Chapter 676: Unworthy of being brothers (I)

Before dawn, the sky and the earth were as dark as ink, and one could not see one's hand in front of one's face in the Tianji Pavilion.

Suddenly, four captains with golden swords holding torches ran into the courtyard where Liu Xunyi lived, startling Ding Chou, who was standing on the stake. He was distracted for a moment and fell off the high wooden stake again.

"Oh my god! I'm going to die from the fall!"

Ding Chou, with a bruised face and nose, endured the pain in his body and struggled to get up from the ground. At the same time, he kept complaining to the four golden sword lieutenants: "It's the middle of the night. What are you doing here instead of sleeping?"

"Xiao Dingzi, is Liu Xunyi in the room?"

Accompanied by a cold inquiry, Qiu Han, with an expressionless face, slowly walked into the courtyard accompanied by Qin Wei.

"Greetings, Master Qiu and Master Qin!"

Upon seeing Qiu and Qin, Ding Chou quickly put away the teasing expression on his face and said, "To answer Lord Qiu's question, Lord Liu has been sleeping in his room since he came back from the Marquis' study."

"Really?" Qiu Han walked straight to the door without stopping.

"I have been practicing martial arts at the door without closing my eyes. I am sure that Lord Liu has not come out." Ding Chou answered confidently.

When he reached the door, Qiu Han did not raise his hand to knock, but put his eyes close to the crack in the door and looked carefully into the dim room.

Qin Wei said: "Brother Qiu, since Brother Liu is sleeping in the room, let's not disturb him."

"We don't have to disturb him, but we have to see him with our own eyes." Qiu Han said without turning his head, "The Marquis ordered us to keep an eye on Liu Xunyi, how can we be careless?"

"Brother Qiu is absolutely right, then..."

"Strange!" Qiu Han suddenly interrupted Qin Wei's conversation and said hesitantly, "With Liu Xunyi's hearing ability, it is impossible for her not to notice that we are outside the door. Why is there no movement in the room?"

"Brother Liu has been in a bad mood recently, drinking to drown his sorrows, often drinking until he is unconscious. He was totally unaware when I pushed the door open in the middle of the night." Qin Wei said with a smile, "It's late at night now, and he must have been drunk again."

"is it?"

Qiu Han frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and then, under Qin Wei's astonished gaze, he snatched the torch from a golden sword captain, pushed open the door, and strode into Liu Xunyi's room with the torch in hand.

The bright torch lit up the room as bright as day. Qiu Han walked to the bedside, gently pushed the heaving quilt with the end of the torch, and shouted, "Liu Xunyi, you..."

Before he finished speaking, Qiu Han's face suddenly changed, and he lifted the quilt without thinking, and found to his shock that there was no trace of Liu Xunyi under the quilt, only two cold pillows.

"Liu Xunyi!"

Qiu Han was furious. He looked around the room with a torch in his hand, then stormed out of the room.

"Brother Qiu, what's the matter?"

Facing Qin Wei's curiosity, Qiu Han turned a deaf ear to him. He rushed to the confused Ding Chou, dropped the torch in his hand, and then grabbed Ding Chou's collar with lightning speed, shouting, "Where is Liu Xunyi?"

"Isn't Master Liu in the room?"

Ding Chou was caught off guard and his face changed color with fear. His thin body couldn't help but tremble.

"Bullshit!" Qiu Han lifted Ding Chou off the ground with one hand and asked again, "Where is Liu Xunyi?"

"I don't know... I really don't know..."

Ding Chou looked aggrieved, and there was a hint of crying in his trembling voice.

Seeing this, Qin Wei hurried forward and said, "Brother Qiu, Ding Chou is still young, don't scare him..."

"Young?" Qiu Han sneered, "Don't forget, you and I had already started killing people when we were his age."

"Hey!" Qin Wei advised, "The present is different from the past, how can you compare it like this, Brother Qiu? Moreover, with Brother Liu's martial arts, if he wants to hide from Xiao Dingzi and leave the room, it is a piece of cake. Why should Brother Qiu bother with a child? What's more, Xiao Dingzi is standing still out of diligence, not because he was ordered to monitor Brother Liu, so..."

"I'm not angry about his dereliction of duty, but about his irresponsible talk!"

After saying that, Qiu Han snorted angrily, swung his arm, and threw Ding Chou more than ten feet away, smashing him heavily to the ground. He wailed in pain and was unable to get up from the ground for a long time.

"Tell the night watch captain to do his best to find Liu Xunyi's whereabouts." Qiu Han ordered, "Even if we have to dig three feet deep, we must find him!"

"As ordered!"

The four golden sword captains accepted the order in unison, then quickly left the courtyard and went to deliver their orders.

"Brother Qiu, since Brother Liu is not in the room, how could he be in the Tianji Pavilion? Wouldn't it be in vain for you to have the officers search the mansion?"

"I don't know how many people outside the Tianji Pavilion want to kill him. Does Liu Xunyi dare to go out?" Qiu Han asked coldly, "Even if he dares to go out, can he come back alive?"

"Brother Qiu underestimates Brother Liu's ability..."

"That's enough!" Qiu Han interrupted impatiently, "There's no point in talking any more. Finding Liu Xunyi is the most important thing. I'll go report to the Marquis, and you go look around!"

After saying this, Qiu Han didn't give Qin Wei any more chances to speak and suddenly turned and left.

"baffling!"

Looking at Qiu Han's hurried back, the kindness on Qin Wei's face disappeared instantly, and a hint of contempt flashed in his eyes.

"Master Qin, why is Master Qiu so angry for no reason?"

Facing Ding Chou's confusion, Qin Wei said meaningfully: "He lost... much more than just a hand."

"What do you mean?"

"No need to ask any more questions! Anyway, you must be very careful in front of him in the future, and be extra cautious in everything you say and do."

Ding Chou was stunned and asked in confusion: "Why?"

"Because Master Qiu's temper...will become more and more strange day by day."

Leaving behind a puzzling answer, Qin Wei no longer paid attention to Ding Chou, who was still in shock. However, he did not follow Qiu Han's order to look for Liu Xunyi's whereabouts, but walked leisurely through the bustling Golden Sword Captains and walked towards his residence.

After a tiring day and tossing and turning in the night, Qin Wei was already extremely sleepy. All he wanted now was to lie down on the bed and have a good sleep.

However, when Qin Wei, stretching and yawning, pushed open the door of his room, he saw a dark and blurry figure sitting at the head of his bed as quiet as a clay sculpture, which startled him and woke him up immediately from his sleepiness.

"who?"

With a shout, Qin Wei drew his sword from its sheath. The cold blade emitted a faint cold light under the reflection of the moonlight.

Facing the eerie blade, the man in black said nothing and slowly raised his head. In the dim moonlight, Qin Wei could vaguely recognize the man's face. "Brother Liu?"

Qin Wei was shocked and quickly sheathed his knife. He asked suspiciously, "Why did you come to my room in the middle of the night?"

"I'm waiting for you."

Liu Xunyi's voice was as calm as water, without a trace of emotion.

"wait for me?"

Qin Wei was stunned and subconsciously closed the door. Then he walked to the table and wanted to light the candlestick on the table.

"No need to light the lamp." Liu Xunyi's voice sounded again.

"This……"

Qin Wei put the knife on the table, looked at the blurry Liu Xunyi with confused eyes, and said jokingly: "Without the light, neither you nor I can see each other."

"It's better not to see it." Liu Xunyi said, "If you see it too clearly, it will be unfamiliar."

"Brother Liu, what's wrong with you?" Qin Wei was not stubborn. He lowered his head and sat down at the table, chatting with Liu Xunyi with great interest. "Do you know that Qiu Han is leading people to look for you everywhere..."

"How did they know I wasn't in the room? Was someone watching me?"

Hearing this, Qin Wei's eyelids twitched slightly, and he smiled faintly, "You worry too much! It's the Marquis who is worried about your safety, afraid that those people from the martial arts world will sneak into the Tianji Pavilion to plot ill, so he ordered us to check on you every once in a while. Just now we found that you were not here, and we were worried that something happened to you, so..."

"I am flattered that you have gone to such great lengths to 'care' about me."

"Brother Liu, what happened to you?" Qin Wei gradually noticed Liu Xunyi's abnormality and asked cautiously, "Where did you go tonight? You definitely didn't come to see me specially."

"Why?"

"You want to chat with me... why do you have to dress up so carefully?" Qin Wei pointed at Liu Xunyi and said teasingly, "Look at your appearance. Even if you say you broke into the palace at night, people will believe it."

Qin Wei's heart was in suspense when he said this. He asked cautiously, "Where...did you go just now?"

"unimportant."

Liu Xunyi's irrelevant answer made Qin Wei even more uneasy.

"That's right." Qin Wei pretended to be calm, "The most important thing is that you come back safely and soundly."

"Brother Qin, do you know what the Marquis wanted to talk to me about?"

Liu Xunyi's unreasonable question made Qin Wei's throat move slightly.

"do not know."

"The Marquis said... Xin'er and I will never be together again in this life." Liu Xunyi said word by word, "Because she is no longer Princess Xinde, but Princess Xinde. Do you know about this?"

"Gulu!"

Qin Wei swallowed subconsciously, thinking of a countermeasure quickly in his mind, and laughed dryly: "I have heard a little about this matter."

"You'll know as soon as I guess."

For some reason, Liu Xunyi's laughter sounded very strange to Qin Wei, even a little scary.

"Brother Liu, I didn't tell you this because I didn't want you to be sad..."

"No need to explain, I understand." Liu Xunyi interrupted Qin Wei, "I'm just a little curious, the Marquis has put me under house arrest in the mansion, is it to protect me? Or is he worried that I will have a secret meeting with Xin'er?"

"Of course... of course I'm protecting you..."

"Oh, right!" Liu Xunyi ignored Qin Wei's answer and said, "There is one more thing. The emperor canonized Xin'er as a princess in order to let her marry the Mongols. And this... is also the fundamental reason why the West Mansion was able to successfully negotiate and make the Mongolian army withdraw northward."

At this moment, Qin Wei felt guilty and his forehead was covered with beads of sweat.

"Really?" Qin Wei pretended to be confused and forced a smile, "This... This is the first time I've heard of this..."

While talking, Qin Wei reached out and groped for the teacup on the table, wanting to drink some water to calm himself.

"Brother Qin, I have hatred in my heart!"

"what?"

"Boom..."

Liu Xunyi's words made Qin Wei tremble, and the teacup in his hand fell onto the table.

"I hate that Xin'er broke her promise and agreed to marry in Mongolia!" Liu Xunyi said with gritted teeth, "The Marquis told me that Xin'er went to Mongolia to marry a foreign prince of her own free will, and no one forced her."

“Is… is that so?” Qin Wei’s body was stiff, his throat was dry, and his tongue was tied. “Is… is there such a thing? Brother Liu, this kind of woman is greedy and vain, easily dislikes the old and loves the new… It’s better not to have her…”

"Being betrayed by the person I trusted the most is heartbreaking!"

"I see……"

"you understand?"

Liu Xunyi suddenly looked up, his pair of deep and bright eyes emitting a faint light in the darkness, which was chilling.

"I……"

"Do you understand?" Facing the bewildered Qin Wei, Liu Xunyi asked again, "Do you really understand?"

"Brother Liu, I understand how you feel now. I know that you were betrayed by Zhao Xin..."

"Since you understand how I feel, why don't you explain the meaning of this thing to me again. Just like... what you said to Xin'er at the beginning!"

After saying that, Liu Xunyi reached into his arms, and under Qin Wei's anxious and frightened gaze, he slowly took out a handkerchief.

When Qin Wei saw this thing, he felt as if his thumping heart was being squeezed hard and shattered. At the same time, his breathing stopped, his blood turned cold, his whole body went numb, and his face turned ashen.

……

(End of this chapter)