Assassin (3)

Mu Mingtang and Xie Xuanchen gave in to their curiosity and went to look at the magic show. After that ‘magician’ had gathered enough audience, all of a sudden he started selling some medicinal herbal plasters which were used to treat wounds.

‘What? He just wanted to sell some medicinal plasters, and nothing else?’ feeling sour, Mu Mingtang complained inwardly.

Both of them were speechless and went forward to find their next destination.

Xie Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang just leisurely wandered around the city for a long time and enjoyed the festive atmosphere. Even though Mu Mingtang had walked for hours, instead of feeling tired, she felt that this was more relaxing than listening to the Empress Dowager in the palace.Some distance away, they passed by a lantern riddle competition, which caught Mu Mingtang’s interest. They both halted and stood aside to take a look at riddles. After looking at several lovely lanterns, Mu Mingtang was fascinated by the most attractive royal lantern which had the amazing workmanship done, but it could only be taken away by the winner.

Xie Xuanchen looked at Mu Mingtang, who was wracking her brain to solve the riddle with a puzzled look, and sighed: “Mingtang, why even bother solving it? We can just buy it directly since you like it so much.”

When Mu Mingtang heard his careless words, she glared at Xie Xuanchen with a frown and refuted, “No, if we were to use money just because we can’t solve some riddle, then we’ll appear as a sloppy and illiterate people.”

Mu Mingtang’s tone was similar to a teacher scolding his uneducated and ignorant student and trying to show him the right path.

“Okay”, Xie Xuanchen mumbled helplessly and took another look at the lantern eyed by Mu Mingtan.

A few seconds later, an answer came from within the crowd. When everyone turned to see where the voice had come from, they saw a peerlessly handsome young man standing there with an adorable and beautiful lady, both dressed lavishly, looking like an ideal match. Everyone got shocked after seeing the person who had answered the riddle. For a moment even the person in charge looked at Xie Xuanchen suspiciously, but after making an eye contact, he hurriedly passed the lantern to them and continuously praised Xie Xuanchen.

Mu Mingtang was startled awake when she felt the lantern being forced into her hands by Xie Xuanchen. Feeling dazed, she turned towards Xie Xuanchen and asked, “How did you know the answer?”

Her shock was clearly expressed in her question.“Just guessed it.”

Hearing his reply, Mu Mingtang felt upset and angry at the same time. She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Since you already knew the answer, why did you even mention spending money to buy the lantern?”

“It was my original intention, but when you said that you wanted to win the lantern by solving the riddle, I simply gave the answer to satisfy your wish.” Xie Xuanchen tried to coax his angry wife.

Unexpectedly, Xie Xuanchne’s words made Mu Mingtang even more angry. She glared at Xie Xuanchen: “Shut up, I don’t want you to say one more word.”

Xie Xuanchen was deeply hurt by such a reaction. He was known for his tremendous strength, and having been also trained in the army, he had great wisdom but sometimes he just got very impatient with some stuff which was enough to make others annoyed by his erratic behaviour.

Although there were instances which made Mu Mingtang unhappy, truthfully she had a very pleasant time during their walk and shopping. Well, the Imperial Guards following them might not share the same sentiments with her.

They observed back and forth between Xia Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang, constantly trying to figure out what Prince An was actually trying to do.

Who would have ever thought that the elite guards who were used to serve the Emperor would one day turn into the errand boys, whose only job was to carry items for their master.

Having observed so far, they finally came to the conclusion that Prince An had come out of the city tower for a sole purpose, and that was to accompany the Princess An to the lantern festival and enjoy their time together, all for the sake of pleasing his little wife. It was such a bitter finding for those single dogs.

After they had shopped for a while, Mu Mingtang became hungry, so when she saw someone was buying chestnuts from a small stall on the side of the road, she tugged at Xie Xuanchen’s sleeve, pointed at the chestnut stall and pouted.

Xie Xuanche realised what Mu Mingtang meant, so they stopped and were about to cross the street but a carriage suddenly sped by them and collided with a stall on the side of the road. The goods were scattered all over the place, blocking the entire road. Unfortunately, not only the road was blocked, but the collision had also caused paper lanterns which were hanging over the railing of other stalls to catch fire.