After an early morning spent sorting out external trades coming and going, Lieshan and Kelian left the inn to return to their respective states.
Or so they said.
Yinyue stood by the hill near the inn, watching their horses and bodyguards make the turn to the main horse route from the inn's winding path. Even under the clear mid-afternoon sun, the shrubs hid her from their view.
She wondered about what Halun wanted. He had requested a private meeting later, and she agreed.
Such private meetings between princes often raised suspicions among those left out, especially if made public.
She pretended to leave first and threw three gold ingots into the trembling innkeeper's hands as compensation for the bloody mess earlier.
An inn in the Black Mountains would take at least six months to earn three gold ingots through an honest living.
She had seen the account books of a few inns belonging to the Qisha syndicate in the valley of the Black Mountains. Their inns were next to the busiest horse routes to collect news from travellers.
This simple two-storey family owned inn was out of the way. The scouts ran a detailed background check on the owner and his family. No connection to other underworld syndicates and no suspicious activities. The inn survived for four generations under the owner's family.
A giggling young couple walking past the inn caught her attention. The woman cradled a sleeping baby in a chest bundle while the man carried a food basket. A married couple based on the woman's hair buns. Their winter coats looked new, with no patches. They looked blissful in each other's company.
Yinyue watched them with envy and wondered if living a commoner's life was better. The commoners didn't need to worry about subtle manipulations, assassinations and schemes which may cost them their lives.
She remembered her childhood in the village when her mother was alive. Commoners in the village looked contented when they had food to fill their stomachs, clean water to drink, a roof over their heads, warm clothing and firewood for warmth.
She recalled how the entire village gathered during the first day of spring to partake in the annual feast, where they slaughtered a sheep or pig and shared the food. Life then was simple.
Memories of her first life as a tragic princess made her realize she lived worse than a common peasant. As a Grand Prince, she had to be on her guard all the time. Assassins could pop up any time. Someone could poison her food. Her enemies could use words against her.
Yinyue's decisions led her on a different path from the first. Yandi was never hers in the first life, and now it is. Ignorance was once bliss in her first life until her tragic end. In her second life, she felt like she spent endless time tiptoeing on the edge of a sharp blade.
Still, the red spider lilies would bloom in her dreams to remind herself of the vengeful promise.
A soft rustling in the shrubs and a few light treads on the snow pulled her back from her thoughts. Her ears pricked up and her right hand moved to the hilt of her sword in the leather sheath tied to her waist-belt on the left. She took a deep breath.
One draw and she'll finish the incoming assassin.
"Master," the familiar voice of 02 whispered as she prepared to fast-draw.
Yinyue let out a small breath and rolled her eyes. His lack of common sense as one of her senior bodyguards astounded her. He shouldn't sneak up behind her. She could've killed him.
Yinyue turned around, her hand on the hilt of her sword, and asked, "Is there anyone else around here?"
02 looked around and shook his head. His eyes drifted to her hand still on the hilt and he dropped to his knees, realizing his mistake.
"Forgive me, master."
"Get up. You've something to report?" She asked, folding her arms.
"There's some movement behind the inn. Seems to be directed at the Prince of Taotang. Should we interfere?" He replied, aware of her meeting with that prince later.
Prince of Taotang. Halun.
She wondered if those assassins came because of Halun's requested meeting. His earlier behavior made her suspicious of his motives.
"How many assassins?"
"Twenty," he replied.
"Halun's bodyguards?"
"Two only."
Yinyue almost choked at the answer. Halun only brought two body guards in the Black Mountains, a spot famed for making people disappear from existence.
She brought thirty bodyguards and at least fifty back up plain clothes guards to loiter around the nearby locations.
Being a Grand Prince meant getting used to assassination attempts like air to breathe.
Halun isn't that stupid to this extent. The situation smelled like a trap for him, or maybe for her.
"Are you sure?" She asked.
"We scouted the area after the two princes left."
"Any clues to which syndicate those assassins belong to?"
Underworld syndicates often took on princes as targets and they despatched elite assassins for the job because a Prince's life paid a lot in gold. But not all princes' lives were up for sale.
More established underworld syndicates avoided taking out contracts on certain princes with certain connections to the others. They wanted to avoid a violent clash.
A thought popped into her mind: Halun could have connections to the Xirong Simurg syndicate. He mentioned his Xirong heritage. No surprise if it was a trap.
02 shook his head again. "Not the known syndicates."
He found them too amateurish when he observed their movements through the forest. They didn't even discover Yinyue's hidden bodyguard.
That thought vanished at 02's words.
"Too loud to be part of any good syndicate," he added, thinking back on their actions.
Their footsteps were heavy enough to hear the thuds on the soft soil and the sounds of twigs breaking. They didn't use qinggong, the martial art skill of lightness. Worse, they whispered enough for someone to eavesdrop.
Good assassins would move through the forest without making so much noise.
Elite assassins didn't move through the forest on foot. Not when ample sturdy trees grew. They flew from tree branch to tree branch using qinggong. And one would have spotted the hidden bodyguards.
"An act and a trap?" She asked.
Suspicion and paranoia came as natural instincts to any Dayan imperial family member. The more suspicious they are of others, the higher the chance of survival.
Maybe she was overthinking the situation, but Yinyue couldn't let down her guard with all the scenarios running through her head.
Another possibility is the personal guards of another prince. Most princes didn't train their personal guards to be elite assassins, unlike the Dayan Grand Princes.
"They moved in a set pattern like common guards or military foot soldiers," he said.
He noticed the formations they used to sweep through the forest didn't resemble a clumsy rag-tag band of killers for sale. More of a basic military method to check for any enemies in hiding that Yinyue's skilled bodyguards knew how to avoid. And they showed a lack of experience, given the noise they stirred up.
"Sounds like Halun offended one of his family members," she said.
02 nodded.
"05," she called out and a dark shadow flashed from the corner of her eye.
05 appeared in his black assassin garb, bowed before her and nodded to an expressionless 02 as courtesy.
She held out a small bamboo strip to him. "Pass it to the Old Man in Plum Blossom. He knows what to do."
On the strip, she etched a coded message for an update on the connection between Gaoyang and the Xirong Empire, and to investigate any suspicious movements from Gaoyang.
The Old Man wasn't an old man but a code for a senior Qisha syndicate member, Meigui. Meigui worked undercover as the proprietress of one popular Black Mountain inn. She was also one of Qisha syndicate's best information collectors.
A smile, a drink and Meigui could pull a man's entire family history along with his reason to be in the Black Mountains out with ease.
Despite her matured age, Meigui kept a certain unexplainable charm from her days as a travelling courtesan-assassin. Meigui loathed most men with a passion, except for Yinyue's maternal grandfather.
05 bowed and asked, "anything else, master?"
"None, this is urgent." Yinyue waved her hand.
05 nodded and zipped across the hill like a black shadow flashing through before disappearing.
"02, follow me," she said.
"Are we going to help the Taotang Prince?" 02 asked.
"We'll see."