Hearing him speak twice, both asking her if something was wrong, Princess Yan felt bitter in her heart.
He always treated her like this, never treating her badly, showing full respect in everything, so impeccable, yet so distant.
But she...has nothing to blame.
This is all as it should be.
Normally, she would not have dared to stay any longer at this time, lest she disturb him and annoy him——
But this time, she was really uneasy...
"My lord...have you really thought about it clearly?" Even though she was not a straightforward person, she did not try to beat around the bush. She knew that he had many things to deal with, and she could not help but waste his time slowly.
She was used to being extremely careful in front of him and trying to be thoughtful.
"You already know." Prince Yan glanced at her and was not surprised. Prince Yan's palace was so big, so it was normal for the news to reach her ears.
And he had no intention of hiding it from her.
"I'm about to ask someone to tell you and Sonny that I will leave Mizhou tomorrow. You and Sonny can just stay in the palace with peace of mind. I will leave enough manpower to ensure your safety."
tomorrow?
Princess Yan was a little overwhelmed when she heard this, and subconsciously asked: "Your Majesty... where are you going?"
King Yan was sorting out the documents at hand and said, "You don't have to worry about military affairs."
Princess Yan grasped the handkerchief tightly.
Yes, the important matter of the march was a secret, so she shouldn't ask more questions...
But……
"Your Majesty's visit must be full of dangers, I'm worried..."
Seeing that she hesitated to speak, King Yan said: "Don't worry, if I fail, I will secretly try to send you and Son'er away from Mizhou. At that time, you two only need to hide your identity, and you should have
There are peaceful and ordinary days. I have asked He Feng to arrange everything in advance, so you mother and daughter do not have to share the risk with me."
This should be the case both emotionally and rationally. There was no reason for him to let the Heisi mother and daughter bear the possible consequences of what he had done.
Princess Yan's eyelashes trembled slightly: "I don't mean that..."
She was just worried about him...
But how could she open this mouth?
Mammy always said that she has a chance. As long as she is determined, she will be able to warm the heart of the prince one day...
But she knew very well that she had no chance at all, not even one.
She raised her eyes slightly and looked into the study room separated by a screen.
Except for the personal servants and He Feng, no one else is allowed to set foot in the prince's study.
But even so, she still knew that there was always a portrait of a woman hanging in the inner room of the study...
About three or four years ago, Sonny sneaked in once, saw the portrait, and found out that her father had someone else in his heart. She cried and made a fuss, and said many things like, "Father,
"No wonder Wang is so estranged from my mother-in-law and is not close to our mother and daughter." and "It turns out he still cares about the woman next to him. What good is a dead person?" and so on. In the end, the quarrel became so severe that he even wanted to take off the portrait.
Come down and tear it up——
That was... that was the first time she saw the prince getting angry with Sonny with a sullen expression.
The prince stood next to the screen and coldly uttered a very short but very important word to Sonny who was holding the portrait - "Put the things down and get out."
Sonny was so frightened that he walked out in a daze without even crying.
When he came to his senses, he threw himself into her arms and cried for a long time.
Thinking of this past event, the person in the painting that she had only seen once flashed before her eyes, but it seemed to have been deeply imprinted in her mind. Heidegger felt that her eyes were sore and painful.
She had no chance...
Fortunately, no one will have this opportunity.
She suppressed many complicated thoughts and said softly: "Now that the prince has made up his mind, I hope that everything goes well for the prince..."
King Yan nodded: "You are not in good health. Go back and rest early."
"Yes." Princess Yan blessed her body: "Prince Tang, please remember to drink. I will take my leave."
She slowly retreated out. The rain outside the study had just begun to subside. Looking up, she could see that the rain was still dripping down the eaves and corners of the corridor. The door of the study behind her was closed by a servant. A gust of wind blew up, and a cold air hit her. Come.
The chill even made her cry.
"princess……"
The grandmother who was waiting by the stone steps came up to her and held her arm.
"Go back." Princess Yan said hoarsely.
Grandma took a look at the brightly lit study and didn't dare to ask any more questions. She helped her princess back to the bedroom.
Two quarters of an hour later, King Yan handed the two letters to He Feng.
"Hurry up and send them to Ningyang and Linyuan respectively."
"Yes." After He Feng agreed, he asked hesitantly: "Your Majesty...do you really want to lead the troops out of the north in person?"
In this case, the prince will always be accused of treason.
"Of course." King Yan did not hesitate at all.
The Xu and Wu families defected from Beijing together, which caught the imperial court off guard, and indeed caused the imperial court to lose its control for a moment——
But it's only for a while.
Daqing was only established in the early 20 years, and the world was won through conquest. Even though the emperor's incompetence in governing the country weakened the country's power, and there were many criticisms of various systems, it was difficult to change the fact that there was no shortage in the hands of the imperial court. Soldiers and horses.
Once the court is given enough time to come up with truly usable countermeasures, this will surely be a protracted battle that will take a long time.
Maybe it will take so long that the court can't afford it, and they can't afford it either.
Now that the Xu family has taken over Linyuan, even though the Wu family has been able to support the situation temporarily by relying on its large tree and deep roots, it will be difficult to break through the layers of siege from the imperial court if it is delayed in getting help.
Therefore, he must not hide in Mizhou and wait to enjoy the results. He can only wait for the bloody results of the Xu and Wu families to be presented to him, and then make a gesture of "for the stability of the world, I have to take this position."
I've already turned against myself in my heart, so this is the last step to make things real.
No one is blind.
Nor could he leave all the dangers to his father-in-law and the general to bear for him just for the sake of a false reputation.
On the contrary, he is the one who should be at the front.
He Feng didn't ask any more questions and left with the letter.
After King Yan finished washing, he lay down on the low couch in the inner room.
Lying like this, you can just see the portrait.
The person in the painting was smiling, and King Yan couldn't help but have a smile in his eyes.
"It's true..." He put his arms behind his head and sighed: "I miss our son. I don't know if this brat misses his father."
He also said rather naggingly: "What do you think he is doing at this time? I don't know what the situation in Ningxia is now. I went all the way from Mizhou, and there must be many obstacles along the way. I don't know when I can see that kid... "
"You have to keep an eye on him. This guy looks a lot like me. He doesn't look like a peaceful master with many ideas."
After thinking about it, he nodded and said: "But fortunately, I am more like you..."
"By the way, I forgot to tell you last time that this boy's marriage has been roughly decided. She is a little girl from the Xu family, the general's granddaughter. He chose it himself, oh, no, no... it was the girl who chose it.
Him." He smiled and said: "This little girl has more ideas than him. If you were still here, you would definitely like her very much..."
At this point, his voice became slightly hoarse, and his smiling eyes gradually turned red.
He looked at the painting and saw that she seemed to be laughing at him, so he wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes with his fingers and gave a silly laugh.
…
Thousands of miles away, under the dark night, a line of carriages and horses slowly stopped.
After driving for more than half a day, both the man and the horse were tired.
This place was close to a dense forest, and the terrain was quite secluded. After Sui Jiang asked for instructions in a low voice beside a carriage, he got off his horse and ordered everyone to light a fire on the spot and feed the horses to rest.
After Sui Jiang personally delivered the food to the two carriages, he sat in front of the fire and drank water.
"There are still two days' journey at most..." a follower said while baking a piece of naan bread.
This way they did not take the official road, nor was it an easy-to-guess shortcut. To be safe, they detoured through two cities, which added three or four days to the journey.
But apart from some bandits blocking the road, it was indeed a safe journey and I didn't meet anyone from the imperial court.
Sui Jiang nodded.
Two more days...
If someone wants to take action, most likely they will do it at night.
And if we wait another day, we will be too close to Ningyang...
Therefore, he bet that there would be no peace tonight.
To be honest, he is indeed not as smart as Suishan, but he still has the keen intuition and judgment accumulated from his background as a secret guard.
It was precisely for this reason that he chose to rest here. It was secluded and uninhabited, and further out of the dense forest, there was an excellent place to escape.
Sui Jiang drew out his long sword from behind and held a piece of cotton cloth to the fire to wipe it.
The night sky above our heads was pitch black, with not a single star visible. A hairy moon hung hazily in the sky, as if a bright pearl covered in dust had obscured its light.
The night wind swept through the treetops of the dense forest, making a rustling sound, and the autumn leaves covering the ground became thicker.
The wind stopped, but the sound did not disappear.
Except for Sui Jiang, the six followers in the group immediately looked on guard, and they unanimously pressed the long swords on their waists.
Behind him, behind the green and yellow grass half as tall as a person, a dark shadow suddenly appeared and approached quickly.
"Protect the masters!"
Sui Jiang suddenly stood up, the sword in his hand shining coldly under the firelight.
There is more than one black shadow.
More and more shadows were approaching. Sui Jiang glanced at the two men while they were fighting, and saw that there were at least fifty or sixty black shadows that were half-melted into the night!
And all of them have extraordinary skills and ruthless attacks!
This clearly shows that he wants to succeed in one blow and does not have any patience to waste it for a long time.
There was no verbal communication between those people, but there was order and a clear goal - what they wanted was the lives of the people in the two carriages!
The disparity in numbers between the two sides is too great, and they will not be able to resist for long.
Realizing this, Sui Jiang did not waste a moment. When the long sword in his hand penetrated a person's chest, he shouted loudly: "Go quickly! Protect the masters and leave!"
"yes!"
Several followers responded in unison, immediately jumped onto the shaft, grabbed the reins and started to drive the horses.
"Stop them!" A man in black gave the order and said the first words after appearing.
A group of men in black flew forward, attacking like locusts covering the sun, and almost surrounded the carriage.
"drive!"
The horses raised their hooves and neighed, forced out of their instinct to flee from danger, and the two carriages rushed out of the crowd one after another.
One of the men in black hit the car window with a long knife, and half of the knife blade did not enter the car.
Under the swaying wind lantern, one could vaguely see the slightly panicked figures in the carriage.
"Fire the arrow!"
"Chase!"
One after another, the cold arrows pierced the oncoming night wind, making a "whoosh" sound.
Just as Sui Jiang had just seen, this group of people was in order. At this time, dozens of people holding bows ran after them and disappeared into the dense forest together with the carriage. Another dozen people quickly left here and headed not far away.
Get the horses and chase them.
As for the few people in front of them who were dragged to the spot by Sui Jiang and another close entourage, they didn't know any tricks at all, and the swords were directed towards killing people.
"Are you from the imperial court?!" Sui Jiang's eyes turned red. When he was forced to retreat step by step, he gritted his teeth and asked: "This road...how on earth did you catch up!"
The masked man snorted disdainfully: "What's the point of asking when you're about to die!"
Sui Jiang's eyes darkened slightly.
The fighting was so noisy just now that he couldn't distinguish the other party's accent, but now he could hear it clearly——
It is indeed the official dialect of the capital, but the accent is not very clean...
"Let's go!" Sui Jiang, who was injured, stopped fighting and turned to his companions beside him.
With the cooperation of the two, Sui Jiang relied on his previous observation and understanding of the surrounding terrain and environment, and quickly escaped under the cover of night.
"They are injured and cannot escape far. If we catch up, we must not leave anyone alive——"
"yes!"
Two of the men in black were ordered to catch up.
Among the other two people, the one who spoke just now was obviously the leader of this operation. He glanced at the direction in which Sui Jiang and the two disappeared and did not stay here for long.
A subordinate brought the horse, and he jumped on the horse's back, and the group immediately chased towards the forest where the carriage had escaped.
However, to their surprise, just a few hundred steps beyond the dense forest, there was a cliff.
"...the path down the mountain is on the right. Their horses were rushing so fast that they didn't have time to see the road ahead clearly. The horses were already running crazy and they couldn't stop them, so they just fell down."
The man in black at the scene said: "Some of our people were following closely, and one of them accidentally fell off the cliff."
The leader heard the words and came to the edge of the cliff, looking down at his feet with the help of the torch lit by his subordinates.
The night is dark, and there are tall and low vegetation growing on the edge of the cliff. It is really confusing to see in the dark night.
Looking further down, the cliff is so dark that you can't see the bottom. You can faintly see strange rocks and vegetation overlapping each other, and the dark shadows of branches and vines are swaying with the passing mountain wind, as if they are baring their teeth and claws, and the shape is weird.
"This mountain is called Longqi Mountain, and judging from the topography, the cliff is at least a hundred feet high. If you fall with the carriage and horse from here, you will definitely die." A subordinate said beside him.
Another person glanced down and said hesitantly: "Could it be that the majestic head of the Wu family and descendants of the Wu family really died in our hands so easily?"
In storybooks, these big shots usually do not die when they fall off a cliff, and they may encounter some adventures.
The leader sneered and said: "So what about the head of the Wu family? He didn't have many people to protect him along the way. He is just a human body. If he falls like this, he will be turned into a pile of meat."
But there is one thing——
"You have to see the corpse before you die, otherwise you won't be able to do business."
