Firmament Sword

”You snuck into the General’s Mansion in the dead of night, and you dare claim you’re innocent?”

”I’m telling you, Young Miss, we brothers have confessed! We just wanted to take advantage of the Grand General’s absence to sneak in and steal a few things. We really didn’t mean anything else by it...”

”That’s right, Young Miss. We were so poor we couldn’t even afford to eat, that’s why we weren’t in our right minds. We were wrong. Please, Young Miss, just let us go...”

The corner of Xu Luo’s mouth twitched as he listened. He felt like he’d been had.

Xu Luo immediately recognized their voices. They were the same two guys he had met in the West Market.

Tang Yong and Li Yu!

Back then, Xu Luo had sensed there was more to them than met the eye. But he never expected that, in the end, these two were actually just con men... Not only con men, but now they’d become common thieves...

”Hmph. Are you idiots, or do you take me for one?” Lianyi’s cold, disdainful voice drifted over. ”Do you really think the National Guardian General’s Mansion is just for show? Did you really think I couldn’t find out who you are?”

”Young Miss, we’re really just a couple of petty thieves. What background could we possibly have?” Li Yu, tied to a pillar and unable to move, looked pitifully at Lianyi with a tearful face. ”We don’t understand a thing you’re saying!”

”Do you know why I didn’t separate you for interrogation?” Lianyi said coolly. ”Because I didn’t think it was necessary. It doesn’t matter if you don’t talk. Afterward, I’ll just have you both killed.”

”Hey, hey, Young Miss, we’re begging you, please don’t kill us! We’re just two petty thieves. Killing us would only dirty your hands, Young Miss...”

”Two Martial Artists at the level of Tier Five Sword Masters decided on a career change to become petty thieves, and then snuck into the General’s Mansion at night to steal things?”

Lianyi’s voice grew colder as she spoke slowly, ”You calculated everything, but I’m afraid you never calculated my existence! And you certainly didn’t calculate that my strength far exceeds your own!”

With that, Lianyi sneered, ”You even knew the shift change times for the Hidden Guards in the mansion, and that now is when the General’s Mansion is at its most vulnerable. If you two really don’t want to talk, then don’t. You’re enemies anyway. Killing you will solve everything!”

”Young Miss... I beg...” Before Li Yu could finish, Tang Yong, who was beside him, cut him off with a shout.

”That’s enough, Li Xiaoyu! Have you no shame? Are you done yet?” Tang Yong cursed, then said, ”That’s right. We’re not thieves. But our purpose for coming to this General’s Mansion was indeed to find something. We just want to prove one thing!”

”Tang Yong, have you lost your damn mind? If you dare to speak of this, I don’t care if you die, but what about those orphans and widows?”

Li Xiaoyu’s previously weak and wretched demeanor vanished as he roared at Tang Yong, ”If you dare to involve them, I’ll haunt you even as a ghost and never let you go!”

Tang Yong ignored Li Xiaoyu and looked at Lianyi. ”Princess of Vulture, I can tell you’re not a vicious woman, or you wouldn’t have just locked us up in here. I just want to ask one thing of you.”

”Speak,” Lianyi said, looking at Tang Yong calmly. ’Not vicious?’ she thought. ’That’s only because you’ve crossed paths with the Young Master!’

Indeed. After capturing Tang Yong and Li Xiaoyu, Lianyi sensed they were hiding a huge secret. She even suspected they were connected to the recent assassination attempt on Xu Luo, so she immediately investigated their backgrounds.

The General’s Mansion might seem vulnerable, but in reality, how could a family with a thousand-year-old foundation be as weak as it appeared on the surface?

The Xu Family’s hidden forces were still quite powerful, and Luo Xinlan had now placed them under Lianyi’s command.

Lianyi had spent only one night investigating and had already found information on the two men. However, what she found in the files left her deeply confused.

The two had always been Adventurers. Later, during an expedition, their team had fallen into a perilous situation. The team suffered heavy casualties, and in the end, only Tang Yong and Li Yu survived.

After that, the two started a business in the West Market, buying and selling medicinal herbs. Their usual trick was to put on a show to swindle wealthy people who didn’t know any better. One would play the good cop, the other the bad cop. They looked like mortal enemies, but in reality, they were working together to scam people.

Over the years, they had accumulated a large amount of money, all of which was given to the families of their teammates who had died.

The strange thing was, despite the Xu Mansion’s power, they couldn’t find any trace of the families of those deceased Adventure Team members!

All that was known was that every so often, the two would disappear for half a month to a month. When they returned, they would go right back to swindling people...

Lianyi didn’t believe it was that simple. If those families really belonged to the deceased Adventurers, why couldn’t the Xu Mansion find a single clue about them?

Just a moment ago, another report had come back, stating that the so-called Adventure Team these two belonged to was a complete fabrication!

Yet, it was also true that neither of them had any businesses or properties to their names!

In other words, Tang Yong and Li Yu, two powerful individuals with the strength of Tier Five Sword Masters, were likely hiding a significant secret!

If they hadn’t targeted the National Guardian General’s Mansion, it might have been fine. But now that they had clearly come with a purpose, how could Lianyi rest until she got to the bottom of it?

”I’d like to ask the Princess to bring a sample of the Grand General’s handwriting,” Tang Yong hesitated for a moment before finally speaking.

”Hm?” Lianyi was stunned. She never would have imagined that after going to such great lengths to investigate every detail of the National Guardian General’s Mansion, they had snuck in just to get a sample of the Grand General’s handwriting.

’What in the world is going on?’

At that moment, however, a storm raged in Xu Luo’s heart. A bolt of lightning seemed to flash through his mind, and he instantly understood something.

Then, Xu Luo pushed his door open and knocked on the one next to it.

Lianyi already knew Xu Luo had arrived and went to open the door.

”Sister, you can leave for now. I’ll handle these two,” Xu Luo said. The moment he spoke, Tang Yong and Li Yu were startled, but neither of them said a word.

”Young Master, you can’t blindly trust them. There’s something strange about these two,” Lianyi said softly.

Xu Luo nodded. ”Don’t worry, I know.”

Since the two men were restrained, Lianyi wasn’t worried they could harm Xu Luo. She turned and left the room. She still had matters to arrange; she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep well until she had completely uncovered their backgrounds.

”You two recognize me?” Xu Luo smiled, casually sitting in the chair Lianyi had just vacated. He looked at Tang Yong and Li Yu, who were tied to the pillars.

”It’s you? Little brother, you... you’re actually the National Guardian General’s Mansion’s... Second Young Master?” Tang Yong asked in disbelief.

He and Li Yu had instantly recognized Xu Luo’s familiar voice, and they remembered the young man who had bought their Lieyang Grass. They hadn’t been certain, but they never expected him to admit it was him as soon as he spoke.

”That’s right, it’s me. My name is Xu Luo.”

”So you’re Xu Luo!” Tang Yong realized, then gave a bitter smile. ”I never thought we’d meet again under these circumstances. How shameful...”

”I want to know what really happened back then,” Xu Luo said, not beating around the bush and getting straight to the point.

Tang Yong raised an eyebrow. ”What happened back then? Second Young Master, your question is...”

”The disastrous defeat from all those years ago. The only stain on my father’s entire military career. I want to know, as Death Warriors, what kind of order did you receive that made you attack so recklessly, light the signal fires, and cause my father’s Vanguard General to fall into the enemy’s encirclement with you, dying a tragic death...”

”What... what are you talking about? I don’t understand...” The muscles on Tang Yong’s face twitched violently, but he staunchly denied it.

Li Yu, tied up beside him, also looked at Xu Luo with a blank expression.

”Alright, stop pretending. I went to the Black Forest before and was hunted by the Yuan Brothers. But they didn’t succeed. Heh, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”

Xu Luo smiled and said lightly, ”The Yuan Brothers told me something about that defeat all those years ago. They had a younger brother named Yuan Zhi. I think you two should know him, right?”

”I never would have thought... The Second Young Master is truly hiding his talents, and smart enough to guess our true identities from just a few of our words,” Tang Yong said, a sorrowful expression creeping onto his face.

”That’s right. We were part of the three hundred Death Warriors from back then! We... we were once your father’s most trusted elite!”

As Tang Yong spoke, his expression twisted. He gritted his teeth and said slowly, ”We’ve scraped by in this world for so many years just for the chance to one day see the Grand General in person and ask him why! Why did he order us to go, knowing full well it was a suicide mission!”

”Why?”

”We were called Death Warriors, so of course we’re not afraid of death!”

”We are elite soldiers of the Cangqiong Kingdom! Serving the kingdom and sacrificing ourselves for it is our duty, but we cannot accept a meaningless death!”

”Our comrades-in-arms died so miserably!”

”Countless men fought to the very end but couldn’t rest in peace!”

”They couldn’t rest in peace!”

Tang Yong’s roars echoed through the dungeon. At this moment, the tall, burly man’s face was streaked with tears.

Li Yu, his eyes red-rimmed, continued where Tang Yong left off. ”We were lying in ambush back then. Only a handwritten, secret order from the Grand General himself could mobilize us.

”After we attacked, everything went smoothly at first. But when we lit the signal fires to alert the vanguard to attack, we were suddenly caught in a heavy encirclement. It was a massacre! A total massacre!”

The mournful, weeping voices of Li Yu and Tang Yong echoed in the dungeon. The two of them had been bottling this up for many years.

They would often wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night, their minds filled with the vivid faces of their fallen comrades.

Bringing it up again now, they still couldn’t control their emotions.

Xu Luo, however, thought of Yuan Zhi’s death. He thought about how, because of that defeat, his father’s faction of Military Generals had been crazily suppressed and impeached by the Civil Servants in the court.

At the same time, it was precisely after that battle that the interest group led by Prime Minister Wei completely rose to power, cementing the Wei Family’s position in the Cangqiong Kingdom in one fell swoop!