Chapter Eighty-Three: So This Is the Guarantee You Swore to Me!

Gu Fanshuang’s skill at driving was far beyond Jiang Xixuan’s expectations, and the carriage even moved faster than before. This delighted her, yet also stirred in her a faint, uneasy sense of having gained and lost at once.

She did not know what she would do if, after going to Bing Prefecture, she still could not find Shao Xinhong. They had once sworn never to part again in this life, and yet now...

Gu Fanshuang sensed Jiang Xixuan’s soft sigh from behind and asked, “The person you’re looking for must be very important to you, right? For a helpless woman with no martial skills to travel all the way to Bing Prefecture in search of him, he must weigh heavily in your heart.”

“Mm.” Jiang Xixuan nodded lightly, then asked in return, “Aren’t you the same?”

“I... Don’t ask so much. I just wanted to go out and see the world. I’ve finished my apprenticeship, but I still haven’t had a proper chance to test myself. Coming to the border to enlist seemed perfect...”

Before she could finish, she heard Jiang Xixuan laugh behind her. Gu Fanshuang felt a little embarrassed. “What’s so funny? I’m telling the truth.”

“All right, all right, you’re telling the truth. Pfft!” For some reason, seeing Gu Fanshuang cling stubbornly to her story made Jiang Xixuan’s gloom vanish in an instant.

“Hey! Look at the relay station ahead. We can probably stay there for the night.”

Seeing the flag in the distance marked with the words of an inn, Gu Fanshuang quickly changed the subject and turned to Jiang Xixuan.

“Fine, as long as you think it’ll do,” Jiang Xixuan said, then tightened the bundle on her back.

Gu Fanshuang had been right before; the silver she had given was indeed too much. She still did not know how much more they would have to spend, so she would need to be frugal.

When the carriage stopped before the relay station, Gu Fanshuang looked around in some doubt and found the place strangely deserted. “Why is this relay station so quiet? By rights, a station on the main road should never be without people.”

Then, the next moment, a man who looked like a waiter pushed the door open from within and came smiling up to Gu Fanshuang.

“May I ask where the young lady has come from? How many are you? Just stopping for a bite, or staying the night?” He hit her with three questions at once.

Seeing how warmly the waiter behaved, Gu Fanshuang dismissed her earlier suspicion. “Seems I was being overly wary.”

She said to the waiter, “Two guests staying the night.”

“Oh, right!” Gu Fanshuang added, “One room will do.”

As she spoke, she turned back and gave Jiang Xixuan a wink. The latter nodded gratefully.

“Right away! This way, please, ladies!”

Jiang Xixuan got down from the carriage and followed the waiter in with Gu Fanshuang.

But the instant they pushed the door open and stepped inside, Gu Fanshuang sensed a murderous intent.

At that very moment, the door slammed shut behind them. The waiter turned with a sinister smile and quickly stepped back two paces to the counter. Then, from the second floor, three burly men emerged. Seeing beauties such as Gu Fanshuang and Jiang Xixuan, all three could barely restrain themselves.

“Well now! These two little girls really are fine-looking today. Seems I’ll even get a bit of color from the good life.”

With wicked smiles, they came down from the second floor, advancing on the two women.

“What do we do?” Jiang Xixuan clutched Gu Fanshuang’s right arm, her delicate body trembling. Faced with such a situation, a frail woman like her simply had no idea what to do.

At last Gu Fanshuang moved. She first gave Jiang Xixuan a reassuring look, then faced the three men closing in from different sides and let out a cold laugh. “I thought a black inn on the main road might have some real masters. So it turns out you’re all just a pack of useless trash.”

Gu Fanshuang was long past her sixteen or seventeen years. Facing men like these, she would not be reduced to panic and helplessness.

One of them heard her humiliating his companions and flew into a rage. “Not old enough to have that big a mouth! Let me see how much skill you’ve got!”

With that, he threw a punch.

The other two also attacked at once.

As the first fist came at her, Gu Fanshuang shifted slightly to the side, seized his wrist with one hand, and drew him backward. The second man’s flying kick arrived just then, and Gu Fanshuang spread her legs, sinking low as though taking root like an ancient tree. With a fierce swing, she hurled the first man straight toward his brother’s foot.

Seeing that Gu Fanshuang knew martial arts, the third man rushed at her while reaching for the long blade at his waist.

But Gu Fanshuang had already seen through him. The moment his hand touched the hilt, she stamped off the ground and charged.

Power burst from the tip of her left foot, and a blade an inch long suddenly sprang from the toe of her shoe, stabbing viciously toward his throat. At the same time, her right foot came down on the end of his scabbard, pinning the knife in place and preventing him from drawing it.

“Gah!”

Before he could even utter a second word, he could only clutch his throat, vainly trying to stem the torrent of blood gushing out in spurts.

It took only two or three breaths to kill one of them.

The other two, after crashing together hard, still had not recovered.

Everything had happened too quickly, leaving Jiang Xixuan, who had been watching from the side, utterly rooted to the spot. She had thought Gu Fanshuang, with her graceful beauty, was merely somewhat broad-minded in character. She had never imagined she would be such a ruthless figure, one who did not blink when killing.

The others had thought the same. The contrast was far too great; they could only stare helplessly as their brother died before their eyes.

“Three garbage early-stage Bone Forging fools, and you still dare lay hands on me? I think you really do want to die.” Gu Fanshuang looked at the remaining two with some amusement, arms folded as she appraised them.

The four realms contained within the postnatal stage were indeed difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, but after that exchange, Gu Fanshuang had essentially tested out most of their level. At the start, she had only made a rough judgment from the weakness of their aura.

The waiter and the other two gathered around the dead man, grief-stricken.

They had not expected to have been here less than half a month before running into someone like Gu Fanshuang.

Seeing that Gu Fanshuang did not immediately move to kill them, the three dropped to their knees and began begging for mercy.

“Mercy, heroine! Spare us, heroine! We’re only out here in these troubled times trying to make a living! Please, for the sake of our elderly parents and our children at home, spare us.”

“Yes, we’ve all got old folks above us and children below us—we only came out to earn a bite to eat!”

“It was this man who led us into evil; we were merely following along! Now that the heroine has killed him, we can return to being honest men again!”

They had only been partners, after all. None of them intended to avenge him by fighting Gu Fanshuang to the death.

So this ridiculous scene came to pass: one moment they were bloodthirsty highway robbers, the next they were pitiful creatures forced against their will.

Watching them bow and kowtow like maniacs, Gu Fanshuang paid them little mind and instead turned to Jiang Xixuan behind her.

“What do you want to do?”

“I?” Jiang Xixuan even looked back at herself, and when she saw Gu Fanshuang was indeed asking her, she pointed at her own chest in uncertainty. “Me?”

“Yes.” Gu Fanshuang smiled a little. “If not you, then who? They were robbing you. As the victim, shouldn’t you get to decide whether they live or die?”

“Uh, I...” Jiang Xixuan fell silent.

Gu Fanshuang’s words left her unable to speak for a long while. Though these people had meant to harm her, was it not too cruel simply to kill them like this?

But once they heard Gu Fanshuang’s words, the three men instantly understood what she meant. Crawling over to Jiang Xixuan like three obedient dogs, they repeated the same pleas they had just made to Gu Fanshuang.

That truly left Jiang Xixuan in a dilemma.

“Uh, this...”

“Have you decided yet? I’ve been waiting so long my flowers are about to wilt.” Gu Fanshuang looked at Jiang Xixuan with a face full of smiles, becoming the one enjoying the show instead.

“Oh, I...”

Just as Jiang Xixuan was about to make up her mind, the very men who had been kowtowing and begging for mercy only moments before suddenly sprang up and moved to attack her.

Who would want their life in someone else’s hands? Since this weak woman before them was so important to the other woman, perhaps they could seize her and win themselves a path to survival.

The idea was not bad, only...

Gu Fanshuang was no inexperienced girl.

The moment they rose, Gu Fanshuang had already loosed a sleeve arrow into the back of the waiter’s head, the man closest to Jiang Xixuan.

At the same time, her right foot stamped hard, and the blade at her left toe reaped the lives of the remaining two like the scythe of death.

The whole affair was even faster than before, though it did frighten Jiang Xixuan badly.

Looking at the four corpses before her, Jiang Xixuan covered her eyes and cried out, especially when she saw the waiter nearest to her—the eyes on his face had never closed, and in death they still stared fixedly at her.

“There’s no telling how many more times we’ll run into scenes like this on the road. If you’re already scared now, how are you going to find your beloved in the enemy’s camp?” Gu Fanshuang reached out and drew Jiang Xixuan over, too lazy to bother with the bodies, and instead went to the back kitchen to find something to eat.

Seeing that night had already fallen, Gu Fanshuang first had Jiang Xixuan go upstairs while she dealt with the corpses.

But after what had just happened, Jiang Xixuan could not bear to leave Gu Fanshuang’s protection and stayed by her side the whole time.

Gu Fanshuang naturally did not mind. She disposed of the bodies right in front of Jiang Xixuan, and then the two of them went upstairs together to sleep beneath the same quilt.

In the dead of night, only the chirping of cicadas and insects remained, and the two women on the bed finally enjoyed a rare, peaceful night’s sleep.

...

Yet the deep palace at midnight was far from quiet and serene.

The Hall of Nurturing the Mind was brightly lit, but there were only three people inside.

One was a man nearly fifty years old, with a broad, square face and a beard over half a foot long. He wore an air of majesty without anger and sat upright on the dragon throne, reviewing a memorial.

Below him knelt a man in black robes and a dark official cap. His long, flowing blue-black hair spread across the floor with the posture of his prostration.

Seated on the dragon throne was none other than the current emperor, Qin Chaoyang, while the kneeling man was naturally none other than the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guards, Hua Wenkai.

Qin Chaoyang sat motionless on the dragon throne, appearing calm and unshaken as he read the memorial. Yet if one looked closely, his hand was trembling faintly.

What exactly in its contents had provoked him so?

The next instant, the nearly hundred-year-old emperor sprang to his feet and slammed the memorial to the ground, roaring in fury, “Rebellion! This is rebellion!”

He had only just spoken when a surge of rebellious blood rushed upward. The third person standing beside him, the chief eunuch Du Chengxiang, stepped forward in two strides, his right palm bursting with inner power as he gently pressed against Qin Chaoyang’s back, and the rebellious blood was suppressed at once.

Looking down, he said to Hua Wenkai, “Commander, the emperor has already reached the stage where he needs quiet rest and recovery. To burden his mind this way at such a time—does that befit a minister?”

“I am guilty. I deserve death.” Hua Wenkai immediately admitted his fault and said, “It’s just that I dare not make decisions on my own regarding affairs at the northern border. Those generals have no clear idea either, so I had no choice but to await Your Majesty’s decree.”

Qin Chaoyang shut his eyes and drew a deep breath, then waved to Du Chengxiang. “Stand down for now.”

But Du Chengxiang looked at Qin Chaoyang with concern, worry filling his face. “But Your Majesty, your imperial body...”

Unexpectedly, Qin Chaoyang flew into a rage at once. “All of you, get out!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Seeing this, Du Chengxiang had no choice but to bow and withdraw from the hall.

As he passed Hua Wenkai, he transmitted by inner force, “Mind your words.”

Both men were masters at the grandmaster level, so such transmission would not reach the emperor’s ears.

But Qin Chaoyang had not ruled for so many years for nothing. Du Chengxiang’s little scheme could not escape his eyes; still, since it was for his own good, there was no need to make an issue of it.

After the doors closed, silence settled briefly over the hall. Qin Chaoyang was the first to ask, “Have you come up with a plan?”

Hua Wenkai, still kneeling, immediately replied, “In answer to Your Majesty, this subject has already sent Wu Ninghe, Xin Zuihui, Feng Xunqin, and Yi Dairong to search for evidence with all their strength. Several hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards are cooperating with them as well. We will certainly find a flaw.

That Yuwen Qi is Shao Xinhong’s direct superior, and his relationship with Yuwen Qi has always been good; even his current post was promoted with Yuwen Qi’s approval. This operation may well have been planned by the three of them together.”

“It may well? It was them, all three of them!” Qin Chaoyang cursed. “Those three bastards! They must have realized we’ve begun cutting back the northern army, which is why they came up with such a trick.”

“Their voluntary surrender back then was suspicious to begin with. But Guobao’s rebellion left the court with no spare attention to question whether their submission was genuine,” Hua Wenkai said, his memory of the events eight years earlier still vivid.

“If I had not believed these men could still hold the northern line for Great Ming, I would have had them sent to the execution ground with Guobao long ago.” Qin Chaoyang’s anger only grew. Pointing at Hua Wenkai, he said, “You insist on wearing them down with this method, and now look at the result—they’ve simply bought a loophole and sent someone in. Tell me, how do you intend to resolve this?”

Suddenly Hua Wenkai lifted his head, his eyes flashing brightly. “This subordinate has already identified a crucial figure. She may allow us to settle accounts with Yang Tingyu after the autumn reckoning.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

At this, Qin Chaoyang suppressed his fury, raised an eyebrow, and asked Hua Wenkai.

“Shao Xinhong once had a deep entanglement with a woman of the demimonde from a brothel in Bing Prefecture. If we can pry something out of this woman, we will certainly be able to condemn Yuwen Qi and the others.”

Qin Chaoyang pressed immediately, “Where is she now?”

“After Shao Xinhong’s death, Yuwen Qi secretly bought her freedom and then placed her in a residence in Qing Prefecture. When Feng Xunqin reported to me, he said there were dozens of men guarding the area in secret, ensuring that the woman would not be able to step outside the manor even once. Once Yuwen Qi and the others let down their guard entirely, she was to be escorted back to the capital.”

Hua Wenkai slowly explained the whole matter.

“Move at once. Bring that woman back immediately. You must squeeze evidence out of her mouth. Whether it is true or false does not matter—I only want evidence, do you hear me?” Qin Chaoyang said urgently.

Hua Wenkai smiled with confidence and assured him, “This subordinate issued the order two days ago for them to bring the woman back. If nothing has gone wrong, she should already be on the road back under escort.”

“Report!” came Du Chengxiang’s voice from outside the door.

“Enter.”

At Qin Chaoyang’s command, Du Chengxiang pushed the door open and came in.

In his hands was a memorial used exclusively by the Embroidered Uniform Guards, identical to the one Qin Chaoyang had just been reading.

“This was brought by this old servant on Feng Xunqin’s behalf. He said it was meant for Commander Hua, but this servant dared to take the liberty of presenting it to Your Majesty first.”

As he spoke, he bent and offered up the memorial.

Qin Chaoyang took it at random. After opening it and glancing through, he began coughing violently.

“This...” Hua Wenkai and Du Chengxiang both froze in place.

“This is your solemn assurance to me!” Qin Chaoyang’s furious roar echoed through the entire hall.

The memorial struck Hua Wenkai squarely in the chest. He opened it at once and saw: all fifty-two agents in Qing Prefecture had been slain, and Jiang Xixuan was nowhere to be found.