Shen Yichi instinctively turned his head away, blurting out without thinking: “I don’t know you.”
Xie Yunshu smiled, licking his small canine tooth: “You’re an interesting one. You don’t know me, yet you’ve come to kill me?”
“You’d better tell me who sent you.”
Shen Yichi raised an eyebrow: “And if I don’t?”
Xie Yunshu’s face turned cold: “Then I’ll just have to force a confession out of you.”
When his face darkened, he looked eight parts like his father when angry. Shen Yichi’s heart, which had been pounding wildly, gradually calmed down. He was certain Xie Yunshu hadn’t recognized him.
In that case…
Shen Yichi gave a soft laugh: “You’d have to catch me first.”
Shen Yichi pulled a handful of powder from his sleeve and threw it in Xie Yunshu’s face. The two had been standing extremely close, and Xie Yunshu was certain Shen Yichi hadn’t held his breath otherwise he would surely have noticed.
The moment Xie Yunshu inhaled it, his head began to spin. Just as his head was about to crash heavily onto the bed, Shen Yichi reached out and steadied him. Xie Yunshu murmured: “Brother!”
Shen Yichi didn’t answer. He simply laid him flat on the couch and turned to leave but then he spotted the glittering medicine bottle in Xie Yunshu’s hand.
Shen Yichi wanted to snatch it away, but for some reason the man had the strength of an ox, and his hand simply wouldn’t pry open. Seeing commotion rising from the relay station with people about to come up, and fearing the drug would wear off quickly, Shen Yichi had no choice but to abandon the bottle, fling open the window, and leap out.
By the time Xie Yunshu woke, all he saw was the medicine bottle in his hand. He couldn’t help but jut his jaw, sneering: “Interesting.”
“So impatient, striking the moment we reach the outskirts of the Imperial Capital.”
The subordinate beside him bowed his head: “Little Prince, we failed to catch him.”
Xie Yunshu gave a light laugh: “If I couldn’t catch him, how could I expect you to?”
“Still, he’ll probably come back to find me.”
He tossed the medicine bottle to his servant: “Go find out what’s inside.”
After leaping from the window, Shen Yichi didn’t return to the adjacent room. He used his lightfoot technique and slipped into a thatched hut.
The hut slanted crookedly in an inconspicuous corner of the village. The thatch on the roof had long since rotted black, with several collapsed patches revealing gaping dark holes. Night wind whistled through the gaps in the straw with a low, whimpering moan. The door hung half off its frame, creaking at the slightest touch, and the air inside was thick with the smell of mold and dust.
Xie Lanzhi sat in the hut sipping tea, as if he were sitting not in some thatched hut but in a palace.
Xie Lanzhi took a sip of tea and asked casually: “Did it work?”
Shen Yichi tossed aside the mask on his face: “No.”
Xie Lanzhi was instantly stunned. He wasn’t angry at all, only astonished: “This is Little Yichi’s first failed mission!”
Shen Yichi pressed his lips together: “Tomorrow I’ll go back in disguise.”
The only good news now was that no one knew of his connection to Xie Yunshu not even Xie Lanzhi.
But beyond that, it was all bad news: the Emperor and the Third Prince both wanted him dead, and he still appeared as foolish as he had been in childhood.
Xie Lanzhi took a sip of tea, glancing at Shen Yichi’s expression, his tone somewhat helpless: “Shen Yichi, I told you long ago, if you ever need anything, just tell me. If this target is hard to deal with, I can send more men.”