The owner of the sword tassel

The next week passed in a blur of activity for Meng Mei. If she wasn’t sneaking out to meet Lai Huang by the stream, she was hiding out and messaging Min Jing. She did everything in her power to avoid being left alone with Zhong Changming or any of the Zhong’s for that matter.

The two archery competitions were just as boring as the swordsmanship tournament had been. Except this time neither of the Meng Brothers placed first. In fact they were both beaten out by Zhu Huiqing.

Meng Mei cheered just as hard for him as she cheered for Meng Weiyuan when he won the swordsmanship tournament.

Before she knew it, they were entering their final two weeks at the camping grounds. SHe was proud of the progress she had made with Lai Huang. Even the system had sent her a few congratulatory messages for her efforts.

Today was the first day in a while where Zhu Huiqing wasn’t busy and so he’d been reassigned to be her body guard.

Meng Mei had taken this in stride. Even though it meant she wouldn’t be able to sneak off and meet with Lai Huang she was still happy to be spending more time with Zhu Huiqing.

Honestly she had kind of missed him these past few days when he had been busy.

With nothing better to do, she’d invited him into her tent as she dug through her jewelry boxes. Tonight at dinner they’d be discussing some more formalities about her current engagement so she wanted to make sure her outfit was impeccable.

Zhu Huiqing sat on the stool by her desk while Meng Mei sat on her bed. Every so often she would hold up a necklace and ask his opinion. He would only say the most basic of formalities so Meng Mei filled in with her own commentary.

“What about this one?” She asked.

“It’s nice.”

“No you’re right, it is kind of tacky.” She would nod along in agreement before tossing the necklace and moving on.

Zhu Huiqing just looked helplessly amused.

Meng Mei was almost to the bottom of the box when she noticed something. SHe made a noise of surprise and pulled the mysterious sword tassel out of her mound of jewelry.

“Huh. What’s this doing here?” Meng Mei asked curiously. She took a closer look at the tassel and confirmed that it was in fact the same one that she’d found in the hallway that day.

“What’s that?” Zhu Huiqing asked as he stood.

Meng Mei shrugged and extended her arm, offering the sword tassel for him to inspect.

“I found this in the hallways of Libaogong like a month ago. I’ve been holding on to it in case I found the owner but that hasn’t happened obviously.” Meng Mei explained as Zhu Huiqing took the tassel into his hands. “Do you recognize it?”

“Yes it kind of looks like—” Zhu Huiqing cut himself off as he flipped it over and saw the engraving on the other side. He let out a noise of surprise as he examined the coin engraving.

“You said you found this in Libaogong?” He asked slowly, his face becoming stormy.

“...Yes? What’s wrong?” Meng Mei asked hesitantly. His expression was starting to scare her.

“Did you pack it?” He asked, not removing his eyes from the tassel.

“No, I didn’t even know it was in my jewelry box.” Meng Mei denied. “I was keeping it safe under my bed since it wasn’t mine y’know? I didn’t have any reason to bring it with me.”

Zhu Huiqing nodded slowly. When he looked back up at her he looked so serious that Meng Mei doubted that he was the same man she knew for a moment.

“Guniang, stand up very slowly and then take my hand.” He instructed her lowly. Meng Mei followed his instructions. Okay now he was really starting to scare her.

“Guard Zhu, what’s—”

He made a shushing motion so she shut her mouth.

“We’ve been betrayed.” He announced in a whisper.

Meng Mei’s mouth dropped open. She was barely able to refrain from asking him more questions. What did he mean by that? How on earth did he know? All she had done was show him a sword tassel.

Her questions were clearly written across her face. Zhu Huiqing took pity on her and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“This tassel belongs to a guard in my squadron. He’s the only one who likes this bright yellow color. This coin symbol though…it’s a symbol that an elite band of thieves uses. It’s unmistakable. And if you’re certain that you left this hidden in your room that means that someone…has been watching you.” Zhu Huiqing explained hurriedly.

Meng Mei gaped at him.

There’s absolutely no way that can be correct. Her second main quest was supposed to be her busting a large theft ring happening at Libaogong!?

Just as she was going to call Zhu Huiqing paranoid, two memories suddenly resurfaced.

Hadn’t those mysterious voices claimed that something was heavy? She knew that they had been carrying something and that they wanted to avoid detection but had they actually been….stealing!?

And then hadn’t Guang-laoshi claimed that a painting was missing from the corridor walls? At the time Meng Mei thought she had just been seeing things but wait if…

Meng Mei promptly shut her mouth. Zhu Huiqing was the professional here. If he thought that there were thieves then combined with everything Meng Mei knew…she was inclined to agree with him.

When Zhu Huiqing realized that Meng Mei believed him he nodded and leaned back down.

“Good. Now we are going to leave this tent very slowly. If someone has been watching you then they likely realize something is wrong.” He said.

Meng Mei’s blood ran cold.

“Keep a tight hold on my hand. If I tell you to run then you run. Don’t look back and don’t hesitate. We’re going to see sect leader Meng so I can tell him my suspicions.”

Meng Mei nodded mutely.

This situation had suddenly become much too real for her. This was her first major quest in this world and her life was already in danger. What were future quests going to be like?

No, she couldn’t focus on that now. Right now she just had to worry about following Zhu Huiqing and getting to Meng Guoyao’s tent.

With one last nod, Zhu Huiqing pushed open the tent flap and they walked out into the real world.

Immediately they knew that something was wrong.

Everyone was huddled around something and speaking loudly. Zhu Huiqing grit his teeth and looked at Meng Mei. Clearly he was battling between you=ing to check out the commotion and making sure Meng Mei reached Meng Guoyao.

“Meimei! There you are!” Meng Yong called when he noticed them.

“Yong-ge! What’s going on? What’s everyone looking at?” Meng Mei asked.

Meng Yong grinned, and motioned towards the crowd.

“Didn’t you hear? The yao beasts and corpses have arrived for the hunt next week! Everyone is taking a look at them while they're still bound up!”

Meng Mei got a sinking feeling in her gut. Before she knew it Zhu Huiqing was hurrying over to the crowd with her only a few steps behind him.

They pushed to the front to see what everyone was ogling at. Standing there were two large clusters of walking corpses, which were only being contained by a glowing red rope that was tied tightly around the outer circle. Next to them were two large cages with snarling yao beasts of every shape and size.

Meng Mei felt Zhu Huiqing tense as a Libaogong guard approached the one keeping an eye on the ropes.

“That’s him.” He growled as the guard leaned over to whisper something to the guard watching the ropes. Sure enough, when Meng Mei saw his sword, it was missing a tassel.

The guard watching the rope started looking around before his eyes landed on Zhu Huiqing and Meng Mei. His expression turned eerie as he pulled out his sword.

“EVERYONE! DRAW YOUR SWORDS!” Zhu Huiqing yelled as the guard swung downwards.

The next thing Meng Mei knew, the walking corpses were free.