Nine dragons fight for the throne, I don't want to sit on this throne

The news that Chu Ning wanted to expand his troops spread quickly.

At first, the people in the city were only half-believing and half-doubting.

It was not until the afternoon when a notice was posted at the city gate that the people believed that the State of Chu really wanted to expand its strength.

At once, many young men headed towards the military camp.

The notice clearly stated that military pay would increase in the future and that pensions would also be very generous.

Even if you don't survive the battle, the pension alone can provide your family with peace of mind for twenty years.

Such generous conditions naturally attracted many adult men.

By evening, many men who wanted to join the army gathered in the military camps outside and inside the city.

Because there were too many people, the court was forced to lift the curfew.

Originally, no pedestrians were allowed on the streets of Kyoto at night, but because of the special circumstances today, the court ordered that there would be no curfew within a month.

But it was this order that laid the seeds for what happened next.

Without a curfew, the dignitaries in the city would naturally not miss such a good opportunity. They took the opportunity to call their friends and either go to a restaurant or go to the Red Mansion to listen to music.

After several years of development, the State of Chu has not only become powerful, but its domestic economy is also very prosperous.

The women in the Red Mansion are not from the state of Chu, but rather Kabuki from the destroyed states of Zhao, Yan and Qin.

After a period of education, these women became the signature of the Red Mansion, used to recruit high-ranking officials and nobles.

The Chu court turned a blind eye to this.

On the one hand, it’s because these women are really good, and there are many people among them who go.

Secondly, the Red Mansion paid a lot of taxes, and the imperial court could not take action against it.

After the curfew was lifted, the business at the Red House that night was many times more than before.

As dusk fell, Zhuque Street in the capital of Chu had already turned into a fire dragon.

The decree to lift the curfew in order to recruit new soldiers threw this thousand-year-old capital into a frenzy.

Under the nine-tiered eaves of Hongyufang, thirty-six glazed palace lanterns light up one after another, making the words "A Thousand Gold for a Drunkenness" on the gilded plaque look like flowing gold.

Zhou Shang led his camel through the colorful silk curtains, and the sound of the silver bell anklets of the Zhao dancers colliding with the amber of the Liangzhou wine jars could be heard one after another.

The bluestone slabs of Zhuque Street shone with an oily sheen. The scent of sandalwood and horse manure left by the Zhou merchants' camel caravan during the day was now swallowed up by the ambergris wafting from Hongyufang.

Seventy-two brothels and theaters were lined up along the Imperial River. The colored glass lanterns set up by the merchants from the Zhou State swayed in the evening breeze, dyeing the sparkling waves into pieces of gold.

The carved wooden window on the third floor suddenly opened, and the spilled wine drew a bloody arc in the air, causing the drunken dancer downstairs to point at the sky and laugh foolishly.

The "Yunhe Pavilion" on the third floor is particularly quiet.

Dugu Yan leaned on a rosewood couch inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tapping lightly on a porcelain vase with ice crackles with her fingertips. The white plum blossoms in the vase contrasted beautifully with the painting "Fishing Alone on a Cold River" on the screen.

Sixteen gold-inlaid bronze lamps illuminated the room in great detail, making the silver lines on the young men's embroidered robes look like rippling water.

"This 'White Dew Ballad' is truly wonderful."

The second son of the Minister of Personnel, Lü Chang, suddenly broke the silence, holding a luminous cup filled with half a pool of fine grape wine: "It is said that the women of Zhao are good at music. Listening to the pipa today can actually remind me of the autumn moon in the old capital."

Before he finished speaking, the woman in plain clothes holding the scorched-tail pipa suddenly changed her fingering. The strings sounded like tearing silk, and a line of green smoke rose from the gilded incense burner.

Dugu Yan narrowed her eyes.

The jade hairpin in the woman's hair was carved with a pattern of a black bird holding a pearl, and it glowed with a faint blue light in the candlelight - this was the most popular style before the fall of the State of Zhao.

Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly saw the woman's white hands flying, and a cold light flashed in the belly of the pipa.

The first to fall was the young master of the Li family who was sitting on the outermost side. The blood line in his throat was like a cinnabar pen. When his head knocked over the agate chessboard, the black and white jade rolled into the pool of blood that was gradually spreading under the screen.

"It's Han Chan!" Someone screamed and kicked over the table, but the plain figure had already floated to the window like a ghost.

Dugu Yan only felt a chill on the side of his neck. The silver chain wrapped around the woman's fair wrist had turned into a soft steel blade. When the coldness pierced into his collarbone, he actually saw his own reflection in the other's eyes - the golden crown was crooked and the jade belt was loose.

Dugu Yan jumped up the moment the steel blade pierced her collarbone, and the soft sword at her waist popped out.

This cold iron blade, tempered with the blood of Zhao prisoners of war, was now held between the woman's fingers, and the blade reflected the sneer on her lips:

"Dugu's swordsmanship is still so weak and powerless."

Before he could finish his words, the soft sword twisted itself around like a living snake, causing seven bloody wounds to appear on Dugu Yan's right arm, and the bones in his wrist cracked with a teeth-grinding sound.

Lu Chang took the opportunity to pick up the bronze ice jar and smashed it on the woman's back, causing iced bayberries and broken ice to fly all over the sky.

Without even turning her head, the woman swung out a silver chain and wrapped it around the ice mirror. The barbs on the chain suddenly grew three inches, turning the hundred-pound bronze ware into a copper rain all over the sky.

Liu Bing, the eldest son of the Minister of Revenue, took the opportunity to reach for the signal firework at his waist, but was strangled by a pipa string.

The string was actually made of human hair and gold threads. As the woman hooked it with her fingertips, the head rolled to the ground like a ripe fruit.

The ink crane on the screen was dyed red by the splattered blood.

The woman tapped her toes lightly, and her wide sleeves fluttered like a blooming white lotus as she leaped into the air. Silver needles flew out of her sleeves and accurately pierced the back of the neck of anyone who tried to escape.

Lu Chang struggled to grab the bronze wine cup on the table, but saw a flash of cold light, and his entire right hand was broken at the wrist. When the severed palm fell, the five fingers were still twitching, like a fish out of water.

"Try some of Zhaodi's specialties."

Three jade bells flew out of the woman's sleeves. The moment they were shattered by Dugu Yan's sword, purple poisonous mist suddenly filled the air.

The young marquis of the Lu family had bulging eyes and he scratched his throat as he fell into the gilded bathtub. The clear water that originally contained red carp suddenly began to foam with white foam that looked like rotting meat.

Chen Shilang's nephew tried to break the window to call for help, but found that the carved wooden window had been sealed with a black iron chain.

"Do the people of Chu still remember the day when Handan City fell?"

The woman's voice was as clear and cold as broken jade, and when her embroidered shoes stepped over the mess on the ground, there was not a single stain of blood on the hem of her skirt.

She leaned over and took off the jade pendant from Dugu Yan's waist, and her fingertips stroked the flying eagle totem of the Dugu clan on it.

"The blood of 30,000 women and children soaked the 360 steps of Zhao Wang Palace."

After she finished speaking, she suddenly exerted force, and the jade pendant shattered into powder in her palm.

The surviving Master Zheng suddenly jumped up and fired twelve poisonous arrows from the crossbow in his sleeve.

The woman's wide sleeves swirled like white lotuses, and all the poison arrows were nailed into the screen depicting "Night Banquet of Han Xizai".

When she tore apart Master Zheng's spine, she deliberately preserved the last bit of flesh between his head and torso, allowing the remains to "walk" to the window like a puppet, bow to the lights on the street, and then fall heavily onto the spice stall of the Persian merchant.

The last scream came to an abrupt end.

The woman gently rubbed the blood-stained silver chain on the gilded lamppost, and as the blood beads rolled down, they burned black marks on the blue bricks.

She took off the jade hairpin from her temples and sketched on the blood-stained screen a black bird holding a broken sword, its beak pointing in the direction of the imperial city at the end of Suzaku Street.

The night wind blew through the hall, and the bloody curtains fluttered like soul-calling flags. The white figure had long disappeared outside the carved window, leaving only half a jade pendant engraved with the Zhao State phoenix pattern glowing faintly in the pool of blood among the broken limbs on the ground.

A massacre was completed in an instant!