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墨書 Inktalez
I watched as Qiu swiftly and skillfully packed our belongings. He appeared so calm and composed, using his steadiness to support me.
However, as time passed, I began to understand my partner more deeply. At this moment, deep inside him, he must be feeling more sorrow than anyone else.
After all, it was to demonstrate power that Mirror Gate chose Su Liche, and Rong Fu took action personally. If it weren't for that, Lord Su might not have died. In Qiu's heart, he must believe that all of this was his fault.
Yet at this moment, he could not show these feelings in front of me because he knew that my heart was also filled with fear for the future.
Sometimes, men can be truly pitiful.
I decided to accept his tenderness and patience without a word, and I began to help him pack.
I stood quietly beside him, watching as he summoned the Shadow of the Night and assigned tasks one by one. This time, over forty members of the Shadow of the Night accompanied us to Suzhou. Most of them were dispatched to assist members of the Jade Balance Bureau in Jiangnan and Central Plains, helping them safely reach Chang'an. Because among the personnel of the Jade Balance Bureau, we had become the safest.
An hour later, we rode two swift horses on our way to Chang'an. The officials from Dali Temple who came with us did not set off together; they would take another route back to Dali Temple slowly. The enemy's target was not them; they should be safe.
Thus, we rode side by side along the path Qiu had found on the map, traveling day and night. In the blink of an eye, two days had passed.
These two days were almost as grueling as the survival training I had once participated in.
Behind us, there were surely people from Mirror Gate tracking us. To shake them off, we took difficult paths wherever possible—through dense forests, rugged mountains, and vast fields of crops. In short, we took a very winding route. Every eight hours or so, we would stop to rest, allowing the horses to catch their breath while we took turns sleeping for a bit. Although the journey was exhausting, every time we stopped and could rest in his embrace for a moment, I felt re-energized.
It seemed our movements were relatively swift; after two days of travel and checking the map, we appeared to have entered Henan Prefecture.
Once again, we rode into a dense forest.
Qiu, if we navigate through this forest now, our traces should be completely erased. We can ensure that all enemies following us will be shaken off cleanly.
It was noon; the sun hung high in the sky. As we entered the forest, everything suddenly felt incredibly tranquil.
The area was desolate, far from civilization, with dense vegetation growing naturally in the woods. The wildness of it all gave the forest an unsettling atmosphere.
It was too thick, too perfect for lurking, which made one feel uneasy.
Nie Qiuyuan suddenly made a gesture, and we both pulled on the reins to stop our horses.
I couldn't hear anything unusual, but I trusted his instincts; something was definitely off here. We secured the horses to let them graze and rest while we quietly moved forward hand in hand.
After taking a few steps, Qiu suddenly scooped me up in his arms. I didn't think he was being affectionate; I quickly deduced that my footsteps must have been too loud.
So, this forest truly felt wrong.
Nie Qiuyuan held me silently, his steps making no sound. He scanned the surroundings and suddenly leaped gracefully onto a large tree ahead, concealing himself among the dense branches and leaves.
In less than a moment, I heard rustling sounds coming from the jungle. Were they humans or animals? My heart began to race as I focused on the direction of the noise.
Suddenly, two figures in black descended from different trees like lightning, weapons drawn, and lunged toward a thicket below.
The black-clad figures moved swiftly; before I could react, arrows shot out from the bushes with a whoosh. The speed of their descent left them no time to evade. I heard two cries of agony as arrows pierced their bodies, leaving them looking like hedgehogs.
The two men in black fell heavily into the thicket with dull thuds and then fell silent.
I was startled; it seemed these two were pursuing someone but had inadvertently triggered a trap and lost their lives. What on earth was happening?
Nie Qiuyuan held me firmly, his breath steady like a great bird quietly perched among the leaves. I remained silent as well, gripping his clothing tightly while carefully observing the situation below through his gaze.
After a moment's pause, someone cautiously peeked out from another thicket nearby and slowly made their way toward the bodies of the black-clad men.
The man appeared to be around thirty years old, dressed in a dull-colored outfit that was disheveled and unkempt, his hair in disarray, making him look quite disheveled. He emerged from the woods and walked toward the mechanism, his footsteps clear even to me. As he bent down, gritting his teeth, he dragged out the bodies of two men in black and turned them over with great effort, revealing that he clearly had no martial skills.
So, did he set the trap in the bushes? Did he design it to lure and kill these two men in black?
The Brown-Clad Man crouched down, removed the masks from the two black-clad figures, took a look, and frowned. From his expression, I inferred that he did not recognize these two men he had killed. What on earth was going on here?
However, what happened next struck me as odd. The Brown-Clad Man placed one hand on the neck of a black-clad man and lifted the eyelid with the other. I thought he was checking to see if these two assassins were dead. But a normal person would typically check for breath to determine if someone was alive; this man was observing whether their pupils were dilated.
After flipping back the eyelid, he seemed to relax and began deftly pulling arrows from the bodies of the black-clad men, tossing them aside before unbuttoning their clothing and searching through their belongings.
When being pursued, it is common for assassins to have some motive against their targets. If he was rummaging through the assassins' belongings, it usually meant he was looking for clues to identify them.
Was he trying to find out who was after him? It seemed likely that he was completely confused and was relying solely on his wits to save his own life.
In an instant, I felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding. At such a peculiar moment, a clever man without martial skills was being hunted by masked figures in black—wasn't that just too coincidental?
I glanced at Nie Qiuyuan; we exchanged a look that conveyed our shared apprehension. Could it really be what we were thinking?
Nie Qiuyuan held me close and gracefully descended from the tree without making a sound. He set me down gently, and we quietly approached the Brown-Clad Man from behind; he remained completely unaware—indeed, he had no martial skills at all.
Yet humans possess an instinctive alertness. After we stood behind him for a few seconds, he suddenly turned around and saw us, clearly startled. Unfortunately, both of us were dressed in black for our nighttime journey, making us look even more like villains. The Brown-Clad Man abruptly raised his right arm, and several cleverly designed crossbow bolts whistled through the air toward us.
I never expected this guy had such a trick up his sleeve. Although there was a mechanism on his arm for launching bolts, it was evident that his strength was quite formidable; at such close range, it was highly likely that he would hit us. But whether or not he would succeed depended on who his opponents were.
Nie Qiuyuan pulled me back behind him; with a swift motion of his right sleeve, he swept all those bolts into his robe. His reflexes were indeed extraordinary; in such a short time, he realized that catching the bolts with his hands might be dangerous due to potential poison.
The Brown-Clad Man was taken aback upon seeing that one of us was an exceptional expert; his expression turned slightly desolate. However, he did not give up resisting; with his left hand probing into his clothes, he swiftly drew out a dagger and pointed it at us, seemingly prepared to fight to the end.
I quickly peeked out from behind Qiu, shouting at the Brown-Clad Man, "King Covers the Earth Tiger!"
The Brown Robe man looked as if he had been struck by lightning, his eyes wide in disbelief as he stared at us. After a moment of stunned silence, he stammered back, "Baota Town River Demon!"
I noticed Nie Qiuyuan's face darken; he had always found this code phrase hard to accept.
This was our Jade Balance Bureau's recent code phrase, clearly my idea. In ancient times, there were many secret codes and phrases used on the road, but just like passwords can be cracked, ancient codes could sometimes be deciphered too. So, I provided this modern code, which surely couldn't be broken.
However, Nie Qiuyuan looked at the phrase with a mix of amusement and exasperation. He found it somewhat ridiculous; with his thin skin, he felt he couldn't solemnly announce such a phrase in front of a stranger.
So I took it upon myself to do it; after all, I had thick skin.
Now it was clear: just as we suspected, this Brown Robe man was indeed a member of the Jade Balance Bureau who was being hunted!
Nie Qiuyuan was right; the people of the Jade Balance Bureau were exceptionally clever. Even if they couldn't fight, they would never sit idly by when pursued by enemies. Just look at how this Brown Robe man dealt with his pursuers.
"I am Nie Qiuyuan from the Dali Temple. This is my wife, Ye Liuhui. May I ask your esteemed name?" Nie Qiuyuan coughed lightly and introduced us.
"Lord Nie?" The man paused for a moment before finally understanding, gradually revealing a look of surprise. "What an honor! I never expected to meet you under such unfortunate circumstances!"
He took a deep breath to calm himself and introduced himself: "I am Tan Shaoping, a law officer from Bozhou. Three days ago, someone broke into my home with the intent to assassinate me. I fought with the assassin for quite some time before managing to escape. Little did I expect that the assassin would not give up and continued to pursue me. I fled from Bozhou for three days and just now managed to eliminate the last two pursuers."
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