185 Six Sword Tokens, Mysterious Invitation
After the empress left, the members of the Sin Camp and Lin Ran heaved a sigh of relief.
When he could no longer see the empress and Guo Fuzhen, Lin Ran looked at the middle-aged man and asked, “You’re a disciple of Mount Baiyun, right?”
“Yes, I’m Yuan Yangguo, the disciple of the Second Elder of Mount Baiyun.”
Yuan Yangguo hurriedly cupped his hands and replied with an excited expression, “I didn’t expect Sword God to still remember me after so long!”
“I remember every one of you.”
!!
Lin Ran smiled and glanced at the more than 400 people in the yard. Although he couldn’t name most of them, they did look familiar.
When everyone heard this, they revealed excited expressions, as if they had obtained a great honor. No one questioned him because he was the Ten Miles Sword God.
After a pause, Lin Ran looked at Yuan Yangguo and asked in a low voice, “How are your casualties?”
At the mention of this, the atmosphere in the crowd became gloomy.
Yuan Yangguo tried his best to reply in a relaxed tone, “On the first day we came, we didn’t know the situation well and lost a lot of people, but the situation quickly improved. There are still 451 people left out of the 500.”
Lin Ran nodded. “Make a list of those who died. I’ll ask His Majesty to pardon them and hold a funeral for them.”
“On behalf of those 49 brothers, thank you, Sword God!”
Yuan Yangguo immediately knelt down to thank him. The other martial artists in the courtyard also knelt down.
Just as Yuan Yangguo had said, they were sinners. If Lin Ran hadn’t given them this chance, they would have long died under his sword.
Once they rebelled, their families and even their descendants would be implicated!
However, if they could obtain the empress’s pardon, these problems would be resolved. This was also one of the important reasons why they were willing to agree to go to war.
“Get up. We agreed on this long ago.”
Lin Ran waved his hand and continued to ask Yuan Yangguo, “Speaking of which, why are you here? According to the agreement, you’re not allowed to appear anywhere outside the battlefield. After the war ends, you have to return to your sects immediately.”
Yuan Yangguo’s expression tightened. “Sword God, we planned to leave after the Great Yong Dynasty retreated, but someone came to us with your sword token and asked us to wait for you here.”
As he spoke, Yuan Yangguo took out a small jade sword. Although the sword intent in it had dissipated, Lin Ran could still recognize it as his sword token.
“Wait for me here?”
Lin Ran frowned, feeling that something was wrong.
He gave Huo Qiyun a total of six sword tokens. One of them was in the hands of the empress, and the other five were in the hands of the five people in charge of the sin camp.
This idea was suggested by Huo Qiyun. With more people communicating, the Sin Camp would be able to react faster. Yuan Yangguo was one of the five people in charge.
While Lin Ran was deep in thought, Yuan Yangguo waved at the crowd. Four more people walked out, each holding a sword token.
Seeing the sword token the four of them were holding, Lin Ran felt that something was wrong. At this moment, Yuan Yangguo reached into his pocket again and took out an identical sword token.
“Six?!”
Lin Ran subconsciously exclaimed. He had only given Huo Qiyun a total of six sword tokens. One of them was in the empress’s hand now. There should only be five here!
“We also think that this is very strange.”
Yuan Yangguo said in a low voice with a complicated expression, “You only chose the five of us, so including Young Master Huo, there should only be six sword tokens.”
Lin Ran immediately caught the main point. “Isn’t Huo Qiyun the one who went to see you?”
Yuan Yangguo nodded and took out a small portrait from his sleeve. The lines were simple, but it was very vivid.
Lin Ran took the portrait and studied it for a moment. It was impossible to tell the age of the person from the portrait, but Lin Ran was certain that he had no impression of this person.
At the same time, Lin Ran realized something else. The six sword tokens here were not from the same batch.
The sword tokens in the hands of Yuan Yangguo and the other four people in charge were relatively new, and the one in Lin Ran’s hand, which was given to Yuan Yangguo by the mysterious person, was already slightly worn.
“Zou Hao?”
Lin Ran suddenly thought of the sect master of the Dao Seeking Sect, Zou Hao.
Previously, when he and Huo Qiyun went to the Dao Seeking Sect to visit, he had stored the cultivation technique “Sword Flight” in a sword token and left it to the Dao Seeking Sect.
These sword tokens were carved by Lin Ran using his sword intent. There were subtle differences between each sword token, so it was impossible for them to be fake.
However, the person in the portrait was clearly not Zou Hao. Could it be that he was in danger or was already under someone’s control, so he used this method to ask him for help?
Thinking of what he had asked Zou Hao to investigate, Lin Ran’s expression subconsciously turned solemn.
Lin Ran already knew that Liu Hongshan was the one who turned more than 3,000 people into bones near Mount Sword back then, but Zou Hao didn’t know that he had already found out the truth. It was very likely that he was in danger during the investigation!
“Where did you see this person?”
Lin Ran asked in a low voice. Since the other party wanted to meet him, he might still be waiting there!
Yuan Yangguo turned around and pointed at the city wall. “North of the city wall, 70 miles away.”
Lin Ran frowned. “”Within the Great Yong Dynasty’s territory?”
“Yes.”
Yuan Yangguo nodded. He lowered his voice and said, “At that time, we were chasing a group of deserters from the Great Yong Dynasty and unknowingly crossed the border.”
“Those deserters were led by a lieutenant. There were about 200 of them and they were very strong, but in the end, they were all wiped out by us in a forest… That was when this person appeared.”
Yuan Yangguo pointed at the portrait in Lin Ran’s hand with a hint of fear on his face. “He appeared among us out of thin air. At that time, there were more than 70 of us, but no one knew where he came from.”
Lin Ran narrowed his eyes. To be able to avoid the divine sense of a ninth level Senior Martial Master, this person had to be at least a Senior Grandmaster!
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢