“Drive!”
Zhong Li and Lin Jin left the Qi manor and got into the carriage Zhong Li had been in earlier, speeding towards the Prefect’s mansion.
Lin Jin was right; there were fewer guards outside the Prefect’s mansion now than during the day.
They hid the carriage in a secluded alley, and Zhong Li followed Lin Jin over the high wall, heading straight for Lu Wuxie’s room.
Lin Jin’s movements were swift. He knocked out the two guards by the door and pushed it open, searching for Lu Wuxie.
“Young Master, Young Master?” It was too dark, and he could barely make out the shadows with the candlelight as he searched the room. Zhong Li kept watch outside.
A moment later, a whimper came from inside. Zhong Li, alert, drew her dissection knife and rushed in.
She saw Lin Jin clutching his shoulder, glaring fiercely at the inner room.
Zhong Li followed his gaze. A man wearing Lu Wuxie’s clothes looked at him mockingly and said, “Two? Walking into a trap? Give me your lives!”
Zhong Li immediately shielded Lin Jin with her body and pulled a hairpin from her head, throwing it at the man’s forehead.
The man reacted quickly. Seeing he couldn’t dodge, he raised his dagger and knocked the hairpin away. But to his surprise, following the hairpin was a dissection knife, mid-air.
“Ugh!” The man grunted and fell straight to the ground.
“Miss Zhong, your skills are impressive,” Lin Jin said, his eyes wide as he witnessed everything.
Zhong Li walked to the man’s body, pulled the dissection knife from his head, and wiped it with his clothes as she said, “On the Beichuan Gang’s ship, Mo Cang and I almost fell victim to this hidden weapon technique, so I’m just putting what I learned into practice.”
“Then let’s quickly find our master,” Lin Jin said, quickly stepping over the man’s body and beginning to search the room.
Zhong Li stopped his reckless actions and went to the bed, lifting the sheets to drag Lu Wuxie out from beneath them.
“How did Miss Zhong know?” Lin Jin asked, surprised.
Zhong Li replied, “Earlier, I hid a female corpse under this bed. If this corpse hadn’t been discovered, the series of pursuits tonight wouldn’t have happened. Coupled with the man who attacked you after you burst in. It wasn’t difficult to guess that the enemy would follow my method and hide Lu Wuxie.”
After speaking, Zhong Li glanced at the wound on Lin Jin’s shoulder, confirmed it was a superficial injury, applied some medicine, and left the room first.
Lin Jin, hearing this, paused in his action of preparing to carry Lu Wuxie, glancing at his still unconscious master. Now he finally understood what his master had meant by ‘kicking a steel plate’ all these days. It turned out Miss Zhong didn’t think it was inappropriate for a living person to lie in a place where a dead person had been.
The two of them took down several guards along the way and successfully returned to the carriage. Zhong Li looked at the unconscious man lying in the carriage and began to busily prepare Chinese medicine.
Lin Jin, knowing they shouldn’t linger, drove the carriage away from the Prefect’s mansion.
“Miss Zhong, if we rescue our master, the Prefect’s spies will surely have noticed. It will be exceptionally dangerous to leave Liaocheng now. What do we do?” Lin Jin’s voice came from outside.
Zhong Li didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she opened the note Qi Lei had left her and read it. It contained four characters: ‘Yu County’ and ‘A Wu’.
“We definitely can’t go back to the inn. Those people will be waiting there to catch us. Find a secluded place to shelter until daylight. We’ll find a way to slip out of Liaocheng when the crowds are largest at noon,” Zhong Li said.
“Where do we go after leaving Liaocheng? Back to Jincheng?” Lin Jin asked again.
Zhong Li took a deep breath and clenched the note in her hand. “No! We’re going to Yu County.”
-------------------------------------
The morning sun illuminated half the sky of Liaocheng. The layered clouds, wrapped in the rosy glow of dawn, looked like fatty pork belly in a butcher’s stall, appearing succulent and shapely.
Lin Jin chewed on a piece of straw, staring distractedly at a small vendor selling meat nearby. His stomach rumbled with primal protest. He swallowed his saliva, sighed, and turned to walk into the carriage behind him.
“How is it?” he asked, looking at the woman who had her back to him and was still busy.
Zhong Li finished the last step of her work, casually grabbed a handkerchief to wipe her fingertips, then turned and said, “Done.”
Lin Jin followed her gaze to the person lying on the carriage. With just a glance, he almost burst out laughing.
“This… is Master?”
Zhong Li glanced at the man on the couch when she heard him. “Yes, how is it? My disguise skills are good, aren’t they?”
Lin Jin didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned closer to Lu Wuxie’s ‘face’ to examine it. The man, who should have been known as Jincheng’s number one handsome scoundrel, now looked like Jincheng’s number one ugly man. His facial features were uneven in size, and his face was wrinkled like dried orange peel. Anyone who looked at him would avert their gaze in disgust.
“This is simply unbearable to look at,” he said.
Zhong Li smiled. “Isn’t this exactly the effect we want?”
After saying that, she lifted the curtain, checked the sky, and said to Lin Jin, “Go wash your face, and come in half an hour. I’ll disguise you too.”
At noon, Liaocheng was as bustling and noisy as ever. People came and went on the main street, as if nothing that had happened there last night had ever occurred.
Zhong Li lowered the curtain, took out a mirror, and looked at the ‘beauty’ with a plump face and small features. Despite her usual cold demeanor, she couldn’t help but chuckle softly.
Just as she was about to put away the mirror and eat some of the snacks on the table, the carriage suddenly stopped, and the clear tea in her hand almost spilled.
“What happened?” Zhong Li asked the old man with a long beard who was sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Miss Zhong, please lift the curtain and take a look.”
Zhong Li put down her teacup, gently lifted the curtain, and saw that the street, which had been crowded with people moments ago, was now filled with commoners. They were all looking up in the same direction, whispering amongst themselves, their eyes filled with a hint of fear.
She was puzzled and followed the gaze of the commoners upwards. When she saw what was hanging on the city wall, her pupils contracted sharply.
“This…” Zhong Li’s fingertips, gripping the carriage window frame, turned pale. Her red lips were bitten until they bled, but she didn’t notice.
It was the heads of Qi Lei and his family, a total of four heads of various sizes, lined up and hung on the city wall.
“Qi Tongpan of Liaocheng was discovered to have poisoned the new Prefect Lu’s food, stolen the Divine Maiden Sect’s sacred medicine Tianhua Powder, and intentionally assassinated Prefect Lu under the cover of night. To prevent Qi Tongpan and his family from making further mistakes, Lord Chang has ordered the execution of the Qi family here as a warning!”
A man in armor standing on the city wall, holding a treasure sword, bellowed down at the crowd of commoners below. He gestured with his sword from time to time, the threat and intimidation evident.
After he finished speaking, all the commoners showed expressions of worry and fear. Some even had their legs weakened to the point of kneeling on the ground, shouting, “Long live the Divine Maiden Sect,” and similar phrases.
Zhong Li slowly closed her eyes, the murmurs of those people filling her ears.
She clenched her fists, letting her fingernails dig into her flesh. Bright red blood trickled down along the gaps.
“Bastards!” she roared in anger. It was the Divine Maiden Sect’s shame, yet they were blaming Lu Wuxie. This was not a prosperous city, but a city of evil spirits.
“Miss Zhong, what do we do?” Lin Jin’s voice came from outside again.
Zhong Li opened her eyes and said firmly, “Continue out of the city. The plan remains unchanged.”