Chapter 110 — Assassination
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 6 of 6
The fish-man's expression shifted, but seeing the look on Shangguan Lue's face, he at last turned about and led him to one corner beside the crowd. He peered at the bodies a moment, then pointed to a fish-man's corpse and uttered a few words of "ji ji."
By now Lü Shun, Li Xun, Sun Tu, and the others had followed behind Shangguan Lue. Sun Tu said in a low voice, "This is the fish-man who was killed."
Shangguan Lue stood beside the body and looked closely; his expression gradually turned grim, and after a moment he murmured to himself in a low voice, "Formidable... formidable."
Li Xun, standing behind him, also looked toward the corpse and could not help frowning. The dead fish-man still gripped a great saber in his hand, yet the head upon his neck was gone; not far away lay a fish-man's head, which appeared to be his.
The fish-man had been cleanly beheaded with a single stroke.
Li Xun's gaze fell inadvertently upon the neck, and he saw that the wound was exceedingly smooth and even—plainly a single fatal blow from an extremely sharp weapon.
"Eh!" Suddenly Lü Shun, nearby, gave a low cry of surprise. He stepped forward, crouched down, and examined the fish-man's corpse closely.
Shangguan Lue frowned and said, "What is it?"
Lü Shun stared for a long while, then slowly rose to his feet. His face had turned very grim indeed, and he said in a heavy voice, "This wound is exactly the same as the one the killer left when he sniped the fish-man chieftain. The cut is smooth, the muscle not twisted in the slightest, yet deep within the blood vessels there is, for some inexplicable reason, a faint tinge of purple."
The crowd was greatly alarmed and hurried to look closely, and sure enough, it was as Lü Shun had said.
Shangguan Lue was shaken to the core. He whipped his head around, a fierce light blazing in his eyes, and said, "The killer is right here!"
Shangguan Lue's gaze was like a blade, supremely sharp; this ordinarily plain old man now seemed suddenly to radiate an irresistible edge from his whole body. Slowly he looked at every person around him, and not one dared meet his eyes.
A sudden silence fell over the gathering, broken only by the night wind blowing from some unknown place, rustling through the tips of the branches.