In the moonlight, his hair was slightly disheveled. An Jiu stared at the strands floating in the breeze, lost in thought.
She often had these inexplicable moments. Chu Dijiang, long accustomed to them, pulled up his hood, wrapped an arm around her waist, and sped off into the night.
Xijin Prefecture was only a three to four-hour ride from Hejian Prefecture. The Liao-Song war could erupt at any moment, and this stretch of road was littered with Liao spies, making horseback travel inadvisable. Chu Dijiang had to rely on his qinggong. To avoid exhausting his inner strength, he rested briefly every half hour, reaching Xijin Prefecture by noon the next day.
They disguised themselves in the outskirts before entering through the main gate.
In recent years, Liao had been on the offensive while Song mostly defended passively. Compared to Hejian’s cautious guard, Xijin seemed much more relaxed.
Chu Dijiang and An Jiu slipped in effortlessly.
However, as Liao’s largest border prefecture, Xijin couldn’t truly be so careless. The city’s defenses were deceptive—easy to enter, but difficult for ordinary people to approach the government offices.
They circled the perimeter of the offices, assessing the security situation. By evening, they found a tavern to eat.
After the meal, Chu Dijiang said, “Wait here for me. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
While Liao’s government offices were full of skilled fighters, none could stop Chu Dijiang. With only a handful of Transcendent State masters in the world, he could come and go as he pleased.
An Jiu, knowing she couldn’t help much if she followed, simply replied, “Alright.”
Chu Dijiang patted her head and vanished.
An Jiu sat motionless for a while, then rubbed the spot Chu Dijiang had patted, lost in thought.
After sitting in the same position for about half an hour, An Jiu heard a commotion from the main hall and went to look.
From the second-floor corridor of the U-shaped tavern, she could see a stage set up in the hall below. Four scantily clad dancers writhed like snakes on stage, their faces covered by long veils that shrouded most of their bodies, tantalizing glimpses of their figures visible through the fabric.
Music filled the air as the diverse crowd in the hall cheered at the dancers, watched with smiles, or drank heartily.
Xijin Prefecture, situated between Liao and Song, blended Song’s elegance with Liao’s boldness. Here, one could still catch a glimpse of the glorious Tang dynasty’s legacy.
As An Jiu watched with interest, a large man approached the tavern owner, whispered something, and quickly led away the most beautiful dancer.
The crowd followed her figure up to the second floor, realizing a noble had taken interest, and looked away.
The large man led the dancer past An Jiu. She sensed that both were martial artists, with the dancer surprisingly at the eighth level.
Her gaze flitted over the dancer as they passed, entering a room and closing the door.
Chu Dijiang would return in about half an hour.
Soon after, a commotion erupted outside. An Jiu noticed an eighth-level martial artist rushing in her direction.
In the blink of an eye, a woman in water-blue gauze silently landed before An Jiu, pointing a bloody dagger at her. “Don’t make a sound!”
The dagger was three inches from An Jiu, who gazed at her impassively.
The blue-robed woman’s heart skipped a beat. She looked closely at An Jiu, disguised as a youth. Such calm in the face of threat was extraordinary! But she had reached a dead end and couldn’t afford to hesitate.
An Jiu read her expression. Seeing her ready to make a desperate move, she calmly said, “You’d better stay where you are.”
The blue-robed woman was about to take her hostage but hesitated upon hearing this.
An Jiu picked up her teacup and took a sip.
Just then, someone knocked on the door.
As the knocking grew more urgent, beads of sweat formed on the blue-robed woman’s temples. She looked at the unperturbed An Jiu, gritted her teeth, and leaped onto a ceiling beam.
Bang!
The door was smashed open.
Several large men burst in, followed by a young man in white robes who entered with measured steps.
He wore a Khitan narrow robe, the sides of his head shaved with a strip of hair in the middle tied up. A lock of hair hung down the side of his face, while the back was braided into several plaits.
An Jiu thought to herself, “If his face weren’t so handsome, he really couldn’t pull off that hairstyle…”
As he appeared, she was reminded of a familiar face. Such striking features, even seen only once, were hard to forget.
This man somewhat resembled Gu Jinghong.
However, unlike Gu Jinghong’s clear, penetrating eyes that seemed to see through past and future and all worldly matters, this white-robed young man’s eyes were dark as ink. His handsome face was gloomy, his gaze sinister.
He glanced at An Jiu, then slowly scanned the room.
An Jiu set down her teacup and stood, nonchalantly stepping on a drop of blood on the floor.
The white-robed man said nothing. One of the large men in front of him asked Khitan, “Have you seen a dancer rush in here?”
An Jiu, of course, couldn’t understand and remained silent, merely looking at the white-robed man.
His appearance was indeed striking enough to captivate at first sight, so An Jiu’s reaction didn’t seem strange. After scanning the room and finding nothing unusual, he turned to leave.
An Jiu stared at his retreating figure.
As he turned, the man noticed her gaze. His eyes shifted slightly, and he suddenly stopped. In halting Chinese, he asked, “What’s your name?”
An Jiu remained silent, pretending not to understand.
The man had sensed something amiss but couldn’t pinpoint why. Now he realized—this youth, while staring at him like others, lacked the usual admiration, infatuation, or amazement in their eyes. Moreover, someone in Xijin Prefecture not knowing him was highly suspicious.
“Who are you?” the man’s voice deepened, and his guards immediately rushed in, forming a semicircle around An Jiu.
An Jiu made some hand gestures.
She couldn’t speak Khitan, but she knew sign language. While sign language didn’t exist as such at the time, her gestures conveyed to the others that she was mute.
The man roughly understood An Jiu’s meaning—that she was waiting for someone.
Seeing her irrelevant response, the man thought, “Not only mute but deaf as well?”
After a moment, the man whispered something to one of the large men before heading downstairs.
The crowd noisily retreated, but An Jiu noticed someone still outside.
The woman on the ceiling beam lightly jumped down. As she landed, An Jiu pulled a chair, making a loud noise on the floor.
The blue-robed woman, quick-witted, immediately guessed someone was still outside. She shot An Jiu a grateful look.