Chapter 151 Broken Knife
The forest was filled with the smell of ashes, with light mist lingering between the trees. The two war horses were tied up alone in an empty place, which was particularly strange.

Chen Ji carried the white carp on his back through the rugged mountain road and came to the side of the warhorse. He saw a cowhide water bag hanging next to the saddle and a bag of fried soybeans in the saddle bag.

Horses, water, food, all here.

Chen Ji looked back and suddenly asked, "You also heard the ballad that Mr. Feng sang just now. Has anyone heard it before?"

The prince shook his head: "Never heard of it."

Bai Li also replied: "It's more like a country slang song."

Zhang Xia pondered for a moment: "Building, planning, getting married, Gen Palace is in the reverse direction, Kun Palace is in the tomb, Zhen Palace is suppressed, and life is endless... This is the formula of Shengmen in Qimen Bagua."

Chen Ji murmured: "The gate of life..."

He turned around and saw a line of small words engraved on the tree trunk where the warhorse was tied: "The agreement is valid."

Zhang Xia also saw it and asked curiously, "What does this mean?"

Chen Ji shook his head: "I don't know."

Zhang Xia looked at Chen Ji deeply. This line of small words was clearly written to Chen Ji.

At this moment, Chen Ji was thinking in his heart that the so-called agreement probably referred to what Mr. Feng had said to him before: as long as he followed the other party's work, the other party could help him fulfill a wish.

Could it be that the other party left these two horses to show their goodwill to recruit him? But how could he possibly turn to the Liu family? The Liu family was an enemy of the imperial court and would definitely fail.

Chen Ji put the white carp on the ground, took off the water bag from the saddle and handed it to her: "Princess, drink some water."

The prince was puzzled: "What if it is poisonous?"

Chen Ji shook his head: "If Mr. Feng wanted to kill us, there would be no need for such a roundabout way."

As he was talking, Zaozao had already put his head into the sack, chewing the soybeans inside. Seeing this, the prince quickly reached out and grabbed a handful of soybeans from the sack and stuffed them into his mouth, puffing his mouth and sighing: "I didn't expect that I, Zhu Yunxi, have fallen to the point of snatching food from a horse's mouth. To be honest, these beans are fried quite fragrant."

Chen Ji stood aside and asked curiously: "Miss Zhang Er, is there any other story about Mr. Feng? He disappeared after the palace examination. Did no one see him again? Where are his parents?"

Zhang Xia thought seriously for a moment and said, "I haven't heard anyone mention this."

This made him even more confused. The image of Mr. Feng that was originally clear in his mind became blurry again.

This Mr. Feng seems to be hiding at the bottom of a calm lake. When you want to touch him, you will first touch the surface of the lake, causing ripples on the surface of the lake, and you will no longer be able to see Mr. Feng at the bottom of the lake.

But why did the other party mobilize so many troops? To kill the golden pig and the Pegasus?

At this time, Mr. Feng calmly went down the mountain. Does that mean that the Golden Pig and Pegasus...

Wuyun meowed softly in his arms.

Chen Ji looked towards the mountain, and reached out to Zaozao's saddle, tightly grasping the hilt of the whale knife. Zaozao turned to look at him, but was suddenly shocked by his eyes and momentum, and took a few steps back.

It was these few steps that allowed Chen Ji to naturally pull out the whale knife from the saddle.

The next moment, the voice of the Golden Pig came, as if complaining to the Pegasus: "I told you to run earlier, but you refused to run. When Mr. Feng appeared beside Elder Liu a few years ago, he had a face-to-face encounter with Lord Wu Xiu, and Lord Wu Xiu chose to avoid him at that time. Why did you rush to join in the fun? Look at the blood he got from the beating he gave me..."

"Chen Ji finally broke through, and I'm about to return to the Dao-seeking realm. Can you please stop causing trouble for me... Who is it?!"

The figure of the Golden Pig coming down the mountain paused, and looked at Chen Ji and others as if facing a great enemy. After seeing Chen Ji's face clearly, he said unhappily: "Why are you here? You scared me!"

Chen Ji also breathed a sigh of relief and slowly looked at the golden pig and Pegasus.

The Pegasus was dressed in spotless white and was safe and sound; the golden pig was covered in blood and had seven or eight wounds. It was truly a fight between gods and the little devils suffered.

Chen Ji hesitated and asked, "Master Jinzhu, are you okay?"

Jin Zhu waved his hand carelessly: "I'm fine, just some superficial injuries. The guy surnamed Feng is in a much worse situation than me."

Chen Ji hesitated and said, "Sir, Mr. Feng just passed by here, and I saw that he was fine."

Jin Zhu was startled and immediately became nervous: "Where? Where is Feng?"

Chen Ji explained, "We were hiding in the bushes just now and saw him going down the mountain. It's just a little strange that he left with Jiang Yan but left the two war horses behind."

"Going far?"

"Gone far away."

The Golden Pig uttered an "oh" and his body was no longer tense. He sat down and fell to the ground: "Damn it, why am I so unlucky to have to deal with you two!"

Chen Ji asked in confusion: "Master Jinzhu, weren't you guys fighting just now? How did it end?"

The Golden Pig said angrily, "I came all the way here to save you, and you still want me to die here?"

"No," Chen Ji explained, "I'm just curious. Mr. Feng set up such a big dragon gate formation and sent out thousands of private soldiers, but why did it end so abruptly?"

The Golden Pig explained, "Just now, neither he nor Tianma could do anything to the other. I lied to him and said that Jie Fanwei was on his way. It happened that a burning tree fell between us, so he took the opportunity to retreat."

Chen Ji asked: "Mr. Feng, what is your way of cultivation?"

Jin Zhu hesitated for a moment: "I didn't see it."

Chen Ji felt something was wrong.

Although the way of cultivation is the biggest secret of the officials, they have clearly fought for life and death with each other. With Tianma here, Mr. Feng will definitely go all out. How could he not see the way of cultivation?

There must be something hidden in Jin Zhu's words. Chen Ji asked, "Master Jin Zhu, what are your plans next?"

Jin Zhu sat up and cursed, "I have to hurry back to Luocheng with Tianma and dispatch the Jiefan Guards to rob this military town! Even if the Liu family is all-powerful in Yuzhou, they can't cover this up!"

As soon as she finished speaking, a snowflake floated down from the sky and landed gently on Bai Li's hair. She reached out to pick it, but the snow melted on her fingertips.

Chen Ji looked up and saw that the sky had been covered with haze at some point. The snow was getting heavier and heavier, and finally it was like goose feathers. Even the forest fire was suppressed by this sudden heavy snow.

Jin Zhu stood up, turned around and walked down the mountain: "Chen Ji, you go to Luhun Villa to wait for reinforcements. On the way here, I saw Prince Jing's Qiansui Army being mobilized. If I see the Qiansui Army on my way back, I will tell them your whereabouts."

After saying this, he and Pegasus disappeared while flying over the mountains and forests.

Chen Ji helped Bai Li onto the warhorse, then turned to Zhang Xia and said, "Second Miss Zhang, please ride with the princess and take good care of her."

Zhang Xia smiled and said, "Don't worry, you don't need to remind me."

The four mounted their horses.

Bai Li leaned weakly against Zhang Xia and said, "Chen Ji, write a poem."

Chen Ji smiled and said, "Princess, how can I write poetry?"

Bai Li said softly, "Write one."

"Really not."

Chen Ji pulled the reins and turned around, his eyes piercing through the drifting snow and wind to look at the devastation on the mountain.

After a long time, he turned around, holding the knife in one hand and the reins in the other, squeezed his legs around the horse's belly, and rode into the wind and snow.

……

……

In the forest, the figure of the golden pig walking down the mountain quickly suddenly stopped, smashing the snowflakes. In an instant, the huge airflow broke the original trend of the wind and snow.

Tianma stopped beside him and gestured in sign language: What?
Jin Zhu narrowed his eyes slightly: "The snow is too heavy. I'm afraid that when we come back, some traces will have been covered up and it will be difficult to find them."

Tianma was puzzled: What traces?
Jin Zhu answered the question irrelevantly. He gestured in sign language and said: Have you ever seen an officer break through in the middle of a battle?

Tianma gestured as a matter of course: I broke through that night, from the innate realm to the realm of seeking the truth, with Jiang Liuxian.

The Golden Pig gestured again: Have you ever seen anyone make two breakthroughs in one night?
Tianma: Impossible. It’s not recorded in the Jiefanlou case library.

The golden pig gritted his teeth and said: Damn it, someone pretended to be a pig and tried to eat the tiger.

Tianma corrected: Pretend to be a pig and eat pigs.

The golden pig looked at Tianma speechlessly.

He turned around and took another route up the mountain. At this time, the snow was like a blanket, covering the forest fire. Only black charcoal and corpses were left in the forest, with white smoke rising.

The golden pig walked around in circles, looking for clues while heading up the mountain.

Tianma was very patient. He followed beside him without saying a word, but frowned as he looked at his white boots covered in black dust.

After an unknown amount of time, the golden pig suddenly said, "Found it!"

As he spoke, he squatted down and picked up a broken knife from the ground.

He raised the blade towards the sky and carefully examined the broken part. "This is not an ordinary blade that was broken by a chop. If an ordinary iron blade could not withstand the force and broke, the crack would definitely be irregular and curved. But this one has a neat break. It was broken by a master."

Tenma: So?

Jin Zhu didn't answer. He held the blade and handle of the knife, stood up and continued to search on the ground with his head down.

After a long time, he found three broken swords from the ground, all of which had identical straight cracks.

Tianma's expression also became serious: Good swordsmanship.

Jin Zhu looked at the broken knife in his hand, his face uncertain: "Could it be the Liang family's sword technique? Liang Gou'er stayed at the clinic, maybe he passed on the sword technique to this kid... You have fought with Jiang Liuxian, has she ever demonstrated this kind of sword technique?"

Tianma denied: No, the Liang family's swordsmanship is powerful, it only seeks the meaning of the sword, not the skills.

Jin Zhu took a deep breath and said, "How could a little apprentice like him learn such sword skills from... Could it be Doctor Yao? Damn, he spends all day hunting geese, but got his eyes pecked by a goose. How embarrassing!"

At this moment, he recalled that he had been in pain for three hours yesterday. It was clearly caused by the conflict between the two cultivation paths of Chen Ji!
Chen Ji knew it clearly, but he practiced Zhayun again and again to torture him! A good way of practice, but Chen Ji used it to transmit sound over a thousand miles!
The golden pig gnashed his teeth and said, "You beast!"

Tianma was curious: Kill him?

Jinzhu looked down at the broken knife in his hand and stared at it intently.

It was not until the heavy snow fell on his shoulders and formed a layer of white that he took a deep breath, bent down, dug a hole, and carefully buried the broken knives in the black soil.

……

……

Volume 2, The Wind Rises, is finished.

(End of this chapter)