Three Steps: From Assassin to Empress - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: This is What an Assassin Should Do

“Ying Xiu is not a suspect! My lords, you cannot keep him here!” Voices from the side room of the hall overlapped, both old and young.

A bailiff quickly whispered a reminder, “This is a court of law. You have no right to speak.”

“We are citizens of the Southern Dynasty. Why can’t we speak in a court of law? Who says we can’t?” Xue Hao walked straight out of the side room, his voice strong and powerful. “How about we debate in the capital and see who the Emperor sides with!”

Behind him, fourteen scholars walked out in a line, surrounding him and facing off against the bailiffs without fear.

Xue Hao looked at Ying Xiu. The boy was dressed in golden clothes, his ponytail tied high and resting on his thin shoulders. He was tall and slender, with a graceful and refined demeanor.

His face, in particular, was very different from before.

Delicate and elegant, yet enchantingly beautiful.

He was so handsome that he could make one’s soul tremble.

Ying Xiu seemed to be stunned, as if he hadn’t expected them to speak up for him. “You guys…”

“Silence!”

The Commandant roared in a fit of rage, his gaze toward the group of scholars filled with apprehension.

Although these scholars were of low status, the pens of literati were powerful enough to cause a stir. If they were to secretly write something and the noble people in the capital heard about it…

“Fine, you don’t need to stay. However, until this case is resolved, you are not to leave Jiangzhou, and your city pass is temporarily revoked,” the Commandant said to Ying Xiu.

As for the commoners of the Jianxia district… the Commandant did not say anything, clearly intending for them to stay and cooperate with the investigation.

Upon hearing this, Xue Hao and the others breathed a sigh of relief. Although they hadn’t completely cleared Ying Xiu’s name, at least he didn’t have to suffer in prison.

They were about to go forward and take Ying Xiu away, but he took a step back to avoid them.

“What about those commoners?” Ying Xiu asked.

The bailiff slowly smoothed the wrinkles in his clothes. A few mottled crimson stains were faintly visible in his fingernails. “They were the ones who repaired the Baopingkou dam. Naturally, they have to stay.”

There were too many commoners, and the scholars couldn’t take them all with them. Xue Hao looked at Ying Xiu, secretly winking at him and signaling for him to go back and think of another plan.

To his disappointment, Ying Xiu only glanced at him, then looked away. “In that case, I will stay with them.”

Xue Hao was incredulous. “…Ying Xiu, what are you saying?”

Are you crazy?! The prison in Xunyang is not a place for people. Regular gentry would be fine, but if they, scholars without a proper background, were to enter, they would likely go in vertically and come out horizontally.

“I’m not talking nonsense. I’m staying with them,” Ying Xiu repeated.

The boy quietly stared at the bl00d-stained bailiff. His gaze was extremely calm, yet it inexplicably made the bailiff, who was most skilled in criminal law in the Jiangzhou government, tremble a little. A sudden chill slowly crept up his bl00d-soaked hands.

The bailiff, whose hands were stained with countless amounts of bl00d, had an almost instinctive intuition for killing intent. However, a mere young and naive scholar couldn’t possibly take his life, could he?

He secretly laughed to himself. No matter how eloquent this boy was, once he was in the Xunyang prison, it would be up to him to decide what happened.

Ying Xiu wanted to stay and seek death. Xue Hao and the others hadn’t had time to persuade him when the Commandant said, “He is the one who wants to stay. We, the Jiangzhou government, are not forcing him.” With that, he got up and left. The Prefect followed closely behind, and the main seats were empty in a blink of an eye.

Weisheng Min and the other gentry also got up to leave. As he was leaving, Weisheng Min looked back at Xue Hao and the others, but he saw a group of people surrounding Ying Xiu, earnestly persuading him, completely oblivious to him.

Wang Yu was still sitting on his stool. The three-legged stool was hard and uncomfortable. He was well aware of what those people were thinking. They just wanted to use this opportunity to bring down the newly arrived Qiao gentry.

He was a court official, so they didn’t dare to harm him directly. They could only try to frame him and put the blame for the dam collapse on his head. If he hadn’t said a few words about their dirty secrets just now, making them wary, those southern scholars would have already attacked him and thrown mud at him.

If they were to realize that he had no evidence…

Wang Yu once again thought of that children’s rhyme—

The Commandant’s prison is as flat as a whetstone; with money, you live, without money, you die.

If he could get the old case files from the prison, he would have a countermeasure.

However, how could the Qiao gentry enter the Jiangzhou prison?

Only Ying Xiu had the guts to stay, all for the sake of those commoners.

Facing the fifteen scholars who surrounded him and kindly advised him to go home, Ying Xiu simply said, “Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”

He hadn’t brought his sword with him, but he didn’t need a sword to deal with this group of people.

“Have you said enough?! This is the Jiangzhou government office! It’s not a place where just anyone can—”

The bailiff who was waiting nearby spoke in a hostile tone, but he suddenly saw the golden-robed boy gently lower his eyelids and look at him. His eyelashes were dark and delicate, and his gaze was cold.

His heart inexplicably trembled, and an unfounded fear made him shut his mouth awkwardly.

Half a quarter of an hour later—

In the pitch-black prison.

“Get in there now!”

The bailiff shoved the last commoner violently, causing the person to stumble and almost fall to his knees.

A slender, fair hand helped the commoner up. Ying Xiu bent down and helped him stand, giving the bailiff a faint, sideways glance.

Perhaps out of some intuition, the bailiff did not want to meet his gaze and quickly looked away. He stepped aside and no longer used his hands, watching them walk into the narrow cell with a cold, crossed-arm look.

The group of commoners were all locked up together. Ying Xiu was locked up alone, with a special guard. This special guard was, of course, the bailiff himself. He had to teach this audacious boy a good lesson.

He even dared to secretly send a letter to the capital of Jiankang. The people above had specifically instructed him to take good care of him.

The narrow cell was very dark, with no light on all four sides. The sound of dripping water could be faintly heard from somewhere, drip-drop.

Ying Xiu stood on the ground with his eyes closed. He did not want to sit down, so as not to stain the clothes on his body. These were the clothes Xie Zhou had prepared for him.

“Drip-drop, drip-drop…”

Dark, strange, eerie, and terrifying. This was the environment an assassin was most familiar with.

After the water dropped for the tenth time, the sound of footsteps echoed from a short distance away, slowly getting closer until they were right in front of him.

The guard in front of the narrow cell seemed to be greeting someone, followed by the sound of a key rubbing. The heavy iron door clanged open.

Someone walked in.

“Grab him and put him on that torture rack,” the bailiff whispered.

Two guards walked in, one in front and one behind. They walked toward the boy standing in the narrow cell and reached out to grab his thin shoulders.

“Bang—”

A muffled sound.

Everything happened in a flash of lightning.

It wasn’t until the two guards were heavily thrown against the iron door, falling awkwardly to the ground, that the bailiff finally reacted.

“You, you! Who are you?!” How could a mere scholar have such terrifying strength? The bailiff turned to run, but a slender hand grabbed his robe.

The sensation under his hand was not new. The fabric was soaked with someone’s bl00d, but it was now dry and would not stain the clothes Xie Zhou had prepared for him.

Ying Xiu smiled faintly.

In the dark, narrow cell, a candlelight flickered, and two shadows were cast on the stone wall.

The golden-robed boy’s fingertips moved slightly, quickly tapping the bailiff’s vital point, then gently pushed him, pressing the immobile bailiff to the ground.

The bailiff fell to the ground in horror. His pitch-black eyes turned with difficulty. The branding iron he had hidden behind him clanged as it fell to the ground. He was only glad that the branding iron had not yet been heated. What in the world did that boy do to me?

The golden hem of the robe slowly fell, shimmering faintly in the dim candlelight. The young assassin squatted down, his tone gentle as he whispered, “Are the two commoners who wrote the bloody confessions still alive?”

What… The bailiff’s eyes darted around. He quickly reacted and his lips moved, silently saying, “…Alive! They’re all alive!”

The boy did not react. The golden robe disappeared from his sight. The sound of footsteps suddenly rang out. He seemed to be walking out.

The bailiff’s heart was suddenly filled with joy. Run, run, run quickly. The unfortunate thing was that the boy had only walked a few steps before he quickly returned, this time holding the branding iron the bailiff had brought.

The cold branding iron gently tapped the bailiff’s cheek. Ying Xiu’s tone was calm. “Do you know? There’s a point on your back neck called ‘Dazhui.’ If someone blocks this point and doesn’t unblock it, you’ll feel dizzy, and your bl00d and qi will stagnate. You’ll die in less than a month.”

The bailiff’s body stiffened. He felt the hand disdainfully using the branding iron to turn over his back neck. It gently tapped it. The force wasn’t strong, but it caused a sharp pain to shoot up his back neck.

“Now, can you tell me?” The boy’s clear voice sounded like a ghost to him. “Where are the two commoners who wrote the confessions and said that Wang Yu destroyed the dam?”

…

Ying Xiu took the keys from the bailiff and walked to the cramped cell. He saw the miserable state of the people on the torture rack with his own eyes. The expression on his face suddenly froze, and he whispered to them, “I will get you out. The condition is that you don’t lie in your confessions.”

The two bloody commoners had already recognized Ying Xiu, recognizing him as the young scholar who had recommended them for work and wanted to repair the dam for them.

They were caught off guard by his sudden appearance in golden clothes, alone in the eerie and strange prison. They were inevitably surprised. When they heard him say this and promise to save them, tears welled up in their eyes.

Ying Xiu looked at them for a moment, then turned and left.

Besides confirming the safety of the commoners of the Jianxia district, he had one more thing to do.

He had just observed that the guards in the prison changed shifts every half an hour. He now had less than half an hour, which was enough.

…

After Ying Xiu left, the previously quiet prison suddenly echoed with a series of urgent footsteps. The warden almost screamed:

“The Governor of Jiangzhou has given an order! Release that scholar who was just brought in! Hurry! Don’t even harm a single hair on his head!”

The jailers carried oil lamps, trotting and hurrying to add oil to the dim candles.

In the flickering light, figures quickly passed through the long corridors between the narrow cells. The Commandant and the Prefect walked over with ugly expressions.

“Did you find him?!”

“If you don’t find him, you’re all dead!”