Stealing the Heavens

The peak of the mountain was reflecting bright sunshine and stood out, in stark contrast to the deep blue sky behind it. A muddy, winding road crossed along the foot of the mountain, and there were rarely any travelers on it.

Wearing a standard armor and a custom long sword, Wu Qi was riding on a deer with a single horn on its head, examining the windy road beneath him. The deer was nibbling on some moss on a rock, grinding its teeth against the said rock.

Maybe the moss was not delicious, the deer snorted unhappily and whipped its long tail out and hit Doggie on his face.

(Side note: If you forgot who is Doggie, refer to Chapter 7)

Doggie wiped his nose. He was wearing the same standard armor of the City Guards, and wore a smile on his face. He pushed the deer tail away, then extended his hand and proudly stroked a twelve-feet-tall battle ax that was there beside him. The head of the ax was almost three feet in length. Without even needing to swing it, one could already tell how much damage this ax could cause.

One month ago, after the night of the assassin incident, Yi Yan and his brothers had stopped all their dirty tricks completely. They began to party every night, in an almost hysterical condition, playing and torturing their servant ladies and maids wantonly, as if they wanted to live their luxurious and extravagant lives for the few days they still could.

Within a month, Zhang Hu had brought back all the soldiers of the third battalion from Meng Village. Under the constant persuasion of Lu Chengfeng, Lieutenant Hu Wei, who was the commanding officer of the third battalion, joined him as his third hanger-on. Those five hundred elite soldiers under him had become Lu Chengfeng’s personal guards.

Not just them, Zhang Hu had also brought back six hundred strong young men from Meng Village, including Doggie. All of them were endurance filled men who could fight. With the stationed four thousand soldiers from Little Meng City, together with a huge amount of money and food sent by Wu Qi, Meng Village no longer needed so many strong young men to protect their village. Therefore, the elders of Meng Village had wisely agreed to send the six hundred strongest young villagers to Little Meng City.

No matter how hard they worked in Meng Village, they were still just a villager. By joining Lu Chengfeng and working in Little Meng City, these villagers might build themselves a brighter future. Those elders in Meng Village had wise minds, and their decision was wise too. These six hundred strong young men had been grouped into Lu Chengfeng’s personal guard on the day they arrived. Besides this, Lu Chengfeng also took out a book, which was a secret skill of the Lu Family – ‘Mighty Ox Strength’ and gave it to these men from Meng Village.

One month later, the punishments for Yi Yan and his brothers, that had been decided by the King of the Lu Kingdom, arrived in Little Meng City. Corruption and abuse of the law, failure to perform their duties, etc… Yi Yan and his brothers had been sentenced for many offenses. As expected, Yi Yan himself had been removed from the position of Mayor, and Lu Chengfeng was appointed as the acting Mayor.

Everything ran according to Wu Qi’s plan, except the punishments for Yi Yan brothers. The attitude of King Lu made Wu Qi puzzled. The Yi brothers didn’t suffer from any further punishments, and were only ordered to return to the Yi Family and shut themselves up to ponder over their own mistakes. Obviously, the Yi Family had used their connections to influence the decisions of their punishments. In the end, besides losing their jobs, they weren’t required to be held responsible for any other matters.

“A snake will bite the hand of he who spared its life, the Yi brothers must die!”

Wu Qi sat firmly on the single horn deer, narrowing his eyes and looked far off in the direction of Little Meng City. This place was three hundred miles away from Little Meng City, and it was the only road that led to it. If Yi Yan and his men wanted to return to Ruyang, this was the only road they could use.

Doggie, with the same silly smile on his face, stroked the big ax again, then slammed on Wu Qi’s shoulder with his hand and asked, “Big brother, when will the men you want to kill arrive?”

Wu Qi remained silent and thought for a while, then he nodded his head slowly and said, “Maybe another hour? They had too many coaches, and with so many women and other family members, plus the current road conditions, they won’t be reaching here for a while.”

Patting on Doggie’s shoulder, Wu Qi frowned and said, “Doggie, didn’t big brother Zhang Hu mention that we only want adults when he was at Meng Village? Why did you come back with him?”

Doggie’s smile suddenly disappeared, and, said with a deep voice, “My dad died; I need to support my mom and my younger siblings. By coming to Little Meng City, the acting Mayor will pay me well. Also, I can practice the ‘Mighty Ox Strength’ skill that the young master gave us. This is so much more powerful than the inherited skill of Meng Village, so why shouldn’t I come here?”

Clenching his fists tight on the ax, Doggie raised his head up proudly and stared at a passing cloud. With a smile, he said, “All the uncles in the village told me that women outside of Meng Village are tastier! I want to earn a lot of money, then I’ll buy few women from outside of the mountain and bring them back to Meng Village. I want to have children, a lot of my own children!”

Wu Q’s face became rigid instantly. Doggie’s ambitious dream had made him recall Le Xiaobai. There was once when Le Xiaobai stood in front of the famous red light district in Amsterdam, Netherland, raised up his head up and shouted, “Give me women, I want a lot of women!”

Breathing out a long sigh, Wu Qi spoke helplessly, “Your name, Doggie, is an awful name. Let me give you a new name? … How about Meng Xiaobai?”

Doggie nodded his head indifferently. He couldn’t tell if the name was good or bad, he replied straightforwardly, “Meng Xiaobai? Sounds good, so I’m Meng Xiaobai from now on!” He turned around and told the group of muscular men behind happily, “Folks, from now on I’m Meng Xiaobai… This is the name big brother Wu Qi gave!”

These muscular men were separated up into smaller groups of ten and were drinking some hard liquor happily. When they heard what Meng Xiaobai said, all of them raised their wine sacks high up and cheered. With extreme excitement, these men finished all the liquor in their wine sacks. Their faces turned red and their necks became thicker in an instant, the veins on them expanded visibly.

These tough guys were like a pack of mad bulls. With just a command from Wu Qi, they would sprint forward and rip everything apart.

Mighty Ox Strength, the secret skill from the Lu Family, it was a perfect match for these tough and simple men from Meng Village. After just practicing it for over twenty days, these men had become fearless, like those mad bulls, ready to strike on a waving red cloth.

Hu Wei and his five hundred elite soldiers from the third battalion were waiting quietly in the woods beside them. All of them remained silent, like a hill, and not a single movement could be seen. Even the Raptors they were riding were standing firm and quiet, occasionally swinging their tails to chase away some small bugs.

Compared to the men from Meng Village, who were like hot boiling lava, the third battalion was like a silent iceberg; each and every single one carried a frightening force of devastation.

A parade of coaches and horses gradually appeared at the end of the road. There were more than a hundred coaches in this parade, and three hundred cavalries were riding along beside them. The snake-like parade was moving slowly in Wu Qi’s direction. The Yi brothers had finally come.

Within this parade, aside from all the relatives, servants, and guards of the Yi family, there was also an emissary from the Capital of the Lu Kingdom, who was here to announce the punishment, and a team of more than a hundred people from the Yi Family who were following along as well. These Yi Family men came from Ruyang purposely to fetch and escort the Yi brothers back home.

“I wonder, will there be any assassins among these people?” Wu Qi stared at the parade, then he gave a signal with a hand gesture.

A man from Meng Village sprinted into the woods, then made a sharp and ear-splitting whistle that carried a strange tone. In the next second, a continuous whistling sound came from the woods afar, and the whistle sound kept passing farther and farther until it could be heard in a narrow valley along the road.

When Yi Yan’s parade was nearing the valley, a strange howl suddenly came out from it. In an instant, numerous razor sharp arrows had shot out from the valley toward the Yi Family’s parade.

Together with the weird howling and cheering sound, more than two thousand barbarians were dancing and hopping around in joy, holding all kinds of weapons in their hands and rushing out of the valley. Behind these barbarian strikers, a few hundred barbarians kept shooting arrows with the bows in their hands, sending those poisonous arrows into the sky in front of them.

Although the villagers of Meng Village had a deep-seated hatred with these barbarians, after living in the depths of Meng Mountain for generations, they had developed a secret relationship with a few barbarian clans. A lot of rare and precious materials were harvested by these barbarians in the most remote areas of Meng mountain and traded with Meng Village.

Therefore, with the help of these barbarians who had a secret relationship with Meng Village, they managed to manipulate the real barbarians into setting up a trap along the roadside, ready to ambush a parade of coaches which was allegedly full of salts, foods, and beautiful women.

With Wu Qi’s careful and brilliant planning, these nearly three thousand barbarians never suspected that they were being used by someone else; they just stayed hiding happily in the valley. Right now, when they heard the signal, they immediately rushed out without hesitation and initiated the crazy and brutal attack toward Yi Yan’s coaches.

Those poor guards of Yi Family, before they could find out who was the attacker, those arrows had rained down upon them like a storm, killing nearly half of them. Wu Qi had witnessed the power of these arrows before. Once they hit someone, the person would have his body begin to shrink almost immediately, his blood turning into some nasty dirty liquid and splashing out in an instant.

The cries of pain never stopped as more and more guards got killed every second. Facing the attacks of these barbarians, those guards’ reactions were obviously slower.

These guards were brought here for the Yi brothers by their family, and were not that good at fighting. The biggest help for Yi Yan in Little Meng City were actually those guards who betrayed him. Those warriors, who had lived for a long time in Little Meng City, were the ones who had the most combat experience and strongest abilities.

The barbarians flocked towards Yi Yan’s coaches in the thousands, and surrounded all of them. After a round of countless blades slashing and axes chopping, all of Yi Yan’s guards were killed on the spot. A few coaches were pulled to the roadside by these barbarians and had their door curtains tear down. The cries of women from these coaches stimulated these barbarians to attack even harder.

Luckily, the Yi Family had sent a team of guards from Ruyang to protect Yi Yan. These guards were the elites of the Yi Family. Their equipment, cultivation level, and fighting spirits were far above the level of those sissy guards from before.

Nearly hundreds of these guards had gathered around Yi Yan, Yi De, Yi Xing, and Yi Cu, forming a huge round-shaped formation, and they started moving slowly to the side of the road. They were heading to a field with large rocks scattered through it. With the strength of these guards, if they could get to that field and stay in a group, they could defend themselves and fight off these barbarians.

But, something that could bring ultimate despair to Yi Yan and his siblings finally happened!

Three barbarian leaders suddenly rushed out from valley, each holding a bone flute, a bone staff, and a bone blade. These weapons unleashed a gruesome and shivering breeze, an ear-splitting ghostly howl, and a six-foot long, grayish blade beam respectively towards Yi Yan’s group.

The howling noise of the bone flute could disperse the soul of a human. The freezing breeze from the bone staff could suck out one’s bone marrow. On the other hand, the blade beam of the bone blade always targeted at one’s neck. In just the blink of an eye, seventeen elite guards of the Yi Family had been killed. All of them had their head chopped down by the blade beam, and their souls and bone marrow were dispersed and sucked away by the chilling breeze and ghostly howl.

An insidious sneer suddenly came out from one of the coaches. In the next second, four faded shadowy figures burst out from the coach.

Wu Qi kept nodding his head. So Yi Family really had sent new assassins to protect Yi Yan and his brothers! Raising his hand slowly, Wu Qi sneered and said, “Everybody get ready. Slaughter every single person down there!”

The men from Meng Village got on their single horn deer, and the soldiers of the third battalion got on their Raptors. With Wu Qi leading from the front, all of the men descended from the mountain slowly, getting closer to the battlefield quietly.