215. Cicada Wing
In the main room, Su Zhou sat weakly on the bed, Xiaoman hid behind Chen Ji and stuck her head out. The dim and flickering candlelight kept pulling the shadows of the three people, just like their thoughts, which kept shaking.
Chen Ji said to Xiao Man, "You stay in the room, I'll be back soon."
Xiaoman pulled his sleeve and whispered, "Sir, this woman is too fierce. I'll go with you!"
Chen Ji comforted him, "Keep an eye on the door and don't let anyone in."
Xiaoman: "Oh..."
Su Zhou looked at Chen Ji coldly: "I advise you not to have any evil thoughts, otherwise your entire Chen family will die."
Chen Ji said slowly, "Don't worry, I'm going to get you some healing supplies."
After saying that, he turned and went out. After closing the two wooden doors of the main room, he walked out of the yard.
Xiaoman said anxiously behind him, "Master, please come back quickly. I'm a little scared to be alone with this woman."
Chen Ji raised his eyebrows but did not turn around.
The moment the door closed, Xiaoman stood up straight and the panic expression on her face subsided a little.
She pushed the door open a crack as if nothing had happened, peeked out quietly, and said casually to Su Zhou behind her: "You vicious woman must have made a mistake. My young master would never betray Prince Jing. He proved it this afternoon at Zhang's house..."
Before she finished speaking, Xiaoman turned around and found that Su Zhou had come behind her like a ghost.
Xiaoman used her fingers as a knife to chop at Su Zhou, but Su Zhou's body was as slippery as a loach, and he managed to slip behind Xiaoman while following the chopping arm.
The Emei Spear was placed against Xiaoman's jaw again. If she moved at all, the poisoned Emei Spear would pierce into her chin.
Xiaoman was caught off guard and cried out, "Let me go, let's go find a place to fight."
Su Zhou whispered, "Don't shout, or I'll kill you too."
She observed Chen Ji through the crack in the door and saw that Chen Ji was talking with the soldiers from the Bingmasi for a while. No one came in to arrest her, so she breathed a sigh of relief.
Xiaoman muttered, "Are you relieved now? My young master will definitely not betray you, nor will he betray Prince Jing."
Su Zhou said in a deep voice: "You can only know a person's face but not his heart. Even the brothers who have been with the prince for many years can betray the prince, so why can't he?"
Xiaoman said helplessly, "My son is not that kind of person. He has never had the heart to kill a chicken since he was a child. He once raised two chicks and cried for a long time when one of them died accidentally. He is very kind."
Su Zhou sneered, "People change. Everyone in the martial arts world says that he has a close relationship with the princess and the prince, but I see that the Jingwang Mansion has suffered a great disaster, and he is not sad at all. Doesn't this prove that he betrayed the prince?"
Xiaoman looked at Chen Hui's receding figure outside the crack of the door and said after a long silence, "He is very sad. He just doesn't want others to see that he is sad, but I can see it."
Su Zhou sneered: "Are you the worm in his stomach?"
Xiaoman was silent for a moment, then said calmly, "Hey, we all work under the Lord Governor. I saved you out of kindness, but you must be ungrateful. You've pressed your Emei spear against my neck twice. Do you really think you can kill me?"
The candlelight in the room froze for a moment, the atmosphere grew cold, and even the charcoal basin in the room seemed dimmer.
Su Zhou said calmly: "You are just a seventh-class candle master. How dare you talk to me like that?"
Xiaoman opened his mouth and said: "I... I just don't have as strong a murderous nature as you do. I don't like killing people.
That’s why I can’t get promoted. By the way, I saved you this time, but you still haven’t given me the copper coins.”
Su Zhou thought for a moment, slowly put down the Emei Spear, took out a copper coin from his sleeve and threw it into Xiaoman's arms.
Xiaoman picked up the copper coin and examined it carefully. She saw that it was not engraved with the words "Jianing Tongbao" but "Denghuo". "So this is the Denghuo copper coin. Can it really be exchanged for two hundred taels of silver?"
Seeing her expression, Su Zhou asked in confusion, "Have you never seen a copper coin?"
Xiaoman stiffened his neck and said, "Who said I haven't seen it before? Haven't I seen it before?"
Su Zhou was even more confused: "You really have never seen a lantern copper coin before. Have you never accepted a mission before? Who brought you into the lantern?"
Xiaoman curled her lips and said, "Who are you? Why should I tell you? Oh, by the way, has the governor ever told us why we are called 'Lantern'?"
Su Zhou sighed, "How come you don't know anything? 'Lamp' means 'home'. When you return home, a lamp on your home means someone is home. 'Lights' means to give homeless people like us a home."
Xiaoman lowered her head and put the copper coins into the pouch at her waist: "That's not necessary. You don't have a home, but I do."
Su Zhou: “…”
Xiao Man pocketed the copper coins and warned, "I'll save you, but I warn you not to hurt my young master, and not to reveal my identity, and not to point the Emei Spear at me again... Hey you!"
Boom.
Before Xiaoman could finish her words, Su Zhou fainted on the ground.
…
…
When Chen Ji returned, he was carrying two red lacquer food boxes.
Outside the gate of Mingquan Garden, six soldiers from the military department held torches. Chen Ji handed them food boxes and said, "Generals, it's not easy to be out on duty in this cold wind. I've asked the kitchen to prepare some food for you. Eat it while it's hot."
The soldiers of the Military Affairs Department were flattered: "Third Young Master, you are so polite. We would never bother you to worry about food."
Although Chen Ji was a bastard of the Chen family, he was already a high-ranking figure to these soldiers, someone they couldn't even reach even if they stood on tiptoe.
Chen Ji smiled and asked casually, "By the way, with so many of you guarding the Chen Mansion, how are we going to catch people?"
The leading soldier at the gate grumbled, "We in the Luocheng Military Department are well aware of our own strengths and weaknesses. The real work of arresting people has to be done by the Secret Service Department."
Chen Ji asked casually, "Are there any clues where the incident occurred?"
The soldier smiled and replied, "You've asked the right person. We were the first to arrive there. The streets of Xingluo were covered in blood. Only one of the Qiansui Army soldiers was killed, and General Wang's chest was stabbed to pieces."
Chen Ji gasped: "How many murderers killed so many people?"
The soldier said casually, "According to the Secret Service's Living Yama, there are two murderers in total. One is the female assassin of the lamp, and the other is an accomplice who controls the spirits."
Chen Ji smiled and asked, "Since it's the Secret Service, they will surely be able to catch them. Did the Secret Service say how and when they can be caught? After all, it's quite scary to see such a murderer at large."
"Don't be afraid, Third Young Master. We're here to protect you," a soldier said with a simple smile. "The Secret Service is currently searching all the medical clinics in the city. They say the female assassin is seriously injured. Without timely treatment, she might not survive."
Chen Ji hummed, and walked into Mingquan Garden with a smile: "My brothers have worked hard, I will go back and rest first."
Several soldiers nodded hurriedly
Bowing, he said, "Thank you, Third Young Master. Please go back and rest."
Chen Ji bolted the yard gate and returned to the house.
Su Zhou was lying unconscious on the bed. Xiao Man saw him come back and hurried over to him, still in shock, saying, "Young Master has been gone for a long time. I was almost scared to death staying in the same room with this vicious woman."
Chen Ji smiled and didn't take it to heart.
The most strange thing about tonight's events is how Su Zhou was able to accurately find his room while fleeing.
It is not difficult to find Chen's Mansion, but how can a female assassin who has just arrived in Luocheng and is alone find his location accurately in Chen's Mansion?
Su Zhou and Xiaoman both treated him as an ordinary person and thought he was easy to fool.
Chen Ji did not expose them, but just watched quietly to see what they were trying to do.
He pulled out a palm-sized white porcelain bottle and a sewing box from his bosom and handed them to Xiaoman: "The white porcelain bottle contains the strongest burning knife in the mansion. Use it to clean the wound of the person in the bed, and the wound will not fester."
Xiaoman looked at the sewing box: "What is this?"
Chen Ji glanced at the sword wounds on Su Zhou's body and said, "Roast the needle over the charcoal basin. After burning, sew up her wound like sewing clothes. As for whether she can survive, it depends on her luck."
Xiaoman's eyes widened. "I've heard of pouring liquor over wounds, but did you learn to sew human skin with needle and thread at the clinic? Why haven't I heard of it before?"
Chen Ji hummed: "What I learned in the clinic is useful."
Suturing a wound prevents secondary infection and allows it to heal in about ten days through granulation tissue growth. Without sutures, it might take a month or two to fully heal.
Chen Ji left the room and let Xiaoman rescue him.
He sat at the stone table in the yard, looking quietly at his palms.
The next moment, he closed his palms, and when he opened them again, a black 'sword seed' was floating in his palms.
The black sword looked like a bamboo leaf, without a hilt or a tsuba, and was as thin as a cicada's wing.
Chen Ji touched it with his fingertips. The surface was rough, as if it was made of black iron. Even the edges were not smooth and flat. It did not look very stylish at all.
He pondered, "Why is it that Xuanyuan's sword is so dazzling and radiant, like a shooting star as it flies? And mine looks like an insignificant piece of iron... Is it because I haven't captured enough swords, or haven't nurtured them long enough?"
Chen Ji tried to control the sword with his mind, but the black iron piece was shaking in front of him, always a little out of control, and could not move faster.
In an instant, he simply controlled the sword and flew towards the wintersweet tree in the yard.
He originally intended to penetrate a leaf, but when the sword reached the wintersweet tree, it deviated by several inches.
With a crackling sound, a wintersweet branch two fingers thick broke, and the sword returned to Chen Ji's palm intact.
Chen Ji walked forward and looked up at the wintersweet branches, which were smooth and flat, as if he had just cut a piece of tofu instead of a piece of wood.
He lowered his head to look at the sword. He had finally mastered the art of practicing this sword and was no longer a layman.
However, no one knows how many sword powers he has to seize and how many people he has to kill before he can achieve his goal.
With a creak, the door of the main room was pushed open.
Chen Ji put the sword back into his sleeve and asked calmly, "What's wrong?"
Xiaoman looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then said, "The wound has been stitched up, please come in."
(End of this chapter)
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