"Empress Wei is sleeping inside the hall. Sitting here, can you stop an assassin in time?"
"I said I could stop one, so I can."
"Empress Wei believes you too?"
"She does."
"Aren't you afraid of failing her?"
Yue Muzhou paused, raising an eyebrow. "Do I know you?"
"I know you." Pei Ye looked at him. "You're afraid."
"You fear no enemy, but you worry about an assassin coming from who knows where. Even if your sword is already the fastest under heaven, it still can't catch up to something that has already happened," Pei Ye said. "Do you know the only way?"
"What?" Yue Muzhou had already narrowed his eyes slightly. Keenly scenting danger, he rested his hand on his scabbard.
"Be faster."
Pei Ye drew his sword. A flash of sword light split the curtain of rain in two inside Bright Moon Hall. As confident as countless times before, Pei Ye drew his sword right before Yue Muzhou's eyes.
Over the previous few attempts, he had actually become as fast as Yue Muzhou. When he struck while Yue Muzhou's attention was momentarily on the Wild Goose Inspector badge, Pei Ye often died just as his sword pierced the bed.
For an assassin, that probably counted as completing the mission.
But of course, that was not enough.
He had to be faster than Yue Muzhou to catch up to Li Xizhou's fate of death.
It was seven zhang to the bedside in the Bedchamber, involving five main movements: drawing his sword, leaving the steps, crashing through the door, passing the screen, and thrusting; these required four changes of posture: rising, leaping, drifting, and hanging in the air.
Pei Ye thrust his sword into Wei Qingju's faint silhouette, then tilted his head back, evading the sword light Yue Muzhou sent