Chapter 241: The Woman in Red (1)

Xu Yuan vanished. The zither continued to play within the Phoenix Roost Pavilion, its celestial melody drifting through the air, yet the main hall had fallen utterly silent.

Dawn had only just broken. Many guests were still lost in the tender embrace of their companions, but plenty had already dressed and come downstairs for breakfast. Xu Yuan, Li Junqing, and the others were far from alone in the hall. Several wealthy merchants and young noblemen were also present, along with their guards and bodyguards.

Most of those with any experience had already grasped the situation. Not one of them stepped forward to stop the confrontation. They simply retreated in silence and watched with cold, detached eyes.

Blood feuds were hardly rare in this world.

No one wanted to play the chivalrous peacemaker when they had no idea what was going on, especially when both sides appeared unfathomably powerful.

A few guests with exceptionally sharp judgment had already abandoned all dignity, climbed through the windows, and fled down the cliff.

The customers could stand aside, but the guards employed by Phoenix Roost Pavilion had no such luxury.

The pavilion raked in a staggering amount of money, so the expert retained to protect it was naturally of a high rank. She was a seductive fourth rank cultivator and also the madam who ran the establishment.

With alluring curves and fluttering sleeves, she leaped down from the upper floor and landed between Li Junqing and the six men in embroidered robes.

She swept her gaze across them and said with a sweet smile, “Oh my, young masters~ What sort of misunderstanding is this? This humble little establishment of mine cannot survive such rough treatment. Please show our Imperial Music Bureau some respect. Whatever quarrel you have, take it outside—”

Her words had yet to finish when the blade arrived. The battle or rather, the assassination had already begun.

Perhaps because they followed a different system of cultivation, the six men in embroidered robes possessed strange and unsettling auras. Their actual strength, however, was only comparable to the Great Flame Empire’s fourth rank Body Integration cultivators.

One of the men hurled a short blade through the air.

It tore through the void, streaking toward Li Junqing like a bolt of lightning.

KLANG! Halfway there, the blade was struck aside by a length of red silk. It buried itself deep in a nearby pillar, its hilt vibrating with a low metallic hum.

The one who had intervened was the seductive madam.

All warmth vanished from her alluring face. “I do not know who your master is, but the Bureau of Entertainment is not a place where the likes of you may run wild!”

The six men in embroidered robes said nothing. They exchanged glances, then moved their hands simultaneously. Their fingers blurred, silver light flashed, and countless tiny flying blades spread throughout the entire hall in an instant.

Anyone with sufficiently keen eyesight would have noticed that the blades were linked together by threads so fine they were almost invisible to the naked eye.

In the blink of an eye, the entire hall had become a dense web of blades and wire.

The madam tried to stop them, but the red silk she sent forth was instantly sliced to shreds by the nearly invisible threads.

At that moment, one of the men spoke fluently in the tongue of the Great Flame Empire, “We mean no offense. Remain quiet and stay where you are. Our only purpose is to find Young Master Wang and recover our master’s silver.”

Before the man had even finished speaking, Eunuch Hou appeared beside him as if from nowhere and struck out with his palm. His speed was ghostly, but the robed man somehow managed to just barely follow the movement. He dragged the short blade from his waist just in time.

Palm met blade with the clang of colliding steel.

BANG! The man coughed up blood and went flying, nearly smashing straight through Phoenix Roost Pavilion’s specially reinforced brick wall.

Phoenix Roost Pavilion stood nine stories tall. The upper four floors held private rooms and galleries, while the lower five formed a vast open shaft around the central hall, allowing guests above to look down and admire the performances below.

Xu Yuan stood by the railing on the fifth floor, watching the battle in the hall as though it had nothing to do with him. There was a trace of weariness in his expression.

Void Step Slash was powerful, but its cost was equally enormous. To avoid exposing the Sage’s remnant soul, he had used his own source qi. With his sixth rank cultivation, the effect was not much different from when Qin Mo had used it before.

It had only carried him a little over a hundred feet.

In other words, the people below knew perfectly well that he was up here. They simply had no time to bother with him. Not that they had any reason to. He had only been the guide.

As that thought crossed his mind, his gaze suddenly met another in midair.

Li Junqing looked up at him from the main hall.

Xu Yuan smiled and cupped his hands. Thanks for worrying about me, little brother.

Li Junqing cupped his hands in return. Judging by the shape of his lips, he seemed to be saying: Brother Zhou, what a relief to see you unharmed.

Xu Yuan did not respond again. He merely continued watching the show.

The Sage's remnant soul spoke in his mind, its voice carrying a trace of mockery. “Attempting to assassinate an imperial prince right beneath the Emperor’s feet. These people certainly have courage.”

Xu Yuan replied casually, “They obviously have no idea the brat is a prince. He probably used that identity of Young Master Wang to do something he would rather not have brought into the light.”

The Sage's remnant soul paused for a moment, then asked with a laugh, “In that case, are you not going to help?”

“Me? Help?” Xu Yuan rolled his eyes and kept watching the fight below. “Six fourth rank Body Integration cultivators against one third rank Grandmaster. What exactly am I supposed to help with? Besides, you still cannot afford to expose yourself.”

The battle below was raging fiercely.

There was an enormous gulf between a Grandmaster and a Body Integration cultivator. Still, the six attackers worked together with remarkable precision, and the razor-sharp threads stretched throughout the hall were clearly restricting Eunuch Hou’s movements.

Unfortunately for them, that stalemate could only be temporary. At this level of combat, it would not be long before Phoenix Roost Pavilion’s foundations were torn apart completely. Once the attackers lost the advantage of the terrain, those Body Integration cultivators below would become lambs waiting for slaughter.

Dao Essence was no laughing matter.

The Sage's remnant soul chuckled. “Xu boy, you cannot seriously believe those six Body Integration cultivators are the only ones who came to kill him.”

Xu Yuan kept his eyes fixed on the hall below, making no attempt to look around. “You mean there’s another Grandmaster hiding somewhere besides those six?”

The Sage's remnant soul did not hide anything. “Most likely. I sensed her once before, but only once. Unless I alert her, even I cannot be certain where she is.”

Xu Yuan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I can always run.”

“If you intend to run, why are you still standing here?” the Sage's remnant soul asked teasingly.

Xu Yuan kept his eyes fixed below. A bloody gleam flickered within them, but he did not answer at once.

Outside the battle, Li Junqing had pulled out a weapon resembling a crossbow and aimed it at one of the Body Integration assassins.

Xu Yuan’s warning rang out at once. “Careful, little brother!”

Li Junqing’s eyes went wide.

The Sage's remnant soul fell silent.

The bolt tore through the air, but the assassin, jolted alert by Xu Yuan’s shout, narrowly twisted aside.

Li Junqing clenched his fist, put away the crossbow, then looked up with a smile so strained it was practically grinding its teeth.

“Ah. Many thanks, Brother Zhou.” 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

“No need to thank me. It was the least I could do.” Xu Yuan smiled faintly.

The Sage's remnant soul finally seemed to understand what Xu Yuan was doing. “You want him dead?”

“Wasn’t he trying to kill me with someone else’s knife?” Xu Yuan answered casually. He gave a cold chuckle inwardly. “I was forced to bring those people here, so I deliberately called him Young Master Wang to warn him. And the brat still tried to drag me into the pit with him.”

With the sects looming as their common enemy, the imperial family and the Chancellor's Manor truly ought to avoid fighting among themselves. Xu Yuan understood that. So did the Third Prince below. That was why neither of them would deliberately make a move to kill the other.

But the world was not divided into such neat black-and-white choices. Now that an opportunity had practically delivered itself to his lips, refusing to take advantage of it would simply be unreasonable.