Shu Changyu did not know martial arts. His ability to dodge that arrow was entirely thanks to virtues he had somehow accumulated at some unknown point in his life.
The next second, he faintly heard the sound of the guards beside the carriage being cut down. Immediately afterward, his vision flashed white as a sword cleaved his carriage apart.
Shu Changyu looked up and saw the blood-covered blade coming straight for his neck.
He knew clearly that he could not avoid it.
These guards had all come from the capital. The capital was peaceful on ordinary days and heavily guarded by troops, so they rarely needed to worry about fighting.
Naturally, their martial skills were not particularly impressive.
A guard beside him seemed to have noticed Shu Changyu’s danger during the chaos of battle. With an angry shout, he rushed over, intending to take the sword strike for him.
But he was too late.
Shu Changyu could not dodge in time. In desperation, he closed his eyes.
The pain he expected never came.
Instead, warm liquid splashed across his face.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the masked assassin with his eyes wide open, his body twisted unnaturally as his throat had been pierced through.
The assassin’s windpipe protruded from his neck, pale and exposed. Blood gushed out continuously while a gurgling sound escaped his throat. He collapsed right in front of Shu Changyu.
Behind him stood Jing Mu, sword in hand.
He was still wearing the armor of a guard, holding an ordinary guard’s sword.
He kicked away the corpse he had just stabbed to death, then blocked a blade coming from another direction. With a thrust of his sword, he killed another attacker.
“Master Shu, are you injured?” Shu Changyu heard him ask.
Shu Changyu stared blankly and shook his head.
Jing Mu immediately pulled him out from the wreckage of the carriage and protected him at his side. Then, with several swift strikes, he killed several more enemies, splattering blood everywhere.
There were roughly twenty assassins in this attack. More than half of them died under Jing Mu’s sword within moments.
The remaining two or three wounded survivors were also cut down by the remaining guards.
Only then did Shu Changyu come back to his senses and speak.
“Leave one or two alive…”
“No use, Master Shu.” Jing Mu said quietly. “They are the same group as last time. They have poison hidden in their mouths. Even if we don’t kill them, we won’t be able to keep them alive.”
At that moment, the last assassin also died.
The road was covered with more than twenty bodies, including several guards who had been caught off guard and killed instantly.
The entire official road was stained red.
Shu Changyu looked at the bloody scene before him. His stomach churned unpleasantly, and he turned his head away.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the assassin Jing Mu had stabbed to death in front of him.
Among all the corpses, that man’s death was the most horrific.
He was not completely dead yet. His entire body convulsed, and every time he twitched, blood surged from his crooked neck.
Those eyes stared wide open, his features twisted, his face covered in blood, staring directly at Shu Changyu.
When he opened his mouth, only a clicking sound came out, like a broken bellows leaking air.
Shu Changyu was already suffering from a cold and felt dizzy. Seeing this sight caused his stomach to spasm violently.
Holding onto Jing Mu, he bent over and retched.
The entire procession could no longer continue forward and stopped where they were to rest.
Jing Mu had already ordered people to retrieve the soft chair from the carriage wreckage and place it beside the road for Shu Changyu.
Wrapped in a cloak, Shu Changyu sat there with a pale face, watching Jing Mu calmly command everyone to inspect the corpses and reorganize the group.
“Fortunately, His Highness the Prince is here…”
Beside him, Guo Hanru sat with trembling legs. Still shaken, he spoke in a trembling voice.
He was already over forty years old. He had spent the first half of his life buried among books and the latter half focused entirely on mortise-and-tenon architecture.
Although he had seen dead people before, he had never witnessed such a bloody scene.
Neither had Shu Changyu.
People in high positions were different from those who had crawled through mud and fire.
Those who needed to be killed never required him to personally take action.
Therefore, although his hands were stained with countless lives, he rarely saw a living person being cut down by a blade right before his eyes.
But by now, Shu Changyu had recovered his composure. His expression had returned to its usual calm indifference.
He glanced at Guo Hanru.
“You already knew that person was Prince Dunqin?”
Hearing this, Guo Hanru gave a bitter smile.
“His Highness did not allow this humble official to say anything.”
Shu Changyu held the hot tea Jing Mu had ordered someone to prepare. He slowly took a sip but said nothing.
At that moment, Jing Mu took a handkerchief from someone nearby and wiped the blood from his hands and body before walking toward Shu Changyu.
On the way, he even kicked aside the corpse with the most gruesome death.
The corpse rolled over from the force, turning its back toward Shu Changyu so that the horrifying sight was no longer visible.
Then Shu Changyu noticed something.
The white bandage on Jing Mu’s right hand was completely stained red with blood.
That kind of blood had seeped out from inside and could not simply be wiped away.
“What happened to your hand?” Shu Changyu asked.
Jing Mu froze for a moment, then smiled.
“It’s nothing serious. It was almost healed already.”
As he spoke, he pulled his glove down slightly, covering the bandage.
“Show me.”
Shu Changyu remained completely unmoved.
“No need, Master Shu…”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
Shu Changyu looked up.
Jing Mu had no choice but to obediently extend his hand.
The wound in his palm, which had already healed, had split open again because of his movements.
Blood seeped heavily through several layers of gauze, staining them completely.
“And you said it was fine?” Shu Changyu frowned.
“There are doctors traveling with us these days. Go have one of them change the medicine and re-bandage it.”
“But this situation here…”
“I will handle it.” Shu Changyu said. “Have the guard captains responsible for this come to me.”
Jing Mu still did not want to leave.
He looked at Shu Changyu’s pale face.
The man clearly had not recovered from the shock. He was also suffering from a cold, coughing several times after only speaking a few words.
Wrapped in a cloak, sitting there looking thin and fragile, he was unbearably endearing.
Compared to that, what did his small injury matter?
Seeing that Jing Mu neither moved nor spoke, Shu Changyu frowned.
“Hurry and go. You have investigated for so long and found nothing. Handling matters like this is something I am better at than you.”
A small Ministry of Works official who repaired river dams speaking so arrogantly to the dignified Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was truly quite conceited.
But Jing Mu knew that the person before him was not merely a weak scholar who only knew how to manage river projects.
He was a meticulous, decisive, and ruthless prime minister who had once held great power.
Although his body appeared delicate and fragile, his presence was overwhelming.
Jing Mu lowered his head.
“Mm.”
Then he walked away dejectedly.
I’m really useless, he thought.
Meanwhile, Shu Changyu used the armrest of the chair to stand up and walked toward the official road covered with corpses.
Guo Hanru, who was still terrified and had not yet recovered, hurriedly stopped him.
“Master Shu—”
Shu Changyu turned around.
“What is it?”
Guo Hanru stammered.
“That… that side is full of corpses. It is filthy and frightening…”
Yet Shu Changyu only smiled faintly.
“It is fine. I am only going to take a look. Minister Guo may rest here.”
After saying that, he turned and walked away.
Shu Changyu moved through the battlefield, ordering the remaining guards to collect the few personal belongings found on the assassins’ bodies.
He also watched as they removed the arrows and hidden weapons embedded in the bodies of several guards and collected them.
After that, he forced open the assassins’ mouths and removed the poison pouches hidden inside, placing them together into the evidence box.
Once everything was arranged, he walked around the area where the attack had happened.
Then he pulled out the arrow embedded in the carriage.
The arrow had been driven in extremely deeply. It took several pulls before he could remove it.
At first, he only glanced over the arrow briefly and was about to hand it to a nearby guard.
But suddenly, his gaze stopped.
It landed on the tail of the arrow.
There was an extremely small mark there.
At that moment, Jing Mu stood to the side watching him carefully.
The center of the official road was now a scene of complete chaos.
Blood covered the ground. Corpses and broken remains were scattered everywhere.
Yet there was only one person standing among that filth.
Wrapped in a crab-shell-green cloak, standing alone amid the bloodshed.
He is really beautiful, Jing Mu thought.
By the time Shu Changyu had finished handling everything and the corpses had been dealt with, Jing Mu had also finished bandaging his wound.
A servant had prepared another carriage originally used for carrying supplies, so the procession could continue.
Shu Changyu was helped into the carriage.
Just as he settled down, the curtain was lifted again.
He looked over.
Jing Mu was staring at him with a pair of bright black eyes.
“Master Shu, I will ride with you.”
He smiled.
“I can protect you on the road as well.”
Shu Changyu frowned.
“No need to trouble yourself.”
“My hand is injured.” Jing Mu said.
“I cannot hold the reins properly while riding.”
Shu Changyu stared at him for a moment.
Then he closed his eyes.
“Get in.”
Jing Mu immediately brightened and quickly climbed into the carriage, sitting beside him.
The procession set off again.
“Where were you this morning?” Shu Changyu asked.
The moment the words left his mouth, it sounded as though he had been dwelling on it all along.
He cleared his throat awkwardly and turned his gaze away.
Jing Mu laughed and leaned closer.
“I was afraid that if I kept following you around, you would get angry again, so I hid among the guards.”
As he spoke, he seemed rather pleased with himself.
“In this way, Master Shu would not keep thinking about how to chase me away.”
Shu Changyu glanced at him but said nothing.
“But Master Shu, you can finally see it now, right?” Jing Mu said proudly.
“You brought so many guards with you, but they still were not as useful as bringing just me, were they?”
Even without looking at him, Shu Changyu could clearly feel Jing Mu’s desperate desire for praise.
“This time, it was still thanks to you.”
Shu Changyu said.
“By the way, I noticed something from that arrow earlier. I have already ordered someone to preserve it. After we return, have people from the Supreme Court investigate it.”
Jing Mu thought regretfully:
Why bring up investigating cases at a time like this?
He moved closer to Shu Changyu again, his eyes shining.
“Master Shu, since you owe this to me, can I ask for a reward?”
Shu Changyu turned to look at him.
Jing Mu leaned close and smiled.
“Master Shu, kiss me once. Just once.”
After saying that, he added:
“I don’t care where. I’m not picky.”
Shu Changyu’s heart began pounding wildly.
With a completely expressionless face, he placed a hand on Jing Mu’s face and pushed him away.
Author’s Note:
After filming ended, the actors playing corpses all got up from the ground.
The one who had died the most horribly ran over to the director while wiping blood from his face.
“Director, I think I need more money.”
The impoverished director Liu Gouhua immediately covered her wallet.
“More money for what?”
“The script never said Jing Mu would kick me.”
The corpse actor looked wronged.
“Was dying horribly my fault? He kicked me so hard it hurt.”
“I don’t have money. Don’t ask me. Whoever kicked you, go ask him.”
Liu Gouhua repeated expressionlessly:
“I have no money. Not a single cent!”
After saying that, she shouted loudly:
“Jing Mu! Come compensate him!”
Jing Mu walked over with a cold expression.
“What compensation?”
He grabbed the corpse actor by the collar and glared.
“I haven’t even had time to settle accounts with you yet. If you died horribly, then stay dead. Why did you crawl in front of my wife?”
You cannot reason with someone whose brain is filled with love.
Seeing the director acting like it had nothing to do with her and the main actor looking ready to hit someone, the corpse actor could only carry his lunch box and leave sadly.
Liu Gouhua happily patted Jing Mu’s shoulder.
“Good son! You really know how to save Mom money!”
Love-struck little son Jing Mu did not even look at his mother.
He turned around and continued comforting his wife.
“Baby, don’t be scared. It was all fake. The blood was just ketchup, and the throat was pig cartilage. If you don’t believe me, try it?”