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Sanqi was bewildered, not quite shocked, but paused briefly. She kept her gaze fixed on the document, "Of course, I didn't choose the name Sanqi myself. I don't even know the person Miss Ye mentioned, Ji Yan."
"Isn't Sanqi curious about who Ji Yan is?"
Sanqi retracted her gaze, a light layer of moisture on her forehead. In an instant, the expression on her face disappeared, replaced by calmness and gentleness: "Ji Yan, I don't know who it is, why are you curious?"
"Oh? Is that so?" Ye Xuanling put down her teacup with a playful look, "Then Sanqi should go to bed early."
Sanqi stood up, raised her shoulder and glanced at the wound. Ye Xuanling had bandaged the wound neatly with gauze. The red blood that was seeping out stained the gauze, but it should have stopped. "Thank you, Miss Ye."
"No need." Ye Xuanling lowered her eyes and walked quietly to the side of the couch.
"Miss Ye, go to bed early." Sanqi picked up the blue-veined silver sword on the table and closed the wooden door for her.
The more she tries to hide it, the more obvious it becomes. Doesn't she know it's obvious? The smile on Ye Xuanling's face suddenly faded. Li Si was dead, and the things recorded in the document were just nonsense. All the accusations were directed at Zhe Yang. Wasn't this record in the document just to make everyone believe that Anping was deserted because of Zhe Yang?
Ji Yan must have known Liu Wen during the Dianhai trip. When Liu Wen introduced Sanqi, his expression and tone were extremely unnatural. There were no other acquaintances between them. Would a traveling merchant go to such lengths? If it was really Ji Yan, why did he do this?
Lying on the couch, Ye Xuanling tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Since the document was useless and Li Si was dead, what was the prefect's intention tonight? Was he the mastermind? Normally, if someone died of an epidemic, the soldiers would burn the body and the house, thus eradicating the epidemic. But at that time, the mass graves were not burned, and only the medical clinic and the county hall were burned.
She didn't dare trust the people around her, and there were only two solutions in her mind.
One option was to make a big fuss about the Anping plague and the clerk's death. This would ensure the governor would protect her and assign someone to watch over her. Her movements would be within his sight, allowing him to monitor her behavior. However, this was a huge risk; if she wasn't careful, she could lose her life.
The second option was to search for the items left in Li Si's house, but the clerk's quarters were inside the prefecture and she couldn't get in. The houses on the county edge might have been searched by the soldiers long ago.
Thinking of this, Ye Xuanling lifted the quilt, stood up and put on her clothes. She did it right away. If she waited until tomorrow, it would be even more inconvenient.
"Miss Ye, would you like to come with us?" Sanqi leaned against the wall, holding the sword in his arms, and turned to look at her.
Ye Xuanling's smile wasn't as clear and genuine as usual, coming from the heart. She only raised the corners of her mouth slightly, her eyes expressionless and calm, "Please tell me the truth, Miss Sanqi."
"Every word I said is true," Sanqi said. "I wonder what Miss Ye wants to hear?"
"Although I'm reckless and not very smart, I'm not stupid either." Ye Xuanling walked up to Sanqi, leaned in close, and looked her straight in the eye. "Brother Liu is just a traveling merchant. You can just give me money to repay your kindness. Could it be that Miss Sanqi is penniless? Is this the only way to repay your kindness?"
"Although Brother Liu and I are friends, I would never go to such lengths. And most importantly, your body movements are very similar to his."
It’s hard to tell whether his movements are similar to hers. In her eyes, people with martial arts skills are all the same.
Ye Xuanling: "Sanqi, do you have anything else to say?"
Sanqi smiled knowingly, looking at the girl in front of him and recalling the scene he had described a few days ago.
She was originally a knight, but after receiving a bounty order, something unexpected happened while she was carrying out the mission.
Her left shoulder was pierced by a sharp arrow. She gritted her teeth and hid in a tree, hoping to avoid being chased by a group of people. Looking at the group of people below holding machetes and looking ferocious, she did not regret accepting the bounty order.
Holding her breath, she pulled the arrow out of her shoulder. The blood seeped out and slowly flowed along the curves of her body, and the fishy and sweet smell filled her whole body.
Gripping the arrow tightly, he swung it towards the leader, leveraging the momentum. Sanqi's force was steady, but the arrow was too light and didn't hit the man's shoulder, instead hitting him like a stone.
"Old thief! Let's see if you can kill me today!" She jumped down from the tall tree, pulled out the arrow hanging on her waist, and stomped towards the ground at a fast speed to get close to the leader.
Although her shoulder was pierced by the sword, it did not affect her right hand. The muscle lines were clean and neat. She swung the silver sword at him with a sharp sword wind. The leader dodged. She turned her wrist and bent the sword to the opposite side, and the sword edge was sharp.
A group of people rushed towards her, like lambs to be slaughtered on a city wall. With a twirl of her feet, they all turned over and slashed their throats with swords. As the sound of breaking wind rang in her ears, the people around her died instantly.
She was angry, unwilling, at a disadvantage, yet she was determined to turn the tables! Her sword was not like water, not soft, nor would it be the groaning sound that broke in a moment of thought!
There was strength in numbers, and even though she was quite skilled in combat, her injured shoulder was eating away at her broken body. The thief held his sword against her neck, and laughed, "It seems your title will be erased from the Jianghu."
She raised the corner of her lips, drew her sword with her backhand, and thrust it out. Although the man before her was stocky and strong, he was steady and agile.
"Swish--" A long spear with a red and black tassel pierced through the thief's body with great strength. Sanqi looked back suddenly and saw that the officers and soldiers in uniform had taken her down in an instant. Four or five of them had made her unable to move.
The man who came was the leader of an unknown military camp. He had a silver crown on his head, his black hair was sharp and flowing, his eyebrows were sharp and his eyes were bright, his face was full of hostility, he was arrogant and fierce and difficult to obey. He was wearing a long gown made of crimson jade and silk with cloud patterns, and a long sword with gold patterns on his waist. His skin was pale and he did not look like a soldier.
The spear was not the young man's. He was riding a horse and only needed to wave his hand lightly, and his men would attack her. He thought that since she was a knight who worked for money, he would kill her as well.
But Sanqi didn't expect that group of people would bring her to the young man.
The young man stood tall and straight, leer-eyed at her, making her feel very dissatisfied, and she returned the same look. The young man raised his hand to signal the people holding her to let go. He opened his thin lips slightly, and his voice made her shudder: "Miss Li, why don't you work for me?"
She laughed at his arrogance, his contempt for everything, and his ego: "I wonder which master you are?"
"From today on, as long as you do as I say, I will give you the rewards you deserve."
A knight does things for money, so why wouldn't she do it? However, she still raised her head, her eyes sharp and inquiring: "May I ask this gentleman what he can do for you?"
She didn't use any honorifics because she felt the person in front of her was no different from her.
The young man told her to go to Kanzhou to find a traveling merchant named Liu Wen, and have Liu Wen introduce her to a girl named Ye Xuanling, and she would protect her and teach her self-defense skills on the way. Sanqi was angry, but she gave in for the money.
"No." Sanqi said slowly, "Miss Ye guessed correctly."
Ye Xuanling smiled: "If that's the case, why did Ji Yan send you here?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Ye. As for why this happened, I don't know. He's my boss. I do whatever he tells me to do. I have no right to know." Sanqi glanced at her, understanding everything. He smiled politely, "My boss only said he would teach you self-defense techniques."
"And protect you."
"Protect me?" Ye Xuanling frowned slightly, her eyes full of confusion, "Why? Am I very familiar with him?" To her, he was just a dead man she picked up in a mass grave.
Sanqi had an indescribable smile on her face. She took a deep breath and ended the topic: "Miss Ye, don't you still have things to do? Let's get going."
At Li Si's house on the outskirts of the city, there was no light at night, so the two men, one holding a coal lantern, illuminated the road. In case they encountered officials along the way, they both wore face cloths.
The houses on the outskirts of the city remained the same, and Ye Xuanling followed the route she remembered. She wasn't afraid of Li Si's house being burned down, because if someone tampered with it, the neighbors would definitely become suspicious.
Pushing the door open, Ye Xuanling was the first to stand in front, and then the dim light made it clear what was inside. Li Si was just a commoner, and there were only two rooms, not big and without separate rooms.
His study, also his bedroom, contained a desk and bookshelf. The last time Ye Xuanling came to Li Si, she had invited her to sit here. She walked over. The bookshelf and desk were covered in dust. She carefully looked through them, but found nothing unusual. She turned her gaze back to the desk.
Ye Xuanling suddenly realized that the wolf-hair brushes on the desk weren't arranged like this when she arrived this morning. The clerk couldn't have been unaware that to prolong their use, brushes were often hung, rather than neatly placed on a brush stand like they were now.
That is to say, people from Kanzhou Prefecture had already come after Li Si's death and before they came.
"What did Miss Ye discover?"
"Someone's already been here." Ye Xuanling turned around and looked around the room. "I came to see Li Si this morning. After I explained everything to him, I left. He went to Kanzhou Prefecture to memorize documents. Then, you and I came out of the theater and turned the corner to see Li Si dead."
"There's a lot of traffic at the corner of the theater. Is Governor Zhang really so bold as to eliminate Li Si in such a conspicuous place?" She stroked her chin and paused for a few seconds. "Let's go check in the kitchen."
The kitchen wasn't as clean and tidy as the couch room. Against the south wall lay a pile of dry firewood, its branches forked and tiny twigs broken off into inch-long pieces and falling to the ground. A few unwashed dishes, the remains of dried food on them, lay on the stove.
Ye Xuanling paced back and forth, her right eyelid twitching. She had a feeling that there might be a secret room here, just like Liu Dakou's room. She had already thoroughly checked Li Si's room and found nothing unusual.
Would the murderer return to the dead person's house to check? Ye Xuanling immediately thought of something and stood up suddenly, her voice not loud but a little hoarse:
"There's an ambush! Go!"
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