Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 604 The Uninvited Guest (Part 1)
"What?" Upon hearing this, Sun Yixie couldn't even control his volume. His distinctive voice suddenly let out such a shout, which silenced everyone in the room for a few seconds.

Fortunately, he realized he had lost his composure after howling and quickly shut up. Soon, the people around him stopped looking at him and continued chatting.

"Brother Shui, are you sure you're not mistaken?" A few seconds later, Sun Yixie, recovering from his surprise, lowered his voice again and said to Shui Hanyi, "This doesn't seem like something Xiao Lin would do..."

“Yeah, Brother Shui,” Huang Donglai chimed in. “If you’re saying Brother Sun did it, that’s possible, provided the princess has some serious tastes… But if you’re saying Xiao Lin did it, there’s probably some misunderstanding, right?”

"Damn it..." Before Shui Hanyi could reply, Sun Yixie turned to Huang Donglai and started cursing, "What do you mean 'maybe if it were me'? Am I that kind of person? And what do you mean 'heavy-mouthed'? You should look in the mirror. You have the nerve to talk about me? If it were you, you wouldn't even be able to abduct the Empress Dowager, let alone a princess, you know?"

"Mao! Let her come!" Huang Donglai also looked unconvinced and immediately started arguing with Sun Yixie.

Shui Hanyi felt a chill run down her spine listening to this conversation. She thought to herself, "Are these two bastards even speaking human language? And they're doing it in front of me, a member of the Imperial Guard! Are they crazy?"

"Hey, hey... don't go too far, you two." Brother Shui immediately stopped the two of them. "Although this place is still dozens of miles away from the capital, it is still under the emperor's nose. You two keep talking about princesses and empress dowagers... do you think I'm a dead man? Be careful, or I'll report you two to the authorities."

The "report" he mentioned refers to a report to higher authorities.

But when Sun Huang heard this, he thought that Brother Shui was going to "explode" against them.

Of course, in terms of the outcome, both interpretations are the same.

"Hey... we were just joking, Brother Shui, don't take it seriously. We were wrong, okay? I'll punish myself with three drinks."

"I'll drink five cups as punishment!"

"I'll punish myself with a throat-slitting!"

"I'll gouge out my own eyes!"

"Alright, alright... Stop fooling around, who's messing with you?" Shui Hanyi knew their tricks, so she stopped their nonsense and said seriously, "To be honest, today, just pretend I never saw you... Once we leave this tavern, we'll go our separate ways; also, if you don't have anything important to do, don't go into the city, because once you go in, it'll be hard for you to get out."

"Really? We've all disguised ourselves, how could we be so easy to recognize?" Huang Donglai replied, not forgetting to flatter the other person as well, "Not everyone is as alert as Brother Shui."

"Hmph..." Shui Hanyi sneered, "Then you underestimate our Six Doors..." He said slowly, "Perhaps the city guards and the soldiers at the yamen gates will be fooled by the two of you, but as long as you go into the city to stay in an inn, buy things, or stay on the street for a while... the spies of the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard will definitely find you, and then you can wait to be surrounded and arrested by the whole city."

“No… Brother Shui…” Sun Yixie interjected again, “Then forget about the Eastern Depot, but given our relationship with the Embroidered Uniform Guard, can’t you lend a hand?”

“Good question.” Shui Hanyi responded, raising an eyebrow as he continued, “If that ‘secret order’ had only been given to the Embroidered Uniform Guard, then there would indeed be room for negotiation.” He paused for half a second, “Unfortunately… this time all departments received the same order; so think about it, if you were our leader, and you heard that two people with good relations with the Embroidered Uniform Guard were now wanted by various other government departments, especially the Eastern Depot, would you still dare to risk ‘letting them fall into the hands of others’… to lend a hand?”

“Hmm…” Sun Yixie understood what the other party meant when he heard this, so he followed up with Brother Shui’s words, “That makes sense. If it were me, I could only have my men do their best to search and capture, in order to ‘get ahead’.”

Huang Donglai added, "And when the Eastern Depot sees the movements of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, they might think, 'The two people who can make the other side so nervous must be more valuable than we originally estimated,' and then they'll intensify their search efforts..."

"Isn't that cleared things up?" Shui Hanyi said, seeing that the two of them understood. "Then tell me, can you still enter this city?"

At this point, Sun and Huang stopped answering and both showed thoughtful expressions.

According to the information provided by Shui Hanyi and his analysis, the capital city is indeed "uninhabitable" for at least the short term, and even moving around in the vicinity is dangerous... We must get away as soon as possible.

Of course, this is fine, because Sun and Huang had just returned from beyond the Great Wall and were just passing through. They didn't have any business in the capital that they absolutely had to attend to.

Therefore, after saying goodbye to Brother Shui, Shuang Xie gave up on going to the capital and instead prepared enough water and dry food. They traveled non-stop through the night, taking a detour for another day and night. When they were far from the city, they returned to the official road and found a post station on the evening of the second day to change horses and spend the night.

After that, the two became even more cautious. They not only increased the level of their disguises, but also became more discreet in their speech and actions in public.

In this way, Sun Huang passed through Baoding and Shijiazhuang relatively safely and arrived at a place called Licheng County, west of Handan.

Those familiar with geography should have already noticed that the direction they were heading was roughly towards Wudang Mountain.

After discussing it with Feng Manlou, they felt that the matter of "rescuing Yue Youque" could not be rushed. After all, the only information they had was the four words "a certain place in Yangzhou" mentioned by the fake Yue Youque, which was too broad and vague, making it difficult to investigate.

Besides, Constable Yue has been imprisoned for more than a day or two, so asking him to wait a little longer shouldn't be a big problem...

On the contrary, things could go wrong at any time on Wudang Mountain, given the message that "first kill Shaolin, then destroy Wudang".

Then we might as well head to Wudang first and see if we can stop the real culprits who want to frame the Hunyuan Star Gate.

If it is found that the real culprits are the young master's men, or at least have connections to the young master, we might be able to extract more useful information from them, which could indirectly help in rescuing Yue Youque.

However, things obviously won't always go so smoothly.

As we mentioned earlier, Handan, which was Guangping Prefecture at the time, was the stronghold of the Murong family.

Although Murong Ji is the nominal head of the Murong family today, the person who actually controls everything in the shadows and has even extended his reach beyond the family business is Murong Xiao.

Despite his attempts to remain discreet and low-key throughout the journey, Sun Huang ultimately failed to escape Ah Xiao's notice in Ah Xiao's territory.

Therefore, on the very night they checked into an inn in Licheng County... an uninvited guest came knocking on their door.

(End of this chapter)