"Did you get a clear look at their face?"
"Masked." Jiao Yu raked its claws forcefully against the floorboards with a sharp screech. "At least it was humanoid."
"The bailiffs found pot shards in the special envoy's room with gunpowder residue on them," it continued. "I just went to look. The detonation point was likely beside or beneath the bed."
He Lingchuan gave a mirthless chuckle. "They couldn't wait to blast me into bits."
Judging by the blast's force, had he been asleep in that bed, even the most formidable defensive array probably wouldn't have saved him.
Fu Shanyue's face was dark as stagnant water.
Just then, a guard hurried in with wide strides to report: "Your Highness, one of the bailiffs searching the scene has been poisoned!"
"What?" Fu Shanyue was utterly astonished. Why were bizarre incidents cropping up one after another tonight?
Taking three steps in two, he leaped toward the scene, with Jiao Yu trailing close behind.
The poisoned bailiff had already been carried outside, twitching violently all over with green foam bubbling from the corners of his mouth.
Looking like this, it was no wonder the guard was certain of poison.
The physician stationed at the guesthouse, who had just examined and treated He Lingchuan and the others for their injuries, was now rushing over with his medicine kit to attend to the bailiff. He hadn't had a single moment of rest all night either.
Fu Shanyue had no time to watch him tend to the casualty, leaping lightly onto the second floor.
Two of the four walls in He Lingchuan's quarters had been blasted away, the beams and pillars had collapsed, and the furniture was in complete disarray, most of it charred black and emitting a choking stench of burning.
Just as Jiao Yu had said, several clay pot shards could occasionally be spotted in the corners.
Two other bailiffs were still there. Having seen their comrade carried away, they no longer dared rifle through the wreckage with their hands, using only their weapons to probe and shift items.
Fu Shanyue asked, "How was he poisoned?"
"He was searching, and then collapsed without warning!"
"Where did he touch?"
The bailiffs pointed them out one by one.
Fu Shanyue crouched down to examine the spots himself.
A bailiff warned him, "Your Highness, be careful, it's toxic!"
Fu Shanyue scoffed. A ba afraid of poison? Ridiculous.
He was seasoned as well. After a thorough search, his focus locked onto the table, chairs, and folding screen.
These furnishings had been battered half to ruin, but none had perished completely in the fire. The most heavily damaged was the screen, half-consumed by flames.
Fu Shanyue poked his head out and called directly down to the physician: "Come test this. Is there poison here?"
The physician was far more meticulous than him, cautiously dripping various liquid reagents onto the articles and even puffing a plume of gray smoke over them.
The tabletop and chair surfaces both took on a faint blue tint.
"Found it!"
"Poison first, then an explosion?" Fu Shanyue rose slowly. "A vicious hand."
Were they worried He Xiao wouldn't be thoroughly dead? It seemed the perpetrators didn't merely want to teach the Chiyan Crown Prince a lesson; did they harbor a deep vendetta? The Cen clan, the Zhongsun clan, or the mastermind behind the elixir of immortality?
Fu Shanyue narrowed his eyes toward the east. Dawn was scarcely an hour away; tomorrow was bound to be quite the spectacle!
In another wing room, He Lingchuan coughed twice more and drank some water.
The mirror in his bosom was incredulous. "You're that ruthless even toward yourself?"
With others nearby, He Lingchuan did not answer, merely swallowing another medicinal pill before closing his eyes to regulate his breathing and nurse his injuries.
Fu Shanyue's guards immediately cordoned off this row of wing rooms, and even Jiao Yu lay across the doorway, preventing anyone from disturbing the special envoy.
People streamed in and out of the entire guesthouse without pause, footsteps pacing to and fro alongside a clamor of voices. Clearly, the magistrate's office wasn't idle. But none of that concerned He Lingchuan anymore.
Come daylight, this attack on the crown prince of a vassal demon kingdom would sweep through Lingxu City at breakneck speed!
The next morning, Fu Shanyue was summoned by the Demon Emperor once again. Two consecutive audiences within ten days was a rare honor for Fu Shanyue.
Only near midday did he return to the guesthouse.
Last night's blast had been thunderous. The incident site had mostly been cleared, but a charred building was not something that could be repaired in half a morning. Crowds drawn by the news still packed the area three layers deep inside and out, watching the authorities work while murmuring their opinions—a massive sightseeing gossip circle.
Such gatherings were breeding grounds for rumors, and officials tried hard to disperse them, driving them away several times. Yet the crowd was like a flock of geese: when chased they scattered, when the pursuers grew tired they returned, invariably flocking back together.
Fu Shanyue walked half a lap around the guesthouse, but far from finding He Lingchuan, even Jiao Yu was nowhere to be seen. "Where are they?"
A guard left on watch hastily replied, "Your Highness, He Xiao said it wasn't safe here and moved to the Panshan Residence."
"Pan...?" Fu Shanyue was thoroughly baffled. Just as he was about to ask what that meant, he suddenly remembered the very next second that he had once yielded a residence to He Lingchuan as compensation, right at the foot of Pan Mountain in the main city!
"Clever rascal!" He chuckled. "Pack our things, we're going too!"
Flanked and shielded by his guards, he pushed through the throng and galloped straight for Pan Mountain, leaving behind scouts from who-knew-which factions choking on his dust.
A mere two quarters of an hour later, Fu Shanyue reached his destination.
The residence was originally his, so he was naturally quite familiar with it. He passed through the halls and chambers in search of He Lingchuan.
As it turned out, that fellow had already tidied himself up and was lounging in the rear garden, basking in the sun, with a small low wooden table beside him bearing a jar of fine wine and two cups.
Meanwhile, the fierce tiger Jiao Yu was sprawled atop a rockery, eyes slitted in a doze, the tip of its tongue poking out without its realizing it.
The man and the tiger appeared utterly at ease—not a trace remained of their disheveled, soot-covered state from last night!
When Fu Shanyue arrived, the tiger leaped down to greet him, while He Lingchuan merely slit his eyelids open, glanced at Fu Shanyue, and turned his head away to continue soaking in the sun.
Fu Shanyue took a seat on another recliner. "I was summoned to Yunxiao Hall at the crack of dawn, yet here you are, living in luxury."
"I'm a wounded man; I need more rest and less movement." He Lingchuan poured him a cup of wine. "The people in this manor are sensible. As soon as I produced the land deed, they let me move right in."
Back when they came down from Wind Demon Mountain and Fu Shanyue sought a truce, he had handed over the deed to this property.
Fu Shanyue took the cup, took a sip, and reclined back into the chair with a long exhale.
Only after entering Lingxu City did He Lingchuan realize just how much weight the words "residence in the main city district" carried.
After nearly six hundred years of prosperity, property prices in this foremost city under heaven had soared to the heavens; the price of a single square meter in the main district was enough to buy an entire small house in the capital of the Yuan Kingdom.
An ordinary person striving for a lifetime wouldn't even earn the right to set down a bed here. "The poor have no ground whereon to stand an awl" was a literal portrait of this place.
Thus, none who lived in the main city district were ordinary. The hills scattered throughout were crowned with manors and lodges—standing in pristine serenity, gazing down upon the bustling mortal world, seeking that lofty retreat amidst the clamor. Behind virtually every residence lay one or two legends of immense wealth.
As for the Floating Isles in the sky... well, that had little to do with mere "wealth." Those who dwelt in the sky existed to make you understand that between you and them lay the gulf between cloud and mud. They were the clouds, and you were the mud. If you had nothing more than filthy lucre, you were fit only to crouch on the ground, mouths agape, looking up at the sky.
Still, He Lingchuan was glad enough that he had a place to crouch in Lingxu City.
Commercial and residential districts were largely separated here; the closer to the center, the larger and more tranquil the estates became. Thus, He Lingchuan quickly found his new home on the periphery of the main city.
Fu Shanyue, for once, had not exaggerated: this estate was truly a modest place of merely five mu, or just over thirty-three hundred square meters.
Gardens occupied more than half of it, leaving little room for actual buildings—large houses crammed into tiny courtyards was the layout of a slum, and would have made one a laughingstock here.
The gardens of grand estates in the main city district typically spanned seventeen to eighteen mu or more, with living quarters taking up no more than twenty percent of the total area. Two or three manors alone could divide an entire hill between them.
Of course, in the eyes of outsiders for the time being, this remained the Chiyan Crown Prince's domain.
The residence had over a century of history, renovated four times over the years; it was refined without being ostentatious. Small though it was, pavilions, gardens, and springs were all present, and the furnishings were tasteful, meeting He Lingchuan's expectations nicely.
Fu Shanyue told him that because the Fu Shan clan rarely used it, little thought had gone into renovating this estate. Other grand manors in the main district were painstakingly curated down to every brick and tile, every flower and tree in the garden, and every daily meal. The traditions forged over six hundred years were what was called refinement. Outsiders couldn't even conceive of it, let alone imitate it.
"There's a raised terrace in the side courtyard—meat grilled there turns out wonderfully fragrant," Fu Shanyue advised him. "Tell the cook to buy two fat geese, the yellow-nosed geese from Xitan. We'll roast them tonight to go with our wine."
"'We'?" He Lingchuan glanced at him. "Does the dignified Chiyan Crown Prince have nowhere to stay in Lingxu City that he must bunk with me?"
"I could stay up there." Fu Shanyue gestured casually toward the Floating Isles in the sky to show he still possessed status and power. "However, access to the upper city is strictly controlled, far less convenient than the ground. Besides, manors in the lower city are both cheaper and larger, which is why many officials buy properties down here."
Seeing He Lingchuan unmoved, he added as if offhandedly, "Besides, you're safer living with me."
Both men were clear as crystal on the matter. He Lingchuan yielded immediately: "You pay for the wine and meat."
Fu Shanyue's weight as a shield was not what it used to be, but it was better than nothing. If He Lingchuan were left to face the wind and waves of Lingxu City all on his own, he would certainly turn on his heel and slip away without a second thought.
There were only six or seven vacant rooms—far too few to accommodate the seventy or eighty guards Fu Shanyue had brought, so they had to make do at an inn. Fu Shanyue moved into He Lingchuan's residence accompanied only by Jiao Yu and two personal attendants.
"The Emperor and the royal court were both greatly shaken by last night's events," Fu Shanyue said leisurely. "Before the court session, the Emperor summoned me privately to inquire about the details of last night's attack and offered warm consolations, promising that this matter will be thoroughly investigated."
"The Emperor's tone was far better than a few days ago." An attack on the guesthouse! With such an outrageous incident occurring, even the Emperor had to express condolences to the wronged Chiyan Crown Prince. "On my way back, a host of officials and dignitaries came rushing to offer their sympathies."
"After all, you are the aggrieved party." He Lingchuan rubbed his temples. "At daybreak, hordes of people came to the guesthouse bearing gifts, so I just slipped away here."
For most of the morning, the outside of the guesthouse was a clamor. As an injured man, he couldn't even rest properly amid the racket.
Fu Shanyue retrieved a small casket and handed it to him. "For your meritorious service in investigating the case in Baishaqu, and having nearly lost your life last night, the Emperor specially ordered National Preceptor Shuangye to retrieve a Jade Restoration Pill for you. He said taking it heals minor injuries instantly and improves severe ones."
"National Preceptor Shuangye?" Taken aback, He Lingchuan accepted the casket.
Chapter 569