Rising Phoenix

Helian Zheng nodded and signaled to the others, and everyone swiftly climbed down the cliff.

Feng Zhiwei and Gu Nanyi took the lead, their moves quick and silent.

Feng Zhiwei rolled soundlessly through a gap between patrols, slipping behind a tent and out of sight before dashing forward through another opening.

The last soldier in the patrol felt the lantern in his hand quiver before a dark shadow slipped through the corner of his vision, but before he could turn to investigate, a cold pain cut through his throat.

His body lost all strength and he collapsed into Feng Zhiwei’s arms; Feng Zhiwei quickly dragged him out of sight and gently lowered him to the ground, stripping him and changing into his clothes, only adding a thin red cloth tied around her upper arm.

They would know their own in the coming chaos.

Two more corpses were laid down beside hers, and Helian Zheng and Gu Nanyi quickly changed as well. Finally, the three gestured silently and then split in different directions.

A patrolling soldier saw a man holding a lantern approach, but the light obscured the details of the face. Just as he was about to call out for the night’s code, light dazzled his eyes.

When the light was gone, only an eternal darkness followed.

In another part of camp two soldiers had deserted their post and were hiding by a mountain stone eating dried food they had hidden away, and as light flashed over them, they hurriedly hid the dried food, but to their surprise their vision toppled and their eyes turned to their headless bodies beside them.

The heads rolling on the ground were astonished that their dried food had not even fallen to the ground and was caught by the tip of a sword.

Three demons carried death through the night, soundlessly picking off many patrolling soldiers around the command tent and the quarters of important officers.

Finally, Feng Zhiwei returned to the cliffside and signaled.

Hua Qiong landed beside her with a quiet rustle, and the three hundred soldiers quickly landed around them.

Quiet rustles faded into the night as Young Master Gu quietly shifted any bad landing onto tall grass.

Feng Zhiwei pointed out several tents, and with the targets assigned, the soldiers quickly split into squads and advanced.

Three hundred reapers walked the night, their dark blades mercilessly cutting flesh and letting blood, quiet blows covered by the loud insects of the autumn night.

Meanwhile, Feng Zhiwei’s trio approached Jin Siyu’s tent.

The Prince’s tent was identical to all the others, but some differences in the number of guards and the optimal location all came together — this tent was the most heavily protected in the whole camp.

The tent was brightly lit, and only a single long shadow lay against the tent cloth.

The bright tent made any hidden approach impossible, so Feng Zhiwei’s trio crawled along the ground and took fifteen minutes to cross the short distance, slaying all the hidden guards in their way.

They lay on their bellies, their muscles poised and ready. Feng Zhiwei and Helian Zheng were in the middle of a silent hand-signal conversation about the best approach when the sound of hurried footsteps filled the air.

The trio tensed, lowering themselves as much as possible.

Helian Zheng signaled a question: “Abort?”

Feng Zhiwei shook her head, telling him to wait.

But when she shook her head, she felt her vision fill with black.

She jerked, and though her first thought was that she was too nervous, she was soon sure that something had gone wrong.

Her head felt heavy and her limbs soft as all her strength seemed to fade away as if she were weak and limp floating through water.

Even worse, the ancient burning of her Dantian burst forward through her weak body, flaming through her meridians and sending sweat pouring out of her pores.

Feng Zhiwei instantly reacted in three ways.

First she looked around to Hua Qiong and the others, confirming that they had not been affected.

Secondly she examined Helian Zheng and Gu Nanyi. Neither of them showed any strange reaction, and so Feng Zhiwei deduced that the problem was not in the environment, but in what they had eaten. There may not have been poison in the vegetables and porridge, but something was definitely wrong, and since all three of them had eaten, none of them would be spared. Gu Nanyi would be struck the hardest from the quantity he had eaten, and she was only showing the symptoms first because of her chronic illness.

Thirdly, she struck out, chopping the back of Gu Nanyi and Helian Zheng’s heads.

Her silent surprise attack immediately knocked out the unsuspecting pair.

After that, Feng Zhiwei struggled to push herself up out of the grass, her eyes already locked onto an approaching figure.

The man was dressed like a general, and some sort of hurry seemed to possess him so that he did not notice the missing guards. Behind him trailed another somewhat unsteady man, his body shifting in a peculiar manner.

Feng Zhiwei’s mind roared as she saw those strange movements, and in her hurry she threw away all caution to creak like a cricket.

The agreed call for an immediate retreat.

Hua Qiong and the Eight Valiants immediately appeared by her side, and Feng Zhiwei quickly signaled for the bodyguards to take Helian Zheng and Gu Nanyi.

She gestured: “Unexpected! Retreat!”

The Eight Valiants were still from their shock and only Hua Qiong could react — she called out in the song of a cricket, and all the shadowed warriors stopped and gathered around her like black sand flowing back into a bottle, and in the next moment they were retreating to the cliffside and climbing.

Feng Zhiwei could hear an indistinct conversation inside the tent, and could only make out Jin Siyu asking: “What now…”

A voice quickly answered: “Something went wrong. Tangled… quickly…”

The voices were muffled, and then Jin Siyu was striding for the curtained door and exiting the tent. Just as he was about to speak, the camp’s gate burst into an furor, and Feng Zhiwei could see a figure bursting into camp and guards moving to stop him. The man jumped and roared, yelling something, but he was too far away to make out words.

A panicked soldier soon rushed towards the command tent and was soon reporting that several generals had been found dead in their tents.

As Jin Siyu was stunned and still, Feng Zhiwei shoved San Sun and whispered: “The plan has changed. Quickly take the King and Master Gu away!”