In the grand, bright and magnificent Qin Palace, both the once noble Ying Ziying and the palace maids and attendants were in a state of panic and had no idea what to do.
Even though the palace door was ajar, Ying Ziying could clearly smell an extremely strong smell mixed with fishy stench and ashes.
Since he opened the city and led his army to submit to Liu Ji, this unpleasant smell has never really dissipated. It is conceivable that Liu Ji, who claimed to have done nothing wrong, did not do much to clean up the Qin officials in the palace.
Faintly hearing the painful cries of the palace servants coming from afar, Ziying could not help but close his eyes and rub his frowning brows, helplessly turning a deaf ear to them.
—He can hardly take care of himself right now, so how can he care about others
From the day of surrender, he was led into Huayang Palace to stay temporarily with apparent courtesy, but was actually placed under house arrest, and the former Qin palace maids and attendants were also requisitioned.
The only person who was left behind and was willing to risk his life to find out some news about the Han army was the loyal eunuch named Li.
Ziying then realized that even though he had surrendered easily that day and had Liu Jiken verbally promised to appoint him as the puppet prime minister, there were still many voices in the Han army who wanted to kill him.
As a result, his situation has always been awkward, and he is stuck in an awkward position, neither getting better nor worse, and he doesn't know when the final verdict will come.
Ziying sighed deeply.
It was undoubtedly extremely painful to live a miserable life at this moment, but... he was unwilling to die like this.
Seeing his distinguished master in such pain, the eunuch named Li also felt uncomfortable.
"Please be patient, sir. I will go out now to see if I can find any progress."
Facing his initiative, Ziying nodded tiredly and whispered, "Be sure to be careful."
“Yes.”
The eunuch responded cautiously and slipped out with ease.
As soon as he left, the hall suddenly returned to silence, and Ziying's expression became even gloomier.
Although there were not many guards outside the palace guarding this prince of Former Qin - most of them were concentrated around Liu Ji - the guards outside the palace gate were extremely strict.
Even if he could take advantage of the opportunity to escape from this palace, he would never be able to escape from the heavy guards outside the palace. Once caught, he would be dead for sure.
One is a certain death, the other is a possible chance of survival, Ziying will naturally choose the latter.
The waiting time seemed extremely long. Ziying did not move at all, except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. He was like a cold statue.
I don't know how long it had been, but there was a sudden noise outside the palace gate, followed by the sound of chaotic footsteps gradually fading away.
—What’s going on
Ziying couldn't help but be surprised, and subconsciously felt that something was wrong, and he came to his senses instantly.
Just as he was hesitating, not knowing whether to go out of the palace to check in person or continue waiting inside, the palace door was pushed open with force.
Unexpectedly, a figure in light armor and with an extraordinary tallness strode in. Against the backdrop of the dazzling sunlight that came in through the suddenly opened palace door, he looked even more majestic and impressive.
This man had a clear goal. He walked quickly to the stunned Ziying in the hall, lowered his neatly-defined jaw slightly, and asked sparingly, "King of Qin?"
When he came closer, Ziying, who had been sitting stiffly in his seat, raised his head in a daze and finally saw the man's face clearly.
This man had very deep facial features, a slightly fair complexion, sword-like eyebrows slanting into his temples, deep black eyes, a high nose bridge, and tightly pursed thin lips. Even though he was wearing crude thin armor, it was difficult to hide his strong body with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.
At this moment, he was staring at him without blinking. His eyes and brows clearly showed that he was very young, but his aura was so strong that it almost hit him in the face, and Ziying was shocked to the point that he was speechless for a long time.
The other party was also calm when being stared at. After waiting for a moment, he became impatient and asked again coldly: "Are you the King of Qin?"
—Since he was willing to call himself the King of Qin instead of calling him by his real name, he was obviously not from the Han army.
After Ziying came back to his senses, he had such a guess in his mind and felt that he had been saved.
It is not difficult to guess that the commotion reported by the guards just now was most likely caused by this person.
Such a brave and extraordinary warrior was willing to go alone into the Qin Palace filled with Han troops, and was called king... It could only be that the previous king had foresight and left a life-saving talisman for his bloodline!
Finally blessed with life, Ziying's eyes lit up, he mustered up his energy, stood up proudly and replied: "That's right—"
Just as he started to speak, Ziying would never have dreamed that what he would be greeted with in the next moment was not the kneeling ceremony of his loyal subordinates, but a bright sword light with an extremely fast sound of breaking through the air.
Even though the sword on his waist was just a small broken sword that he had just "taken" from the guard at the door, it was easy for Lu Bu, who was born with great strength and superb swordsmanship, to deal with an unsuspecting and poorly armed former Qin king.
After careful planning and listening carefully, Lu Bu found the right opportunity to sneak into the Qin Palace and target Ziying.
In order to prevent alerting the guards in front of Huayang Palace where Ziying lived and exposing his purpose, he deliberately set fire to Pingyang Palace, which was used by Liu Bang to temporarily store some of the treasures looted from the First Emperor's treasury. This successfully lured away the guards of Huayang Palace, which was closest to him.
The two guards who were left behind couldn't even withstand a single blow from him, so it was naturally impossible for them to defend against his direct advance.
After all, in the eyes of the Han army, the life and death of the Former Qin King, who had only been in office for 46 days, was just a matter of words from General Liu Bang. The palace was full of Han troops, and they only had to guard against the remnants of the Former Qin Army causing trouble. Who would have nothing better to do than assassinate an insignificant person? Naturally, it was impossible to allocate heavy troops for protection.
Lu Bu took advantage of this opportunity and saw the man in gorgeous clothes in the hall at a glance.
Even though there was only one person in the hall dressed like the King of Former Qin, out of caution, Lu Bu decided to ask about his identity in person before taking any action.
After Ziying said this, he was completely sure that this man was indeed the King of Former Qin, so without any hesitation, he swung out the dagger at his waist without blinking, and cut off the head of Ziying, who still had a happy face.
“Sizzle—”
Almost at the moment when the sword blade cut off the flesh and bones and blood spurted out, Lu Bu quickly grabbed the hair ornament on Ziying's head, kicked forward with his right leg, stepped back two steps to the left, and then calmly kicked away the body that had lost its head and spurted out a column of blood, without letting his clothes get splashed at all.
Poor Ziying suffered for a long time in trying to survive, but before he could even utter a scream, he was killed silently at the hands of this evil star who was supposed to appear hundreds of years later.
However, how could Lu Bu, who had killed countless enemies in the battlefields in the previous ten years, care about the feelings of Ziying who died with his eyes open
—Isn’t this enough as a token of his allegiance
He weighed Ziying's head, which was still bleeding, and wrapped it with the tablecloth beside him. He then half-knelt down and searched Ziying's body, and found a small golden token that could at least prove his identity.
In this way, even if the other party cannot recognize his appearance, this gold medal is enough to prove the identity of the owner of the head.
Having successfully achieved his goal, Lu Bu did not linger any longer and left the Qin Palace, which in his eyes was full of loopholes, in a leisurely manner along the way he had sneaked in.
After he had been gone for nearly a quarter of an hour, the Han soldiers who had put out the fire of unknown origin finally returned.
They first saw the bodies of their two comrades and were so frightened that they broke out in cold sweats. They quickly sent someone to notify the general while hurriedly checking the hall.
When the palace door opened, they were completely dumbfounded.
I thought maybe the former king of Qin was rescued by an insider, but unexpectedly, his body was still there, but his head was missing...
The Qin Palace was in chaos, but Lu Bu, the instigator of the incident, had leisurely changed into a set of Han soldier clothes that he had stolen in advance.
He was tall and his face was very different from those around him, so he did not expect to sneak into the army. Instead, he did the opposite and knocked on the door of an ordinary citizen who was afraid and closed his door, and "requisitioned" a piece of cloth and a set of clothes.
He found an alley, wrapped the blood-dried letter of surrender tightly, and threw it over his shoulder.
Who would have thought that the seemingly ordinary bulging bundle was actually a still warm human head
Lu Bu observed patiently for a while, and finally, taking advantage of the lapse in defense caused by the news of the riot, he secretly stole a horse, mixed into the caravan, and followed the sparse crowd towards the city gate.
At this time, entry into the capital was strictly controlled, but exiting the city was rather lax because Liu Bang wanted to demonstrate his benevolence and righteousness as an army. He suppressed his sharp aura and timidly mixed into the caravan, but did not attract much attention and was able to leave the city smoothly.
He did not take the main road, but instead took mountain roads and small paths. His target was also very clear - Xiang Yu's army, which was being blocked outside Hangu Pass by Liu Bang's army.
Although Lü Bu was the leader of a powerful faction and had a period of luxurious life, he had spent more time in the military life of eating and sleeping in the open air. Hunting for food, looking for water and drawing pots, he was just reliving his old dreams and was not unfamiliar at all.
After a few days of hiding, it seemed that they would be able to get out of the pass in one more day...
Lu Bu was lying on the side beside a tree stump, with his legs crossed, gnawing on the remaining roasted rabbit leg, gazing at the bright stars in the sky. What emerged before his eyes were the unforgettable scenes at the White Gate Tower.
First, Hou Cheng, Song Xian and Wei Xu rebelled, and Chen Gong was tied up... Then, when he saw that the situation was hopeless, he asked his subordinates to cut off his head and hand it over to Cao Cao in exchange for his life, but his subordinates were loyal and unwilling to obey, so he went down to the city to surrender...
Lu Bu swallowed the last two bites of rabbit meat and clenched his teeth.
He has always been a flexible person. Since he failed to offer his head to his subordinates and was tied up and brought to Cao Cao like an animal, he just thought that he might as well live on.
Who would have thought that he would volunteer to be Cao's general, and seeing that Cao Cao was already tempted, he was given a stern look by the big-eared thief Liu, who had treated him well in the past, and was deliberately killed...
Damn it!!!
Lu Bu's eyes were blazing with fire, and he unconsciously bit the bare rabbit leg bones, making a crackling sound.
In this world, winners are kings and losers are bandits. He was inferior in skills and was defeated and died at the hands of Cao Cao, but he really had no resentment towards him.
But the person who cut off the last chance of survival that he had to sacrifice his dignity for was actually Big Ear Liu, whom he despised so much!!!
He died with infinite hatred towards Big Ear Liu, but he didn't know whether the evil God was teasing him or took pity on the hero for his unfulfilled ambitions, so he not only turned him back to youth, but also threw him into this desolate place that existed more than 300 years ago.
Why didn't he retreat a little, just a few years, so that he could strike first and cook alive the big-eared Liu who fell into his hands that year? !
Lu Bu threw the rabbit leg bone away in anger and wiped his greasy hands on his clothes casually.
He just thought about how the muscular body and calluses between his fingers that he had worked so hard to build up disappeared without a trace, and all of them were reduced to the "weak" state of a young man...
"Damn it."
Lu Bu muttered angrily, but there was nothing he could vent his anger on, so he had to suppress his anger and just slapped the person in the package hard on the head.
Never mind, he couldn't figure out the specific reason and was too lazy to think about it.
Since he was struck by this great opportunity of being reborn, he had no desire to pursue fame, wealth and power, even though he had them before.
His greatest obsession is to kill his enemy with his own hands - since Big Ear Liu will take hundreds of years to come out, the Liu family's grandson's debt should be counted from his ancestors for eighteen generations upwards, and each generation will have to pay it back in turn.
Without Liu Bang, the culprit, would there still be Big-Eared Liu's great-great-grandson of some unknown generation
Unfortunately, Liu Bang was heavily guarded and he could not act rashly.
Lu Bu thought unwillingly: Otherwise, he would have directly wiped out the enemy's roots just now, so why would he need to go to Xiang Yu's camp to submit his surrender and take that troublesome and circuitous route!