Li Xue stood up and instructed several guards to prepare to set off for Xinkou County.

“Princess, it’s almost noon. Why don’t you have lunch before you leave?” Zhao Xian said.

"Time is of the essence. We must reach Qing'an Prefecture today. We will have to detour through Xinkou County, which will take at least an hour. If we are late, it will be too late. Just prepare some dry food for me in the carriage."

Princess Li Xue was too impulsive and would leave at a moment's notice. Zhao Xian had no choice but to have some dry food and water prepared and placed in Li Xue's carriage.

Li Xue looked at Lin Xi and said, "After I flatten the Wild Wolf Stronghold, I plan to stay in Qing'an Prefecture for two days. I'll come find you to play then."

“Great! Then I’ll show you around. Young Master Zhao owns a restaurant in Qing’an Prefecture that has the best food in the prefecture. I’ll take you there to try it. I guarantee you won’t want to leave Qing’an Prefecture.”

"Really? Then I must go. I won't say any more, I'm leaving now." After saying that, Li Xue cupped her hands to Zhao Xian, then got into the carriage and drove away.

Seeing Li Xue leave, Lin Xi looked at Zhao Xian and said:

"After lunch, I will return to Qing'an Prefecture. If Prefect Shen is to send troops to attack the mountain stronghold tomorrow, I must go. I have fought with that dart thrower before, and this time I must capture him alive."

"Alright, then I won't keep you any longer. Take two jars of wine with you when you leave and give them to General Lin."

"No, two jars are too much. My grandfather is a heavy drinker. If no one is watching him, he will drink endlessly. This is not good for his health. How about this, just bring him two jugs of wine."

“That won’t do. If I only bring two jugs of wine, the old general will definitely think I’m stingy. How about this, we’ll use two small jars to hold the wine, with each jar holding only five jin of wine? What do you think?”

Lin Xi nodded and said, "Then let's do it this way. Two small jars of wine will be enough."

"There are also some dried wild game; you can bring more, General Lin will definitely like them."

“Okay, you can bring some of these things. They’re great snacks to go with drinks. Grandpa will be very happy.”

Lunch was quickly finished, and Lin Xi said goodbye to Zhao Xian before driving away.

With Li Xue and Lin Xi gone, Zhao Xian finally breathed a sigh of relief. He planned to take a good rest in the afternoon, as he had been very tired these past few days.

Just as Zhao Xian lay down, a servant ran over and told him that someone from the Ma family had arrived, seemingly with something important to discuss, and demanded to see the family head immediately.

Zhao Xian was taken aback. The arrival of people from the Ma family must mean something important. He dared not delay and immediately got up to meet the Ma family members.

Upon arriving at the main hall, Zhao Xian met the Ma family members. To his surprise, the visitor was a maid from the Ma household.

"This is our patriarch, the Registrar of the Imperial Arsenal. Please speak quickly if you have anything to say," a guard introduced.

"Greetings, Your Excellency," the maid said, then knelt before Zhao Xian.

"No need for formalities, please stand up and speak."

"Yes, sir," the maid said, and then stood up.

Seeing that the maid was covered in sweat and looked exhausted, Zhao Xian asked her to sit down and had tea served.

The maid was so thirsty that she picked up the teacup and drank the tea in one gulp.

"Don't rush, speak slowly," Zhao Xian said.

The maid put down her teacup before speaking:

"I am here on the orders of my master to report an important matter to the clerk. This morning, Chief Hu of Wild Wolf Village brought a group of people to the Ma residence."

He told our master that he had gathered more than a hundred people from the mountain stronghold and was preparing to massacre Shuixian Village tonight. They planned to kill not only the registrar's entire family but also capture the princess and Miss Lin and bring them back to the stronghold.

He wanted our master to send men to participate in the night's raid, but our master naturally disagreed. So he demanded the Ma family pay, saying it was to avenge our master; if they didn't send men, they'd have to pay.

Zhao Xian was shocked. He hadn't expected that Chief Hu would be so audacious as to want to massacre Shuixian Village. Weren't they afraid of the authorities?

"On the surface, Hu Han is a bandit chief, but he runs escort agencies in many places. Wild Wolf Village is his base. He lives a carefree life in the village, like a local emperor."

Although Hu Han was powerful, he always kept a low profile and never clashed with the government, so the government did not pay attention to him.

But this time, I don't know what got into him, he insisted on massacring Shuixian Village, and no matter how much my master tried to persuade him, it was no use.

To prevent the Ma family from coming to inform them, their group guarded the Ma family's residence, preventing anyone from leaving.

Just then, an old man came to the Ma family with his granddaughter to deliver vegetables. The master secretly switched me with that girl. Since I was too inconspicuous in the Ma mansion, the people from the mountain stronghold did not notice me, so I followed the old man who was delivering vegetables out.

After leaving, it took me two hours, traveling at a brisk pace, to finally arrive at Narcissus Village.

Zhao Xian hadn't expected that Chief Hu had managed to control everyone in the Ma family. It seemed he was determined to take action against Shuixian Village.

"Didn't Master Ma tell them that the person they wanted to arrest was the current princess? Offending the princess is a capital offense," Zhao Xian asked疑惑地.

"The master told him about this, but Chief Hu didn't believe it at all. He said that several people were trying to scare him yesterday. How could the current princess live in Narcissus Village?"

This is absolutely true. Please, Your Excellency, make necessary preparations in advance, just in case.

"Okay, thank you for risking your life to inform us. Do you know how many people they're coming tonight?"

"Not counting the people from the escort agencies, there should be more than two hundred people in the stronghold. If they send out half of them tonight, that would be more than a hundred people. These are all well-trained assassins, so the registrar must not be careless."

Zhao Xian nodded, feeling very grateful to the girl for taking the risk to come and inform him.

"You can't go back for now, so stay here for the time being."

The girl nodded, looking very tired after she finished reporting what had happened.

Zhao Xian guessed that the girl hadn't eaten yet, so he had someone take her to the kitchen to get her something to eat.

Zhao Cheng had already received the news and immediately led several of his family soldiers to find Zhao Xian, wanting to see what the family head planned to do.

Zhao Xian had someone summon the village head and several soldiers from the farm. He had important matters to attend to, and to avoid causing panic among the villagers, he asked everyone to keep it a secret and not to leak it out.

Soon, Wang Lizheng and his family soldiers arrived, and the group sat down together to discuss countermeasures.

The atmosphere on the scene was a bit tense; with a formidable enemy at hand, such a situation was unavoidable.

Wang Lizheng had never encountered anything like this before, and his hands and feet were trembling uncontrollably.

Zhao Cheng stood behind Zhao Xian, his expression calm, almost as usual, and he didn't take it seriously.