Chapter 243: The Trace of Shadow Guards
Translator: Guy Gone Bad
As the fretful Gong Qianyu flicked his fingers, dark blue flames burst out and walloped General Zhang’s long sword, whose impact blew him up into the air and tossed him to the ground a dozen feet away…
Gong Qianyu then gently pushed himself off on tiptoe, and in a blink of eye, floated into the air like a cloud. He took a look at Murong Xue down there and mumbled, looking reluctant to leave her, “I’ll come to see you again…”
Again? Didn’t he remember that he was the commander of Nanjiang, the enemy of Qingyan soldiers? Every time he broke into the Qing Yan military camp, he would cause heavy loss of life…
Murong Xue sighed helplessly, looked up and only found Gong Qianyu fading into the distance with his black sleeves fluttering, as if a lotus in bloom.
On the soldiers’ arrival, “Go!” the outraged General Zhang commanded them to chase Gong Qianyu in the air. As soon as their rapid footsteps vanished, the solemn military camp became half-empty…
“See you again? You’re so close with Gong Qianyu!” there came a clear voice of Ouyang Shaochen. He walked to her slowly with his white sleeves fluttering like b.u.t.terflies, embodying his inherent elegance and dignity.
The gleam in his dark eyes and the weird smile on his face gave Murong Xue a sense of impending doom, so she sputtered, “Well, it was the third time we’ve met, so we are not that close…”
“In that case, he still risked breaking into our military camp to deliver medicine to you…” doubted Ouyang Shaochen, looking at her with his eyebrows raised.
Murong Xue’s eyes flashed unnaturally and she answered, “I have no idea why he came here suddenly… Maybe he regards me as a good friend…”
“It’s well known that Prince of the Nan Jiang Kingdom was born to be arrogant and defiant. He even treats the emperor with little respect. How come he treats you as a friend only after meeting you three times? How rare it is…” Ouyang Shaochen said in a calm but suspicious way.
His words disgusted Murong Xue, who then goggled angrily at him and said, “Ouyang Shaochen, let’s make this clear. He delivered medicine to me, not the other way around. If you want the true reason, go get Gong Qianyu in his camp, interrogate him, and leave me out of this!”
Finis.h.i.+ng her words with resentment, Murong Xue turned around and strode away. Her anger could still be seen vaguely in her cold eyes. She just had a few words with Gong Qianyu, how come Ouyang Shaochen picked at her for no reason? It didn’t make any sense…
She hurried inside the tent and tossed the curtain so hard that the noise jolted the soldiers on patrol…
Staring at the fluttering curtain, Ouyang Shaochen squinted and thought, she was really angry…
Inside the tent, Murong Xue got changed after a bath behind the screen and had some snacks, then she lay down angrily on a rough bed and fell fast asleep soon.
While she was half awake, she sensed someone next to her from the aroma of the bamboo and the slight warmth of water on the tip of her nose. She frowned unhappily and turned around against that person, Ouyang Shaochen…
As Ouyang Shaochen watched the angry look of hers, with his eyes sparkling a bit, he said casually, “Xun Feng sent me a letter with some information for you, if you’d like to know.”
“No!”rejected Murong Xue without a second thought in an obviously angry way.
“In that case, I’ll have him stop looking into the shadow guards…” said Ouyang Shaochen calmly as he got up to leave.
Murong Xue abruptly opened her eyes, stretched her arms to catch his sleeves. Looking eagerly at him, she asked, “What is it?”
“But you said no, didn’t you?” responded Ouyang Shaochen, squinting at her with contempt.
“I do now. Out with it!” Murong Xue stared at him fiercely, stretching out her soft hand into his sleeve to pinch his arm.
But the pain from the arm did not trouble Ouyang Shaochen at all, and instead he said blandly, “In Mingzhou City, Xun Feng found traces of a couple of shadow guards, who are as skilled in martial arts as those from Lord Freedom’s Mansion…”
Murong Xue narrowed her sharp eyes: the invisible guards from Lord Freedom’s Mansion attained high level of martial arts, even higher than that of those from Prince Jing’s Mansion. Perhaps only the mysterious ones trained by Murong Yue could be in an equivalent level.
Those shadow guards were indeed likely to choose to stay in the relatively prosperous Mingzhou City after they survived without their leader, Murong Yue, who was killed in a war in Yingzhou 50 kilometers away…
Thinking about that, Murong Xue turned over, got off the bed, put on her embroidery shoes in such a brisk way that Ouyang Shaochen frowned, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m heading to Mingzhou City to figure it out…” Murong Xue said blandly when she quickly washed her hands with the water in a copper basin near the door.
“But it’s late at night. The Mingzhou City gate is closed.” Ouyang Shaochen said calmly after a look at the dark scene out of the window, “You won’t be able to enter the city even if you have reached the gate by now.”
“We could make it to Mingzhou City at daybreak if we start out now,” Murong Xue disagreed, “since nights last short these days and it’s a very long way from here to there…”
She said in a low voice, combing her black hair, but Ouyang Shaochen remained silent from the beginning.
His silence confused her, so she looked up at him, only to find him asleep, lying on his side on the bed with his eyes closed, breathing gently…
Murong Xue frowned at the sight of that, so she put down the comb, rushed to the bed, and tried to wake him up by grabbing his arms and shaking them fiercely, “Prince, get up…”
“It’s been nine whole days since I had a good rest…” said Ouyang Shaochen. Even his bland voice couldn’t hide his fatigue at all, neither could the dark circles beneath his eyes…
Murong Xue blinked unnaturally because he only ended up like that after a long journey to save her. Now that they finally settled down and he could have a good rest, she would go too far if she continued bothering him. But she was fairly anxious to enter Mingzhou City early to figure out whether those guards were trained by Murong Yue…
“Your Highness, we’ll go there by carriage. We’ll go slowly and you can have a rest inside. How does that sound?” Murong Xue discussed with him gently, staring at him unblinkingly…