Chapter 156: The Entanglement |
The Formless Elder's eyes narrowed slightly upon hearing this.
He had naturally not encountered Xu Qingcang and the others during the day. The reason he had come to them had nothing to do with any grievance. They had simply been unlucky enough to fall into his hands.
In reality, he had been traveling and tracking for several days in a row, and it was only tonight that he had arrived on the far side of the Julu River.
Afterward, he had overheard several martial world practitioners on the bank discussing what had happened during the day, learning of the spectacle of Li Musheng and the others flying their carriage across the Julu River.
He had then followed the trail to Zhanliu Manor.
He had been planning to take Li Musheng down tonight, but before he even had a chance to act, he had run straight into Shen Juesheng making his move without warning.
And so he had been forced to put aside any thought of acting within Zhanliu Manor for the time being.
"Then tell me, how do you plan to help this old man?"
The Formless Elder narrowed his eyes at Xu Qingcang and asked at his leisure.
Seeing this, the pale-faced Xu Qingcang's gaze shifted, and he said, "I ask that Senior tell this junior what he wishes to accomplish. This junior will spare no effort to assist."
...
Several dozen zhang from the edges of Zhanliu Manor, at the bank of a tributary of the Julu River, Shen Liancheng and Ruan Zhenhui and Shen Anran, who had followed close behind, all came to a stop.
The three of them looked out at the tributary before them, whose water was rapidly receding. Every one of them wore a peculiar expression.
At that moment the entire riverbank had been punched through with an enormous hole, and the river water was leaking out through it, pouring down in a rushing flow toward a stretch of forest at a lower elevation. The water level in the river was visibly dropping with every passing moment.
A flash of shock and horror rose in Shen Liancheng's eyes. It was almost impossible to fathom that his father, whose martial Dao cultivation was so terrifyingly profound, had been sent flying out of the entire manor grounds by a single punch, a punch powerful enough to shatter clean through the river outside the manor.
"How could he be this strong?"
The image of Li Musheng's unfairly young face floated up unbidden in Shen Liancheng's mind, and he felt nothing but disbelief along with an irresistible surge of lingering fear.
He then recalled what Li Musheng had said earlier, that killing him would be child's play. And he thought about how he himself had been on the verge of drawing his blade against the man.
If Shen Juesheng had not appeared at the critical moment to stop him, he would very likely have already lost his life.
After all, he did not possess anything close to his father's depth of martial Dao cultivation, and there was no way he could have withstood that deceptively ordinary-looking punch.
"Father!"
With that thought, Shen Liancheng leaped without a moment's hesitation, plunging into the rushing current below.
Before long, a streak of stunning blade light shot up from the riverbed, cleaving through the surging surface and sending a towering wave crashing in every direction.
Then Shen Liancheng burst out of the water holding Shen Juesheng, who was covered in mud, and in a few bounding leaps was back on the bank.
Ruan Zhenhui and Shen Anran saw this and rushed over to check on him at once.
At this point, Shen Liancheng's expression was unpleasant. He immediately sat down and poured everything he had into circulating his True Qi, sending out two streaks of crimson True Qi to channel strength into Shen Juesheng and help him.
But in the very next moment, Shen Liancheng's expression shifted sharply.
He was about to withdraw his True Qi and pull back, but he was already too late.
A terrifying force erupted from within Shen Juesheng's body and slammed into him, sending him flying and crashing into the river below, where he did not resurface for a very long time.
Ruan Zhenhui and Shen Anran, watching from the side, were both frightened by the sight.
Coming back to themselves, Shen Anran was just about to jump into the river to pull her father out, when at that moment Shen Juesheng finally let his eyes flutter weakly open.
His gaze was filled with a disbelief he could not contain, and his mouth fell open in a shaken, barely audible voice, saying, "In all my years, this old man has never encountered such a terrifying punch."
"Father, you're awake?"
Shen Liancheng broke through the surface of the water in a bedraggled state, and leaped up from the river with a pale face, rushing quickly to Shen Juesheng's side.
Seeing his father regain consciousness, he finally let out a breath of relief, then immediately burst into a violent fit of coughing and coughed up several mouthfuls of fresh blood.
He had clearly been badly hurt by the force that had rebounded from within Shen Juesheng's body just now.
Even so, it was evident he had relaxed too soon. After his few coughs he raised his eyes.
Only to see that after saying a single sentence, Shen Juesheng's eyes suddenly rolled back once again, and he went silent on the spot.
Shen Liancheng was frightened, and immediately checked on Shen Juesheng's condition, finding that his True Qi had been completely exhausted and he had fainted from the severity of his injuries. That was the only thing that kept Shen Liancheng from full-blown panic.
Even so, he did not dare attempt to channel True Qi into him again, and could only plan to take Shen Juesheng back into the manor to recover.
Before leaving, however, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, turned his head, and looked at Ruan Zhenhui and Shen Anran.
In the end, his gaze came to rest on Shen Anran. After a brief silence, he said, "Anran, you have always said that in this life you would only marry the most outstanding and exceptional man in all the martial world. You saw what happened tonight. I believe you should know what you want."
With that, Shen Liancheng let out a sigh, then looked at Ruan Zhenhui one last time without saying another word.
He did not say a single reproachful word about her secret meeting with Hu Rui'an, because after all, Hu Rui'an and Li Musheng were on the same side.
Then Shen Liancheng turned and carried Shen Juesheng back toward the manor, while Ruan Zhenhui and Shen Anran exchanged a look. The two of them were left looking at each other in silence, neither finding words to say.
...
Li Musheng and Hu Rui'an walked back to the courtyard on foot. Along the way, Hu Rui'an stopped and started several times, many things he wanted to ask Li Musheng on the tip of his tongue.
Even so, every time he thought of that single punch that had sent Shen Juesheng flying, a deep and inexplicable sense of awe welled up in his heart, and every word he wanted to say got stuck in his throat, and he did not dare ask.
In the end, after hesitating for quite some time, Hu Rui'an still could not bring himself to raise anything with Li Musheng directly, and instead spoke on his own initiative about his history with Ruan Zhenhui, as though explaining himself for what he had done tonight and giving Li Musheng some kind of account.
Li Musheng had no particular interest in the matter initially, but after listening idly for a while, he had a general sense of the emotional entanglement between the two.
In essence, it was a story tangled up with the barriers of social standing between families of modest and privileged means, as well as with the martial world's feuds and grudges, which had ultimately forced the two of them apart.
Hu Rui'an and Ruan Zhenhui had originally been deeply in love and had pledged themselves to each other. But Ruan Zhenhui's father had looked down on Hu Rui'an for his fallen family circumstances, and was unwilling to give his daughter to someone who at that time had nothing.
Around the same time, Shen Liancheng of Zhanliu Manor came along and inserted himself into the picture. Though Ruan Zhenhui had no feelings for him whatsoever, the Ruan family had by unfortunate circumstance made an enemy in the martial world, and that enemy had connections to an extremely formidable assassin organization known as the "Soul-Chasing Hall." Through those connections, the enemy had hired Soul-Chasing Hall assassins to bring about the Ruan family's destruction.
Ruan Zhenhui had been kept entirely in the dark about all of this, and her father, in order to attach himself to Shen Juesheng, who at the time shook the whole martial world, and to protect the Ruan family through that connection, had covertly found Hu Rui'an, told him what was happening, and ordered him to leave Ruan Zhenhui.
Hu Rui'an, unwilling to put Ruan Zhenhui in an impossible position, had hardened his heart and cut things off, traveling far to the Great Li capital to join the Tianjin Guards.
"At the time I truly had no other choice. The Soul-Chasing Hall assassin organization was simply too powerful. If I had allowed my own wishes and my cousin's to cost the Ruan family their lives, or even cost my cousin her life, I could never have lived with myself."
Hu Rui'an sighed, and perhaps because he was recalling the past, his emotions were running high. The nervousness and awe he had been feeling toward Li Musheng had faded somewhat without him realizing it.
Then Hu Rui'an seemed to get into the telling of it, and continued, saying, "After I joined the Tianjin Guards, this affair left me with considerable resentment toward the Soul-Chasing Hall, and I kept investigating that assassin organization with the intention of one day finding an opportunity to destroy it."
"However, over ten years ago the Soul-Chasing Hall apparently offended some martial world power, and very nearly fell apart overnight. It is only in the last few years that it seems to have begun reasserting itself."
Hearing Hu Rui'an's account, Li Musheng offered no particular commentary, though he privately felt that the separation between Hu Rui'an and Ruan Zhenhui was not necessarily such a bad thing.
After all, marriage between first cousins was against the law, and liable to produce children with genetic defects. A union of that sort should have been stopped from the start.
In that respect, Ruan Zhenhui's father had done a good thing through bad intentions.
Li Musheng could not bring himself to sympathize with Hu Rui'an's situation. The only thing that caught his mild interest was the assassin organization Hu Rui'an had mentioned, the Soul-Chasing Hall.
Because he still had a Hidden Kill Order from the other martial world assassin organization, the Hidden Kill Pavilion, in his possession.
According to Cang Yinyue, he had been holding the Hidden Kill Order for some time by now, and the Hidden Kill Pavilion should by all reasoning have moved against him already.
But for some reason, the organization's assassins seemed rather unprofessional, and had yet to show any sign of activity.
Even so, Li Musheng did not dwell on it.
After all, since leaving Shangyang City he had been on the road the entire time. Perhaps the Hidden Kill Pavilion's assassins were on their way and had simply not caught up with him yet.
Before long, the two of them returned to the courtyard where they were staying.
By this point, Cao Gaoshan and the others had all been given the antidote to the Drunken Immortal's Death, and had almost entirely expelled the toxin from their bodies, with their martial Dao cultivation and freedom of movement fully restored.
Upon seeing the two of them return safe and sound, everyone let out a long collective breath of relief.
After all, Shen Juesheng's strike had been utterly terrifying, and it was clear they had been the targets of Zhanliu Manor's covert poisoning scheme, which put them squarely on the opposing side.
At that time, Cao Gaoshan, Wu Shang, and the others had already taken the antidote, but all of them were convinced they would certainly not escape Zhanliu Manor alive.
It was only because Hu Rui'an and Li Musheng were not there that they had no choice but to wait in the courtyard and observe without acting.
"What should we do next about Zhanliu Manor? I await your instructions, Commissioner."
Wu Shang came to Hu Rui'an's side at the first opportunity and asked in a low voice.
Li Musheng had acted while Wu Shang and the others were still unconscious, eliminating the manor steward and the others, and so none of them had witnessed what happened.
In Wu Shang's eyes, it was naturally still Hu Rui'an, with the highest martial Dao cultivation among them, who was the pillar to lean on.
Yet what surprised him was that Hu Rui'an did not answer his question. Instead, he looked toward Li Musheng with a deeply respectful manner, clearly seeking the man's opinion.
Li Musheng, for his part, simply waved a hand without a word and went back to his own room, seeming entirely unbothered about managing any of it.
Seeing this, Hu Rui'an relaxed, and said to Wu Shang and the others, "Rest easy and get some sleep. There is nothing to worry about. We press on in the morning."
With Li Musheng around, a figure who had sent even Shen Juesheng flying, he genuinely could not think of anything left to be afraid of.
At this moment, Hu Rui'an felt a sense of security he had never known before, though the fact that this security came from an Eighth Prince so many years his junior filled him with an inexplicable twinge of shame.
But a little shame was a small price to pay. As long as he had such a powerful patron, what did it matter?
What was more, Hu Rui'an found himself thinking back to the way Shangguan Qingqing had always addressed Li Musheng, and a strange, unsteady feeling came over him as a thought crept unbidden into his mind.
"Could the Eighth Prince truly be the number one under heaven?"
"A punch that can send Shen Juesheng flying puts his martial Dao cultivation at the very least among the most elite tier of Heaven-Human experts in the martial world."
"No wonder he agreed without hesitation to join the plan to exterminate Falling God Peak. But Falling God Peak's foundation is fathomlessly deep and their martial experts are numerous. Can he alone truly turn the tide?"
...
Hu Rui'an's mind was a whirl of thoughts. Before all of this, he had gone into the Falling God Peak operation with what was essentially the resolve to die.
Otherwise, he would not have broken his oath and come to Zhanliu Manor to secretly see Ruan Zhenhui one last time.
And now, having seen Li Musheng's true strength with his own eyes, hope had undeniably been kindled in his heart.
But Falling God Peak, as one of the foremost powers of the martial world, had dominated it for centuries. It was nothing remotely comparable to Zhanliu Manor.
He still could not be certain that Li Musheng and the Tianjin Guards alone could bring it down.
For the moment, Hu Rui'an's feelings were caught in a push-and-pull of hope and doubt. Having finished speaking to Wu Shang, he had no heart for further conversation, and went back to his own room with a great deal on his mind.
Seeing this, the expressions of Wu Shang and the others all shifted, because Hu Rui'an's manner toward Li Musheng had clearly changed from what it used to be.
They could sense from him a faint, unmistakable undercurrent of reverence, a kind of involuntary awe directed toward Li Musheng that the man could not fully conceal.
A question rose in the minds of those present. What exactly had happened while they were poisoned and unconscious?
Even so, Cao Gaoshan's expression shifted subtly, and he looked toward the room where Li Musheng was staying. Something seemed to occur to him, though he could not be entirely certain.
Murong Xiaoya's eyes flickered, as though she had confirmed something she had suspected, leaving her simultaneously stunned and struggling to believe it.
She stood rooted to the spot for a moment, wanting very much to go and ask Hu Rui'an about it, but after hesitating for quite some time, she ultimately shrank back and returned to her own room.
After all, the sheer amount of courage it takes to get a social anxiety sufferer to speak up on their own initiative was simply beyond measure.
The remaining Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong exchanged a look. Both of them looked a little lost. Though they seemed to have grasped the faintest thread of something, they could not quite untangle it.
With no other option, the two of them stayed in the courtyard to keep watch through the night.
The night passed, and the entire Zhanliu Manor was perfectly calm, with nothing happening anywhere in the estate.
When dawn came and the morning sun rose, Wu Shang and the others packed their belongings, skipped breakfast without a second thought, went to retrieve the carriage and horses from where they had been kept in the manor, and prepared to continue the journey.
Hu Rui'an had left at some point early in the morning, and only returned just as they were about to set out.
Knowing he had no way of hiding this from Li Musheng, he came back to the courtyard and offered an explanation on his own initiative, saying, "This subordinate settled some personal affairs. There is now nothing left to hold me back on the road ahead."
Li Musheng paid it no mind, waved a hand, then turned his gaze toward the courtyard entrance.
At that moment, a figure had appeared outside early in the morning.