Fields of Gold

Bam! The gun barrel flashed and smoke billowed out of it. That pirate didn't have the chance to observe this new firearm before he got hit.

Zhu Junyang was already entangled in a fight with an old and skinny man. Someone who was able to fight properly with the cold and callous prince was truly an expert.

When he heard the noise of a gun going off where Xiaocao was, Zhu Junyang's expression immediately became colder and he decided not to play around with the opponent anymore. The long sword in his hands immediately stopped for a moment before it flashed like lightning and struck without any openings.

"The sword with no openings?!" The old expert was truly someone who was knowledgeable. He twisted his body to the right a few steps to avoid the slash from the sword but he was still a bit slow. Although he avoided getting his vitals hit, he still got wounded on his left side and a long gash, about the length of a foot, was now open.

"Hou Xiaoliang! Go escort the princess consort back to the rooms and guard her well there. If any people dare to get close, slaughter them immediately!" Zhu Junyang didn't press on his advantage and instead called over Hou Xiaoliang, who was currently fighting fiercely in high spirits, and gave him an important task.

"Yes! Whoever tries to harm the mistress will have to step over my dead body to do so!!" Hou Xiaoliang's eyes shone with a cold light and his entire body was drenched in the enemies' blood. He resembled a bloody battle god. The fact that he had been able to stay by Zhu Junyang's side for all of these years showed that he had his own skills. In terms of martial arts, he was quite talented and would be considered one of the top experts in the jianghu.

After seeing his capable subordinate escorting Xiaocao back to the room and guarding the entrance, Zhu Junyang felt himself relax a bit as he focused on fighting the people boarding the ship. This lass had clearly agreed to his proposal earlier but, in the blink of an eye, she had come out again to play around. She truly wasn't easy to take care of! Once he finished his task here, he needed to teach her a lesson!

An old man dressed entirely in white and whose hair had turned entirely white and looked to be in his sixties secretly gave a look to his subordinates. Then, he sneakily moved his feet and headed towards the middle part of the ship.

"Gentleman Huang, it's been many years since we've last seen each other. I trust you've been well?" Su Ran, who was also dressed entirely in white, held a long sword in his hands as he blocked the older man's way.

A sinister look immediately appeared in the white-clothed old man's eyes as he coldly huffed, "Little Ranzi...no, I should call you Chief Steward Su. Betraying your master and exchanging it for wealth and power. Do you not feel guilty about this at all?!"

"Gentleman Huang has the wrong idea! Both the blood of the Han flow within our bodies and the previous dynasty was not of the same ethnicity as us. They made the Han people slaves and didn't see the common people as human. I resent the previous dynasty's callous tyranny and switched masters. This is called having ambition. If you insist on calling me a traitor...you are the one who is selling yourself out to your Mongol Masters, betraying all of the Han people and betraying your own group. I wonder if the ancestors of the Huang Family know about this and whether they're able to rest peacefully now?"

Su Ran's white clothing floated in the air as he had an elegant smile on his face. His whole demeanor resembled that of a gentle scholar and people who didn't know him would have erroneously guessed nine times out of ten that he was one. Those people would all be wrong though! His sword always encountered blood when it was unsheathed and people died whenever he fought. He was infamous for his decisive cruelty.

"Shut your mouth, you traitorous servant! This old man was blind at the time to think you had a good foundation, buying you to become one of my disciples. Who would have thought that you'd become an ungrateful one-eyed wolf? Everything you have started from me so everything will need to be ended by me ah!" Gentleman Huang nimbly waved his hand down and immediately the sounds of arrows swishing through the air could be heard. More than a dozen arrows flew in the direction of Su Ran. The incredible speed and force of the arrows showed that they had been all shot out of strong crossbows.

Su Ran calmly smiled and gently waved a sleeve. The flying arrows instantly changed their direction in mid-flight and went back to the archers who shot them. Only the sounds of mournful screams reached their ears. Fewer than half of the archers had been able to hide themselves in time, so the arrows that flew back had neatly skewered them in their bodies. The screams were from these unfortunate people.

Gentleman Huang's eyes flashed with a deep killing intent as he growled, "At that time, I should have let you starve to death in the wilderness instead of raising a tiger that invited calamity!"

"Cut the nonsense. If you're going to fight, just fight!" Su Ran's face was grave as if he was just waiting for the other person to show his sword.

A sharp and glistening sword had suddenly appeared in Gentleman Huang's hands. His movements couldn't be seen as the tip of the sword ended up pointing at Su Ran's throat.

Su Ran seemed to have predicted his opponent's swift attack trajectory. He lightly moved his feet and easily got out of the crisis. At this time, more and more enemies were on the official ship and there were now three long swords attacking Su Ran. They were all incredibly fast, which showed that they were experts.

Su Ran snorted coldly. He flipped his left hand and easily grabbed onto the hilt of one long sword. In mid-air, he suddenly let out a kick with his left foot, pushing his opponent off of the ship, splashing into the river water. The long sword in his right hand moved like lightning and emitted a cold light as it easily cut the other person neatly in half at the waist. The enemy screamed in horror.

When Yu Xiaocao heard this scream, she cracked open the door to reveal a small slit and was about to glance outside. Suddenly, a man thudded heavily into the door. If it weren't for Chunhua, who was supporting her, she would have been blown away!

When she lowered her head to look, she discovered it was the assistant, Hou Xiaoliang. He leapt out of the door like an energetic carp and hollered back, "Wutong, barricade the door behind you! Protect the princess consort!"

Wutong saw that he was being heavily preoccupied and didn't have the time to ask whether it was 'urgent or not' before Hou Xiaoliang charged out of the room to entangle with five enemy invaders.

Although Hou Xiaoliang was very skilled, his opponents were nothing to laugh at. The enemy had the advantage in numbers and pressed him until he was desperately fighting for his life, unable to do much else!

Yu Xiaocao and Wutong lay near the crack of the door as they worriedly looked outside. That was right! Didn't she have a hidden weapon called 'torrential pear blossom needles' in her pouch? This particular hidden weapon of hers had been picked up when she was at the stud farm near the border. The young master of the Medicine King Valley, Xu Ziyi, had given it to her to play with.

This concealed weapon had been obtained from the traitor that Xu Ziyu had captured. Inside, it could hold around a dozen or so needles that were as thin as a cow's hair. By gently pressing down on the mechanism, the weapon would let all of the needles fly forward. They were incredibly fast and the weapon was well hidden, making it hard for people to react against it.

Yu Xiaocao had once read a wuxia novel before and thought that the weapon, 'torrential peach blossom needles', was quite cruel so she gave the same name to this device. This time, she had especially brought along this little weapon, which resembled a tiny music box on the outside. She had coated all of the long needles within the device with a powerful sedating agent. Anyone who came in contact with this substance would fall into a deep stupor immediately. Even a sword poking at someone wouldn't be enough to wake those people up.

At this time, they could hear Hou Xiaoliang's muffled grunts outside the door. Wutong was anxious and couldn't help but open the door a little to look outside. At this time, she covered her mouth with her hand in order to not let out a cry of shock. Hou Xiaoliang had just been injured to the bone on his left side with a long sword with blood flowing out of his wound.

"Wutong, give me space! Chunhua, protect me closely!" Yu Xiaocao saw that Hou Xiaoliang struggled heavily to cripple two experts with his heavy injuries. There were three other experts who, although injured, were still in good shape. Those three people pressed on harder after seeing that the bodyguard had gotten hurt.

There was no time to waste. If she continued to cower inside, Hou Xiaoliang would likely lose his life. Once he died, then the three of them in the room would be easily subdued within moments. Although Chunhua was quite skilled, she was still much inferior compared to Hou Xiaoliang. With such experts stalking them, the conclusion was inevitable. If they used her to threaten her husband and Sir Su, then the consequences were unimaginable.

The door was pulled wide open. Chunhua protected her sides and used a sword to threaten away a little bandit. Xiaocao had her back towards the door as she lightly pressed down on the mechanism of the box that was in her hands. Following that, the sounds of needles swiftly flying out could be heard and 'torrential needle rain' flew out in a circular arc around her.

A bizarre sight had occurred in front of her immediately. The three opposing experts, along with Hou Xiaoliang and the seven to eight pirates around them, were now all slumped over on the ground in a stupor. Some of them even snored loudly.

Wutong saw Hou Xiaoliang on the floor and didn't care about her own safety as she held onto his arm in an attempt to pull him inside the room. Although he was slender, he had a tall and muscular figure, so he weighed at least a hundred and thirty-some catties.

Although Wutong had been born as a maidservant, she had been the young miss's personal maidservant for almost a decade and hadn't done any heavy work all of those years. Furthermore, she even had lower-ranked maidservants around her to order around. Everyone said that the maidservants from large noble families were more delicate than the young pretty misses of humble families. This wasn't an exaggeration at all.

However, the limits of humans were undefined. When there was a crisis at hand and she wanted to save her beloved sweetheart, she was able to use her own strength alone to drag him from the deck and into the room.

"Young Miss, why did you also make Hou Xiaoliang unconscious?" Wutong tore off Hou Xiaoliang's outer jacket and saw the open wound that was still oozing out blood. Her eyes immediately turned red. She knew that the princess consort always brought her personal medicine box out whenever she traveled, so after asking her mistress, she took out some medicine to treat his wounds.

Yu Xiaocao allowed her to use the special wound balm she had personally crafted. It was very effective in stopping blood from flowing and it was never sold to outsiders as it was for her own use.

When she heard the question, she rolled her eyes, "You can't make the needles from the concealed weapon dodge around things. Hou Xiaoliang had been fighting with those three experts. If I gave him a warning, the enemy would also be on guard. Here's the antidote; help him take it. Also don't forget to pull out the long needles from his back using tweezers."

At this time, the door to the outside had been opened and Yu Xiaocao immediately aimed the weapon towards the person coming in. This special box could be used three times, so it wasn't a one and done deal!

"Mistress, it's me!" Chunhua was afraid that the enemy outside would wake up, so she used her sword to permanently make them sleep. She had the scent of blood around her as she came in.

Yu Xiaocao watched as she re-barricaded the door and casually asked, "How's the situation outside? Is His Highness and Sir Su okay?"

"Although the enemy has a lot of people, they only had around twenty or so who could be considered true experts. Hou Xiaoliang has dealt with five here and His Highness and Sir Su have also defeated several now. Your Highness, please relax. We have the advantage now!" After Chunhua had finished cleaning up the enemy around them, she had also glanced around the battleground outside and was now much more relieved.

Yu Xiaocao felt her heart finally settle down after hearing this. The words that came out of her mouth, however, were all complaints, "It's all his fault! He wanted to show off just how strong he was and didn't want to bring more bodyguards along. Now see, once we reached a crisis, we didn't have enough people on board, right? If he brought along a dozen or so soldiers from the Firearms Barracks, they'd shoot the enemy down with a bang. Hou Xiaoliang also wouldn't be injured now!"

"Your Highness, this subordinate is fine. It's only a small wound after all!" Hou Xiaoliang had taken the antidote and was now awake. He held his bandaged up shoulder as he picked up his sword to head out again.