444 Investigation at Nigh (1/2)

Woken up by urgent knocks on his door, the keeper of the inn hurriedly came to the door with a lantern in hand while lamenting in his heart. ”Times are really bad now. Business is languishing, and rooms of the inn are occupied by a group of refugees who're often late with their rent. Some of them probably got desperate and caused trouble somewhere. The people who're tracking them down will naturally come here.”

The innkeeper believed himself to be fully prepared for the worst situation, but the moment he opened the door, he got so frightened that he nearly collapsed to the ground.

His inn was tightly surrounded by a group of soldiers, and a pale young man was standing at his door. ”This man seems to be the Dragon King,” the innkeeper thought to himself worriedly.

He stood gaping at the young man for a long time, lost for words, before finally saying, ”Sir, do you want to check in now?” Even he himself did not understand why he would be asking such a thing as this moment.

Upon learning that the Dragon King just came here for information, he relaxed a little and quickly thought of the handsome teenager. ”That was a really strange night. A dozen guests fled without paying their rent. Alas, it was from that moment on that my business started to go into decline,” he said to the Dragon King.

”The boy paid me when he checked in. He was the only one who paid the rent that night. When the night fell, I went to close the door of the inn, but suddenly, 12 or 13 fierce-looking guests rushed into my inn. They were all carrying weapons and asked for best rooms while banging on the tables.”

According to the innkeeper, he had spent quite a long time to settle those guests down and had been too nervous to sleep well that night.

”During the night, I heard a lot of noise. First, I heard somebody kicking a door followed by incomprehensible shouting. After a while, I heard them fighting noisily. The fight lasted for only less than 15 minutes, and then I heard more people joining in. Some of them started escaping and the others chased after them. When they all left, it quickly quieted down outside,” said the innkeeper.

”I went to notify the authorities about the incident the next morning. The officers have come here twice for investigations without managing to find any clues. Since the siege began, I haven't seen any of them return. After all, it was just a trivial matter; no one died. Only a dozen guests fled without paying rent.”

”Are you saying that the officers haven't found any corpse here?” Gu Shenwei asked while feeling quite puzzled.

”Yes, they haven't even managed to find a blood stain here. It was very noisy that night during the fight, but those guys seem to have somehow restrained themselves from hurting one another.” The innkeeper spoke much more fluently now, as he discovered that the Dragon King was not as dreadful as he had imagined.

”That's all I know about the young swordsman. I've never seen him or heard anything about him after that night.”

Gu Shenwei felt even more bewildered after hearing the innkeeper's statement. ”Chu Nanping's fighting style is just like mine. No matter how many enemies he's faced with, he'll not be making so much noise or fail to kill even a single opponent after 15 minutes,” he thought, his lead suddenly gone.

With this in mind, Gu Shenwei asked the innkeeper about the young swordsman's looks once again. ”He had big eyes, a high nose and thin lips and he always kept his mouth tightly closed. He looks like a girl, but I'm sure that he's a boy. He's of medium height, so his sword looks quite long for him. When he walks, his feet barely seem to touch the ground. He usually looks thoughtful, but sometimes when he lifts up his head to stare at you, you'll feel scared. His cold eyes will make you feel... feel... very uncomfortable.” The innkeeper gave the Dragon King a detailed description of the young swordsman. Evidently, he had once carefully observed the boy.

Upon hearing that, Gu Shenwei was 100-percent sure that the young swordsman was Chu Nanping. ”There must be some other reasons for this strange incident,” he thought to himself and then asked his men to give the innkeeper a big chunk of silver, which was enough to make up for the loss in revenue suffered during the recent downturn in business.

When he walked out of the inn, it was already dawn. He rode his horse, looking at the ground contemplatively. When he was about to leave the alley, he suddenly looked up, as if struck by a new idea. He said nothing and continued on although he had already gotten a rough idea of what had happened that night.

He was busy for the rest of the day. Although he thought it unlikely that Shangguan Jianyi would come back in three days with a large army to besiege him like what the queen and the prime minister of the Hui Kingdom claimed, he still sent scouts to the Kang and Sha kingdoms to investigate.

To pacify the citizens of the country, he appointed some people to handle governmental affairs, as all the ministers of this country were currently in custody.

The news that the Dragon King was looking for a young swordsman inevitably spread throughout the city, prompting speculation amongst the citizens. They showed even more interest in talking about this matter than discussing about the future of their queen and ministers; some of them even began to have weird ideas.

”Oh, the Dragon King likes...”

”No wonder he was reluctant to marry...”

”...”

They dared not to be too blunt and could only express themselves by exchanging sly looks and smiles.

Soon enough, Gu Shenwei heard about the rumors, but he did not take any measures to stop them. In fact, it was reassuring for him to hear that people of this country cared more about amorous affairs than recent political changes in their nation.

Besides, he also benefited from these rumors, since they made the citizens of the city believe that the Dragon King adored the good-looking boy and would be willing to give handsome awards to the ones who could offer him reliable clues about the boy. As such, lots of people flocked to the Dragon King's residence to offer information about the young swordsman.

Gu Shenwei did not have much time to deal with these people, so he put Shangguan Fei in charge of this matter. Once a person offered a credible lead, he or she would be awarded.