Chapter 166: Not Leaving His Side |
The three of them had barely returned when they came upon Shen Anran in the courtyard pavilion, seeking Li Musheng's guidance in martial arts.
The corners of the courtyard were hung with gauze palace lanterns, their warm amber light casting a glow over the lotus pond and flowering walls.
In the night air, Shen Anran and Li Musheng sat across from each other, and a soft evening breeze came through, setting the copper bells at the eaves gently swaying. The scene looked uncommonly peaceful and beautiful.
Hu Rui'an and the other two stopped in their tracks at the courtyard entrance, none of them wanting to disturb the moment.
But then Hu Rui'an caught a few words drifting over and his expression shifted at once.
Asking for guidance in martial arts was one thing, but what he had not expected in the slightest was that what Shen Anran was seeking Li Musheng's guidance on was the "Zhanliu Blade Art."
Who had ever heard of someone seeking another person's instruction in their own family's blade art? That was no different from handing over the cornerstone of the family's martial lineage with both hands.
Hu Rui'an immediately did not dare listen any further, and prepared to take Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong away. Eavesdropping on martial arts was neither honorable nor permissible, and he was genuinely afraid of Shen Liancheng and his family coming to him for trouble over it.
But just at that moment, Li Musheng turned his head and spotted Hu Rui'an and the three, and with a somewhat unexpected air called across to them, asking, "Commissioner Hu, how did your business go?"
Hu Rui'an was cut off at once and said nothing further, swallowing it in mild displeasure.
He turned to exchange a look with Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong, then went back to his own room.
Even so, any thought of rest tonight was out of the question. All three of them understood that from tonight through tomorrow they would need to stay on constant alert, and moreover had to ensure they remained within a certain distance of Li Musheng at all times.
At the same time, Shen Anran sat upright in her blue-green skirt, her raven-black hair loosely wound and fastened with a green hairpin.
Her brows were like distant mountains veiled in mist, her skin and bone like jade, and her dark eyes caught the lantern light of the courtyard in pools of amber warmth. The night breeze passed over her, carrying a faint, gentle fragrance of flowers from after her evening wash.
"Miss Shen, this blade technique of yours is barely passable at best. For example, the move you just demonstrated, 'Hanging Mountain Gazing at the Moon,' has several dozen flaws..."
Faced with Shen Anran's request for instruction, Li Musheng made no effort to hold back and was actually teaching her seriously.
It was rather like being the top student in school and having the class beauty come up to your desk with her notebook, clutching her exam review materials and asking you about the questions. Unless you were made of iron, the answer was almost never no, if nothing else than for the sake of looking at a pretty face.
Even so, Li Musheng understood perfectly well that Shen Anran was, as the saying went, not really here for the wine.
Take right now, for instance. He was carefully analyzing blade technique for her, while she had her eyes fixed on him and had barely looked away for a single moment.
This was not asking for guidance in martial arts. This was quite plainly taking liberties with his good looks.
Li Musheng touched his chin and gave the woman a quiet, meaningful look.
There was certainly no shortage of young women taking liberties with his good looks. Shen Anran was a fine young woman, but she could not simply jump the queue.
At that moment, feeling Li Musheng's gaze on her, Shen Anran blinked gently and quickly drew her eyes away.
Then she slowly rose to her feet, lowered her head, and said, "Many thanks for Your Highness's guidance. Anran has gained a great deal. The night grows late. Anran will not disturb Your Highness's rest any further."
As she spoke, she gave a slight bow of farewell and took her leave.
Li Musheng watched the retreating figure from behind, faintly furrowing his brow.
Where exactly has she gained a great deal? Your attention was not on any of it the entire time. Have you even learned any of what I said?
At the same time, Shen Anran was walking away with light, quick steps, her heart bubbling with delight, thinking to herself, "Too much too soon is counterproductive. Everything must be taken one step at a time. The fact that he was willing to give me guidance tonight means he holds no ill feeling toward me. I have a chance."
With that, the image of Li Musheng guiding her through the blade technique drifted back into her mind, and for the first time she found herself furrowing her brows slightly, thinking, "Is the Zhanliu Blade Art really that lacking? Grandfather used it to dominate the martial world for decades and once defeated the head of the Tianhe Blade Sect in a blade duel."
So when she got back to her room, Shen Anran sat down at the desk in the lamplight and began going back over every word Li Musheng had said.
At the same time, following Li Musheng's guidance, she began attempting to practice a small portion of the Zhanliu Blade Art.
And once she started, Shen Anran found herself drawn in without realizing it, and just like that, the night flew by.
When the rooster crowed at dawn and a pale light began to spread at the horizon, Shen Anran opened her eyes. The sharp edge of blade intent in her gaze was so vivid it seemed almost tangible, to the point where the air before her hummed faintly with a keen, cutting sound.
"This is remarkable."
Shen Anran's red lips parted slightly, her eyes full of astonishment.
She had simply followed the few corrections Li Musheng had pointed out and practiced a handful of blade moves through the night.
Yet in this moment she could clearly feel that the power of these few moves when she executed them now was at least several times greater than before.
And her comprehension and insight into the path of the blade had deepened considerably as well.
"I had thought he was only formidable in his martial Dao cultivation and supreme in unarmed combat. I never expected that his mastery of the blade path was also this extraordinary."
"Grandfather has spent decades studying and refining the Zhanliu Blade Art without ever finding a single flaw. He took one look at it and found several dozen. This is genuinely inconceivable..."
Shen Anran sat at the desk, her heart buzzing with silent amazement, her mind somewhat distant.
After a good while, she finally rose slowly from her stool, and by the time she did, the expression in her eyes had hardened into something deeply certain, saying quietly to herself, "I, Shen Anran, am going to have him."
...
At the same time, Li Musheng, lying on his bed, suddenly opened his eyes. His brow furrowed slightly.
Then he rose from the bed, walked to the door of his room, and pushed it open.
The sky was half-light already. The courtyard outside was wrapped in a faint drifting morning mist, and the damp of dew-laden air carried a refreshing coolness that swept across his face.
But Li Musheng's attention was not on this. His gaze moved to the stone steps in front of his room.
There, seated in a row, were three figures whose clothes and hair had each accumulated a thin layer of dew. They were unmistakably Hu Rui'an, Wu Shang, and Cheng Zhong.
"What are you three doing?"
Li Musheng looked the three of them over and narrowed his eyes, saying, "I have been watching you for quite some time. You have been sitting together in front of my door since the middle of the night, and you have not moved an inch until now."
The moment those words fell, all three straightened their stiffened bodies and turned to look at Li Musheng.
Even so, the three of them exchanged a glance, and began fidgeting somewhat.
After all, the haunting at the Tianjin Guards office had nothing to do with Li Musheng. It was trouble they had brought on themselves.
Frankly speaking, if Li Musheng's martial Dao cultivation had not already reached a height that left them gazing up in awe, they would never have involved him in this even if it meant walking to their own deaths.
Their reason for doing this was purely and simply that they wanted to cling to a strong support. After all, Li Musheng was technically their commanding superior on this trip.
Faced with a difficulty in the Sheng Province provincial city that they had no means to resolve on their own, who else were they supposed to turn to but their formidable superior?
At this point, Hu Rui'an's expression contorted in an internal struggle.
But he still let out a quiet cough, steeled himself, and looked at Li Musheng, saying, "Your Highness, you did say before that if we ran into a problem we truly could not resolve, we could bring it to you..."
But before Hu Rui'an could finish, Li Musheng raised a hand to stop him and raised an eyebrow, saying, "You got yourselves into trouble out there?"
The moment those words fell, Hu Rui'an could not help the flush that crept across his aged face. His age was several times Li Musheng's, after all.
Yet in this moment, facing the man, he was overcome with the sudden and inexplicable feeling of a child who had been getting up to mischief outside and was now standing at the door to receive punishment.
Even so, he kept a straight face, and with some squirming gave a nod of acknowledgment.
Seeing this, Li Musheng swept a glance over the three of them, then narrowed his eyes slightly with an expression of dawning realization, saying, "I see. You are genuinely frightened. You spent the night hiding at my door without a word."
Hearing this, before Hu Rui'an could say anything, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong both nodded firmly and without hesitation.
After all, even the Sheng Province Deputy Commander Mei Yan, who was himself a formidable cultivator and had the daughter of a Martial Saint supporting him, had still fallen victim to the haunting at the Tianjin Guards office.
They had neither Mei Yan's level of martial Dao cultivation nor a powerful backer of that kind. Without Hu Rui'an and the Eighth Prince, they were in essentially the same position as all those who had died at the Tianjin Guards office before them: facing certain death.
Of course, Hu Rui'an himself was now somewhat unreliable in this respect, having apparently reached the limits of his own ability to protect them. With things as they stood, all three of them needed to cling tightly to Li Musheng if there was any hope of making it through the crisis before them.
At this point, Li Musheng shook his head, glanced at Hu Rui'an, and felt the corner of his eye twitch slightly, saying, "I did say something like that. But I also never expected you would manage to get into trouble this fast, in less than a few hours."
It had to be said, Commissioner Hu really had been remarkably swift and decisive in this particular matter.
Though Li Musheng was not afraid of trouble, he also had no particular interest in going out and picking it up unnecessarily.
Even so, he had no intention of watching from the side and leaving them to their fate. He thought for a moment, then said, "Tell me what is going on first. Though let me be clear about one thing. If it is something that can be resolved by force, then it is not really a problem at all, and I have absolutely no issue helping you with it."
"As for anything that falls outside of that, I will need to think more carefully about it."
The moment those words fell, all three of them brightened visibly.
Hu Rui'an no longer hesitated and immediately relayed the full story of the haunting at the Tianjin Guards office and his own experience of the ghost last night from beginning to end.
After hearing Hu Rui'an out, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong turned to look at him with particularly peculiar expressions.
The story of what had happened to Hu Rui'an at the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards office the night before had never been shared with them until now, and hearing the truth at last, learning that he had actually been driven out of the place by the ghost shadow and the laughter, sent a chill running down both their spines. They were caught with a feeling of having been dragged into someone else's disaster, and even the looks they directed at Hu Rui'an held a faint undercurrent of quiet grievance.
At this point, after hearing the full story, Li Musheng looked thoughtful and said, "You are all martial artists, after all. Let us not start believing in ghosts and superstitions."
But having said that, he shook his own head again immediately.
After all, if transmigration could actually happen, there was no particular reason why actual ghosts could not exist.
Even so, from what Li Musheng knew about this world, there did not appear to be any such thing as real supernatural entities.
So the haunting at the Sheng Province branch office was most likely the work of someone deliberately staging a supernatural performance from behind the scenes.
Including the ghost shadow and laughter Hu Rui'an had encountered, along with the peculiar manner of death by hanging with no trace of outside involvement, it was most likely some specialized martial technique or some method unknown to the general world.
At this point, all three of Hu Rui'an's group were looking at Li Musheng with hopeful eyes. Seeing him speak and then nod to himself repeatedly, none of them could quite read his meaning, and Hu Rui'an tried his luck with a question, asking cautiously, "Your Highness, what should we do?"
Hearing this, Li Musheng gathered his thoughts, looked at the three of them, and waved a hand, saying, "I have no spare time to help the Tianjin Guards catch ghosts. Stay by my side today, and wait for that 'ghost' to come looking to claim its lives. I will take the opportunity to see what the thing actually is."
With that, Li Musheng no longer gave the matter further thought and turned to go back inside.
All three of Hu Rui'an's group exhaled in relief.
With Li Musheng's approval, with the protection of this Eighth Prince of supremely formidable martial Dao cultivation, the shadow of death that had been hovering over their hearts cleared away considerably.
And just at that moment, the sound of footsteps came from outside the courtyard.
Then a servant from the Murong estate appeared at the courtyard gate, bowed in greeting, and reported, "Our Master invites all the distinguished guests to the main hall to share the morning meal."
Hearing this, Hu Rui'an's eyes narrowed slightly as he said quietly, "It seems the Murong family head has finally decided he is ready to see us."
Before long, Hu Rui'an, Wu Shang, and Cheng Zhong were following close at Li Musheng's side without a single step's distance between them, following the servant toward the main hall for the meal.
Cao Gaoshan and Shen Anran were following behind the three of them as well, though Shen Anran's expression was clearly somewhat unusual.
She had originally intended to walk alongside Li Musheng, but Hu Rui'an and the other two had gotten there first, and try as she might to squeeze in between them, she simply could not manage it.
She had even gone quietly to find Hu Rui'an earlier, hoping to trade positions with him, but the man had inexplicably let out a sigh and said, "Dear Anran, it is not that your great-uncle is trying to compete with you. Bear with it a little longer. After today it will be fine."
Hearing this, Shen Anran had been left with no choice but to let it go.
When they arrived at the hall in the Murong estate for the morning meal, Li Musheng took his seat at the long table of yellow pear-wood, with Hu Rui'an and the other two sitting right up beside him.
By the time Hu Rui'an and the others arrived, three generations of the Murong family were already filling two long tables.
Li Musheng's group sat at the upper table, and directly across from Li Musheng sat a middle-aged man whose hair had gone half-white.
The man was around fifty years of age, his face like darkened iron that had been quenched, his cheekbones high and sharp, his square face honed as though by axe and blade. He sat upright with his back straight as a lone peak standing on the horizon.
From the moment Li Musheng and his companions arrived, the man had been looking them over with a steady gaze.
"Murong Hong pays his respects to His Highness the Eighth Prince."
At this point, the middle-aged man across from them rose to his feet, clasped his hands, and bowed in formal greeting.
Li Musheng glanced at him, then waved a hand dismissively to indicate that the formality was unnecessary.
Murong Hong straightened slightly, then turned to Hu Rui'an and clasped his hands again, saying, "Commissioner Hu has looked after my little daughter throughout the journey. I am deeply grateful."
Hearing this, Hu Rui'an returned the gesture and said, "I was entrusted with this by Commander Fu. It was simply my duty."