Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 343 A Tail

Zhou Zhao chuckled as he listened.

She stood there, looking incredibly lazy, with a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth and eyes full of disdain.

"I'll count to three, two, one, then you can kill them both. It just so happens that Fan Lishen doesn't want to live, but he can't bring himself to do it. Thank you for sending him on his way. As for your reward, you can ask him for it when you get to the underworld."

The young master of Duobao Pavilion was covered in silver.

The scene fell completely silent instantly.

No! This was truly an answer they hadn't anticipated.

Even Fan Lishen, who was bound like a cocoon, couldn't believe his eyes and looked up with wide cat-like eyes.

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he glanced at Su Changying and A Huang out of the corner of his eye.

She stood in the center of the group, with Changying on her left and Ahuang on her right. While she was talking to the men in black, the three of them were already searching for the men's hiding places.

The crossbows had limited range; if those people wanted to be faster than them, they must have been hiding quite close to Fan Lishen. The speaker was one, but who else was there?

She had deliberately said something shocking, and those people clearly lost their composure, their breathing becoming much louder. In front of a master, even such a slight sound would be a flaw.

The three of them looked in different directions; it was time to take action!
That's it!
After Zhou Zhao finished speaking, the three of them disappeared from the spot and rushed off in three different directions.

The person hiding in the tree died instantly before he could even pull the trigger.

Zhou Zhao watched the black-clad assassin fall, then suddenly looked up and glanced to his left. Behind the artificial hill, a black hem flashed by; someone was spying there!

"Chase after me!"

As Zhou Zhao spoke, without even looking, two coffin nails flew out and directly severed the ropes suspending Uncle Fu and Fan Lishen.

Then, with a light leap, he chased after the artificial hill.

As Zhou Zhao stared at the black dot in front of her, her heart pounded like a drum. She had a gut feeling that the person following her was completely different from the others; this was the key person waiting to take the "secret."

She thought to herself, and then she activated her internal energy to its maximum.

But the more she did this, the more she felt the emptiness within her body. She had just recovered from a serious illness, and her internal energy was still somewhat sluggish, far less powerful than before. Zhou Zhao thought to herself, took a deep breath, and followed the black dot onto the roof beam.

The closer Zhou Zhao got, the more terrified he became.

The person in front of her was incredibly skilled in light footwork, no less so than her. His steps were steady, and his breathing was perfectly calm, indicating that he still had plenty of energy left. Chang'an City truly is a place where hidden talents abound, and there are even such skilled individuals. I wonder if he is a master from the Imperial Guard.

As Zhou Zhao pondered this, her ears twitched, and the only sound behind her was Su Changying's footsteps; Ah Huang had clearly fallen behind.

"Changying, don't worry about me, follow them."

"Come up."

Zhou Zhao was startled, then felt Su Changying's hand reach out and pull her onto his back. Without hesitation, Zhou Zhao hugged his neck.

Su Changying took a deep breath and increased her speed again, getting closer and closer to the man in black in front of her.

Taking advantage of the opening, Zhou Zhao swung the coffin nails forward in an instant, using her usual technique. The three coffin nails shot towards three different vital points at the same time: the neck, the chest, and the lower abdomen.

The man in black ahead sensed the intense killing intent and couldn't turn around abruptly. He swung his longsword and parried three times, causing the coffin nails to fall to the ground.

At the same time, he pulled out several pink pills from his pocket and threw them towards Zhou Zhaotong and Su Changying. The pink pills exploded instantly, releasing a familiar cloud of pink smoke.

Su Changying and Zhou Zhao held their breath and passed through, but during this slight pause, the man in black disappeared into the night.

Zhou Zhao gently jumped off Su Changying's back, and the sound of Ah Huang's footsteps behind him grew clearer and clearer.

Pink powder fell and covered the roof with a thin layer.

"Brother Changying, Azhao, I didn't keep up."

Zhou Zhao shook his head at A Huang, "We didn't follow either. Look at this pink powder, it's the sleeping potion we encountered in Tianying City. The man in black we were following was a man, about the same height as Chang Ying, with a strong build, so he should be quite old."

pity……"

As Zhou Zhao spoke, she exclaimed "Eh!" She walked to the coffin nail that had fallen from her head, picked it up, and found a twisted, gleaming copper strip embedded in it.

"Is this what the man in black was wearing? It was knocked off by my coffin nails. It looks like a snake, or rather, an earthworm."

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he pulled the object off the coffin nails and laid it out in his palm.

Su Changying and Ahuang immediately came over to take a look.

"It could also be the tail of some kind of animal, Zhao Zhao, think about it, the new little black cat we just got."

Zhou Zhao's eyes lit up as she looked at the twisted copper bar. Its tail end had indeed become larger. She had previously thought it was a tongue, but now it seemed that the fur on the tail had become thicker there. "It's not a cat's tail, it looks like a lion's tail."

All three of them seemed to be deep in thought.

Seeing that Ah Huang was somewhat dejected, Zhou Zhao reached out and gently patted the two of them on the shoulder. "It's alright, at least we have some clues."

I believe that the group that attacked us tonight was not the same one; there were at least two groups. The first group consisted of sixteen men in black, along with archers lying in ambush on the shore. They completely disregarded the lives of the three of us and were ruthless in their attacks.

The last group to capture Fan Lishen and Uncle Fu to threaten us was a different group. They weren't particularly murderous; they just wanted the items and wanted to leave.

Otherwise, there would be no need to hide behind a crossbow; wouldn't it have been better to just hold a knife to Fan Lishen's neck and threaten him directly? Although the three of us acted quickly, didn't you notice? After we got close, they didn't pull the trigger on the crossbow.

Unlike arrows, crossbows only require a light pull to fire short arrows.

Ah Huang listened attentively, then shook his head. "No, to be precise, the person who kidnapped Li Shen with the crossbow had no intention of killing me. It's normal that they couldn't react because of your amazing lightness skills, but it's different for me. My lightness skills aren't good, and by the time I got close, the person with the crossbow had clearly already reacted."

But I saw hesitation in his eyes.

He must have received orders not to kill me. Someone who doesn't want to kill me…

Ah Huang lowered his head and bit his lip. Zhou Zhao understood. Ah Huang meant that this group might be the Empress's people.

Speaking of which, Ah Huang was placed under the Empress's lap while he was still an infant. No matter what, he should be considered part of the Crown Prince's faction.

However, he was unable to communicate normally with people, and he couldn't even govern his fiefdom on his own. Nobody took him seriously or considered him.

Zhou Zhao smiled at Ah Huang, "Don't overthink it. Tonight, multiple groups will definitely make their move. However, the Third Prince probably wants this even more than the Crown Prince. Since the Empress has obtained it, she can either destroy it and pretend it never happened, or present it to His Majesty and use it as a pretext to demand more compensation."

The Third Prince wanted this because he wanted to make it public, forcing His Majesty to depose the Crown Prince and bring the struggle for the throne into the open.

The Empress's only goal was to prevent this item from falling into the hands of the Third Prince.