Chapter 15: The Town in Distress
Dandong is a marginal town in the Liaodong region, across the river from North Korea. People in the town often take advantage of the off-season to go to the nearby mountains to pick hazel mushrooms, wild fungus, ganoderma lucidum and other mountain goods, and then dry them at home and sell them at the town's market to supplement their families. Hunters in nearby villages outside the town also brought the skins of tigers, leopards, martens and other wild animals to the town to sell. Therefore, although the town is located in a remote area, there are many foreign merchants, most of whom come here for the dazzling mountain goods and leather goods.
By the time the team walked into the middle street of Dandong, it was already dark. The streets of the town are much quieter than during the day.
A few people came to an inn called Evening Primrose, which was located on the easternmost side of the street and was a two-story wooden building. Standing at the door of the inn and looking up, two long red lanterns hung on the two large wooden stakes in front of the door, adding a lot of life to the town at night. On both sides of the gate is a couplet: "The corners of the earth are thousands of miles away, and the five lakes and the four seas are a family." The horizontal batch is "Wishing you prosperity".
In fact, many of the buildings in the town are wooden structures, and the abundant timber on the nearby mountains is the main source of timber for the residents of the town to build houses and yards.
The reason why Luo Shiyin chose the inn is because it is located in the closest to the Yalu River among all the inns in this town. This will make it easier to get on the road early tomorrow morning.
"A few guest officers, welcome to Yelaixiang. Hurry up and please! A diminutive shopkeeper saw the members of the team coming to the door of the inn and hurriedly greeted him.
There were about a dozen square tables in the hall of the inn, most of which were filled with merchants coming and going. The smoky air was filled with the shouts of punching orders. A few shopkeepers who ran the hall shuttled back and forth among the guests, busy and happy. In the northwest corner of the hall is a wooden staircase that leads to the second floor. The entire second floor is a circle of guest rooms arranged in an oval circle.
Luo Shiyin chose a square table against the wall in the northeast corner of the hall. Several people sat down in turn. The square table is in a relatively secluded position. Sitting in this place, you can not only have an unobstructed view of the entire hall, but also it is not easy to attract the attention of others.
The food served by the shopkeeper was also sumptuous, and the table was full of mountain and wild mushrooms.
Luo Shiyin instructed everyone: Although you eat food, you are not allowed to drink! Based on years of experience in the rivers and lakes, Luo Shiyin vaguely felt that something unexpected might happen tonight. As for why he had such a hunch, he couldn't say. Maybe this is the role of the so-called subconscious.
After dinner, everyone was ready to go upstairs to rest.
"Hop, are you with my brother or are you going to protect Sister Rose?" Bau said to the jumper beside him. He wanted to make a joke to liven up the atmosphere, but he thought that Hopping really walked up to Ye Ruliu and snuggled up to her.
"See, forgetful guy!" Bau scolded and jumped and pouted childishly, looking very angry.
Ye Ruliu was amused and giggled. He looked at Jumpy's cute appearance, and reached out to gently caress Jumpy's back.
A total of three guest rooms were registered. According to Luo Shiyin's arrangement, Ye Ruliu and Jumping were in the middle room, the east one was occupied by him and Shi Lang, and the other four lived in the larger guest room on the west side.
After a busy day, Ye Ruliu felt a little tired, she simply freshened up, and fell asleep on the bed and clothes. Anyway, with the Patronus Saint by her side, she can sleep peacefully for a while.
Hopping crouched on the wooden floor of the room and closed his eyes lightly, while a pair of sensitive ears listened alertly to the movements around him.
The night in the town is peaceful. From time to time, the howls of wild wolves could be heard from the depths of the surrounding mountains.
In the middle of the night, Ye Ruliu, who was asleep, was awakened by the sound of jumping. When she opened her eyes, she found Hop Hop staring at the window in horror and screaming "hiss" from her mouth. Ye Ruliu sat up from the bed with a "pout", then put on her boots and walked gently to the window. She tapped Hopper's head with her hand, motioning for it to be silent. Hop Hop immediately fell silent.
Ye Ruliu gently opened the window and looked out. In the faint moonlight, a group of people in tight night clothes were secretly piling firewood and grass under the walls of the inn, and splashing what could be oily liquid.
"Not good!" Ye Ruliu's heart sank. She was just about to break out of the window with her weapon, when a burst of flames rose into the air outside the window. The entire inn was immediately enveloped in flames.
Ye Ruliu quickly rushed out of the room with Jump. Luo Shiyin, Shi Lang, and Du Heng also broke out of the door and stood in the corridor outside the door.
"Oh no, it's on fire. Run! The guests in the guest room were also awakened by the fire, and they fled from their rooms one after another, crowding up the stairs to the first floor.
Luo Shiyin immediately ordered: Shi Lang, Shi Tianji, and Ye Ruliu jumped out of the window on the second floor with him to deal with the enemy outside, and the rest of the people stayed behind to find a way to organize everyone in the building to rush out.
Luo Shiyin, Shi Lang, Shi Tianji, and Ye Ruliu first observed the terrain outside from the window, and then broke out of the window, and crossed the flames in the air and landed smoothly on the flat ground outside the flames. As soon as the four of them stood firm, they saw a large net over their heads. If you want to cover this net, the four people can only be caught, because once this thing is wrapped around the body, it will restrain people's hands and feet, and no matter how powerful the martial arts are, it will be difficult to perform.
At this critical moment, Luo Shiyin stepped forward and showed his unique skill that was easy not to be exposed - Ten Ways to Descend to the Wind and the Clutches.
Among the four people, Shi Tianji used a double sword, Shi Lang used the standard standard weapon of Jinyiwei, the embroidered spring knife, and Ye Ruliu held the deadly rose thorn. Only Luo Shiyin did not have any weapons in his hands. As for the reason why Luo Shiyin does not use any weapons, I am afraid that only Shi Lang knows it. Shi Lang judged from his personal experience of following Luo Shiyin to handle cases for many years, and there were two reasons for this: first, Shi Lang felt that the commander did not seem to be interested in any weapons; The second is that for any opponent, when facing Luo Shiyin, it seems that no one can win under the clutches of his ten-way windward subduation.
The huge power of Luo Shiyin's set of ten ways to descend the clutches of the wind, Shi Lang had seen it once five years ago. On that occasion, Shi Lang followed Luo Shiyin and was ordered to Wenzhou to arrest Duanwang, who colluded with the Japanese Invaders. At that time, Luo Shiyin mobilized the army of the government to surround the Duanwang Mansion. When a large number of Jinyi guards rushed into Duanwang's mansion, they were met with desperate resistance from several scum raised by Duanwang. Shi Lang and several generals led the battle against several masters of the rivers and lakes, such as Gao Xiaotian, the "Mighty Eagle King", and the "Iron Plate Monk and Demon". After more than 100 rounds of competition, Shi Lang and the others gradually couldn't resist. "Mighty Eagle King" Gao Xiaotian saw the opportunity, and a move "Goshawk Catching Rabbit" went straight to Shi Lang, and its speed was so fast that Shi Lang didn't have time to react at all. At the time of danger, Luo Shiyin jumped in front of Shi Lang, and slammed his palm against the momentum of Gao Xiaotian, this palm did not touch the "Mighty Eagle King", but the palm was strong and vigorous, as if there was a tendency to overwhelm the mountains and seas, and the powerful shock wave sent out by the iron palm hit the "Mighty Eagle King" in the air and turned over a few heels, fell heavily to the ground and spit blood, and lay on the ground. Lu Buzhou led several other masters to rush over immediately and surrounded Luo Shiyin in the middle. I saw that the corners of Luo Shiyin's mouth were slightly upturned, and his face showed contempt. He didn't say a word, his palms danced. In the wide courtyard of Duanwang's Mansion, the sand and rocks suddenly flew away, and the sky was dark. After a few moves, these Jianghu masters under Duanwang were all lying on the ground, unable to move. Duan Wang was finally captured.
As for who taught Luo Shiyin's set of "Ten Ways to Descend the Devil's Hands from the Wind", Shi Lang did not know.
Getting back to the point, Luo Shiyin saw a large net covering the four people, and immediately took a step with his legs, and used a move similar to Taijiyun's hand to "see the sun" to hold the net, and then, with both hands, he threw the four masked people who were about to close the net into the air. The masked man who had been thrown out fell heavily to the ground and let out several screams. Luo Shiyin threw the net in his hand towards the other masked people not far away. A dozen masked men originally wanted to rush forward to slash and kill their opponents after closing the net, but they didn't expect that the opponent not only easily broke their moves, but also covered themselves with a large net. As a last resort, they had to resort to the art of unearthing escape to avoid the big net.
Wakuni Ninja!
Although Luo Shiyin had been mentally prepared for the arrival of the Japanese people, he didn't expect them to come so suddenly!
Just when Luo Shiyin was startled, "Oo, Oo, O, ......", more than a dozen masked people flashed in front of him like ghosts, each of them holding a bright ninja knife in their hands.
Luo Shiyin, Shi Lang and other four people opened their posture and prepared to meet the enemy.
The group of Japanese ninjas were apparently well-trained, and following the orders of a skinny masked man among them, a dozen masked men came in a neat formation. They did not blindly surround the opponent and attack, but attacked in waves in teams of four. One wave was repulsed, followed by the next wave immediately attacked. This tactic of attacking in turns is the easiest to drain the opponent's physical strength and wear down the enemy's will.
Ye Ruliu leaned against Shi Lang's right side with the deadly rose thorn in her hand, and she found a plan to break the enemy from the opponent's wave attacks. She noticed that every wave of attack and every change in formation of the masked man was commanded by the skinny masked man at the back. Through this person's flickering and moving movements, Ye Ruliu judged with a woman's unique keen observation: This is a woman. Ye Ruliu saw the opportunity, and after the opponent's wave of attacks and before the next wave of attacks was connected, he rose into the air, lifted a few times in the air, passed the Japanese ninja in front of him, and appeared in front of the masked Japanese woman, and at the same time, the life-killing rose thorn in his hand stabbed the thin woman like lightning.
Ye Ruliu's judgment was not wrong, this was indeed a woman, she saw Ye Ruliu hit her in the air, and deftly rolled to the right rear, dodging Ye Ruliu's fatal blow. Immediately afterwards, a carp stood up, jumped up from the ground, and counterattacked Ye Ruliu with a knife. Ye Ruliu met the attack with a thorn, tightly entangling the Japanese woman, so that she could not deal with the other masked people. Without this woman's command, the masked man's formation suddenly became chaotic. Luo Shiyin and others took the opportunity to kill into the enemy formation. Several masked men were killed one after another.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the woman of the Japanese Kingdom made a false move, jumped out of the formation, and then raised her right hand, and three Bafang shuriken came straight to Ye Ruliu's front door. Ye Ruliu's body did a backflip, not only dodging the fatal blow, but also kicking two Bafang shuriken with both feet in the somersault, she didn't want the darts to hurt her companions behind her. What is terrible, but what is coming, the Bafang shuriken that was not kicked away flew directly to Luo Shiyin, who was fighting. Shi Lang wanted to use his knife to knock the dart away, but it was too late. Seeing the dart heading straight for Luo Shiyin, Shi Lang had no choice but to fly and pounce on Luo Shiyin, using his body to block the fatal blow. The dart plunged deep into Shi Lang's back.
This Bafang shuriken is one of the shurikens commonly used by the ninjas of the Wa Kingdom, it is actually a round dart with eight edges and corners, the blades on both sides of each edge are extremely sharp, it is thrown out of the hands of the ninja, it will spin rapidly in the air, no matter which of its edges and corners are hit, the injured will be hit hard.
"Brother Shi Lang!" Ye Ruliu wanted to rush over to save Shi Lang, but was entangled by the three masked people who surrounded him.
The woman of the Wa Kingdom issued a command in a loud voice, and this group of Wa ninjas immediately divided into two parts, one part besieged Luo Shiyin, Shi Tianji, and Ye Ruliu, making it difficult for the three of them to separate; The others, together with the Japanese woman, picked up the wounded Shi Lang and withdrew to the Yalu River southeast of the town.
Luo Shiyin, Ye Ruliu and the other three desperately rushed to kill, trying to snatch back Shi Lang. Helplessly, he was entangled by the masked man.
The masked ninja fought and retreated, and came to the Yalu River. A small boat has been waiting there for a long time. The woman commanded her subordinates to put Shi Lang on the boat, leaving a few companions who were fighting on the shore and fleeing to the other side.
Ye Ruliu struggled to kill several masked men besieging him and chased him to the river. Luo Shiyin and Shi Tianji also rushed over after killing their opponents.
The boat is gone.
"Brother Shi Lang-" Ye Ruliu called out to Shi Lang, bent down helplessly, tears coming out of his eyes.
"The operation of this group of Japanese ninjas was a planned and premeditated attack specifically against the squad. The detachment was ordered by the emperor to enter the DPRK to investigate a top-secret operation, but the Japanese people got the news so quickly, which shows that the opponent they will face on this trip is by no means an idle person. It seems that the team will have to be extremely cautious in its future actions. Luo Shiyin looked at the sparkling Yalu River with a serious expression.