Chapter 142: Flaw

Two human heads fell to the ground.

Chen Ji, far away, saw the wine shop drenched in fresh blood. The originally bustling street suddenly became silent, like cicadas in winter.

Mr. Feng, wearing a blue shirt, sat calmly on his horse. Not a drop of blood had splashed on him, yet a full bloody aura emanated from him. In this world, the people who most enjoy killing are never the warriors, but the scholars and students.

Inside the wine shop, the lamplight shone on the portraits. Chen Ji suddenly realized that every portrait was drawn of him. With just a few strokes, he was outlined vividly and lifelike, his features distinct.

So, the Liu family had wanted to kill him from the beginning.

Why?

He thought it was because the things he had done to help the secret service department had leaked out. The Liu family wanted to use him as their blade.

Chen Ji turned and retreated into the distance, preparing to escape with the heir and Bai Li, but then he gradually slowed his steps.

This small town probably had over a thousand soldiers inside. If the other side searched all over the mountains, he wouldn't be able to run far with Bai Li, the heir, and Zhang Xia.

He turned his head and looked at the direction where the heir and the others were hiding. They were too far away; he could only vaguely see the high furnace chimney of the iron-smelting workshop in the night.

Inside the wine shop, the firelight and the shouts of assembling soldiers were intertwined by his side.

The next moment, Chen Ji came back to his senses and headed in the opposite direction.

He didn't know how far he had walked when he came to a small noodle shop and motioned to the shopkeeper.

“Shopkeeper, a bowl of noodles.”

The shopkeeper, who was wiping the table, put the towel on his arm and asked with a smile, “What kind of noodles, customer?”

Chen Ji found a wooden table by the door and sat down. “Any kind of noodles, hot is fine.”

“Okay!”

After a moment, the shopkeeper carried a bowl of pig intestine noodles and placed it in front of Chen Ji.

Outside the door were the chaotic sounds of soldiers and horses. Inside the noodle shop, Chen Ji didn't look outside more than once. He let the soldiers run past the door.

He didn't mind the heat either. He picked up his chopsticks and rolled up a large mouthful of noodles, slurping them into his mouth.

After the first mouthful, Chen Ji let out a long breath.

“Delicious.”

After fleeing for a day, being able to eat a mouthful of hot pig intestine noodles was simply one of the happiest moments in life.

One mouthful of noodles down, and it was as if his entire body became warm.

Chen Ji finished the noodles in two or three mouthfuls, looking somewhat reluctantly at the red soup in the bowl.

He really wanted to drink it all, but if he drank it, he wouldn't be able to run.

He sighed softly. “What a pity.”

The shopkeeper was puzzled. “Customer, what's a pity?”

“Nothing!”

Chen Ji grinned and smiled. He threw a piece of broken silver on the table. “Shopkeeper, here's the money for the noodles.”

The shopkeeper was stunned at first, then he carefully put the silver into his sleeve. “Customer, the noodles at my small shop are cheap. You gave too much silver. I'll go next door to exchange some copper coins for change for you.”

Chen Ji waved his hand with a smile. “Go ahead.”

After the shopkeeper left, he looked at the noodle soup again, then stood up and walked along the slag road towards the military camp fence in the northeast direction. He walked faster and faster until he was finally running.

The shopkeeper returned to the noodle shop with several soldiers. “Several military lords, that young man is still in my shop waiting for me to give him change. …Eh, where is he?”

One soldier cursed and roughly kicked the shopkeeper over. “You dare to fool this old man?”

The shopkeeper said urgently, “He was just here, he surely hasn't gone far.”

Saying so, he looked around. He just saw Chen Ji lightly leap over the wooden fence.

“Over there!”

The soldiers turned their heads to look, watching Chen Ji run into the deep mountain forest. They suddenly shouted loudly.

“Found him. Over here, chase!”

More and more soldiers assembled towards the northeast, chasing along Chen Ji's escape route, like passing locusts, covering the sky and the earth.

In the mountain forest under the moonlight, the dry, bare trees couldn't hide people. Several hundred soldiers rushed in, yet they couldn't find Chen Ji's figure.

One soldier stepped on the soft, rotten leaves, drew out his waist knife, and cautiously searched forward.

However, just as the soldier turned his head to look left, Chen Ji suddenly flashed out from behind the tree trunk on the right side and wiped his knife cleanly and neatly across the soldier's neck.

The edge of the knife grazed the neck artery lightly, like a cool breeze caressing.

When the soldier covered his neck and turned back to look, Chen Ji had already brushed past him and disappeared behind another tree trunk.

By the time others discovered him, blood was gushing out from between his fingers.

He only had time to point to the tree trunk where Chen Ji was hiding, then unwillingly fell onto the rotten leaves.

“Over here!”

Two soldiers, shouting, flanked that tree trunk from left and right.

The two people looked at each other, then leaped forward together. Two long knives, like scissors, chopped out crisscross.

The two long knives chopped on the tree trunk, emitting a dull sound. The two people fixed their eyes, behind the tree trunk, where was anyone?

Not right.

The two people's vision blurred. They only saw Chen Ji leap down from the tree, lightly tip-toeing on the bodies of the two people's knives stuck in the tree trunk, and squat down.

The two soldiers lifted their heads in astonishment, staring fixedly at Chen Ji squatting on the bodies of their knives.

A gust of wind blew over the mountain, rustling the piled rotten leaves on the ground.

In their eyes, Chen Ji was confronting them, his eyes devoid of emotion, only filled with cold calculation.

“Open your mouths and call for help.”

The two soldiers suddenly felt their hair stand on end. A trace of coolness rose from their tailbones, rushing all the way to their scalps.

“Someone, he's here!”

“Someone!”

The two soldiers let go of their knife handles and retreated backward, but before their lifted feet had completely left the ground, Chen Ji casually swung his knife and wiped it across the necks of the two people, leaving a line of blood.

With another leap, Chen Ji had already stepped on the bodies of the knives stuck in the tree trunk, vaulting over the two people, and disappeared into the forest without looking back.

These two calls for help finally alerted everyone. Several hundred soldiers, stepping on the gray, defeated rotten leaves, madly ran after Chen Ji.

But strangely, they could clearly see Chen Ji's traces, yet they couldn't catch up no matter what.

It was as if they maintained a fixed distance from each other, neither near nor far.

Every time the soldiers felt about to lose track, Chen Ji's back would gradually become clear again.

The next moment, Chen Ji, who had climbed to the top of the mountain and was about to flip over the peak, suddenly paused for a moment.

He turned back and looked deeply at the military camp behind him, then moved again and disappeared behind the mountain.

In the military camp, Mr. Feng led dozens of riders and black-clothed followers to the front of the noodle shop.

He lightly dismounted his horse, lifted the hem of his robe, and walked into the noodle shop, sitting at the table where Chen Ji had previously sat.

The bowl that Chen Ji had eaten from was still not collected.

He smiled at the shopkeeper and said, “Shopkeeper, a bowl of noodles, I want it exactly the same as the young man had before.”

The shopkeeper trembling cooked a bowl of pig intestine noodles and brought it. Mr. Feng ate a mouthful and loudly praised: “Delicious, ah. Did that young man praise it before?”

The shopkeeper said lowly, “He praised it, he praised it.”

Mr. Feng ate the noodles clean. A black-clothed attendant handed him a piece of clean white silk handkerchief. He wiped his mouth, then threw the handkerchief on the ground.

Next, he looked towards Chen Ji's bowl.

After thinking for a moment, Mr. Feng put his bowl and Chen Ji's bowl together to compare, then picked up Chen Ji's bowl again and drank a mouthful of soup. “The taste is the same. A person hungry for a day, fleeing for a day, can endure not to drink this one mouthful of hot noodle soup?”

Mr. Feng muttered to himself, “A person with such a meticulous mind. How could he have tripped up on the small matter of a wooden stake?”

Saying so, he stood up and walked out.

A black-clothed follower asked, “Mr. Feng, shall we chase?”

Mr. Feng flipped onto his horse and laughed heartily, “That young man deliberately exposed a flaw here. I think he is trying to cover the tracks for the heir and the princess. Send people to continue searching the military camp. The heir and the princess should still be here.”

The black-clothed follower asked, “Then should we still chase this young man?”

Mr. Feng urged his horse towards the direction Chen Ji had fled.

“Chase. Why not chase? The old master is still waiting to take his head to accompany the second master in burial. He is the most important prey.”