Chapter 239: The Battle Ends

Zhang Weiliang plunged headfirst into the thick fog, and by coincidence, appeared right behind Song Bei.

Zhang Weiliang was no gentleman; the moment he recognized Song Bei, he raised his sword and thrust.

Zhu Zixun, standing to the side and in front of Song Bei, reacted even faster than Song Bei. He yanked Song Bei back and turned to counterattack.

Zhang Weiliang's Long Hushan fighting style was unmistakable—talismans and Wu Gong came out one after another, pressing Zhu Zixun so hard he couldn't move his hands or feet. Zhu Zixun bellowed in fury, "You damned Daoist Priests from Long Hushan again, I'll kill you all ahhhhh…"

The moment Zhang Weiliang heard that, he started hurling talismans out even harder—bang bang bang—some exploding, some bursting into flames, some whipping up wind. In short, every kind of talisman imaginable. The key was he wasn't throwing them at random; they reinforced one another, layer upon layer, leaving Zhu Zixun in a wretched state, utterly unable to counterattack.

Pan Yun, who had just landed back on the ground, took one look, a thought clicked, and she shouted: "Four waters, five fires!"

Seeing Miao Zhen and Miao He took one look and understood instantly. They also felt their own combat experience was too shallow, led astray by these jianghu people, fighting force with force, forgetting that they had support.

The two exchanged a glance, drove back the surrounding guards, and immediately retreated out of the encirclement. One pulled out a sword talisman, the other a Lei Fu, and they both formed hand seals and sent them out at the same time.

The guards came slashing with their blades. Pan Yun kicked back Hu Jing and Su Ying with one leg, then flung the sword in her hand. With a whoosh it darted through the air, its sword Qi blasting away the guards attacking Miao Zhen and Miao He.

It circled back to her hand. Pan Yun held back no longer—one sword, one spray of blood—directly crippling the mobility of every single guard.

Even with Hu Jing and Su Ying fighting together, they barely held out for fewer than fifteen moves before Hu Jing was pierced through the ribs by a sword and sent flying, and Su Ying was kicked away by her.

Song Bei hadn't expected Pan Yun to have been hiding her strength, and hiding it so deeply at that. Hu Jing and Su Ying fighting together still hadn't been able to suppress her.

He retreated in fright and told the guards protecting him: "Bring the gunpowder, no matter the cost—blow her to death!"

This was almost a fight to the death, and it used the most important thing they had brought on this trip.

The guards obeyed, immediately went to open a chest, pulled out gunpowder, and also dragged out a chest of materials, rapidly assembling them. In no time at all they had put together a small-scale trebuchet.

Song Bei pointed at Pan Yun, who was entangled with over a dozen guards, and said sharply: "Kill her!"

This meant he didn't care whether those dozen-plus guards lived or died.

Hu Jing and Su Ying were startled. Ignoring their own injuries, they rushed in, grabbed a guard each and hurled them outward, then went up to block Pan Yun's attack. While telling the guards to run, they shouted at Song Bei: "Young Master Song, our people are still here!"

Pan Yun gave a cold laugh and slowed her attack, letting them escape.

Song Bei didn't care at all. He rushed over himself and lit the gunpowder pack.

The guards aimed at Pan Yun's direction and fired the gunpowder pack.

Hu Jing and Su Ying fled rapidly to either side. This was the moment Pan Yun had been waiting for. She leaped into the air, charged straight toward the gunpowder pack, and kicked it back with one leg.

Song Bei's eyes went wide. He threw himself outward, but they had deliberately paused during the launch to shorten the time before the gunpowder exploded. They hadn't expected Pan Yun's grasp of the gunpowder's detonation timing to be even more precise than theirs. The gunpowder pack was kicked flying back and exploded right over their heads.

With a boom, the earth shook. Song Bei lay on the ground clutching his head, yet his eyes were still swimming and his ears rang and buzzed with tinnitus.

Pan Yun landed after the kick, full of regret. "What a pity, the gunpowder's power wasn't great enough, otherwise…"

Otherwise everyone in that circle would have been blown away—dodging wouldn't have helped either, because it could have shattered people's internal organs.

Too bad, the gunpowder of this era still didn't have enough power.

Pan Yun's gaze shifted and she saw Zhang Weiliang, who had been knocked down by the blast. She raised an eyebrow and said: "Not entirely bad, though."

Zhu Zixun had also been blasted down; the two of them had both been too close to the explosion point.

Pan Yun stepped forward, tapped a few points on Zhu Zixun's body while he was still dazed, making him stare wide-eyed and collapse onto the ground. Then she went over, helped Zhang Weiliang to one side, and gave him a formation disk.

Zhang Weiliang's vision was also flashing with stars; he couldn't see anyone clearly, but he knew this was Pan Yun, so he said in startled doubt: "You…"

Pan Yun: "Just stay there, give me less trouble."

The voice buzzed, seeming to come from somewhere very far away, but Zhang Weiliang still heard it clearly, which made him very angry.

Clearly she was the one giving him trouble, wasn't she?

If she hadn't refused to listen to advice, why would he have gotten involved in advance and had to suffer this?

In his fury Zhang Weiliang tried to speak, but the moment he opened his mouth he couldn't help but vomit.

Pan Yun retreated two steps to avoid it, frowned, realized he had a concussion, activated the formation disk and left him be, going to check on Miao Zhen and Miao He.

Miao Zhen and Miao He had also finished their fight. With the Lei Fu and sword talisman combined with Wu Gong, just as the gunpowder exploded, lightning struck down at the same time. Using the cover of the Lei Fu and sword talisman, the two quickly harvested, heavily wounding the men and robbing them of mobility.

In an instant, the ground was covered with fallen people. Apart from Hu Jing, Su Ying, and the seven guards they had brought, who stood far away, only Pan Yun, Miao Zhen, and Miao He remained standing.

Miao Zhen and Miao He took their places behind Pan Yun, still holding their bloodstained horizontal blades. Pan Yun's sword hadn't been sheathed either. The three of them looked together at Hu Jing and Su Ying and asked: "What say the two of you?"

Hu Jing: "Indeed, talent springs from youth—you're formidable."

Pan Yun nodded. "You flatter me."

Su Ying's gaze, however, fell on the prone Song Bei. "Is he really a Japanese pirate?"

Pan Yun: "I never lie."

Hu Jing and Su Ying fell silent. She had been able to keep her promise and let Song Bei go under those circumstances—she truly wasn't a treacherous person. But… "Isn't the Song family of Song Bei quite famous in Quanzhou?"

Pan Yun: "Among the pirates along the Fujian and Zhejiang coasts, Great Ming's own people make up seventy percent. That's hardly anything unusual."

This implied a suspicion that the Song family was also pirates, and in league with the Japanese pirates…

However, the Song family were indeed pirates—Hu Jing and Su Ying both knew that—and the two fell silent at once.

Seeing they had no intention of fighting further, Pan Yun tilted her chin up and said: "If you don't believe it, strip Song Bei and these grey-clothed men right now and have a look."

Su Ying was itching to act. The blue-clad guards behind them hesitated and said quietly: "He is the employer after all, and besides, there are women present here."

Miao Zhen said irritably: "We don't mind—what are you minding?"

Pan Yun couldn't be bothered wasting words with them. She walked up to Song Bei, one slash of her sword, and he and the grey-clothed men lying around him were instantly stripped bare, revealing a patch of pale skin.

Everyone: …

Song Bei, who had been feigning unconsciousness, also snapped his eyes open with a jolt, but before he could move, Pan Yun stabbed down with her sword and pinned him to the ground.

She looked down at him from above and slowly broke into a smile. "Employer, do you still insist you're a Han?"

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Song Bei, whose lower half was wrapped in nothing but a single cloth: …

He glared at Pan Yun with split-bursting eyes, wishing he could eat her alive.

Pan Yun snorted, drew the sword out from his shoulder, and with one palm strike directly crippled his Upper Dantian, robbing him of any ability to resist.

This time, neither Hu Jing nor Su Ying stopped her. Zhu Zixun, who had regained his senses nearby, stared blankly until he saw Pan Yun cripple Song Bei's Upper Dantian, then finally reacted: "How—how could you cripple him?"

Pan Yun: "Why can't I?"

Zhu Zixun: "He paid you, hired you—he's your employer!"

After a pause, Pan Yun said: "I can return the deposit and the breach penalty."

Saying this, she pulled three silver ingots of twenty taels each from her sleeve, crouched down, and placed them in his palm: "Here, take it back."

Song Bei turned pale with pain, instinctively clenching the silver ingot—but the next moment, his hand was slapped hard, and the ingot was snatched away.

Pan Yun put the silver ingots back, her face expressionless: "You've been robbed."

Song Bei: … He was so angry he stopped feeling the pain.

Everyone: …

Zhang Weiliang felt utterly humiliated; he wished he could hold up a sign that read: I don't know her!

Zhu Zixun was the angriest, his lips trembling as he spat: "Disgusting, disgusting—people from Long Hushan are as shameless as ever."

Zhang Weiliang objected: "What does this have to do with Long Hushan? Don't slander us."

Zhu Zixun: "Isn't she a student of Long Hushan Academy?"

Zhang Weiliang was speechless—yes, she was from Long Hushan Academy, but she was also from Mount Sanqing.

But Pan Yun and Seeing Miao Zhen turned back, staring at him expressionlessly; the words stuck in Zhang Weiliang's throat.

In a rage, he shouted to the sky: "Zhang Weiqin, where the hell are you all? How long are you going to hide outside?"

Everyone turned toward the thick fog, waiting for someone to appear—but after a long wait, no one came. Pan Yun mocked Zhang Weiliang: "Your lackeys won't even follow you into battle? Are they even lackeys?"

Zhang Weiliang's face turned ashen; he roared: "Zhang Weiqin—" then suddenly realized: "Where are the resentful spirits? Why is it so quiet here?"

Everyone froze in alarm, finally realizing.

Seeing Miao Zhen said: "It seems the strange sounds stopped ever since we took out the Lei Fu."

Pan Yun's expression darkened; she lowered her gaze, thought for a moment, then said: "Since the resentful spirits aren't bothering us, gather everyone and the gear and head back. From now on, we wait by the stump for the rabbit to run into us."

Zhang Weiliang: "Aren't you going to look for Zhang Weiqin? We came with three Long Hushan disciples and three Wu Lin Alliance members…"

Pan Yun: "What's that to me?"

Zhang Weiliang choked. Seeing her point to the still-mobile Green Robe Guards and order them to load all the wounded onto the cart, he hurriedly said: "Wait—they came here to save you."

Pan Yun: "You're the one I saved. If I hadn't guarded you, don't you think they'd have killed you after the explosion? Save me? You're lucky if you didn't bring me trouble."

Seeing Pan Yun's firm attitude, the hidden figures could no longer stay silent; they leapt out: "Wait!"

The two rushed forward, ready to bow to Zhang Weiliang—but when they saw Pan Yun, they instinctively turned and bowed to her first: "Esteemed young Daoist, we are from the Wu Lin Alliance, we…"

"You," Pan Yun cut him off, sheathing her sword, expressionless: "Finally decided to show yourselves. Was the show entertaining?"

(End of Chapter)