Chapter 121
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Was he dead? Otherwise, he wouldn’t faint with his eyes open.
Xue Yao turned his stiff head, looking at the ruthless killer cub.
Lu Qian kneeled, felt the carotid artery, and was stunned. He hadn’t expected the hidden weapon of the boy to be so lethal, further confirming that these three people’s identities were suspicious.
“Is he dead?” Xue Yao held onto the last bit of hope.
“Hmm.” Lu Qian stood up, grabbed the wrist of the little reader-in-waiting, quickly went upstairs, and walked out of the secret room. Following the method the boy had used before, he closed that wall.
In the sealed room, there was a deathly silence. The two boys remained unconscious.
The Mystical Scriptures on the ancient bookshelf lay quietly in the center of the grid.
A few steps away, a silver needle pierced the man’s forehead. He stared unblinkingly at the pitch-black ceiling.
“Can we escape?” Xue Yao hadn’t fully accepted this sudden turn of events. “Weren’t there over forty people lying in ambush for us?”
“Those people are lurking in the yard we passed through. This house has many passages. Perhaps there’s another yard we can use to get out.” Lu Qian, sensing the airflow around, swiftly led Xue Yao into a room at the end of a passage. As expected, he found a window leading to an unknown destination.
Making sure there was no one outside the window, Lu Qian instructed Xue Yao to climb out first, and he followed suit by jumping out.
This wasn’t the first time the two had escaped. The sect guards were evidently fewer than those in the military camp, making their escape surprisingly smooth.
However, the pair remained vigilant, running until the first light of day before finally stopping.
Xue Yao leaned against a large tree, sitting on the ground, waiting for his breath to steady.
Beneath the leaden gray sky, all was silent, only the sound of their own breaths and heartbeats audible.
After a while, his breathing calmed, but his heartbeat grew heavier. A sense of post-fear made Xue Yao’s scalp tingle.
“Your Highness, why did you kill the sect master? He just… wanted to exchange the Sword Saint’s secret technique with you.” Despite the notorious deeds of this unorthodox sect, killing their leader in this manner was bound to bring trouble.
“He wasn’t the leader,” Lu Qian said. “Neither of those attendants serve in the inner room.”
“What do you mean?” Xue Yao asked.
Lu Qian informed the little reader-in-waiting about the boy’s revelation regarding the incense ingredients inside the room.
“Just based on that?” Xue Yao looked bewildered. “Your Highness, that’s just a small sect. Their attendants can’t be as meticulous as palace maids or eunuchs. They might have bought fake incense, and lacking one ingredient doesn’t necessarily imply anything. How can you be so sure their identity is suspicious?”
“There was the lingering scent of burnt incense in that room,” Lu Qian explained.
It was true that they used Nine-Step Incense in the room. This type of incense required the regular addition of a fresh ingredient. The attendants couldn’t possibly be unaware of this.
Xue Yao’s head throbbed, struggling to accept the fact that Lu Qian had killed the man. “It’s too sudden. Even if their identity is questionable, we should see what they want from us first. Don’t act so abruptly next time. These matters should be handled by the authorities.”
“The concealed weapon belonged to that attendant. He just attacked your grandpa,” Lu Qian revealed.
“They want to kill you?” Xue Yao asked. “Why? The sect master just discussed a trade with me to exchange the Sword Saint’s Tai Chi Mental Cultivation Technique. He even offered their sect’s secret technique as fair trade. There was no need for them to kill us.”
“He isn’t the sect master, and those two boys aren’t his attendants either. They were exposed, so they planned to silence any witnesses.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“They wouldn’t have diverted those forty assassins. They didn’t have anyone hiding in the secret room.” Lu Qian delivered the conclusion decisively. “The three of them were up to something, afraid to involve their own people. Your grandpa could get you out because they left a backdoor for themselves.”
Xue Yao still couldn’t make sense of it. “So, who are they, and what do they want with us?”
“No idea.”
After a moment of silence, Xue Yao analyzed, “If he’s not the sect master, then the Xuanye Sect shouldn’t seek revenge for him.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why? Since they fear the guards of the Xuanye Sect, they must not be insiders.”
“The concealed weapons and techniques of those two attendants are similar to the man in the black robe.” Lu Qian believed that while the three were suspicious, they were indeed from the Xuanye Sect, just not the sect master.
“Regardless… They were the ones who illegally detained us first and attacked us with concealed weapons. We were acting in self-defense.”
Lu Qian turned and looked down at the little reader-in-waiting. “Self-defense?”
“It means legally retaliating.” Xue Yao wasn’t sure if he was assuring Lu Qian or himself.
Lu Qian didn’t need assurance. He hadn’t killed the assassins from that sect earlier because he wasn’t confident he could fully protect the little reader-in-waiting. Otherwise, he would have “legally retaliated” long ago.
Xue Yao couldn’t entirely perceive the world through Lu Qian’s mindset.
For Lu Qian, the people to protect in this world were those within his realm — the little reader-in-waiting, Father Emperor, Mother Consort, elder brothers — and beyond that realm, the law-abiding citizens of Great Qi.
Anyone else was an unpredictable factor.
Only people in Lu Qian’s world could touch his not-so-sensitive emotional perception, and anything threatening to his world’s stability was a top-tier wanted criminal, needing to be eradicated as thoroughly as possible.
Due to the flaw in emotional awareness, Lu Qian wouldn’t feel sentimental about executing criminals, just as a tiger wouldn’t feel sorrow for a deer beneath its claws.
“If he’s not the sect master, the Xuanye Sect shouldn’t seek revenge, right?”
Lu Qian: “Don’t know.”
Xue Yao: “……”
No way, his Long Aotian Husky was just that straightforward. Fancy strategies and decisive victories were nonexistent.
Xue Yao stood up. “Then let’s quickly escape back to the palace.”
“I’ll escort you back to the palace.”
“What about Your Highness?” Xue Yao asked in surprise.
“Your Highness is heading to Jiangnan.”
“They might have mobilized helpers from all over to capture you!” Xue Yao exclaimed. “At a time like this, is Your Highness not afraid of being captured again if you don’t obediently return to the palace?”
“Too far away. They can’t catch up to me.”
A moment of silence.
The turmoil and conflict in Xue Yao’s heart all subsided. Indeed, this rebellious brat could transform his emotions entirely into…anger!
“So, I’m the one slowing Your Highness down?” Xue Yao asked Lu Qian with a look that said, “It would be all over if you don’t comfort me.”
Lu Qian, recklessly unrepentant, didn’t deny it. “Back to the palace first.”
Xue Yao took a deep breath, stepped back, leaned against a tree, crossed his arms, and with a look that conveyed the seriousness of the matter, he asked again, “Am I right? This trouble is because of me causing problems for Your Highness.”
Lu Qian sensed something amiss. The little reader-in-waiting seemed angry, but he wasn’t sure what caused the anger.
The two stared at each other with intense gazes.
Another moment of silence.
Lu Qian tentatively replied, “Your grandpa pardons you.”
Xue Yao, with arms crossed, stiffened in place as a thunderbolt struck from the swirling black clouds above, crowning his head.
“A long time ago, the Heavenly Emperor had ten sons…” An inexplicable sixth sense of danger made Lu Qian solemnly start telling the story of Houyi shooting down the suns.
“What does having more sons matter?” Xue Yao interrupted Lu Qian’s storytelling. “Raising them, and they all turn out heartless and careless.”
Lu Qian’s long lashes trembled slightly. His uneasy tea-colored pupils clearly attempted to fathom the reason behind the little reader-in-waiting’s anger.
“Yes,” His Highness nodded in agreement, adopting a profound expression as if seeing through the complexities of life. “Your grandpa also doesn’t like sons.”
The thought processes were worlds apart.
Xue Yao tilted his head back, despairingly taking a deep breath toward the sky.
Lu Qian raised an eyebrow. “Daughters are also an option.”
“I absolutely won’t raise another child! When they grow up, I become useless. Is that amusing?” Xue Yao roared in rebuttal. “I want nothing — sons, daughters, none of it.”
His Highness, frightened by the roaring little reader-in-waiting, shrunk his head and meekly muttered, “Alright, no children then.”
Xue Yao, with unvented fury, silently stared at Lu Qian.
“Let’s return to the palace.”
Two hours earlier, in the secret room, one of the boys woke up, rubbing his tingling neck. It took a moment before he was fully alert.
He then shook the other boy awake.
The two entered the room, bowing their heads to look at the lifeless master on the floor.
“What do we do? Those two have already fled.”
“Let’s take the master away from here first.”
Holding the corpse, one at each end, they were about to carry it outside when the boy at the back suddenly stopped, his eyes lingering on the treasure chest and the secret technique scrolls on the ancient bookshelf.
The two boys exchanged a glance, simultaneously lowering the corpse. Swiftly, they opened the chest, stashed the valuables into their pockets, tucked the scrolls into their arms, and then lifted the corpse again before leaving.
As the hidden wall of the secret room slowly opened, the two boys carrying the corpse looked bewilderedly at the bewildered sect members outside.
“What is this…” a shadowy assassin stepped forward, staring in astonishment at the entrance to the secret room.
No one knew there was an entrance to the secret room in the master’s chamber.
“Who let you in?” one of the boys steadied his trembling voice.
“There has been no activity inside for over an hour. We sent someone in to inquire, but couldn’t find anyone,” the assassin respectfully answered. Then, he stared in bewilderment at the corpse being carried by the boys.
“What happened to Elder Liu?” A sect member approached from behind and discovered that the elder being carried by the boys had already passed away. “Who did this?”
The two boys exchanged a glance, stating firmly, “It was the Sword Saint’s disciples. They ambushed the sect master, and our master, in order to protect him, took the brunt of the concealed weapons.”
The crowd was dumbfounded.
“Where is the sect master now?!”
“They kidnapped him.”
“How could they escape from here? Didn’t you activate the mechanism?”
“The disciples of the Sword Saint acted too quickly. Just as we were about to intervene, we were knocked unconscious.”
“Notify the assistant sect master immediately!”
“Go fetch Miss A’Zhu!”
•••
At the third quarter of the hour of Snake, Xue Yao rode a relay station’s horse, arriving on the outskirts of the capital with Lu Qian.
As usual, Lu Qian went to a familiar restaurant, ordering “Two Days Yaoyao,” and a table of home-cooked dishes.
Xue Yao sat, watching him eat. “Once you’re done, let’s return to the palace.”
Lu Qian nodded with his head lowered. “Will escort you back to the palace.”
Xue Yao stretched his neck, leaning closer to Lu Qian, solemnly whispering, “Come back with me, Your Highness. Killing the leader of Xuanye Sect, a notorious faction in the underground, is no small matter. They like to play it sneaky. There are Xuanye Sect bases in Jiangnan too. They might besiege you.”
“They can’t harm your grandpa.” Lu Qian handed a pitcher of milk to Xue Yao.
Xue Yao despairingly gazed at Lu Qian, who seemed accustomed to immersing himself in his own world. “You drink. I have no appetite.”
Lu Qian, puzzled, looked at the little reader-in-waiting. He lifted his hand to touch his own lips with his index finger, reminding Xue Yao that his lips were so dry they were peeling.
Xue Yao licked his own dry lips, not because he was thirsty but due to the night of fear and trepidation.
He had lost his appetite and didn’t even feel thirsty.
“Take a sip,” Lu Qian ordered.
“I’ll drink if you come back to the palace with me.” Xue Yao’s eyes were almost pleading.
“Drink.”
“No.” Underatanding this guy wouldn’t negotiate, Xue Yao despairingly pushed the pitcher back in front of Lu Qian.
The two locked eyes in a standoff.
“Just a sip?” Lu Qian proposed in a negotiating tone.
Xue Yao didn’t speak.
Lu Qian lowered his head in thought, then lifted it, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. Suddenly imitating Xue Yao’s mannerisms, he wiggled his hips.
However, the movement was not as natural as Xue Yao’s, with a stiff and awkward cuteness.
His Highness giggled, squinting his peach blossom eyes and coquettishly saying to Xue Yao, “Take a sip.”
Caught off guard, Xue Yao was teased into laughter, defeated by this mischievous little rascal. He couldn’t keep a straight face.
Seeing him laugh, Lu Qian became even happier, squinting his eyes and asking, “Do you like it? Your grandpa is adorable.”
Smiling, Xue Yao suddenly felt a twinge in his heart. He pursed his lips, looked at Lu Qian, nodded after a while, and said, “I’ve always, always liked you.”
Lu Qian got excited and pushed both pitchers of milk in front of Xue Yao.
Xue Yao shook his head. “Milk doesn’t quench my thirst. I want plum juice. Do they have it here?”
Excited for some inexplicable reason after hearing “I’ve always liked you,” Lu Qian immediately stood up and went to find the proprietress for plum juice.
The restaurant didn’t have plum juice for sale, but the pestered proprietress led Lu Qian to the kitchen and made a cup of snow pear juice.
Lu Qian ran back with the snow pear juice and found the table empty.
The little reader-in-waiting who had just said, “I’ve always liked you,” was nowhere to be seen.
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