After a long while, as the shouts gradually subsided, Tuoba Ze slowly walked up to the short guard, patted him on the shoulder, and asked, "What's your name?"
The guard hesitated, but upon seeing Tuoba Ze's unwavering gaze, he said, "My humble name is too lowly to offend Your Highness's ears... I am... Li Fugui."
Tuoba Ze then handed the secret letter to him with a smile, and said solemnly and meaningfully, "Good, Li... Fugui, you will definitely have a bright future. This prince... is waiting for you to fulfill your mission and return safely."
"Thank you, Your Highness." After saying this, the guard turned to leave to carry out his duties.
However, Tuoba Ze suddenly called out to him, "Wait a minute."
Upon hearing the sound, the guard hurriedly turned around and asked in a low, timid voice, "Does Your Highness have any further instructions?"
Tuoba Ze then strolled over to his bundle, took out a brand-new set of brocade cotton robes, and returned to Fugui's side. He stared at and stroked the large and small holes in Fugui's clothes, making Fugui feel uncomfortable under this sudden gaze.
Tuoba Ze said with concern, "Put on these new clothes. There are some loose silver notes in them, which can be used as travel expenses."
"This...this is absolutely unacceptable! I've never worn such expensive clothes in my entire life. No, no, I've never even touched them, let alone worn them," the guard said, flustered and extremely shocked.
"It's alright, take it. Money is just an external thing. I am deeply grateful for everything you have done for my Northern Lie Kingdom today. This is just a set of clothes and some loose change, what's wrong with that?" Tuoba Ze said, seemingly very sincerely grateful.
However, the guard pointed to his own body and still insisted on refusing, "Your Highness, look at my own body, I am not even five feet tall. I am really not worthy of wearing clothes that fit your seven-foot frame. Please take them back."
Upon hearing this, Tuoba Ze was immediately startled. He quickly took out a stack of silver notes wrapped inside his clothes and pushed them towards him again, saying, "Alright, it was my oversight. In that case, I will take back the clothes, but you must take these silver notes with you. Keep them so you can buy a suitable new set for yourself on the road. When you're traveling alone, you always need to have some money with you."
Upon hearing this, Fu Gui, mindful that he regularly sent all his meager earnings to his mother and sister in Bei Lie's home every month, was indeed penniless. Just now, he carefully and tremblingly pulled out the topmost, brand-new one-hundred-tael silver note from Tuoba Ze's hand and stared at it intently. He probably had never seen so much money in his entire life.
Upon seeing this, Tuoba Ze hurriedly stuffed all the remaining silver notes of the same denomination into the prince's hand, saying impatiently, "Don't refuse me anymore. When you arrive in Nan'an, you'll be meeting the supreme ruler of Nan'an. I'm sure you'll need to bribe those big shots and little devils, and there will be many places where you'll need silver notes. I'm afraid these won't be enough. If you really feel bad about it, or if there's anything wrong with it, then... you can exchange this bottle of medicine with me. Consider it a purchase from me. Is that alright?!"
As Tuoba Ze spoke, he took out the white porcelain bottle containing the antidote from Fugui's body and began to play with it with great interest.
Fu Gui looked at the medicine bottle and was immediately filled with panic and reluctance, feeling heartbroken. However, he was too timid and cowardly to snatch it back, and he couldn't speak. That was none other than His Highness the First Prince, the most ruthless member of the Northern Lie royal family!
So he could only silently endure it, watching helplessly as the bottle he cherished fell into Tuoba Ze's hands.
In fact, Tuoba Ze had long since noticed that the guard valued this seemingly ordinary small white porcelain bottle highly, which must hold some special significance for him. Therefore, he orchestrated everything that had just happened.
On one hand, they were indeed giving him travel expenses so he could complete his mission smoothly. On the other hand, they also wanted to leave him something to restrain him, in case he defected. Tuoba Ze, however, was never one to do anything that would result in losing both his wife and his army.
"Very well, then I will temporarily entrust this bottle to Your Highness for safekeeping. When I return having successfully completed my mission, I hope Your Highness will return this bottle to me. It contains the antidote that my elderly mother personally prepared for me, and it is my only memento to remember her." After a long while, Fu Gui came to his senses and could only say helplessly.
Just as I expected, this small white porcelain bottle is indeed of great significance to him. Tuoba Ze smiled and said, "Of course, I will protect it as if it were my own life, and keep it safe for you, as if it were a precious treasure."
Fu Gui gazed longingly at the white porcelain bottle in Tuoba Ze's hand, then took a deep breath, turned away in a huff, hurriedly grabbed his horse, and left without looking back along the path down the mountain.
Actually, he knew what Tuoba Ze wanted the bottle for. He was just angry that he didn't need to do it.
Fu Gui's family had lived in the Northern Lie Kingdom for generations, and he was too young to know which country's soldiers had killed his father when he died. He didn't understand anything at all.
Therefore, apart from Bei Lie, he considered all other countries to be his father's killers. He might not risk his life to kill them to ensure his own survival, but he would never betray his country.
When he was young, he hated Bei Lie, probably because he didn't understand why they forced his father to join the army.
But as he grew up, he saw his compatriots suffering from hunger and cold, and the pain brought by the smoke of war. So he gradually realized the importance of protecting his homeland.
Even so, he still couldn't recklessly charge into battle. He had an elderly mother and a sick younger sister at home. If he were to die or be wounded in battle for the sake of momentary bravery, it would undoubtedly be adding insult to injury to his already precarious family, and the world would collapse for those two women, one old and one young.
Therefore, even though he was no ordinary person, he had no choice but to protect himself and conceal his talents.
But now, it seems he must use every trick in the book, perhaps even revealing his full potential, to accomplish this mission. Hopefully, Tuoba Ze will never discover any of this happening outside.
As he pondered this, he quickened his pace...
At the foot of the mountain, Xuanyuan Han sat in this long-lost place, recalling that painful memory. His brow furrowed involuntarily, and he murmured over and over again the words of the woman he had just met, who had sacrificed her own life and the lives of her child to save his own—her dying words: "From now on, you must protect Western Qin… From now on, you must protect Western Qin… From now on, you must protect Western Qin…"
After a long while, seemingly breathless with grief and sorrow, he took a deep breath, sighed, and said, "Who exactly are you? Why did you risk your own life and that unborn child's to save me back then? Do you know how much I've been heartbroken and remorseful every time I think about what happened that day? I don't even know your name. How can I ever repay such a deep and profound kindness?"
After this tragic incident occurred outside the palace, Xuanyuan Han implored his father, the emperor, to order a nationwide search for the woman's other surviving relatives so that her family could be treated well.
But in the end, the result of the search was that the woman was like a fairy who descended from the sky, appearing without a trace and disappearing without a trace, leaving no clue whatsoever.
"Is all of this the will of Heaven? 'Man has the will, but Heaven has no will.' Am I destined to owe you a debt I can never make up for in this lifetime?"
As he pondered, Xuan Yuanhan suddenly seemed to come back to his senses and muttered to himself, "Could it be... that woman isn't a citizen of Western Qin? Then who could she be? Dongning? Nan'an? Beilie? Or is she from some other continent beyond the distant Lingkong Continent?"
Just as a new direction suddenly appeared in his mind, and he was about to fall into another deep thought, the guard beside him suddenly looked up and saw Cheng Liang leading his men on horseback chasing after them from the direction they had come from. He was happy and wanted to report this.
However, when Cheng Liang approached, he saw that Xuan Yuanhan looked deep in thought and lost in thought. So he dismounted and hurriedly reached out to stop the guard. The guard immediately understood and stopped making a sound. Then he took the horse from Cheng Liang and retreated.
Cheng Liang quietly sat down on the ground next to Xuan Yuanhan, picked a wild grass from beside him and put it in his mouth, then began to look at the desolate and bleak scene of withered branches around him.
After a long pause, Xuan Yuanhan seemed to have stopped thinking, or perhaps he had finally been disturbed by Cheng Liang. So he slowly turned his head to look at Cheng Liang, then looked back at the desolate scene before him, and asked, "Has everything been taken care of with Yi Junhao?"
"Did one of Tuoba Ze's close guards escape by accident?" Cheng Liang said with some frustration.
But he immediately perked up and said, "Your Highness, rest assured, he won't escape. I stabbed him, and he's bleeding. I followed the bloodstains to get here. At first, when I saw the direction of the bloodstains on the ground, I mistakenly thought he was heading north to join Tuoba Ze's returning party. But then I discovered that he had also been to a waterfall not far to the east of the willow grove. I guess he still hasn't given up on the 'Ice Beauty Gu' that Young Master Yi mentioned?"
"What is the 'Ice Beauty Gu'?" Xuan Yuanhan asked in confusion.
“Oh, Your Highness, you may not know this, but the poisons made by those Nan’an poison masters are indeed extremely insidious. If Your Highness hadn’t been so cautious this time, and had waited for Young Master Yi to return and persuade him to join us before taking action, we probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with that madam, let alone destroy the entire Wanjiao Pavilion.” Cheng Liang once again admired his master’s meticulous and thoughtful approach.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com