Chapter 134

Qin Sang had no idea why the noble lady in the palace had summoned her in the dead of night. It couldn't be to deliver a gift to her, so there was only one possibility: to kill her.

It's true, if assassination fails, then open warfare will prevail. Xie Sui'an hasn't been home for two days, which means the situation in the palace is tense. At this critical juncture, it wouldn't be a big deal for her to disobey the imperial decree, but shortly after the news from the palace, someone from Prince Ning'an secretly delivered a letter to her.

With a heavy heart and a touch of inexplicable excitement, she tidied herself up and followed the imperial eunuch into the palace.

In the dead of night, the palace gates were locked, but an urgent imperial edict from the Empress summoned them. The city gates were reopened, and a sedan chair carried them toward the Empress's Huiyu Palace.

***

Outside the Eastern Palace, layers of guards lurked in the darkness, protecting the future emperor. Inside the Eastern Palace, Crown Prince Zhao Bing was enjoying a night of revelry, singing, dancing, and drinking when a young eunuch hurried over and whispered something in the ear of the head eunuch. After a moment's thought, the head eunuch relayed the message to the Crown Prince.

Zhao Bing, his face hazy with drunkenness and his eyes glazed over, opened his eyes slightly upon hearing this. After a moment's thought, he looked up and asked, "Why did Mother summon her to the palace?" Before anyone could answer, he chuckled to himself, "Mother really understands me. She's sending me a gift. Send someone to meet her. Once she enters Mother's palace, arrest her."

The head eunuch nodded to the junior eunuch, who then left. Zhao Bing hugged the palace maid beside him tightly and bit her hard: "Goodness, her face is so tender! Tsk tsk, right, wait a minute," Zhao Bing suddenly remembered something, "I, the Crown Prince, also need to pay my respects to the Empress Dowager! That girl is quite delectable, wouldn't it be a pity to just kill her? Hehe..." As he spoke, he was about to get up.

The head eunuch's expression changed slightly, and he reached out to support the prince: "Your Highness, the Imperial Uncle said that you must stay in the Crown Prince's Palace these days and cannot go out. Be careful of any unforeseen events."

The Crown Prince was stunned for a moment, but then his lust took over. His mind was filled with Qin Sang's red lips and white teeth, her complexion glowing with a rosy hue. He shook off the head eunuch's hand and roared, "You dog of a servant, telling me what to do?! Are all those skilled guards outside just eating shit? It's only a few steps to the Empress Dowager's palace, what problem could possibly arise?! My Imperial Guards are on high alert outside, how dare that old man touch me?!"

Although the steward was scolded, he knew that this matter was not only about whether the Crown Prince could succeed, but also about his own life and death. So even if he was beaten and scolded, he could not let the Crown Prince leave the East Palace at this time for his own selfish desires.

So he knelt down and prayed, "Your Highness, your great cause is about to be accomplished, and you must not fail at this crucial moment. Since Her Majesty the Empress has made arrangements, Your Highness only needs to wait here!"

Seeing the head eunuch kneel, the maids, dancers, and eunuchs around him also knelt down.

Zhao Bing finally sobered up a bit. He gritted his teeth and endured it for a while, then waved his hand angrily and said, "That's enough!" But the fire in his heart was hard to extinguish, so he grabbed a dancer he had just taken a liking to and dragged her toward the inner palace.

A moment later, the sounds of torn clothes and a woman's soft sobbing came from inside the hall.

The steward got up from the ground, his face grim, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

***

As soon as Qin Sang arrived at the entrance of the Empress's palace, the Empress's personal maid came to greet her. She stepped down from the sedan chair, cautiously holding her breath and looking around, only to find that there were guards all around.

She didn't know whose side she was on. If she was on the other side's side, then she was truly like a lamb entering a tiger's den. Fortunately, her old injuries had healed well, so she should be able to manage for a while.

He then calmly stepped into the palace gate.

However, as soon as she entered, she sensed something was wrong. A faint smell of blood wafted into her nostrils, and she frowned slightly, looking at the palace maid who had led the way.

Although the palace maid kept her head down and walked calmly, she seemed to have a slightly unsteady gait and her face was a little too pale.

The letter from Prince Ning'an said that if the Empress summoned him, he would comply, and he would make arrangements to ensure her safety.

Although she didn't understand why, she was willing to trust Prince Ning'an this once. But at this moment, she wasn't quite sure what he intended to do.

The door was pushed open by a palace maid, and she slowly entered, only to find the surroundings unusually quiet. Then the maid bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

Before she could react, several figures suddenly darted out of the room and attacked her. Qin Sang instinctively dodged to the side... After cursing Ning An Wang in her heart, she realized that although the opponents' moves were flashy and their actions were wide and sweeping, they did not intend to kill her.

Moreover, one of them looked somewhat familiar.

She fought for more than a dozen rounds and felt that this fight was really like playing house. The men even deliberately kicked the table, overturned the tea stove, and kicked over the glass vase... In short, they made quite a commotion, but their moves were not fatal.

In the end, she simply stopped fighting and stepped aside to watch the others perform.

"Hey, don't stop, start fighting!" One of them punched her in the face, and when she stopped resisting, he whispered a reminder.

"Xie Sui'an?" Qin Sang ripped off the other person's black mask. "What's going on?"

"Fight first, fight until the outside people come!" Xie Sui'an grabbed her hand and made her spar with him.

Qin Sang barely managed to parry his moves again when she caught a glimpse of someone next to her dramatically falling backward, knocking over tables and chairs, and shouting, "Help! Someone help me!"

It was a woman's voice!

In that brief moment, Qin Sang finally glimpsed through the layers of curtains and saw the blood-red floor of the bedchamber. The elegantly dressed woman lay in a pool of blood before the bed, her pale face and staring blankly at the doorway; she was clearly dead.

"That's... the Empress?" She was startled.

Xie Sui'an: "Don't panic, it was the Emperor who made the move."

"Then why were I summoned here? To frame me?"

"The Crown Prince stays in the Eastern Palace and never leaves, and the guards are very strict. If the Emperor can't kill him in one blow, he will alert the Imperial Guards. Only the Empress's palace is slightly less guarded. An hour ago, the Emperor killed the Empress. The reason he summoned you here... is to lure the snake out of its hole." Xie Sui'an took a break from his work to wipe the blood off her body and face.

"Aren't there guards outside the Empress's palace? If something happened to the Empress, how could the Crown Prince not know?" Qin Sang asked, puzzled.

"The Empress is safe and sound if the Emperor makes little noise when he takes action and can issue an imperial edict."

Qin Sang: "..."

At this moment, the palace maid who had just led Qin Sang suddenly screamed and ran outside: "Help! Murder!"

Qin Sang: "???"

Xie Sui'an: "The time has come. Soon the guards outside the palace will come in. You just need to hold on a little longer until the Crown Prince arrives with his men... We will help you catch him like a turtle in a jar." After saying this, he and several other men in black disappeared again to an unknown location.

As Qin Sang listened to the crackling sound of the roof tiles, she thought to herself, "Thank you so much for thinking so highly of me!"

Footsteps rustled as they approached the main hall from outside the courtyard. Qin Sang grabbed the dagger stuck in the chest of a maid beside her, her eyes flashing with ruthlessness.

Looking around, the tables and chairs inside the room were overturned, the vases were broken, the incense burner was overturned and covered with incense ash, and two personal maids were lying in pools of blood, one with a bloody hole in her head and the other with her neck cut open and flesh exposed.

She smiled bitterly to herself; what a show!

The main door was kicked open. The newcomer glanced around and saw Qin Sang standing alone in a pool of blood, covered in blood, with a fierce look in her eyes. He was shocked and angry and frowned as he beckoned.

His men immediately swarmed forward.

Fortunately, Qin Sang had been diligently practicing her skills after recovering from her injuries, so she could hold out for a while without any problem. However, she couldn't help feeling anxious. Would these people's schemes attract the Crown Prince, and would the Crown Prince personally deal with such an insignificant person as her?

Thinking this, she saw that the person she had attacked but could not kill with one strike could not get up after falling to the ground. After a moment of pause, she realized that this was naturally the work of a master hidden behind the scenes. On the surface, she was still seen as a top-level master.

The opposing guard captain was also visibly bewildered. After a few rounds of fighting, he finally realized that they had clearly fallen into a trap...

After the killing was nearly over, the sound of heavy footsteps and the clanging of golden armor finally came from outside the gate.

"You audacious wretch, how dare you injure my mother! Seize her! Cut her into a thousand pieces!" Zhao Bing shouted hoarsely, his eyes bloodshot, as he stood at the palace gate.

Qin Sang withdrew her knife, standing inside the main hall, her body covered in blood, looking around.

The crown prince was so startled by this scene that he dared not move, but Qin Sang smiled sweetly and beckoned to him.

"Seize him for me!" The prince stormed in, his voice filled with rage.

Although Zhao Bing was a coward, his guards were carefully selected and naturally quite skilled. Three men with exceptional agility were already eager to step forward and capture him to claim the credit.

Just then, the three dark figures illuminated by the dim light were struck by arrows that suddenly flew out. With a muffled thud as the arrows pierced flesh, the men fell heavily to the ground, letting out muffled cries of pain.

Zhao Bing abruptly stopped, his eyes wide and his mouth half-open... Before he could understand what was happening, he heard the palace gate behind him slam shut with a loud bang.

Outside the palace gates, swords clashed; inside, countless dark figures emerged from nowhere, clashing with the elite soldiers and generals accompanying him.

He turned back to look at the tightly closed palace gates, but it was too late for regrets.

Just moments before, he had given up on pursuing Qin Sang, but the next moment, the little eunuch rushed in to report that a fight had broken out in the Empress's palace. He said that Qin Sang was highly skilled in martial arts and incredibly audacious, and that by the time the guards entered to protect her, the Empress had already been killed by the other side!

Entering the palace to assassinate the Empress Dowager is naturally an act of extreme audacity, a crime deserving of death. However, the current situation is tense, and this is not the time to talk about the law. Besides, the Emperor has long wanted to kill the mother and son. If I don't send someone to intercept and kill them, the woman will leave unharmed!

Despite the head eunuch's best efforts to stop him, he still came. Who could have known that this was, in fact, a trap set for him?!

He clung to the palace gate and pounded on it, shouting, "Open the gate! Open the door and let me out!"

A whooshing sound came from behind him. Zhao Bing turned around at the sound, and with a "whoosh," his heart pounded. He saw the arrow being cut in half by a guard's sword just a few steps away from him. The broken arrow grazed past his ear, and he felt a slight stinging pain.

He reached out, his fingertips touched something warm, and then his whole body went limp, sliding down to the ground against the door.

"You're all blind fools to be willing to risk your lives for such a spineless coward?!" Qin Sang didn't need to lift a finger; he stood by with his hands behind his back, watching the spectacle, and sneered.

"There's no need to put up a fight anymore. Today, the Crown Prince will surely die here." As she spoke, she strode towards the coward.

Inside and outside the palace, swords and spears flew amidst the chaos. The Crown Prince cried out, "Uncle, save me!"