Chapter 197: Unusual Bloodiness

Chapter 197: A Strange Stench of Blood

"No, there are no paintings, Lord Shen—you must have misheard." Miao Mao tried to defend himself, surreptitiously tucking the letter behind his back.

"Oh? Is that so?" Shen Fuqing curled his lips into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Since Doctor Miao won't own up to it, I'll just have to search for myself."

As he spoke, Shen Fuqing gestured at the blazing furnace nearby. "If I find anything here, everyone in this place will end up... burned to ashes."

He drew out the words "burned to ashes" with deliberate slowness. Miao Mao shot back, "Shen Fuqing, you wouldn't dare kill me!"

"Enough talk."

That was Xie Nai speaking.

Then, the next moment, Xie Nai glanced at Luo Bei and Luo Yue beside him. "Search. Cut off hands."

Those three simple words dropped, and Luo Bei and Luo Yue sprang into action at once. Luo Yue was the first to lead men into the backyard to search, while Luo Bei drew his long blade. Before anyone could react, he sliced clean through Miao Mao's arm in one stroke!

"Ah——!!!"

Completely caught off guard, Miao Mao let out a blood-curdling scream!

"It hurts! It hurts! Someone help...!" The splattered blood sizzled dry against the furnace fire, and the cramped, chaotic shop was now thick with a strange stench of blood.

Miao Mao writhed on the ground, screaming in agony, thrashing like a dying dog. Shen Fuqing watched from the sidelines, smiling. "Sorry, I forgot to mention—His Highness has been in a foul mood lately, so he might not have the patience for your excuses."

An hour earlier, Xie Nai had ridden hard from Xiaoxiang Commandery to Jingguan. Shen Fuqing had already gotten word that Wu Tuyin had kidnapped Qin Jiao and that Xie Nai hadn't managed to rescue him, so nothing Xie Nai did now would surprise him.

After all, the Qinjiao flower he'd so carefully tended had been plucked away, its fate unknown.

Truth be told, Shen Fuqing had sussed out Miao Mao's blacksmith shop hideout the moment he hit Jingguan, but he'd bided his time. As luck would have it, Wu Tuyin's letter arrived the moment Xie Nai did.

Now, Miao Mao's severed arm lay on the ground next to the letter he'd tried so desperately to hide. "Your Highness, here." Luo Bei picked up the letter and unfolded it for Xie Nai to read. Shen Fuqing leaned in to look too.

And what a look it was—besides telling Miao Mao to "distribute the paintings and spread the rumors," Wu Tuyin had also ordered him to get his hands on Jingguan's border defense maps.

"Wu Tuyin really thinks a lot of you." Shen Fuqing sneered at Miao Mao, who'd already passed out from the pain.

Trash like this, and Wu Tuyin dared use him as a hidden pawn? Ridiculous. He wasn't even as sharp as that Wuna woman outside the shop.

Xie Nai read the letter and stayed silent for a long time.

The furnace flames flickered, casting shifting, unreadable shadows across Xie Nai's face. His gaze swept the shop and finally landed on the few servants huddled in the corner.

"We found the paintings, Your Highness!"

At Luo Yue's voice, the servants trembled even harder.

Luo Yue and his men hauled out two big chests of forgeries of the late Crown Prince's paintings. He picked one out and handed it to Shen Fuqing. "Lord Shen, this should be Xie Jian's fourth forged painting, 'The Pavilion of Fall.' As for the rest, I just checked—they're all fresh forgeries."

Luo Yue guessed, "Probably because His Highness got the first three forgeries, Wu Tuyin worried his plan would fall apart, so he had new ones made. But since Xie Jian's dead, these forgeries are almost all obviously fake at a glance."

Shen Fuqing took "The Pavilion of Fall," gave it a glance, and once he confirmed it was a forgery, tossed it into the furnace without a second thought.

He had no interest in the rest. "Put out the paintings, spread the rumors." Shen Fuqing snorted coldly, then turned his gaze to the servants huddled in the corner. "What rumors did Miao Mao tell you to spread?"

"Tianyuan will fall, the Xie dynasty will crumble, serve Wu as lord, dispel the gloom and welcome the dawn..." With Miao Mao's gruesome state right in front of them, the servants didn't dare hide anything and quickly confessed, "Those are the exact words the master made us spread!"

"And?" Xie Nai looked at them, his voice cold. "Continue."

"This..."

The servants hesitated. Seeing this, Luo Bei stepped forward with his blood-stained blade.

"Wait, wait! We'll talk! Please spare us, my lords!" Though hesitant, the servants feared being mutilated like Miao Mao, so they immediately blurted out:

"Stop being deceived! The current Young Emperor is not of legitimate imperial blood!"

"Xie Xuanran was not born to Xie Shu and the late Crown Princess—he's a base-born bastard!"

"The Crown Prince left a national prophecy—don't you understand? Who should truly be emperor?"

With each sentence the servants spoke, Xie Nai and Shen Fuqing's faces darkened further. Shen Fuqing in particular wore a murderous glare, as if he might draw his blade and kill at any moment!

But Xie Nai didn't call a halt, so the servants had no choice but to steel themselves and continue reciting the words Miao Mao had prepared for them to spread:

"That little bastard doesn't deserve to be emperor. The Xie dynasty will fall, and Wu Tuyin is the true sovereign of the realm."

"I heard that Xie Shu had someone he loved long ago, and Xie Xuanran was born from him and someone else—" A servant had barely started when his throat was cruelly slit by a dagger!

Warm blood splattered across Shen Fuqing's face. He seemed utterly oblivious, his expression wooden as he continued killing the next servant.

"Thunk—"

The blade sank into flesh, one strike to kill.

"Thunk—"

Then the next servant.

Finally, when all the servants lay dead and blood pooled across the floor, Shen Fuqing expressionlessly wiped the blood from his dagger.

His voice was low and hoarse, like a demon's whisper: "Anyone who slanders His Highness the Crown Prince deserves to die."

Xie Nai made no comment on Shen Fuqing's madness.

After all, when it came to matters involving Xie Shu, he was always like this.

"These people are utterly audacious, daring to spread such treasonous rumors!"

Unlike Shen Fuqing's defense of Xie Shu, Luo Yue was more struck by what the servants had said about Xie Xuanran's "illegitimate claim to the throne." "How despicable! The Mengqin clan actually dares to use this to destabilize the people's hearts. Thank goodness we stopped it in time—if those rumors had spread, wouldn't it have thrown the whole realm into chaos!"

Luo Yue cursed furiously as he and Luo Bei together tossed the two chests of forged paintings into the furnace.

The blazing flames consumed them, the forgeries gradually twisting, warping, and finally turning to ash.

The fiery red glow danced before Xie Nai's eyes. In truth, he had heard rumors about Xie Xuanran's illegitimate claim to the throne before.

Earlier in Nanzhou, Xie Nai had killed two black-clad assassins who had tried to attack Qin Jiao. At the time, Qin Jiao had thrown a fit over it. Later, when Qin Jiao asked why he had killed them, Xie Nai's explanation was that they had touched upon his taboo.

And those two black-clad men had indeed spoken the same reckless words about Xie Xuanran's illegitimate claim.

Thinking back now, those two assassins, besides being arranged by Xie Chengyi, likely had connections to Wu Tuyin as well.

"Your Highness, the paintings are all burned! What should we do with this Miao Mao?"

Luo Yue's loud shout snapped Xie Nai out of his reverie.

The man lowered his head and glanced at Miao Mao, who was playing dead in a pool of blood, his voice calm and unruffled. "Burn him too."

The moment he heard that, Miao Mao dropped the act. He scrambled up and kowtowed desperately to Xie Nai, begging for mercy: "Please, my lord, spare me! I'll swear loyalty to you—just don't kill me!"

Miao Mao's voice was shrill and desperate, but Xie Nai ignored him completely. "And that Wuna outside," Xie Nai added, "burn her as well."

The cold moonlight highlighted the man's aristocratic, ruthless features. What Shen Fuqing had said earlier was indeed true—

Xie Nai had been in a foul mood lately.

So today, everyone in this blacksmith's shop—dead or alive—was going up in flames.

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