Chapter 291: The Man with the Earring

As for Moonless Cicada’s words, Yue Mingxuan could only pretend not to hear them.

Still, he cared quite a bit about what Moonless Cicada had said earlier about being injured because of him.

He clearly remembered the sight from that time: Moonless Cicada covered in blood and the entire room filled with a terrifying metallic scent.

As a military medic, Yue Mingxuan had never been afraid of the smell of blood.

In fact, he was more familiar with it than most people.

How could anyone in the army avoid injuries?

Back then, his job had been to bandage wounds, apply medicine, and rescue injured soldiers.

No matter what he did, blood was always involved.

Sometimes that burning passion and bravery would be spilled in those dangerous environments and never to find its way back again.

Yue Mingxuan had never feared such things.

Yet after going so long without seeing blood, the moment he saw Moonless Cicada drenched in it again, he couldn’t quite describe what he felt inside.

Truthfully, he had been worried about Moonless Cicada.

But Moonless Cicada’s indifferent attitude only irritated him even more.

“Did you see who that person was?”

“I couldn’t see his face. He was wearing a mask,” Moonless Cicada said, gesturing vaguely. After fumbling with his hands for a while and still failing to describe it clearly, he finally sighed. “Can you bring me some paper and ink?”

Yue Mingxuan said nothing.

He simply handed over the brush and ink.

Moonless Cicada grabbed the brush and began scribbling rapidly across the paper.

Before long, a… well, something like some kind of an object that barely resembled a shape appeared in front of Yue Mingxuan.

It was supposed to be a mask.

“It looked roughly like this!” Moonless Cicada said confidently and nodding with conviction.

However, after Yue Mingxuan looked at the drawing, he was still utterly confused.

Moonless Cicada’s drawing skills if it was placed in the 21 century would be about the level of a kindergarten child level.

Perhaps becoming an assassin didn’t require much literacy or perhaps this masterpiece only reflected his artistic ability and nothing else.

Either way, Yue Mingxuan simply couldn’t understand what Moonless Cicada had drawn.

If Moonless Cicada hadn’t said it was a mask, Yue Mingxuan might have thought it was a duck egg.

“You’re sure this is a mask?” he asked again as he studying the chaotic scribbles carefully.

If he forced himself to interpret it as a mask then perhaps… it could work?

The masks of such a strange design might indeed be rare; perhaps only a few craftsmen could produce something like that.

Maybe the artistic style of this era simply favored expressive abstraction.

Yue Mingxuan searched through the limited memories he had about the painting styles of this time period.

No matter how he looked at it, however, Moonless Cicada’s masterpiece was undeniably ugly.

Trying to track someone down based on a mask like this might lead nowhere forever.

So Yue Mingxuan leaned back in the armchair beside Moonless Cicada and asked, “Other than that, did that person have any distinctive features?”

“I didn’t see the weapon clearly. It was probably some kind of hidden weapon, or something very small,” Moonless Cicada said while glancing up at the ceiling.

Perhaps he had spent too much time sleeping on roof beams; whenever he thought, he unconsciously looked upward.

“A small weapon… anything else?”

“Accessories…” Moonless Cicada looked up again.

This time he tilted his head even farther back and practically lifting his entire face toward the ceiling.

Then he lowered it again and said, “Nothing particularly special… Oh! Right. He had an earring. His build looked like that of a man, but he had a dangling earring.”

“A man with an earring?” Yue Mingxuan was extremely surprised.

Even the assassins sent by the Nanxie before had worn pendants, but those were around their necks, not hanging from their ears.

A man wearing an earring, however, was indeed a rather obvious feature.

With this piece of information, tracking the person down should not be too difficult. Yet Yue Mingxuan had no idea who that person was, nor why they wanted to kill him.

All he knew was that his life would soon be in danger.

If he did not investigate the matter thoroughly, his safety would be in serious jeopardy.

After reminding Moonless Cicada to rest properly and stop secretly eating medicine, Yue Mingxuan returned to his own room while still carrying his doubts with him as he continued thinking about the problem.

Although he very much wanted to break through to the second level and quickly uncover the secret of Consort Wan, he had already made one breakthrough not long ago.

Breaking through a second time in such a short period was impossible.

Thus, he began to consider whether he should go again that night to investigate Consort Wan’s tomb.

Although repeatedly intruding upon someone else’s grave was hardly a good thing, there seemed to be no other choice.

Just as he finished preparing his belongings and was about to leave, a familiar voice sounded beside his ear once again.

“Prince Yue, going out so late… Could it be that you have something important to attend to?”

Yue Mingxuan froze on the spot.

Why had he appeared now?

Earlier, Yue Mingxuan had been fully focused on cultivating the Ninefold Celestial Mystery and Shang Qinghua had not shown up even once. Yet the moment Yue Mingxuan entertained a slightly crooked idea, Shang Qinghua caught him red-handed.

What endless trouble.

He muttered inwardly, but a bright smile quickly appeared on his face. “Where I go doesn’t seem to require the concern of Prince Shang, does it?”

The words “Prince Shang” were bitten out with particular emphasis as though he wanted to swallow Shang Qinghua whole.

Shang Qinghua clearly knew what Yue Mingxuan was thinking, yet he appeared completely unconcerned. “I personally don’t mind. But if you raise your voice any louder, I’m afraid everyone nearby will know that Prince Yue is secretly meeting Prince Shang in the middle of the night.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep