Nine-layer armor-breaking

Chapter 291 Scheming (Seeking monthly votes!)
A person knelt on the ground, curled up in pain.

Fine beads of sweat formed long lines that rolled down his forehead and cheeks.

The onslaught of pain made him unable to control the somewhat ferocious expression on his face.

It bared its teeth and grinned, like an old, withered tree that had lost all its dignity.

He hastily tied a piece of cloth from the corner of his clothes into a ball and used it with all his might to cover his shocking wound, trying his best to stop the blood gushing from it.

Blood and sweat, falling from different places, all become the imprint of the land.

Now, he only has one arm left, and he has completely lost the desire to fight.

Right now, all he wants is to survive. Losing an arm is at least enough to keep him alive, but he would never be willing to just disappear into this forest where few people pass by.

Looking at the four men, his teammates whom he spent every day with, they now seemed to be under a spell, lying on the ground, unable to move.

The four of them seemed to be firmly bound by something; their eyes were bloodshot, and they looked exhausted, but their bodies were completely immobile.

The sight was truly horrifying.

Just by looking at their anxious eyes, one could tell their pain and despair at that moment.

It seems that what they were given was not just some drug that rendered the four of them incapacitated, but rather some strange drug that could keep them in place and cause them all kinds of torment.

The leader of the gang naturally had a clear view of the situation on the field.

Seeing this scene really made him panic.

The group of eight had arrived here after receiving advance warning, and had been lying in ambush in the woods in order to rob a wealthy family passing through.

Unexpectedly, they encountered Jiang Xian and his group.

For them, encountering this group of three was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

But I never expected these three to be so troublesome.

He looked around at the situation on the field, and the current situation was indeed difficult to handle.

At this moment, he was so unsteady on his feet that he couldn't think straight. He was completely at a loss, and his whole body began to tremble, the trembling becoming increasingly intense.

After robbing Jiang Xian and his two companions and collecting some small sums of money, they returned to their original spot and lay in ambush in the tree canopy.

Wait for the wealthy man's carriage to pass by, then launch a surprise attack to catch them off guard.

This was his original plan, but he never expected to be defeated by a group of three seemingly ordinary people.

He never expected to encounter such a huge obstacle during this mission.

Now, of the seven brothers he brought, besides himself, the leader, and the brother he was fighting with the Jiang family guard standing in the middle of the road, the other five were all lying on the ground.

Even the brother who had lost an arm was forced to remain kneeling for a moment.

He lay on the ground, his face deathly pale, and his will to live was not as strong as before.

Blood dripped onto the ground, the flow slowing down, but his complexion grew increasingly grim.

Seeing this scene, he felt truly remorseful.

I never imagined that something as small as a gain could lead to such a tragic end.

He never imagined he would be defeated by these three people.

He even wondered if things would have been completely different if he hadn't targeted those three people and had instead followed the original plan to honestly pick up the wealthy client.

The current situation is that it is very likely that they will all fall into the hands of these three.

And the long-planned scheme to rob that wealthy man thus fell through.

When he closed his eyes, he felt a bit disoriented and didn't know what was going on.

His mind grew increasingly muddled; all he knew was that he had now lost both the small and the large.

But the scene at the scene did not allow him to continue in this dazed state.

He watched as his brother, who had been fighting the guard standing in the middle of the road, had his clothes, especially the front, torn to shreds by the guard.

This means that the guard was a martial artist whose strength was far superior to that of his brother.

However, the reason why it has been so long without a clear winner is probably just because the guard wanted to play tricks on them.

There is no other explanation.

If he were to become truly murderous and get serious, he could probably finish off the brother blocking his way within a few moves, or even kill him with a single blow.

How could he not be afraid?
He couldn't care less about anything else right now; all he wanted was to save his own life.

If the brother standing in front of him can shield him, then looking around, the only people left on the field who can move and have a chance to leave are him and the leader.

Thinking about it this way, he felt he could work on a plan with the core leader.

But at this moment, his pillar of support was far away from him.

The guard riding in circles on horseback dazzled him.

Now, he didn't know whether the leader was chasing after the mounted guard, or trying to shake off the mounted guard, or the mounted guard was just toying with the leader.

He really couldn't figure it out.

In an instant, his blood and qi surged, and the strong current in his body rushed straight to the top of his head.

He pressed down hard, slapping the head violently from time to time, the splitting headache making it unbearable.

He was dizzy and confused, and couldn't quite see the situation on the field.

All he knew was that he was doomed to lose this battle.

He knew that the younger brother who was currently fighting hard in front of him had been protecting him all along. Ever since he started fighting the guard standing in the middle of the road, he had been relentlessly harassing that guard.

Recalling the young man in front of him when he first joined their team, the young man's youthful face kept replaying in his mind, and the young man's smile kept flashing before his eyes.

He did feel a bit emotional, and even felt that he had let that young man down.

However, he was also powerless to do so.

He knew that everyone has to look out for themselves. Now, his priority was to preserve his very existence and his own life.

He has no choice but to gamble now, and his mentor shares the same thought.

He knew perfectly well that he couldn't come up with any decent plan right now, a plan that would allow him to escape successfully.

At this critical moment, it is essential to let the leader make the decision.

Their fate hangs in the balance; they may only have one chance to escape.

He dared not make the slightest move, so he could only continue to let his younger brother shield him, hiding behind his brother and carefully observing the situation on the field.

Then, what he needed to do was find a suitable opportunity to get close to the key figure, get close to him, and make a proper plan.

But his idea was clearly impossible to realize.

Because Jiang Xian wouldn't give him that chance.

When Jiang Xian came to Qizhou to participate in the Five States Martial Arts Competition, she not only avoided outsiders who were unaware of the matter, but also avoided the major families of Yingzhou. She even avoided the two bodyguards who were protecting her.

The leader of the gang seized the opportunity when the leader was being chased by the mounted guard. Seeing that the leader was getting closer and closer, he took advantage of the moment.

Without hesitation, he ran to the side of his leader, ignoring the younger brother who had been protecting and shielding him.

The young man was left alone to deal with the guard standing in the middle of the road.

He was indeed somewhat reluctant to do so.

But there's no way around it. When you're alive, you can't be fair to everyone. If you're only thinking about yourself, you can only hold onto the important things while you still can.

Instead of watching helplessly as his life was lost in this rarely visited forest.

He is naturally unwilling to accept his current situation and predicament.

But he truly had no way to reverse the situation. All he could do was ask his confidant for advice, to see if they could help him escape this calamity and get him out of the clutches of these three men.

Before the battle, as the leader of the team, although he made some wrong decisions, there was one thing he had doubts about even before deciding to fight.

His suspicions stemmed from doubts about the capabilities of the three individuals, and from suspicions about the unknown strength, experience, and origins of this group of three.

Even now, he doesn't believe that the three of them would work for a small pharmacy.

His judgment was that a small pharmacy transporting a cartload of ordinary medicinal herbs would absolutely not need a Heavenly Rank martial artist to escort it.

Looking at their emphasis on medicinal herbs, they are definitely not martial artists who do things for money, but more like martial artists who have been supported by a certain force for a long time or who are originally there to protect their own business.

Based solely on the skill of these two Heavenly Rank martial artists, he was able to conclude that the trio's combination was anything but simple.

As for the core leader, he had other plans in mind.

Firstly, he wanted his leader to advise him and help him leave this place.

He knew in his heart that since he could guess to this extent, the leader must have already made a general judgment about the three people in the group.

He wanted to get rid of the core leader mainly because he feared that the core leader threatened his position as the leader of the team, but he had no doubt about the core leader's intelligence and talent.

Secondly, he was considering using his backbone as a cushion, so that in a critical moment, he might be able to push his backbone forward and take a blow for him.

After all, he was well aware that the leader's strength was far inferior to his own, which was why he had such a scheme.

The core member was only a low-level martial artist, while he was a high-level martial artist. Once the two of them escaped and were alone together, he naturally didn't need to worry about anything.

However, all of this was just his imagination.

His beautiful vision was completely shattered just as he was about to get close to the pillar of support.

He never imagined he would lie down in this way.

The moment his boss came to his side, he ignored the mounted guard.

They no longer tried to hide or avoid the horse-riding guard's movements.

He was certainly not the kind of person their team leader imagined, not the kind of person who would go against the wind and challenge that mounted Heavenly Guardian.

Just as his boss approached him, he realized what his boss was thinking.

He did have some affection for his boss, after all, he had genuinely been highly valued in the past.

But the suppression and exclusion he faced behind the scenes were indeed real.

He was depressed about this for a long time, and ultimately trapped himself in feelings of disappointment and pain, unable to get out of it easily.

But later, he figured it out and stopped worrying about it so much.

Considering his boss's past actions towards him, he decided he wouldn't let his boss off easily, nor would he allow himself to be used by his boss.

The current leader is fully aware of his fate.

They will either die in this forest or by the blades of these three men.

Alternatively, there is another possibility: after he escapes the forest and escapes the clutches of these three men, he will die at the hands of his boss.

Having spent so many years with his boss, he knew his boss's thoughts perfectly well, and naturally wouldn't let his boss manipulate or scheme against him.

Therefore, if he seizes the opportunity now and kills his boss, he can regain some initiative and even gain credit in front of these three people, using it as leverage to avoid this calamity.

Following his boss would truly push him into the abyss, a path to certain death.

He had thought all of this through, so when his boss ran towards him with hopeful eyes, he secretly raised the short knife in his hand and, out of his boss's sight, stabbed him hard in the lower abdomen.

Of course, for the leader, even if these three people did not let him go in the end, he was prepared to die.

As for the current leader, he is no longer clean.

His heart was already filled with scheming, and he exuded an aura of calculation. He disliked this version of himself and had no expectations for the days to come.

So, although he still wanted to seize the opportunity to live, death was not so scary for him.

When his boss was stabbed without hesitation, he didn't feel much pain at the moment of the blow; he just stared at him in shock.

Because he didn't feel much pain, the leader only realized he was injured when a mouthful of blood sprayed onto the smiling face of the backbone opposite him.

(End of this chapter)