My Gentle and Pure Sect Leader Husband-Chapter 23 - Day of Wearing a Disguise

Yan Hongyin swung her blade in front, creating a flourish of sword patterns, and for a moment the sounds of metal clashing rang incessantly. But soon, Yan Hongyin came to her senses and turned to look at Madam Xiang behind her.

Sure enough.

The woman who had been immobilized by acupoint-sealing at the bedside now had two sharp ceramic shards piercing her throat and between her eyebrows. She lay dead on the bed next to the corpse of Han Mei, her eyes still open in death.

“Jinyiwei?”

The black-clad figure held the scroll painting in hand, with a voice neither male nor female, eerily mysterious.

Yan Hongyin’s gaze sharpened as she finally got a clear look at the person in black.

This person seemed to be standing there, allowing her to examine them. With a tall, slender frame, broad shoulders and narrow waist more like a man’s, yet without an Adam’s apple visible at the neck. Their face was covered by a fox mask that looked familiar—one Yan Hongyin had glimpsed once before in the black market.

The fox mask’s muzzle curved upward, giving it an inexplicably strong mocking appearance.

Just standing before this person, Yan Hongyin could feel a razor-sharp killing intent radiating from them. Even though her martial arts had nearly reached the Grandmaster realm, she still felt extremely wary.

“Yu Luocha.”

Yan Hongyin coldly uttered these three words.

A person like this could only be Yu Luocha.

The black-clad figure suddenly laughed, having noticed that the person opposite also deliberately disguised their voice with internal energy, making it hoarse and deep, with indistinguishable gender.

This feeling of similarity to himself didn’t make him feel offended; on the contrary, he felt a trembling excitement.

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To think there was such an interesting kitten among the Jinyiwei.

How amusing.

Yu Luocha raised the scroll painting in his hand, his fingers moving in a gesture as if about to open it. Seeing that the Jinyiwei opposite showed no fluctuation in the other’s gaze or aura, he found it even more intriguing. His motion of opening the scroll halted abruptly halfway, revealing only two fingers’ width of the hair crown from the portrait on the paper.

Suddenly, his eyes changed. A sharp blade light shot through from the painting paper. The tip of the Embroidered Spring Blade cut through the fragile paper straight toward his eyes.

Yu Luocha used the blade’s edge to split the scroll in two. With a dull thud, the wooden scroll roller, infused with internal energy, blocked the fierce Embroidered Spring Blade. The thick wood trapped the embedded blade tip, firmly constraining the bright blade trapped between the split wood. The Embroidered Spring Blade in the Jinyiwei’s hand couldn’t move.

Yu Luocha, who had turned sideways, looked back at the Jinyiwei just a blade’s distance away and chuckled. “Young one, you should keep your composure better.”

At that moment, the Jinyiwei suddenly glanced at Yu Luocha, the killing intent in the other’s eyes made Yu Luocha feel as if a blade had physically slashed across his face. His heart jolted in surprise.

During their standoff, Yan Hongyin unexpectedly released her grip on the Embroidered Spring Blade. A white flash shot out from her sleeve, directly aiming for Yu Luocha’s face!

Yu Luocha dodged to the side, flinging the scroll in his hand. The force sent the Embroidered Spring Blade tracing an arc through the room, passing through the window and embedding itself three inches deep into the corridor wall outside.

However, the white flash that Yan Hongyin had thrown whistled back after passing through the silk curtains. It cut through half of the scroll roller in Yu Luocha’s fingers. In that brief moment when Yu Luocha slightly froze, a black shadow flashed by, and the other half of the painting scroll was already in Yan Hongyin’s hand. The white flash disappeared into Yan Hongyin’s sleeve, vanishing from sight.

The sound of a cuckoo came from outside the window, eerily jarring against the autumn night.

Yu Luocha twirled the painting in his hand, left a light laugh, turned his body, moved away several feet, and like a leaf in the wind, slid out the window. Using the Embroidered Spring Blade stuck in the wall as a stepping stone, he leaped away and disappeared into the night.

Yan Hongyin didn’t pursue. She clutched the half scroll in her hand, her expression very grim.

Yu Luocha’s clean and swift departure raised suspicions in her mind.

She suddenly realized something and quickly opened the half scroll in her hand. Only half of the portrait remained, and where the face of the subject should have been was clearly that smiling fox mask!

The Hefang Shop’s apprentice had never drawn Yu Luocha’s portrait at all. This was why he didn’t immediately hand over it to Han Mei, but instead blackmailed the Divine Water Palace disciple Xiang Ning!

After Xiang Ning obtained this so-called portrait by poisoning him, she discovered she had been tricked. Already in too deep, she devised a plan to deceive Han Mei and assassinate him to take her place.

But when did Yu Luocha know the portrait was fake?

Was he so confident that absolutely no one had ever seen his true face?

Yan Hongyin’s hand trembled slightly with suppressed anger. She was about to destroy the scroll, but upon seeing the detailed portrait on it, she instead tore the painting from the scroll, folded it several times, and tucked it into her sleeve.

As her footsteps shifted, Yan Hongyin’s boot stepped on broken ceramic shards. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the corpse on the inner room’s bed and paused.

If not for the portrait, why did Yu Luocha personally come here?

To handle internal affairs?

But why kill Xiang Ning?

A flash of insight crossed her mind, and Yan Hongyin’s eyes brightened significantly.

The Tianyi Divine Water!

****

After changing out of his black clothes, using internal energy to reduce the scroll to powder that disappeared with the wind, Yu Luocha turned his head and asked in a flat tone, “Did you get it?”

He had his own agenda. Besides his disciples, he also had a group of secret guards and death warriors who only followed his orders. A few days ago, he had already dispatched people to Lin’an Prefecture through the pawnshop manager.

“The remaining disciples of the Divine Water Palace confessed that when they left the palace, they took all the Tianyi Divine Water with them. There are only five drops left in the world now.”

Yu Luocha took the porcelain bottle handed over by the secret guard, saying with satisfaction, “Very good. Complete the root system pruning within three days. Send orders back–this Leader will be returning to the Sect with the Madam.”

M-madam?

The kneeling secret guard hesitated, but his reverence and loyalty to Yu Luocha made him instinctively respond, “Yes!”

“Also, investigate who is currently in command of the Jinyiweis in Lin’an Prefecture.”

“This subordinate obeys command!”

.....

Yan Hongyin changed out of her combat attire, placing the retrieved Embroidered Spring Blade on top, but was unsure how to tie up her loose hair.

Frowning in thought, she simply tied her hair up in a high ponytail, knotted the end, and secured it with a jade hairpin.

Still wearing the same clothes as before, she seemed to exude a different charm, with an added sense of boldness.

Yan Hongyin prepared her explanation mentally. When she emerged from behind the screen, the ventriloquist who had been creating the sound of two people conversing stopped.

A maid’s scream ignited chaos in the Xunfang Pavilion. Yan Hongyin passed through the panicking crowd back to the original private room, just in time to meet the husband who had stood up and was about to go out to investigate the commotion.

“What’s happening out there?” Yu Luocha asked with surprise.

Yan Hongyin also frowned, then relaxed and said, “Quarrels and fights in brothels are common. I just heard that someone might have died; they probably need to report it to the yamen.”

“I see.” Yu Luocha pulled Yan Hongyin, who was standing at the door, inside, avoiding the panicked people running in the corridor, and sighed. “The public security in Lin’an Prefecture isn’t very good.”

“Indeed,” Yan Hongyin nodded in agreement, “Let’s hope the Lin’an Prefecture’s yamen can handle it, though it doesn’t really affect us.”

Yu Luocha also nodded, noticing Yan Hongyin’s change, he reached out to touch the green jade orchid at the edge of her ponytail, smiling. “How did you change your hairstyle just from going out once?”

Yan Hongyin raised her hand to rub her temples, muttering quietly, “The nanny’s hairstyle was uncomfortable for me. It pulled at my temples and hurt.”

“This looks good too,” Yu Luocha said sincerely. Compared to the proper and conventional women’s hairstyle from before, this casual, bold hairstyle was more eye-catching to him.

Yan Hongyin smiled, her eyes curving. “Shall we go see the lanterns?”

“Mm, yes.”

With that, the two held hands as they went downstairs, leaving the chaotic exclamations of the Xunfang Pavilion behind and slowly entering the bustling, prosperous lantern festival crowd of Lin’an Prefecture.