Chapter 337 Two ladies looked at each other

He Danggui was as shocked as Jiang Pi by the scream. She thought she was found by them. So, she decided to say hello to them. Well, she only needed to be calm…

At the time she touched the curtain, she heard Du Yao laugh again, “Guys, then I will just say it! Master Duan, don’t be mad at me! Do you think our boss is also interested in that girl? Does he like that little girl unrequitedly as Duan Xiaolou does?”

After hearing that, Jiang Pi frowned and retorted, “Nonsense! Don’t play a joke on our boss as he is not here. I will tell him when he comes back! You are dead meat!”

Du Yao raised his disgruntled head, “I’m not talking nonsense. I have evidence! I am also an admirer of our boss, so why would I speak ill of him? It’s normal for a beautiful lady and a gentleman to pursue each other. Heroes seek beauties, and bosses love chicks. It is not strange! If someday he doesn’t like Miss but Mister. That would be scary.”

Jiang Pi glanced at the tired Duan Xiaolou and suggested, “Master Duan, let me take you upstairs to rest? It’s too noisy and you can’t fall asleep here. Du Yao doesn’t know anything. He is talking nonsense.”

Duan Xiaolou moved his neck lazily with a smile on his lips, and refused his good intention, “No way! if I leave here, you will speak ill of me. I won’t leave.”

Seeing that Du Yao wanted to explain something, Jiang Pi quickly interrupted him and started a new topic, “Hey, do you think the person outside the inn is a bit weird? I mean the woman that Gao Jue mentioned just now. She has been walking around this inn many times, and she is still there!”

He Danggui stiffened. They really had noticed her? They were so sensitive!

Unexpectedly, Duan Xiaolou showed no interest at all. He nodded and signaled Du Yao to go on. So, Du Yao told the “big secret” he found, “As early as the Winter Solstice Festival three years ago, our boss asked me to deal with some files about the wrongdoing of the villain He Fu. At that time, I was surprised and asked the boss, ‘He Fu is just a small official. There are hundreds of people like him in the capital. Why do you pay special attention to him? If he has offended you, I will help you put him to death!’ Guess what the boss said?”

He Danggui was also drawn to this story because Chang Nuo had mentioned to her that Lu Jiangbei had contributed to announcing the crime of He Fu. She also wondered how could Lu Jiangbei have so much evidence about He Fu’s crime. Although these two people both lived in Yingtian Prefecture, they had no connections at all.

Du Yao paused and then went on, “Our boss took out a beautiful small dagger and held it in his palm. He said, ‘Because of his surname He.’ Then, I said goodbye and walked out of the study. However, I suddenly heard him murmuring from distance, ‘She looks like her mother so much.’ Have you ever seen her mother? Does He Danggui look like her? Did our boss like both mother and daughter?”

He Danggui outside the house and Duan Xiaolou in the room frowned at the same time. He reprimanded Du Yao in a low voice, “It is not funny. I… I have met her mother several times, and they look different at all.”

Du Yao was not discouraged and talked about another matter, “Later, I was ordered by our boss to investigate the source of He Fu’s massive amount of assets. It turned out that he had pawned four valuable antiques engraved with the golden seal of Luo’s Mansion, and got 19,000 liang of silver. This is a big sum! As soon as the boss heard the news, he immediately ransomed the antiques with his own money. The money was the bonus he would get from Lu Feng Escort the next year. Moreover, He Fu pawned them as a ‘non-callable’ transaction. The shopkeeper did not take our money though we had the pawn ticket. He claimed that the antiques were priceless treasures. Therefore, our boss did one thing that he had never done in his life.”

“What is that?” Duan Xiaolou started coughing again. He Danggui couldn’t sit still anymore and impulsively wanted to rush in to check his injuries. However, a hand suddenly stretched out from behind to clasp her wrist with great force.

Before she turned around, another hand stretched out and quickly covered her nose and mouth. Although there was a layer of the veil, she still smelled a burst of fragrance.

“Xiaolou, don’t be so excited. Have some tea.” Du Yao calmed him and then said, “Our boss just took advantage of his power as the imperial guard’s commander to threaten the shopkeeper and force him to sell us the antiques at a low price of 23,000 liang of silver. At that time, I was really shocked because our boss had never done that before, not like me.”

After a moment of silence, Duan Xiaolou asked, “What kind of antiques are so expensive? I want some to decorate my study.”

“Guqin, Chinese chess, calligraphy, and Chinese painting.” Du Yao was arty, shook his head and said, “The Burned End Guqin from the Three Kingdoms Period with a clear sound; the Chessboard from Northern Song Dynasty with bright and decent sense; the inkstone and brush wash of the famous poet Su Dongpo from Northern Song Dynasty with greatness and elegance. Even a vulgar like me started to practice calligraphy for an hour every day since then. As for the painting by the painting sage Wu Daozi, that was a fake one. But there was an unofficial personal seal printed on the bottom left saying ‘Recluse Dongguo’, and we found it was the nickname of He Danggui’s grandfather Luo Duzhong. In other words, He Fu sold the legacy of Luo’s elder. how did her mother marry such a man.”

“Are those things kept by Jiangbei now?” Duan Xiaolou asked.

“Yes, what’s the matter?” Du Yao blinked innocently.

“Nothing.”

He Danggui thought she was being held hostage and kidnapped. She was forcibly dragged away from the backyard of the inn by a great force and was wondering whether should fight back until she was dragged out far away from the inn.

Then her wrists, nose, and mouth were loosened and she was free again. When she looked back, she saw a beautiful woman in red behind her. He Dang realized that the fragrance she smelled came from this woman. When she stared at her, she could not help but praise her in mind, “What a valiant and graceful lady!” She was like a heroine in red who came out of a drama.

Ling Miaoyi also loved to dress in red. She came from a respectable family. Her temperament made her fitted red dress very well, neither flattering nor vulgar. However, compared to the style of the lady in front of her, Ling Miaoyi would be inferior to her in every aspect.

Ling Miaoyi, who had grown up now, had gotten rid of her childishness compared to three years ago. She was already a top-notch beauty, but the lady in red in front of her was more pretty than her. Her delicacy and beauty boasted a charm of a southern lady, and her skin was gentle and soft. While her bearing with a sword made her like a chivalrous woman who came from the north. Her top-tilted nose was a little red because of the cold air, and she exhaled some white fog. There was no headwear but only a hairband used to tie a wisp of hair on top of her head with the rest unravel.

The lady in red was tall and slender. She was about twenty years old. She looked down at the little masked girl who was shorter than her. And the little girl’s clear eyes were also aimed at her and deeply impressed her, making her curious about the face under the veil.

The two ladies looked at each other for a long time, and finally, the woman in red took the lead to break the silence, “Sister, it’s not the place you can stay, leave here now.”

He Danggui asked in puzzlement, “Why? Are you the owner of this inn?”

The woman in red shook her head and repeated, “Leave here now. It is not a good place. Where do you live? I’ll send one to escort you coming home.”

The woman’s voice was a bit hoarse but pleasing. Although she was not polite, He Danggui did not feel offended. She smiled and said, “Heroine, you look like a nice person. To be honest, my brother lives at this inn. I am here to see him. I can’t go back before I see him.”

“Your brother is here?” The woman in red looked nervous and defensive and then frowned. She was beautiful, and her frowning expression was also beautiful—He Danggui couldn’t help but come up with such a thought. The woman in red thought for a while and asked suspiciously, “What’s his name?”

“Luo Baiji.” He Danggui lied naturally.

The woman in red didn’t know the name, so she showed a look of relief. Just as she was about to say something again, someone ran from a distance and shouted anxiously, “Miss Xiao, what are you doing here? It is too dangerous!”

The woman in red looked back and explained, “Yi Tong, I saw this little girl walk into that backyard and lingered there, so I pulled her out. But she said that she had a brother named Luo Bai inside. What should we do? It seems that there are still a lot of irrelevant people inside. Do we have a way to expel the others without disturbing those people?”

Then, the man shouting to her ran to them and said while gasping for breath and pointing to a meadow in the distance, “Miss Xiao, take her to hide there. Don’t approach this place anymore. Remember!”

The woman in red hesitantly asked, “Is there no other way to handle it? This will hurt many innocent people!”

The man shook his head hurriedly, “We will talk about it later. Just go!”

When He Danggui heard this, she suddenly covered her face and cried, “Brother! Why are you so unlucky? You just came to Binghua Suburb to appreciate the ice flowers. Why will you fall in danger? If you’re dead, what shall I do?” She cried very sincerely but with no tears. Therefore, she had to cover her eyes.

The woman in red and the man looked at each other, and she blamed, “Look at her! If we do in this way, the suffering people would line up to South Street! Yi Tong, listen to me. Let’s retreat for now and wait for messages from Shenshyr and Cheng Lang!”

“But,” the man said anxiously, “my lord has disappeared since yesterday. He left nothing except a note with one sentence on it. I heard that the cold poison is terrible, maybe he has already…” He gasped again and complained, “Meng Ying is even more irresponsible! He didn’t care about the business, nor my lord’s disappearance. He disguised as an old man and went to the theater to watch the show!”

“Oh? Cheng Lang was disguised as an old man? Weird!” The woman in red was surprised. After thinking for a moment, she still insisted, “We should consider it later. Even if those people at the inn are seriously injured, the nine of you are still not their opponents. Maybe Gao Jue and Lu Jiangbei’s leaving is just a trap. Besides, we have not met that man named Du Yao before and we don’t know his Kungfu. If he is a skilled one like the “Sword in White” Lu Jiangbei, all of you will be wiped out!”

He Danggui had been listening to them for a long time and had guessed something. She thought of Duan Xiaolou’s injuries with coughing up blood and squeezed out tears. She removed her hand and became a tearful little girl.

She nodded and said, “This lady in red is right. When I just walked to the door, some men inside said rudely, which made me too nervous to enter. I wanted to wait for my brother to come out, so I walked around the inn. However, more than ten of the men inside with ice-made masks had heard me, and they even knew my gender and my age precisely! Are they monsters?”

“More than ten men with ice-made masks?” The woman in red and the man opened their eyes wide, “You mean, there are a dozen of them?”

“Yes.” He Danggui nodded firmly, “Even more! The inn was full of those people. I was really scared!”