Jiaohua

Chapter 1624 Bloodbath at the Funeral Palace

The person standing over there was the assassin Pei Huirao had sent to deliver a message to him.

The assassin was tall and burly, dressed in the mourning clothes of a funeral palace guard, and stood motionless on the sentry post.

Instead of avoiding Tian Wu's gaze, he was the one who stared intently at Tian Wu from the very beginning.

Tian Wu clenched his fists and strode away.

"You guys are really bold!" Tian Wu gritted his teeth and said in a low voice, "Who let you stand here? Was it that lowly servant Pei Huirao?"

The assassin replied, "Madam Pei is not a lowly servant."

"What are you trying to do? This is a funeral parlor, how dare you cause such a ruckus?!"

The assassin said, "Lord Tian, ​​if you don't want to die, don't meddle in other people's business. Otherwise, the crime of letting me go instead of arresting me will ruin your future at best, and at worst, Song Zhiyi will tear you to pieces."

Tian Wu was so angry that the veins on his forehead bulged: "You!...You ungrateful wretch!"

"Lord Tian, ​​you may go your way."

After saying that, the assassin stopped talking to him.

Tian Wu glared at him coldly, then flung his hand away and quickly left.

Ding Renzhong, standing behind Tian Wu, saw from afar that Tian Wu exchanged a few words with the guard before storming off. Ding Renzhong's gaze then turned to the guard.

The guard turned his head and looked at Ding Renzhong.

The guard's eyes were filled with disgust, showing no respect whatsoever.

This was the funeral parlor, so Ding Renzhong didn't bother arguing with him and walked away.

Upon exiting, they found Tian Wu whispering among himself and his entourage.

Ding Renzhong knew that the two attendants were also martial arts followers, and that they were extremely skilled.

“Master,” Ding Renzhong’s steward hurried over, “would you like our carriage to come over, or would you like to walk?”

Ding Renzhong gave a perfunctory reply, but didn't move; his ears were perked up.

After hearing only two sentences, Tian Wu got into the carriage, and then the carriage drove away.

His two bodyguards did not follow him; instead, they pretended to have something to do and went to the other side.

Ding Renzhong immediately whispered in the steward's ear.

The butler nodded: "Yes, sir."

All the officials left the city on foot, but their families would prepare carriages to pick them up and take them back.

Ding Renzhong's carriage followed far behind Tian Wu's carriage.

Tian Wu deliberately slowed down his carriage, and when he reached a field in the suburbs, he changed course and drove in the other direction.

Many of the villages and manors outside Yong'an's outer city were connected with powerful and wealthy families. Tian Wu's carriage stopped beside the ancestral field of a certain large family and then remained stationary.

Time passed slowly, and Ding Renzhong had no idea what he was doing in the carriage.

As the day drew to a close, Tian Wu finally got off the carriage, his clothes now dressed as a farmer.

Then he returned towards the funeral palace.

Ding Renzhong immediately told his coachman to take off his clothes, and he put on the coachman's clothes.

There were still quite a few people at the funeral palace, mostly from the Ministry of Rites.

Liu Renshu didn't leave either. He rested in the next room, but he was actually restless inside, constantly asking his attendants what time it was.

For the first time, Liu Renshu felt that time was passing so slowly. He couldn't wait any longer, so he took out the mourning clothes he had prepared in advance, changed into them, tidied himself up, and then quietly slipped out to find someone.

Just as he opened the door and stepped out, there was a commotion behind the funeral hall.

A large group of assassins dressed in mourning clothes rushed in and headed straight for the main hall.

Liu Renshu was so frightened that he quickly shrank back.

Not long after, screams rang out from outside.

The assassins carried gleaming knives and slashed at anyone they saw.

Screams of panic erupted outside as people fled, and countless cries of alarm rang out that an assassin was at work.

Liu Renshu's entourage drew their weapons and stood at the door. Liu Renshu was also afraid, fearing that "his own people" might accidentally kill him in the chaos.

Fortunately, nothing happened here.

Liu Renshu breathed a long sigh of relief.

"My lord, shall we go and take a look?" a servant asked. "Not now," Liu Renshu replied.

The funeral palace was not without guards; the commotion of this group attacking from behind quickly alerted the guards in front.

These guards were mostly palace guards and imperial guards, and there were also two squads of Xingping soldiers.

They rushed over, but were no match for them.

They outnumbered the assassins four to one, but each assassin was highly skilled and could take on ten opponents at once.

Furthermore, the military strategies and formations they had learned were completely ineffective, and their forces were also numerous and disorganized.

Soon, the outcome was clear.

The first group of assassins rushed into the main hall. One group rushed towards Yan Qinglin's coffin, while another group rushed towards the funerary objects displayed inside the hall.

In a proper burial, the funerary objects would be placed in the burial chamber in advance through a secret passage.

The coffin had already been nailed shut, but the assassins, prepared for the occasion, pried the nails off.

The outer coffin is easy to open, but the inside is very difficult; it can't be pried open.

A large number of guards surged in from the front, and some of the assassins had to be sent to intercept them.

Blood quickly flowed like a river inside the hall, and a foul odor filled the air.

When Ding Renzhong rushed back and saw this scene, he was shocked.

He had long since lost track of Tian Wu, and now he had no idea where Tian Wu had gone.

His eyes darted around as he wondered if all of this had anything to do with Tian Wu.

Otherwise, why would Tian Wu come back?
However, Ding Renzhong soon realized that regardless of whether the two were related or not, what he had to do was to force them to be related.

Many officials fled desperately through the front gate, while the Ding people, not wanting to be seen, quickly hid to the side.

He stumbled and cried out in alarm, but it was too late. He fell into the common anti-theft traps found around the funeral palace.

But it was because of this fall that he managed to avoid another assassin who appeared out from the other side.

The assassins charged straight at the fleeing officials, who, having nowhere to escape, were all brutally murdered.

Inside the funeral hall, the assassins, unable to pry open the nails, grew impatient and began to curse loudly.

Liao Yi and Ling'er arrived and investigated, discovering that there was a hidden secret within.

"What should we do?" Liao Yi asked Ling'er.

“I’m not in charge,” Ling’er said.

Liao Yi looked at the chaotic artifacts inside the hall.

They were all imitations of Yan Qinglin's dressing table, clothes, incense burners, etc., and none of them were actually useful.

Liao Yi quickly came up with an idea: "Let's take this coffin away!"

Yan Qinglin's coffin was made according to the highest standards, with three layers, in accordance with the ritual system of the Great Qian Dynasty.

Outer coffin, middle coffin, and mortuary coffin.

The cart they had prepared beforehand for transporting burial goods could be used to carry the coffin inside.

After it's transported out, we'll see whether to smash it with a boulder or pierce it with an awl.

The coffin was quickly moved to the back.

Corpses were everywhere, some from guards, others from their own men.

Neither Liao Yi nor Ling'er could have noticed in such a chaotic scene that a group of people who were not on their side had taken the clothes of their subordinates, put them on, and quietly blended in with them as they left.

After the assassins left, the entire funeral palace suddenly fell into a deathly silence.

After a long while, Liu Renshu opened the door from inside the house.

He had just stepped out when he heard shouts and curses coming from ahead.

He tried to dodge, but it was too late.

The person who came by happened to see him.

Liu Renshu and Tian Wu locked eyes, and Liu Renshu also heard clearly what Tian Wu had just said.

Tian Wu angrily rebuked the assassin disguised as a guard: "Are you all insane! Why are you killing people? There are so many corpses, what exactly do you want to do!"

Upon seeing Liu Renshu, Tian Wu felt as if he had swallowed a toad.

The assassin was pushed to the ground by him. Besides the assassin, there were also two of Tian Wu's bodyguards nearby.