Vol 2 Chapter 2573: Chang'e returns to Luoyang, Zhu Di takes the blame
Chapter 2573 Chang’e returns to Luoyang, Zhu Di takes the blame
Chapter 2569: Chang'e returns to Luoyang, Zhu Di takes the blame
Dugu Qiubai was still surprised when he saw Xuanzang knocked down Zhu Tianpeng with just one blow, even though he took advantage of a sneak attack. After all, he knew how difficult Zhu Tianpeng was through previous fights.
Xuan Zang's Qi Gate was broken and his San Gong was rebuilt, but he could still possess such strength. Even Dugu Qiubai was amazed by it.
As soon as Zhu Tianpeng fell to the ground, he immediately used the secret method to heal his injuries. His face suddenly turned green and red. After spitting out a large mouthful of blood, he managed to suppress the injury.
But when Zhu Tianpeng was about to get up, Xuanzang fell from the sky in a cross-legged position, like a mountain, pressing directly on Zhu Tianpeng's back, making it impossible for him to get up.
“You dead bald donkey, get out of my way, this king.”
After Zhu Tianpeng roared angrily, he was about to push Xuanzang away, but his strength disappeared inexplicably quickly. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't get up, and he couldn't even hold the weapon in his hand.
Zhu Tianpeng was completely panicked and roared: "Bald Donkey, what kind of magic did you cast?"
Xuanzang looked at Zhu Tianpeng under him and said with a smile: "This move is called Fudo Mingwang Sitting. Unless the donor and the poor monk are in the same realm, they will not be able to break away, so the donor should not struggle."
"Bald donkey, you attacked me secretly and won without using force. If you have the guts, start your attack and fight me one on one."
Hearing Zhu Tianpeng's words, Xuanzang asked: "The poor monk can get out of the way and fight you one-on-one with King Qi, but what should you do if King Qi is captured by the poor monk again?"
Hearing this, Zhu Tianpeng's eyes showed a sly look, and he pretended to be sincere and said: "If I am captured again, I will be convinced and leave you alone, ah no, I will let you master."
“A gentleman’s words.”
“It’s hard to chase a horse.”
"Okay, I will trust you, King Qi."
With that said, Xuanzang got up from Zhu Tianpeng's back, and as soon as he left, Zhu Tianpeng's strength returned.
Zhu Tianpeng breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that Xuanzang had used some evil technique on him, such as the Transformation Technique. Now it seemed that it was a secret technique with similar effects but that would not cause permanent harm.
Looking at the handsome but weird monk in front of him, Zhu Tianpeng was extremely fearful and thought to himself: Fortunately, this person has a bad mind, otherwise I might not be able to escape this time.
If he were in his prime, Zhu Tianpeng might have kept his promise and faced Xuanzang one-on-one, but now that he had been seriously injured, he was naturally not prepared to keep his promise. What he said before was just an excuse to deceive Xuanzang.
Looking at Xuanzang who was smiling across from him, Zhu Tianpeng put on a posture to fight and shouted: "Master, take the attack."
Zhu Tianpeng used all his strength to attack, but Xuanzang easily dispersed him. However, when he turned his head and looked again, he saw that Zhu Tianpeng had already run back to his own formation, and under the cover of his guards, fled southward.
Xuanzang chuckled when he saw this, as if he had guessed it a long time ago and was not surprised at all.
Dugu Qibei ran over at this time and was about to chase Zhu Tianpeng, but was stopped by Xuanzang.
"Mr. Dugu, go and help others. Leave Qi King Zhu Tianpeng to the poor monk."
Seeing that Dugu Qiubai was hesitant, Xuanzang smiled and said, "Don't worry, sir, I will give you a live Zhu Tianpeng for me."
If it were Zhu Tianpeng in his heyday, Xuanzang would naturally not dare to boast about this. But now that Zhu Tianpeng has been injured, and Xuanzang has not yet consumed much, it is naturally impossible for Zhu Tianpeng to run away.
Seeing what Xuanzang said, Dugu Qiubai immediately nodded and agreed. After all, this battle not only requires capturing Zhu Tianpeng alive, but also killing all the five hundred guards without leaving anyone behind, so he can't delay it too long, otherwise he will retreat. It's easy for things to get messy on the road.
Faced with the pursuit of hundreds of Black Ice Platform masters, five grandmaster killers, and two great masters, Zhu Tianpeng's five hundred guards and two grandmaster guards were of no use at all. It would only take time for the entire army to be annihilated. Just a problem.
Zhu Tianpeng also knew that his men could not protect him, and that he would be more likely to escape alone, so he abandoned his men and fled alone.
Seeing that only Xuanzang was chasing after him among the killers, Zhu Tianpeng was relieved. After all, it was easier to face Xuanzang alone than hundreds of people.
What Zhu Tianpeng never expected was that whether he was escaping into the woods or into the mountains, Xuanzang's voice would always sound behind him, and he still could not get rid of it even after running for three days.
"Bald donkey, come out to me, I will fight with you."
Zhu Tianpeng looked around at the dense forest and roared to the sky, while Xuanzang's extremely ethereal voice came from all directions again.
“Donor, you lose.”
Zhu Tianpeng collapsed completely when he heard this. He raised his weapons and vented his anger randomly until he was exhausted and passed out. Little did he know that he had already fallen into Xuanzang's secret technique.
The escape he experienced in the past three days was just the fear and fantasy in his heart. The reality only passed by a stick of incense, and Xuanzang was always ten meters in front of him, with a touch of purple energy flashing in his eyes from time to time. .
Chang'e witnessed with her own eyes that Zhu Tianpeng was just glanced at by Xuanzang, then stood there, muttering to himself, and attacking the air crazily. She was so shocked that she was speechless.
She knew how strong Zhu Tianpeng was. Even if his master was alone, it would take a lot of effort to defeat him, but when facing Xuanzang, he was like a child.
Seeing Zhu Tianpeng fainted, Chang'e came over and asked: "Master, what exactly did you do to my sworn brother?"
Xuanzang smiled indifferently, the purple meaning in his eyes disappeared, and said with a smile: "The inner demons of the poor monk can arouse the fear in people's hearts, and thus fall into an illusion.
That is to say, Donor Zhu was seriously injured and his willpower was weakened, so he was attacked. Otherwise, it would be an inner demon and it would be difficult to shake the will of a veteran like them on the battlefield. "
Chang'e was relieved when she heard that Zhu Tianpeng was fine, and then became curious about Xuanzang, a monk who was more beautiful than a woman. His methods were indeed a bit too weird.
"Master, can I learn this inner demon guide?" Chang'e asked. Xuanzang showed a look of surprise, and then discovered that Chang'e's internal energy fluctuations had reached a super first-class level. He couldn't help but smile and said: "As long as the adults are willing to learn and do not do evil, the poor monk is willing to teach it.
However, the magic of attracting inner demons is not an ordinary secret method. It requires a high level of willpower and cannot be learned in a short time. "
“Thank you, Master.”
While talking, Dugu Qiubai arrived with five masters and many masters of Black Ice Platform.
Looking at Chang'e who was so beautiful and beautiful, everyone present except Dugu Qiubai and Xuanzang were amazed. No one expected that the secret agent Tianzi No. 1 could be such a beautiful woman from all over the world.
“See your lord.”
Except for Dugu Qiubai and Xuanzang, everyone present half-knelt down to salute Chang'e, who was of a higher rank than them.
“You don’t have to be polite, how are you doing over there?” Chang’e asked.
Ren Qianxinghui reported: "Your Majesty, Zhu Tianpeng's 500 guards have all been killed, and no one has escaped, while 16 of our troops have been killed..."
Zhu Tianpeng's five hundred guards were elite urban men. One hundred black ice platform swordsmen were able to annihilate them all in a one-on-five situation, and only sixteen people died. This result was quite impressive.
Of course, the ones who contributed the most were Dugu Qiufei and the five grandmasters, otherwise the number of casualties would have been doubled.
As for Zhu Tianpeng’s two grandmaster guards, one is Tang Baichuan, the elder of the Tang Sect in middle Shu, and the other is Woxing, the director of the Sun Moon Sect.
The former was killed by Dugu Qiubai's sword, while the latter died under Ye Gucheng's flying immortal.
“Your Majesty, although the remaining Qi King’s guards have been wiped out, Zhu Tianpeng sent many people to break out in advance to ask for help. These people were not killed by us.” Ye Guchenghui reported.
After hearing this, Chang'e said: "There were eight people sent by Zhu Tianpeng to ask for help, and they all died at the hands of my own officials."
Everyone understood after hearing this, but when they think about it, Tianzi No. 1 has been lurking for so many years, and now it is finally closing the net. How can these little pawns be allowed to do bad things?
Next, Chang'e ordered all the corpses to be gathered together, treated with corpse powder, destroyed the corpses to eliminate traces, and then directed everyone to erase the traces of the battle.
After handling everything neatly, Chang'e and others took Zhu Tianpeng and headed east to the coastal area, where there were ships to pick them up and return to Qingbei.
The next day, when the Prince of Qi's Mansion in Linzi saw that Zhu Tianpeng had not returned, he immediately sent a message to the navy and asked if the Prince of Qi had left, but received a reply that the Prince of Qi had left.
Calculating time, King Qi should have returned to Linzi long ago after reviewing the army, but he failed to return and lost contact.
Anyone with a brain can tell that something must have happened to King Qi, otherwise he would have lost contact in the country without saying a word, so he quickly sent people to search.
But after searching for two days, there was still no trace of King Qi, not even the 500 guards.
More than 500 living people just disappeared out of thin air. No one was alive or dead, and no corpses were found. This caused an explosion among the top officials of Qi and Ming.
Many radicals among those who opposed the merger of the two countries believed that Zhu Di secretly murdered the King of Qi. After all, there were 5,000 Ming troops stationed in Qi County, commanded by General Fu Youde.
Fu Youde was fully capable of setting up an ambush on King Qi's return journey, and then destroyed the corpse without revealing any traces.
But there are also many calm people who feel that Zhu Di's doing this will do more harm than good, and it is unlikely that Zhu Di sent someone to do it.
Just when the quarrel between the two sides got out of hand, the grumpy Wang Yantong led an army of 10,000 to surround Fu Youde, demanding that Fu Youde prove his innocence.
This is a false story. How could Fu Youde prove his innocence? Did he perform a dissection and see how many bowls of powder were inside?
Fu Youde is not that stupid, so naturally he cannot be captured without hesitation.
The conflict between the two sides intensified, and there was even a tendency to start a direct war. At the critical moment, Wang Yanzhang arrived in time and stopped Wang Yantong, which resolved a civil war.
Wang Yantong was persuaded to retreat by Wang Yanzhang. Although Fu Youde gave him a breath of relief, neither he nor Zhu Ming would be able to prove their intelligence unless traces of Zhu Tianpeng were found.
At the same time that the Qi State was in a quarrel, the Ming State in Xuzhou also exploded.
After discussing with Fan Zeng, Zhu Di was originally prepared to give up all the military power of the generals and just take back the political power. However, he did not expect that Zhu Tianpeng disappeared at such a critical moment.
The conflict between the two factions of Qi and Ming was already great. Now that the leader Zhu Tianpeng has disappeared, many people in the Qi faction have suspected Zhu Di, which made Zhu Di cry out for injustice.
Zhu Tianpeng is the biggest promoter of the merger of the two countries. No matter how stupid Zhu Di is, he can't touch Zhu Tianpeng, otherwise he will break his own arm.
Zhu Di knew this, as did Fan Zeng and other senior officials of Zhu Ming, but the senior officials of Qi State may not know this, or they may deliberately pretend not to know.
All in all, for Zhu Di and the Ming Dynasty, the top priority is to stabilize the top leaders of Qi State, otherwise the merger of the two countries is likely to be completely blown.
After discussing with his advisers, Zhu Di decided to go to Linzi alone to negotiate with the senior officials of Qi State. In this way, he could prove his innocence and also show his sincerity.
Zhu Di's move was quite risky. He was likely to be detained or directly killed by the irrational Qi army on this trip, but no matter how high the risk was, he would still give it a try.
The two countries of Qi and Ming Dynasty must not fight internally, otherwise once the Qin army goes south, both countries will be destroyed by Qin.
So, no matter how big the risk is, Zhu Di must give it a try.
Just when Zhu Di entered Linzi alone in order to appease the senior officials of the Qi State and started a verbal battle with the civil and military officials of the Qi State, Chang'e had already returned to Luoyang with Zhu Tianpeng, and was received by Liu Mu as soon as she returned.
(End of this chapter)