The newly appointed Minister Li did indeed attend. He was seated not far from the throne and chatted and laughed with the surrounding officials, showing no signs of anything amiss.
After several rounds of drinks, the song and dance performance officially began. A group of dancers in colorful costumes gracefully entered and began to dance to the music. Just then, Qi Mingxuan suddenly noticed a detail: the lead dancer had a familiar tattoo on her wrist—the mark of the Northern Di assassins!
He immediately gestured to the guards hidden in the shadows. However, just as the guards were about to act, a group of servants entered carrying wine to refill drinks, blocking their way.
"Not good!" Qi Mingxuan exclaimed, immediately getting up and moving towards the throne.
Almost simultaneously, the lead dancer suddenly pulled a dagger from her sleeve and lunged at the emperor! Meanwhile, Minister Li leaped from his seat and pulled a black, spherical object from his robes!
"Protect the Emperor!" Qi Mingxuan shouted, instantly standing in front of the Emperor.
Chaos erupted instantly. Guests panicked and scattered in all directions. The guards quickly engaged the assassins disguised as dancers and servants in battle.
Xiao Chengyu calmly directed the palace maids and eunuchs to escort the female relatives to safety, while he himself quickly moved towards the Empress.
Just then, she noticed that the black sphere in Minister Li's hand was smoking!
"Mingxuan! Watch out for that ball!" she exclaimed.
Qi Mingxuan repelled the assassin in front of him with a single sword strike, then turned around and saw the smoking black ball. His expression changed drastically: "It's gunpowder!"
He immediately lunged at Minister Li, trying to stop him from throwing the gunpowder. The two fought fiercely, and the black ball fell to the ground during the struggle, rolling under a table.
"Get out of the way!" Qi Mingxuan shouted, shoving Minister Li aside and lunging at the black ball, trying to throw it out of the hall.
However, just as he was about to touch the black ball, it exploded.
A deafening roar, accompanied by a powerful shockwave and thick smoke, shook the entire hall. Tables and chairs near the blast point were shattered to pieces, and screams of agony filled the air.
"Mingxuan!" Xiao Chengyu cried out in horror, rushing towards the direction of the explosion without regard for anything else.
As the thick smoke gradually dissipated, Qi Mingxuan was seen lying in a pool of blood, with a young eunuch protecting him beneath him—it was this young eunuch who had pushed away the women beside him in time, narrowly escaping being blown up himself.
"Quickly summon the imperial physician!" Xiao Chengyu knelt beside Qi Mingxuan, his voice trembling.
Qi Mingxuan opened his eyes with difficulty and forced a smile: "Your Majesty... I'm alright..."
"Father is safe." Xiao Chengyu said, choking back tears, carefully checking his injuries. Fortunately, the explosion wasn't too powerful; Qi Mingxuan was only injured by the shockwave, along with some minor cuts and bruises.
The imperial physician quickly arrived to treat Qi Mingxuan's wounds. Meanwhile, the assassin had also been subdued. Minister Li had been stabbed in a vital spot by Qi Mingxuan during the struggle and was on the verge of death.
Xiao Chengyu walked up to him and asked coldly, "Who ordered you to do this?"
Minister Li grinned maliciously, blood foam spilling from the corner of his mouth: "The Gu family... will not have died in vain... Long live the Northern Barbarians..." After saying that, his head lolled to the side and he breathed his last.
An investigation revealed that the dancers were indeed disguised Northern Di assassins, and many spies had infiltrated the servants as well. Fortunately, Qi Mingxuan had made prior preparations, preventing even greater casualties.
Although the emperor was unharmed, this blatant assassination attempt enraged him, and he immediately ordered a thorough investigation of all officials connected with the Northern Barbarians.
In the following days, tensions rose in the court. Dozens of officials were investigated, and five of them were found to have secret dealings with the Northern Barbarians and were immediately dismissed and investigated.
For his meritorious service in protecting the emperor, Qi Mingxuan was promoted to Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince and participated in court policy decisions. Xiao Chengyu, on the other hand, was granted special permission to assist in the trial of cases related to the Northern Barbarians.
That day, the two were examining the secret letters found in Minister Li's residence when they suddenly noticed something strange: almost all the letters were signed with a peculiar symbol, which looked like some kind of code.
“This symbol,” Xiao Chengyu said, pointing to one of them, “I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
She ordered people to compare all the letters that had been searched from Liu Zhijie and Gu Zhili, and sure enough, they found the same symbols.
“It seems these people all belong to the same organization,” Qi Mingxuan said thoughtfully. “This symbol is their mark.”
Xiao Chengyu examined the symbol carefully, then suddenly remembered something: "I remember seeing a similar pattern in an ancient book in the royal library when I was a child. That book... seemed to be about the secrets of the previous dynasty."
The two immediately went to the library, and with the help of the elder, finally found the ancient book. The book recorded that at the end of the previous dynasty, there was a secret organization called "Shadow Pavilion" that specialized in assassination and espionage, and its symbol was a similar one.
"It is said that the Shadow Pavilion was disbanded after the fall of the previous dynasty," the Grand Secretary recalled. "But there have always been rumors among the people that it actually went underground and continued to operate."
Xiao Chengyu and Qi Mingxuan exchanged a glance, both having the same suspicion: this Shadow Pavilion was very likely the mastermind behind everything!
Just as they were preparing to conduct further investigations, an urgent military report came from the border: the Northern Di army suddenly launched an attack, and Xiao Chengrui led his troops to meet the attack, resulting in a fierce battle between the two sides!
Meanwhile, strange things were happening in the capital: several officials were murdered one after another, and the mysterious symbol was left at each scene.
With the border war intensifying and officials in the capital being murdered one after another, a dark cloud hung over the entire Liang court. Xiao Chengyu and Qi Mingxuan worked day and night, poring over files, trying to find more clues about the Shadow Pavilion from the vast sea of historical materials.
“This book, ‘Secret Records of the Former Dynasty,’ states that the Shadow Pavilion was originally established by the former crown prince to consolidate imperial power and eliminate dissidents,” Qi Mingxuan said, pointing to a passage. “But it gradually spiraled out of control and became a terrorist organization independent of imperial power.”
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