Wei Meng had already gone to bed. When he was called, he quickly combed his hair and ran to the study.

His first reaction was that something went wrong in the battle at Shiyang Pass. He asked as soon as he entered the room, "Did they lose the battle?"

Pei Yuan said nothing and threw the letter to him. Wei Meng's expression was tense at first, then gradually relaxed and turned into an unbelievable look: "Is this true?"

The letter was written in crooked handwriting, like ghostly talismans. Many of the words were unrecognizable. The general idea was that it was narrated in the tone of the guards around the eldest prince Pei Che. It briefly described Pei Che's experience after being robbed of prison, and finally said that Pei Che was in a bad situation now. There were hundreds of brothers in their camp, but the money and food were almost exhausted, and they needed their help. The letter ended by saying that if they were willing to help, they could go to the northwest corner of Qilian Mountain, where there was a pine tree about three meters tall, and someone would be waiting.

Pei Yuan asked, "What do you think?"

Wei Meng glanced at the letter again, his eyes stopped at the signature, and read out, "Achou?"

Pei Yuan and him looked at each other and thought of the same thing: "On the day Le Xu left, our people followed him. What did they say when they came back? Did they say that Le Xu went to Qilian Mountain overnight, and there was a woman with people waiting for him at the foot of the mountain. The woman was not tall and her appearance was not outstanding. The people who followed her thought the woman was strange, and they specially drew a portrait. Where did they put the portrait?"

Wei Meng stepped forward and opened the drawer of the cabinet on the east side, took out a scroll, and shook it open.

Pei Yuan had seen this portrait before, but he didn't pay much attention to it at that time, and he didn't even associate it with the lame girl he met in the tofu shop. But now, after careful observation, he suddenly felt that it was very subtle and very similar. These two might really be the same person, and the woman in the portrait is Achou!

In this way, everything fits together. Pei Che was seriously injured, and Le Xu went to treat him, and Achou greeted him. Achou might have learned from Le Xu that he had returned to Yanbei, and wanted to ask for help, but was afraid that he would not be willing, so he tried to test him in the shop.

After careful consideration, she sent this letter tonight.

She left in a hurry without waiting for him to come out, perhaps because she got the news that Pei Che had improved.

What Pei Yuan didn't know was that the reason why Achou took nearly half a month to send the letter was, firstly, because he had to take care of Pei Che, and secondly, because there was almost no one in the whole village who could write. The one who studied the most was a kid who burned firewood. When his family was not poor, he went to a private school for two months. Because he didn't dare to tell anyone about this and couldn't find someone to write for him, Achou could only work with the kid to write. If he really didn't know the words, he pretended to ask Le Xu for help. It took him more than ten days to finish writing.

After confirming the news, Pei Yuan was excited. He took a deep breath, took the sword and went out: "Follow me to Qilian Mountain overnight."

"Young general, you stay here, I will take the people." Wei Meng persuaded, "Shiyang Pass is in full swing, Feng County must also tighten its defense to prevent the enemy from sneaking in. It is more appropriate for you to stay than for me. Besides, it is just to pick someone up, it is not good to mobilize a large number of troops. You stay in the mansion to arrange matters. Tomorrow at noon, I will definitely bring the eldest prince back intact!"

Pei Yuan agreed with him.

Wei Meng immediately counted the people and horses, went back to the room to change clothes and take the sword.

Hearing the sound of the door, Minmin moaned and slowly opened her eyes. She lay on the bed in a thin undergarment, her eyes narrowed, staring at the man with a sword hanging on his waist under the light, with a puzzled look.

Wei Meng apologized, "Did I wake you up?"

"I didn't sleep well." Minmin got out of bed attentively, walked to Wei Meng, put down her hands to tidy up his clothes, and asked softly, "It's so late, where is the general going? You must come back early, Minmin will be scared to sleep alone." When

she asked the first half of the question, Wei Meng didn't want to respond, but when she said she was scared, Wei Meng's heart softened.

He thought to himself, anyway, this is not a secret. When Pei Che comes back, he will definitely live in the palace. Minmin will definitely know. Revealing a little bit will not be considered a leak, and it will also make her feel at ease.

Wei Meng said, "Go west and pick someone up. I'll be back tomorrow at noon. If you're scared, I'll call a maid to sleep with you."

Minmin's eyes flickered, and she stepped forward and put her face against Wei Meng's chest, saying caringly, "It's okay, Minmin can sleep by herself. General, go ahead, but be sure to protect yourself. Minmin will wait for you at home."

Wei Meng happily hugged her back and said softly, "Okay, go to sleep, I'm leaving."

Minmin saw him out the door until his back disappeared, and then she reluctantly returned to her room.

Along the way, Wei Meng was thinking, should he save money to buy a yard for himself?

Originally, he was alone, and he would have nothing to do even if he bought a yard, so he just lived in Pei Yuan's house with a thick face. But now it's no longer possible. He has a family, and it's not good to always live under someone else's roof, which is also unfair to Minmin. When the war at Shiyang Pass is settled and he has free time, he will take Minmin to choose a courtyard he likes.

She should be very happy, right?

...

Minmin went to bed after Wei Meng left. It was not until half an hour later, when the whole palace fell into a deep and quiet sleep, that she opened her eyes, her eyes were clear and she was not sleepy at all.

She put on her clothes and went out, pretending to go to the bathroom, bypassing the maid on duty who was already sleeping on the stool, and went all the way to the back door. When they

arrived at a secret place, Minmin coughed softly a few times, and soon, the sound of coughing came from outside the high courtyard wall. Minmin took a step back, rolled up the silk paper tied with the heavy object into a ball, and threw it out with force. The ball of paper easily flew over the high wall and landed on the opposite side.

A few more coughs came from outside the wall. Minmin knew that the other party had received the message, so she stopped and turned back to her room with her clothes tightly tied.

The person who came to pick her up quickly went to a safe place, opened the paper ball, and saw a passage on it that was not in Chinese characters.

The general meaning was: Wei Meng was ordered to go to Xishan to pick someone up, and he could be intercepted and killed to sow discord.

...

After Achou learned that Pei Che had recovered his sight, he hurried back to Qilian Mountain.

Le Xu had been treating him for half a month, during which time he had countless needles and countless medicines, but Pei Che's condition did not improve at all, and he became thinner and thinner. Achou once suspected that Le Xu was cheating her of her money, and even had the intention to kill her. Until a few days ago, Le Xu added another medicine - his blood. Achou didn't know why Le Xu's blood had such a miraculous effect, but the effect was immediate. Pei Che's face gradually became rosy within a few days, and good news came one after another.

Although Pei Che could see again, his body was still weak and he could only sit up by himself.

Achou explained his own self-assertion to him with a guilty conscience: "...I know that King Jinbei and you have always had a deep brotherly relationship. After testing him, I feel that he has a sense of justice and compassion in his heart. If he knew our situation, he would not sit idly by. Our rice jars are almost empty from all the medical treatment we have been seeking for these days. There are so many mouths waiting for food on the mountain. I really have no choice but to send a letter to King Jinbei without your permission. I thought he should have seen the letter by now. If the situation is good, he may have sent someone to rush over..."

"Don't panic, I don't mean to blame you." Pei Che looked at her gently, "Thank you, Ah Qi."

Ah Chou scratched her ear and smiled shyly.

In fact, Ah Qi, a fancy name that sounded like a nickname for a rich girl, was her real name. It was just that she was not good-looking, so everyone called her Ah Chou as a joke at first, and then it spread, and people thought Ah Chou was her name, and no one called her Ah Qi anymore. Except Pei Che.

Ah Chou thought to herself, the eldest prince is really a gentle and compassionate person.

Achou opened her mouth and was about to say something else when someone came in and said, "Miss Achou, General Wei Meng is here!"

Achou said to Pei Che happily, "Isn't this a double happiness?"

She covered Pei Che's legs with a blanket and comforted him, "Young Master, please wait here for a while. I'll be back soon."

Achou walked out after she finished speaking. There was a loud noise coming from outside, which was getting louder and louder, as if someone had broken in. Achou frowned and had a bad feeling in her heart. Those people seemed to be unkind and unfriendly. She took two quick steps and wanted to go out to see what was going on. Suddenly, she heard a scream. She could tell that it was someone from the mountain.

Achou was shocked: "What happened?"

Someone ran in with injuries, panicking: "Miss Achou, there is a fight outside! The people brought by Wei Meng started the fight first, chopping people with knives. They are outnumbered and our brothers can't resist them! What's going on!"

Achou's heart suddenly dropped, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was silent for a while, then gritted his teeth and said: "Pei Yuan, you despicable villain, I will never forgive you!"

...

When Wei Meng arrived, there was no one under the eye-catching pine tree.

He thought that Achou's people had not arrived yet, so he waited patiently for two hours. Realizing that something might be wrong, he quickly took people up the mountain.

He was familiar with the terrain of Qilian Mountain. Pei Yuan had been planning to search the mountain, but he had never been able to do so. The bandits on the mountain were too strong and patrolled closely. They would immediately counterattack at the slightest sign of trouble, and their methods were extremely violent. Some even threatened to set the mountain on fire if they were attacked by force. At the foot of the eastern side of Qilian Mountain were large tracts of fertile fields and villages. If the mountain fire could not be controlled, it would be a disaster. This was also the reason why the officers and soldiers had not been able to suppress the bandits before.

Although they failed to capture the mountain stronghold, Wei Meng had led his men through Qilian Mountain several times and knew the general location. They arrived there in a short time.

But when they saw the mountain of corpses and the sea of ​​blood in front of them, even though Wei Meng had become accustomed to licking blood on the tip of his knife, he could not help but feel his hair stand on end.

He roared angrily, "What's going on!"

Soon a soldier investigated the situation and came back to report, "General, someone got here before us. The stronghold was massacred and no one was left alive, but no women's bodies were seen."

Another soldier came over and saluted, "General, there are a total of 130 bodies, 18 of which are foreigners. Judging from their body shapes and eyes, they should be Huns."

Wei Meng asked word by word, "So, some Huns got here before us and massacred the people in the stronghold?"

The soldier hesitated and said, "Probably so."

Wei Meng closed his eyes, slowly exhaled, and shouted, "Return!"

...

Wei Meng didn't expect that when he returned to the mansion, there would be another good show waiting for him.

His favorite concubine Minmin, who had sacrificed her own family for the sake of justice, presented Pei Yuan with three letters accusing him of collaborating with the enemy, and was kneeling at the door of the study crying.

Baoning stood under a plum tree not far away, picked a pink flower and placed it on Jixiang's head, and said to Madam Liu: "Madam, do you think our Jixiang can communicate with spirits? Why is it so magical? Whoever it dislikes is a bad person."

Madam Liu sighed and said: "It's a pity that General Wei was so affectionate, but he was wrong in the end."

Baoning nodded and said: "I hope he won't be heartbroken. He should believe in true love in the future."

Madam Liu said: "I hope so."