Great Li Martial God

”Young Master Mei, is the ghost haunting and killing at the Tianjin Guards branch office actually real?”

At this point, Hu Rui’an came up to Mei Yanyu and without any wasted words asked the question that had been weighing on his mind directly.

Hearing this, Mei Yanyu stood where he was, looked at Hu Rui’an before him, and said nothing for a long while.

After some time, he drew a deep breath, looked Hu Rui’an up and down, and said in a low, firm voice, ”The haunting and killings are real.”

Upon hearing this, Hu Rui’an furrowed his brow and asked, ”If they are real, then why have we not run into any trouble today? Does the ghost choose specific times to act? Or did something come up today to delay it?”

Under normal circumstances, Hu Rui’an would not have asked questions quite this straightforward. But there were simply too many things he could not account for in his mind right now, and he needed to understand them.

In his thinking, if the ghost had acted today, the fact that he and the other two had Li Musheng right beside them would mean that whatever happened, there would be some kind of definitive outcome. Either they survived or they did not.

Yet the situation now was that even though the ghost had killed so many people before this, including nearly killing Mei Yan himself and leaving him seriously injured, when it came to these three of them, the ghost had simply... not acted.

This left him in a situation where a blade seemed to be hanging over his neck, neither falling nor leaving, which honestly made him feel worse than anything else, and still left him anxious and on edge.

After hearing Hu Rui’an out, Mei Yanyu’s expression was one that seemed to say ”shouldn’t I be asking you this question?”Even so, he observed Hu Rui’an for a moment, saw that the man genuinely seemed not to understand the reason behind it, and shook his head before giving a rough account of what he knew about the ghost’s pattern of killing.

”I am also quite puzzled by this. Commissioner Hu might consider asking the expert hidden behind your group. Perhaps that person knows what the reason might be.”

Mei Yanyu said this as he shared his speculation.

After all, the hidden expert backing Hu Rui’an’s group was someone capable of killing Bai Changfeng with a single pointing of a finger. With that level of cultivation, it was possible the man had already dealt with the ghost in secret to prevent it from acting.

Upon hearing this, Hu Rui’an’s gaze shifted, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. He instinctively turned his head to look in Li Musheng’s direction.

Then a flash of pleased realization passed through his eyes, and he withdrew his gaze and looked back at Mei Yanyu before him, lowering his voice to say, ”Let us set the matter of the ghost aside for now. Young Master Mei promised last night to give me an answer today. Would now be a good time?”

Hearing this, Mei Yanyu was visibly taken aback, and a succession of expressions passed rapidly across his face.

His original plan had been based on Hu Rui’an and the other two being as good as dead, and he had never once thought seriously about giving them an answer.

Being pressed like this now, he found it difficult to reply on the spot, and was just turning the matter over in his mind, preparing to brush it off with some vague deflection.

But at that moment, Hu Rui’an’s expression suddenly turned cold, and he said, ”I have one and only one purpose in coming here, and that is to mobilize the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards to advance immediately to Lan Province. If the Mei family cannot or will not do this, then I will personally take command of the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards tomorrow.”

Having said this, Hu Rui’an said nothing more and turned to leave.

But halfway through his turn, he suddenly looked back, and said sharply, ”Furthermore, would Young Master Mei please pass on a message when you return. Anyone within the Tianjin Guards tomorrow who dares to defy orders will be executed without exception.”

With that, Hu Rui’an departed without another pause and followed in the direction of Li Musheng and the others.

Watching the man’s retreating figure, Mei Yanyu’s expression was somewhat unpleasant.

”Young Master, it seems this matter will need to go back to the Master for discussion.”

The servant, also watching Hu Rui’an’s departing figure, spoke up. Mei Yanyu gave a nod, saying, ”That goes without saying. My one concern right now is that hidden martial expert behind them.”

Just now, Hu Rui’an’s reaction had been plain to see. When he mentioned the hidden expert, the man had clearly looked toward Li Musheng.

In Mei Yanyu’s reading, this confirmed what he had suspected before: the expert who had killed Bai Changfeng was absolutely connected to the Eighth Prince.

The one thing that still struck him as difficult to believe was the idea that this expert could actually prevent the ghost in the Tianjin Guards branch office from acting.

Beyond that explanation, he simply could not think of any other reason the ghost would not have killed Hu Rui’an and the other two today.

At this point, the servant behind him shook their head slowly, saying, ”I have crossed hands with that ghost before. The entity appears and vanishes without warning, moving at a speed that leaves no trace whatsoever. I could not do a single thing against it, which was precisely how the Master came so close to being strangled to death.”

”If the person behind them is truly capable of stopping the ghost from acting, their martial Dao cultivation must be even above mine, and absolutely not something to take lightly.”

Hearing this, Mei Yanyu’s expression shifted with uncertainty, saying, ”According to what Mother said, it seems the ghost let Father go out of deference to Maternal Grandfather’s standing, and did not actually take his life.”

”Yet looking at today, the ghost did not harm a single one of Hu Rui’an’s three in any way. I cannot work it out. Could it really be that the hidden expert behind this Eighth Prince carries more weight than even my maternal grandfather the Martial Saint?”

”And moreover, as far as I know, this Eighth Prince spent twenty years in a remote small town, with neither martial aptitude nor any background whatsoever. How could he have come to be protected by an expert of such caliber?”

Hearing Mei Yanyu’s questions, the servant behind him could only frown. They had no way of answering any of them.

...

At the same time, the sound of a cracking whip rang out, and the carriage wheels rolled forward as Li Musheng and his companions prepared to head back to the Murong estate.

Inside the carriage, Hu Rui’an, now that his round frame was settled comfortably in place, bore none of the earlier anxiety about the ghost on his face.

”Your Highness, when did you take care of the ghost? We did not notice a single thing today.”

Hu Rui’an asked with a face full of curiosity. Though Li Musheng had not brought it up himself, being tipped off by Mei Yanyu earlier had made it clear to him that Li Musheng must have acted.

At this, Shen Anran and Murong Xiaoya both looked over with puzzlement. Knowing nothing of the ghost situation, they found Hu Rui’an’s question somewhat baffling.

At the same time, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong, sitting up in the coachman’s position, immediately perked up their ears.

Even though the ghost had not acted and they appeared to have narrowly escaped disaster, a faint lingering anxiety still tugged at both of them. Only hearing Li Musheng confirm it in his own words would allow them to truly set their minds at rest.

Yet what left both of them looking at each other in bewilderment was that from inside the carriage they heard Li Musheng say, ”What do you mean, take care of the ghost? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Upon hearing this, Hu Rui’an, seated across from Li Musheng, was briefly taken aback. Looking at Li Musheng’s genuinely puzzled expression, his heart sank, and he immediately asked again to confirm, ”The ghost truly did not act today, and it genuinely had nothing to do with Your Highness?”

Hearing this, Li Musheng shrugged and said, ”That is what I was going to ask you. You said there would be a ghost, and I was looking forward to seeing what the thing actually was. Then the entire day went by without a single ghost shadow appearing, and I nearly forgot the whole business entirely.”