The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 144 Night Detective
The moon rises above the willow branches, and people feel sorrow after dusk.

Wu Chengyu left the restaurant, easily shaking off his pursuers, and casually found an inn to stay at.

He sat alone in the room, looking at the waning moon outside the window, his brow furrowed, a bitter smile playing on his lips.

He had previously promised Lu Zhiyi and others that he would kill Shi Miyuan within a month, and then plunged into Hangzhou. But now he was at a loss and had no clue what to do.

To assassinate Shi Miyuan, the first step is to identify the target. However, Wu Chengyu suddenly realized that he had never met Shi Miyuan and had no idea what he looked like.

Although Wu Chengyu casually asked about Shi Miyuan's appearance during the interrogation of Shi Shun, the image in Wu Chengyu's mind remained vague despite Shi Shun's verbal description.

Medium build, regular features, slightly narrow eyes, three long wisps of beard, etc., were all nonsense to Wu Chengyu.

He wasn't like those portrait artists in later crime films, who could form a concrete image in their minds based solely on someone's description and then translate it into writing, drawing the target's appearance with remarkable accuracy.

Even they had to constantly communicate with the person giving the interview, make repeated adjustments, and have the other party carefully confirm before they could truly determine the final target image.

A portrait of Shi Miyuan is also hard to find, but even if you do find one, what good will it do?

Nowadays, we don't have the realistic sketching techniques of later generations. We're used to seeing modern, extremely clear photographs. If you give Wu Chengyu a brush portrait of an ancient person and ask him to search all over Hangzhou for that person based on the picture, it would be a miracle if he could find it.

The worst-case scenario is that when he holds up the portrait to Shi Miyuan, he won't even recognize who the other person is.

It's hard for modern people to understand how people in ancient times managed to capture people all over the world using photos on bounty posters that were often highly distorted.

Recalling the news heard in the restaurant, it was clear that many martial arts practitioners had attacked the Shi residence at night in recent days, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries.

Wu Chengyu immediately abandoned the idea of ​​directly entering the Shi residence to assassinate him.

After Qin Hui was exonerated, everyone knew that someone wanted to assassinate Shi Miyuan, and Shi Miyuan himself knew it even better.

This is still a martial arts world, where heroes use their skills to break the law. It's perfectly normal for those masters to go and assassinate someone when they get carried away with their passion.

In fact, this wasn't just limited to the world of martial arts; in real history, there were also assassination attempts against Shi Miyuan. Song Dynasty military officers Luo Riyuan and Zhang Xing also planned an assassination attempt, but unfortunately, their attempt also failed.

Shi Miyuan never dared to neglect the protection of his own life.

It's easy to imagine that Shi Miyuan in this world must have set up a trap immediately, just waiting for these people to come to him, or even fearing that they wouldn't come.

Shi Miyuan's residence is now a den of dragons and tigers, with countless imperial guards lying in ambush within.

Zhao Feng and Huyan Moluo are definitely not the top experts among the palace guards. Wu Chengyu firmly believes that there are top experts in the palace who are no less than the Five Greats. They may be sitting in the Shi residence right now. Wu Chengyu is unwilling to walk into a trap.

However, after much deliberation, Wu Chengyu suddenly felt that a trip to the Shi residence was imperative.

To convince these martial arts masters to keep coming back for him, they must first believe that Shi Miyuan is in the mansion, or at least that someone saw him enter.

A noble son would not risk his life, so Shi Miyuan would certainly not do so himself. Therefore, a treacherous official like him, with many political enemies and adversaries, must have had a double, or even more than one.

This is easy to understand; even with Qin Hui's enormous head, which had a circumference of 59 cm, they could find someone who looked exactly like him.

Therefore, Wu Chengyu's idea was simple: first, find this double. The double and the real person would be at least 80% similar, thus revealing Shi Miyuan's appearance to him. Wu Chengyu immediately changed into a set of night clothes, sneaked out of the inn under the cover of night, and rushed towards the Shi residence.

Shi Miyuan's mansion was located behind Hefang Street, the most bustling street in Hangzhou. It was a typical mansion of a high-ranking official in the Song Dynasty, with a grand scale, rigorous layout, and majestic and luxurious appearance.

The mansion contains multiple courtyards and buildings, forming a complex architectural complex with pavilions and towers standing side by side. It is a typical classical Jiangnan garden-style building, covering an area of ​​3 hectares. Even people with a poor sense of direction can get lost after living there for three months.

The plaque above the main gate reads "Privy Councilor's Residence," but it was not yet the Prime Minister's Residence at that time.

In addition, four large red lanterns hang on the gate, and on each side there is a square stone block representing an official seal or a book box, with a pair of stone lions carved on it.

In the dead of night, the gates of the Shi residence were tightly shut. Unlike usual, the heavy vermilion gates bore many marks of being hacked and stabbed. The bloodstains were no longer visible, but anyone who approached would inevitably smell a strong stench of blood.

The mansion was completely silent, and the usual bright lights were nowhere to be seen; only a few lamps remained.

The vast mansion was like a pack of wild beasts waiting to devour anyone they saw, and the few lights were like the murderous and greedy eyes of those beasts in the darkness.

Wu Chengyu was not so stubborn as to just storm the door. Moreover, he keenly sensed that there were also some people hiding around the Shi residence. They were dressed exactly like the people who were keeping watch on the street during the day. These people were not patrolling the streets, but hiding in some houses around the Shi residence.

According to Wu Chengyu's understanding, these people were not stopping others from entering the mansion to assassinate, but rather to prevent someone from breaking into the mansion and then running away.

He moved stealthily, as light as a cat, quietly slipping through the shadows of the night, carefully avoiding the people watching from the outside, circling the Shi residence, and suddenly stopped at the northeast corner of the Shi residence, where he quietly hid behind a tree.

Because a group of people dressed in the same night clothes appeared in front of him.

There were about twenty of these people in total. The weapons they held did not reflect light at all under the moonlight. Wu Chengyu's sense of smell told him that the blades of these people should all be coated with a layer of ink. They were more thoughtful than those who directly rushed into the gate.

They were all crouching in the corner, whispering among themselves.

"Are you sure you saw that scoundrel Shi Miyuan return to the Shi residence this evening?"

"Don't worry, brother. I, Wang Liu, am known for my sharp eyes. I saw everything clearly. Around dusk, that thief Shi returned in a carriage from who knows where. They didn't go through the main gate, but secretly entered the mansion through the side gate."

I saw with my own eyes that Shi Zei lifted the curtain and whispered to the person next to him before the carriage entered the gate; there's no mistake about it.

"As long as he is in the manor, that's fine. We must kill this traitor tonight to avenge Grandfather Yue, otherwise I will not be able to quell the hatred in my heart."

"Is everyone here?"

"Brother Liu, we have all arrived. We are all brothers who have come from all over the country. The Three Heroes of Hengyang, the Seven Heroes of Yuelu, and the Five Eagles of Dongting are all good brothers who dare to fight and are extremely loyal."

"That's good. People have been breaking into the Shi residence through the main gate for days. Those imperial henchmen must be heavily guarding the place."

I have already explored the layout of the Shi family mansion. Behind this wall is the Shi family's back garden, which has always been the closest to the inner residence.

"We'll scale the wall and sneak into the inner quarters without alerting anyone. Then, at my command, you'll unleash a massacre. They're all members of the Shi family; none are innocent. You must force Shi Miyuan out and hand him over to me."

(End of this chapter)