“Wanna leave?! You wish!”
The sound of fighting emanated from the backyard of the courier station.
On hearing it, Yao Yi quickly rushed out of the room towards the scene, while Zhang Liu stayed inside guarding the body.
When Yao Yi got to the backyard, the one trying to escape had just been overpowered by Xie Shi. Secretly rejoicing that he had arrived in time by a fluke, Yao Yi immediately hit at a couple of acupoints of the assassin’s to neuter him of his mobility, then decisively dislocated the assassin’s lower jaw and fished out a ball of wax hidden in his mouth.
Xie Shi’s brow corrugated in a frown. “What’s going on? He’s hiding poison in his mouth?”
Yao Yi nodded. “Due to a momentary lapse of concentration of mine, the one upstairs bit through the wax ball in his mouth and committed suicide. Fortunately we stopped this guy from doing the same thing.”
The man lying on the ground was the very assassin who had previously been hit by Yuwen Tong on the back. He had sustained an internal injury after receiving that palm strike of Yuwen Tong, and now his face was frighteningly pale. With a resentful look in his eyes, he stared at Xie Shi and Yao Yi, but since his acupoints had been hit, eyeing his enemies belligerently was the only thing he could do.
“Lock him up first. Keep him alive. Marshal will decide how he shall be dealt with,” instructed Yao Yi.
Xie Shi gave a bob of his head and escorted the assassin away with some others.
When Zhao Pingchuan arrived at the yard, he found that his subordinate was nowhere to be seen. “Where is he? He escaped?”
Yao Yi flicked a bland glance at him. “Why am I feeling that Commander Zhao seems very happy to know that he managed an escape?”
Zhao Pingchuan immediately replied, “I just worry that he might try to hurt someone else.”
“Is that so? Didn’t Commander Zhao claim with absolute certainty that there was no assassin whatsoever hiding among palace guards? How are you going to explain this?” asked Yao Yi.
Zhao Pingchuan’s face darkened as he heard this.
…
All visitors in the herbal garden had been carefully questioned, every corner of the manor searched, but no accomplices of the assassins had been found.
The owner of the herbal garden heaved a deep sigh of relief and, as if having been drained of energy, was within an inch of going limp and slumping to the ground.
Yuwen Tong was sitting in a seat with a highly commanding presence, striking fear into the heart of anyone that laid eyes on him.
“Marshal, we searched everybody and every inch of this place. No accomplices of the assassins were found,” the head constable of the county yamen reported after wiping the sweat off his forehead and walking over.
“Your trouble is appreciated. I’ll keep your meritorious services in mind and see them properly rewarded later. It’s been a long tough night. You may go back and get some rest now,” observed Yuwen Tong.
“You are too kind, Marshal. We but performed our sworn duty,” replied the head constable, secretly relieved. “Marshal, would you and Childe Ling care to go back to the inn? If you would, may I take the liberty of offering to escort you and Childe Ling there?”
Yuwen Tong inclined his head. “It may not be a bad idea. Thanks in advance for the trouble.”
“You are too courteous, Marshal,” the head constable responded and hurriedly walked away to make arrangements for Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang to be escorted back to the courier station.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you and your guests today,” Yuwen Tong said to the owner of the herbal garden. “I’ll compensate for all the losses. Please calculate them and deliver the total number to the courier station tomorrow. I’ll pay double the amount.”
The owner of the herbal garden was shocked. It had never crossed his mind that Yuwen Tong would offer to compensate him. Though having been busy and on tenterhooks for the whole night, the owner of the herbal garden was very gratified to hear Yuwen Tong say this. “Marshal, I’m already deeply indebted to you for absolving me from my failure to provide up-to-standard security. How dare I accept a compensation from Marshal?”
“That’s another issue. Besides, you are just victims of an undeserved catastrophe,” observed Yuwen Tong.
The owner of the herbal garden was deeply moved, thinking, ‘Marshal Yuwen’s reputation as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Great Yue as well as the God of War is well-earned. Marshal Yuwen is indeed different from those generals or other officers.’
“Marshal, though you wish to make up for me, there’s no need to pay me any money. Just take it as a petty donation of mine to the North-western Army. I have no fighting skills and therefore am not capable of going to the battlefield to defend our country against enemies, which has always been a great regret of mine. And I’ve always had great admiration for soldiers of the North-western Army, so I’d like to make a contribution in my own way,” said the owner of the herbal garden tactfully.
Yuwen Tong gave a smile, “Such sense of patriotism stands something of a rarity these days. Then so be it. I guess you’ve had enough of us disturbing you, so we’ll take our leave.”
“I’ll see you and Childe Ling to the gateway, Marshal,” said the owner of the herbal garden.
Before leaving, Yuwen Tong went to the teahouse and had a brief talk with those customers, expressing his gratitude for their being cooperative this night.
Though feeling it regrettable that no accomplices of the assassins had been found, on hearing that Yuwen Tong was leaving, all customers went out of the teahouse with the intention to see him back to the courier station.
At the gateway of the manor, Yuwen Tong stopped them and declined their kind offer, letting only the yamen runners of the county yamen be the escorts.
After seeing Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang to the doorway of the courier station, those yamen runners took their leave and returned.
It was not until there was no outsider present that Ling Zhang relaxed his back muscles which had been tense all along. “You have a very high personal prestige among the people.”
‘No wonder the emperor fears him.
Yuwen Tong not only has powerful armies at his command but also possesses great renown which considerably overshadows even that of the emperor. How could the emperor not be on pins and needles?’ he thought.
However, Yuwen Tong’s reaction to this was rather bland. “Some matters are not as simple as they seem. ‘While water can carry a boat, it can also overturn it.’ People have already grown accustomed to the rule from the imperial family.”
After some thinking, Ling Zhang felt that he had got a point. Apart from everything else, in his last life, his family had done nothing wrong but those people, whose judgement had been clouded, vented their anger on and hurled curses at his family.
“Let’s go and find out if Yao Yi and others caught the assassins,” said Yuwen Tong, breaking into Ling Zhang’s thoughts.
Ling Zhang pulled his mind back to the current moment and went into the courier station with him.
Yao Yi had already walked out of the back yard. “Marshal, we caught both of the two assassins. One of them ingested poison. We tried to save him but he didn’t make it. The other one is in custody. Both of them are palace guards.”
“I see,” Yuwen Tong answered without even glancing at Zhao Pingchuan who had just hurried up to him with the intention to talk.
Ling Zhang softly gave a bob of his head and then left with Yuwen Tong.
Zhao Pingchuan briefly clenched his teeth and followed in their wake.
A young eunuch, who had been standing in the corridor occasionally popping his head around the corner to sneak a glance at them, saw they leave and quickly ran back to the room of Zhang Xi.
“Gonggong, the Marshal returned. Zhao Pingchuan is bound to suffer this time.”
Zhang Xi had a grave expression on his face. “Go get the supervisor of this courier station. Tell him that I need a courier pigeon to deliver a letter to the capital city.”
The young eunuch answered “Yes” and hurriedly trotted out of the room.
Zhang Xi muttered in a surprised tone of voice, “Exactly who was it that planted assassins in the Palace Guards? Those two men look rather familiar… Are they by any chance under anybody’s instigation?”
The frown on Zhang Xi’s face deepened as he thought about this. Eventually, he still wrote a letter and had the supervisor of the courier station use a courier pigeon to deliver it to the capital city.
No sooner had he taken this course of action than it came to the knowledge of bodyguards of Yuwen Tong, who immediately reported this matter to Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang.
“Let him be,” said Yuwen Tong.
Ling Zhang thought for a while but made no remarks about it. Such was the severity of this incident that people in the capital city would inevitably get wind of it sooner or later. And it was almost impossible to stop Zhang Xi from reporting it.
The assassin restrained was still lying on the ground. A pained expression appeared on his face when someone fixed his dislocated bottom jaw.
“Who sent you here to assassinate Childe Ling?” Yao Yi inquired.
The assassin closed his eyes and kept silent.
Yuwen Tong, who could tell at a single glance what kind of person this man was, couldn’t be bothered to waste any time on him. “Drag him away. Do whatever necessary to get him talking.”
“Yes, Marshal!” Xie Shi curved the corners of his mouth in a sneer and dragged the man away.
Ling Zhang looked at the assassin, who was literally being dragged forward, and then withdrew his gaze impassively.
He was eager to know exactly who it was that was so determined to see him dead!
The reason why Zhao Pingchuan had followed Yuwen Tong was that he wanted to see if Yuwen Tong would be able to get any information from the assassin, but unexpectedly, he only ended up helplessly watching the man being dragged away, which sent him into vexation.
“Commander Zhao, are these two assassins members of the Palace Guards?” Yuwen Tong queried.
Ling Zhang also looked at Zhao Pingchuan.
Being coldly stared by the two pairs of eyes, Zhao Pingchuan briefly froze and then replied, “They are indeed members of the Palace Guards.”
“Was their plan to assassinate me in your knowledge?” Yuwen Tong asked another question.
Ling Zhang secretly tossed a glance at Yuwen Tong, saying nothing. ‘It was unmistakably me that the assassins attempted to kill. Why did Yuwen Tong say that he himself was the target?’
But Zhao Pingchuan failed to notice this minor inconsistency between Yuwen Tong’s statements and the facts. Face tense, he replied, “They did it without my knowledge. I would have killed them before they could take action had I known about it. Marshal Yuwen, neither I nor any of my other brethren was aware of why they did that. They’d been working under me for several years and they had always been honest and loyal. As regards this incident, I believe there must be some kind of mistake, some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? If it weren’t for the fact that I’d brought some bodyguards with me, my head wouldn’t have remained on my shoulders,” observed Yuwen Tong in a cold tone of voice after putting down the teacup.
Zhao Pingchuan was stressed out by Yuwen Tong’s aggressiveness and beads of cold sweat immediately oozed out of the forehead of him. “With all due respect, I still believe that my judgement of their character stands correct. They are by no means evildoers.”
“We’ll find out whether they are evildoers or not when the interrogation is over,” remarked Yuwen Tong.
“But I’m afraid this kind of covert interrogation is against the rules, Marshal,” said Zhao Pingchuan, steeling himself against the pressure from Yuwen Tong.
“Then what do you think the rules suggest I should do?”
“I should be present, so that I’ll be able to report to His Majesty according to the truth provided he asks about it someday.”
Yuwen Tong gave a sneer. “As you wish. Yao Yi, take him to the room.”
Yao Yi flicked a glance of sympathy at Zhao Pingchuan. “This way, please, Commander Zhao.”
Zhao Pingchuan had an inkling that something was not right, but he still braced himself and walked forward.
After both of them left, Wang Dashan and a couple of others entered the room and looked at Ling Zhang, anxiety on their faces. “Young Master, are you okay?”
Ling Zhang shook his head. “I’m fine. Elder Brother Liu was there protecting me.”
This reply sent Wang Dashan and others relieved. “I’m glad to hear that. I should have brought more men and gone there with you. Those assassins wouldn’t have dared to show their faces had I done that.”
“Don’t blame yourself for that. It was me who decided to take only Elder Brother Liu with me. Elder Brother Wang, did you find anything after checking out staff members of this courier station?” asked Ling Zhang.
Wang Dashan responded, “Nothing. None of them has ever made any contact with the assassins.”
Ling Zhang inclined his head.
“But the two assassins are palace guards. Why did they try to assassinate young master?” Qiu Bing queried in a confused and worried tone of voice.
After a few moments’ silence, Ling Zhang replied, “We’ll find that out when the interrogation is finished.”
Feeling that something was not quite right, Qiu Bing intended to persist his questioning, but Wang Dashan gently knocked him with his shoulder.
Qiu Bing took the hint and shut up.
After they left the room, Qiu Bing, bursting with astonishment, queried, “Elder Brother Wang, why did you hush me just now?”
Wang Dashan looked at Liu Yi, who flicked a glance at them and said, “I think it has something to do with the engagement between young master and the Marshal.”
“The engagement between young master and the Marshal?” Qiu Bing was perplexed at first and then the light dawned on him. “Are you saying that someone is trying to stop young master and the Marshal from getting married?”
“Theoretically, this is the only plausible explanation.”
“What kind of son of a bitch would be so keen on being a busybody? I mean, to whom could the marriage between young master and the Marshal possibly cause any harm?!” remarked Qiu Bing angrily.
Both Wang Dashan and Liu Yi kept silent, but there were somewhat worried expressions in their eyes.
‘In order to stop them from getting married, these people actually resorted to assassination. It seems that this journey of young master’s to the capital city will be long and dangerous,’ Wang Dashan thought.
