When Tong Yuanzhou had finished, Ning Chen said nothing for a long while.

Nanyue had thrown in a hundred and fifty thousand men out of nowhere, with no preliminaries about it, and attacked the city four times in all.

Every time, they came straight up at full assault.

Four attacks, and every one of them came near to breaking the gate.

But every time Tong Yuanzhou led his men out and beat them back with desperate fighting.

Yesterday, Nanyue suddenly withdrew.

The man leading Nanyue this time was Kang Luo again.

It seemed Kang Luo knew that he himself was due to arrive within days.

Tong Yuanzhou said, "My lord prince, four attacks, and Nanyue lost almost nothing."

Ning Chen gave a start. "What do you mean?"

"Because the men who died were all the personal guard Prince Rui took with him to Nanyue."

It came to Ning Chen all at once.

When Prince Rui fled to Nanyue he took twenty thousand of his own guard.

"So the men sent first up the wall in these attacks were that old rogue Prince Rui's own guard?"

"Yes!"

Ning Chen's eyes narrowed. "It seems that old rogue Prince Rui is not having an easy time of it in Nanyue."

He had expected that long since. Nanyue sheltered Prince Rui because it saw a profit in him.

With Kang Luo's methods, how could he let Prince Rui keep twenty thousand of his own guard on Nanyue's ground?

As it looked now, Prince Rui's own guard was already in Kang Luo's hands... Squeeze Prince Rui dry, and Prince Rui's life would be at its end with it.

Ning Chen asked, "The Nanyue army has withdrawn into Nanyue altogether?"

"Yes!"

"Come on, back we go!"

Back at the camp, worn out by days on the road, Ning Chen refused Tong Yuanzhou's invitation to a banquet and went to bed early.

Ning Chen woke the next day. A night's rest, and the breath he had refined working in him, had brought his spirit back whole overnight, and it shone off him.

What puzzled him, though, was…