Chapter 75 Rescue
night.

Chen Ji returned to the edge of the roof, stood on the high eaves, and looked down calmly at the ground below.

Is there any problem with the prince?
If there is a problem, the other party has been in Donglin Academy for the past three years and can't do anything.

If there was no problem, the other party would come back at this time and appear in the Gold Shop.

Chen Ji frowned. He wanted to sort out some clues, but found that there were too many missing clues.

In the yard.

When the prince found out that the chivalrous knights had abandoned him and fled, he immediately turned around and cursed: "Aren't you a chivalrous knight? Don't you always say that you value righteousness? This is too disloyal!"

Six spies armed with knives had already rushed into the courtyard and surrounded the prince and Bai Li under the courtyard wall. One of the spies said in a cold voice: "Those who resist arrest will be punished more severely."

Bai Li said: "We are..."

Before she could finish, the prince quietly pulled her aside and continued, "We are just ordinary people who came to Hongyi Lane to have fun. We have not violated the laws of Daning. Why are you pursuing us?"

The secret agent looked at them carefully, as if looking at them in the moonlight. After a moment, he hesitated and said, "...Prince, Princess? I recognize you! My secret agent department has solid evidence that there are thieves from the Jing Dynasty active in the Jinfang tonight. It is such a coincidence that you two appear here. Come with us back to the inner prison."

The prince secretly thought that something was wrong. The Imperial Household Department had always wanted to find something to hold against Prince Jing's Mansion. Over the years, many of Prince Jing's former subordinates had been arrested and thrown into the inner prison and never came out again.

Once in the inner prison, his identity as the prince of a royal family was of no use.

Seven years ago, the Prince of Huai was arrested by the Secret Service for hiding armor and crossbows, and died in the inner prison that night. Six years ago, there was a severe drought in Guanzhong, and the Prince of Jin was arrested by the Secret Service for "claiming to be a prophecy" because he said while drinking that it was a punishment from heaven for Emperor Ning's neglect of state affairs. He died in the inner prison that month, and the Imperial Astronomical Observatory's Five Officials Lingtai Lang and Five Officials Baozhang Zheng were also arrested with him.

The prince knew that the lives of the princes of the Ning Dynasty were like weeds in front of the eunuchs. If he was put in the inner prison today, he might never get out.

Thinking of this, the prince quickly put up a ladder with both hands: "Bai Li, you go first!"

The spy's face was grim: "No one can leave. If the prince is okay, why doesn't he dare to go with us?"

The prince cursed and picked up a bamboo broom from the courtyard to block Bai Li. "If I follow you to the inner prison, even if there is no problem, there will be a problem. I will fight you. If you have the guts, kill me here!"

Chen Ji watched this scene in silence.

Can't save?
If they are not rescued, no matter how hard the Crown Prince and Bai Li struggle, they will definitely be thrown into the inner prison. Jin Zhu is already looking for evidence of the connection between Prince Jing's Mansion and Jing Dynasty. If the Crown Prince and Bai Li happen to be caught here, it would be like someone handing you a pillow when you are sleepy. The other party can easily find an excuse to torture them into confession.

If they want to rescue him, the six spies will be very troublesome, and other spies may come to reinforce at any time... The key is that Chen Ji is here to kill Manager Yuan tonight, not to rescue anyone!

But in this same Red Lane, on this same night, how pleasant it would be if I could have a drink and then go to the Drum Tower to watch the sunrise.

Chen Ji had a cloth wrapped around his hand, and blood was slowly flowing down the tip of the short knife he was holding tightly in his right hand. It eventually gathered into a drop of bright red blood and fell on the gray tiles.

When the blood dripped onto the tiles, the traces had disappeared where they were.

……

……

"Come on!" The prince swept the bamboo broom in his hand, trying to repel the spy.

But how could he stop these elite agents of the Secret Service? He saw six secret agents surrounding him in a fan shape, and one of them stepped forward and swung his sword, chopping the bamboo broom in two with just a light swing.

The prince looked at the shaved broom with a bitter heart. He said in a deep voice: "I can go with you, but you have to let my sister go. What can a girl like her understand?"

The spy shook his head and said, "No one can leave. If you two were not so important, we would not have bothered to persuade you. Just follow us to the inner prison, and neither of you will get hurt. Once we have verified your innocence, we will release you both."

The prince said in a serious tone: "How many people can enter the inner prison and come out again? Do you believe it yourself? Aren't you afraid of revenge from my Jingwang Mansion?"

"Your Highness, we have even captured princes in these years. You can't scare us. Go ahead and capture them."

Several spies rushed over.

The prince wanted to resist, but a secret spy suddenly appeared and hit him in the abdomen. He bent over in pain and vomited out the wine and bile in his stomach.

These assassins from the Secret Service really didn't take the prince's status seriously.

They knew very well how much their boss wanted to overthrow Prince Jing's Mansion, and their stance determined their thinking.

During the struggle, someone twisted Bai Li's arms and clamped them behind his back. Bai Li was in so much pain that cold sweat broke out on his forehead, but he did not cry out in pain. He just stared at the spy in front of him stubbornly.

In the chaos, she glanced around and suddenly froze.

A spy noticed something was wrong and turned around alertly.

In an instant, he raised the knife and chopped behind him, but just as his hand holding the knife was raised above his head and before it fell, a figure approached him silently.

The opponent clamped his arm with his left hand, preventing him from chopping down with the knife.

In the blink of an eye, the attacking figure supported his arm and stabbed him twice, one at the kidney in the waist and one at the lung lobe under the ribs. The dagger in the opponent's hand was like a poisonous snake spitting out its tongue, extremely vicious.

The spy colleague at the side was horrified when he saw this, and immediately rushed back with his sword, but the figure just waved his hand to block it nonchalantly. The short sword and the long sword collided in the dark night, sparks flew, and with a ding, the long sword broke!

The spies' faces changed. They had seen many swordsmen in the martial arts world, but they had never seen a swordsman who could wield a broken sword so effortlessly.

There was no sword energy, no mysterious means of the official. The opponent just swung the short knife lightly, and his steel knife broke like an ice spike!

Bai Li was restrained by the spy, staring blankly at the figure. The other person's face was covered with black charcoal powder and his eyes were particularly unfamiliar, but the other person's figure looked familiar no matter how he looked at it.

At this moment, she suddenly discovered that the person who attacked her from the darkness seemed to have some strength in his right leg as he twisted and turned.

This person seemed to know that his right leg was a weakness, so he tried his best to cover it up, but the serious injury on his leg was still visible no matter how he covered it up.

Bai Li thought of a person who also had a wound on his leg...

However, she could not reconcile the figure of the neighbor apprentice sweeping the floor with the fierce killer in front of her.

It was as if the two figures, one bright and one dark, were full of contradictions.

Bai Li's expression became complicated.

At this moment, she saw the spies take out crossbows from their waists and aim them at the figure, and she immediately exclaimed: "Be careful, there are crossbows!"

The battlefield suddenly became quiet. Chen Ji held up the spy's arm and blocked the body in front of him. He showed half of his face behind the spy's drooping head and quietly looked at the short crossbows in the spies' hands.

The spy's lung was pierced and he was coughing up blood foam weakly.

The spy coughing up blood and the calm assassin hiding behind him to avoid crossbow arrows, one still and one moving, yet extremely cruel and mysterious.

Bai Li looked at this scene and felt that the answer in her heart was a little uncertain again... The person in her impression smiled as if he would never say a harsh word, and even when questioned, he would just lower his head and remain silent without refutation.

At this moment, the spies wanted to find an opportunity to fire the crossbow, but found that they could not find the shooting angle at all.

During the stalemate, the spy who was coughing up blood finally closed his eyes. His hand that had raised the knife slowly dropped down and the long knife slipped out of his hand.

Chen Ji threw away the short knife and caught the falling long knife.

While he was taking the knife, a crossbow arrow shot towards the half of Chen Ji's face with a whoosh.

Everyone's eyes were blurred, but they saw Chen Ji dodged the crossbow arrow by just tilting his head slightly. By the time the crossbow arrow hit the wall behind him, Chen Ji's head had tilted back again, still hiding behind the dead spy, staring at everyone calmly.

Just as the spy was trying to re-string his crossbow, Chen Ji pushed the spy's body and rushed forward, firing crossbow arrows one after another, either hitting the body or missing it. Close combat!

Chen Ji dropped the corpse and slipped out from behind it, fighting with four spies alone. From time to time, the spies' long swords would break.

The spies had never felt so powerless. The assassin in front of them seemed to have no flaws at all. Every move he made was to protect his whole body and make him look as strong as a rock.

Even though four people surrounded him, they couldn't find an opportunity to deliver a fatal blow.

Let alone a fatal blow, their blades could only cut Chen's clothes at best, without leaving even a scratch.

The spies didn't know what kind of swordsmanship this was. There were only a few famous swordsmanship in the world, and this kind of swordsmanship that was impenetrable to water was unheard of.

Little did he know that when Chen Ji was fighting with Feng Huai, if he revealed the slightest flaw, the opponent would seize the opportunity, and one flaw would mean his death again.

As a result of this crazy and extreme training, Chen Ji first learned defense instead of offense.

Only if you survive can you attack.

The spy who was holding Bai Li clamped the knife on Bai Li's neck and said, "Put down your knife, or I will kill her now."

But Chen Ji seemed to be deaf, and continued to fight with the spy as usual, without any pause for the long sword in his hand.

The spy froze. Sending the princess to the inner prison was one thing, but killing her here directly was another.

He gritted his teeth, suddenly let go of the princess, and went to support his colleagues with a knife.

Baili was no longer restrained, but she did not run away. She just stood there in a daze, reminding anxiously: "Watch out behind you!"

The spy who came to support him slashed diagonally at Chen Ji's back.

Upon hearing the reminder, Chen Ji turned around suddenly, with the knife following him!
However, the two long swords collided head-on. Chen Ji turned his wrist, and the blade in his hand went upstream, rubbing against the blade of the spy, producing sparks.

The spy was blinded by the burst of sparks, and before he could react, Chen Ji raised the long knife in his backhand and cut from his arm to his neck!
Blood splatters!

Chen Ji looked at Bai Li and the prince and said in a deep voice, "Hurry up and don't hold us back here!"

The prince was about to say that they should leave together, but Baili pursed his lips and pulled him over the wall: "Let's go, we can't help him here, it will only distract him! He can only leave if we leave!"

"Oh oh," the prince quickly turned around and ran away.

A spy wanted to chase him, but was chopped down by Chen Ji with a knife.

He bent down and held the knife horizontally, blocking the courtyard wall, coldly blocking all the spies. Blood continued to drip from the blade, and the smooth blade reflected the blood-red moonlight in the sky.

When the prince climbed over the wall, Bai Li rode on the wall and looked back with a dusty face. She thought of those people who escaped from the martial arts world, and then looked at the backs of the bloody battle in front of her, and said with a complicated expression: "Be careful!"

After saying that, she turned around, jumped off the wall and ran away.

The courtyard fell silent, with only three spies left, forming a fan shape to block Chen Ji firmly under the courtyard wall. They slowly changed their steps, trying to find Chen Ji's flaws, but they could not find any.

Just when they thought they could hold out until reinforcements arrived, Chen Ji took the initiative to fight them.

In the past, when Chen Ji was fighting with Feng Huai, he felt depressed every time he died. But now he understands that the sword skills he learned at the cost of countless deaths are his reward.

The four figures intertwined, and the knife in Chen Ji's hand flashed like crescent moons, cutting off the knives of three people and also cutting off the necks of three people.

……

……

Chen Ji bent down, panting, picked up the dagger he had just thrown on the ground and hid it in his sleeve.

Instead of running away, he turned around and climbed back up the ladder to the roof.

Chen Ji limped to the roof, lay on it and quietly observed the situation in Red Lane.

In Red Dress Alley, countless ragged clients and girls were chased out of the brothels by spies.

Chen Ji's eyes were searching for the figure of Shopkeeper Yuan in the crowd. Handing over the goods was the most important thing tonight, and it was impossible for the other party not to come and watch it in person.

However, as he watched buildings after buildings being cleared out and everyone being driven to the bluestone road of Hongyi Lane, he still couldn't find Manager Yuan.

wrong.

The scene before him was completely different from what Chen Ji had expected.

Hongyi Lane was not in chaos. No one tried to break through the defense line of the Secret Service, and no one fought with the Secret Service. Even the Jiefanwei that Jinzhu specially transferred from Mengjin Camp were of no use!
Lin Chaoqing wore a bamboo hat and sat calmly on his horse: "Master Jinzhu, it seems that you are no different from Jiaotu and Yunyang, but you are luckier. You didn't have to open the coffin of your father, the current cabinet minister... I, the chief of the Criminal Department, Jiefan Guard and Yulong Guard, are the direct guards of the inner court, but I have to follow you and bear the infamy every day."

"Don't be impatient," Jin Zhu jumped off his horse with a smile, grabbed a middle-aged man who was about to escape, and asked kindly, "What's your name?"

"The villain Wu Dongliang."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I am a tax collector in Xin'an County..."

Golden Pig raised his eyebrows: "Just a tax collector, why did you run away just now..."

At this point, Golden Pig has already realized why the other party wanted to run away.

The laws of the Ning Dynasty prohibited officials from visiting prostitutes. It was okay if they went to places like Qingyin Xiaoban, but if they were caught in places like Hongyi Lane, they would be immediately dismissed and investigated.

This law was established by Emperor Ning in his early years. Until now, everyone has turned a blind eye to it, but occasionally an official is unlucky enough to be reported and lose his job.

Jin Zhu cursed in his heart and told his secret agent to verify the identity of this person immediately. Then he came to a middle-aged man and asked, "What do you do?"

"Your Excellency, I am a Hui merchant. I came to Luocheng to buy some furs to sell in the south... This is my travel permit."

Jinzhu took the pass from the other party and knew at a glance that the other party had just arrived in Los Angeles tonight.

He said with a wry smile: "Check, check the identities of everyone and see if there are any suspicious people."

At this time, Jin Zhu's heart had slowly sunk to the bottom of the valley. He didn't expect that he would capsize in the ditch... What went wrong? !

The spies began to check all the people. These people were either Hui merchants from the south or Shanxi merchants from the north, as well as street vendors and leaders of small gangs in Luocheng. Everyone could clearly answer their origins, and there were no signs of forgery in their household registration and travel permits.

Chen Ji watched silently.

Except for the two men in black whom he had just killed on the rooftop, no one present looked like Manager Yuan's spy!

Are these people disguising themselves too well?
No, that's not it. Chen Ji searched towards Hongyi Lane, but found that the madam of Hongyi Lane and Miss Yan'er were not there!

Someone must have tipped off and leaked Golden Pig's actions in advance!
That's why the madam and Yan'er ran away so early!
Chen Ji suddenly remembered something. When the coachman Si Cao was interrogating him in Bailu Pavilion, he mentioned that the other party knew clearly what evidence Yunyang and Jiaotu had taken away from Liu Shiyu's house... There was also an undercover agent hiding beside Jinzhu!
This undercover agent can not only view the evidence of the Secret Service, but also has the authority to know about tonight's operation.

Chen Ji believed that given Jin Zhu's cautiousness, he would be extremely careful to ensure that nothing went wrong, but the news still leaked out.

who is it?

At this moment, Jin Zhu suddenly turned his head and looked at the roof: "Who's there? Catch him!"

(End of this chapter)