Chapter 20: The Assassins Arrive First

"Surround this place! Don't let anyone out!"

After a shout came from outside the door, dense footsteps passed by the Lotus Altar Pavilion. Pan Yueqing closed her eyes and listened carefully. Intuitively, she felt that there were about fifty people, all wearing armor, and the bottoms of their boots were equipped with metal, making the sound of their footsteps on the ground rather unusual. Throughout the Northern Qi Dynasty, except for the Mysterious Armored Guards, no other army was armed down to their feet like this!

However, the Mysterious Armored Guards had always been responsible for protecting the imperial city. Pan Yueqing slightly raised her eyes and, with a look of inquiry, met Qi Si'an, who had a long sword by his side. "I'll go and take a look." After saying that, she was about to turn sideways to peek through the window paper at the scene outside.

Qi Si'an grabbed her slender arm and slightly shook his head. "You can't."

"Aren't they your people?" Pan Yueqing turned her head.

Qi Si'an's face didn't look good, and he closed his eyes. "No, they aren't."

Gu Pan looked at Pan Yueqing and then at Qi Si'an. She had already been at a loss. Taking a deep breath, she showed a heroic spirit as if she was ready to face death. "Don't worry, Miss! I will definitely protect you and keep you safe!"

After hearing Gu Pan express her loyalty, Wan'er shakily raised the scissors and stood in front of Pan Yueqing, facing the door. Pan Yueqing looked at her thin back, with her shoulders shaking like a sieve. She let out a slight sigh and placed one hand on Wan'er's shoulder. "Listen to me. If there's a chance, run away in the chaos. There should be martial monks in Cibei Temple. You..." Pan Yueqing's words suddenly stopped. She subconsciously raised her head and pushed Wan'er away. With a light tap of her toes, she moved three steps away. At the same time, a big hole suddenly opened in the roof. A martial monk holding a staff spun down from the sky. He bared his chest, held a Buddhist precept in one hand, and turned to show a sudden smile to Pan Yueqing, who was on full alert. "The Second Young Lady has bad luck. If you hadn't had a stomachache and had gone to the town with Prime Minister Pan, you wouldn't have to go to hell with him today."

This person was the abbot of Cibei Temple, Master Wuji. However, Pan Yueqing never expected that it would be him who came to take Qi Si'an's life!

"Master Wuji, you're a monk," Pan Yueqing saw the blade hidden in his long staff, which reflected a cold glint of metal in the sunlight, contrasting with Master Wuji's seemingly merciful expression, making it look extremely eerie. At that moment, tears welled up in her eyes, and she took half a step back, subtly avoiding the lethal range of a horizontal sweep of the staff. She looked weak and pitiful.

"Even monks have patrons," Master Wuji's smile carried a hint of helplessness and calmness. He shook his head at Pan Yueqing. "Greed, anger, delusion, and hatred are sins."

Qi Si'an drew out his long sword and pointed the tip directly at Master Wuji's back. "Who wants my life?"

"Too many people want your life," Unexpectedly, Master Wuji seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He slightly swept his foot, twirled the long staff around his wrist. With a sound of metal clashing, Qi Si'an's虎口 felt a shock. He tightly gripped the sword handle and involuntarily took two steps back. He was just about to thrust the sword forward again. Master Wuji didn't retract his long staff, and the end with the hidden blade was hovering right above Pan Yueqing's head. "Take one more step, and I'll strike down."

"What does it have to do with me?" Qi Si'an showed no sign of being intimidated. He raised his sword with a fierce gaze.

"Second Young Lady, the person you risked your life for doesn't care about you at all..." Master Wuji glanced slightly in Pan Yueqing's direction. But Pan Yueqing had already spun around twice to dodge his long staff. Master Wuji subconsciously made a horizontal sweep, chasing after Pan Yueqing's body. However, Pan Yueqing was extremely alert. At the moment when the blade was about to catch up, she suddenly crouched down. She wasn't tall. Immediately, she grabbed the scissors from Wan'er's hand, picked up a bench, and threw it at Master Wuji.

At the same time, Qi Si'an lightly tapped his toes, stepped on the tip of the long staff, grabbed Master Wuji's hand holding the staff with one hand, and placed the sword on Master Wuji's neck.

And the next second after Qi Si'an's move, Pan Yueqing crouched down and rushed forward. She took a bow step and thrust the scissors directly at Master Wuji's throat. It was only a hair's breadth away from stabbing into his throat. She slightly raised her eyebrows. "I hate it the most when people talk so much before killing."

Before Qi Si'an could react, Pan Yueqing stabbed the scissors into Master Wuji's right shoulder, forcing him to let go of the long staff due to the pain. Qi Si'an twisted Master Wuji's arm and pressed him firmly to the ground. He stepped on the wound and leaned down slightly, asking in a low voice, "Tell me, who sent you? Prince Fu? The Second Prince?"

Pan Yueqing panted heavily for a few times before she could catch her breath. She let go of her hand and pulled up Gu Pan, who was sitting on the ground with weak legs due to fear. She turned her head and gave Qi Si'an a slightly cold look. "Hey, we've just dealt with one. What are you going to do about those fully armed people outside?"

"We definitely can't get out," Qi Si'an didn't get an answer and lost his patience. He simply swung his sword and chopped off Master Wuji's neck. The head separated from the neck, and a spray of hot blood gushed out. The head rolled twice on the ground and stopped right at Gu Pan's feet. Gu Pan was so frightened that she let out a scream but didn't dare to make a real loud noise. Her eyes were as wide as copper bells, and her shoulders trembled. Finally, she couldn't catch her breath and fainted.

Pan Yueqing put her arm around Gu Pan's waist to prevent her from falling to the ground. She kicked away the head with its eyes still open and, without changing her expression, reached out to feel Gu Pan's breath. Since there was still warm breath coming out, she felt relieved. It wasn't strange for a delicate girl to be scared to death by such a scene. She helped Gu Pan lie down on the bed and pointed at Wan'er, who was speechless with fear. "Please, knock her out too."

Qi Si'an watched Pan Yueqing turn around and fiddle with the floor of the side room. He felt a bit suspicious.

Pan Yueqing saw that some of the blood on the ground had completely seeped into the gaps between the wooden planks. She pulled out a hairpin and gently inserted it into a small gap in the floor. She pressed it and heard a little movement. She raised her eyes and met Qi Si'an's confused expression. "Come on, give me a hand."

"I suspect there's a cellar here," Pan Yueqing looked at Qi Si'an's completely confused look, let out a sigh, and explained, "The Lotus Altar Pavilion has been abandoned for many years and has been uninhabited for a long time. But there are pickled vegetable jars outside this side room. When I came here, I noticed that there were pickles in the jars. This side room was also temporarily cleaned up for guests. I also found a monk's robe here, which proves that someone has been living here. Since that's the case, if you want to store things, there should be a cellar, right?"

"Even if there is a cellar, we can't hide in it," Qi Si'an said as he inserted his sword into the gap where the hairpin was. Perhaps because he was naturally extremely strong, he managed to pry it open while speaking. Below was a deep hole with no visible bottom.

"I don't want to hide in it either," Pan Yueqing gave Qi Si'an a look. She lit a silver-based candle and threw it down. She heard the sound of the silver base of the candle echoing at about one zhang below. She quietly placed the hairpin by the side of the cellar, then closed the cellar door, tucked the bottom of her skirt into the entrance. The moment she closed the thick wooden board, she forcefully tore the fabric of her skirt to create the illusion of having fled into the cellar in a hurry.

Then she struggled to hide the unconscious Gu Pan and Wan'er in the tall wardrobe in the side room. Unexpectedly, when she pulled down all the quilts, she found that the color of the inner board of the wardrobe was a bit off.

She tentatively raised her hand and applied a little force. The thin wooden board was pierced through like paper, creating a hole the size of a human face. There was a glint of gold inside. Pan Yueqing pushed the wooden board aside and saw that there was a small cave behind the wardrobe, filled with gold, silver, and Buddhist scriptures.