Chapter 45: A Madman Goes Wild, Terrifying Even Himself!
Everyone present was struck with terror upon hearing this!
Qin Santai immediately said, "Your Highness, this assassination must have involved internal collusion. Why not keep a live prisoner to interrogate slowly so we can find out who the mastermind is!"
Xue Yuan simply repeated, "Jian Qi, I said kill them!"
Because he didn't need any interrogation at all!
After looking at their status tags, he knew instantly that these three men were the insiders!
Moreover, the tags explicitly stated that the one who ordered them was Manager Wei!
Besides, if he still bothered to conduct a detailed interrogation, would he still be a fool?
From now on, he was going to let Manager Wei and Prince Yu learn what it meant when a mad fool went so wild that he terrified even himself!
Seeing that Xue Yuan was so certain, Jian Qi no longer hesitated. With a swift flash of his hand and a drop of his sword, he killed the three guards!
He could doubt whether Xue Yuan was a proper prince, and he could even doubt whether Xue Yuan truly disliked women, but he would never doubt Xue Yuan's intelligence. He knew for a fact that Xue Yuan would never kill someone for no reason.
Because over these past few days, he had witnessed too many times how brilliant methods lay behind Xue Yuan's seemingly absurd actions!
In an instant, the courtyard was stained with blood, and three corpses lay flat!
The remaining guards were terrified to their cores!
Each of them thought to themselves, this fool must have completely lost his mind from excessive trauma!
If this wasn't madness, what was? Who on earth executes people randomly without even asking for the details?
At this moment, Xue Yuan shouted loudly, "Take these three dead men, and follow me to Longsheng Silk Shop! I am going to demand justice!"
The guards exchanged bewildered glances once again!
What kind of madness was this fool up to? Why was he dragging Longsheng Silk Shop into this now?
That Longsheng Silk Shop was not to be messed with. It was rumored to have terrifying backers; usually, whenever their manager visited the manor, Steward Qian would personally go out to welcome him!
Just as everyone was standing there in a daze, Qin Santai snatched a waist saber from one of the guards with a sharp *clack*, and bellowed, "Are your ears deaf? If anyone dares to defy the Prince's order, step forward and argue with the blade in my hand first!"
That roar echoed with the force of a collapsing mountain, accompanied by the fierce shudder of his stalwart frame. He looked every bit like a ferocious, battle-hardened general who slaughtered without blinking!
He was a completely different person from the cowardly trembling wretch of a moment ago!
Xue Yuan could not help but narrow his eyes slightly, thinking to himself, apart from being a coward, this old fellow truly has guts of steel!
However, morale could indeed be rallied. Spurred by his roar, the guards finally ceased their hesitation and immediately bellowed in unison, "Understood!"
Truth be told, although these guards were all men of Qian Zhongxian, with Jian Qi present, and considering that Qian Zhongxian had been hiding in the annex for a long time and dared not show his face, they were becoming increasingly obedient!
......
Longsheng Silk Shop, inner hall.
Manager Wei Datong was currently looking with a stunned expression at a man in black sitting opposite him!
"Hero Yu, you say the assassination failed? Even someone of your skill failed?"
The man in black was none other than Yu Zhanzhan, one of the thirty-two fierce warriors under Prince Yu. It was rumored that this man had single-handedly wiped out the three major bandit strongholds in Longxi with just a blade, making a great name for himself overnight before being recruited under Prince Yu's command!
Yu Zhanzhan's expression remained cold and indifferent as he said, "Manager Wei, it seems you need to investigate the people around you!"
Wei Datong's expression tightened as he asked back, "What does Hero Yu mean by this?"
Yu Zhanzhan stated, "After the fire broke out, that fool hid himself, vanishing like mist. When I entered the room, I couldn't find him at all! Moreover, an expert of the middle eighth rank soon arrived! Although she was no match for me, she managed to stall me for quite a bit of time—just long enough for the guards to arrive as reinforcements, forcing me to retreat! Judging by these signs, the opposing side was clearly prepared beforehand. If someone close to you hadn't leaked the information, how could it have turned out like this?"
Wei Datong was momentarily left speechless. He dared not refute Yu Zhanzhan, yet in his heart, he thought his trusted aides should be relatively reliable—how could any of them have leaked the news?
"Enough. You won't figure out who it was in a short time. Just kill everyone who knew about this matter!"
"This......"
"There's no time to hesitate!" Yu Zhanzhan continued, "His Highness Prince Yu has given the order: that fool must be killed within a month, otherwise the Fifth Prince will not be able to come to Ningzhou to take up his fief!"
Wei Datong was jolted with a start upon hearing this and asked, "Has the matter of the Fifth Prince been finalized?"
"Yes, news has come from the palace. In order to broker a truce and halt the war between the two nations, the Emperor is about to agree to Northern Yan's proposal to establish bilateral land and water trading ports in Jiangnan. By then, Northern Yan will have a massive commercial syndicate led by royalty stationed here long-term. How to monitor these people will become a problem; we certainly cannot let this delegation become Northern Yan's intelligence center, can we?"
Hearing this, Wei Datong finally understood why Prince Yu was in such a rush to kill the foolish prince.
He remarked, "Indeed, the Fifth Prince has been a hostage in Northern Yan since childhood and is most familiar with Northern Yan affairs. Having him stationed in Ningzhou to monitor those people from Northern Yan is most appropriate. Furthermore, he was born to the Empress Dowager and is the Emperor's own brother; the Emperor has always trusted him implicitly."
Yu Zhanzhan nodded and said, "Precisely. Therefore, if the foolish prince were to die a sudden death at this time, the Fifth Prince would virtually be the only candidate for Ningzhou. And Prince Yu's intention is that we must assist the Fifth Prince in taking up his fief in Ningzhou!"
Wei Datong experienced a total epiphany, thinking to himself that it seemed this Fifth Prince had already reached some kind of agreement with His Highness Prince Yu. Once he took up his fief in Ningzhou, Ningzhou would likely also be brought into Prince Yu's camp!
The mere thought of Prince Yu getting closer and closer to that pure-gold Nine-Dragon Throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony filled Wei Datong with uncontrollable excitement!
He immediately declared, "Very well! Regardless of whether this matter was leaked by my trusted aides or not, I will kill them tonight! It's just that because of this, our next operation will require even greater caution!"
Yu Zhanzhan sneered, "I will personally arrange the next move, and I guarantee that fool will close his eyes forever! As long as Manager Wei cooperates fully, I will still include this merit in my secret report to His Highness!"
Wei Datong hastily cupped his fists in a bow and said, "Then I thank Hero Yu in advance!"
......
Just as his voice fell, a servant cried out from outside.
"Manager, disaster has struck! For reasons unknown, the foolish prince has suddenly brought a large group of guards and completely surrounded our silk shop!"
Hearing this, both Wei Datong and Yu Zhanzhan changed their expressions.
"It seems there truly was a traitor, dammit!" Wei Datong slammed his fist hard against the table, gripped by a mixture of shock and fear.
That was right—if not for a traitor selling them out, how could the prince's manor have located this place so precisely and swiftly?
Yet he would never have guessed in his wildest dreams that the traitor was none other than himself, for it was the status tag above his own head that had betrayed him!
Yu Zhanzhan pondered for a moment, then suddenly let out a cold laugh. "Good thing they came! Since he has delivered himself to our doorstep, we might as well make a clean job of it and finish him right here!"
Wei Datong said, "That foolish prince is not worth worrying about; it must be a freak named Jian Qi by his side who orchestrated all of this! It's just that I've heard Jian Qi possesses quite a high cultivation level—he even crippled the previous commander of the prince's manor guards!"
"Heh, what was the cultivation level of that crippled guard commander?" Yu Zhanzhan asked with a sneer.
"Around the middle eighth rank!"
"Middle eighth rank?" Yu Zhanzhan let out a puff of laughter. "A middle eighth rank isn't even qualified to be an ordinary close-protection guard in His Highness Prince Yu's manor! Back in the day, I single-handedly slaughtered my way through the Longxi bandit underworld with just a blade. How many eighth-rank and even seventh-rank experts were among them? Yet did my blade ever hesitate even for a split second?"
Hearing this, Wei Datong's heart instantly settled completely!
He resolutely declared, "Very well! Today, we will risk our lives for His Highness Prince Yu! Hero Yu, just tell us how to act!"
......
At this moment, the front gates of Longsheng Silk Shop were smashed open with a resounding *boom* by several sturdy guards!
Two files of guards immediately rushed in aggressively, while Xue Yuan, accompanied by Jian Qi and Qin Santai, strode boldly through the entrance!
The moment he stepped inside, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Burn it down! Damn it, if they dared to burn down my manor, I'll burn down this thief's nest first!"
That's right, Xue Yuan was going to play for high stakes this time!
There was no other way—if he didn't play big, he was afraid Prince Yu wouldn't think he could afford the game!
Now that the daggers were drawn and the cards were on the table, why bother with empty courtesies? Just fight!
Fight until Prince Yu decided that continuing the fight wasn't worth the cost!
At his command, Qin Santai immediately bellowed like a megaphone, "Start the fires! Ignite the fires right now! Where is the lamp oil? Pour it on immediately!"
He didn't care whether Xue Yuan pinning this blame on Longsheng Silk Shop made sense or not; he just wanted to make his recently softened knees hard again!
Just as the guards began splashing lamp oil everywhere, Wei Datong came running out in a hurry.
He shouted, "Your Highness! Your Highness, please wait!"
As he spoke, he looked toward the two figures standing behind Xue Yuan and asked, "May I ask which one of you is Jian Qi?"
Jian Qi replied indifferently, "What of it?"
Wei Datong immediately cupped his fists toward Jian Qi and said, "Young Hero Jian, to be entirely honest with you, this property belongs to His Highness Prince Yu! I ask that the young hero show mercy for the sake of Prince Yu!"
As soon as those words were spoken, all the guards were dumbfounded.
After all, everyone with any sense of adulthood knew what kind of influence Prince Yu wielded nowadays!
Yet Jian Qi simply replied indifferently, "You've asked the wrong person."
"I haven't asked the wrong person," Wei Datong smiled with confidence, "Who doesn't know that Young Hero Jian is the one pulling the strings behind this foolish prince nowadays? However, Young Hero Jian need not worry; His Highness Prince Yu appreciates heroes and men of valor above all else. As long as you stop now, he will certainly not hold this minor misunderstanding against you! Furthermore, I invite Young Hero Jian to step into the inner hall; we have a few words we wish to convey to you on behalf of His Highness Prince Yu."
Wei Datong believed that Jian Qi was bewitching and manipulating the foolish prince purely for the sake of wealth, and surely wouldn't dare to oppose Prince Yu!
Since it was all about wealth, everything could be negotiated. If he could be bought off, they would buy him off; if he couldn't, they would kill him!
Hearing this, Jian Qi stopped speaking and simply glanced at Xue Yuan.
Meanwhile, Xue Yuan had already drawn his saber, looking like a ruffled, furious chicken!
"Damn it, I may be a fool, but I'm not a ghost floating in the air!"
With that, he slashed his saber directly at Wei Datong!
Wei Datong merely chuckled, raised his hand casually, and caught the blade between two fingers!
He then said, "Your Highness, my name is Wei Datong! Remember this—even if you practice your saber for another thirty years, you won't be able to scratch me!"
"That's hardly certain!"
With a cold snort, and without even waiting for Xue Yuan to give the order, Jian Qi unleashed a sword strike swift as a dragon!
A cold gleam flashed across Wei Datong's arm, and that very arm severed and went flying through the air.
Jian Qi often looked down on Xue Yuan, but that didn't prevent him from hating others looking down on Xue Yuan even more. He detested people using Xue Yuan's lack of cultivation as an excuse to belittle him—after all, the poor fellow was already pitiful enough, lacking cultivation and not even having the hobby of reading pulp fiction.
A heart-rending scream instantly pierced the night sky!
With his eyes bulging out of their sockets as he stared at his blood-spouting severed arm, Wei Datong was in such excruciating pain that veins throbbed wildly on his forehead and he rolled frantically on the ground!
Seeing this, Xue Yuan immediately rushed forward and unleashed a furious barrage of physical violence!
To speak frankly, ever since the first day he transmigrated, he had lived under the shadow of this bastard, living in constant anxiety, and had endured him for days on end!
Now that he finally found an opportunity for revenge, it was a release of accumulated frustration—how could he not deliver a heavy blow?
Lifting a large foot, he first kicked Wei Datong viciously in the chest!
Kicking while cursing at the same time!
"Wei Datong, is it?"
"So you're the damn Wei Datong?"
"You said even if I practice for another thirty years I won't be able to scratch you? Why don't you say that in another thirty years you'll have turned into liquid, and by then I'll have your old man give a shudder and shoot you against a wall to see if you can bounce back into a human shape?"
"And bringing up His Highness Prince Yu? You dare mention Prince Yu in front of me, your Ningzhou Prince? Is your ancestral grave venting marsh gas, how else could it have given birth to a brainless thing like you?"
"You like mentioning Prince Yu so much, do you? Good, I'll castrate you right now and make you and Prince Yu a pair of mandarin ducks sharing a coffin, so you can be deeply in love swinging on a tow-rope together, how about that?"
"Do you even match wits with me? When I was acting as the local tyrant in Heigouzi County, you were still playing with your umbilical cord in your mother's belly!"
This stream of furious scolding, heavily flavored with the fiery temper of a modern internet-trolling brother, left all the guards present dumbfounded!
To be honest, they didn't quite understand everything Xue Yuan was cursing about; at most, they just felt like a fool was having a fit, yet they had to admit that the Prince's scolding possessed an overwhelming momentum, as refreshing as a surging great river!
Even Jian Qi and Qin Santai narrowed their eyes into slits, their faces full of bewildered astonishment!
Where on earth did the Prince learn such a method of cursing? They really wanted to ask for pointers!
Not to mention them, even Xue Yuan himself felt his blood boiling with excitement as he cursed!
Once his emotions surged, his body had to cooperate, and so his kicks grew even more ruthless.
Bleeding from his severed arm while taking a beating, Wei Datong was soon covered in blood, bruised black and blue, with his face swollen like a pig's head—he barely looked human anymore!
Never had he imagined that even after pulling out his ultimate trump card of Prince Yu, he would still end up in this state!
Sensing that if the beating continued, he would surely die, he immediately roared, "Hero Yu, save me! Save me!"
Yu Zhanzhan, who had been hiding in the shadows, originally intended to wait until Wei Datong lured Jian Qi into the inner hall before killing him, since those guards were somewhat a nuisance.
However, seeing that Prince Yu's trusted subordinate was about to be killed, it wouldn't do for him to remain inactive. Thus, he decisively leaped out from the shadows!
A black afterimage flashed across the moonlit sky, and then he landed silently atop the roof.
His precious saber was already drawn, shimmering with an eerie dark luster beneath the moonlight!
The blade was three feet and three inches long, three inches and two weights wide, with a net weight of thirty-five catties and seven taels. It was forged from black iron, and any mortal weapon touching it would snap instantly!
Glancing down sideways at the crowd below, he said indifferently, "Jian Qi, your swordsmanship is quite good! Why lower yourself to serve a mere fool? If you pledge allegiance to Prince Yu and carve out an undefeated family legacy for your descendants, wouldn't that be magnificent?"
Jian Qi looked up, frowned at him, and asked, "And who are you?"
Yu Zhanzhan gently raised his blade, stroked the dark, glossy edge, and replied, "Yu Zhanzhan!"
An immediate wave of startled gasps swept through the guards below!
"Yu Zhanzhan! The very same 'First Blade of Longxi'!"
"It is rumored that his swordsmanship is unfathomable and bizarre, and that precious saber can cut through iron like mud. There are at least hundreds of souls under his blade!"
A trace of minor interest finally flickered across Jian Qi's face.
He asked, "Shall we fight?"
Yu Zhanzhan smiled and shook his head, saying, "It's truly not easy to practice swordsmanship to such speed as yours, but do you really intend to fight me?"
"Yes!" Jian Qi nodded earnestly.
"Refreshing!" Yu Zhanzhan looked down at his precious saber again and said, "There is only one condition: once my blade is drawn, it must taste blood! Brother, forgive me..."
"Oh!"
Jian Qi nodded in understanding, then gave a light leap and landed atop the roof.
The blade and the sword immediately clashed, producing a piercing metallic screech.
*Clang!*
Following that, the black blade was snapped squarely into two halves!
Yet Jian Qi's sword aura, resembling a streak of white silk, remained undiminished; after shattering the saber, it pierced straight through Yu Zhanzhan's chest!
Yu Zhanzhan tumbled headfirst, plunging down to the ground.
Jian Qi sighed with deep disappointment.
"Much ado about nothing."
At that moment, the air once again echoed with Xue Yuan's scolding.
"Yu Zhanzhan, is it? So you're the damn Yu Zhanzhan?"
"Opening and closing your mouth with 'His Highness Prince Yu', but in my eyes you're just calling him 'that fool, that fool'—didn't your mother teach you what civilized manners and harmonious kindness are?"