Ning Chen lowered his voice and said a few words in Pan Yucheng's ear.

Pan Yucheng gave a slight nod.

Ning Chen had the Ning'an Army stand where they were. He and Pan Yucheng each took a musket and went forward to talk to Tantai Qingyue.

"I say, woman, is there no end to you?"

Tantai Qingyue's cold, clear eyes stayed on Ning Chen. "Go back, or... die."

Ning Chen pretended he had not seen the bats and said with a cold laugh, "Just the two of you, and you have the nerve to think you can stop my Ning'an Army?"

"Tantai Qingyue, your Xiliang's hundred and fifty thousand could not hold up my step, let alone you... Until I have fought my way into Xiliang's capital, Ning here will not withdraw!"

Tantai Qingyue said indifferently, "It seems you insist on dying."

Ning Chen gave a cold laugh of contempt. "If I live, your Xiliang ruler need only bow his head and call himself a vassal... If I die, what you will face is a million men of the Great Xuan, and Xiliang will cease to be a state."

"Fang Pu dared to murder a prince of my Great Xuan and to pass himself off as my Great Xuan's emperor... If he had the nerve to provoke the Great Xuan, he must bear the Great Xuan's anger."

Tantai Qingyue's fine brows drew slightly tight. "Xiliang is not made of mud either. Even if you win in the end, it will cost you dearly."

"Hahaha..."

Ning Chen laughed wildly.

"Tantai Qingyue, you think too much of Xiliang. A land of barbarians, a pinprick of a country — in Ning here's eyes you are not even made of mud... And what of the hundred and fifty thousand Xing Shan led?"

There was something like a ripple in Tantai Qingyue's cold, clear eyes.

The hundred and fifty thousand Xing Shan led had been killed by Ning Chen until not a scrap of armor was left. (TL Note: 片甲不留, "not one scrap of armor left" — a set phrase for an army wiped out…