Please call me Your Majesty!

Chapter 232: Out of the Wolf's Den and Into the Tiger's Lair
Chu Shizhao did not hesitate at all and directly gave orders to Hengyi and others who were following behind him.

Hearing the noise, Hengyi immediately handed over an oil paper bag that he had prepared in advance.

As Chu Shizhao sprinkled the realgar powder, the rotten corpses scattered and fled as if they had touched something terrible.

After getting rid of these guys, Chu Shizhao and the others continued to swim towards the other side of the river.

Soon, they passed the Black Water River silently.

When they reach the other side safely.

The mute slaves who were originally hiding in the bushes were still attacking the rafts floating in the river.

Seeing that his side had not been exposed, Chu Shizhao immediately gave a decisive order.

"Do it!"

As he spoke, Chu Shizhao raised his hand, took out a thunder and fire bomb from the water bag on his body, and threw it out.

Behind him, Heng Yi and others who came with him also followed Chu Shizhao's example and threw out all the thunder and fire bombs they carried with them.

"Whoosh whoosh!"

Accompanied by a series of explosions.

The thunder and fire bomb that fell into the distant bushes exploded with a loud bang.

You know, those mute slaves hiding in the bushes never thought that someone would suddenly attack them.

Therefore, when the explosion sounded, they were instantly thrown into chaos.

Wait until the explosions stop.

Chu Shizhao immediately drew his sword.

"Kill me!"

Give an order.

Then he took Hengyi and a group of bodyguards and rushed towards the opposite side.

However, just as they were dealing with this group of mute slaves.

At this moment, hundreds of human skin lanterns suddenly hung down from the cliff nearby.

"Be careful, it's a poisonous bee!"

"Prepare the insect repellent powder!"

Chu Shizhao had witnessed the power of these poisonous bees during his simulations.

He immediately reminded him.

However, even after he discovered the abnormality, he immediately spoke out to remind them.

But after all, it was still a step too late.

The human skin lantern shattered the moment it hit the ground.

The next second, countless poisonous bees scattered in all directions.

In an instant, a "rain of poisonous bee arrows" formed and rushed towards Chu Shizhao and the others.

"Sprinkle insect repellent powder! Protect your head with a shield!"

Chu Shizhao sprinkled the prepared insect repellent powder while protecting his head.

A dense swarm of poisonous bees flew over with a crackling sound.

However, they used shields and insect repellent powder to block most of the poisonous bees.

But there are still some fish that slip through the net and sting the guards directly.

Listening to the screams coming from behind.

Chu Shizhao couldn't help but curse in his heart.

Prime Minister Xiao really used all kinds of shady tricks.

As he was cursing, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back.

He reached out and touched it, and it turned out to be a poisoned arrow!
Then Chu Shizhao’s eyes went dark, his body swayed, and he almost fell down.

"Your Highness!"

When Hengyi saw this situation, he directly used his body to block Chu Shizhao.

"Whoosh!"

At this moment, another poisonous arrow shot towards the two of them.

Before Chu Shizhao could use his shield to block.

The poison arrow went straight through Hengyi's shoulder.

"Heng Yi!"

"Your Highness... hurry... go..."

Hengyi gritted his teeth in pain, pulled out the poison arrow, and urged.

However, before they could leave, a bell sound suddenly came from the cliff where the human skin lantern had fallen.

Thick fog suddenly appeared all around.

On the cliff at the end of the thick fog.

Seven bronze chimes make a buzzing sound.

Each time a bell rings.

Several poison darts will be shot from different directions around.

Faced with this sudden change, Chu Shizhao and others could only block with their shields.

However, he knew very well that this was not a long-term solution.

They must come up with a solution as soon as possible, otherwise they will all die here.

As he was thinking about it, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back which had been hit by an arrow.

Under the stimulation of severe pain, Chu Shizhao suddenly seemed to think of something.

Bells, poison darts, thick fog...

"Sound wave! It's sonic positioning!"

Thinking of this, Chu Shizhao immediately bit his fingertips and began to draw the deduced sound wave patterns on the shield with blood.

"Hit the shield according to the pattern I drew!"

Chu Shizhao yelled at the guards around him.

Although the guards did not understand Chu Shizhao's intention, they carried out the order without hesitation.

They struck their shields in a specific rhythm.

In an instant, the sound of strikes on the shields merged with the hum of the chimes.

A set of chimes hanging on the cliff at the end of the thick fog suddenly exploded.

"It really works!"

"Don't stop, keep going!"

Seeing that his inference was correct, Chu Shizhao immediately continued to command his guards to strike their shields.

As the chimes were shattered one after another.

Poison darts also gradually decreased.

At this moment, the rocks above the cliff suddenly loosened.

"Oh no! It's a landslide!"

A guard shouted in horror.

Suddenly, a huge rock fell from the sky and hit Chu Shizhao and others.

At the critical moment, Hengyi suddenly stood up and used all his strength to wrap a steel wire around the fallen rock.

She didn't care about the wound on her shoulder.

He shouted at Chu Shizhao, "Your Highness! Go!"

"Heng Yi!"

Chu Shizhao understood that Hengyi was using his own life to buy him time to escape.

"Everyone, hold on to the ropes and follow me!"

"Don't fall behind!"

Chu Shizhao roared and rushed into the thick fog first.

The thick fog dissipated, and Chu Shizhao and his group finally escaped from Longji Gorge.

We came to a simple tea shed at the exit of the canyon.

They were all in tattered clothes and covered in wounds. "Your Highness, are you okay?"

Hengyi also caught up.

He looked at Chu Shizhao with some concern.

Although he had blocked the previous falling rocks, he was still inevitably hit by some huge rocks.

You know, Chu Shizhao’s previous injury has not healed yet.

She didn't want Chu Shizhao to incur new injuries before his old ones healed.

Seeing that the other party cared about him, Chu Shizhao immediately shook his head, indicating that he was fine.

He looked around and found that only a few of his personal guards survived, and the rest were buried in Dragon's Back Gorge.

"Ugh……"

Chu Shizhao sighed with some reluctance.

Even though he had already deduced the situation beforehand, this sudden assassination still caused him to lose a lot of manpower.

From this point of view, Concubine Xiao and Prime Minister Xiao really went to great lengths to save his life.

He was thinking about it.

At this time, in a tea stall beside the official road in the distance.

A middle-aged woman dressed as a proprietress walked towards them.

"Dear guests, you have worked hard on the journey. Please come in and have a cup of tea."

The proprietress greeted warmly.

Chu Shizhao and others were already thirsty.

So he walked into the tea stall and found a place to sit down.

The proprietress quickly brought a few bowls of steaming hot tea and placed them in front of everyone.

"Please use it for your convenience."

The proprietress said with a smile, but her eyes stayed on Chu Shizhao for a moment.

Here, Chu Shizhao picked up the tea bowl and was about to drink water.

However, when he brought the tea bowl to his lips, he faintly smelled a strange odor.

"Oh no, the water is poisonous!"

Chu Shizhao noticed something unusual and splashed the tea directly at the proprietress while speaking.

The proprietress was caught off guard and had tea splashed all over her, and she screamed immediately.

"what are you doing!"

The proprietress glared at Chu Shizhao.

Chu Shizhao sneered, grabbed the boss lady's collar, and shouted: "Tell me! Who sent you here!"

The sudden change made the proprietress panic.

Maybe it was too sudden.

She subconsciously spoke fluent Northern Di language.

"you……"

Before the other party could finish his words, he realized instantly that he was exposed.

Without any hesitation, the proprietress acted decisively and bit open the poison sac hidden in her mouth.

In an instant, she began to foam at the mouth and was about to die.

The proprietress's face had begun to turn blue, and black blood was flowing from her seven orifices.

"Your Highness, the circumstances of this woman's death are somewhat strange."

Chu Shizhao looked at the dead body of the proprietress and directly started the [Emperor Growth Plan].

Chu Shizhao sat in the teahouse, frowning as he thought. He recalled the Northern Di language the proprietress had spoken just now, and came up with a bold guess.

[The Black Snake organization is the most mysterious assassin organization in Beidi. Their assassins will spit out black blood before they die. The death of the boss lady just now is completely consistent with the characteristics of the Black Snake organization.]

[He recalled that a few months ago, Prime Minister Xiao had been sent as an envoy of the Great Zhou to the Northern Di. Ostensibly for peace talks, but for some reason the delegation that went to the Northern Di stayed in the Northern Di for more than a month.]

[Chu Shizhao sent spies to Beidi to investigate and found that Prime Minister Xiao had secretly met with several Beidi people dressed as merchants during the peace talks]

[After hearing the news, Chu Shizhao connected the ambush he encountered in Longji Gorge with the assassins' methods of attack and poison use, which seemed to be unique methods mastered by the Beidi people.]

[Finally, Chu Shizhao came to the conclusion that in order to deal with him, the Xiao father and daughter may have colluded with Beidi's "Black Snake" organization]

As the deduction ended, Chu Shizhao immediately fell into deep thought.

He connected all the clues together.

Finally come to a conclusion.

If things are really as he guessed, then this matter is probably far more complicated than it seems.

Beidi is a big country. Since they are able to cooperate with Xiao's father and daughter, the conspiracy behind this must be quite big.

If he guessed correctly, these people most likely wanted to use the Xiao father and daughter to get rid of him, and then take advantage of the internal chaos in the Great Zhou to slip in.

However, now only Beidi's "Black Snake" organization has participated.

It is obviously unrealistic to bring down this father and daughter based on this alone.

After all, both Concubine Xiao and Prime Minister Xiao held important positions in the Great Zhou. If there was no solid evidence and only based on their own speculations, at most it would cause Emperor Yongjin to have some doubts.

Chu Shizhao was well aware of the principle that if you fail to kill a snake, you will be bitten by it instead.

Therefore, he must not easily reveal his cards before there is solid evidence.

However, there is still room for easing of the situation.

According to Chu Shizhao's understanding of the Northern Di, since they have already sent out the 'Black Snake', they will definitely not stop.

If he guessed correctly, there would definitely be other assassination attempts later.

Therefore, in order to know the other party's intentions in advance, it seems necessary to send a few reliable confidants to go deep into Beidi to investigate.

[After Chu Shizhao realized that Concubine Xiao and her daughter might have reached an agreement with Beidi, he immediately sent his confidant to Beidi to get information.]

[Soon, Chu Shizhao received a pigeon message from a spy, saying that Beidi had been frequently mobilizing troops on the border recently, and some important members of the "Black Snake" organization had also appeared in the border area.]

[Chu Shizhao continued to move forward, and he encountered another wave of assassinations on the way. The assassins were all very skilled, and the hidden weapons they used were all poisoned.]

[The guards fought hard, but because the enemy was well prepared, the situation gradually turned against Chu Shizhao's side.]

[At the critical moment, Chu Shizhao and his team discovered a hidden cave. ]

[Chu Shizhao led Hengyi and his personal guards to hide in a cave, temporarily escaping the pursuit]

As the deduction ended, Chu Shizhao fell into deep thought again.

The assassination attempt encountered during this simulation was enough to prove that his previous speculation was not groundless.

As it turned out, the Black Snake Organization should have reached some kind of agreement with Concubine Xiao and her daughter.

This can be verified from the moves and tactics used by the killers he had encountered before, as well as the ways they used poison.

However, what shocked him the most was not this. What shocked him the most was the information sent back by the spies during this simulation.

In recent times, the Northern Di army on the border of the Great Zhou has been frequently mobilized.

It looks like they are preparing for a carefully planned large-scale operation.

From this perspective, Chu Shizhao was even more certain that the Xiao father and daughter must have colluded with some powerful figure in the Beidi royal family in order to deal with him.

Things have come to this point and it is no longer as simple as the personal grudge between Chu Shizhao and Concubine Xiao.

Time is running out, in order to find out as soon as possible what kind of shady dealings Concubine Xiao and her gang have reached with the Northern Di.

He made the following adjustments in his next game.

The first thing to do is to speed up the return to the capital, and at the same time send people to report the unusual movements of the Northern Di to various border checkpoints to let the generals be vigilant.

Secondly, you need to arrange a few people who are good at detoxification in the team to prevent another poison attack.

The most important thing is to find reliable allies on the way back to Beijing. Only by expanding one's own strength can one take the initiative in the next contest.

The Xiao father and daughter actually dared to collude with foreign enemies for their own selfish interests and covet the kingdom that belongs to them. Chu Shizhao absolutely cannot let these two guys go easily.

[After Chu Shizhao learned that Concubine Xiao and her daughter had reached an agreement with the Northern Di, he immediately ordered the entire army to speed up the march and remain highly vigilant along the way.]

[The scouts in the team kept exploring the way ahead, fearing another ambush.]

[On their way back to Beijing, they passed by a small town called Qingshi Town and found that the whole town was quiet and there was no one on the streets.]

[According to Chu Shizhao's memory when he came here, the market that should have been bustling in the past now only has a few broken flags swaying in the wind, which looks particularly strange.]

[When Chu Shizhao and others just stepped into the center of the town, a large number of people in black suddenly emerged from all directions.]

[These people held sharp blades and moved in unison to surround Chu Shizhao and his party. The street exit was also quickly blocked.]

(End of this chapter)