After waiting for half a day, Murong Yunxi still did not manage to see Gong Yu return. As Murong Yunxi"s eyes made it inconvenient for her and she also could not head outside, while she was full of surprise, she had no choice but to sit in the courtyard and bask in the sun.
It was not until Xing Ye called her to have lunch that she was saved from the awkwardness of being a "dried human".
"Xing Ye, could I trouble you to take me to see Gong Yu? He already went to the study for half a day and he still has not come out yet."
"Alright!"
Xing Ye brought Murong Yunxiao to the study room. Gong Yu was slightly depressed when he saw Murong Yunxi. "Xiao Xi, I will help you to find another suitable book of martial arts to practice. We can"t practice with this book. Master actually set a pa.s.sword lock for it."
"Oh? What kind of pa.s.sword lock?" Murong Yunxi was very curious. It was really amazing that Master Kuang could actually create a pa.s.sword lock at this time.
"It requires a pa.s.sword with a combination of three numerical digits. I have tried it for half a day but I still could not solve it. I"ve given up. Let me find another suitable book for you."
"Could I give it a try?" It seemed to have roused Murong Yunxi"s interest. Her mathematics results were not to be underestimated. Questions about combinations were already considered to be "too easy" to her in junior high school. It was probably not too difficult for her to unlock that pa.s.sword.
Not taking her seriously, Gong Yu said, "Xiao Xi, I have tried to solve the problem for half a day. Let"s not compete against this thing."
"Then let me just give it a try!" A bright smile hung on Murong Yunxi"s face; her tone of voice was confident and firm.
Gong Yu handed the small box in his hands over to Murong Yunxi. Spreading her hands open, he placed it over them. "Here. Give it a try if you want to."
Murong Yunxi touched the approximate structure of the small box with both of her hands. When she roughly had a concept about the structure of the box, she began to calculate in her heart.
Her fingers stroked the parts of the pa.s.sword lock. She stopped at the location where she felt three gear-like structures. One circle on the gear had protruding numbers and it was easy to tell what the number was based on touch. Her nimble fingers began to turn the gear.
For the first time, there wasn"t the expected sound of unlocking when she pressed the unlock b.u.t.ton on the side, after turning the three numbers.
The second time, she turned three numbers and it still failed...
Murong Yunxi tried more than a dozen sets of numbers over and over again, but it all ended in failure. Gong Yu was beginning to get impatient. He softly consoled and advised her, "Xiao Xi, forget it. This cannot be unlocked. It"s getting late. Let"s go and eat first. If you are really keen to solve this, we could try slowly later."
"Give me another five minutes." Murong Yunxi continued to turn the gear with a serious look of obsession on her face.
However, right after Murong Yunxi said this, the pa.s.sword lock gave a clear, crisp click sound.
Gong Yu looked at Murong Yunxi with slight surprise. A relaxed smile surfaced on Murong Yunxi"s face.
"Xiao Xi, you succeeded?"
Murong Yunxi nodded and pa.s.sed the small box over to Gong Yu. "Come, open it and take a look."
Gong Yu took over the small box and opened the lid. Inside laid a thick book that was slightly yellowing.
Gong Yu took out the book. It was probably the size of a palm, but it was a very thick and solid.
Gong Yu looked at the book which was finally opened and his heart felt a small sense of joy. If Xiao Xi mastered it, she would probably be very happy! Furthermore, the most crucial thing was that it should probably be able to adjust her current mentality and rebuild her self-confidence.
Upon flipping open the book, the smile instantly froze on Gong Yu"s face.
Where was the promised swordplay?
Gong Yu looked at the empty pages on the book and his heart felt as if he had been toyed with. He could not help but curse and throw the book aside. The book landed next to Murong Yunxi"s feet.
Murong Yunxi did not know what happened and was rather surprised by Gong Yu"s reaction. She could not help but ask, "Gong Yu, what happened?"
Gong Yu"s face did not look too well and his tone of voice was full of resentment. "Master actually cracked such a joke. We spent half a day to open the book yet there was actually nothing inside."
Murong Yunxi was also slightly surprised. She bent down, groped about and picked up the book next to her feet. She touched the thick book. The paper used in for it was thicker than that of normal books. It had a nice touch and it gave one the feeling that the book should be of good quality.
Murong Yunxi"s fingertips suddenly touched something uneven. Feeling slightly surprised in her heart, she repeatedly rubbed through again. She quickly flipped open the cover and her fingers continued to fumble across the pages.
Slightly astonished, Murong Yunxi began to smile. "Wow, Gong Yu, your master was so formidable. He actually knew Braille."
When Gong Yu heard this, he took over the book from Murong Yunxi"s hands. Looking at it carefully, he found that there were indeed dense small dots that were poked by needles. Suddenly it became clear to him. So that was Braille. He had heard about it when he was in Murong Yunxi"s world but he had not truly seen it before, so he did not know how it looked like.
His fingers touched the surface gently, but he did not feel anything. Depressed, he said, "So what if it"s Braille? n.o.body can understand it!"
Murong Yunxi"s lips curled up slightly into a mysterious smile. "Who said that n.o.body could understand this?"
Gong Yu became slightly happy. He immediately understood what Murong Yunxi meant. "Could it be that you know Braille?"
Murong Yunxi a.s.sumed a proud look and even her eyebrows were smiling. "Of course. Nothing could be too hard for your wife."
Gong Yu looked at Murong Yunxi"s current expression and could not help but laugh out loud. "Yes, my wife is the best. She knows everything!"
"Yes, this is such a coincidence! When I was in high school, Xuanxuan and I would visit the welfare home on weekends to express our condolences. There was a new child there whose parents had died on the spot in a car accident. While she managed to keep her life, gla.s.s had pierced into her eyes and she became blind. At that time, her spirits were very low and she hardly had any hope for living. In order to encourage her to get back to her feet, I accompanied her to learn Braille. It backfired and I learned it. Fortunately, my memory was not bad and I still remember it after so many years."
Gong Yu took a deep look at Murong Yunxi again. His gaze was full of appreciation and pride. Murong Yunxi was just like that. She was always able to create surprises for him.
Gong Yu pulled Murong Yunxi into his arms and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Let"s go. Let"s go and eat first. If you want to learn, we could learn after we"ve had our meal."
"Alright!" Murong Yun" replied obediently and cuddled in Gong Yu"s arms like a timid and lovable little woman. Looking at her made one"s heart itch.
After dinner, before Murong Yunxi could start to read the swordplay, bad news came through.
That day, Dong Fangying was ordered to meet with Ouyang Fangzheng to understand the situation and see if there were any news about Kuang Youzhi on that side. However, instead of bringing back news about Kuang Youzhi, he brought back an order to hunt down and kill.
"An order to hunt down and kill?" Gong Yu"s raised his eyebrows in shock and looked at Dong Fangying. It was incredible that Duanmu Gongcheng would actually come up with such a thing.
"That"s right!" The hunt down order was issued to the entire country of Muxia. Jin Lin City also increased its patrols. The wanted order stated that someone had impersonated Prince Yu and was parading about in the western suburbs of Jin Lin City. Not only was that a crime, deceiving the emperor and going against one"s superiors, it was also deceiving the common peasants and a behavior that hurt Prince Yu"s image. Furthermore, the party"s skills were formidable and extremely dangerous. If anyone discovered that person, they should execute him immediately in order to avoid casualties."
"Haha. He truly put in a great amount of effort in order to get rid of me! Did father not react to his absurd behavior?"
"It was said that this killing order was issued directly by the Prince. The Prince acted before he sought for permission. When the Emperor knew about it, the notice had been hung up all over the city. Since the royal order was out, there was definitely no room for backing out. Hence, it could only remain like this temporarily. Furthermore, he even spread rumours that the emperor was secretly behind this. He made the situation sound very serious and in his rage, the emperor acknowledged it to solve the problem."
Gong Yu"s face was gloomy and there was a glimpse craftiness in his deep, serene eyes. "Hah, they are killing two birds with one stone. They wanted to draw the snake out of its hole. If I could not bear this, I would actively expose myself. If I could endure this, he could also get rid of me via the killing order."
"Master, then what should we do now?" Dong Fangying looked up at Gong Yu and waited for his instructions.
"Let"s wait and see. They cannot find me anyway, so we"ll let them search first!" Gong Yu was not afraid of them, but right at the moment, the most important thing to him was to wait for Master to return and cure her eyes. With regards to their infighting, he currently had no time to partic.i.p.ate in it.
However, Murong Yunxi"s heart did not feel as easy. She kept feeling that things would not be as simple and her heart felt vaguely uneasy.
Gong Yu accompanied Murong Yunxi while she read as if nothing had happened. As Gong Yu did not understand Braille, he could not understand that swordplay book. Murong Yunxi quietly touched the Braille letters on the book and asked Gong Yu when she encountered things that she did not understand.
Ultimately, Murong Yunxi was not from a martial arts background, so she was still slightly slow in absorbing those words. She repeatedly pondered over them and matched all of it with Gong Yu"s explanation. It took her one full week before she finished reading and understanding the book.
When she began to formally practice the swordplay, Gong Yu guided her from the side. Gong Yu had a high level of comprehension about swordplay and he could quickly grasp the essence of the swordplay, to then teach it to Murong Yunxi.
Murong Yunxi was very serious in learning and was tolerant of hardships. Without them realizing, yet another week had pa.s.sed.
There was still no news of Kuang Youzhi and on the outside, it was already a state of chaos with a pile of criticisms. The most terrible of all was at the Emperor Yu"s Mansion. Duanmu Gongcheng went to create a great scene almost everyday and to find small faults every three days. He was attempting to create chaos in the mansion. However, Nanny Wu and the others were indeed people who trained under Duanmu Gongyu. They also had a strong character and even with all the chaos, they continued to work on their own things quietly every day, being completely unaffected. That made Duanmu Gongcheng increasingly angry.
That day, when Dong Fangying came back from the outside again, his face was as dark as the bottom of a pot. With a trace of anger, he reported about dynamics of the outside world to Gong Yu, "Master, the whole army was completely wiped out at the Emperor Yu"s Mansion!"
Gong Yu"s heart went cold. "The entire army was annihilated? What do you mean?"
"The Prince captured all the people in the Emperor Yu"s Mansion and said that they colluded with the enemy to betray the country, with the intention to destabilize the hearts of the citizens and the relationship within the royal family. A day will be selected for them to be publicly executed."