Green Mountain-Chapter 605 - 462: The Ambitious One

"You have no way out."

Princess Liyang sat on the ground, disregarding her image, beside Chen Ji, and said in a lowered voice, "Rather than waiting to die by Jiang Xiansheng’s side, why not take a chance with me? Even if we fail, death is still the outcome, but if we succeed, there will be a lifetime of glory and riches."

Chen Ji leaned against the birch tree, rubbing a sharp stone fragment with his hand, "Your Highness, was it you who intentionally spoke of court secrets before us, so that at this moment, I would have no choice?"

Princess Liyang replied unhurriedly, "Boy, do you remember how Jiang Xiansheng wanted to kill you all as soon as he met you? If not for me stopping him, you would already be dead."

Chen Ji stopped his fingers from rubbing the stone fragment.

His only impression of this Princess Liyang, with whom he had little contact, was her ruthlessness in achieving her goals.

Seeing Chen Ji remain silent, Princess Liyang leaned in closer, "Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want glory and wealth?"

"I do," Chen Ji replied calmly, "but I am merely a humble grain transporter. Even if Your Highness depends on someone like me, I am unable to help."

Princess Liyang sneered, "You are not ordinary grain transporters."

Chen Ji’s fingers slowly clenched the stone, "Your Highness jests; if we are not grain transporters, what are we?"

Princess Liyang said indifferently, "Your family resides in Shangjing City, Liaoyang Prefecture. Your ancestors were nobles. You can read and write, and clearly could have taken up work as a tutor or accountant in Shangjing. So why travel so far to transport grain?"

Chen Ji was startled.

He had been curious himself. Their household registration on the travel pass stated Liaoyang Prefecture, which is the Capital City of Jing Dynasty. Why would they come to a border town to transport grain? Third Master Hu explained that Hong Zuer had replaced Zhou Zhixue, leveraging connections within the Right Brave Guard to secure a grain transport business... But the Right Brave Guard of the Jing Dynasty is one of the Twelve Central Forbidden Armies and is not in the vicinity of Baidadan City.

Without time to ponder these matters, Chen Ji replied calmly, "Your Highness, we are merely driven by necessity."

Princess Liyang frowned, "Jiang Que and Jiang Guo were sent away to Baidadan City by me. With them there, no one can survive. We now all have a chance to live; how can we sit and wait for death?"

Chen Ji glanced at Jiang Xiansheng, who was resting by the campfire.

Princess Liyang smiled and said, "Boy, you are also from Shangjing in Liaoyang Prefecture. You must have heard of my reputation."

Chen Ji did not answer rashly; he was not truly from Shangjing and knew little about this princess of the Jing Dynasty.

Fortunately, Princess Liyang spoke before he had to answer, "If you help me get to Longyou Road, I won’t promise a noble title, but becoming a state overseer would be easy."

Chen Ji replied calmly, "Perhaps you have forgotten that you just sent my wife to Baidadan City, risking her life."

Princess Liyang did not directly address this, instead saying, "I’m tired. Help me rub my legs..."

Saying this, she took off her embroidered shoes, placing her foot clad in silk socks on Chen Ji’s leg. But as she lifted her foot, Chen Ji stood up and stepped aside, letting her foot land on the ground.

Princess Liyang, not angered, looked up at Chen Ji and asked with a smile, "Am I not better than your dusty-faced wife?"

Chen Ji replied seriously, "You’re not better."

Princess Liyang casually asked, "In what way am I not better?"

Chen Ji bowed and said, "In every way, Your Highness."

Princess Liyang supported herself with the birch tree and slowly stood up, putting her shoes back on, "Forget it, another who cannot see the situation clearly."

By the campfire, Jiang Xiansheng opened his eyes and said indifferently, "A princess of our dynasty, using beauty to manipulate people, what propriety?"

Princess Liyang coldly returned to the campfire and sat down, "Being sent to the Ning Dynasty for marriage is also using beauty. Just because I consider selling myself to a grain transporter, you want to sell me to the Southern Dynasty Emperor, does that make you nobler?"

Jiang Xiansheng’s tone was indifferent, "Your reputation in Shangjing has already blemished the royal family’s dignity. That’s why His Majesty wants to exile you to the Southern Dynasty. Why don’t you repent?"

Princess Liyang retained a stoic expression, "If my reputation were better, wouldn’t I have been married off early like my other sisters to win over people? Arranged marriages, who knows which fool thought of such an idea. If I indeed married into the Southern Dynasty, I’d tell all Jing Dynasty’s secrets to their emperor. When I return to Shangjing City, it will be with a knife in hand."

Jiang Xiansheng, unwilling to argue further, waved behind him, "These two grain transporters are no longer needed, kill them, let Her Highness cast flirtations at the corpses."

But at that moment, from afar in the forest, startled birds flew.

Chen Ji suddenly looked up, the startled birds flew from a direction not towards Baidadan City, but from the road the Jing Dynasty Envoys came: pursuers after the envoy group had arrived.

Jiang Xiansheng’s face changed, no longer bothered with killing Chen Ji, leaping up in alarm.

An armored soldier raised his long spear, "Engage!"

As soon as the words were spoken, an iron arrow pierced through the forest mist, puncturing the armored soldier’s throat, lifting his body backward, exploding a mist of blood.

A hard bow.

This was a 120-pound hard bow.

"Protect the master!"

"Retreat!"

Armored soldiers hurriedly pulled Jiang Xiansheng back; those standing before Jiang Xiansheng kept getting shot down. From their initial count of over sixty, only forty-two remained as they left the campfire.

Each arrow never missed, every hit punctured a throat.

The armor on the soldiers, seemingly impenetrable, became a burden while fleeing. Chen Ji suddenly remembered the Divine Archers from the Jing Dynasty’s Heavenly Strategy Army, only they could achieve such precision.

These were the elite of the Jing Dynasty’s Imperial Army, the best of the best.

In the chaos, one person alone advanced instead of retreating.

Hong Zuer removed the hairpin from his head, staring intently at Jiang Xiansheng’s back, moving towards him. While everyone avoided the arrows flying head-on, the lethal threat from behind went unnoticed.

Just as Hong Zuer reached Jiang Xiansheng’s back and raised his hand, Chen Ji, appearing beside him at an unknown time, firmly clasped his wrist.

Hong Zuer suddenly turned his head, disheveled, glaring at Chen Ji, eyes full of rage. Chen Ji stared into his eyes, not dodging, not conceding.

An iron arrow pierced through an armored soldier’s throat, carried by blood and wind, passed between their eyes, but neither blinked.

Hong Zuer flipped his wrist, intending to use a hairpin to strike at Chen Ji’s wrist, but Chen Ji’s palm suddenly exerted force, his fingers gliding across Hong Zuer’s tendons as if plucking a zither string.

Hong Zuer’s palm involuntarily loosened, and the hairpin was snatched away by Chen Ji: "You!"

Before he could finish speaking, Jiang Xiansheng was escorted past them by armored soldiers, one soldier pulling Princess Liyang back. Suddenly, Princess Liyang bent down and bit the soldier’s hand.

The soldier, in pain, let go, allowing Princess Liyang to run toward the forest.

But as soon as she took two steps, Chen Ji grabbed her by the nape, stopping her in her tracks.

Princess Liyang’s face flushed with anger: "Let go of me!"

Chen Ji ignored her, pulling Hong Zuer with one hand and Princess Liyang with the other, retreating faster than Jiang Xiansheng. Jiang Xiansheng and the soldiers looked at Chen Ji in surprise, but he didn’t look at them, only solemnly stating: "Retreat to Baidadan City!"

The envoy’s armored soldiers only had long spears; without Jiang Que and Jiang Guo, they had no close combat weapons against the 120-pound hard bow.

Iron Arrows rained down, yet the envoy’s soldiers couldn’t even see the crossbowmen.

They could only vaguely see figures moving in the mist, all hiding behind birch trees.

The elite archers split into left and right, with the left drawing bows to shoot, while the right advanced twenty paces under cover of the arrows, then hid behind the trees again.

After the right shot, the left repeated the tactic.

The left and right alternated, pressing forward step by step, their advance faster than Jiang Xiansheng and his group’s retreat.

The armored soldiers in front of Jiang Xiansheng fell one by one, leaving only twelve after fleeing a hundred paces. Just then, birds took flight in the forest between them and Baidadan City, circling in the air.

Chen Ji suddenly halted; they were surrounded.

An arrow shot from behind, and he pushed Hong Zuer behind a birch tree; the two separated as the arrow flew between them. If he hadn’t withdrawn his hand quickly, the arrow might have pinned it.

Chen Ji dragged Princess Liyang behind another birch tree, quietly listening to the surrounding movements.

Hong Zuer leaned his back against the trunk, saying coldly: "Now it’s over, we failed, and our lives are on the line. I know you can’t be ruthless, but this is how we’ve survived for years; every time we venture out, we never expect to come back alive. This is our fate."

Chen Ji ignored him.

In the forest, only two armored soldiers remained hiding with Jiang Xiansheng, one of them saying coldly to Chen Ji: "Take the princess and go first."

Chen Ji didn’t respond, just looked up at the birds in the forest canopy.

There were many elite soldiers surrounding them, moving fast; if they carried burdens, they couldn’t escape... without them, survival wasn’t guaranteed either.

At this moment, Princess Liyang struggled in his grasp, angrily saying: "Let go of me, I don’t need you to save me!"

She pulled the hairpin from her hair, stabbing at Chen Ji’s thigh, but he only tightened his grip, making her release it in pain, dropping the hairpin to the ground.

Suddenly the surroundings fell silent.

The rustling footsteps came from all directions, enclosing the six in the center.

Chen Ji looked coldly, the advancing elite soldiers hiding thirty paces away, an optimal distance for crossbowmen against officers. It ensured accuracy without risking close combat.

Whose men were these? Lu Jin’s?

If he confessed his identity as a nephew now, would there be a chance for survival?

No.

Wrong.

Chen Ji closed his eyes in thought for two breaths, then opened them, pressing Hong Zuer’s hairpin to Princess Liyang’s fair neck, slowly emerging from behind the tree: "Let us go, or she dies."

The soldier protecting Jiang Xiansheng was astonished: "These people came to kill us, what good is it to take Her Highness hostage?"

Chen Ji said in a deep voice: "They’re not here to kill; they’re here to rescue. Now I believe, there are three Military Governors behind Princess Your Highness."

Princess Liyang angrily said: "Nonsense, they’re here to kill me, let go of me!"

Chen Ji didn’t answer.

The birch trees stood like white skeletons poking from the earth, and he stood in the battlefield’s center holding Princess Liyang, the surroundings empty.

But, no more arrows came from the forest.

Everything was silent.

Chen Ji breathed slowly.

One breath, two, three...

By the tenth breath, birdsong echoed crisply in the mountains, seemingly a signal.

An arrow shot from behind Chen Ji, and he seemed to have eyes on his back, pulling Princess Liyang aside to dodge.

In the next moment, Chen Ji deeply stabbed the hairpin into the outside of Princess Liyang’s thigh and then held the hairpin against her neck again, saying coldly: "I said, let us go, or she dies."

The forest fell silent once more.

Blood poured from Princess Liyang’s stabbed leg, yet she remained calm: "Since you know they’re here to rescue me, why not release me? My previous promise still stands. Once my brother ascends, I’ll grant you a provincial governor’s position."

Chen Ji laughed: "You can’t trust a word of an ambitious person."

As they spoke, a bowstring twanged from deep within the forest, and a feathered arrow pierced the mist, embedding in Jiang Xiansheng’s thigh. The arrow struck precisely where Chen Ji had wounded Princess Liyang, a tooth-for-a-tooth statement.

But Chen Ji ignored Jiang Xiansheng’s fate, stabbing the hairpin into Princess Liyang’s thigh again, twice, blood staining her skirt, running down her leg and soaking her silk stockings.

Chen Ji calmly said: "Don’t make me say it a third time, back off!"