Traveling through various miniature worlds with a small restaurant

Inside the palace

Emperor Xiao Qi sat upright on the dragon throne, while Su Hezhou and Sikong Zhenyue stood respectfully below.

Xiao Qi looked to be in his early thirties, but he was actually over forty.

His gaze swept over the two people below with an air of authority, and he slowly asked, "Is there really such a powerful weapon?"

Su Hezhou cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty, it is absolutely true. I saw it with my own eyes. Especially that rifle, it was extremely powerful and could fire gunpowder continuously, killing the enemy in an instant."

Xiao Qi narrowed his eyes slightly, and said thoughtfully, "Continuous firing of gunpowder? That's amazing. Has the origin of this weapon been traced?"

Sikong Zhenyue stepped forward and replied, "Your Majesty, as far as I know, this weapon does not seem to belong to our dynasty, and Miss Jiang Shuang has not revealed its origin."

Xiao Qi frowned and asked, "Who is this Jiang Shuang?"

Su Hezhou looked ashamed: "Your Majesty, I have not yet fully investigated the background of Miss Jiang Shuang. I only know that she suddenly appeared in the city and opened a small shop with another girl named Lin Xiaoqian. But judging from their words and deeds, they are not ordinary women."

Xiao Qi remained silent, but his expression grew increasingly grim, instantly creating a somber atmosphere in the hall.

Sikong Zhenyue and Su Hezhou hurriedly knelt down to beg for forgiveness: "Your Majesty, please calm your anger. We will certainly speed up the investigation and find out as soon as possible about Miss Jiang Shuang's background."

Xiao Qi's expression softened slightly: "Alright, alright, get up. Those two women said they wanted to exchange martial arts manuals for weapons?"

Su Hezhou stood up and replied, "Your Majesty, that's right. Miss Jiang Shuang proposed that she could only exchange her weapon for a martial arts manual."

Xiao Qi tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest of the dragon throne, pondered for a moment, and said, "That is not necessarily a bad thing."

After all, he has quite a few martial arts manuals in his private collection, so giving some away in exchange for a few more of these magical artifacts is not unreasonable.

Xiao Qi continued, "However, this matter needs to be handled with caution. You need to find out exactly how many such weapons Jiang Shuang has, and what her purpose is in exchanging martial arts manuals."

He had just gathered some martial arts practitioners, and everything was on the right track. He didn't want anything uncontrollable to happen.

Su Hezhou cupped his hands in response, saying, "Your Majesty's considerations are thorough; we will certainly investigate carefully."

Xiao Qi nodded slightly, then asked, "I heard you were assassinated outside the city. What happened?"

Su Hezhou was not surprised that the Emperor knew about this. He respectfully said, "They are assassins from Lotus Pavilion, hired to assassinate Miss Jiang and Miss Lin."

Xiao Qi narrowed his eyes: "Have you found out who hired the assassin?"

Su Hezhou remained unfazed: "Your Majesty, we have investigated and found out that it was Manager Wan Chou of Zuixiang Pavilion. A few days ago, he had a disagreement with the two young ladies, which led him to plot his murder."

Xiao Qi's expression was subtle.

He knew, of course, that Wan Chou was the adopted son of Cao Qianxiang, the Grand Eunuch, and that he was making money outside the palace on Cao Qianxiang's behalf.

Cao Qianxiang would also occasionally bring Xiao Qi some nice things to make him happy.

After all, Cao Qianxiang had been loyal to Xiao Qi before Xiao Qi ascended the throne and had done a lot of work for him. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he had contributed to Xiao Qi's rise to power.

Therefore, Xiao Qi reciprocated by bestowing upon Cao Qianxiang considerable wealth and honor.

As long as Cao Qianxiang's actions weren't excessive, Cao Qianxiang would turn a blind eye even if he knew about them.

But this time...

Xiao Qi asked, "Do those two women know who is behind hiring someone to commit murder?"

“The two young ladies are exceptionally intelligent and already have their own guesses,” Su Hezhou replied.

Xiao Qi snorted coldly: "You guessed it? Then this matter won't be so easily resolved."

Su Hezhou and Sikong Zhenyue both lowered their heads and dared not respond.

One is a mysterious woman who possesses a powerful weapon and wants to make a deal with her; the other is a person of Eunuch Cao, the Grand Eunuch of the Imperial Household Department.

Xiao Qi was silent for a moment, then slowly said, "Wan Chou is so audacious, Cao Qianxiang should also teach him a lesson."

Su Hezhou and Sikong Zhenyue lowered their heads and remained silent, awaiting further instructions from the emperor.

Xiao Qi then said, "First, take Wan Chou into custody and detain him at the Imperial Guard. I want to see what Cao Qianxiang's explanation for this matter is."

Su Hezhou and Sikong Zhenyue said in unison, "Your subjects obey the decree."

After giving his instructions, Xiao Qi went to his private treasury to personally select martial arts manuals.

Martial arts manuals in the Wuxia world are generally divided into four levels: Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow, with Heaven being the highest level.

However, there are actually divine-level secret manuals above the heavenly level, but their number is extremely limited.

Xiao Qi selected some Earth-level martial arts manuals, and after thinking for a moment, he also picked out a few Heaven-level ones, which he had packed into a box for Su Hezhou and his companion to take away.

He does possess a divine-level secret manual, but it's impossible for him to give it to outsiders to practice.

Xiao Qi waved to Su Hezhou and the other man: "Go ahead, and report back immediately if there is any progress."

After bowing, the two left the palace with the box containing martial arts manuals.

Sikong Zhenyue glanced at the sky. It was already past noon. He wondered if Miss Lin's braised pork trotter rice had sold out.

He glanced at Su Hezhou. He had finally made an appearance before the emperor, so he was naturally grateful to Su Hezhou.

So he asked, "Lord Su, would you like to go to Miss Lin's shop for a drink later? It's my treat."

Su Hezhou smiled slightly and declined, saying, "I have too many things to do today, so I won't go. I'll go and arrest Wan Chou first, so that when I go to Miss Lin and Miss Jiang, I can at least give them some explanation."

“That’s right, that’s right!” Sikong Zhenyue quickly replied.

Thinking to himself that he had almost forgotten the important matter, he said to Su Hezhou, "Capturing Wan Chou is something I can do alone. I'll go right away."

Su Hezhou nodded slightly, and the two parted ways at the palace gate.

Su Hezhou needed to take the box containing the martial arts manual back to the Siwei Bureau first, since he still needed to exchange Lin Xiaoqian for silver notes.

I can't go to the store empty-handed.

Upon arriving at the Siwei Office, Su Hezhou sent someone to collect the silver. While waiting for the silver, Sikong Zhenyue unexpectedly returned very quickly.

However, Sikong Zhenyue's expression was somewhat strange.

Su Hezhou looked at him and asked, "What's wrong? What happened?"

Sikong Zhenyue bowed and cupped his hands, saying with difficulty, "My lord, Wan Chou is already dead."

Su Hezhou frowned: "Dead? How did he die?"

Everyone in the capital knows that Wan Chou is Eunuch Cao's adopted son; who would dare to kill him?

Sikong Zhenyue glanced at Su Hezhou: "Wan Chou was killed in one blow. Before he died, he was checking accounts in the main hall of Zuixiang Pavilion. People only heard a 'bang' and didn't see anyone approach Wan Chou before he fell to the ground. He only had one wound between his eyebrows, and it looked like..."

Sikong Zhenyue gritted his teeth and said, "It looks very similar to the marks left by Miss Jiang's weapon."

Su Hezhou was somewhat stunned.

After a long pause, he finally spoke, "Both of you are extraordinary women, and your ways of doing things are quite different from others. I should have expected this."

Sikong Zhenyue said anxiously, "My lord, if this was really done by Miss Jiang, what should we do? Eunuch Cao will certainly not let this go."

Just then, the man Su Hezhou sent to collect the silver returned.

Su Hezhou looked at the box containing the silver, pondered for a moment, and said, "Don't rush, let's go to Miss Lin's shop first."