readsfreenovel Chapter 514 Testing
Chapter 514 Testing
The executioner's knife flashed, and when the first piece of meat fell on the snow, Chu Ziyu clenched the heater tightly.
He was afraid of the cold to begin with, and was even more shaky at this moment, but he stubbornly kept his back straight.
Lin Ci'an's eyes were always fixed on Chu Ziyu. Seeing him trying hard to hold on with his fingertips pinching into his palm, a sneer appeared at the corner of his lips.
The cold wind blew snow across the execution platform. The traitor was chained to a stake, covered in blood, with his head drooping, as if he was only breathing his last breath.
Chu Ziyu looked at the last spy who came here with him, named Chen Jiu. On the surface, he was a small leader under Lin Ci'an, but in fact, he was a "shadow guard" trained by the emperor. He was brainwashed since childhood to be loyal to the royal family.
He was good at shrinking bones and breathing, and could fake serious injuries. Before the execution, he swallowed a fake death drug, making his pulse as weak as a dying person.
Chu Ziyu gathered his white fox fur coat together, and his fingertips gently stroked a pill in his sleeve - it was the residue of the fake death drug he had exchanged from the system last night.
(System 6872: "Boss, Chen Jiu has already taken the Turtle Breathing Pill. He will die suddenly in half an hour. Do you really want him to assassinate him?")
"But, how did you get in touch with them, sir? I was always with you, but I didn't notice anything."
The night before
Chu Ziyu stood in front of the window with his coat on, tapping the celadon teacup lightly with his fingertips, three quick taps and two slow taps - immediately a very light "tapping" sound came from the eaves.
He took out a piece of Supa and used the medicine juice instead of ink to write:
The snow on the execution platform is thick enough to hide the sharp edges.
There was half a bamboo leaf embroidered on the edge of the handkerchief - it was the mark of Chen Jiu's number in the Dark Guard Camp when he was a child.
(Twenty years ago, the emperor branded different patterns on the bodies of his assassins. Chu Ziyu found out this secret through the system.)
As the carrier pigeon flapped its wings over the dead branches, Chu Ziyu suddenly knocked over the candlestick.
"Go away!"
The guard on duty rushed in and saw the strategist coughing violently at his desk. The blood-stained handkerchief floated into the brazier and turned into ashes in an instant.
this morning
Chen Jiu found a wax pill in the cracks between the toilet bricks, and after crushing it, half a mute pill was revealed - it was the death penalty for the Dark Guard Battalion's failed mission.
The inner wall of the wax ball is engraved with:
At three quarters past three in the morning, reflections in the well.
(Chu Ziyu calculated that Chen Jiu would go to the toilet at yin hour every day, and the well was facing the dog hole on the west wall - when they were imprisoned in the secret guard camp, they often relied on this method to pass messages.)
Chen Jiu's pupils suddenly shrank.
In the reflection of the swaying well water, a bamboo leaf floats. The veins of the leaf spell out four words:
The king's order is not as good as old grudges.
(It alludes to the old incident in which the emperor forced them to kill their own relatives - Chen Jiu's entire family died under the "imperial order", implying that he would take the initiative to expose himself.)
Last night before returning to his room, Chu Ziyu went to the pharmacy to pick out medicinal materials. A bottle of wound medicine slipped from his sleeve and "happened" to roll to the feet of Zhao Wu who was picking up the medicine.
"Excuse me."
When Zhao Wu bent down, he heard the counselor coughing: "...Brother Chen's injury, it's time to change the medicine."
(Zhao Wu was the middleman sent by the emperor to contact Chen Jiu.)
That night, when Zhao Wu brought food to Chen Jiu, there was a blade as thin as a cicada's wing in the interlayer of the food box - it was tempered with fake poison that Chu Ziyu had replaced.
Back to the present!
Chu Ziyu coughed softly, and blood flowed from his lips, blooming a glaring red on the snow.
"Xiao An's Darkness Level is now 130. How can we make him soften his heart without seeing blood?"
"You just didn't notice. Besides, it's time to clean up the old emperor's people."
He raised his eyes and met Lin Ci'an's sinister gaze. The Marquis sat high on the platform, tapping the armrests with his knuckles, as if waiting for something.
——Sure enough, Xiao An was also testing.
The executioner raised his knife, but it deviated three points imperceptibly at the moment of its fall - the prison officer Lao Zhou was the hidden chess piece that the emperor had buried for ten years.
(Pretending to pick at the tendons, but actually holding back.)
"Sir, please look carefully." He suddenly stood up, and his black cloak swept the snow on the steps. "The consequences of betraying me——"