Chapter 130

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Protagonist:

Shaowei

Liu Qi

"Someone is tending to her medical care," Zhao Qie'an replied. "It's not an interrogation; everything that needed asking has been asked. She's just recovering now. Although I don't know the specific reason, the Sixth Prince sent word saying it should be nothing bad, and he will have someone keep watch."

Hearing this, Shaowei felt somewhat more at ease.

That night, Shan Gu was left behind mainly to cover up traces of her having appeared at that mountain villa.

Even though the Zhu Family Guards who had seen her at the villa were all dead, and the Spider Woman would keep her secret, the other doctors and maidservants, even if they hadn't seen her, must have heard rumors in the chaos that someone had escaped from the villa and knew someone had been intercepted and besieged.

The traces of that siege could not be completely erased, and it was unknown how far the Brocade Guard could investigate. So on the road back to Changling, Liu Qi consulted Shaowei's opinion and had someone return to deliver word, asking Shan Gu to remain in the open and take responsibility for this matter.

Shaowei asked at this moment: "Did the Brocade Guard find out anything about what happened after I left the Robber's Cave?"

After the Nuo Sacrifice ended that night, when questioned by the Taichang Temple Minister about her experience, Shaowei only answered that she left the Robber's Cave and then promptly lost consciousness, which was also to leave herself some leeway to observe developments.

Zhao Qie'an shook his head: "The clues have all been cut off. The dozens of guards Zhu Zhi took to Changling that night also all died. After hearing the news that Zhu Zhi was executed, they tried to flee and were all shot dead by the Imperial Guard with bows and crossbows."

Shaowei fell silent for a while, but then slightly frowned and said: "Dying so cleanly doesn't necessarily mean the Red Yang Sect didn't fan the flames."

All the living mouths around Zhu Zhi were dead, and traces of her appearing at the mountain villa were cleared along with them. This was naturally a good thing, saving her much trouble—she shouldn't expose her entanglement with Zhu Zhi, otherwise the Emperor would easily question her motive for entering the capital, and even doubt everything about her.

So, of her experiences after going missing, only the first half was most favorable; the latter half should be erased.

And regarding the silencing, even if the Red Yang Sect had fanned the flames, they naturally wouldn't be doing it to help her—at such a critical juncture, he also needed to promptly erase traces of his private dealings with Zhu Zhi.

This was a consensus born under a double-edged sword. Forming a consensus with an enemy made Shaowei feel a chill, and she inevitably felt unwilling: "Judging by this, the tricks he played in Changling must have been cleaned up long ago as well."

"Mm," Zhao Qie'an said. "Two Wu Nu are missing, one guard is missing, and the mechanism traces have been erased and confused. It can't be traced to him."

Shaowei couldn't help but curse: "He really deserves to die."

Wanting to take her life but only hiding behind the scenes—those two Wu Nu and one guard were merely pawns he casually threw out, used only once and crushed regardless of success or failure. So the one who most deserves to die is him.

Sensing the girl's indignation and impatience, the house servant aptly said: "This time he originally took the initiative, yet you saved your life, removed Zhu Zhi, and gained fame—already peerless under heaven, doing what a person can to the utmost. Although he didn't die this time, he lost this game to you. You won, and won in a sensational way."

Shaowei had repeatedly reflected on her achievements during her deep sleep. Now facing this praise, she already showed a composure after sifting through great waves, and instead said: "It was also a narrow victory. I made a mistake, and only because of a moment's negligence did I fall into his trap."

"Such negligence, I will never commit again in this life," Shaowei promised, but then felt uncertain: "But as for other mistakes I haven't committed, I don't know if I will commit them."

In that desperate Black Tomb, she won the courage to forgive herself, accepted the fact that she would make mistakes, and thereby gained a sense of self-consistency. Now, however, many uncertainties also arose.

The house servant was already amazed and impressed by her attitude of self-reflection and self-consistency. Hearing her confusion now, he said without thinking: "No one can manage to never make mistakes. Even the Heavenly Way has a thread of oversight, let alone humans. If you make a new mistake, learn from it. Just don't fall on old ground."

Shaowei thought seriously and felt that the house servant's words, while somewhat comforting, were too loose and indulgent. How could she just keep making mistakes recklessly because she had the courage to make mistakes? The mistakes in this world were probably too many to ever finish.

So she restrained herself, straightened her expression, and said: "My situation is very different from others. How can 'learn from one mistake' be enough? At least I need to gain ten wisdoms to not waste this fall."

The house servant was once again amazed and impressed. This child was hard to raise, but she grew up very quickly, making people both worried and relieved.

Although he had no experience raising children, he had experience being a child. Those who had been children knew how formidable she was.

Whenever moved, the house servant could never say a proper response, so he said in a muffled voice: "Drink some fish soup. It nourishes the body."

Shaowei still had things to say, and subconsciously said: "I've already eaten tonight."

The house servant: "It also nourishes the brain."

Shaowei's gaze shifted, landing on that ceramic jar: "Then I'll drink a little less."

There were bowls in the room, but the house servant didn't think to get one, and Shaowei didn't think to ask for one. She held the round, stout soup jar, tilted her head, and drank straight from it with glugging sounds.

The soup jar wasn't very large, containing only half a jar of thick white fish soup. Shaowei quickly drank it all.

Then she grabbed a towel with one hand to wipe her mouth corner clean, held the empty jar with the other, and asked: "Uncle Zhao, you and Mo Li didn't suffer any serious injuries that night, right?"

"Not even minor injuries," Zhao Qie'an said. "After you left, I stopped fighting and left them all to be killed by them. Anyway, the remaining ones weren't hard to kill either."

As a mature knight-errant, he no longer had the fighting spirit of his youth. When he could avoid busying himself, he naturally chose to rest.

Shaowei fell silent for a moment and asked: "What about Xiao Yu? Has she been well recently?"

Although Xiao Yu hadn't been involved, they hadn't seen her for some time, so he asked about her in passing.

Zhao Qie'an: "She can eat and drink, but she's had some unpleasantness with Mo Li."

Hearing this, Shaowei only suspected the two were fighting over food, but the house servant said no and repeated the whole story.

It was originally that Mo Li learned from Dou Shiyi that their Young Master was missing, and felt that the Young Master, like the Head of Household, was gone and would not return. So he returned to the small courtyard to pack his things, preparing to leave his hometown and always search for the Young Master and the Head of Household.

Xiao Yu heard this and wanted to follow Mo Li, but Mo Li refused her by avoiding her: 【I don't want you! Even if the Young Master is dead, I don't want a former Young Master like you!】

He tried to sort out the seniority but made a mess of it, but his words were easy to understand: 【The Young Master could give me food, but the former Young Master wants me to feed him! I can't take you!】

Xiao Yu felt abandoned and shouted loudly: 【I don't want you to feed me! I only want the Young Master to feed me!】

Mo Li felt it was clear, nodded, and left satisfied.

Xiao Yu was left alone in the small courtyard, frightened and wronged. Every day besides eating and feeding the ox, she shed tears, until Zhao Qie'an brought Mo Li back. She learned the Young Master wasn't dead, and then she stopped crying.

After hearing this dispute, Shaowei couldn't help but ask the house servant: "How do you know all this so clearly?"

"Xiao Yu complained to me," the house servant said. "She also asked me to have you judge the case and settle the dispute."

Shaowei felt this was a headache and trouble. The two of them combined had a mind of no more than ten years old. How could she judge such a matter? This kind of thing should be left to Jiang Fu. Anyway, no reasoning could escape Jiang Fu's mouth full of twisted logic.

Thinking of this, Shaowei felt a sense of helplessness with nowhere to turn in her heart. Only then did she hold the empty ceramic jar and ask a question of little significance: "What exactly was in the carriage that the Red Yang Sect people escorted out of the city? Has it been found out?"

Anyway, it wouldn't be Jiang Fu. Otherwise she wouldn't wait until now to ask, and the house servant should have shared this great news with her the moment he saw her.

She already had the answer in her heart, so her voice didn't pause. Shaowei asked many questions at once: "And how did you come back so quickly, and with Liu Qi? Those people actually didn't set an ambush, didn't fight with you to detain you?"

"They didn't have time to act," Zhao Qie'an said. "When I caught up with their group, I also discovered that the Sixth Prince's group passed nearby. This Sixth Prince, to travel faster, returned to the capital from the west."

Following the principle of not wasting what's available, the house servant sought out Liu Qi and roughly explained the situation.

"……This boy acts without any scruples outside, very domineering," the house servant said. "He directly had people stop the Immortal Master's Mansion's group, surrounded them, and forcibly inspected them."

Shaowei was surprised: "Under what pretext did he inspect them?"

The manservant said: "He said he had encountered many assassination attempts along the way, and was already like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow; if things were not investigated clearly, his mind would be uneasy, and he could not travel."

"This demand was overbearing and mad; the people of the Immortal Master's Mansion initially refused to comply. A civil official following him stepped forward to mediate, saying his master, the Sixth Prince, had a bad temperament and saw ghosts in every shadow — this move was indeed improper, but—" The manservant narrated the situation at the time: "As the civil official spoke, he apologetically produced an imperial edict, only saying the Sixth Prince was recalled to the capital by decree and could not be delayed; for the sake of the Imperial Command, he could only ask them to cooperate."

With such carrot-and-stick tactics, seeing that refusal would mean the gloomy, ghost-like Sixth Prince would order men to draw blades, and with the Immortal Master not at hand, the people of the Immortal Master's Mansion knew they could not make such a major decision on their own, and could only endure their discomfort and accept this unreasonable demand.

The manservant: "During the search, I hid in the dark and watched. The one sitting inside the carriage was a man of slender build; he should possess some strange martial skill."

Only there was no opportunity, nor was it necessary, to exchange blows. Having already seen the full extent of the trap, his last thread of hope severed, he simply decided to return immediately.

The Sixth Prince caught up to him on a fast horse and said to him: 【Since there is this scheme, there would not be only this scheme; Huali will surely encounter danger.】

Thus they rushed back together, not stopping for a day and a night, leaving behind the carriages laden with luggage and officials.

They headed straight for Changling, and from Dou Shiyi's mouth learned that she had indeed met with trouble.

"Hearing that you went missing inside the tomb chamber, he guessed you might have fallen into the underground black tomb." The manservant spoke honestly: "At the time, I already held little hope; the tomb mechanisms were so perilous, how could one survive... I only thought there was a concealed robber's cave, so I went to look with a fluke hope."

Who knew I actually found traces near the robber's cave; this was an unexpected joy.

But it was only a fleeting joy. From the traces he tracked, Liu Qi judged she had been taken to one of Zhu Zhi's villas. Having escaped the black tomb, she must have been heavily injured, and then fallen into Zhu Zhi's hands—

The manservant had also steeled himself mentally, only preparing to bring back the corpse, kill everyone on that mountain villa, and then carry out the final words she had left behind.

But when he smashed open that back door, what he saw was a standing, living person.

The feeling of that instant cannot be described. His heart had already accepted the worst outcome, yet she had walked out alive from that very worst outcome.

Recalling it now, the manservant's heart still trembles.

Shaowei, who had now clarified the general course of events, felt shock and bewilderment: "But how would you know of the existence of that robber's cave?"

The manservant: "I dug it."

Shaowei's eyes widened: "You even steal from the dead?"

"I don't usually have this hobby; that was a one-time exception." The manservant thought for a moment, and spoke truthfully: "She entrusted me to go in and retrieve something."

Shaowei's widened eyes momentarily forgot to blink.

"It was a burial star disk." The manservant said: "She said that star disk was an ancient artifact, and in this feng shui treasure land of an imperial mausoleum, it had been nurtured by dragon qi for many years; only it was most suitable for guiding the way."

He successfully stole out the thing she wanted; only the incense pill she gave him as a gift was lost by him.

Shaowei was somewhat dazed. Jiang Fu indeed had an old star disk; she never expected it was actually stolen by the First Swordsman under Heaven from the First Black Tomb under Heaven.

Myriad thoughts intertwining, Shaowei first asked the manservant in a daze: "Then how did you break through the tomb mechanisms?"

Because she felt dazed at this moment, she suspected whether she was too useless.

Zhao Qie'an spoke his secret: "I stole the tomb mechanism diagram in advance."

He added: "That star disk was not in the depths of the black tomb; it was very easy to avoid the mechanisms. Your case is different; you were framed by someone, so naturally you fell into the most perilous place. And after the Imperial Tomb Collapse, those mechanisms must have been added to and repaired."

Shaowei secretly felt relieved, withdrawing her suspicion toward herself, and asked again: "Why was that robber's cave not filled in afterward?"

Zhao Qie'an: "She said leaving it was fine; perhaps one day it could leave a way to survive for someone."

The doors and windows of the room were all tightly shut, yet it seemed as if a gust of wind passed through Shaowei's heart platform.

Only now did she truly realize clearly: that wisp of wind she had sensed in the black tomb could not have been more real. That wind came from the robber's cave, and also from what Jiang Fu had left behind.

Jiang Fu was a carefree and compassionate person. Shaowei had never understood this kind of compassion broadcast widely at all times and places, just as she could never agree with the Marquis's choice back then — even though she later understood the Marquis's state of mind, she still found it hard to fully agree.

But when one day she became the weak one trapped in a desperate situation, and received that thread of pitying regard left by a predecessor, the feeling was completely different.

Shaowei fell into a long trance.

Until the manservant reached out and took away the ceramic jar she was still holding.

Shaowei recovered and suddenly asked: "Entering the tomb to steal — this was something she entrusted to you before she planned her Feather Shedding and departure from the capital, right?"

The manservant froze.

Shaowei looked at him: "I know everything now. She is Baili Youyi, that National Preceptor of legend who achieved Feather Shedding Ascension to Immortality."

Four eyes met; the manservant appeared wise and silent, but in reality did not know how to respond.

It was Shaowei who spoke first. She said: "You hid it from me before; I don't blame you. But now I know through my own ability; from now on, if I ask about matters related to her, you must not hide them from me again."

The manservant, as if granted a great pardon, nodded: "Good."

Having nodded, he frowned again, feeling a trace of strangeness.

She knows Jiang Fu's past identity through her own ability, so he must not hide any other matters related to Jiang Fu from her... does this causal relationship hold?

The manservant felt he couldn't sort it out, but having already nodded, if he went back on it now, his only shred of fatherly image would hit rock bottom; afterward he'd probably never get to utter a single word of preaching again.

Let it be then... The manservant gave up on continuing to probe this causal relationship.

Shaowei pretended to glance at his expression unintentionally; at this moment she secretly breathed a sigh of relief. This muddleheaded sort of advancing by retreating was occasionally still useful.

Striking while the iron was hot, Shaowei immediately began exercising her right to question: "Going by this, she is Chiyang's Shixiong. Then why is Chiyang so utterly heartless and deranged as to harm even his own sect sister?"

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