I'm not a fortune teller.

Chapter 14: A Strange Plague

"Sir, you are joking. I am paid by the court, and it is my duty to help the crown prince in times of danger. Sir, there is no need to provoke me with such radical words."

Zhang Rui gave the answer almost immediately.

The reason was very simple. If I had not kept the scroll with the surname Tian, I would never have gotten involved in this muddy water. But I have been implicated. With the madness of the old emperor in my novel in his later years, unless I defected with my entire family, there was a high probability that my entire family would end up dead. In this case, I might as well try to change my luck.

"I was not wrong about you. You are indeed a loyal and honest person!" Chen Xiao smiled gently.

"Thank you for the compliment, sir." Zhang Rui waved his hands repeatedly, but sneered in his heart.

He was not at all impressed by this group of lunatics who were willing to sacrifice the lives of the entire city's people. They were just doing it for their own selfish desires. He was not a good person either, but he still could not do such a cruel thing.

After this incident, try to stay away from it!
"Is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince safe now?" Zhang Rui asked the question he was most concerned about.

The key is how long the prince can hold on.

"Your Highness is now under the personal protection of General Long. Although the elite troops of the Yuchi family have lost most of their lives, there are still tens of thousands of soldiers. In addition to the sorcerers assigned by the Imperial Palace, there is no force in the North Sea that can attack and harm Your Highness, but the problem is."

"That mysterious disease?"

"Yes," Chen Xiao nodded. "The person who spread the disease must be found, otherwise the prince will bear the lives of the people in the city. Even if we say that we acted on our own, His Royal Highness the Prince cannot escape the blame. Once this matter is publicized, the prince's position will be in jeopardy!"

"Does this mean that the news from Beihai has been blocked by you?" Zhang Rui noticed this keenly.

"The Yuchi family's control of Beihai for a thousand years is no joke." Chen Xiao whispered, "Although the Crown Prince's mother's family suffered a heavy blow this time, their foundation is still there, and they have countless masters under their command. With the Yuchi family blocking Beihai City, not even a fly can fly out!"

"Forced blockade?" Zhang Rui frowned. "Can't we just say that those people died of the plague? Anyway, the city is suffering from the plague, right?"

"No." Chen Xiao looked at Zhang Rui strangely: "The traces of the forbidden technique are very large, and it will breed a lot of resentful spirits. We must send a great sorcerer and the army to suppress it. This cannot be concealed. Your Excellency doesn't seem to understand this?"

Zhang Rui: “.”

"Sir, there is no need to test me. I am not from any noble family and I don't know much about sorcerers." Zhang Rui responded with a smile. He didn't care whether the other party believed him or not and continued to talk about the situation on the prince's side. "What I mean is that we must find the murderer who caused the epidemic before the blockade of the North Sea is forcibly lifted by the court, and put all the blame on him?"

"Yes," Chen Xiao said seriously, "The tragedy in the North Sea this time was all caused by the planning of that group of crazy people. They should be cursed by everyone, not His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

Zhang Rui nodded, but he could see clearly in his heart that the group of people who plotted against the prince were insane, and you who were protecting the prince were not much different.

"I have a very curious question. Sir, you just said that after the forbidden technique was used, almost all the people in Beihai City died. Shouldn't it be much easier to find the murderer? There shouldn't be any traces at all?"

"This is also the problem we are struggling with now." Chen Xiao said in a deep voice: "After the forbidden technique, almost all the people in Beihai City died. Not to mention ordinary people, those smaller families were not spared. Except for a few families affiliated with Yuchi, basically no one survived."

Zhang Rui felt cold at heart when he heard this. All the people in the city were killed, but the Yuchi family and its affiliated families were not seriously injured. Perhaps this was not luck, but deliberate. These guys...
"But His Royal Highness has fallen ill again!"

"Ah?" Zhang Rui was stunned: "He got it again?"

"Yes." Chen Xiao's face was solemn when he said this: "Even with the protection of countless people, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince still contracted the disease again, and the disease quickly spread in the Yuchi family. Even the head of the family, General Yuchi Peng, was not spared and is now in a serious condition."

"This..." Zhang Rui took a breath. The prince's group of people finally used forbidden techniques. They must have made the most vicious decision. They killed no one in the city, and even the noble families were slaughtered. In this case, all sources of the epidemic must have been eliminated. But even so, the prince still got infected?

This is a bit weird.
"Inside the Yuchi family?" Zhang Rui frowned.

"This is the only guess, but," Chen Xiao sighed, "Your Excellency also knows that they are the Crown Prince's maternal family, and they are very supportive of the Crown Prince. Whether in terms of relationship or motivation, we have no reason to doubt them. In fact, we, the Crown Prince's staff, may be more suspicious. This is why we have to quickly recruit Master Tian Ye back."

Zhang Rui nodded when he heard this. This was indeed the truth. The Yuchi family had a queen, and the prince was the queen's biological son. What was even more rare was that the current emperor was not afraid of the Yuchi family because of this. Instead, he allowed the prince to come to Beihai to improve his reputation. This proved that his majesty trusted the Yuchi family very much. It could be predicted that after the prince ascended the throne, the Yuchi family would definitely move to a higher level.

In this situation, unless the Yuchi family had the idea of rebelling and establishing themselves as the emperor, they should not have tried to murder the prince.

"What kind of disease is it? Are you completely helpless?" Zhang Rui suddenly became curious. "It should be the work of a sorcerer. The symptoms are extremely strange. At the beginning, the patient will have a strange smile, regardless of the occasion. Then black blood will start to flow from all seven orifices, with an exaggerated fishy smell. Then the patient will become extremely manic, with a distorted face, and will start to scratch his own flesh like crazy. The patient's flesh will fall off like tofu, until his whole body is rotten and his death is extremely tragic!"

"This..." Zhang Rui widened his eyes.

"We thought of many ways of transmission, maybe blood, maybe through breathing, but all our preventive measures were useless."

After saying that, looking at Zhang Rui's wide-eyed and somewhat dazed expression, Chen Xiao frowned slightly: "This sounds a bit weird. Even if I were Lord Zhang, I would be scared."

Zhang Rui came to his senses after hearing this and smiled awkwardly, but his heart was in turmoil.

He was not scared but shocked. Why did this thing sound so much like something in another of his scrapped manuscripts?
What Zhang Rui was more concerned about was
"Is this the smile Mr. Chen just mentioned?"

As Zhang Rui spoke, a very subtle and weird smile appeared on his face.

Chen Xiao and the others were startled, and several guards almost drew their weapons. Chen Xiao calmed down a bit, and looked at Zhang Rui, who had put away his smile, and said, "Have you met Lord Zhang?"

"Not before." Zhang Rui shook his head: "I want to ask, do those who are sick deny that they have laughed?"

"Yes" Chen Xiao nodded quickly, thinking to himself: Does this county magistrate really have any clues? Mr. Tianji was right, there really is a noble person!

"Oh, that's right." Zhang Rui looked at them dimly, and he said, these guys just now suddenly laughed there for no reason, what the hell were they laughing for. So that's what was going on.

Just as he was about to speak, he was interrupted by Murong Yunji's childish female voice.

"Not quite right."

"What's wrong?" Zhang Rui turned around quickly, and Chen Xiao also looked over. He valued this girl no less than the county magistrate in front of him.

“There are a lot of painting spirits!” Murong Yunji looked into the distance. Zhang Rui also looked over when he heard it and took a breath of cold air.

At some point, there were more and more green eyes in the darkness, and the density was more than ten times more than before?
Could it be a reaction caused by Murong Yunji killing too many ghosts?

Or is it--
"Your Highness, if this continues, I'm afraid we won't be able to hold out for much longer."

In the dark night, Qin Fang carried the third prince Li Yu and evacuated, leaving behind all the other guards without hesitation. As for the Youzhou prefect who was so stupid that he didn't even know he was being used as a pawn, he kicked him over to serve as a cover without even hesitation.

The disparity in numbers between the enemy and us is huge, so the best way is to evacuate. Originally, a master like Qin Fang is not afraid of large numbers of people. With his skills and speed, he can escape with the third prince no matter how many people there are. This is also the confidence of top warriors, but here, the agility of warriors does not seem to be so useful.

The Painted Skin Ghost is good at tracking, and it seems like it has been marked. No matter where it runs, there will be an endless stream of Painted Skin Ghosts following and attacking it. It seems that no matter how fast it runs, it cannot be shaken off!
"Eunuch Qin, what's going on?" Li Yu also felt that something was wrong. He also practiced martial arts, and he knew Qin Fang's skills very well. There were only a few people in the world who could catch up with him. Although there were many painted skin ghosts, few of them were strong, and it was impossible for them to keep up with Qin Fang's speed.

"I don't know either," Qin Fang shook his head and said, "None of those evil spirits are very strong, so it's impossible for them to keep up with me. Tracking me is not very realistic either. After getting rid of them in several places, I would conceal my breath and clear the traces, but I would still be caught up by new painted skin ghosts. It's like a maggot on the tarsal bone that is difficult to get rid of. I guess we must have been locked in by some means, otherwise it wouldn't be like this."

He just noticed that every time he arrived at a new place, the Painted Skin Ghosts that surrounded him were all new faces. This was very strange. Could it be that every Painted Skin Ghost here recognized them?

And it wasn't just them that saw them, but it seemed as if they were locked onto them and surrounded them from a long distance away. This feeling was extremely despairing, as if no matter what they did, they couldn't escape.

Li Yu's face turned extremely ugly when he heard this. No matter how powerful Qin Fang was, he was still a human being and would get exhausted sometimes. If the Painted Skin Ghosts swarmed in every place he went to and were difficult to get rid of, Qin Fang would probably be exhausted to death before dawn.

"Is this the way back to Huashi?" Li Yu came back to his senses and suddenly saw Qin Fang stopped. He looked forward and was stunned.

Ahead was the entrance to the Painting Market. Li Yu remembered it clearly. However, when he left just now, it was still brightly lit, but now it was pitch black. What made him even colder in his heart was the screams of living people and the roars of evil spirits that could be heard from time to time inside.

"Everyone in Huashi is finished!" Qin Fang, who was standing on a high place, said with a grim expression.

Li Yu was also silent. He had heard people say before that as long as one had the life-protecting lamp, one would be immune to all evil. He didn't know who spread this saying. Now it seemed that this was a big trap designed to kill people from the very beginning!

　Please keep reading, please keep reading, please keep reading. I have to say this three times because it is important. The cover has been made. To be honest, the author is not very satisfied with it. Is there any reader who knows an awesome artist? Please introduce him to me. Thank you.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)