Asesino sin nombre

Capítulo 89

"If you want to see it, it's easy," Tang Tianshu said with a smile. "Come with me."

Inside the stables of Zhoujiazhuang, a person lay quietly on the ground.

A dead man.

When Li Lingyan saw her, he was stunned. He had expected to see a beautiful woman as graceful as a jade pillar and as radiant as a peach blossom.

But the person on the ground wasn't.

The person was pierced through flesh by a silvery-white chain, his limbs firmly fixed to an iron plate the same color as the chain. His clothes were tattered, and he was emaciated. Even Li Lingyan felt sorry for him. The silvery-white thing that looked like silver was obviously poisonous. The places where the person's skin touched the chain and iron plate had turned black into a strange color. He was so thin that he was practically a skeleton. This was probably what people meant by "starving corpse".

Besides, he was already dead; he was just a skeleton with skin on.

But he wasn't ugly.

There aren't many people in the world who can turn into a skeleton and still look good, but this person is one of them.

He no longer possessed any "appearance," but Li Lingyan could still sense a pure aura emanating from him, a captivating clarity like the first sprouts of spring grass or the mist rising from a mountain spring—a purity that remained unchanged even after a thousand buckets of filth had been poured upon him. What would such a person have looked like in life? Li Lingyan glanced at the skeleton, realizing that it wasn't entirely his fault that Liang had gone mad for such a person… "What did you use to kill him?"

Tang Tianshu said, "I just took out the strip of cloth that was stuffed in his mouth, wanting to ask him a couple of questions, but who knew he would bite his tongue and commit suicide."

Li Lingyan thought for a moment, then said, "Thank you for your hard work." After looking at him, he turned around leisurely and said, "We can go now."

Tang Tianshu followed him away, and actually left Lianzhu Qianli's body in the stable of Zhoujiazhuang, ignoring it completely.

That night, Jiang Chenming was quite drunk. Liu Ji was pregnant—he had been with many women over the years, but none had ever borne him a child. He was completely unaware of Li Lingyan and Tang Tianshu's unusual movements that day; the twenty spies he had used to monitor Li Lingyan had all disappeared that day; and he still didn't know about Lianzhu Qianli's murder.

A while later, just as he was drinking and nearly drunk, someone in Zhoujiazhuang shouted, "Ah—murder! A dead man—!"

Jiang Chenming snapped out of his daze, rising from the soft, gentle words of Liu Ji. A profound sense of unease washed over him like a thunderbolt. "Who died? What happened?"

His soldiers rushed in, their faces changed drastically, trembling with fear. "That person...that person is gone..."

"Who is it?" Jiang Chenming understood most of it in his mind and immediately shouted sternly, "Who is it?"

"The person the general ordered us to keep a close watch on..." Before the general could finish speaking, the steward of Zhou Family Manor rushed in, "Master, master, there's suddenly a dead body in the stable, and it's a horrible death..."

Jiang Chenming felt as if a bucket of cold water and boiling oil had been poured over him at the same time. His heart sank. It was all over!

The news spread quickly: a man had died in Zhoujiazhuang, a man who was so thin he was just skin and bones.

Just as Jiang Chenming was searching for neither the soldiers guarding Lianzhu Qianli nor the spies monitoring Li Lingyan, a series of thunderous hoofbeats echoed from the bluestone path at the entrance of Zhou Family Manor. The resounding hooves on the bluestone slabs silenced the entire manor. Jiang Chenming suddenly looked up and saw a tall horse galloping wildly in the courtyard, knocking over flower stands, kicking up mud, and creating a gust of wind. The rider let out a long neigh, even more mournful than the horse's. With a "whoosh," a long sword was already at Jiang Chenming's chest. A man stood imposingly at the entrance of the main hall, his hair bristling with anger. "Where is he?"

Liu Ji and the people around Jiang Chenming staggered back, only to see Qu Zhiliang's sword pressed firmly against Jiang Chenming's chest, as he asked sharply again, "Where is he?"

Jiang Chenming immediately replied sharply: "He's dead!"

Qu Zhiliang shuddered. Jiang Chenming struggled in his death throes, roaring, "It was Li Lingyan—Li Lingyan sent someone to kill him—it must be Li Lingyan—" Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a chill in his chest. Qu Zhiliang's longsword, "Zhufang," had already pierced through his chest. Jiang Chenming was terrified and struggled to hold onto Qu Zhiliang tightly. "Let me go...let me go...it was Li Lingyan, it was all Li Lingyan...he..." Before he could finish his sentence, Qu Zhiliang expressionlessly pulled out the sword. Blood splattered several feet on the ground. Jiang Chenming collapsed to the ground in horror, convulsing and writhing. After a while, he died.

The people inside fell silent instantly. Whoever the bloodstained sword pointed at changed drastically. In a low, beast-like voice, a distorted tone was heard, "Where is Li... Ling... Yan?"

“In the guest room, in the guest room…” someone said repeatedly.

Qu Zhiliang strode out with his sword in hand. The people inside were so frightened that they dared not utter a sound. After a while, they were able to stand up and fled in unison.

Liu Ji collapsed to the ground, staring at Jiang Chenming's corpse. Li Lingyan… a chill ran through her. Li Lingyan had sown discord, using Qu Zhiliang to kill Jiang Chenming, and hadn't uttered a single word about it to her. Even though they shared a bed, this man had never… cared about her life or death…

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She was unwilling to be subordinate to Jiang Chenming, nor did she love this old man, but Li Lingyan's decision to kill him like this truly chilled her to the bone. Li Lingyan, this man was fearless, indifferent to money, and unaffected by temptation… Did he really have no weaknesses? She was unwilling to accept it; she refused to believe it.

Blood dripped from the sword's blade onto the ground, forming a winding path of no return. Qu Zhiliang, sword in hand, entered the guest room. Li Lingyan, who was drinking tea, smiled slightly upon seeing him enter, "Hero Qu."

With a swift "whoosh," Qu Zhiliang placed his sword against his neck. "You killed him, didn't you?"

Li Lingyan remained calm, carefully taking out a silk handkerchief to wipe the blood from the sword blade so as not to stain his clothes. "Who killed him? Aren't you going to go and see? He died pitifully in the stable..."

Before he could finish speaking, Qu Zhiliang abruptly sheathed his sword and strode towards the stables. Li Lingyan watched him go, noticing him hesitate for a long time outside the stables before slowly entering. Qu Zhiliang could actually feel fear… Li Lingyan didn't know how deeply he loved the skeleton inside. Watching his tall figure disappear into the stables, a slight pity stirred in his heart. Qu Zhiliang was truly pitiful. Then, a mournful cry, deeper and hoarseer than a tiger's roar, came from within—a sob…

Tang Tianshu walked in from outside and looked at Li Lingyan. The two were surprised: Qu Zhiliang could actually cry.

After the crying, a roar that seemed to split the heavens and the earth rose from within. With a loud "boom," the entire stable was shattered. The horses in the stable ran away in all directions, and Zhou Family Village was in an uproar and chaos. Even though Li Lingyan was prepared, he was still slightly alarmed. He exchanged a glance with Tang Tianshu, and the two of them stood up and rushed out of the village.

Sure enough, after a wild roar, Qu Zhiliang chased after them with his sword, carrying Lian Zhu Qianli's corpse in his arms. However, he was not far behind Tang Tianshu and Li Lingyan. A moment later, the three of them had already run out of Lingling County and reached the outskirts of Lingling.

Liu Ji rushed to the door and watched the three figures disappear. Looking in the direction Li Lingyan had run off to, she suddenly realized something, and a cold sweat broke out all over her body. Li Lingyan hated Qu Zhiliang to the bone. He first used Qu Zhiliang to kill Jiang Chenming, and then lured him to Jiang Chenming's military camp, intending for Qu Zhiliang to die under a hail of arrows and horses' hooves!

Good... terrifying Li Lingyan! She was trembling all over. Just when Jiang Chenming thought that he had taken in Li Lingyan and was treating him with sincerity, wanting to subdue Li Lingyan, Li Lingyan had set up such a murder trap!

“Princess,” Su Qing’e whispered behind her, “with Jiang Chenming dead, no matter how many Han soldiers die at Qu Zhiliang’s hands tonight, this army of ten thousand will be yours.”

Liu Ji shuddered. Yes, she was now "Madam Jiang." With Jiang Chenming dead, everything he owned was naturally hers. Thinking this, she finally straightened her back and let out a deep sigh of relief.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Laughter Rises from the Green Flame Nest

Shengxiang and Rongyin, along with their group of four, traveled down the river by boat and arrived in Lingling several days later.

On the fifth day of the first month of the eighth year of the Taiping Xingguo era, before the New Year had passed.

But when the boat reached the outskirts of Lingling, everyone suddenly smelled a strange odor.

Yu Cuiwei said softly, "Ah, a dead man."

Indeed, the outskirts of Lingling, near the county seat, were littered with corpses. Rong Yin's face darkened upon seeing this, and he whispered, "Han army!"

The corpses on the wilderness were all soldiers dressed in Northern Han clothing. Their deaths were gruesome and tragic, but they had two things in common: they died from sword wounds and from fist wounds.

"Qu Zhiliang!" Shengxiang rushed out of the cabin, her expression changing as she looked at the corpses stretching for an unknown distance along the riverbank. "Rongrong, stop the boat!"

This place, this place might be where we can find Qu Zhiliang's... corpse...