“A suspicious person has infiltrated.”
“I’d like the noble inside to come down for a moment.
I need to check if there’s any problem.”
The city guard soldier’s voice was loud and full of vigor.
Hearing this, the noble girl inside the carriage was displeased.
Normally, a carriage carrying a noble lady like her wouldn’t even need inspection to enter the city—it could use the exclusive noble passage and go straight to the core Inner City of Grey Pine City.
Now she had to stop here for a city guard inspection, and even get off to be gawked at!
Was she, a noble lady, something to be casually shown off?
“Are you humiliating me?”
The girl said with a trace of anger.
“Dear miss, I’m just following procedures. You should know that things haven’t been peaceful in the city lately. Those heretics love to cause trouble at times like this. We have no choice.”
The city guard didn’t back down.
They belonged to the City Lord of Grey Pine City, and the City Lord was a parallel power to the nobles—a bridgehead the Emperor used to check the old noble factions.
As long as their orders were firm enough, they weren’t afraid of offending nobles.
Besides, this noble wasn’t even local to Grey Pine City.
Even less reason to fear offending her. What could she do about it?
The noble girl snorted coldly, but her expression quickly softened.
She knew the city guard belonged to the City Lord’s faction, and a noble like her had no leverage over them.
She had no choice but to swallow today’s humiliation.
If the wedding hadn’t been scheduled for tomorrow, she would have turned around and left immediately.
“You can search the carriage, but I have one condition: you can only look, not touch!”
“No problem, dear miss.”
The city guard didn’t argue on this point.
If more young ladies and gentlemen like this noble girl knew when to back down, why would entry to the city take half a day?
Most of the time, it was these people who didn’t cooperate, causing delays.
In the end, they still had to accept inspection, didn’t they?
The noble girl was uncomfortable inside, but she hid her emotions well.
Unfortunately, her skill wasn’t enough—Shu Yue could see through it.
In this regard, she really wasn’t a match for Vanessa.
Shu Yue saw they were about to get off, so she followed along.
She was currently in mirror disguise—a spotless white-skinned youth with a strikingly handsome face.
That was why two noble girls had hit on her earlier.
What could she do?
Shu Yue was just too handsome.
Wearing a gray long robe without a hood, she didn’t look like a suspicious person.
Coupled with her good looks, she was naturally mistaken for the noble girl’s male companion.
The city guard sent a few people up to search the carriage, confirming no one was hiding inside.
Meanwhile, some guards started recording Shu Yue and her group, probably using descriptive words to note their features for the entry record.
After spending over twenty minutes, they were finally allowed to pass.
Shu Yue got back into the carriage.
As it moved forward, she deliberately looked out the window and noticed that very few people were walking around in the Outer City.
The lockdown seemed serious.
A baron’s family was massacred—was this level of lockdown really necessary?
She didn’t know.
She had never committed a massacre, nor had she ever seen a noble’s family wiped out.
She hadn’t even heard of such a thing.
Curious, Shu Yue asked the girl:
“How many people are coming to the wedding?”
“There should be a lot. The Leicester family is an old-established family, after all. Baron Leicester controls forty percent of Grey Pine City’s industry. He’s got deep resources, so naturally many people want to curry favor.”
Seeing Shu Yue interested, the noble girl grew excited.
It wasn’t that she liked socializing, but she had been raised for it since childhood, and this was the only thing she was good at.
If a noble girl could be compared to a plant, besides being an ornamental flower, she was also a kind of cash crop.
Shu Yue had no interest in the noble gossip she was spewing.
Now that they were inside the city, she didn’t plan to keep playing along with this young lady.
“I have some business of my own, so I won’t stay longer.”
“?”
The noble girl was still enthusiastically talking when Shu Yue dropped that line.
The carriage slowly came to a halt.
Shu Yue bid her farewell:
“Thanks, you kind and beautiful young lady~”
With that, Shu Yue got off the carriage and quickly entered an alley, disappearing from the girl’s sight.
The noble girl’s face flushed slightly.
The reason she had let Shu Yue ride with her was because Shu Yue was handsome and pleasant to look at.
Plus, Shu Yue had a very special aura—standing there gave off a sense of detached solitude, sparking curiosity.
The maid saw her young lady still staring blankly and quickly called out:
“Miss, you can’t judge a man just by his face. He’s extremely—no, nine-tenths rude. Doesn’t seem like a noble at all.”
“Bella, what do you know? Those polite noble young masters—aren’t they all putting on an act?”
“But at least they pretend…”
“No buts. I already told you, you don’t understand. Mother taught me that to judge a man, you look into his eyes. From his eyes, I could see he has a very pure heart. Such a man would make a good husband. Didn’t you notice he barely even looked at me?”
“Miss, you want him to be your husband?! But you didn’t even ask his name…”
“Heh~ Bella, you’ve grown up for nothing.”
The noble girl looked regretfully at the maid’s chest.
“If we had exchanged names from the start, he would only remember me by my name. But if we don’t exchange names, he’ll remember my face and my voice instead. He said he’s attending the wedding, so he’ll definitely come to tonight’s banquet. We’ll meet again. Then we can use the name exchange to start a conversation.”
The maid fell silent.
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand, but her young lady’s mind, though sharp, always worked differently from others.
The maid thought all those twists and turns were unnecessary—just be direct.
The noble girl smiled with her lips, sipping tea and daydreaming.
“Young lady? Such a unique way of addressing me. Hehehe~”
Shu Yue had walked quite far by now.
Her nose itched a little, but she held back the sneeze.
She was currently in the Outer City.
The reason she didn’t go directly to see Baron Leicester or return to Liya’s manor was that she wanted to gather some information in the Outer City.
Though the area was under lockdown, it couldn’t be completely sealed off.
The Outer City was simply too large.
The city guard could patrol, but they couldn’t watch every corner closely.
Shu Yue walked into a tavern and bought some information.
For about fifty copper coins, she learned some inside news—much more detailed than what the noble girl had told her.
To put it simply—
Baron Jim might have offended someone and was carved up and devoured.
The Black Feather Sect?
Just a scapegoat brought in to take the fall.