Intelligence Ultime

Chapitre 108

Zhu Huihui looked at them and became anxious.

She had already fulfilled her promise to the Serpent Envoy to deliver the message, but the Serpent Envoy and his men had risked their lives to send it out in order to save the families of the two generals! Now, instead, they had lost the generals' families. She...she...she had let the Twelve Zodiac Envoys down so much...

"What should we do? What should we do?" She stood up and paced back and forth in the cabin, muttering to herself, but she had no idea what to do.

Everyone was dizzy and annoyed by her nagging.

west Yeyan urged her to leave: "Zhu Huihui, it's getting late, you should go and rest."

"I dare not!" Zhu Huihui shook her head.

Nishino En was greatly surprised: "You don't dare?" Is there anything she doesn't dare to do?

Zhu Huihui said with a bitter face, "If I don't do what I promised, I'm afraid the Twelve Zodiac Envoys will come back tonight and strangle me!"

Nishinoyan: "..."

Zhu Liuyue couldn't help but laugh and said, "Miss Zhu, you don't need to worry. I have already sent more people to investigate this matter, and I will not let the general's family suffer."

Feng Xue Se suddenly said, "I have a question. Brother Liu Yue, could you please answer it for me?"

"Brother Xuese, please proceed."

Feng Xuese slowly said, "Back then, when Brother Liuyue came to Luomei Nunnery, was it merely to visit the orphaned daughter of your master, Mei Hanlin?"

He, Fang Jianwu, and Xiye Yan had discussed this issue before...

He remembered that it was shortly after Zhu Huihui brought him to Xuan Yue Water Island, when he told Fang Jianwu about meeting Liu Yue at Luo Mei Nunnery on Xi Feng Mountain. Upon hearing this, Fang Jianwu raised an eyebrow and simply said, "What a coincidence!"

He asked Fang Jianwu what she meant by this matter.

Fang Jianwu said, "Xue Se, you and Miss Zhu went to Luomei Nunnery to look for clues in a murder case. This young Prince Zhu just happened to appear at Luomei Nunnery, and it was also the scene of a family annihilation murder. Is it really just a coincidence?"

Feng Xuese understood Fang Jianwu's implied meaning.

Their persistent pursuit of this case stemmed not only from their anger at the black-clad men's indiscriminate killing of innocent people and their desire to avenge their "brothers who refused to eat or drink," but also, more importantly, from their determination to ascertain whether the people brutally murdered on the riverbank were relatives of Generals Yu and Qi, who had mysteriously disappeared after being exiled from Beijing.

The two generals were renowned for their unparalleled achievements and enduring fame. From the court to the common people, everyone praised them. Although they were falsely accused and imprisoned, anyone who dared to murder their families would be condemned by the entire nation. This is why the massacre on the riverbank was carried out with such secrecy; even passersby who witnessed the tragedy were silenced. Even their relatives and neighbors who might have heard of the incident were to be killed, simply to prevent the truth from being revealed and inciting public outrage.

Zhu Liuyue happened to be at Luomei Nunnery at that time, which could have been a coincidence. However, he was a prince and had a close relationship with the two generals. Everyone in the court knew that Prince Xin was loyal and righteous and had always been a pro-war faction in the court. He had a close personal relationship with Generals Qi and Yu. This time, he had gone to great lengths to help the two generals get imprisoned and was implicated and punished by the current emperor by being confined to his home.

Therefore, Fang Jianwu believes that Zhu Liuyue's visit to Luomei Nunnery may not be as he claims, merely a chance visit to his late master's daughter, but rather related to Generals Yu and Qi! Although Prince Xin is under house arrest by the tyrannical emperor, Zhu Liuyue's martial arts skills and status in the martial arts world sometimes make things much easier for him than for a high-ranking prince.

At the time, Feng Xuese considered it for a moment and felt that Fang Jianwu's view seemed reasonable, but it lacked a necessary premise. That is, it was still unknown whether this case really involved Generals Yu and Qi. Therefore, there was no strong evidence to prove it.

For this reason, Nishino En even sent someone to investigate the abbess of Luomei Temple. The result, of course, confirmed what Liu Yue said: "The abbess of Luomei Temple, Master Jinghui, is the only daughter of her teacher, Mei Zihe. She lost her mother when she was young, and her husband died shortly after she got married. She had no children and returned home to serve her father. After her father's death, she became a nun and worshipped Buddha."

While they were carefully investigating the whereabouts of the two generals' families, they were also pursuing the riverbank massacre and the mysterious black-clad assassin—unfortunately, at that time, both of these leads were still broken!

Now, the two broken threads have almost come together, finally confirming that the case is indeed related to the two generals. So, the probability that Zhu Liuyue's appearance at Luomei Temple was a coincidence is quite small, right?

Zhu Liuyue laughed: "As expected, you can't hide it from Brother Xuese!" He paused, "My appearance at Luomei Nunnery can be said to be a coincidence, or it can be said to be inevitable."

Zhu Huihui asked, "What do you mean?"

Zhu Liuyue smiled at her, his handsome face like a flower: "It's a coincidence, firstly because Abbess Jinghui of Luomei Nunnery happens to be the orphaned daughter of my teacher; secondly because fate brought you and Brother Xuese together."

"Then why is it said to be inevitable?"

"It must be because I will inevitably be at that time and place."

Zhu Huihui didn't quite understand, and touched her head, looking completely confused.

Zhu Liuyue slowly said, "Generals Yu and Qi were unjustly imprisoned. My father has been working tirelessly to plead for their release, hoping the Emperor would change his mind. However, my father is upright and has never been favored by the Emperor. This time, his standing up for the two generals angered the Emperor again, and my father was confined to his residence. As a result, that very night, a group of assassins came. I happened to be in the residence at the time, and I got into a fight with the assassins..."

Although Zhu Liuyue spoke cryptically, everyone except Zhu Huihui, including Feng Xuese, understood. The current emperor's suspicion of Prince Xin was no secret, neither in the court nor among the people. In the more than twenty years since his ascension to the throne, the emperor had sent assassins to Prince Xin's residence at least eighty to a hundred times. Fortunately, Prince Xin was loyal and righteous, and had loyal followers like Chief Steward Qin who risked their lives to protect him, allowing him to escape death time and again. It was said that Zhu Liuyue was sent out of the palace at a very young age to learn martial arts from a master, precisely because Prince Xin, to prevent his own assassination, had even eliminated his bloodline…

"The assassins were all dressed in black, and their martial arts skills were all quite formidable, especially their moves, which were surprisingly bizarre. The leader among them wore a mask, and the weapon he wielded was none other than the Cloud-Piercing Moon-Locking Flute that Master Han used before his ascension to immortality..."

Zhu Huihui immediately thought of someone, subconsciously touched her face, and exclaimed, "So it was that turtle!" Damn it, the place where that turtle pinched her still seems to hurt!

Zhu Liuyue looked at her face: "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, I just accidentally got pinched by the turtle!" Zhu Huihui said. "That turtle is really strong, you didn't get hurt, did you?"

Feng Xuese explained, "That man in black is Kazama Yoru. He was the one who led the men to do the Xuan Yue Shui Yu incident."

“That’s right, he is Kazama Yoru, and his martial arts are extremely high,” Zhu Liuyue continued. “When I engaged him in combat, the guards from the Prince’s mansion rushed over. The assassins suffered heavy losses, and the rest, seeing they couldn’t succeed, immediately fled. To eliminate any future trouble, I immediately pursued Kazama Yoru to find their hideout. The process was, of course, a long story. Later, I chased him all the way to Luomei Nunnery. At the time, I didn’t know what Kazama Yoru was doing at Luomei Nunnery. By the time I found out, it was too late; the nuns at Luomei Nunnery had already been murdered. After that, Miss Zhu and Brother Xuese also arrived one after the other.”

"During our conversation, I learned that Brother Xuese was investigating someone who might be related to the person I was pursuing, but he couldn't be sure and didn't want to bring it up. So I suggested that we investigate the case together, and Brother Xuese agreed..."

Feng Xuese nodded, feeling relieved—the emperor's decree that princes and their brothers were turning against each other was something she couldn't bring herself to speak of, either publicly or privately. Besides, she hadn't told him at the time that she suspected the riverbank massacre was related to Generals Yu and Qi.

Zhu Liuyue said, "Later, I went to chase after Mo Xinxue and found that she had died by the pool. The wound on her throat was exactly the same as that of the nuns of Luomei Nunnery, which must have shown that she was related to Feng Jianye. So I sent people to search in the mountains while rushing back to find Brother Fangxiang and Miss Zhu, but the two of them had already left. Just then, my subordinates reported that they had found traces of Feng Jianye, so after weighing the options, I had no choice but to follow Feng Jianye again."

“A little over a month ago, I followed Kazama Yoru to Yueyang, but I ran into Brother Shenhan outside the city. We had some misunderstandings before due to some trivial matters, therefore—”

Yan Shenhan was originally stern and taciturn, and having been seriously injured and losing all his martial arts skills, he was in a depressed mood, so he spoke even less. Now, upon hearing that he was mentioned, he simply nodded slightly and said, "Therefore, I invited Brother Liuyue to a duel by Dongting Lake, but I did not expect it to lead to so many things."

Zhu Liuyue sighed, "It's my fault for being careless. When I was tracking Kazama Yoru, I fought him many times, and it was always a close call. Later, I couldn't even tell if I was tracking him or he was tracking me. When I was sparring with Brother Shenhan, although I had considered that he might take the opportunity to ambush me with some ulterior motive, I was still overconfident. I thought that with my martial arts skills and Brother Shenhan's presence, if he dared to show himself, he would be captured. Who knew that man proposes, God disposes, and I ended up implicating Brother Xiye and Brother Shenhan!"

Nishino En smiled bitterly: "Say nothing more, it was just a calamity that Lao Yan and I were destined to suffer!"

"At that time, Miss Zhu's injuries were too severe, so I had to take her away first. We hadn't gone far when we unexpectedly encountered Mr. Chen and Mrs. Wan by Dongting Lake. We rushed back, but Brother Shenhan had already disappeared. By then, I had already suffered serious internal injuries, and fearing that Kazama Ye might launch a sneak attack, I avoided him. After I recovered, I could no longer find Kazama Ye's whereabouts. Later, the guards discovered another group of mysterious men in black. We followed them to investigate and happened to rescue Miss Zhu in a cemetery."

Zhu Liuyue finished explaining everything in one breath, and just as he felt a little thirsty, Steward Qin immediately offered him a teacup and respectfully placed it in his hands.

Zhu Huihui despised him; he was a bootlicker!