Pursuit

Li Musheng snuffed out the palace lamp burning in the room, casually lifted the young armored soldier from beneath the bed, and vanished from the room in the blink of an eye.

The moon shone brilliantly tonight. Carrying a person in hand, Li Musheng moved beneath the bright moonlight with such extreme speed that not even the faintest shadow appeared.

Following the thread of true qi in his hand, he searched toward a certain place within Shangyang City.

The Great Li Imperial Capital covered an enormous area. It had a total of seventy-two wards, crisscrossed and divided by the four great avenues of Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, and White Tiger Streets.

Every ward in Shangyang City was as large as a Shun'an City in Wanzhou.

Moreover, the streets and alleys here were broader, while the houses stood row upon row in orderly layers, all far beyond anything Shun'an City could compare to. From this alone, one could see the magnificence and prosperity of the imperial capital before him.

Without spending much time, Li Musheng arrived at Lanshan Ward, two wards away.

Carrying the young armored soldier, he landed soundlessly in a courtyard and glanced at the thread of true qi in his hand.

He confirmed that Cang Yinyue was in one of the rooms within the courtyard. However, she clearly had yet to notice Li Musheng's arrival.

"What an exquisite little courtyard. Miss Cang is quite wealthy."

Li Musheng looked around the courtyard and could not help remarking aloud.

In a place like Shangyang City, where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, buying such a small courtyard must have cost a fortune.

At that moment, upon hearing Li Musheng's voice, the person inside the courtyard room finally reacted.

The lit window went dark in an instant. A shadow drifted silently out of the darkness and appeared behind Li Musheng in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, a slender blade reflected a snow-white gleam beneath the moonlight and quietly came to rest on Li Musheng's shoulder.

Li Musheng turned around, extended one finger to brush the blade off his shoulder, and looked at her.

"We're old acquaintances, at least. There was no need for Miss Cang to greet me like this, was there?"

Cang Yinyue narrowed her eyes slightly. The blade in her hand withdrew like a nimble serpent into her sleeve and disappeared, while a suspicious look surfaced on her face.

"How did you find this place?"

"Of course, I have my ways."

Li Musheng smiled, but did not elaborate. Instead, he threw the young armored soldier in his hand before her and said,

"I'll have to ask Miss Cang to interrogate this fellow properly and see whether you can get any clues regarding the Heavenly Revelation Secret Treasury."

Back at the Aurora Pavilion hall today, Li Musheng had actually noticed that this armored soldier possessed Northern Qi Meditation Qi. He simply had not exposed it at the time, intending instead to find an opportunity to search the man for the Key to the Heavenly Revelation Secret Treasury.

Yet what he had not expected was that this fellow had failed to keep himself hidden and had actually been discovered by the Imperial Secret Police.

Fortunately, the man had ultimately still fallen into his hands.

At that moment, Cang Yinyue studied the young armored soldier on the ground and suddenly exclaimed,

"Could this be that Great Qi remnant who escaped from Aurora Pavilion during the day?"

Although the Heavenly Brocade Guard and the Imperial Secret Police had promptly sealed off news of the Aurora Pavilion incident, they naturally could not hide it from Cang Yinyue. After all, she was not only a constable of the Imperial Secret Police, but also an agent of the Hidden Spy Bureau.

"That's right. It's him." Li Musheng nodded.

At those words, Cang Yinyue abruptly raised her head to look at him. She could not help drawing in a breath as she said,

"I heard from people in the Imperial Secret Police that this man not only cultivated Northern Qi Meditation Qi, but that his martial cultivation was comparable to a Martial Grandmaster. Today, even when Ji Feiyun and Gong Lishan joined forces, he beat them so badly that they suffered severe injuries."

"If not for an expert from the palace stepping in at the critical moment, Ji Feiyun and Gong Lishan would both have nearly died on the spot. Just how did you capture him?"

Facing Cang Yinyue's question, Li Musheng shrugged.

However, he did not conceal anything. He briefly recounted what had happened at Aurora Pavilion and how he had captured the young armored soldier, then said,

"That was what happened. I figured that when it came to interrogating people, Miss Cang was more skilled than I was, so I brought him here."

Cang Yinyue's gaze flickered uncertainly. Originally, she had thought Li Musheng had merely hidden his strength, and that his true martial cultivation was probably at the Innate Grandmaster Realm.

But now, he had actually captured a formidable expert comparable to a Martial Grandmaster all by himself.

She knew very well that although the armored soldier before her had lost an arm and was seriously injured, he was still not someone an ordinary Grandmaster could easily handle.

At the very least, he was a Half-Step Martial Grandmaster.

As Cang Yinyue made her guesses, an intense curiosity suddenly rose within her regarding the opportunity Li Musheng had encountered.

A Half-Step Martial Grandmaster under the age of twenty would be considered one of the most exceptional martial talents in the entire martial world. Such people were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns.

As far as she knew, the fake prince currently imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison was a Half-Step Martial Grandmaster.

What she had not expected was that the man before her might be one as well.

One had to know that the fake prince's teacher was the chief of the Hidden Spy Bureau, an existence whose martial arts had reached the divine. So what sort of opportunity had Li Musheng encountered?

"Miss Cang, shouldn't you be getting to work?"

Seeing her suddenly fall silent in a daze, Li Musheng quickly reminded her.

Hearing this, Cang Yinyue let out a soft breath, suppressed her thoughts, and gave Li Musheng a deep look.

Then, she lifted the immobilized young armored soldier before her and walked toward the room in the courtyard.

Although Li Musheng's talk of creating his own martial arts was complete nonsense, his martial strength was undeniably enough to leave her stunned.

Clearly, she had misjudged him again!

"Give me half an hour. Whatever you want to know, I will pry it out word for word."

As Cang Yinyue's voice fell, the sound of a door closing rang out in the courtyard.

Seeing this, Li Musheng said, "Many thanks," then looked around and leaped onto the roof of the courtyard.

The night sky was clear and crisp, without even a wisp of lingering cloud. A bright moon hung high in the deep blue heavens, its snowy moonlight spilling across the entire imperial capital. The moonlight tonight was truly quite lovely.

With nothing left for Li Musheng to do, he simply sat on the roof ridge and looked up to admire the moon, feeling rather at ease.

"I hope tonight brings some gains. Otherwise, who knows when I'll finally find all six keys?"

An expectant look appeared on Li Musheng's face.

Just then, three figures suddenly sprang up from a distant alley.

One fled in front while two gave chase behind. All three used true qi to execute lightness techniques, constantly bounding across alley walls, rooftops, and tree branches.

The direction in which the three were moving happened to be toward Li Musheng.

At the sight, Li Musheng frowned slightly. His rare mood for moon-gazing had been interrupted, and he was clearly not very pleased.

But thinking that fewer troubles were better than more, he could not be bothered to interfere.

Very soon, the three arrived nearby.

The person in front was a masked man. Chasing behind him were a woman in red and an old man.

Just then, the masked man noticed Li Musheng atop the roof, and his eyes suddenly shifted.

He pulled a cloth-wrapped object from his robes and threw it directly at Li Musheng, shouting at the same time,

"Young brother, this treasure is yours!"