When morning light pierced the thin mist among the trees, Ye Fan had already led the others back to the defensive position. The grayish-blue stone walls cast a cold gleam in the morning dew, and the newly laid blue stone slabs at the base of the walls still bore the mud marks left by the secret guards who had reinforced them through the night. This was the second line of defense set up by Qín Wǎnshuāng's secret guards before dawn. Right now, three or five men in black were squatting behind the battlements, wiping their crossbows. Seeing them approach, they lowered their heads in salute one after another.
"Young Master Ye." The leader of the secret guards lifted the brim of his bamboo hat, revealing half of his face wrapped in gauze. "Zhao Batian's men are camped thirty li to the east. We intercepted three batches of scouts, and two of them carried the tokens of the Xuanzhi Hall."
Ye Fan touched the Jiuxiao Huanpei warming against his chest, and the phantom of the Lesser World within his Inner World trembled along with it. He had just figured out a new use for this pendant yesterday—not only could it serve as a sanctuary, but it could also store non-living things inside, and its capacity was much larger than he had imagined. At this moment, as he gently tapped his fingertips against the pendant, ripples appeared on the open space beneath the stone wall, and a wooden table covered with a blue cloth, accompanied by three jars of Maiden's Blush wine, slowly materialized.
Chapter 232