Chapter 32: Acquaintance
The great hall in Aurora Pavilion was extremely spacious. Nine vermillion pillars carved with lifelike exotic beasts stood tall, supporting the painted cloud palace dome—the height of luxury.
Wind blew in through the carved wooden windows. Gorgeous curtains hung and swayed. The young people standing in various places throughout the hall were all silent and quiet.
Occasionally, someone conversed in low whispers. Falling into Li Musheng's ears, this let him generally understand some events that had recently occurred in Aurora Pavilion.
"Those five people's deaths should have been caused by Northern Qi Dark Energy. From this perspective, Aurora Pavilion isn't very peaceful at all."
Li Musheng withdrew his gaze from that woman in the hall, his peripheral vision glancing toward a certain place as he pondered thoughtfully.
After everyone had arrived, a middle-aged man wearing a dark dragon-fish robe and four eunuchs in purple silk robes strode in.
Behind the five people followed a group of young eunuchs and armored guards, clattering into the center of the hall. Their footsteps suddenly stopped with a solemn atmosphere.
All the young people cast their gazes over. The atmosphere in the hall became somewhat heavy for a moment.
"Young masters, everyone must know about last night's events. We've now found clues to the culprit. We trouble everyone to cooperate with the Tianjin Guards' upcoming investigation."
Suppression Commissioner Yu Jin had no unnecessary words. Opening his mouth, he went straight to the point. Hearing this, everyone in the hall showed various expressions. A young man wearing scholarly robes took the lead in cupping his hands and bowing to Yu Jin, "We trouble Lord Yu. As long as we can root out that perpetrator, we naturally fully support any arrangements from the Tianjin Bureau."
At these words, several more people hurriedly spoke up, expressing their agreement with sincere words.
Li Musheng scanned the several people competing to speak. Each had extraordinary bearing, clearly from good backgrounds, with considerable martial Dao cultivation.
At the same time, Grand Eunuch An Quan's gaze passed over everyone, obscurely looking toward Li Musheng in the corner.
When he saw that face, An Quan's eyes suddenly narrowed slightly, showing a trace of surprise.
At this time, Yu Jin turned back and cupped his hands, "I trouble the eunuchs to examine the Tianquan acupoints of all the young masters. However, be extremely careful not to be contaminated by that Northern Qi Dark Energy."
Hearing this, An Quan imperceptibly withdrew his gaze. He and the other three grand eunuchs nodded lightly, then stepped toward the various young people in the hall.
Li Musheng in the corner secretly raised his eyebrows, "This old eunuch is staring at me. He's probably that young eunuch's godfather."
He momentarily recalled Little An's earlier questions, only hoping the Tianjin Guards wouldn't be too stupid and take him as the so-called culprit.
At this time, Li Musheng suddenly discovered that the woman disguised as a man was also looking at him.
Moreover, after seeing him, as if pleasantly surprised to have discovered something, she walked directly toward him.
Soon, she stopped before Li Musheng, smiling and cupping her hands in salute, "I'm Li Yuan. May I know brother's name?"
Li Musheng observed her. Her features were handsome, but she had a beard on her chin and an Adam's apple, and her voice was also a normal male voice.
But he could be certain she was definitely a woman. The aura between men and women was different. Even eunuchs were very different.
Perhaps others couldn't perceive it, but for Li Musheng, he could clearly sense the difference.
From this, it was evident that her disguise technique was extremely sophisticated. It wasn't just simple disguise and altered appearance but could also change certain significant external characteristics, making it difficult to distinguish true from false.
"Li Musheng."
Li Musheng nodded lightly toward her while lowering his voice with a smile, "Is Li Yuan Miss's real name?"
At these words, the handsome young man before him was clearly stunned, standing in place dazed for a while.
However, she didn't seem panicked. Instead, a trace of unusual brilliance appeared in her eyes as she quietly transmitted her voice with true qi, "How did you know my true identity?"
Li Musheng shrugged, "Naturally, I could tell at a glance."
However, he glanced at her and asked somewhat curiously, "You admitted it so frankly. Aren't you afraid I'll expose this matter?"
However, the young man before him didn't answer his question. Instead, her gaze stared fixedly at him, "Would you do that?"
Li Musheng thoughtfully stroked his chin, "I'm relatively handsome—I admit that. But do I really look that much like a good person?"
Hearing this, Li Yuanling blinked her eyes and seriously stared at Li Musheng, looking him up and down for quite a while. Then she suddenly relaxed her brows and eyes, revealing a smile all over her face.
"Brother Li is very interesting, completely different from anyone I've seen."
Saying this, she swept her gaze around the great hall before them, "Right now, Aurora Pavilion is too dangerous. Brother Li had better stay by my side. I can protect your safety."
Now Li Musheng was truly puzzled, asking with a suspicious expression, "Miss, have we met before?"
"We didn't know each other before, but now we do."
Li Yuanling took out a folding fan from her waist. With a light shake, the fan opened to reveal a painting of returning birds at sunset, looking truly carefree and elegant, "Brother Li, I feel like meeting you was far too late!"
Hearing this, Li Musheng showed a pondering expression and slowly nodded.
Riddle-speakers were really interesting.
However, he could clearly see that this woman disguised as a man probably "knew" him.
But he had never left Shun'an City for over ten years. Aside from Cang Yinyue, how could there possibly be anyone he knew in Shangyang City?
So the great likelihood was that what she recognized was actually this face of his.
As Li Musheng was thinking, a burst of shocked exclamations suddenly arose in the great hall.
One of the grand eunuchs had discovered Northern Qi Dark Energy on a young man. Immediately after, several more people were found to have the same situation.
For a moment, this caused quite a commotion.
The one examining Li Musheng was Grand Eunuch An Quan. He naturally couldn't possibly find any Northern Qi Dark Energy in Li Musheng's body.
However, when he examined Li Musheng's meridians and discovered there wasn't half a bit of true qi, his entire person clearly felt extremely surprised.
Of course, he didn't make a fuss about it. He only looked at Li Musheng in shock and suspicion once before returning to the center of the hall.
In the end, the examination revealed that including the previous young man, a total of ten people had secretly been infected with Northern Qi Dark Energy.
This also meant that these ten people would very likely die suddenly in their rooms tonight like the previous five people.
"We must quickly find out the culprit who's sabotaging things. Otherwise, even more people will be harmed."
Yu Jin's expression was gloomy. This person dared to wantonly kill people right under the Tianjin Guards' noses. This was completely a provocation against him and the entire Tianjin Guards.
Moreover, among these people in Aurora Pavilion, there might very well be the real Seventh Prince. If something happened, even his own head probably wouldn't be safe.
Just at this time, a guard hurriedly entered the hall and reported, "My lord, people from Six Doors have arrived."