Long Summer
The assassins struggled against the Shen Yiren imposter, let alone fighting the imposter and the even more powerful real Shen Yiren simultaneously. They didn’t even see how she put them away. In their profession, rarely were they shown mercy, too. Therefore, they didn’t hesitate to flee when offered the option.
The imposter folded her arms. “You’re just going to let them off? Are you keeping them alive so that they can kill you later?”
“Is that possible with their skills?”
Even though the two were identical to each other in appearance, the auras they emanated were totally different.
Shen Yiren tossed a silver ingot onto the table. “Bring us another five silver taels worth of wine.”
The waiter was still crouched down on the ground until Shen Yiren’s voice snapped him out of it. Still somewhat out of it, he looked up to see two identical maidens. As confused as he was, he didn’t have the guts to inquire. Instead, he raced downstairs after replying, “Here you go. Please take your time.”
The sword-wielding maiden bobbed her head. “You certainly should treat me to a drink. You think it’s easy to go around fooling people into believing I’m you?”
Shen Yiren’s imposter was none other than the former Evil Spirits’ disguise expert – Mountain Monster. Shen Yiren called her along when she left the capital, and nobody knew she had left since she was an expert at covert operations.
Mountain Monster’s disguise method required a fresh corpse to produce a perfect disguise.
Since Shen Yiren revealed herself, it meant that Mountain Monster’s job was complete, so she removed her disguise. While her height wasn’t too far off Shen Yiren’s, she had to fill up a lot of other spots to sport an identical body. As she dumped the plethora of stuffing onto the table, Mountain Monster grumbled, “It’s more tiring to pose as you than to pose as three other people. I can put up with having to stuff myself full to get your mountains, but I have to deal with all the scumbags ogling me. If I had a bad temper, I’d have reduced them to ashes… dug their graves and erected their tombstones.”
Shen Yiren cast a quick glance at Mountain Monster and then grinned. “Didn’t you get to eat, drink, play and shop? I covered all your expenses. Would you get to live so comfortably outside of a city?”
As soon as food and drinks were mentioned, Mountain Monster stopped whining. She honestly did live comfortably with the budget she was provided; she made sure to indulge in dining and drinking.
“Come, have a seat. This wine really is decent,” enthusiastically invited Mountain Monster. “You’re too honest for your own sake. You’re wasting your potential as a constable. Ever heard of squeezing the people for yourself? Are you really going to pay five silver taels? I didn’t even spend five silver taels for these two jugs and all this meat.”
Shen Yiren smiled. “You know how to enjoy yourself, but you didn’t realise they switched out the jugs.”
Once she was enlightened, Mountain Monster yelled, “Hammers are for hitting iron. My fists are for bashing them!” However, Shen Yiren stopped her before she could unleash hell.
“They transparently stated their price was five silver taels a jug, but you insisted. How can you argue that they’re unreasonable?”
“If nothing else, I need to give them a beating…”
Shen Yiren ended Mountain Monster’s fuss with a glare. “Is it even an issue worth fighting over? Liu Shan Men frowns upon bullying the weak more than anything. Don’t make the mistake around me, or I’ll spank you with a rod.”
“You’re going to hit me? After everything I’ve done?”
Shen Yiren clobbered Mountain Monster over the head before the latter saw it coming. “You’re a glutton, and you’ve been getting into fights everywhere. You’ve been ruining my reputation. You think I’m Feizhen?”
With watery eyes and her hands on her head, Mountain Monster mumbled, “Your reputation isn’t any better than his. Didn’t I leave out your ‘love-to-slash-people’ trait? I can’t believe you’d still hit me, thug… By the way, why did you show yourself? You haven’t answered me. You were the one who said she wouldn’t show herself unless it was a life and death situation, so I was supposed to hope I was lucky. You needed a drink?”
“Pfft, you think I’m you?”
The two of them had always been around each other for the last fortnight. They got along perfectly fine since they were both straight shooters. While Mountain Monster operated iconspicuously, deliberately letting people know Shen Yiren was present, Shen Yiren shadowed her from the shadows. Using her observation skills, Shen Yiren was able to see every detail. At the same time, she maintained contact with the capital to figure out where her target was.
As soon as the wine was served up, Shen Yiren picked up the jug and knocked back a big mouthful.
“Isn’t that mine?! You seem carefree. Isn’t the capital in chaos?”
“It is.” Shen Yiren set down the jug and pulled her brows together, not happy with how tasteless the wine was. “There’s no point in me worry about it, though. I’m better of spending that time searching for the enemy and hostages. It’s been my job since the beginning, and there’s no reason to quit half way.”
“And you’ve progressed?”
“I’ve discovered the three moles in the capital and sent their locations back to the capital. The mirage won’t cause any furtherissues. However, we still need to locate the hostages.” Shen Yiren had another mouthful of wine. Instead of looking drunk, she looked more energetic with each drink. “I came out because I just received some news. We need to wait here for a certain person. Once he shows up, our job is pretty much done.”
Since waiting for someone didn’t sound risky, Mountain Monster let down her guard to enjoy the food and wine whilst engaging in casual chatter.
“Did the Emperor piss his pants when he saw the mirage?”
“Wawa…”
“It’s not like it’s never happened before. As soon as Tiezhen’s young King heard there was war, he turned as pale as if he saw a ghost, hahaha.”
Over the course of the long summer day, there was laughter, the sound of people hitting their tables, the waiter’s voice, the sound of guests snoring, and the ringing of coins as they went into cashier all mixed together.
“Just who are we waiting for? Tell me so that I can mentally prepare myself.”
“Well, that’d be… No need to wait any longer.”
The waiter’s voice could be heard as he loudly expressed, “Welcome, guests. Please come on in. Please head upstairs to enjoy our idyllic atmosphere.”
“Sure.” A scholar attired in black and his companion sauntered up the stairs and entered Shen Yiren’s field of view.
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