Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Although the Young Marquis was blind, he did have pretty good martial arts skills, and his sound localization ability wasn’t just a baseless rumor. The Young Marquis was actually capable of sound localization. From the looks of it, these people seemed to treat the Young Marquis very well and take extra care to attend to his needs, so the bodyguards guessed they could trust that these people wouldn’t allow the Young Marquis to suffer so much as a little bump.
But they had miscalculated human nature.
…
When the Young Marquis accurately shot a rabbit, the crowd cheered loudly in unison.
Tan Weizhi’s expression turned dark upon hearing the crowd’s cheers. But when he thought about what he planned to do next, he felt better again.
“There’s a deer over there!” Tan Weizhi whispered.
“Where? Where?” the others hurriedly asked, but also in a whisper, for fear of scaring away the deer that Tan Weizhi was talking about.
“Over there! Look, it just sprang into that bush. Let’s go after it.” Tan Weizhi pointed to a bush not far ahead and said, “You all have to hurry and go and chase the deer out here so that the Young Marquis can show off his skills. Tonight, we can drink the blood of the deer!” Tan Weizhi’s low and soft voice was filled with excitement.
Such words obviously encouraged the crowd. Everyone stooped over and soundlessly inched toward the bush. Only Tan Weizhi and Xiao Anning were left standing there.
“Young Marquis, move a little over here,” Tan Weizhi said to Xiao Anning in a voice that was only audible to him and Xiao Anning. Then he reminded the Young Marquis, “Watch your step. Move a little more to this side. When they chase it out, it’ll be better to shoot it from here.”
Xiao Anning had barely taken a step when he felt something push him from behind. He was forcefully thrown forward. Then, he plummeted and found himself in the middle of a rapid descent.
He had been pushed down into a pit by Tan Weizhi!
At that moment, the round-faced young man who was at the front of the group that had gone chasing after the deer suddenly turned his head just in time to witness the very moment where Xiao Anning fell into the pit. He saw the malicious smirk on Tan Weizhi’s face.
The round-faced young man’s face was full of fear as he questioned loudly in a trembling voice, “What have you done? Don’t you know who he is?”
He experienced a moment of panic at first, but then soon calmed down. “You saw it all,” Tan Weizhi said in a calm voice.
“Do you know what you’ve done? Quickly, pull the Young Marquis out,” the round-faced young man shouted loudly in a hurry.
“It’s useless, this pit is so deep that you can’t see the bottom, and we don’t even know where it leads to.” A creepy smile appeared on Tan Weizhi’s face, and he said, “Now we’re all in the same boat. As long as our stories are consistent, and we say that the Young Marquis accidentally fell into the pit, then nothing will happen to us…” He had chanced upon this inconspicuous pit before. It was bottomless and steep, so there was simply no way anyone could fall into it and hope to survive.
Tan Weizhi hadn’t yet said his piece when he saw a fist flying at him, seemingly growing larger and larger as it neared his face. The round-faced young man practically used all the strength he could muster to throw out such a powerful punch. His fist crashed into Tan Weizhi’s face.
Everyone could hear the cracking sound of bones breaking. The bridge of Tan Weizhi’s nose had been broken by the round-faced young man.
“I always knew that you were quite ruthless, and it’s quite normal for a government official to be a little ruthless. But it never occurred to me until now that you’re not only vicious but foolish!” the round-faced young man reprimanded him. “Don’t you know the Young Marquis’s status? Even the emperor loves and cherishes him. You see those guards out there. The emperor handpicked them all himself to guard him. How could you be so foolish? Do you really think that you can just absolve yourself of all blame by simply saying that the Young Marquis slipped and fell into the pit by accident? Even if the Young Marquis really did slip and fall into the pit by accident, all of us here, even our families, wouldn’t get off the hook so easily. The second the Young Marquis fell into the pit, the second we were all condemned to wait and meet our doom.”
Hearing what the round-faced young man said, the crowd grew even more fearful.
Yes, the Young Marquis. That was the Young Marquis. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that everyone’s love was centered on him and him alone. If something were to happen to him, they couldn’t even imagine how angry the Duke and his family would be. And there was also the Young Marquis’ mother, Princess Yong An, who was the daughter of the present Prince Ying. And who was Prince Ying? He was the only baby brother of the present emperor, born to the same mother, and it was simply needless to mention the affection that the emperor had for him.