Chapter 1655: Earth-shattering explosion

Qingyang smoothed her hair; the carriage happened to pass through the magnificent main gate of the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project, crushing a few small, grayish-white pebbles on the road. The main road from the Quiet Lake to the East Gate of Tianshui was paved with bluestone slabs, but with vehicles coming and going every day, there were pebbles, gravel, and grass roots on the road—wasn't that perfectly normal? No one would pay attention to it.

However, the moment the wheels rolled over them, these pebbles bounced upward, stuck to the bottom of the carriage, and then—

Exploded directly.

With a loud "Boom," thick smoke billowed half as high as the sky.

Regent Qingyang's carriage was exceptionally heavy, and there were exquisite carvings on the side panels. Taking this blast, the entire carriage was actually flipped over a zhang high, rolling four consecutive 360-degree turns in the air, before crashing heavily onto the hillside on the side.

The hillside was uneven, so the carriage rolled another four or five times, slamming into a large rock and finally stopping! The four fine horses pulling the carriage and the coachman were torn to pieces on the spot! The carriage Qingyang was riding in had exceptionally sturdy side panels, which could only be pierced by specialized siege crossbow bolts, and it was painted with defensive arrays, capable of withstanding ordinary attacks.

However, the center point of this explosion was directly beneath it.

No matter how sturdy the carriage was, the floorboard was not specifically reinforced for defense. Even with an array for protection, a large hole was blown in the bottom of the carriage. By the time it hit the mountain rock, there was a "crack" sound as the rock split, and the carriage panel also caved in.

The defensive array ultimately had a limit and could not withstand the power of this explosion that could split mountains and crack rocks.

The accompanying guards were also shaken and scattered; in particular, seven of Special Envoy Wu's guards were blown away along with their horses, dying on the spot.

Yuan Xuan was riding in front; the shockwave of the explosion happened to be split by two guards behind him, and he himself was violently pushed forward by the air wave. After landing, his eyes were black, and his internal organs felt like they were burning.

"Enemy attack!" As soon as he opened his mouth, he spat out blood. "Palace Master!"

Yuan Xuan forcibly raised a breath of true qi, climbed up, and staggered toward the carriage.

The carriage was flipped upside down, the hole in the bottom of the carriage was particularly eye-catching, and the carriage body was dented in a large area. Yuan Xuan shouted hoarsely: "Protect the Palace Master!"

The remaining guards hurriedly gathered around, shielding the carriage in the middle.

The spies and informants hiding in the dark saw this scene and were all dumbfounded, thinking about reporting this accident as soon as possible.

On a nearby cypress tree, a small spider crawled out to look at the situation below, then quickly dived back into the depths of the cypress leaves.

The remaining few guards of Special Envoy Wu were stunned at first, then shocked, and rushed up to check.

However, just as everyone rushed to the side of the carriage, the side panel fell off.

A hand reached out from the carriage and pressed on the broken door.

Afterward, Qingyang crawled out.

Her body was shimmering with the faint light of elemental power; she appeared to have no external injuries, only that after rolling several times head-down and feet-up, her clothes and hair bun were messy, and two strands of long hair were draped down, mixed with quite a bit of debris.

She patted the wood chips off her fingertips—just now, when the carriage rolled, she reached out and stuck her hand into the wooden board to steady herself.

The sturdy carriage, three defensive arrays, the protection of elemental power, and the magic artifacts all over her body—four layers of protection in total—were what made Qingyang appear completely unscathed.

But her face was livid, and her eyes were flashing with angry light.

Yuan Xuan asked hurriedly: "Palace Master, are you injured?"

"It can't kill me!" Qingyang's anger surged. "But Special Envoy Wu is injured!"

Special Envoy Wu's guards were shocked and leaned over to look into the carriage.

They saw him lying in the carriage, his face covered in bloodstains, his chest heaving, but his arm was twisted at a strange angle.

"Lord Wu, Lord Wu!"

"Don't move him, remove the board first!" Special Envoy Wu's hand was stuck between two boards.

The guards spent a little effort before safely rescuing Special Envoy Wu. The man began to cough, and every cough affected his injury, causing unbearable pain.

Qingyang personally fed him a few pills: "For pain relief. Don't be afraid, your life is not in danger."

Just now, she had also protected Special Envoy Wu.

The guards looked at each other. Lord Wu had taken a boat to Giant Deer Port, crossed the high winds and rough waves at sea, and walked through the Golden Plain, known for its chaos, safely arriving in the Yao nation, so how could he have almost lost his life in the capital of this number one power in the Golden Plain!

Yuan Xuan went to support Qingyang, but she brushed his hand away: "I'm fine, take the other wounded back to the cottage first."

"Yes."

Qingyang casually pinned up her hair, then walked to the explosion site, squatted down, and observed the charred ground.

The stone slabs on the ground couldn't withstand it and were long gone from their original places, and the road underneath was also blown into a deep pit. There were still sparkling spots in the pit; this was because the temperature was too high in an instant, burning the sand into crystals.

"Not ordinary explosives, but ones for splitting mountains and cracking rocks." Qingyang said sternly, "The explosives were buried deep underground, otherwise the pit wouldn't be this deep. However, my carriage passed by, and none of you saw anything unusual, which shows that the volume exposed on the outside was very small and the appearance was inconspicuous."

Yuan Xuan said angrily: "Could it be the explosives used by the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project to adjust the terrain?"

During the construction of the Quiet Lake Shanzhuang and the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project a while ago, the construction teams were always using those explosives to blast a few times here and there, and there was no peace from morning till night. The Green Guards were already very familiar with this explosion sound; as soon as they heard it, they knew what it was!

Several guards rode their horses around the area and brought back a fifty-year-old man to report: "This person was hiding by the bridge, acting suspiciously."

The man shouted: "I'm wronged! I'm watching the site for the Quiet Lake Shanzhuang! There was movement here, so I came over to take a look!"

The Quiet Lake Shanzhuang was very close to here; although it was in a state of suspended construction, the construction site still had a large amount of materials piled up, and if no one was sent to guard it, they would be stolen.

This person watching the site only had to walk a few dozen steps from his residence to this main gate.

Yuan Xuan sneered, then said to Qingyang: "Palace Master, for safety's sake, please retreat to the cottage!"

The woods after the explosion presented an eerie silence. No one dared to make a sound; only the guards not far away were carrying away the corpses, their footsteps rustling.

Was this sudden attack a retaliatory strike or a warning?

Or perhaps both? "Retreat for what?" Qingyang walked to Special Envoy Wu's side, saw that his injury had been bandaged and fixed properly, and said, "Special Envoy Wu, come into the palace with me; I'm going to seek justice for you!"

Having just been attacked, Special Envoy Wu was still in a dizzy state, looked at Qingyang blankly for a few moments, and replied "Good."

Qingyang smiled at him, turned to Yuan Xuan and said: "Change the carriage, enter the palace."

So the Green Guards brought another carriage from the Quiet Lake Cottage, and Special Envoy Wu and Qingyang boarded the carriage again and headed straight for Tianshui City!

……

The Quiet Lake was not far from the Flowing Spring Shanzhuang, and that loud explosion was also heard at the Flowing Spring Shanzhuang.

Everyone in the villa stopped their work and looked toward the northeast.

He Lingchuan even let out a loud wine burp.

Zhao Song immediately assigned three subordinates: "Go see what happened."

The explosion came from the direction of the eastern suburbs of Tianshui.

Speaking of which, the area around this villa had truly not been peaceful recently; a few days ago, there was a series of explosions at Peach Creek in the west, and today, why was it the turn of the eastern suburbs?

Moreover, the place where the explosion occurred…… was unusual.

"Could this explosion be inside your construction site?" Zhao Song turned his head. "Island Master He, what do you speculate happened there?"

He Lingchuan stared in the direction of the explosion for a long time before saying slowly: "I'm afraid we have big trouble."

Zhao Song's heart skipped a beat: "Island Master He, why do you say that?"

He Lingchuan did not say anything more, only saying: "Wait for the news from your men."

More than a quarter of an hour later, the three palace guards Zhao Song had sent out returned and reported urgently: "Regent Qingyang's carriage was destroyed at the main gate of the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project; it was basically torn to pieces, and components were scattered all over the ground. There are also several horse carcasses lying nearby. There are bloodstains and torn cloth on the carriage."

Qingyang's carriage was quite special and often entered and exited the Quiet Lake, so they could all recognize it.

Zhao Song was shocked.

He Lingchuan's gaze narrowed: "At the main gate of the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project?"

"Yes, a large pit seven feet deep and more than a zhang wide was blown into the ground!"

"The power is not small." He Lingchuan frowned. "That road was not only rolled solidly, but also paved with large bluestone bricks. To be able to blow such a large pit and destroy the Regent's carriage, the amount of explosives used must have been very large."

He had personally supervised the construction of the main road for the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project, so the construction quality was, of course, beyond reproach!

Zhao Song couldn't help but ask: "How is the Regent?"

"It seems there is no major problem. We found eyewitnesses nearby who said that Regent Qingyang walked out of the carriage herself and didn't seem to be injured. But it seems someone was carried out of the carriage."

"There was someone else in the carriage? Who?"

The palace guards said they didn't know yet.

"Regent Qingyang has profound cultivation, so her life should be safe, but other things are hard to say." He Lingchuan's expression was solemn. "Brother Zhao, do you know what it means that the Regent's carriage was attacked and blown up under the main gate of the Tianshui Eastward Expansion project?"

However, it was chaotic now, and no one had time to mind other people's business, so even if they had doubts, they just let it go.

In fact, the only ones finally coordinated under Bai Tan were part of the Imperial Guards and the City Patrol Army led by Bai Tan's confidants, while the other seventeen or eighteen hundred soldiers wearing the City Patrol Army uniforms were actually temple soldiers and temple guards from the temples! Two years ago, the Yao nation conducted a census, and there were a total of 187 temples of various sizes in Tianshui City, scattered all over the capital. Large temples had more than two hundred guards, and small temples had three or four; wasn't that perfectly normal? The Yao court approved temples to hire temple guards to expel petty thieves and protect temple property. So each temple selected strong believers and trained them diligently. These temple guards were loyal and capable, not inferior to the palace elites.

It was just that this power was scattered in various temples, and at most caused a little trouble in peacetime; the Yao court never expected that it could be gathered together under their noses and condensed into a force!

This force didn't make a sound until it moved, and it came in handy today. The temple guards and soldiers selected by the temples to participate in today's incident, besides being physically strong and well-trained, must also have fanatical piety! ===== CHAPTER 1662 =====

The Regent sent by Beijia was attacked in the capital; the Yao King must provide an explanation for this matter.

There was someone else in her carriage, and he didn't know who it was. But He Lingchuan always felt that the person who could have an accident at this juncture was likely not an ordinary person.

Zhao Song couldn't help but ask: "In Island Master He's opinion, whose handiwork could this explosion be?"

He Lingchuan shook his head, very straightforwardly: "I don't know."

Insufficient intelligence, unable to judge.

He gave a bitter smile and pointed to the remaining two jars of good wine: "Official Zhao, let's drink them all; later, palace envoys will come to summon us into the palace."

"Ah?" Was He Xiao trying to break the jar because it was already cracked? "Come, come, Official Zhao, accompany me for a few more cups!" Zhao Song had come in today under the name of drinking to investigate; how could He Lingchuan let him come as he pleased and leave as he pleased? Zhao Song's stomach was already round from drinking, but seeing his sorrowful face and persistent invitation, he had no choice but to agree.

Tianshui City these past few days was truly like a storm about to arrive; even he, who listened to orders and did errands, could feel it, sigh!

He didn't know how Regent Qingyang would badmouth the Tianshui project and He Xiao after entering the palace. Looking at He Xiao's current performance, he was going to have big trouble tonight. ===== CHAPTER 1656 =====