“Don’t kill me… I know where the Emperor Emeritus is… I’ll take you there…”
Li Yuangui, dressed in black with his face masked, turned his head to look at Wei Shubin as if just noticing her presence. Across the flickering flames, black smoke, and the pervasive bloody killing intent, their eyes met briefly. Wei Shubin suddenly felt the stone lodged in her throat sink away, and her breathing became easier.
Li Yuangui’s eyes weren’t large, but narrow and slightly upturned at the corners, quite similar to his second brother, the current Emperor Li Shimin. His clear, bright eyes flickered with intelligence as they moved, giving people a sense of reassurance and trust. He understood exactly what he was doing and had complete control over the situation—at least, that’s what Wei Shubin was convinced of in that moment of eye contact.
“Lead the way!” A black-clad figure shouted, the hoarse, aggressive voice making Wei Shubin jump. She turned and walked toward the palace through the connecting corridor. Chai Yinglu followed, dragging Consort Yin De, while the remaining palace maids scattered in all directions, crying and screaming as the Hu assassins slashed and killed indiscriminately.
Wei Shubin didn’t know where to go, so she just hurried along the corridor. Before long, imperial guards blocked their path from both front and back. She took a breath and, with a trembling voice, pointed toward the inner palace: “The Emperor Emeritus is still back there…”
The black-clad figures ordered everyone to retreat into the garden, hiding among the rocks and flowers. In the chaos, Consort Yin De started calling out. Chai Yinglu took the opportunity to bind her hands and gag her, with Wei Shubin helping, not daring to look at the expression on the Emperor Emeritus’s favored consort’s face.
The black-clad assassins tried to circle to the inner palace through the garden, but more and more guards poured in, making it impossible. Finally, the group retreated to the garden’s pink wall, signaling everyone to climb over. One of the assassins, finding Consort Yin De troublesome, wanted to kill her with a slash, but Li Yuangui stopped him.
Wei Shubin struggled to climb the wall herself, but thankfully Chai Yinglu helped boost her from below, while Li Yuangui assisted from the other side, grabbing her arm and pulling her over. By now, the Great Peace Hall was engulfed in flames. There were no guards outside the wall, and the group ran into the woods, stumbling uphill until they reached the steep watchtower.
Wei Shubin had heard from Chai Yinglu and others that the small peak beside the Great Peace Hall was called “Cuiyun Peak,” with a watchtower built on top for palace security. Since the black-clad assassins chose to retreat here when cornered, they must have already controlled this watchtower and its surroundings. So when she saw the first floor full of black-clad assassins and only corpses of Great Peace Palace guards on the second floor, she wasn’t surprised but closed her eyes in distress.
She, Li Yuangui, and Chai Yinglu all had the blood of these innocents on their hands. They had other choices; they could have avoided this night’s bloodshed.
A cold snort emerged from behind the gag.
Wei Shubin opened her eyes to see Li Yuangui removing Consort Yin De’s gag. The middle-aged beauty, her hands still bound, immediately burst into curses:
“You little wretch, you and that Chai woman put on quite a show! I’ve fallen into this situation tonight and don’t expect to return to the palace alive, but when I die and become a vengeful ghost, I’ll first ensure your entire family is executed, the men as thieves and the women as prostitutes, ending your bloodline forever!”
Wei Shubin, from birth until now, had never heard such vicious and filthy street cursing, and was momentarily stunned. Chai Yinglu, however, smoothly cursed back:
“You vile woman, you think your three souls and seven spirits can still escape the underworld to harm others? May you suffer eternal divine punishment in the dog kennels, Dame Meng’s village, the skin-peeling pavilion, and the pool of blood!”
Though the retort was satisfying, Wei Shubin felt no relief. She disliked hearing people argue, and besides, Consort Yin De’s curses weren’t without cause—from evening until now, Wei Shubin had actively and maliciously deceived and insulted this mistress of Great Peace Palace in various ways, so receiving a few curses wasn’t undeserved.
Participating in tonight’s planned operation was her own voluntary choice, and she didn’t regret bearing all the consequences. But she never liked these methods, even though she would do her utmost to carry them out.
Glancing again at the corpses strewn across the second floor, Wei Shubin shook her head and sighed, tugging at Chai Yinglu:
“Sister Ying, stop arguing with her, it’s tiring. I want to go up for some air, come with me?”
This watchtower had three levels, with the first and second floors surrounded by rammed earth walls without windows, making it as dark and stuffy as being at the bottom of a well, now filled with the stench of corpses. Li Yuangui also came up to the second floor with the three women, sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring intently at Consort Yin De with a heavily troubled expression.
It was good to temporarily escape the entanglement of this “mother and son’s” grievances. Chai Yinglu said nothing as the two women climbed up the tall, steep wooden ladder one after another, leading to the watchtower’s third-floor observation platform.
There was someone on the observation platform, another black-clad assassin standing at the edge monitoring below. When Wei Shubin first showed her head, the lookout turned to look at her with some surprise, then turned and aimed a crossbow at her, barking a question in the Hu language.
She naturally couldn’t understand.
However, this Hu person should know these women were hostages taken by his companions and wouldn’t easily harm them. As soon as Wei Shubin reached the observation platform, she immediately raised both hands to show she was unarmed and harmless. Chai Yinglu, climbing up right behind her, mimicked her gesture.
There were no lights on the platform, and the thatched roof above the central opening blocked much of the starlight and moonlight. The Hu assassin watched them warily for a moment, and after confirming they were just two weak women, turned back to continue monitoring below, muttering with apparent displeasure.
The wind was strong at this height, piercing Wei Shubin’s thin frame like needles. Though cold, she still walked to the platform’s edge, leaning on the railing to take several deep breaths, expelling the turbid qi from her chest, feeling much refreshed.
Looking back at Chai Yinglu, she saw the Daoist priestess sitting cross-legged by the ladder entrance, her demeanor calm, apparently intending to guard their escape route.
After tonight’s performance and reuniting with Chai Yinglu, Wei Shubin felt something different. Before she had mainly felt gratitude, intimacy, and attachment toward this benefactor who protected her, but now there was also a heavy dose of awe—perhaps like a soldier going to battle, following a famous general who had won a hundred battles: though there was blind confidence, there was also inevitable anxiety.
Almost all the details of their plan to deceive Consort Yin De had been designed by Chai Yinglu alone. Especially that claim about “the Zixu Temple Master having an affair with the Fourteenth Uncle”—when the Daoist priestess first proposed it, Li Yuangui, who was present, had shouted “What?” and immediately flew into a rage. Although Wei Shubin was also surprised and blushed, seeing Li Yuangui’s furious reaction, she couldn’t help but laugh.
The one who laughed most heartily was the female party of the “affair”—this young Daoist nun seemed completely unconcerned about her reputation, joining Yang Xinzhi in teasing the young uncle with winks and suggestive words, appearing so happy that Wei Shubin suspected she was doing this mainly for amusement rather than to save people… Of course, this thought was unreasonable, as everyone involved in this conspiracy was risking their lives.
If they were willing to risk their lives, what did damaging their reputation matter? Wei Shubin tried to understand the thinking of that pair of “adulterers” this way, but she kept feeling… that Li Yuangui had agreed to this plan because he saw her smile… Wasn’t that too self-centered?
While Chai Yinglu was describing the subsequent plans about filling all the medicine containers with stink powder and having Wei Shubin find opportunities to knock them over, Wei Shubin listened somewhat absentmindedly, her gaze occasionally drifting toward Li Yuangui, almost always catching the young prince quietly watching her. Whenever their eyes met, they immediately darted away, as if nothing had happened.
It was just a kind and necessary lie, she consoled herself. To make the lie convincing, she had carefully imagined that scene several times in her mind and was surprised to find that crying about it wasn’t difficult at all.
Even knowing it was fake, that it had never happened, she could still weep bitterly and shed tears like a spring over “the Fourteenth Young Lord and the Supreme Truth Master’s passionate love affair.”
What a fool she was.