Chapter Sixty-Nine: It Took a Bit of Effort to Acquire

A rainy night was the best time for a sound, beautiful sleep.

However, two wretched souls not only found themselves unable to sleep, but they were also drenched like drowned rats, and to make matters worse, they had just eavesdropped on a passionate bedroom tryst through a crack in the window.

Until the moment they left the Cao residence, Song Shiyu was still in a daze.

Li Xubai had somehow managed to find a piece of oiled tarcloth to hold over his head, and he did not forget to pull Song Shiyu in to shelter from the rain with him.

Touching her completely soaked garments, Song Shiyu asked distractedly, "Everything is soaked through anyway, why bother blocking the rain?"

Li Xubai wiped the rainwater from his face and retorted, "You've got some nerve blaming me! You couldn't even recognize your own birth mother, which is why the two of us got soaked for nothing!"

Song Shiyu pressed her lips together. Stung by Li Xubai's words and losing face, she grew somewhat flushed and angry out of embarrassment. "Stop chattering nonsense! Hurry up and go check if that person has woken up."

Li Xubai raised an eyebrow slightly. "Come on, let's place a wager and guess that person's identity."

"..." Song Shiyu frowned and said with a straight face, "How are we supposed to guess that?"

Li Xubai squinted, ticking off points on his fingers with the air of a fortune-teller. "I bet she is the concubine of that Prefect Tan who fled."

"..." Song Shiyu widened her eyes in disbelief. "No way! How on earth did you figure that out?"

Looking immensely pleased with himself, Li Xubai said, "Just tell me whether you want to bet or not."

"I'll bet!"

"Good! Then let's wager twenty—oh, no, fifty liang of silver!"

Song Shiyu cast a contemptuous sidelong glance at Li Xubai. "Look at how your eyes turn green at the sight of money!"

The two of them forged ahead through the midnight rain. Instead of returning to the prefectural government office, they headed toward a small, run-down inn nestled in a poverty-stricken alley.

Amidst the misty rain, a faint, yellowish candlelight leaked through the tightly closed door seams, hazy and dim.

Intermittent sounds of drinking and laughter drifted from behind the door.

The two skirted past the tightly shut front entrance, scaled the back wall of the courtyard, and slipped inside without alerting the employee keeping watch at the front.

Walking to the end of the gloomy corridor, they pushed open a door and stepped inside. Li Xubai's eyes were momentarily blinded by a sudden rush of brightness.

"Watch out!" Song Shiyu suddenly shouted sharply, grabbing Li Xubai's arm, spinning him half a circle, and retreating out the door, all the while pulling the silver hairpin from her hair and hurling it forward.

The moment the door closed, a dull thud of a heavy object hitting the floor came from inside the room. At the same time, a cold flash squeezed through the gap of the door, striking the opposite wall with a loud *clang* and leaving a deep gouge behind.

"Good grief! If that thing had pierced someone's body, it would have left a huge hole," Li Xubai muttered, picking up the triangular dart from the floor. He cast a frightened glance at the room, a surge of righteous anger rising within him.

He had never seen anyone so ungrateful and ready to return a favor with a deadly attack!

Lifting his foot, Li Xubai kicked the door open with a mighty crash. Instantly, his eyes landed on a figure sprawled on the floor, a spreading pool of wet blood soaking the ground beneath her.

The corners of Li Xubai's mouth twitched in utter astonishment. "She... she isn't dead, is she?"

"No. My aim is always precise," Song Shiyu said confidently, walking over to support the woman.

Li Xubai tested the woman's breath and let out a long sigh of relief. "Thank goodness she's not dead." He caught sight of the silver hairpin buried deep in the woman's chest, missing her heart by a mere inch, and broke out in a cold sweat. "This hairpin is ground sharp enough. Weren't you afraid you'd stab yourself with it?"

Proudly, Song Shiyu replied, "I told you, my aim is precise."

Carefully, she extracted the silver hairpin. The moment fresh blood welled up, she quickly applied a thick layer of herbal healing powder to the wound.

The bleeding stopped almost immediately.

Song Shiyu then swiftly pressed a few of the woman's acupuncture points in succession.

Only then did Li Xubai have the leisure to properly examine the woman.

She possessed a fair, delicate, oval-shaped face and appeared quite young, yet there was not a trace of childish innocence between her brows.

Her eyes were tightly shut, but the corners of her eyelids were extremely long, suggesting she possessed a pair of large, round, bright apricot-shaped eyes.

Just as Li Xubai was studying her, the woman let out a soft groan and slowly regained consciousness.

A pair of exceptionally pretty apricot eyes swept across them, yet her gaze was utterly vacant, completely mismatched with her alluring face.

"We saved your life, and not only do you fail to say thank you, but you also hurl a lethal weapon at us. Did a dog eat your conscience?" Li Xubai thought to himself in amazement, offering a teasing, wry smile.

The woman acted as if she had turned a deaf ear to his words. She remained completely silent, her eyeballs not even moving an inch.

Song Shiyu did not possess Li Xubai's patience. With a sharp *crack*, she delivered a slap across the woman's face, forcing her head to turn to the side. "Stop playing mute here! Tell me, who are you, and why did Cao Heyong want to silence you?"

The woman's cheek swelled up high, yet she seemed completely devoid of pain, showing no reaction whatsoever.

Li Xubai frowned. The woman's vacant expression did not look feigned; rather, it seemed as though she simply could not understand a word they were saying.

He tugged at Song Shiyu's sleeve and asked, "Hey, do you think she doesn't understand what we're saying?"

Song Shiyu was momentarily stunned. "You mean she's not a citizen of the Great Yu? She doesn't understand the Great Yu tongue?"

Li Xubai nodded. "That possibility cannot be ruled out."

"Could she be from Western Xia or the Liao state?" Song Shiyu mused. "Yet I have never heard of Cao Heyong knowing how to speak the languages of Western Xia or Liao."

"No matter where she's from, let's find out," Li Xubai suggested. "Don't you know how to speak the Liao language? Why don't you give it a try? Just ask her..." He leaned close to her ear and murmured a few words in a voice as thin as a gnat's buzz.

Song Shiyu's expression shifted multiple times. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, she finally nodded slowly. "I'll give it a try."

Pondering for a moment, she pinched the woman's chin, forced her face to turn toward her, and abruptly asked in a tongue Li Xubai had never heard before, "Are you Tan Jinlong's concubine? Did you steal his belongings and then kill him?"

The woman's expression remained blank, and she uttered not a single word.

Astonished, Song Shiyu exchanged a glance with Li Xubai. Drawing a sharp breath, she switched to yet another bizarre tongue and repeated the question.

This time, the woman finally showed a reaction.

Those clear, watery apricot eyes contracted violently, and a trace of panic flashed across her face.

Song Shiyu had merely been probing, never expecting that Li Xubai's wild guess about the woman's identity would actually turn out to be correct. Seizing the momentum, she continued pressingly, "Are you a spy from Western Xia? Whose orders do you take? Where is the spy bureau located within Dengzhou city? What did you steal from Tan Jinlong?"

The woman's facade began to fracture.

With her secrets exposed by Song Shiyu, it was clear she understood every single word, yet she still clenched her teeth fiercely, stubbornly refusing to utter a single sound.

Driven to exasperation, Song Shiyu raised her hand, preparing to slap her again.

Li Xubai hurriedly stopped Song Shiyu and glanced at the woman. "If beating her could make her talk, Cao Heyong would have already covered her body in injuries long ago. Would she still look like this now?"

Frustrated, Song Shiyu rubbed her hands together. "Then what do you suggest we do? We can't beat her, we can't talk sense into her—why don't you try prying her mouth open?"