“Assassins? What are you talking about? Why did we not hear anything about this?” Zhao Pingchuan, a commander of palace guards, asked after walking out, a cold look on his face.
“All people in this building are palace guards. There are no assassins here,” said another man aloud in an unfriendly tone of voice. “Why don’t you just go and hunt the assassins instead of messing around in our place?!”
“Even Yuwen Tong himself has no right to come here and search our rooms this way. We’re immediately affiliated to His Majesty! You are just Yuwen Tong’s bodyguards. This doing of yours is beyond the pale!” yelled Commander Zhao with an attempt to scare Yao Yi and others into leaving.
Were Yao Yi scared into leaving, he wouldn’t be Yao Yi any longer.
In his eyes, even Dai Cheng didn’t really carry much weight, not to mention palace guards.
“Search the room.”
Zhang Liu and some others immediately walked out from behind him.
“How dare you! Yao Yi, does it really not concern you that His Majesty will get angry and vent his anger on your Marshal after being informed of this?!” thundered Zhao Pingchuan.
“We are just searching this courier station in an effort to hunt for the assassins. Why are you getting so excited about it? Is it because you are really harboring any assassins here?” Yao Yi fixed him with a suspicious gaze and then seemed to start pondering over something.
Zhao Pingchuan was sent at a loss for words. “You…”
While they were talking, Zhang Liu and some others had already started searching the room. They also checked faces and backs of those palace guards to see if they were in disguise and whether they had any injuries in their backs.
“What are you doing? Just search the room if you want. Get your hands off me!” A man restrained was infuriated.
At this time, Zhao Pingchuan finally noticed what was happening. “Stop!”
He was just about to walk over to free his subordinate when Zhang Liu and some others turned around and blocked his path.
Seeing this, other palace guards stood behind Zhao Pingchuan, confronting Zhang Liu and some other bodyguards.
“Let go of him,” instructed Zhao Pingchuan through gritted teeth. “You are going too far. If I stand by and watch you do this today, how are we supposed to show our faces in the future?!”
“Humph! I think you are just trying to hide something from us. As far as I can tell, the assassins are standing right here among you. That’s why you are so nervous and scared,” observed Zhang Liu.
“What did you just say?!” Someone whipped out his saber.
“You want a fight? Okay. Let’s do it. We can conveniently find out which one of you is injured during the process. It’ll save me checking you one by one,” Zhang Liu sneered.
“Commander Zhao, you were supposed to depart for the capital city immediately after Gonggong Zhang delivered all the imperial edicts. Why did you linger in Tanyang for such a long time and choose to leave on the same day we departed for the capital city? Even we won’t be able to believe you if you tell us that none of you have been entertaining ulterior motives.”
“Tell me about it. The reason why they waited so many days to depart for the capital city with the Marshal was that they were scheming an assassination.”
“They definitely harbor evil intentions, which is why they don’t even dare to let us search them.”
“I think we might as well just skip the search, directly inform the Marshal that the assassins are right among these people, and let the Marshal mete out penalties to them. Since they attempted to assassinate the Marshal, His Majesty won’t lay blame on the Marshal even if he directly executes them right here.”
As Zhang Liu and some others kept talking non-stop, all the palace guards were further infuriated. They whipped out their sabers and decided to fight to the death.
“Yao Yi, exactly why are you doing this? Why are you so insistent on crossing us and framing us?!” Zhao Pingchuan looked at Yao Yi.
Yao Yi replied, “Framing you? That’s not necessarily true.”
“Yao Yi! We are palace guards. You will not act with such unruliness in our place!”
“Palace guards? As palace guards, if you refuse to be cooperative when suspected of shielding assassins, will it not be synonymous with trying to bring disgrace on His Majesty? If news of this matter spreads out, what will our people think of him?”
“You think we are afraid of you? Why should we care what others will thin–”
“Enough! Shut your mouths! All of you!” Zhao Pingchuan flintily stared at Yao Yi for quite a while and then instructed, “Let them search.”
“Commander?!”
“Shut up. Any uncooperative behavior will be regarded as a sign of having a guilty conscience.” Zhao Pingchuan turned around, looked at those behind him and deterred them from making any further remarks.
Then he said to Yao Yi, “But if you fail to find anything, you must give us an explanation we deem acceptable!”
Yao Yi responded blandly, “Of course.”
After disarming the Palace Guards, Zhang Liu and some others started searching them.
After quite some time, all palace guards in the room were searched but nothing suspicious was found.
Seeing this, someone immediately sneered, “What did we tell you? Kneel down and kow–”
“What’s the hurry? I remember that you guys number thirty, but I’m counting only fifteen in this room. Where are the other fifteen men?” asked Zhang Liu in a cold tone of voice.
“You…”
Zhao Pingchuan raised his hand and instructed with subdued anger, “Let them finish the search!”
His face and back had also been checked, which was why he was consumed with anger.
Yao Yi winked at Zhang Liu, who inclined his head and brought some men upstairs.
This was a two-story building. The place they had just searched was a hall on the ground floor, where those palace guards were drinking. Upstairs, there were some rooms, and the rest of the palace guards were in there.
Since there had been quite some noises coming from downstairs, some men had walked out of their rooms to take a look, but some doors were tightly closed.
Unsurprisingly, some men refused to be searched. Yao Yi and Zhao Pingchuan went upstairs and the latter instructed those men to give up resistance.
Zhang Liu, along with other bodyguards, searched those rooms one by one. When there were only two rooms left, they still hadn’t found the assassins. Zhang Liu’s brow slightly corrugated in a frown.
‘Did we get this wrong?
No matter what, this search has to continue,’ he thought.
He kicked open the door of the second last room with a loud bang. As if having just been woken up by the noise, someone in the room asked, “Who is it?”
“Authorized search.” Zhang Liu’s eyes swept around the room. There was only one man inside, but the bedding suggested that there had been two people living here. “I see only one man. Where’s the other one?”
The man sat up from the bed, looking rather sleepy. After recognizing Zhang Liu, he asked aloud, “You are Marshal Yuwen’s bodyguard? What are you doing in my room?”
Instead of answering his question, Zhang Liu winked at Xie Shi who was behind him.
Xie Shi walked up to the doorway of the last room, kicked the door open and saw that there were four men inside, all of whom were asleep. On the table was an overturned porcelain liquor bottle. Air in the room was filled with a strong smell of alcohol.
The drunkenness of the men spared Xie Shi from confrontational talk. He carefully checked the faces and backs of the four men and confirmed that there was nothing suspicious on them.
He walked out of the room and informed Zhang Liu and Yao Yi, “There are four men in this room, all terribly drunk and having no traces of injury on them. I’ve just hit at some of their acupoints to stimulate them. They’re indeed drunk.”
Zhao Pingchuan remarked, “Now I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been rid of suspicions, haven’t we?”
“There’s yet another room remaining unchecked,” Zhang Liu replied and twisted his head around to look at the man in the room, who had got out of bed and was eyeing him watchfully. That man was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight and of a lean build.
Yao Yi walked into the room and flicked a glance at him. His eyes rested on the man briefly and then he searched the whole room thoroughly. Eventually, he tossed a glimpse at the man’s shoes and queried him, “Where’s the other one living here?”
The man answered, “I don’t know. He must have left after I fell asleep. I think he upset his stomach tonight, because he’s been having loose bowels all along. He’s gone to the outhouse several times tonight and is probably in there right at this moment.”
‘Having loose bowels? In the outhouse?’
Yao Yi gave a sneer. “This is such an excellent excuse, but it’s too coincidental to be true. Does he think that it’s inconvenient for us to enter the outhouse to search him?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” the man responded in a vigilant tone but was trying to affect a confused expression on his face.
Yao Yi winked at Xie Shi, who took the hint and led others away.
The man, following them with his eyes, hurriedly said, “What are you doing? I said he went to the outhouse!”
“Your lightness skills are pretty good, but skills in lying less so,” commented Yao Yi.
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand,” the man responded.
Zhao Pingchuan said with a frown on his face, “Yao Yi, stop talking in riddles. Don’t you dare arbitrarily make my subordinate a scapegoat to cover up your inability to find the real culprits.”
“See? He even prepared some excuses in advance to stop us. Commander Zhao, surely you are not in collusion with these two people, are you?” Zhang Liu looked at him flintily.
Zhao Pingchuan was sent speechless with anger once again, glaring at Zhang Liu in vain. There had already been several occasions when he nearly vomit blood from rage caused by Zhang Liu’s words on this night.
However, no matter whether this was true or not, he must protect his subordinate! But if by any chance it was true, there would be unimaginably dire consequences!
“Like I said, all my men have been staying in this courier station all along tonight. Given that you didn’t find anything, I suggest you leave here right away. I’m willing to let this go and I won’t report it to His Majesty, but if you keep unreasonably pestering us, I will make you pay!”
“That’s a big word.” Zhang Liu coldly satirized him.
Right at this moment, Yao Yi abruptly launched an attack on that palace guard!
“Yao Yi, what are you doing?!” Zhao Pingchuan thundered immediately after a brief moment of shock.
However, Yao Yi had been aiming to kill from the first move, and his attack was extremely quick and powerful, leaving no room for maneuver.
With his life under threat, the palace guard fought back almost instinctively.
But the moment he counter-attacked, his face immediately paled visibly.
Yao Yi fell back, sneering, “I knew it was you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” The palace guard cautiously backed off and didn’t dare to confront Yao Yi any longer.
“There is dirt on your shoes, which you failed to find the time to wipe off –this is the first doubtful point. When I got close to you, I found that there was a very faint and unique smell of flower –or smell of medicinal herb, to be precise –on you. This smell is specific to the medicinal herbs in that herbal garden, which means that you must have been to that herbal garden not long ago –this is the second doubtful point. In fact, these two doubtful points alone are more than enough to prove that you are one of the suspects. Just now, when I attacked you to test you out, I found that you had an injury in your right wrist, which was why you showed a manifest lack of strength when trying to parry my last blow. Before I came back, Liu Yi had told me all the details of the previous fight between you and him, so I knew your hand had been wounded by his sword.”
After saying this, Yao Yi suddenly launched another attack on the man with a move the route of which was very unconventional. Aimed at the man’s wrist, the move was also swift and fierce. Taken aback, the man subconsciously tried to protect his wrist.
Naturally, this defensive movement came to the notice of Zhang Liu and Zhao Pingchuan.
Zhao Pingchuan’s face changed drastically in the inkling that what he had been worrying about was about to be confirmed. He couldn’t afford to let Yao Yi reveal that wound in the man’s wrist. Thinking about this, he attempted to stop him.
Zhang Liu, who was quicker than him, immediately blocked his path. “Commander Zhao, what’s the hurry?”
“Step aside.”
Zhang Liu coldly snorted, “No way.”
Meanwhile, Yao Yi successfully tore the sleeve of that palace guard, revealing his wrist around which there was a very obtrusive white bandage.
“Do you still have any sophistries at your disposal?” Yao Yi asked coldly.
With a sullen look on his face, the man stared at Yao Yi and replied through gritted teeth, “I still don’t understand what you are talking about. This injury in my wrist was merely the result of a moment of carelessness of mine. I’ve never been to any herbal gardens, and I have no idea why I have this smell of medical herb on me. I… Uh!”
All of a sudden, his face paled visibly, blood flowing from the corners of his mouth.
“Damn it!” Yao Yi hurriedly stepped forward and rapidly hit at several of the man’s acupoints, but it was still too late. The man went limp and fell to the ground.
“He bit through a poison capsule hidden in his mouth and killed himself,” remarked Zhang Liu in a cold tone of voice, his face sepulchral.
Surprisingly, Zhao Pingchuan exhaled deeply in relief.
“There’s another one alive. I hope Xie Shi will be quicker than me,” said Yao Yi with an icy expression.
