Hua Jingchun's goal was simple. She only wanted Wu Huai to disappear - whether he was killed or captured by those mysterious masked master and disciple didn't matter. As long as she could get that fake sword and verify it on the spot, the Wu family would never be able to get close to the Red Hook Sect again.

She was missing a leg and couldn't be an assassin, and the people she could use were limited. Now that this group of mysterious people had joined, the harshness between her brows had faded a bit.

The bandit Ma Shili played the role of a shield conscientiously, making a show of force in the surrounding area. The passing merchant teams were almost gone, and with Shi Zhongyu keeping watch in the village, the chaos wasn't too great. That dilapidated little courtyard had become the temporary stronghold of the Red Hook Sect, and in just two or three days, the assassination plan had progressed in an impressive manner.

This time, there was no need for news from the Yueshui Bureau. The fact that Qu Duanyun and Xu Jingming were about to arrive could be known from the tightened security. The officials of Shafu had been dealing with the Red Hook for a long time and had long lost their curiosity about the people of the jianghu. But with Prince Rong's visit, in order to keep the official hat on their heads, they still had to put on a show.

That night.

Shen Zhu stuffed a bundle of clothes into the quilt and left the courtyard alone. Although the martial arts of the Yueshui Bureau people were quite ordinary, they had been traveling north and south for many years, so their lightness skill foundation couldn't be bad. Shen Zhu brought a fat sparrow and headed straight to Shafu, carefully climbing over the wall to enter the city.

She entered the branch of the Yueshui Bureau in this place, tidied her clothes, and entered the room dedicated to the "Heaven Department".

"Finally willing to come back to the Heaven Department?"

There were three or four people sitting in the room, all members of the Heaven Department. They were of different ages, all with the rough faces of the Heaven Department who had been through thick and thin. Shen Zhu gave them a sweet smile and found a stool to sit on.

The speaker obviously disliked Shen Zhu's style: "The monthly money from the Yueshui Bureau is not given for nothing. In the years since you joined the Heaven Department, what decent results have you produced? Who knows who let you be promoted, I'm afraid you got a lot of benefits."

He said the two words "benefits" in a sarcastic tone.

"Brother Chen's 'Mystery of the Disappearance of Wushu Ore', I have read it and it is really incisive. It's just a pity that some of the details are not very clear." Shen Zhu sat upright and said with a smile.

That "Brother Chen" didn't expect Shen Zhu to be so calm. Having the flaws in his investigation pointed out, he suddenly lost the mood to ridicule others: "What flaws? I traveled more than half of Dayun to investigate in detail!"

"Sunjia Village, Wang'an Kou, Shenhe Village. All three towns have produced refined Wushu ore, but you only wrote 'no longer produced' and did not explain the reason."

The man surnamed Chen was hit where it hurt by the gentle words, and his face darkened. He mumbled for a while before angrily saying, "Such a small matter, I can investigate it thoroughly in three months!"

Shen Zhu interlocked her ten fingers and smiled even more sweetly.

"Who is that girl?" The youngest one whispered, "I haven't heard of her. Doesn't the Yueshui Bureau not accept women? How did she get in?"

"'The Yueshui Bureau does not accept women' is an unwritten rule, it's not written in the rules. Nowadays, there are few women who can read and write, so how could they enter the Yueshui Bureau? But this woman answered the remnant questions on the Questioning Heaven Stone, so the Heaven Department had to accept her even if they didn't want to."

"Tsk, isn't that quite impressive then?"

"Impressive my ass, she hasn't made any big discoveries since she joined. Every time she submits a puzzle, it's neither good nor bad, but people can't find fault with it. Isn't it obvious that she's here to just pass the days? If she was just passing the days, forget it, but her attitude is still very uppity. You know what, on her first day in the Heaven Department, she took on the 'Seeking Immortals' puzzle that had been vacant the longest."

"I've heard of it, I've heard of it. It's said that if you solve it, you can become the head of the Heaven Department? That puzzle has been empty for hundreds of years, right? When I joined, a senior told me that it's not really a puzzle, but more like a display symbolizing the ambition of the Heaven Department... Maybe she just doesn't know."

The oldest one snorted coldly: "Like hell she doesn't know, this woman is shrewd. Look at Brother Chen, she played him like a fiddle with a few words. This tricky task of investigating the 'Mystery of the Disappearance of Wushu Ore' was also a bet they made--"

Shen Zhu lightly slapped the booklet on the table: "Speaking of which, I have other urgent matters. After our head finishes transmitting the orders, I won't join you gentlemen for a drink."

"Tsk, won't even join us for a drink." The oldest member snorted again.

Shen Zhu flipped through the booklet, turning a deaf ear.

With everyone present, the orders were always transmitted quickly. After recording the instructions from the Yueshui Bureau, Shen Zhu left the city quietly as usual by flipping over the roof tiles. However, this time, she didn't return to the village the same way, but went to an open area outside the city.

This place was overgrown with weeds, clearly a wild graveyard. The surrounding yin energy was overwhelming, and the little sparrow on Shen Zhu's shoulder shrank its neck, becoming a perfect furball. Shen Zhu tidied her hair bun and turned around: "Sister, come out. Waiting outside for so long, I'm tired for you."

A gust of strong wind swept by, and Shi Zhongyu landed from the tree. She was still wearing that set of rough, sturdy clothes, her long hair tied into a convenient bun. Shi Zhongyu frowned at Shen Zhu, her expression slightly stiff.

"As fellow women walking the jianghu, sister, there's no need to be so guarded, right?" Shen Zhu's tone not only lacked reproach, but even seemed to have a hint of teasing.

"Heroes don't ask about origins. Senior Shi and Senior Yin, I have an understanding of them in my heart." Shi Zhongyu performed a proper salute, "However, from what I've seen these past few days, Miss doesn't seem like a loyal servant of Sect Leader Shi. If you and Sect Leader Shi are only cooperating..."

"Without direct stakes, I might leak information about the Red Hook, that's what you're thinking?"

"Yes," Shi Zhongyu admitted frankly, "Seeing Miss sneaking out in the middle of the night, I was really worried."

Shen Zhu took two steps forward and patted Shi Zhongyu's shoulder: "I have a deep hatred for that Immortal Gathering, I won't go along with their intentions. Sister, don't worry, with just the strength of those two from the Ku Mountain Sect, even if the Heavenly Kings themselves come to cause trouble, they can forcibly take Wu Huai away."

Shi Zhongyu shrank her shoulder: "Miss doesn't seem like someone harboring a deep hatred - since you were six or seven years old, you were adopted by a family in Qizhou, and that family is still doing well now."

That family had no connection to the Immortal Gathering whatsoever. And a child under six or seven years old, how could they maintain such a deep hatred? Shi Zhongyu had seen people immersed in hatred before, and those people all had a look of sorrow and bitterness, but there was not a hint of gloom between Shen Zhu's brows.

"Sister has worked hard to investigate." Shen Zhu said with a grin, "The Immortal Gathering probably had a similar thought to sister's, that's why they spared my life back then."

"Since Miss is so resentful, why not practice martial arts and take revenge with your own hands?"

Shen Zhu raised her eyebrows, still wearing that smiling expression, but the aura around her gradually became more oppressive. "You're right, sister. I'm just a weak woman, I can't kill them all one by one. It's better to take a different approach and uproot them completely."

She said this so sincerely and seriously that Shi Zhongyu instinctively took a step back.

Shen Zhu was not joking with her. This person truly thought this way. The former village girl actually harbored the intention to kill the century-old forces under the National Teacher. Shi Zhongyu almost blurted out "what a pipe dream", but seeing the other party's matter-of-fact appearance, she couldn't utter a single word.

"The sect leader and I are just using each other for our own needs. We're just using people, isn't that what you're doing to us too, sister? You specifically brought the Ku Mountain Sect to Hua Jingchun's courtyard, didn't you also have the intention of helping the Red Hook?" Shen Zhu approached Shi Zhongyu again, leaning forward, the sparrow nearly rolling off her shoulder.

Shi Zhongyu stared at that exquisitely made-up face for a long time without speaking.

"...I was reckless tonight." She finally lowered her head and said solemnly. "I offended you, Miss."

The atmosphere in the village courtyard was much more relaxed.

With action imminent, Hua Jingchun cleared out the woodshed for the two, adding some straw used for feeding cattle. Although crude, the master and disciple finally had a clean single room.

"Should we leave the door open?" Shi Jingzhi asked warily, still remembering Chen Qianfan's records - back then, Yin Ci fell out with the villagers who took him in precisely because he was forcibly locked in the woodshed.

He didn't want this person to suffer even a bit of hardship now, a feeling that was bittersweet and unfamiliar.

Yin Ci glanced at Shi Jingzhi, as if seeing into his heart. "It's fine, this isn't being locked in, I'm walking in of my own accord."

Only then did Sect Leader Shi breathe a sigh of relief. He once again displayed his talent for making holes in the straw, piling up a relatively clean straw bed in the woodshed. Without the annoying stench of urine and sweat around, only the scent of the person in his arms and the fragrance of the straw, he fell asleep almost instantly.

Shi Jingzhi hadn't slept this relaxedly in a long time. In the middle of the night, he carelessly rolled right off the edge of the bed.

There was a ripping sound of fabric tearing.

Shi Jingzhi rolled off so leisurely that not only did his clothes tear, he was also poked awake by the pile of tree branches by the wall. He shook his head in pain, not caring about the torn clothes, and crawled back onto the straw bed, mumbling.

Getting on the bed and hugging the person tightly, only then did Sect Leader Shi feel that something was a bit off - usually there would be a slight sensation of something hard pressing against his chest, but now that spot was empty, as if a piece of his heart was missing along with it.

...The peace amulet Ah Ci gave him was gone!

As if a basin of ice water had been poured over his head, this time Shi Jingzhi was completely awake. He looked at the sleeping Yin Ci, got out of bed lightly, and started searching by moonlight without even lighting a fire.

The peace amulet had fallen near the bed.

When Shi Jingzhi had rolled into the pile of branches earlier, its cord had caught on a branch and was left hanging there. The moonlight shone through the window, casting a faint glow on the amulet, making the embroidered peach blossoms on it seem even more lifelike. Shi Jingzhi's heart ached terribly, and he hurriedly picked up the amulet and inspected it back and forth, afraid that it had gotten dirty or frayed somewhere.

As a result of this rubbing, he actually did rub something out. There was some damp soil in the corner of the woodshed, and one corner of the amulet was slightly damp, emitting a faint earthy smell. Sect Leader Shi's face immediately fell, his heart filled with sorrow.

He immediately decided to go out and clean it.

He should ask someone to sew an inner pocket in his inner garment another day. If one day the battle was fierce and the amulet fell into a deep ravine, he wouldn't even have a place to cry. Shi Jingzhi carefully wiped the corners of the amulet with water while letting his thoughts run wild. Thinking too deeply, he couldn't hold back a mouthful of blood and spat it out again.

With the precedent of the book, Sect Leader Shi turned his head quickly and spat all the blood on the ground.

However, at that instant, the amulet in his hand suddenly became a few degrees warmer.

That warmth was extremely subtle. Even someone as perceptive as Shi Jingzhi only vaguely noticed it because of the contrast with the cold water. He had been carrying it close to his body all along and had never noticed anything unusual.

Shi Jingzhi frowned. He closed his eyes and brought the amulet to his nose, carefully sniffing it. The faint fishy smell mixed with the scent of medicinal ingredients, like a spider thread about to break. He managed to sniff it out with great difficulty.

...The smell was extremely similar to Chen Qianfan's spell-casting materials.

Yin Ci said this was a disaster-blocking talisman written by Chen Qianfan. However, disaster-blocking talismans only require medicine paper and cinnabar to make, and couldn't possibly have the fishy smell of a demon's corpse.

Shi Jingzhi splashed his face with cold water, let out a long sigh, and resolutely opened that small amulet.

Author's Note:
Fox: ?