C23

Jiang Youyu was holding an umbrella as she walked alone on the streets of Qingzhou.

Grabbing hold of the tail of this late summer, the weather of the Prefecture Capital began to take a turn for the better. If it was daytime, the dark clouds that covered the sky of the Azure Province would be visible to the naked eye as low and deep.

Therefore, Jiang Youyu left today with an umbrella of her own accord.

The facts had proven that the umbrella was the right thing to do. Unlike the tails hanging from his back and without an umbrella, walking through this heavy rain was not easy at all.

Rain pattered down the streets of the world, filling the Vast Expanse for all to see. There were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the streets, and Jiang Youyu walked faster and faster.

In the end, when Jiang You Yu turned into a side street and tried to take a shortcut, the sound of rain suddenly disappeared the moment Jiang You Yu turned into the side street.

He sighed. Because of the rain, he could only sigh because of the world under the umbrella.

At some point in time, four human figures wearing straw capes and a straw cape were standing on both sides of the street. They were vaguely encircling Jiang Youyu, who had entered the alley.

The four of them held short blades. Rain poured down from the sky, as if they were about to wash away the heavy killing intent of the short sabers. In the end, all of the rain converged at the tip of the sabre and fell back to the ground. Jiang You Yu looked through the rain and observed the dagger. He thought that since he hadn't done anything infuriating in the past few days, which power was going to fight against him?

He tried his best to think of all the possibilities. However, he truly could not think of which faction would value him so highly. He could not possibly attract such hatred.

Unexpectedly, Jiang Youyu could only look at the blade-wielding swordsman in front of her. The raincoat was of ordinary design. Nothing special could be seen from it. The style of the short sabre was also very ordinary. It was no different from the sabers of the swordsmen in the Land of the Heavens. It was even more specific. He could not see much through the curtain of rain, so Jiang Youyu withdrew his gaze.

"Kill!"

Four low and deep sounds rang out, one after the other. Following which, the light from the blade pierced through the rain. As soon as the sound was heard, the cold and fierce aura from the blade had already reached Jiang Youyu's body. Hot true energy suddenly erupted from Jiang You Yu's body. Along with the abnormal flush on Jiang You Yu's face, the green and white true energy was like a wave of air, directly evaporating the curtain of rain in the surroundings.

Without any warning, the four of them immediately took action. They wanted Jiang Youyu to choke on the questions he had originally prepared.

The Zhen Qi collided with the four Bladelight, and the four silvery-white blade lights were directly obliterated. The sudden outburst of Zhen Qi sent the four shadows, who were wearing straw raincoats, flying in all directions.

After the four of them retreated, an extremely strange sword Qi rushed out from the curtain of rain. It directly pierced through a distance of several tens of feet through the curtain of rain. In a blink of an eye, it bombarded Jiang Youyu's body. The violent Zhen Qi vibrations were almost terrifying, and the two different Zhen Qi fiercely bombarded the two sides of the passageway.

This strike was a killing strike. Following this strike, the four guards who had retreated, dressed in straw raincoats, once again attacked at almost the same time. It was even more concentrated than when he first started. The blade lights kept hitting the rain, the only vacuum area.

The paper umbrella in Jiang You Yu's hand rotated. Countless amounts of true energy swept down from the edge of the paper umbrella, covering Jiang You Yu's entire body. The resplendent sword Qi continued to wear down the true energy on the paper umbrella. Although there was only a tiny bit of its power left, the sword intent contained within the sword Qi was still astonishing.

"Sizzle sizzle!"

Beneath Jiang Youyu's feet, the stone slabs that had existed in this alleyway for countless years had been shattered into countless pieces. Even more saber energy and sword Qi had bombarded the ground around Jiang Youyu.

As he once again circulated the true energy within his body, the rotating paper umbrella suddenly closed and Jiang Youyu's figure took a step forward. With just that single step, a streak of blood flew through the rain. The imperial umbrella was a sword, and it still had the edge of a sword. As Jiang Youyu struck out with his sword, the rain cape swordsman standing next to Jiang Youyu opened his eyes wide and fell powerlessly to the ground.

A bloody smell mixed with the rainwater quickly seeped into the ground under Jiang You Yu's feet. Before Jiang You Yu could make a move again, the sword hidden in the rain stabbed down towards him once more.

It was not a grand scene. It was just an extremely simple sword. However, this sword attack had made Jiang Youyu give up on his plans of attacking another swordsman. Taking out his umbrella, he turned his head to block the incoming attack. The two distinct sword Qis clashed once again, before silently clashing against each other. A wave of air once again lifted up the curtain of rain, allowing Jiang Youyu to clearly see who had attacked him.

He looked like a youth who was slightly older than himself. His clothes were made of cloth and looked extremely shabby. The only thing that caught anyone's attention was the sword in his hand. The sword was black in color, and it was unknown what material it was forged from. On the sword's body, there was a faint killing intent that made Jiang Youyu look at it for a bit longer. This sword should have killed quite a few people.

The cloth-clothed youth's eyes were cold and harsh as he calmly glanced at the red ground. It was as though he did not care about the assassin who had died in Jiang Youyu's hands, and had already placed all his attention on Jiang Youyu. This was a very dedicated person, and Jiang You Yu's evaluation was deep within his heart.

While Jiang Youyu was sizing up this young man, the blade in this young man's hand flashed once again. The sword aura that was even more mournful than the previous one swept across Jiang Youyu's face. The light whistling sword Qi brushed past Jiang You Yu's hair, and an extremely thin strand of hair floated down along Jiang You Yu's line of sight. Jiang Youyu didn't like this young man's attack. She had heard of this before, no? If he hadn't dodged it quickly, then this sword might have already struck his face.

After failing to succeed with his first strike, the young man's speed became even faster. He seemed to have transformed into a black shadow and appeared around Jiang Youyu. With a cold snort, Jiang Youyu opened the umbrella in his hand once again. True energy surged out as he received the young man's sword attack. However, after receiving this next strike, the paper umbrella was almost scrapped.

He backed away and once again opened up the distance between him and the young man. Next, he leaned the remains of the umbrella's skeleton against the manor wall at the side of the alleyway. This young man was very strong. At the very least, he was stronger than what Jiang Youyu had expected. Regardless of whether it was the hidden aura or the cultivation of the sword path, they had both surpassed Jiang Youyu's expectations.

However, it had merely exceeded his expectations.

After putting down the umbrella's skeleton, Jiang Youyu rushed into the rain curtain. His blurry figure seemed to leave a series of afterimages behind within the rain curtain. The Genuine Qi above his hands surged, and in the blink of an eye, it approached a swordsman. The swordsman's reaction was not slow either. When Jiang Youyu approached him, the short blade in his hand slashed out two blade energies in an attempt to block his path. At the same time, he also retreated rapidly.

"Ugh …"

When the retreating assassin saw Jiang Youyu charge towards him, ignoring his saber energy, a smile appeared on his face. He admitted that Jiang Youyu's martial arts level was beyond his expectations. However, Jiang Youyu's level had not reached the point where he could ignore his blade energy. Therefore, Jiang You Yu was prepared to receive his blade energy head on. He would at least suffer some injuries.

In this battle, the first injury would lead to the second.

However, in the end, the assassin thought too much. The silhouette of Jiang Youyu, who had dashed past the saber Qi, disappeared in an instant. At the same time, he seemed to have heard his companion exclaim softly, "Behind you!" Following that, a heart-wrenching pain swept through the assassin's consciousness. Jiang You Yu, who was supposed to welcome the blade user, unexpectedly appeared behind the blade user. Before the blade user could even sense what was going on, his fist smashed into the back of the blade user's heart.

As such, the swordsman's smile froze on his face. He turned his head with all his might to look at Jiang Youyu, who was surrounded by the sword wielding teenager. He seemed to be unwilling to say something, but in the end only uttered a word, "Ehh."

The remaining two sabers coldly stared at Jiang Youyu who was sealed by the young man. They looked at each other, carried a corpse in each hand and rushed into the rain at an extremely fast speed. They knew their own limits. Since their target was actually able to kill two people while being attacked by the five of them, it would be useless for them to stay.

He once again drew his sword and quickly slashed down a few dozen times towards Jiang Youyu. Then, he gave a cold stare to Jiang Youyu, and his figure turned around and dived into the rain. Borrowing the two walls of the courtyard to leap up, he disappeared into the rain.

Rain poured down onto the alleyway without any cover, and the sound of chaotic footsteps rapidly approached from the main road of the city that was extremely far away. Jiang Youyu looked at the only two puddles of blood left in the alleyway, shook his head, picked up the umbrella leaning against the wall, and left the alleyway.

Just as Jiang Youyu was about to leave, a few of the officials who were holding onto their umbrellas entered the alleyway, followed by the unlucky soldiers who were patrolling the city. Everyone present was looking at the two eye-catching bloodstains on the alley. The expressions of those present also became ugly under these two bloodstains. However, what caused these officers and soldiers to be even more shocked was the numerous sword marks left behind in the alleyway.

Before they even entered the alleyway, the sword marks alone already gave the crowd a sharp feeling. It was as if these scars were enough to kill people.

No matter what the cause of the bloodstain was, it meant that in the next day or two, all of them would have to write up a lot of files.

Of course, this was not the time to consider how the file should be written. The most important thing right now was to inform the people on duty to quickly take over the case. After all, they didn't have the ability to monitor a case like this.

Wang Li looked at the file in his hand. This file recorded a case from more than ten years ago. Because this case seemed to involve certain figures within the palace, the record of this case was extremely simple. Judging from the signature of this case, it seemed to be written personally by Lord Zhou himself. Wang Li had read through the entire dossier, and there were no more than a hundred words in it. This was already the fewest number of words in the Northern Frontier's dossier.

Therefore, even though Wang Li had read the entire text over and over a few times, Wang Li still couldn't understand what it was about.

"Lord Wang, something happened in the Qing Yu alley. Do you want to go over and take a look?" A commandant wearing a white robe looked at Wang Li, who was sitting in the room. He reported to him that all of the northern overseers were very busy. The handyman of Qingyu Lane had been waiting for quite some time already, so the commoner could only find the new overseer, Wang Li.

"Qing Yu Lane?" Wang Li asked. Seeing the official nod, he thought to himself that it was fate. On the scroll in his hand, there was the words "Qing Yu Lane".

Wang Li had nothing to do and was looking at all the files in his head with a swelled head. When he heard this commandant's question, he nodded his head and let the commandant lead the way.

"Thank you, Sir Wang. The other prisons are busy, and I've asked around too, but there's really no time." With caution, the official explained to Wang Li. After all, such small matters were mostly handled by the supervisors under the supervisors. Unless the level involved was somewhat high, the supervisors would be the ones to step in.

For example, this incident in Qing Yu Lane, although it had seen blood, in the end, he could not confirm the nature of the event. Thus, it was too much of a fuss to let an overseer deal with it. Even though he had just taken up his post as a supervisor.

Wang Li naturally knew what was going on in his heart, and he also knew the difficulties this official was facing. He smiled at the official, and from beginning to end, he just ignored those colleagues of his who were secretly tilting their heads to look at him, as if they were really busy.

The official in charge of Qing Yu Lane didn't dare to venture too deep into the front hall of the North Surveillance Bureau. The Southern Courtyard of the Northern Surveillance Bureau was a taboo area even in the continent. It was said that if ordinary officials came in or out, it would only take a few days before the ordinary officials vanished without a trace.

When the errand officer saw Wang Li, he bowed and looked at him before slowly raising his head to size up Wang Li's official residence. His expression was a little strange. Although the northern supervision of Danning was a system of its own, it was still set by the imperial government to be more or less in accordance with its discipline. Wang Li's official attire was much higher ranked than the general's. He had no idea what it meant for such a high official to deal with such a matter. However, they didn't dare to speculate too much about what the imperial overseer was up to. They looked at the official leading Wang Li and said, "This is our Overseer Wang. He's preparing to take over Green Fishery Lane."

The general had long since prepared an umbrella and introduced Wang Li to the official. It was to lead Wang Li out of the northern prison. Fortunately, the curtain of rain was slightly smaller, so it should have been much easier to walk on this path.