Return of the Swallow

Chapter 292: Deep in the Mountains (II)

Qin Yining could draw some conclusions from the conversation between her pursuers yesterday.

One: Their accents gave away that they were from the north, from Great Zhou.

Two: They were following the orders of a marquis to kill the Qins.

Three: They’d stayed behind to conduct a thorough search and probably couldn’t complete their mission if they didn’t kill anyone surnamed Qin.

Four: Their martial arts was on a level that enabled them to go toe-to-toe, but nothing more, when they fought the Valiant Tiger escorts.

So therein lay the question.
Which army commanded these men with rigorous coordination and advance martial arts skills?

And who was the marquis who’d ordered the death of the Qins?

Which marquis in Great Zhou had the ability to lead three hundred adept soldiers to ambush them?

Qin Yining didn’t think for a second that the Zhou emperor had sent the attackers.
He needed the surrendered Yan officials to be a counterweight to the two forces at court.
If he didn’t want them, he could’ve refused the surrender to begin with.
There was no need to send out men to intercept them halfway.

Therefore, the ‘marquis’ behind the operation this time must be someone in high authority, wielding authority over troops, and had done this behind his liege’s back.

The answer was jumping up and down in Qin Yining’s mind.
Could it really be the Marquis of Northern Stability, the sworn brother of Pang Xiao and the Zhou emperor?

Wasn’t he supposed to be stationed on the Tatar border with his Dragon Riders? What was he doing here at this time?

And if the assassins were targeting only the Qins, why had they killed so many innocents at the front of the caravan?

If they weren’t targeting the Qins, how would one explain the conversation she’d overheard?

The myriad of thoughts scattered in her mind wasn’t something that could be sorted through quickly.
But of one thing she was certain, and that was she needed to hide carefully over the next few days.
She couldn’t descend the mountain no matter what.

The assassins had their marching orders.
Their mission wasn’t complete if they didn’t go back with a head, so they’d show up again sooner or latter.
There was only one of her.
She couldn’t fight them, so she had to hide.

Thankfully, she could draw on her experience surviving in the wilderness.
Though it was the barren season of winter, she was confident that she’d be able to survive.

Pleasant joy thrummed through her when she thought of how dejected and anguished Lian Shengjie must be at the moment.

Lian Shengjie was the imperial representative overseeing the surrender.
Since he was heading back to the capital with the Commandery Prince of Yan and a large cohort of surrendered officials, he naturally had to protect them well.

Now that such a tragedy had occurred on the road, imperial wrath would be mighty.
Most importantly, it was a tremendous loss of face for that old fart.

It wasn’t the first day that Lian Shengjie had been at odds with Pang Xiao.
He was the secret envoy behind her being kidnapped and used as bait.
When that plan had failed, he’d brazenly sauntered in to seize Pang Xiao’s opportunity of honor and glory.

There’d been a hundred Valiant Tigers left behind for him, but he’d managed to fall to bandits halfway along the way and lose so many of Great Zhou’s new subjects.

He wouldn’t be able to explain himself to the emperor even if he had ten mouths to speak with.

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