13

The sound of clear, distinct breathing could be heard by both clearly. Even though each of them deliberately tried to control their breathing to keep their chests from heaving too violently, the closeness of their bodies—pressed together to an almost seamless fit—made it impossible to ignore the frantic, swelling pulses throbbing beneath their clothes.

Fang Rulai hesitated and spoke, "You..."

Guan Shiyin pressed two fingers together and sealed her mute point even faster than she could speak.

Fang Rulai lost her voice once again.

Damn it, whose toes had she stepped on this time?! Raging fury blazed in the depths of Fang Rulai's eyes. She had willingly thrown herself at him to be ravaged, so why did he still seal her acupoints the moment he felt displeased? Damn it, no! He was clearly enjoying himself right now, wasn't he? Then why seal her again?

Guan Shiyin ripped off a large piece of the sheer canopy with a "swish," turned around to fling it over Fang Rulai's face, and then propped himself up on his elbows to move away from her body. "I can't hear you speak, and I can't see your expression. So, just pretend you are a hostage who has been temporarily blindfolded and abducted."

Her voice possessed the husky, alluring quality of stirred passion; without looking, he knew her face must be flushed. These scenarios, which he had dreamed of more than once in the past, were now reality, yet he had abandoned the thought of aggressively pouncing upon her as he did in his dreams, replacing it entirely with forced restraint.

He clearly knew the difference between "cannot" and "do not want to."

"Guan Shiyin, you really are about to achieve Buddhahood!" he muttered to himself. He reached out, tore down another piece of the sheer canopy, and then closed his eyes to pull apart Fang Rulai's already disheveled bodice completely.

Fang Rulai, who had long since discarded her bodice, immediately felt a chill across her chest, and her mind went blank with a loud bang—face covered, clothes torn open? What was this rhythm? Did he think she wasn't expressive enough? Or did he have some kind of bizarre fetish?

As if knowing what she was thinking, Guan Shiyin gently slapped her on the side of her hip the very next moment. "What are you thinking, you little shameless one!"

Still keeping his eyes closed, he folded the torn canopy a few times and placed it over Fang Rulai's chest. The recent bout of relentless, irresistible friction had shown him just how dangerous a woman without a bodice could be! He resolutely rejected this kind of teasing temptation that lit a fire without providing any way to extinguish it.

With one hand, he pulled the corner of the fabric from inside her clothes around to her back and tied a knot. Then, closing his eyes, he brought his hand back to the front, pulled Fang Rulai's lapels together, and tied them securely. Having finished this, he let out a long breath, a single drop of sweat falling onto Fang Rulai's throat.

He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was that droplet of sweat sliding down Fang Rulai's neck, slipping further and further down until it vanished beneath her collar.

Guan Shiyin swallowed dryly and slapped himself on the forehead. "Have some backbone!"

He used considerable force, and with a jolt of pain in his head, his gaze instantly cleared. He then bent down and scooped Fang Rulai up in his arms. He had lingered here long enough; if he went out now, provided Li Yincheng wasn't completely foolish, he should be right at...

Carrying Fang Rulai, he stepped out of the inner chamber, crossed the outer room, and casually kicked Xiaoqiu and the other two into a corner of the room. The dead would not revive, and the living simply passed out after being kicked into the wall. The Cheng family's young lady had met with an untimely and tragic death; he felt regret, but not excessive sorrow. How could Cheng Boliao, the Minister of War who still dared to send his daughter into the palace to gather intelligence at such a time, fail to anticipate that such an accident might occur? For Cheng Boliao, no matter how much he doted on his daughter, it could never outweigh the safety of the Cheng clan. As for him, grief could never make vengeance through righteous retaliation more satisfying to the deceased.

Carrying Fang Rulai horizontally, he walked out of Lifang Studio. True to his expectation, he saw Li Yincheng leading Daichuan and the imperial guards, surrounding the entrance of Lifang Studio three layers deep.

A flash of triumph crossed his mind, but outwardly, he feigned a look of mild astonishment and took a step back. "You actually guessed so quickly that I was here."

Li Yincheng stood opposite him with one hand behind his back. Unable to see the gruesome severed hands, he held his chin high, his arrogance—as if everything were within his grasp—allowing him to maintain the demeanor of a superior being.

"Guan Shiyin, did you think that by leading the imperial guards on such a huge circle around the imperial palace, this prince would be turned around and unable to guess where you were hiding?" Li Yincheng wore a deeply smug expression. "To be frank with you, an incense stick ago, this prince already knew you were here. The only reason this prince did not make a sound was simply to gather the finest archers among the imperial guards right here."

"Archers, ready!" Li Yincheng shouted loudly, stepping back as dozens of archers stepped forward in formation. They fanned out into a semicircle, every single one of them drawing their bows and nocking their arrows, the tips pointing squarely at Guan Shiyin and Fang Rulai in the center of the semicircle.

Li Yincheng's final gaze rested upon Fang Rulai. "Guan Shiyin, no matter how peerless your martial arts, you cannot possibly escape this downpour of arrows! If you must die, why drag her down with you?"

"She" referred to Fang Rulai.

"As long as you toss her over here, even if you descend to the netherworld, she will likely remember you fondly for sparing her life. Since you love her so much that you dared to trespass into the imperial palace for her, why must you force her to die with you at this very moment?" Li Yincheng suddenly let out a sinister laugh. "Rest assured, for the rest of her life, this prince will cherish her well—including your share."

Guan Shiyin found these words extremely grating to the ear, whether because they underestimated his strength or cursed his romance. Therefore, his fingers flicked, and he released Fang Rulai's acupoints.

Through the veil that still covered her face, he accurately pressed his lips to hers. "Your husband isn't dead yet, and already someone is rushing in to poach. As the one being poached who is very likely to become a young widow, how do you respond?"

Respond? How was she supposed to respond? Through her hazy vision, Fang Rulai's eyes locked firmly with Guan Shiyin's.

—You must let me reclaim a man's dignity in front of him!

—You're childish!

—Then repeat out loud right now what you didn't finish saying earlier!

—In your dreams!

—I'm injured today, my feelings are injured, deeply, deeply in...

Fang Rulai rolled her eyes in speechlessness. Fine, she was in the wrong.

She suddenly reached out an arm to hook it around Guan Shiyin's neck, while her other hand swiftly brushed aside the veil on her face. After waving it in a half-circle through the air, she quickly dropped it back down. This time, the veil covered both Guan Shiyin and herself.

The archers, standing at strict attention, blinked in surprise as they watched the bald little monk take the initiative to kiss him.

The veil was merely a thin layer, impairing the clarity of viewing this "action sequence," but it did nothing to prevent them from sensing the fiery, inseparable intimacy.

Kissing to the left, kissing to the right, kissing in a circle—the initiator of every movement was that proactive little monk. Consequently, the archers, unable to see the precise sequence of movements, found themselves involuntarily envying Guan Shiyin, who was being kissed to the point where his body swayed and his footsteps began to feel light.

To die beneath the peony blossom in an erotica version, a romantic ghost even in death? Truly dashing. Suddenly feeling parched, swallowing unconsciously, and blinking their eyes, the direction of their arrowheads inadvertently drifted off target.

Not good! Li Yincheng, who had been watching with blazing liver fire and momentarily forgot to react, suddenly snapped to his senses: They were using this to divert the archers' attention!

"Release..." he hurriedly opened his mouth, wanting to give the order to loose the arrows.

However, it was already too late.

Just as the first syllable cleared his throat and before the sound even left his lips, Guan Shiyin's body stopped swaying, and his footsteps were no longer unsteady.

With both hands thrusting upward violently, the pinkish thin veil above Fang Rulai's head flew up into the air. Her body soared like a graceful butterfly riding a favorable wind, instantly stunning the archers' vision for miles around.

They raised their heads following Fang Rulai's upward trajectory, while Guan Shiyin dipped his body in the opposite direction. Thrusting both hands simultaneously into his boot shafts, he pulled them back out with eight bee-sting arrows gripped between his fingers.

Bee-sting arrows were over a finger's length, sharp at both ends, and barbed; once embedded, there was no pulling them out.

Guan Shiyin moved with blinding speed. The moment the bee-sting arrows fully cleared his boot shafts, his internal energy surged into his wrists. Raising his hands, he flicked his wrists with a "swish," hurling all eight bee-sting arrows at his targets—naturally, the eight archers directly opposite him.

*Splat, splat, splat*—a series of continuous sounds echoed. The eight archers who had been looking up didn't even understand what had happened before they were pierced through the throat one by one and died.

The dull thud of bodies hitting the ground rang out, and the remaining archers finally snapped to their senses.

Li Yincheng's command finally reached the archers' ears: "Loose arrows! Hurry up and loose arrows, all of you!"

In truth, they didn't need his command now; the archers knew they needed to refocus their energy and counterattack against the target. However, aiming was a technical task that required calm and composure. Although they had reacted, their heart rates—accelerated by the recent stimulation—were still immersed in that inexplicably pleasurable sensation. Trying to transform into a god of war in a single second like Guan Shiyin seemed to require a somewhat insurmountable gap in strength.

And the time difference created by that tiny gap was more than enough for Guan Shiyin to leap forward and catch Fang Rulai, scoop her against his side with one arm, grab a sharp arrow that had landed two feet away with the other, and vault using lightness kung fu right into the enemy's formation.

With the distance closed, long-range projectile weapons like bows and arrows instantly became scrap iron. Lacking close-combat prowess to match their archery skills, these archers—whose martial arts were distinctly mediocre—became as fragile as braised pork on a chopping board when confronted by Guan Shiyin, who advanced relentlessly with a sharp arrow in hand, leaving them with no choice but to be slaughtered.

Li Yincheng retreated repeatedly under Daichuan's protection. "Archers, fall back! Spear formation, step up! Hurry up and step up!"

The spear formation consisted of men wielding long-shafted spears. The spears were unquestionably longer than arrows; they didn't need to engage Guan Shiyin in close combat—they only needed to form a circle and thrust out their spears in unison to trap Guan Shiyin and Fang Rulai within the ring.

Daichuan promptly retrieved a small red flag from his tunic.

Raising it high—"Inner platoon, pierce the chests!" *Swish*—the spears of the first ring of the spear formation thrust simultaneously toward Guan Shiyin's chest. Guan Shiyin, cradling Fang Rulai, was forced to lean backward to evade them.

The red flag in Daichuan's hand swung sharply downward—"Outer platoon, pierce the ankles!" *Swish*—the second ring of the spear formation crouched and thrust their spears, all aiming directly at the ankles of Guan Shiyin and Fang Rulai.

Guan Shiyin pressed his toes against the ground, cradling Fang Rulai as he twisted his body and leaped into the air.

Daichuan flicked his wrist and whipped the red flag upward again—"All platoons, pierce the waist!"

*Swish*—both the inner and outer rings of the spear formation aimed their spearheads and thrust them directly at the waists of Guan Shiyin and Fang Rulai suspended in mid-air.