Initial Arrangement of the Birthday Gifts: An Assassination Attempt in the Jungle

Song Jiang laughed and said, "Actually, there's absolutely no need for us to go ourselves, increasing the risk of exposure. May I ask, sir, is it feasible to go with someone else?"

Song Jiang always felt that too many people knew Chao Gai, and he himself did too. If he or Chao Gai led the team to steal the birthday gifts and were seen by people they knew, it would ruin his grand plan. Song Jiang didn't mind going against the imperial court, but developing in a low-key manner was more in line with his thinking. He didn't want his brothers to take any risks. Although there would definitely be casualties in the later battles, at least in the early stages, it would be best to train the troops well, find good talent, and prepare supplies and equipment. Minimizing sacrifices would be the best outcome.

This isn't about being overly sensitive or a saint; it's simply that Song Jiang genuinely hoped the people around him could be happy, healthy, and live safely—that would be fulfilling his original intention.

Wu Yong thought for a moment and nodded.

Song Jiang laughed and said, "Liang Zhongshu is escorting the birthday tribute, how should we escort it? Let's send twenty rookies as training for this trip, under the name of the escort agency. As for the name of the escort agency, let's call it Shunfeng Escort Agency."

Song Jiang paused for a moment and then said, "Pack a box of jewelry and ornaments from the Wu mansion as escort goods. Xiao Rang and Jin Dajian will act as the owners and personally escort the goods. The rest of the plan remains the same, and Bai Sheng will still be in charge of picking up the wine. What do you think?"

Wu Yong's eyes lit up: "Brilliant! Brother Xiao Rang and Brother Jin Dajian don't often travel around the martial world. As long as they disguise themselves, very few people will recognize them."

What Wu Yong didn't know was that escorting valuables would make the whole thing seem more reasonable. Moreover, this time it might not be Yang Zhi who was escorting them. If the other side was united and couldn't seize the birthday gifts, Song Jiang wouldn't mind letting them retreat directly. Compared to the birthday gifts, he valued the lives of the Liangshan brothers more.

Wu Yong waved his fan and said, "I will personally go down the mountain to find Bai Sheng, and I will surely be able to persuade him."

Song Jiang thought for a moment and said, "Be careful and don't let our whereabouts be missed."

Wu Yong nodded and said, "There's one more thing. I heard that the Zhu Family Village issued a bounty for the capture of a man named Wang Ying!"

"Is it Wang Ying, the Dwarf Tiger?" Song Jiang asked.

Wu Yong laughed and said, "I didn't expect that you had heard of this person before, brother."

Song Jiang found it somewhat amusing. He himself had spread the name Wang Ying, intending to shift the blame eastward. Wang Ying was no benevolent person either, and he feared that the Zhu Family Village and Wang Ying would become mortal enemies, with Wang Ying destined to take the blame.

Although he wanted to burst out laughing, Song Jiang still asked, "What's the current situation?"

Wu Yong continued, "I don't know the specifics, but it seems that Wang Ying had a conflict with Zhu Biao, the third son of the Zhu family, while selling wine. Of course, these are just rumors, and only they themselves probably know the actual situation."

This is just a topic of lighthearted conversation. As for the birthday gifts from Cai Dezhang, the prefect of Jiangzhou, Song Jiang hasn't come up with a solution yet!

After that, everyone chatted about other things for a while, and then the meeting ended!

Song Jiang had to rush back to Yuncheng County to report back, so he immediately ordered Zhu Gui to take the silver and lead Shi Xiu and his uncle to Qufu to find Kong Hou!

He then led Wu Song and Yang Zhi to Yuncheng to let Deng Fei and the others familiarize themselves with Liangshan. After that, Song Jiang planned to redeploy his troops!

Gongsun Sheng walked over with the wooden box and said, "I will accompany my brother to Yuncheng!"

Song Jiang initially wanted to refuse, but considering that Gongsun Sheng rarely took the initiative to do anything, and that there must be a deeper meaning behind his words, he didn't hesitate and nodded in agreement!

He turned around and said, "I will return to Liangshan in a few days. Everyone, please rest well today!"

After making some arrangements, Song Jiang led Gongsun Sheng, Wu Song, and Yang Zhi to Yuncheng!

As the saying goes, he came in a hurry and left in a hurry; that must have been a perfect description of Song Jiang at this moment!

He returned to Liangshan but didn't even eat a bite of food before leaving Liangshan again!

After leaving Shijie Village, Song Jiang set off on his way back to Songjia Village. The journey involved passing through a dense forest, which Song Jiang had walked through several times. He wouldn't say he could walk out of it with his eyes closed, but he had already memorized the path!

In the dense forest, Wu Song and Yang Zhi suddenly stopped and their expressions became serious!

Song Jiang's heart skipped a beat; could something bad have happened?

Gongsun Sheng walked calmly to Song Jiang's side. Song Jiang looked at Yang Zhi, who said sternly, "There's a murderous aura about them; they're coming for us."

Gongsun Sheng opened the wooden box, and surprisingly, there were two swords inside. Song Jiang thought to himself that it was strange, because normally there was only one sword, but there were two! No wonder the wooden box was so wide!

The sword is about four feet long, with a blade as slender as a thin wing. It emits bursts of blue light and seems to be extremely sharp. The color of the sword is an extremely rare blue. The hilt is engraved with simple and ancient patterns, making it look solemn and dignified!

Song Jiang then looked at another sword, five feet long, its blade entirely fiery red, like a burning flame devouring all the darkness in the world. The scorching blade exuded a fierce masculine aura, while the hilt was black, complementing the blade.

Gongsun Sheng said, "The situation is urgent, brother, just pick one to protect yourself!"

Song Jiang nodded. Now was not the time to ask questions. He casually picked up the fiery red sword, and the blade seemed to emit a booming sound. Song Jiang was not sure if it was just his imagination!

Yang Zhi drew his family heirloom sword, and Wu Song also took out his waist knife. In the next instant, more than a dozen figures slowly emerged in front of them!

Song Jiang counted them; there were twelve people in total, all dressed in black and with their faces covered so that their features could not be seen at all!

Each person held a weapon, but not the ordinary kind of swords and knives; they were all sorts of strange weapons, some of which even Song Jiang couldn't name!

These people exuded an aura of annihilation, far surpassing any of the opponents Song Jiang had ever encountered before!

The leader looked at Song Jiang and immediately said, "Leave no one alive!"

Song Jiang noticed that his tone was stiff and didn't sound like he spoke with a Central Plains accent.

Now is not the time to think too much. Although there are only twelve of them, they are like twelve venomous snakes, and they arrived in front of them in an instant!

With a "whoosh," two daggers flew up and down like swimming dragons. Yang Zhi dodged to the side and slashed at the man with his ancestral treasured sword!

The man took two steps back and dodged instantly. One of the men, holding a tiger-head hook, hooked at Yang Zhi's precious sword, while another man, holding an iron chain, swiftly swung it out and entangled the sword!

Yang Zhi was unable to break free for a moment, and the person holding the dagger came to his side again and attacked him!

With the dagger right in front of him, at the critical moment, Yang Zhi quickly took out an iron spearhead, deflected the dagger, and plunged it into the man's chest. Caught off guard, the man never expected that Yang Zhi had a spearhead. He died instantly, falling to the ground with his eyes wide open in death!

The men with the tiger-head hook and iron chain never expected Yang Zhi to have this trick up his sleeve. Yang Zhi gave them no chance and swiftly struck, taking their lives!

There were twelve people on the other side, divided into four groups of three to face Song Jiang, Gongsun Sheng, Wu Song, and Yang Zhi respectively!

The opponent is ruthless. The person using the dagger aims to kill with a single blow and launch a surprise attack on the target. If that fails, the target will be restrained by the iron chain and tiger-head hook at the same time, and then the dagger will be used for a second attack!

Why not trap the opponent from the very first time? Because some targets have hidden cards up their sleeves, so it's better to force them to use them the first time!

These assassins weren't particularly skilled in martial arts, but they were perfectly coordinated and launched rapid attacks one after another without leaving any openings, making it impossible for their opponents to defend against them and leaving them with nowhere to retreat!

If Yang Zhi hadn't possessed exceptional martial arts skills and carried a family heirloom iron spearhead, he probably would have perished here!

After Yang Zhi finished off his opponent, he immediately went to support Wu Song!

At this time, Wu Song had not experienced as many life-and-death battles as he did in later generations!

Although he was skilled in martial arts, he lacked experience and had never seen such a scene before. Although he was not injured, he was still a bit flustered!

Injury means death, because the daggers are coated with a deadly poison that kills instantly upon contact with blood!

Gongsun Sheng, on the other hand, wielded an impenetrable pine-patterned sword, and the three assassins couldn't gain the slightest advantage! (Here, Gongsun Sheng enhances his martial arts skills since he doesn't possess magic. His martial arts were already quite good, and having magic was essentially a cheat code in the original story, so he rarely uses magic. Taoist swordsmanship was also very famous in ancient times, and here his swordsmanship was significantly elevated, on par with Li Zhu. However, Taoism emphasizes non-action and harmony between man and nature, so Gongsun Sheng won't make many moves either. Don't worry!)

The worst off was Song Jiang. When the assassin first approached him, Song Jiang was not panicked, but the assassin attacked with lightning speed. He relied on his instincts and scrambled to avoid the fatal blow!

Although Song Jiang had the red sword in his hand, he was not skilled with a sword, so the sword could not be used even a tenth of its power!

Fortunately, he had some fighting skills from later generations and his footwork was still quite agile. He rolled away from the tiger-head hook and the iron chain, barely managing to dodge the second deadly move!

But that was all it could do; without anyone's help, Song Jiang was doomed!

Gongsun Sheng suddenly shouted, and his pine-patterned sword moved like a whirlwind. The dagger couldn't react in time and was slashed across the neck by Gongsun Sheng!

Ignoring the other two, Gongsun Sheng quickly went to Song Jiang's side to lend him a hand!

The real danger came from the dagger; the tiger-head hook and iron chain were far inferior. With Yang Zhi's help, Wu Song quickly killed the three men!

On Song Jiang's side, Gongsun Sheng killed the dagger-wielder, and the rest of the people were no threat. Soon, this group was slaughtered!

One of them, Song Jiang originally wanted to capture and ask them where they came from, but when the man saw that he could not escape, he chose to commit suicide!

The four had no idea that these people were all suicide squad members, with poison hidden in their teeth. Clearly, they had no intention of going back even if the mission failed!

Pulling back the black cloths covering the faces of the men, Song Jiang found them to be ordinary faces he didn't recognize at all. He also found it strange that these people's goal was to kill him, but he couldn't figure out who they were or why they wanted to kill him.

When it comes to matters concerning one's own life, one must think about them even if one cannot understand them, but these people have absolutely nothing on them that can prove their identity, which is frustrating!

Yang Zhi suddenly said, "Clerk, these people should be Tanguts!"

The Tanguts? They were the same ethnic group as the Western Xia people, just like the Liao people were called Khitans and the Jurchens were called Jurchens!

Song Jiang, not knowing why the Western Xia people wanted to kill him, stepped forward and asked, "How did Commander Yang make his judgment?"

Yang Zhi pulled open the man's clothes, revealing a small tattoo. Yang Zhi said, "This is a unique tattoo of the Western Xia Bubazi; most people wouldn't recognize it!"

Song Jiang nodded. If we're talking about foreigners, no one really knows them better than the Yang family!

There were too many things to handle, and things were too chaotic. Song Jiang couldn't process everything at once and needed to think things through carefully!

More importantly, we need to leave here as soon as possible to avoid a second assassination attempt!

Deep in the dense forest, one man in black approached another and said, "Leader, we've failed!"

After saying that, he drew a dagger and plunged it into his own heart!

Before he could even stab, his hand was grabbed by another man in black!

The leader of the men in black said expressionlessly, "These kinds of things always carry the risk of failure. Stay alive and continue serving the steward!"

The man in black knelt on the ground and said, "Thank you for your forgiveness, Chief!"

The leader of the men in black said, "We no longer need you here. You should return to the north and wait. I will go back and report this matter to the chief steward!"

After speaking, the leader of the men in black quickly disappeared, and the man in black who was kneeling on the ground stood up and left as well.

A gentle breeze blows, and it's still spring!

Back at Song Family Village, Song Jiang proceeded with extreme caution, but no more assassins came, and he finally felt relieved!

Was it dangerous? Absolutely. If it weren't for Gongsun Sheng, I would have almost died there. Luckily, I had people with me at all times, otherwise, it's hard to say what would have happened!

Jiuwan, along with his sisters and mother, came out to greet them!

Song Qing originally intended to take Jiuwan to Liangshan, but something happened before that.

Some time ago in Yuncheng County, a man and a woman were being chased by an assassin on the street. It was dark and the streets were almost deserted, making it an extremely dangerous situation.

If they hadn't happened to run into Lei Heng on the street after he finished drinking and was on his way home, they probably wouldn't have survived!

Seeing that Lei Heng seemed to recognize him, the man hurriedly shouted that he was sent by Song Jiang. Lei Heng then engaged the assassin in combat. The assassin was no match for him and tried to flee, which Lei Heng naturally gave chase. Unexpectedly, the assassin was carrying a poisoned dart, which wounded Lei Heng. Lei Heng caught up and killed the man.

Fortunately, Lei Heng was rescued in time and his life was not in danger, but he has been recuperating recently.

The man brought a doctor, but Lei Heng was in excruciating pain. The man could describe many details, so Lei Heng didn't press him and let him go.

Before leaving, the man instructed Lei Heng to keep it a secret. Seeing the man's serious tone, Lei Heng knew that Song Jiang was searching for the imperial treasure, so he nodded to indicate that he understood.

That man was Bian Xiang's servant, and that woman was Jiu Wan's sister. It was thanks to Song Jiang's arrangements that his sister was saved; otherwise, she would have been doomed!

But after this assassination attempt, the servants became extremely cautious. Song Qing also felt that if he encountered another assassin on his own without any escort, it would be like throwing meat buns to a dog – all of them would be gone forever!

Therefore, they had no choice but to stay in Songjiazhuang. After Jiuwan and his mother arrived in Yuncheng and learned about this, they rushed to see their sister. The family of four was finally reunited and planned never to be separated again!

Let's not mention Jiuwan's gratitude, nor the joy of seeing the brothers again!

Lying on the bed, Song Jiang thought for a long time and felt that things were becoming more and more confusing!

He gradually came to a conclusion about the assassin: the person behind Wu Qianhu in the Qinghe County incident. Besides him, Song Jiang really couldn't think of anyone else!