Invasion [Sentinel-Guide] Section 31

At this moment, he actually smiled at him.

His face and hair were damp with a light mist, as if he had just washed up. His hair had been restyled, with a few stray locks falling loosely over his forehead, softening his features. His cheeks were still faintly flushed.

Could he have encountered something good? Tan Shu wondered suspiciously.

At that moment, the alarm bells of the Red Ear rang out. A line of the Earl’s mansion guards hurried past the corridor.

Cao Junmin pushed open the door, looking disheveled as he poked his head out, frowning. "What happened?"

Tan Shu felt a bit nervous; he certainly could not admit that he had just been asleep and therefore knew nothing. He only wondered if Ni Ji would take this opportunity to trip him up.

"They say there’s been a murder somewhere. I just asked a passing sentry, but he wouldn't say," Ni Ji explained, walking up behind him. "We were just about to go out and inquire when you woke up, sir."

The use of the word "we" included Tan Shu, subtly covering up his act of slacking off while on duty.

Tan Shu cast a grateful glance at Ni Ji. This person really had changed; he had become so smooth in his dealings.

The Countess emerged from the room, casting a reproachful look at Cao Junmin. She adjusted her hair and hurried away.

Cao Junmin led Tan Shu and Ni Ji toward the grand hall, their path filled with sentries running about in a panic. Tan Shu stopped a subordinate from the Security Bureau to ask for the situation.

The sentry looked frantic. "It’s terrible, sir. The Earl, Earl James, has been assassinated in his bedroom. Just moments ago."

"What did you say!" Cao Junmin was stunned, his eyes wide with fury as he grabbed the man by the collar.

"It's... it's true, sir. I heard the scene is horrific, his face is unrecognizable." The sentry swallowed hard. "A Royal Guard officer from the White Tower happens to be here as well. He has sealed off the scene and ordered us all to gather in the hall. No one is allowed to leave; even we in the Security Bureau are on the list of suspects."

Cao Junmin let go, waving the panicked sentry away. He stood there, his face darkening, shifting between pale and ashen. For him, this news was like a bolt from the blue.

All these years, his rapid rise had been built on riding the coat-tails of the Countess and the Earl. For that, he had swallowed his pride, acting with the utmost servility and licking the boots of this couple, doing countless things for them, both in the open and in the shadows. He never expected that this tree, under which he had found such good shade, would topple so suddenly. All his pains and efforts were for nothing.

No, this was not the time to think about that. He had to resolve the problem right in front of him.

Cao Junmin’s sinister gaze flickered between Tan Shu and Ni Ji, eventually settling on Ni Ji. He soon smiled again, once more the calm, refined, and approachable principal. "In a moment, someone will ask questions. They will ask where we were just now. Xiao Ji, how do you think we should answer?"

"The principal was taking a nap in the lounge, and Tan Shu and I were with you the whole time, not leaving for even a step," Ni Ji replied.

"Very good. The three of us were together the whole time." Cao Junmin smiled and patted Ni Ji on the shoulder. "You’ve improved, Xiao Ji. This is very good."

The commander of the Royal Guard, Lude, was a stern and silent man. It was said that he was a sentinel personally promoted by the Queen from a frontier outpost—a true powerhouse who answered only to the royal family and was loyal to Her Majesty alone. If not for his sudden arrival, no one would have even discovered that the Earl had been brutally murdered in his own bedroom.

Lude stood in the luxurious bedroom, which was splattered with blood and gore. He kicked a rolling energy stone at his feet, his expression one of disdain. "Idiot. He’s an A-grade sentinel, yet he didn't even have time to trigger the alarm before he was taken out."

A subordinate officer entered, saluted, and reported the investigation results. "It was a professional. He used the Earl’s own personal terminal to wipe all video records and disabled most of the security systems. It was done very cleanly; the data is basically unrecoverable. We fear we won't find any information—we don't know who he is or how he entered and exited."

"He knows a little bit of everything, had an invitation, and is familiar with the layout. He also managed to take down an A-grade sentinel without alerting the guards." Lude crouched down, his fingers tracing the marks on the floor. "He even knew to destroy the brain to prevent us from tracing the victim's memories. Interesting."

He stood up and pointed to a collapsed sofa in the bedroom. The sturdy piece of furniture had been completely deformed, leaving a terrifying dent in the floor, yet there wasn't a single drop of blood on it.

"There are traces of a spirit-body battle here. The killer is likely a sentinel. He won't have come out of this unscathed—James wasn't so incompetent that he wouldn't have put up a fight."

He took off his gloves and strode toward the door, issuing orders. "Have all the sentinels gather in the banquet hall, including the Security Bureau and the mansion guards."

"Tell them to strip. Check for fresh wounds. Immediately. I don't want a single person missing."

The languid music in the hall had ceased, and the room was brightly lit. The guests gathered in corners according to their status, whispering and murmuring. The Countess looked ghastly; she sat at the head of the room, covering her face with a feather fan, lost in thought.

All the sentinels were summoned to the center of the hall, standing in rows. They were ordered to remove their outer garments to check for injuries. Though the sentinels grumbled, both men and women took off their coats and trousers quite openly, leaving only their undershirts or undergarments.

The sentinels were unfazed by the disrobing, even keen on showing off their sculpted physiques before so many guides. The guides, however, retreated to the corners. Regardless of gender, most blushed and averted their eyes, afraid to look. Only a few bold ones stole glimpses.

It was the consensus of this world that sentinels could take pride in their physical bodies, while guides were expected to be gentle, chaste, and modest.

Ni Ji unfastened his coat and shirt, wearing nothing underneath. His black undershirt and headscarf had been stained with blood during the operation, so he had shredded them and flushed them down the drain while Tan Shu was asleep.

As he shed his outer layer, his bare upper body and taut muscles drew many eyes. Ni Ji looked lean in his clothes, but he was quite impressive without them. With broad shoulders, a strong waist, and rigid abdominal muscles, he was covered in a crisscross of old and new scars from the battlefield.

Many were watching him. He stood there calmly, though his gaze drifted several times, without drawing attention, toward the corner where the guides were staying.

The guides had been herded into a corner of the banquet hall. Deemed the least likely suspects, they were the last to be screened.

Lin Yuan mingled in the crowd, cautiously poking her head out. She wanted to use the chaos of the sentinels' assembly to find the person who had been hiding in the pipes earlier.

The Earl was murdered, the sentinel had been in the pipes, and there were those blood feuds she had seen in the memories. Lin Yuan vaguely felt she had guessed something.

Was that sentinel looking for her too? Would he want to kill her to silence her? She felt that according to normal logic, someone doing something so secretive and dangerous would not let a witness to the truth go.

But then again, it was hard to say. That person, like her, was a gambler with a warped way of thinking.

Lin Yuan did not recognize him at first. She had only seen Ni Ji many years ago, and just a few days ago, he had been tied to a rack, his face covered in filth and blood. She simply could not equate the handsome sentinel with the clean-cut hair in the crowd to the wretched prisoner from a few days prior.

It was her tentacles that pointed him out. They all curved their tips toward the same direction:

[That one, it’s that one.]

[It’s that big fish, that’s the one.]

[There, he’s right there.]