Chapter 628 - 630: Is Her Stuff Easy to Steal?
At this moment, a figure deftly jumped into the Bai Family’s yard, dressed in black and with a covered face.
Cui Fan squinted his eyes, hm, a well-trained one, with excellent lightness skills, even surpassing his!
Cui Fan immediately became serious, returning to the state of tension when he had been guarding the Meng Residence.
The man didn’t act hastily upon landing. He looked around carefully, probably evaluating the safety of the yard and locating his target. He soon identified his target and began to stealthily approach Bai Ruozhu’s door.
Now! Cui Fan suddenly sprang into action, pulling out his sword and striking towards the back of the black-clothed man. The intruder’s reflexes weren’t slow; he rolled on the spot to dodge, instantly drawing a short sword from his body and exchanging blows with Cui Fan.
With the clash of their swords sparking loud noises, everyone in the Bai Family’s yard was startled awake. Bai Ruozhu was the first to react, and she realized that the noise was the closest to her room, meaning the intruder outside was targeting her!
The guards for the night were Cui Fan and Liu Di. Liu Di, a regular guard hired by Bai Ruozhu from outside, was not as skilled in martial arts as Cui Fan. He didn’t dare rush over after hearing the noise, for fear of becoming a burden instead.
Upon hearing the noise, Lin Ping’er and the others were all startled. Their first thought was that the Turkic people had come. Bai Yihong almost rushed out of the house until he heard Cui Fan shouting from the side, "Master, madam, do not come out!" and they finally comprehended, obediently staying put in the room.
Bai Ruozhu knew her parents must be anxious. She regretted not telling them of Li Yi’s death, but she didn’t want them to know this big secret either, fearing they would be overly frightened.
Luckily, although the black-clothed man was good in his lightness skills, his martial arts were not on par with Cui Fan. He had blocked Cui Fan’s attack with his short sword, then rolled backwards and quickly climbed onto the roof, looking as if he was about to escape!
Cui Fan chased after him, but the man’s superior lightness skills made him hard to catch up with.
Just then, a flash of cold light burst out from within the Bai Family’s yard, aimed at the black-clothed man who had already escaped onto the roof. Then, a grunt was heard from the man who had been hit by the silver light and he tumbled off the eaves.
In the yard, Liu Di, who had been hiding to one side, remained in the stance of having just shot a sleeve arrow. He was somewhat uncertain whether to shoot again but saw Cui Fan rush over and subdue the black-clothed man. He quickly withdrew his hand, afraid of accidentally injuring Cui Fan.
"Master, madam, we have caught the man." Cui Fan spoke loudly, and as he did, he pulled off the black-clothed man’s face cover, revealing the face of a man in his thirties.
"Speak, what are you doing here? Who sent you here?" Cui Fan asked coldly, his sword on the man’s neck, cutting a bit of his skin.
The black-clothed man had been shot in the thigh with a sleeve arrow, and blood had soaked his trousers. Frightened by Cui Fan’s threat, he whimpered, "Don’t... don’t be rash!" He had barely finished speaking when he felt Cui Fan’s sword cut across his neck again. He screamed, "Don’t, are you going to kill someone?"
Cui Fan sneered, "You broke into a civilian’s house in the middle of the night, even if I killed you by accident, you would have deserved it. Nobody would blame me."
The black-clothed man shivered, mumbling, "I was told to steal a few drawings, why is the guard at an ordinary people’s house so ruthless? It’s almost killing me."
Bai Ruozhu had already come out of the house, and heard the black-clothed man’s grumbling. So, he was here to steal the drawings. It turned out that Madam Li didn’t ignore the shopkeeper woman’s proposal in the daytime but had her own plan - to steal Bai Ruozhu’s new designs.
She didn’t rush to deal with the black-clothed man, and said to Liu Di who was still somewhat nervous on the side: "Guard Liu, your sleeve arrow shot well."
Liu Di finally came back to his senses and said, "I am grateful for the sleeve arrow gift from the young lady." With that, he laughed awkwardly a couple of times.
The sleeve arrows were something Bai Ruozhu had asked the outside blacksmith to make a while ago, thinking that she needed to prepare some self-protection equipment. Unfortunately, her parents were not willing to use them, saying they were clumsy and feared that they would accidentally trigger the mechanism and injure their own family. In the end, Bai Ruozhu gave one each to guards Liu Di and Chen Zhou, whom she had hired from outside. Compared to the two men granted by Lady Meng, these two guards were subpar, so they could only rely on such external aids to compensate.
Liu Di was quite enterprising as well, having practiced his aim in private a lot. Look, he had proven his worth today.
Cui Fan also turned his head, laughing as he said to Liu Di, "This man’s lightness skills are good, if not for your sudden sleeve arrow shot, he would certainly have escaped."
After saying this, he directly pulled out the sleeve arrow from the man’s thigh, causing the black-clothed man to scream in pain again.
"Speak, who sent you? I’ll only ask once. I don’t want to disturb the neighbors in the middle of the night. If I count to three and you don’t answer, I’ll have them gag you and torture you slowly to death," Bai Ruozhu said coldly. Actually, whether he told her or not, she knew that he was dispatched by the Yun Xiaorong.
"One...two..." As she began to count, before she could say three, the black-clothed man cried, "I’ll say, I’ll say it all!"
"A steward found me and gave me a hundred pieces of silver, saying that as long as I steal your newly-drawn design from your room, he would give me another two hundred pieces." The man sighed after he had finished his explanation, "I, Kong Kong Hand, am always careful, but ironically I was caught in a common household."
"What household’s steward? Do you know who his master is?" Bai Ruozhu asked again.
The man who called himself Kong Kong Hand sighed, "How would I know, it would be strange if he told me. I just take people’s money and steal some things, I’m not trying to rob or kill, please spare me."
Cui Fan kicked him, "Dream on, you’ve committed burglary, now we’ll send you to the Government Office."
With a glance at the time, Bai Ruozhu saw that it was late at night. She said to Cui Fan, "Guard Cui, you and Guard Liu watch him for now. Once day breaks, send him to the Government Office and let the master thoroughly interrogate him."
"Understood." Cui Fan said as he hoisted Kong Kong Hand up and went to the kitchen.
"No, I have honestly confessed everything, you guys don’t send me to the Government Office, I only tried to steal something, didn’t I fail anyway?" Kong Kong Hand was babbling on, clearly a chatterbox.
Cui Fan snorted coldly, directly taking a cloth from the stove and stuffing it into his mouth, shutting him up.
Bai Ruozhu smiled at the still shocked crowd in the yard, saying, "Yun Xiaorong must also want to hold a press conference and try to steal our designs first. But don’t worry, they dare not act recklessly. Go to sleep."
Seeing that it was not the Turkic invaders but only a thief, the crowd was relieved and went back to their rooms to sleep. However, they were still a little worried that Yun Xiaorong would not give up.
Bai Ruozhu didn’t bother explaining to them. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. Did they think her designs would be easy to steal?