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It was not until this moment that spectators came to realize what was going on.

“Assassin!” Someone bawled.

Palace guards immediately ran to the protection of the emperor and courtiers in the stands, and the horse race was suspended. Everybody was looking in the direction of the wood that Yuwen Tong had just torn into.

“Hurry! Go and protect the Marshal! Enter the wood and seize the assassin!” bawled the emperor.

Guards of the hunting ground streaked towards the wood. At this time, Ling Zhang had turned at the finish line, galloping for the wood as well.

“Stop! Don’t go in there!” yelled the emperor subconsciously, taken aback.

However, Ling Zhang, as if not having heard him, disappeared into the wood in the twinkling of an eye.

At this time, the whole place was in a babble of voices. Some were yelling “Protect His Majesty!”; some were shocked to see Ling Zhang dashed into the wood; and there were also some who were still perplexed as to what was going on. Students were gathered together, under the protection of guards.

“BROTHER ZHANG!” Yuwen Jin made an attempt to run out but his arms were tightly gripped by Ji Feng and the others.

“Don’t do this. It’s dangerous!”

“Both my cousin and Brother Zhang are in there!” Yuwen Jin was losing it with anxiety.

At this moment, Yuwen Tong in the wood had caught up with the assassin, but the man had poisoned himself already, his crossbow nowhere to be seen.

Snowflake was faster than guards of the hunting ground, so Ling Zhang was the first to find Yuwen Tong. At a glance he saw the body of the assassin. With a frown on his face, Ling Zhang dismounted his horse and quickly walked up to Yuwen Tong. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. The assassin poisoned himself,” said Yuwen Tong.

Ling Zhang, after confirming Yuwen Tong was unharmed, heaved a sigh of relief. His eyes vigilantly swept around and then appraised the corpse on the ground. “His crossbow is gone.”

“What kind of crossbow was it?” queried Yuwen Tong.

After a few moments’ recollection, Ling Zhang gave a sketchy account of what had happened a while ago and finally made a summary. “... It was very special, unlike any crossbow I has knowledge of, and it was very dainty as well.”

Saying this, he handed the short bolt to Yuwen Tong, who took it, scrutinized it for a while, put it away and said with a grim face, “The daintier a crossbow is, the harder it is to make. At that time this assassin was quite far away from you, but the bolt still had such momentum when it approached you, which showed that his crossbow was not only dainty but also very powerful. It’s impossible to produce weapons of this kind in large quantities. I’m sure there are only a small number of them.”

Yuwen Tong paused after making these remarks.

Ling Zhang, who could feel that Yuwen Tong had something else to say, was just about to ask him when he found that a group of guards had arrived. He instantly understood why Yuwen Tong didn’t continue.

The guards clustered around the two of them. “Are you hurt, Marshal?”

“Is this... the assassin’s body?”

“He poisoned himself,” said Yuwen Tong. “There’s nothing suggesting his identity on him. Judging by his features, he’s probably a subject of the Great Yue. Bring his body back. Send for a court physician and have him find out what kind of poison this assassin ingested to commit suicide.”

“Yes, Marshal!”

“Scour this wood as quick as possible and see if there are any accomplices. I want every inch of this place searched.”

“Yes, Marshal!”

Then Yuwen Tong held Ling Zhang’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

Actually Ling Zhang wanted to join the search, but Yuwen Tong was firmly drawing him towards the outside, so he had no choice but to leave, bringing Snowflake with him.

Though there were a few questions in his mind, Ling Zhang couldn’t ask any of them on this occasion and had to keep silent for the moment, not with the guards escorting them outward.

After returning to the stands, the two of them had an audience with the emperor, and Yuwen Tong gave him a general report on what had happened in the wood and also handed the halved short bolt to him.

The emperor cast an appraising look at the short bolt and furrowed his brow. He had some acquaintance with weapons, though not much. “This bolt is so short.”

The first bolt fired at Ling Zhang had been caught by him but nobody had noticed, for it had happened too quick, and some spectators’ view had been partially blocked, and the space around Ling Zhang had seemed to be twisting in that instant. The emperor and courtiers around him all believed that this short bolt had been taken from the assassin by Yuwen Tong.

“When I found the assassin in the wood, he was already dead, and the weapon he’d used to fire this kind of bolts was gone. Although I didn’t find his weapon, I guess it was probably some sort of crossbow that fired this bolt.”

“But there’s no crossbow that could fire a bolt this short, is there?” The King Duan expressed his doubt.

The others shared his opinion. After all, currently, nobody had made a crossbow that could fire a bolt of such short length.

Yuwen Tong, after a few moments’ silence, said, “This is just a conjecture of mine, Your Majesty. It might have been some other kind of weapon. Pity it was nowhere to be found. Either the assassin had hidden it somewhere before his death or his accomplice took it. No matter which one is the case, this place is dangerous. I petition you to return to the palace, Your Majesty. Your safety is of supreme importance.”

After hearing Yuwen Tong’s words, all other people naturally tried to convince the emperor to go back to the imperial palace.

The emperor raised his hand to hush them. He said, “There’s no hurry about returning to the palace. Mingyuan, take some men and search that wood. Find whatever it was that fired this short bolt.”

“Yes, father,” answered Zhou Mingyuan, also known as the King Duan.

“Your Highness,” Jiang Changfeng called him to a pause and then said to the emperor, “Your Majesty, there might still be the assassin’s accomplices in the wood. The King Duan is a member of the imperial family after all, which makes it inadvisable to let him take such risks.”

But the emperor sniffed, “They’re just a couple of assassins, and I’m still here, what should he possibly be afraid of? Go.”

The King Duan answered “Yes, father” once again and then left.

Jiang Changfeng, seeing the King Duan had walked away, made no further remarks.

Ling Zhang kept feeling that by saying these words, Jiang Changfeng, rather than helping the King Duan, seemed to have kept others from trying to convince the emperor into sending someone else to scour the wood. A couple of courtiers had originally wanted to say something, but now they had all refrained from making suggestions.

“Just now the assassin was aiming at Ling Zhang?” The emperor looked at Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong.

Ling Zhang replied, “Your Majesty, the short bolt did seem to be fired at me. My horse is quite intelligent and also very vigilant. It sensed danger before I could and gave me a warning, which was why I promptly found that something was wrong.”

“Maybe that was not the case. Given the speed of Brother Zhang’s horse at that moment, it was impossible for that bolt to hit him,” said Yuwen Tong.

Nobody else had seen the first bolt, but the second one had been seen by some people when it was fired. And it was also the second bolt that Yuwen Tong had shown the emperor. Although Ling Zhang was confused as to why Yuwen Tong was keeping the first shot secret from others, he naturally, considering the circumstances, chose to cooperate with Yuwen Tong.

“I think you’re right. Had Snowflake not come to a sudden halt, I would indeed have galloped by before the bolt could approach me.”

The emperor stared at the halved bolt, pondering over something.

“It’s so strange. That direction... ” hesitated the King Hui. Then, after some recollection of the attack, he inquired, “Apart from Ling Zhang who would ride past that place, was there anybody else who might’ve been the target?”

On hearing his words, all others seemed to see the light. Immediately, some men were dispatched to look into it.

Soon the answer was found out. Someone reported, “Your Majesty, there were two others in that direction: Marshal Yuwen in the stands, and the president of the Oriental Rite Academy.”

A while ago Ling Zhang had indeed happened to be riding past the stands, and that short bolt had been fired diagonally. Given the angle, it was indeed possible that the assassin had been aiming at Yuwen Tong, or the president of the Oriental Rite Academy, or the principal of the Imperial College standing beside him, but the principal’s position had been a little off that direction.

“Was the target my cousin, by any chance? Someone wanted to assassinate my cousin?” Yuwen Feng exclaimed in alarm.

An attempted assassination of Yuwen Tong was no less severe than that of the emperor. After all, everybody was fully aware of the situation in the north-west. Once Yuwen Tong died, the north-west would definitely be thrown into chaos, and apart from everything else, the Wan Kingdom would surely take advantage of the opportunity and wage another war.

Face of everybody present changed.

“But that wood is quite far away from the stands. Could this bolt really cover a distance that long? If that’s the case, whatever fires this kind of bolts would be horrifyingly powerful. What kind of weapon could it possibly be?!” Someone was taken aback.

The emperor’s countenance also noticeably changed.

“If this kind of thing does exist, then... This place is too dangerous! Your Majesty, maybe you should return to the palace right away!” Even Jiang Changfeng involuntarily paled.

The emperor, however, staring at the short bolt, still hesitated for quite a while. “Let’s wait a while longer.”

Ling Zhang, seeing him staring at that short bolt all along, wondered whether or not the emperor was trying to figure out what it was that had fired it.

But Ling Zhang, who knew what had happened, was aware that no weapon whatsoever had a shooting distance that long, and it was indeed him that had been the target of that short bolt.

Due to this turn of events, Ling Zhang was confused once again. Though who wanted him shot was still unknown to him, clearly the situation was even more complicated now.

It took quite some time for the guards to scour the wood. The horse race had been suspended. It was not until noon that the search was over. Everybody was starving, but since the emperor hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving, nobody dared to take his leave. They had no choice but to endure hunger along with the emperor.

“Father, we searched every inch of that wood three times but still didn’t find that weapon,” reported the King Duan, a rather awkward look on his face.

“Third Elder Brother, the wood is such a small place. How is it possible that you didn’t find it? Are you sure you searched it carefully enough?” said the King Hui immediately.

The emperor also shot a piercing look at the King Duan.

The King Duan, breaking out in a sweat, explained, “There’s no way that the assassin hid the weapon somewhere far away, given how little time he had and the fact that the Marshal was chasing him. I even had the whole place dug over and also carefully checked each and every single tree in there. Eventually, to prevent omissions, we also scoured the whole wood as well, but we indeed didn’t find the weapon. If you don’t believe this, Fourth Younger Brother, you may ask any of the palace guards conducting the search. Father, I suspect that it was taken away by accomplices of the assassin.”

‘The King Duan doesn’t seem to be lying,’ Ling Zhang thought.

“Your Majesty, His Highness might be right. It’s very possible that the assassin had some accomplices,” said one of the courtiers who had previously intended to come to the King Duan’s support but been stopped by Jiang Changfeng.

“Then let’s wait for reports from palace guards conducting the search. After all, this is a huge hunting ground. If the assassin’s accomplices want to hide themselves, capturing them will take some doing,” said Yuwen Tong.

The emperor nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s wait.”

‘So this means that... we’re still not leaving?’ All courtiers appeared distressed.

“Father, noon has passed, and you haven’t had lunch yet. Would you like me to have them prepare it?” asked the King Hui.

The emperor inclined his head and the King Hui immediately went to make arrangements.

The King Duan resentfully sneaked a glance at him from behind, bitter and vexed.

“Your Majesty, the court physician might have got something. Maybe we should ask him what kind of poison the assassin ingested.” Yuwen Tong made another suggestion.

The emperor instructed, “Get the court physician.”