Chapter 137: Strange happenings at the ball
Han Shuo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He was resigned as he allowed Phoebe to drag him over to the dance floor.
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When he reached the dance floor, he noticed that a few merchants and other nobles were holding onto the waists of their ladies and dancing gracefully in the center of the floor. Han Shuo stood dumbly in a corner after being led there by Phoebe, watching the others dance with narrowed eyes and praying that he wouldn’t be too embarrassing later.
“Here, place your arm around my waist.” Phoebe’s body twisted as she stood across from Han Shuo. Her slender jade hands rose as she placed one into Han Shuo’s right hand, guiding Han Shuo’s left hand to her waist with her right hand.
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When Phoebe’s small hand landed in Han Shuo’s large hand, Han Shuo’s heart lurched slightly as it never had before. A smooth, warm, and boneless small hand felt quite comfortable to the touch. Han Shuo couldn’t help but squeeze her hand, which caused Phoebe’s body to tremble all over, her cheeks reddening unknowingly.
She glared at Han Shuo and said softly, “No monkey business allowed!”
When Han Shuo’s large hand landed on Phoebe’s waist and the two of their bodies were flush against each other. They could smell the scent on each other, and their breaths would even waft into each other’s mouths and nose when they spoke.
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“Come, I’ll lead you in dancing, just follow my rhythm.” Phoebe was a bit scared to look directly at Han Shuo as she lowered her head and said that. She took a deep breath in, placing her empty hand on his shoulder and slowly walked towards the dance floor.
Phoebe appeared to let go of her reservations with the elegant and wonderful music. She didn’t continue looking down at the floor, but stared soulfully at Han Shuo with her beautiful eyes. She explained the main tenets of dancing to Han Shuo in a low voice.
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With Han Shuo’s current intelligence and observation skills, he’d already grasped the main principles of dancing after a round of observation. When he listened to Phoebe’s detailed explanations and was lead forward by her, he immediately grasped the knack of dancing and slowly became familiar with dancing after his initial unfamiliarity.
Phoebe was a swordmaster, and thus her strength, flexibility, and agility was naturally extraordinary. After enduring the reforging from the magical yuan, all the various functions of Han Shuo’s body were even more outstanding than an ordinary person’s. When their two bodies leaned close to each other and settled into the same rhythm, their dancing style was very much in sync and quite mesmerizing.
Their bodies leveraged the fact that their hands were clasped together to move in incredibly harmony. Han Shuo would understand what Phoebe meant when she sent a glance over, and his footsteps would move with Phoebe’s, in moving slowly, quickly, or turning. This kind of wondrous sensation caused ripples of odd emotion in both Phoebe and Han Shuo’s heart.
When the song was over, both of them felt that they hadn’t given full expression to their thoughts, so when the next song sounded, Phoebe pulled Han Shuo into a dancing form again. Their strong accordance perfectly demonstrated another dance to perfection, and their handsome and beautiful forms attracted much attention from the many eyes within the dance floor.
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Just as he was feeling greatly content, Han Shuo’s eyes swept the area and suddenly noticed Emily dancing with old Hahn not too far away. A pair of eyes full of the light of jealousy were fixed intently on him. This made Han Shuo’s heart jump and flash a rueful smile at Emily from afar.
When she saw that Han Shuo had only just now noticed her gaze, Emily was a bit angry as she viciously rolled her eyes at Han Shuo, telling him that she was truly jealous.
There was really no way that Han Shuo could explain anything at this moment, and could only smile wryly at Emily in the distance. Several waiters appeared from three directions at this time. Their gazes were flitting back and forth and their steps light and slow, as if trying to hide something.
Han Shuo hadn’t paid them much attention at first, but his sensitive ears seemed to filter out the wondrous music and heard a very, very faint tinkling sound. This seemed to be the sound that jade and jewels would make after hitting metal.
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His thoughts racing slightly, Han Shuo’s expression tightened as he began to involuntarily closely observe the waiters who had just appeared. As everyone was mesmerized in romantic dance steps, the appearance of several waiters holding trays with wine glasses on them was a bit jarring. In addition, although the waiters’ gazes were calm, they would involuntarily travel to old Hahn in the middle of the dance floor, with a cold light subtly appearing when their eyes landed on him.
As Han Shuo continued his observations, he noticed that the waiters were slowly converging on one area. He also judged that Emily’s and old Hahn’s footsteps would travel to where the waiters were in another few breaths. Han Shuo vaguely felt uneasy as he noted the waiters’ gazes.
His mind racing now, Han Shuo tilted his forehead forward and brought his lips up to Phoebe’s ears. Lost in the dance, Phoebe suddenly sensed Han Shuo’s movements and her heart was thrown into disarray. The redness of her cheeks spread out to her nape.
She moved her neck slightly to the left, seeming to want to put some distance between Han Shuo’s lips and her neck. She then quickly lifted her head and snuck a glance at Han Shuo after moving her head like that, noticing that Han Shuo had furrowed his brow. This made her heart panic even more.
She hesitated a bit and seemed to decide on something, rolling her eyes at Han Shuo inwardly. Her neck didn’t continue to dodge and stayed there as she seemed to be waiting for something with reddened cheeks.
“Those waiters seem to want to take action against old Hahn and Madame Emily. I made a joke out of old Hahn just now earlier. Move there with me now and I’ll go and repay him for his favor.” Han Shuo finally placed his lips next to Phoebe’s ears and said softly.
Her body had first trembled in anticipation, Phoebe’s body had then changed from soft and pliable to quite stiff after Han Shuo had spoken his words. A trace of disappointment flashed through her heart, after which she widened the distance between her and Han Shuo to use her eyes to indicate that she understood.
Looking at Phoebe’s gaze, Han Shuo knew that Phoebe had fully understood his intentions, given how in sync he was with her. He nodded and didn’t say much else, covertly changing their dance moves together. The two of them exchanged positions with another couple at an unknown moment and swiftly danced towards old Hahn and Emily.
To Han Shuo, he wasn’t doing so in order to pay back old Hahn any sort of favor. He was doing so because Emily was there. Emily was dancing with old Hahn and when she saw Han Shuo winking incessantly at her, she thought that Han Shuo was feeling guilty and wanted to explain something. She glared huffily at Han Shuo and turned her head to no longer look at him again, seeming to still be greatly angry.
Seeing danger approach, Han Shuo’s heart became more and more calm. His gaze focused on the bodies of the waiters and mentally charted out their plan of action and timing. He measured it all up clearly and accurately calculated when they would make their move.
When Emily and old Hahn finally started moving towards a corner, Han Shuo’s large hand on Phoebe’s waist suddenly abruptly exerted force and they took two quick steps towards Emily.
At the same time, the gazes and demeanors of the waiters, who’d waited for quite a while suddenly made a drastic change from their peaceful looks. A cold and severe presence emanated from their bodies. The waiter, with the tray of wine glasses in his hand, suddenly flung it forward, sending the tray and its contents flying towards Emily and old Hahn. Their bodies moved at the same time as a dagger, sparkling with cold light stabbed towards old Hahn and Emily like lightning.
Emily and old Hahn had been dancing to the graceful music when their faces suddenly changed drastically, but when they reacted, the fatal attack was already close at hand. One dagger stabbed towards Emily as another four stabbed towards old Hahn. The five assassins moved quickly and cleanly. It was obvious to see that they were old hats with lots of tough training under their belts.
A sharp and severe whistling suddenly sounded, appearing all the more ear-piercing in the midst of the melodious music. The Demonslayer Edge shot out of Han Shuo’s sleeve like lightning in accordance to his thoughts, aiming for the dagger making straight for Emily.
Han Shuo and Phoebe had swiftly whirled to old Hahn’s side at this time and surged into the other four assassins attacking old Hahn before they’d had a chance to react.
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Having long since made their preparations, Han Shuo and Phoebe acted to defend at the same time. Han Shuo used a dwarf-forged dagger to block a hit, Phoebe’s longsword twirled fiercely and strongly deflected two daggers into the sky. Making use of this opening, Han Shuo shoved fiercely with his back and tried to push old Hahn away from the danger zone.
To his surprise, old Hahn wasn’t pushed out of the way after his strong shove. Old Hahn’s upper body swayed slightly as he reached through the air to snatch out a flying tray. Old Hahn hauled it behind him and blocked the last dagger with a loud clang.
The suddenly appearing Han Shuo and Phoebe had blocked three of the daggers that’d been for old Hahn, completely throwing the assassins plans into disarray. The five waiters looked at each other and didn’t make another move. They retreated quickly towards the outside as screams and panic ensued on the dance floor, with everyone trying to flee and hide.
Old Hahn and Phoebe both set their sights on different assassins and immediately ran off in pursuit. As the two of them were taking action, Han Shuo quickly ran to Emily’s side and grabbed her hand, saying lowly, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, go after the assassins!” Emily was a senior executive of the Dark Mantle alright, she didn’t display any panic and immediately admonished Han Shuo lightly.
“It’s none of my business. it’s good as long as you’re alright. Everything else has nothing to do with me!” Han Shuo shook his head and picked up a wine glass from beside him at random, staying where he was and slowly sipped at wine as he looked at Emily, having not the slightest intention to rise.
“You, you darned brat!” The meaning behind Han Shuo’s words was obviously placing Emily’s safety first and being too lazy to care about anything else. When Emily heard his words, she was both angry at Han Shuo not listening to her and touched by his concern. She pouted and rebuked him.
The dance floor was in complete chaos at this moment as the merchants reacted to the sudden developments. They were all fleeing in mass panic to the courtyard beyond the dance floor. No one was paying any attention to the conversation between Han Shuo and Emily.
Seeing that there were fewer and fewer people on the dance floor, Han Shuo and Emily finally walked outside. A grave, sharp sound sounded when they reached the door as the Demonslayer Edge threaded through the frantically fleeing crowd and suddenly landed in Han Shuo’s palm, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.
“The person who attacked you is dead!” Han Shuo said faintly to Emily when he put the Demonslayer Edge away.
When the Demonslayer Edge had flown back just now, it had been flying close to the ground. The people panicking around it naturally hadn’t noticed, but Emily had been walking with Han Shuo and had seen the Demonslayer’s miraculous, automatic flight with her own eyes. It’d then concealed itself within Han Shuo’s sleeve, making Emily flabbergasted.
“What’s the weapon that you’re using?” Emily’s voice trembled as she looked in disbelief at Han Shuo.
The Demonslayer Edge that could fly according to his own will naturally appeared mysterious and unpredictable in this world. It was understandable that Emily was so shocked.
Smiling mysteriously, Han Shuo explained with a dashing air, “This has to do with the martial arts technique that I’m training, I’m not at liberty to explain. All you have to know is that my weapon is indeed a bit different.”
“You wicked brat, just how many secrets are hidden amongst yourself?” Strange lights danced in Emily’s eyes as they focused on Han Shuo, asking with extreme curiosity.
Shrugging, Han Shuo smiled without responding and gave off the air of unfathomable mysteriousness. This made Emily’s teeth itch to throw all decorum to the winds and bite him where they stood.
Just as Han Shuo and Emily were conversing quietly, the chaotic scene slowly came under control as Phoebe, old Hahn, a slightly frantic Finance Minister Eevee, and Lawrence, with a darkened expression, returned from all directions.
“One made it out and the others committed suicide. There was nothing to be gleaned from their bodies.” Phoebe first looked in surprise at Han Shuo and Emily and spoke lowly to Han Shuo when she returned.
Han Shuo and Emily had already put some distance between themselves before Phoebe and the others had returned, and their expressions had gone back to normal and didn’t express anything special in particular. Therefore, although Phoebe was curious why Han Shuo hadn’t gone after the killers and stayed with Emily, she didn’t ask anything.
“Little fellow, thank you for your aid in saving me and Emily.” Old Hahn said approvingly to Han Shuo with a smile after he walked over.
“Not at all, treat it as me returning the favor after making a joke out of you earlier. Heh heh, this way even if you really were narrow minded, you likely wouldn’t be able to find it within yourself to make trouble for me.” Han Shuo winded at old Hahn and said teasingly.
Old Hahn laughed heartily when these words were uttered, “Fascinating, what a fascinating little fellow!”