Chapter 10: The Battle Between Two Prefectures
"Bang, bang, bang!"

"It's dry and dry, be careful with the candles!"

In the middle of the night, the old night watchman squinted his tired eyes and lazily walked past the gate of Tianxing Building. It was already late at night and there was not even a ghost on the street. The old night watchman took out the wine gourd that had accompanied him for half his life from his waist, and gulped down a few mouthfuls of strong liquor while walking. His originally sleepy eyes finally opened a little.

"The weather is dry, little..."

After walking more than ten steps from the front door of Tianxing Tower, the old night watchman suddenly stopped what he was doing and stopped talking halfway because he saw a dozen men in black holding shining swords lying in ambush in an alley on the west side of Tianxing Tower.

"you……"

Before the old night watchman could ask carefully with full vigilance, Bai Jin, the leader of the men in black, had already shown his badge. The old man's sleepiness disappeared without a trace when he saw this. He bent his knees and knelt on the street, shouting: "I have seen you..."

"Shh!" Before the old man could finish his words, Bai Jin rushed forward, covered the old man's mouth with one hand, and whispered in his ear, "If you dare to say another word of nonsense, I will kill you!" The old man was so scared that he could only nod his head desperately. Bai Jin slowly let go of his hand, and under the old man's horrified gaze, Bai Jin shouted coldly: "Get out!" The old man ran away as if he was escaping.

"Master Bai, according to the spy's report, the woman lives in Room 2 on the third floor of Tianxing Building." A man in black whispered in Bai Jin's ear, "I've sent people to check. Tianxing Building is full tonight. If we rush in, it will inevitably cause panic. What if the woman escapes in the chaos..."

"Where is the owner of Tianxinglou?" Bai Jin glanced at the sky and asked in a deep voice.

Hearing this, two men in black pushed a dishevelled, trembling, skinny man in front of Bai Jin. The man bowed to Bai Jin and said, "Sir, I do business in an honest way and have never done anything to harm anyone."

Bai Jin grabbed the shopkeeper's neck with one hand and said viciously, "You are hiding a wanted criminal of the imperial court. You should be executed!" The shopkeeper's body softened when he heard this and he almost collapsed to the ground. Bai Jin sneered and continued, "But I will give you a chance to make amends. Now go in and tell your guys to lock all the guest rooms from the outside except for Room No. 2. If anyone escapes, I will seal up your Tianxing Building."

"Yes Yes Yes……"

"Remember, move quickly and don't alarm anyone." Bai Jin instructed, "I'll give you half an incense stick of time. After half an incense stick, you take all the guys out of Tianxing Building and don't interfere with my work."

"I'll remember this!" The shopkeeper didn't dare to say any more nonsense in this situation. He nodded and agreed, then hurried back to Tianxing Building. The alley fell into deathly silence again.

After waiting for about half an incense stick of time, they saw the shopkeeper and seven or eight waiters walking out of Tianxing Tower cautiously in the distance. A dozen people waiting on the east side of Tianxing Tower immediately rushed forward and took the shopkeeper and the waiters to a dark place for examination one by one.

After a moment, someone in the shadow waved three times at Bai Jin. Bai Jin immediately gave an order, and a total of thirty men in black in the East-West Hutong walked towards Tianxing Building together.

These people were all experts carefully trained by the Three Yamen for the Privy Council. But seeing them gathering in front of the Tianxing Tower, Bai Jin consciously divided ten of them into four groups without saying anything. The task of these ten people was to monitor the movements of the entire Tianxing Tower from outside to prevent anyone from escaping.

Bai Jin led the other twenty well-trained black-clad men and quietly entered Tianxing Building. According to previous instructions, the shopkeeper had extinguished all the candles in the building before leaving. At this moment, Tianxing Building was dark. If someone was suddenly awakened, it would take at least a moment to adjust before they could see the surroundings clearly. This was also intentional by Bai Jin.

"Sir, Room No. 2 is there!" The man in black pointed to a guest room on the third floor on the west side of the patio and said in a low voice.

Bai Jin's eyes were like torches, and he slowly drew his sword from its sheath with his right hand. He said without looking away, "Except for taking that woman back alive, anyone else who dares to stop us will be killed without mercy." As soon as he finished speaking, Bai Jin pointed the blade upwards suddenly, and the twenty men in black dispersed into the darkness in an orderly manner, each lying in ambush.

The Tianzi rooms in Tianxing Building are all suites consisting of two rooms, one inside and one outside. At this moment, in Tianzi Room No. 2, the woman in red who caused trouble in the teahouse today is sleeping on the bed in the inner room. The man in black sleeping on the floor in the outer room is Lin Fangda.

Since Lin Fangda's outer room was right next to the corridor, he was awakened from his sleep when the waiters from Tianxinglou locked the doors one by one. However, since there were only waiters from Tianxinglou outside, he did not act rashly. He lay quietly on the ground with his eyes wide open, listening carefully to the movements outside.

"Squeak..."

There were faint footsteps coming from the old stairs. Lin Fangda concluded from the sound that the person coming this time was definitely not a waiter from the inn, so he jumped up and rushed to the crack in the door. He looked intently and saw seven or eight figures tiptoeing towards his room.

"not good!"

Lin Fangda cried out inwardly, and rushed to the door of the inner room, knocking gently on the door frame. Although the sound was not loud, it was particularly loud in the silent night, so that Bai Jin and his group in the corridor also subconsciously stopped.

"what's up?"

After a while, the lazy and weak voice of the woman in red came from the inner room.

"Someone came uninvited!" Lin Fangda answered in a low voice. After a moment of silence, the door of the inner room opened silently, and a woman in red, already dressed neatly, came out quickly with a sword in her hand.

Facing the puzzled look of the woman in red, Lin Fangda pointed at the door. The woman in red understood and slowly walked forward to look through the crack in the door, then quickly retreated back to Lin Fangda's side.

"Ningyu, what should we do?" Lin Fang asked in a loud voice. Luo Ningyu was the name of the woman in red.

Luo Ningyu frowned slightly, turned her head to look at the half-open window, then looked at Lin Fangda, both of them with a look of determination on their faces.

"Since you are awake, please come with us, Miss Luo!"

"boom!"

Just as Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda sneaked under the window, Bai Jin's cold voice suddenly sounded outside the door, and then the tightly closed door was kicked open. At the same time, Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda no longer hesitated, and they broke through the window and flew out.

"Whoosh whoosh!"

But before Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda could fully stretch their bodies out, countless sharp arrows suddenly shot out from the darkness on all directions, accompanied by a series of muffled "clang clang clang" sounds. A row of sharp arrows were instantly nailed to the wall behind Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda. One of the arrows even grazed Lin Fangda's right ear, leaving a streak of blood.

"There are hidden arrows outside, let's retreat first!" Lin Fangda reached out and wiped his injured ear, shouted with a serious face, waved his hand to push Luo Ningyu back to the room first, and then he jumped into the house with a somersault. At the moment their figures disappeared, seven or eight sharp arrows flew past the window again.

At this moment, the room was dim. Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda stood back to back, cautiously staring at the seven or eight men in black who were surrounding them.

"Who are you?" Luo Ningyu asked in a delicate voice. "You beat up my son in the West Lake Teahouse today?" Bai Jin said in a deep voice.

Upon hearing this, Lin Fangda couldn't help but show disdain on his face and sneered: "I beat up too many people today, I don't know which one is your son."

"It doesn't matter if you don't remember. Come back with me and you'll recognize him!" Bai Jin sneered.

Luo Ningyu looked around in disbelief at the black-clad men who were watching her eagerly, and asked in astonishment, "You actually set up such a scene just because of the teahouse? Aren't you a father who loves your son too much?"

Bai Jin smiled and said, "I only have one son, and he was nearly killed by you today. How can I, as a father, just ignore it?"

"Stop talking nonsense, and hit me if you want to!" Lin Fangda shouted angrily, "Your blind son, not to mention that it's useless to call your father, it's also useless to call your grandfather."

Bai Jin sneered and said, "I would like to ask you two to come back with me and talk things out. I will naturally find out who is right and who is wrong. If it is really my son who is wrong, then I will never embarrass you. If you two are sensible, you'd better come back with me obediently, so as not to hurt anyone with the sword!"

When Bai Jin said this, the men in black on both wings had already moved forward.

"If you want to catch me, then it depends on whether you have the ability to do so. Kill them!"

Luo Ningyu shouted coldly, drew his sword and rushed towards the man in black first. Lin Fangda was not to be outdone, and followed closely behind Luo Ningyu with his sword. In the blink of an eye, the two sides were fighting in a ball.

Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda both had excellent martial arts skills. Even when besieged by a group of men in black, they did not lose the upper hand at all. The fight between the two sides was very lively with swords and sabers. Luo Ningyu would occasionally shoot a row of silver needles from her sleeves, making it difficult for the opponent to defend against them. Many men in black had already been hit by her hidden weapons.

"what!"

Just when Bai Jin and the men in black were fighting fiercely with Luo Ningyu and Lin Fang in the room, a scream was suddenly heard in the lobby of Tianxing Building, and then the sound of fierce hand-to-hand combat filled the Tianxing Building.

At this moment, many guests were awakened by the sound of fighting. When they found that their doors were locked, they panicked and shouted and shook the doors, adding a touch of noise to the messy Tianxing Building.

"What's going on?" Bai Jin suddenly heard the sound of fighting outside and asked anxiously, "Who is fighting outside?"

"Master Bai, we've been ambushed!"

A man in black who was stabbed in the lower abdomen staggered into the room and shouted to Bai Jin, "There are a group of masters hidden in Tianxing Building. Brothers were caught off guard."

"What?" Bai Jinwan didn't expect that he would be ambushed. He was anxious and was caught off guard by Lin Fangda's knife, leaving a bloody wound about a foot long on his chest.

Lin Fangda forced Bai Jin to retreat, turned around and shouted to Luo Ningyu: "Good opportunity, let's go!"

As they were talking, the two of them had already cut a bloody path through the panicked men in black and rushed out.

At this moment, the two groups of people were already fighting in various places in Tianxing Building. The interesting thing was that Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda didn't recognize any of these two groups of people.

The situation was so urgent that they had no time to think. The two of them jumped down from the third floor and ran out of Tianxing Building along the wall. When Bai Jin ordered to chase them, another group of people had already caught up with them. In the end, Bai Jin could only watch Luo Ningyu and Lin Fangda disappear outside Tianxing Building.

"Stop it!" Bai Jin shouted angrily while standing on the stairs. At his command, the two groups of people separated to the left and right. Bai Jin stared at the dozen people opposite him with cold eyes. He glanced at a row of guest rooms on the second floor. Their doors had been smashed. He guessed that these people must have been hiding on the second floor until he led his people into Tianxing Building and then rushed out unexpectedly.

The leader of the group was a burly man in his thirties, with dark skin, thick eyebrows and big eyes that contained a chilling murderous intent. He held a sharp sword in his hand, with blood dripping from the blade.

This person was Qiu Han, who had made Liu Xunyi and Qin Wei suffer so much in the past.

Bai Jin angrily took out his badge and shouted, "Bai Jin, the Minister of the Third Yamen of the Western Palace, has been ordered to arrest the imperial court's wanted criminals. Who are you? How dare you hinder the Western Palace's work? Are you tired of living?"

Facing Bai Jin's rebuke, Qiu Han suddenly raised a disdainful sneer. He reached into his bosom and slowly took out a token, sneering, "I think you're the one who's tired of living! Qiu Han, the young guard of the Tianji Pavilion in the East Palace, is ordered to protect Miss Luo here. Anyone with ill intentions will be killed without mercy!"

"Eastern Palace?" Bai Jin was stunned when he heard this. He never expected that the person who was trying to stop him was actually someone from the imperial court. He asked doubtfully, "Why would someone from the Eastern Palace protect someone that the Western Palace wants to capture?"

"I would also like to ask, why does your West Mansion make things difficult for the people my East Mansion wants to protect?" Qiu Han asked back bluntly.

"Who do you think you are? Why should I, the three yamen of the West Palace, report to you, the East Palace for what we do?" Bai Jin said angrily.

Qiu Han snorted coldly, "My East Palace Tianji Pavilion also does not need to report to your West Palace for its actions!"

"You..." Bai Jin was furious. The veins on his right hand holding the knife bulged. He gritted his teeth and said, "Even if you let them escape from Tianxing Tower, what can you do? Little do you know that there will be people from my West Mansion outside Tianxing Tower to greet them." After saying that, without waiting for Qiu Han to turn around and leave, Bai Jin shouted again, "But I advise you to give up the idea of ​​going out to save them, because whether you can walk out of Tianxing Tower alive today depends on the knife in my hand!"

Facing Bai Jin's persistence, Qiu Han's eyes turned cold, and he slowly raised the sword in his hand, saying in a cold voice: "I have heard for a long time that there are many masters in the three yamen of the West Palace. I have long wanted to learn from them!"

Although Qiu Han and Bai Jin were enemies, they were both members of the imperial court, so they would never really fight. Therefore, the two sides had no choice but to refuse to give in, and the stalemate continued, with no one willing to give in first.

Wait until the outcome of the battle outside Tianxing Tower was decided.

……

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(End of this chapter)