, but the further north you go, the more obvious the signs of war become.

When Huang Sixi arrived a hundred miles away from Taiyuan City, he looked down from the back of a eagle and saw people everywhere in the mountains and fields. They brought their families with them, carried luggage, and pushed wooden carts, looking like refugees fleeing famine.

Huang Sixi shouted to the Divine Eagle.

The Divine Eagle immediately descended from the sky.

There were thousands and thousands of refugees on the ground. In order to avoid causing panic, Huang Sixi jumped off the Divine Eagle's back when the Divine Eagle descended to several feet above the ground. Then he signaled the Divine Eagle to fly high and circle so as not to scare the refugee team.

However, Huang Sixi's sudden appearance from the sky still caused nervousness among the nearby residents, who scattered away and dared not approach Huang Sixi.

The only person who was there was a dwarf old man who had difficulty walking and was forced to stand there.

Huang Sixi stepped forward and said with a smile: "Excuse me, sir, where are you guys going?"

The old man trembled: "Go... go to a peaceful place!"

"Isn't the north peaceful?"

"That's right. The Mongolian Tartars are besieging Taiyuan City. They have been fighting for a month or two!"

"Taiyuan City can be defended for a month or two. The Tartars should not be able to break through!"

"Taiyuan has high walls and a large city with plenty of food and grass. It is indeed difficult to attack. However, the Tartars are fierce and evil. They couldn't take Taiyuan City, so they sent troops to sweep the villages and towns outside the city and rob the villagers of their food. At first, they only robbed a dozen miles outside the city, but later they robbed farther and farther. The villagers were afraid of them, so they all started to abandon their homes and flee!"

When the Mongols fought, they were accustomed to replenishing supplies on the spot. They did not simply rob food. If they encountered a siege, they would also capture civilians, regardless of whether they were women, children, old or young, and drive them all to the outskirts of the city and force them to attack.

Huang Sixi thought that these refugees must have heard the news that the Mongols were forcing the people, so they fled first.

In May of this year, after the Mongolian army led by Temujin broke through the Jin Dynasty's capital Yanjing, it immediately marched south to continue attacking the heartland of the Central Plains.

However, Temujin himself had already retreated to the northern desert. He appointed Muhuali, one of his four heroes, and his fourth son Tolui as the main commanders in the attack on the Jin Dynasty.

The main battlefield of this attack on Jin was in Shanxi.

Since Shanxi is located to the north of the grassland, once Shanxi is lost, the core areas of Zhongzhou and Shaanxi under the rule of the Jin Dynasty will be directly threatened.

Originally, the Jin nobles attached great importance to the defense of Shanxi. They not only strengthened the city but also sent more troops.

But the Mongolian cavalry was too fast. They attacked Yanmen Pass at lightning speed and advanced to Xinzhou, Yangqu and other places at high speed. They seized the northern Shanxi region with almost no effort and then marched straight to the important military town of Taiyuan.

Seeing Huang Sixi's polite words, the old man asked cautiously, "Sir, there shouldn't be a war in the south, right?"

Huang Sixi said: "I have come all the way here, and there has been no war in the northern part of Zhongzhou and southern Shanxi!"

"That's good! That's good!"

The old man waved his hand and said, "The south is peaceful. Let's continue to go south and head directly to Zhongzhou. That is where the government is. No matter how powerful the Mongolian Tartars are, they can't attack Zhongzhou!"

Huang Sixi reminded him, "To get to Zhongzhou, you have to cross the Yellow River. It's winter now and the river could freeze over at any time. When I came north, I saw very few ferry boats on the river. You should prepare early, father-in-law!"

When the old man heard Huang Sixi's caring words, he had already decided in his heart that Huang Sixi was a kind official.

He saw Huang Sixi raising his head and whistling again. The divine eagle heard the whistling and immediately landed on top of Huang Sixi's head.

Huang Sixi was about to jump onto the eagle's back and fly away.

The old man knelt down in front of Huang Sixi and begged, "Sir, you are kind-hearted. I beg you for a favor!"

Huang Sixi had already inquired about the situation in Taiyuan City. He was about to leave, but when he saw this, he turned around, helped the old man up, and said, "Don't be like this, old man. Just tell me what you want to say!"

The old man cried, "My whole family is fleeing. I had a grandson with me, but we ended up walking to a bamboo forest thirty miles away. My grandson got lost in the forest and is missing. Sir, you can ride on an eagle and fly high. Please stop by the bamboo forest and find out where my grandson is!"

Huang Sixi asked curiously, "Is that bamboo forest very big? How could a living person disappear?"

"Not really! It's just..."

"Just what?"

"For some reason, the forest was full of poisonous snakes, and the bamboo forest was completely blocked. My family went into the forest many times to look for them, but they were driven out by the snakes every time. The villagers were all in a hurry to get on with their journey, and I was afraid of getting separated from them, so I didn't dare to stay outside the forest for long. Alas!"

The old man was even more afraid of staying in the bamboo forest for too long and encountering the Mongolian Tartars, in which case his entire family would fall into their hands. As a last resort, he had to abandon his grandson and accompany his family to follow the large group of villagers.

Huang Sixi's eyes lit up after listening to the old man's story: "It's so cold now, the poisonous snakes have already hibernated, how come there are so many poisonous snakes in the bamboo forest?"

"This……"

The old man made a bitter face and said, "I don't know either!"

He looked up at the divine eagle in front of Huang Sixi's head and said in awe: "Although there are many poisonous snakes in the forest, your divine eagle is so powerful that the poisonous snakes are definitely no match for it. Please save my poor grandson!"

After saying that, he knelt down again.

Before Huang Sixi could go over to help, seven or eight middle-aged men and women from the nearby crowd suddenly came over and knelt down to kowtow to Huang Sixi.

"My little girl has also entered the bamboo forest! Please save me, sir!"

"And my youngest son. They were originally digging wild vegetables outside the forest. Suddenly they smelled the aroma of meat. They rushed into the forest because they were greedy, and they couldn't get out anymore!"

"By the time the villagers heard their cries and planned to rescue them, the poisonous snakes had already surrounded the bamboo forest!"

"Sir, please be kind and save my child!"

After Huang Sixi listened to their complaints and motioned for them to stand up, he said, "I can go to the bamboo forest to investigate, but they are surrounded by poisonous snakes. If they are bitten by snakes and meet with an accident, there is nothing I can do!"

The old man and others responded hastily: "If they have been poisoned to death, it is their fate, and it is definitely not your fault!"

Huang Sixi nodded: "Okay, tell me about the children's situation!"

Wait until everyone has finished talking.

Huang Sixi immediately got on the Divine Eagle and flew towards the direction of the big bamboo forest that everyone had mentioned.

On the way, Huang Sixi recalled his conversation with Yinggu.

When Huang Sixi asked Yinggu about Huang Rong, Yinggu revealed that Huang Rong was in Shanxi.

Huang Sixi once asked Yinggu if she could confirm Huang Rong's whereabouts. Yinggu said confidently: "I happened to meet her when I passed through Shandong last month. She said she was going to look for her lover Guo Jing, who was in the Mongol Tartar camp!"

At that time, Huang Sixi once asked: "Then Huang Rong should be in Shandong, right?"

Yinggu shook her head: "Guo Jing's status is not ordinary. He is a sworn brother with the Mongolian Tartar prince. The Tartar prince wanted to lead his troops to Shanxi to help in the war, so he went to Shanxi with the Tartar prince. Huang Rong naturally went to Shanxi to pursue her lover!"

At this point, Yinggu added, "I heard that the Mongolian Tartars and the Jin army are fighting in Taiyuan, Shanxi. If you rush to the Tartar camp in Taiyuan City now, you should be able to find Huang Rong. Unless Guo Jing has left the camp, Huang Rong must be there!"

During the battle of Misty Rain Tower, Guo Jing had a conflict with Huang Rong over the death of the Five Freaks of Jiangnan and broke up with Huang Rong in anger.

Although Guo Jing later learned from Ke Zhen'e that the Five Freaks of Jiangnan were killed by Ouyang Feng and he had misunderstood Huang Rong, Huang Rong disappeared and was unwilling to see him again.

In recent months, Guo Jing has been looking for Huang Rong. On the way, he met the Tartar prince Tolui. However, Tolui went to Shanxi not to assist Muhuali in the war, but to receive an imperial edict from Temujin, ordering Tolui to return to the Mongolian Golden Horde in the northern desert.

Tore and Mu Huali were both the main commanders of the Mongolian Tartars' attack on the Jin Dynasty. Now Tore was about to leave the Jin battlefield, and he needed to give an explanation to Mu Huali. So on his way back to Mobei, he stopped by Shanxi, and Guo Jing went with him.

Although Huang Rong was unwilling to see Guo Jing, she was always concerned about Guo Jing's safety, so she followed him secretly.

Calculating the time, this happened a month ago. If Tore and Guo Jing have left Shanxi and returned to Mobei, then Huang Rong must have left the Central Plains.

However, when Huang Sixi heard the old man talking about the poisonous snake in the bamboo forest, he guessed that Huang Rong was still stranded in Shanxi.

After all, when Huang Rong was following Guo Jing, she was also being chased by Ouyang Feng.

There are poisonous snakes in the deep winter, most of which are privately raised snakes. If the poisonous snakes in the bamboo forest were created by Ouyang Feng, then Huang Rong must be near the bamboo forest.

As he was thinking this, the Divine Eagle had already circled over the bamboo forest.

The Divine Eagle had sharp eyes and spotted the figure of the child in the forest. It then neighed at Huang Sixi, asking him whether he wanted to land.

"Don't worry yet, fly around the bamboo forest and see if there are any other traces!"

Huang Sixi paid close attention to the movements in the bamboo forest, and found that apart from the group of children, the entire bamboo forest was empty.

Looking at the group of children again, they were all sitting upright on a huge rock. Within a ten-zhang radius outside the rock, there were densely packed green bamboos inserted diagonally. Huang Sixi looked down from a high altitude and found that the green bamboos formed a Bagua pattern.

This is obviously a formation.

On the periphery of the green bamboo formation, there was a dense group of snakes lurking. They were blocked by the green bamboo formation and could not cross the line even a single step, so naturally they could not attack the group of children.

But the group of children were also trapped in the formation and had no way out.

Huang Sixi ordered the Divine Eagle to fly over the boulder and then jump down.

When he met the group of children, he first said to comfort them: "Don't be afraid, I am the rescuer invited by your grandfather, father and mother!"

After that, he started calling the roll.

When the children heard Huang Sixi say their names, they immediately believed that Huang Sixi was their savior. They hugged Huang Sixi and cried loudly.

When they stopped crying, he asked, "Who put these bamboos here?"

The group of children said in unison: "It's my sister!"

"What's your sister's name?"

"This... I don't know! Sister is sister, she told us to call her that!"

"Where did your sister go?"

"Sister had placed these green bamboos and stayed with us on the big rock to keep poisonous snakes away! Who knew that another vicious man would come and try to grab sister? The vicious man seemed to know some magic and could fan the wind with his palms. He slapped sister a few times but didn't hurt her. Instead, he blew her head into the snake pile!"

These children don't know martial arts and their speech is incoherent.

But Huang Sixi still heard it very clearly.

The Big Head these children are talking about is the grandson of the dwarf old man mentioned earlier.

'Sister' should be Huang Rong.

The 'fierce man' was most likely Ouyang Feng, who was very skilled in Toad Kung Fu and could blow a child several feet away with one strike of his palm.

"What happened next?" Huang Sixi asked.

"The elder sister rescued Big Head, but was surrounded by poisonous snakes. There were also fierce men trying to stop her. She couldn't go back, so she could only run out of the bamboo forest. As she ran, she disappeared!" The group of children all pointed to the west. The 'elder sister' was running towards that direction.

"How long has she been gone?" Huang Sixi asked.

"It will only take a while!" These children had no concept of time and kept saying, "It will only take a short while!"

Then she pointed to the edge of the green bamboo formation and said, "Big brother, just now my sister was trying to save Datou, and her bamboo stick fell over there, and she didn't even have time to pick it up!"

Huang Sixi immediately moved over, picked up the bamboo stick and looked at it, and couldn't help but smile: "Isn't this a dog-beating stick?"

He used the dog-beating stick with Huang Rong's signature engraved on it in "Swordsman", which is exactly the same as the bamboo stick in front of him, except that there is no signature on the end of the stick.

Holding the dog-beating stick, Huang Sixi was considering tracking down Huang Rong first and then coming back to escort the group of children. Unexpectedly, the nine-tailed fox lying on his shoulder suddenly jumped off the ground, came to a cluster of lotus leaves in the green bamboo array, stretched out its limbs and claws to pry open the lotus leaves, and saw half a roast chicken remaining in the leaves.

The nine-tailed fox seemed to have come across some delicious meal and began to eat it with relish.

Huang Sixi did not disturb the nine fox spirits, but looked at the group of children.

Before Huang Sixi could ask, the group of children rushed to answer, "This is the chicken that my sister roasted. We ran here because we smelled the fragrance, but the poisonous snake followed us. We didn't have time to eat it because the chicken was knocked away by the vicious man!"

They had been warned not to leave the boulder, and the lotus leaves were close to the poisonous snakes. They were afraid of being bitten by the snakes, and knew that the roast chicken was just feet away, but they did not dare to pick it up. As a result, the nine-tailed fox got the chance to eat it.

The little fox ate up the roast chicken in no time and was still not satisfied. It stayed close to the ground and followed the scent outside. However, when it found the edge of the poisonous snake, it was forced to stop and turned to look at Huang Sixi, asking for help.

Huang Sixi grabbed it and asked, "Can you follow the smell of roasted chicken to find the person who roasted the chicken?"

The nine-tailed fox was anxious to eat the roast chicken, so he just nodded.

Huang Sixi thought it could track Huang Rong's location, so he waved to the Divine Eagle and said, "Brother Eagle, come down and send these children to their parents first, and then we will go find someone else!"

There were only eight children present, four boys and four girls, all of whom were not very heavy. The Divine Eagle could carry four people at a time, and two round trips were enough.

This large bamboo forest is only thirty miles away from the refugee group, and the Divine Eagle can fly there in the blink of an eye.

Huang Sixi waited for less than an incense stick of time, and the eight children had been sent back safely. Then Huang Sixi put the nine-tailed fox on the ground and signaled the little fox to start tracking.

(End of this chapter)