Grain Road Hidden Knife
The cellar of the Moon Temple was cold and damp, and the air was filled with a strange smell of dust and stale straw.
Ding Wei held an oil lamp, and the dim light cast swaying shadows on the stone wall. Hathor followed closely behind, looking around vigilantly.
Their target, the legendary underground waterway entrance connected to the Nile River, was indeed blocked by a huge square stone slab as the intelligence said.
The edges of the stone slabs fit perfectly with the ground, seemingly seamless.
Dante Wei had very sharp eyesight. She squatted down, gently ran her fingertips across the cracks in the stone, and picked up a handful of almost imperceptible wet mud.
She brought the soil to her nose, and a smell mixed with rust and the fishy smell of river water entered her nostrils.
"Someone moved it, and it wasn't long ago." Ding Wei's voice was particularly clear in the empty cellar.
Hathor's heart trembled. If Ding Wei hadn't reminded her, she would definitely have ignored this insignificant detail.
Ding Wei stood up and whispered a few words to the palace maid behind her.
After a while, the palace maid brought a small bag of golden sand.
At Ding Wei's instruction, she sprinkled fine sand evenly on the ground around the stone slab, a thin layer, as if the ground was coated with a layer of gold powder.
After doing all this, they quietly left the cellar, as if no one had ever been there.
The next morning, before daybreak, Ding Wei and Hathor sneaked in again.
In the light of the oil lamp, an extremely inconspicuous mark suddenly appeared on the flat sand - the sand grains sank slightly, as if silently crushed by a heavy object, extending from one corner of the stone slab to the dark corner.
The evidence is irrefutable! Someone really came in and out of here last night.
Ding Wei did not alert the enemy, but instead targeted several temple priests whose whereabouts were suspicious.
Hathor took the order and left, lurking in the shadows of the temple like the most patient cheetah.
After two days of tracking, she finally discovered the clue.
A priest who was in charge of guarding the rear temple would come alone to an abandoned well in the backyard of the temple every evening.
The priest looked around and confirmed that there was no one around. Then he took out a small copper bell from his sleeve and threw it into the bottomless well.
Hathor held his breath and put his ear to the ground.
“Ding…ding…ding…”
The clear bell sound did not fall to the bottom all at once, but instead echoed back from the depths of the well with three distinct rhythmic sounds.
It was as if there was another world at the bottom of the well, and someone was responding in the same way.
This is no coincidence! Hathor quickly reported this discovery to Ding Wei.
After hearing this, Ding Wei's eyes gleamed with brilliance.
The bell rang three times. It turned out that this was their secret code for contact.
A plan to reversely exploit this signal system instantly became clear in her mind.
She wanted to let this poisonous snake bite its own owner.
She did not alarm anyone, but simply called her most trusted palace maid to her side and gave her some instructions.
This palace maid grew up in the palace and has an excellent ability to imitate sounds.
That night, the palace maid put on priest's clothes and quietly came to the abandoned well.
She followed the priest's example and threw a copper bell into the well.
“Ding… Ding…”
Before the third echo was about to sound, she quickly tapped the edge of the well with a small stone she had prepared.
"despair."
Two rings and a light tap.
This was the "crisis" code she had agreed upon with the high priest of the Temple of Isis in Memphis, indicating that there was an internal betrayal and the emergency plan needed to be implemented immediately.
She bet that Seti's followers only knew one part of this complicated code system and not the other.
To them, this signal may mean "the plan has been exposed, take action immediately and destroy the evidence."
Sure enough, less than an hour after the signal was sent, a dark shadow sneaked past the granary on the east side of the palace.
Relief food is stored there to be distributed to flood victims downstream.
The black shadow had a clear goal. He ran straight to the corner where the hay was piled and took out a flint.
Just as sparks were about to fly, dozens of royal guards holding spears suddenly jumped out from the shadows around them, and torches instantly illuminated the entire granary.
The man in black was unable to escape and was captured on the spot.
The candlelight in the interrogation room flickered, and the arrested man in black soon suffered a mental breakdown.
He confessed that he was sent by a lieutenant under General Seti, and his mission was to burn the granary and cause panic among the royal family for their inability to provide disaster relief.
But he insisted that this was just the deputy general's own idea, to "warn the Pharaoh", and General Seti was completely unaware of this.
What a great move! Sacrificing the rook to save the king. Ding Wei sneered and accused him directly, which would only lead to his crazy counterattack.
What she wanted was to strip off his disguise and cut off his minions in public.
The next day, Pharaoh Ramses II issued an edict, summoning all the senior nobles and generals of Thebes to hold a night banquet in the palace hall in the name of "jointly resisting foreign invasion and discussing disaster relief."
The atmosphere of the banquet was solemn and dignified. Ramses sat on the golden throne and announced that in order to help the people displaced by the Nile flood, the palace granary would be opened immediately and the nobles would help transport the grain downstream.
Amidst the praises, Ding Wei stood up slowly.
As queen, she offered to personally supervise the weighing and bagging of the first batch of grain to ensure that Pharaoh's kindness could be delivered to his people without any compromise.
No one dared to object.
Heavy bags of wheat were carried onto the huge copper scale in the center of the hall.
Ding Wei stepped forward personally, gently patted a bulging sack with her slender hand, but her brows were slightly furrowed.
She signaled the guards to bring a dagger, and in the astonished eyes of everyone, she cut the sack open with force.
Crash——
What came out was not all golden wheat grains, but a low-quality mixture mixed with a lot of sand and gravel!
The whole place was in uproar! The nobles were whispering to each other, their faces filled with shock and anger.
"This is life-saving food! How dare someone adulterate it, deceive Pharaoh, and exploit the people to such an extent!" Ding Wei's voice was as cold as ice, and her gaze swept across the nobles in charge of logistics like a sharp sword. "Who gave you such courage?"
The nobleman was so frightened that he immediately knelt down and begged for mercy, making incoherent excuses.
At this moment, General Seti, who had been silent the entire time, stood up. He bowed and said in a deep voice, "Your Majesty, the management of the granary has always been the responsibility of the temple's agricultural officials. The military is only responsible for guarding it and has never interfered in its affairs. This matter has nothing to do with the military."
With just one sentence, he cleared himself of all charges.
Ding Wei, instead of getting angry, smiled in a profound way. "General, you're absolutely right. However, as luck would have it, some scoundrels tried to set fire to the granary last night. Fortunately, the royal guards noticed it in time and prevented the sand-tainted 'grain' from being destroyed."
She paused, then changed the subject, her voice suddenly sharp. "According to the captured arsonist's confession, the person who ordered him was wearing a pair of... a pair of leather boots unique to the general's personal guard."
Before she finished speaking, she clapped her hands, and a guard immediately presented a wooden board with a clear boot print made of white clay on it.
Another guard took a piece of mud sample left at the scene last night from the corner of the hall.
Comparing the two, the texture, size, and even the signs of wear of the boot prints are exactly the same!
The evidence is irrefutable!
Seti's face instantly turned from red to white, and then from white to blue. The knuckles of his hand holding the wine glass turned white, and murderous intent was revealed in his eyes.
He had been a soldier all his life, and had never suffered such public humiliation!
Just as he was about to explode, Ramses slowly rose from the throne. His gaze was stern, but his tone was filled with regret. "Seti, you are my father's most trusted minister. I have always believed in your loyalty. But now the evidence is irrefutable. If someone is truly using your name to commit evil, are you willing to prove your innocence and expose these corrupt officials for me and for all of Egypt?"
Pharaoh's words gave him a way out and an option he could not refuse.
To resist is to prove that you are committing treason.
The anger and murderous intent in Seti's eyes gradually died down during the struggle, and eventually turned into dead silence.
He was silent for a long time, as if he had used up all his strength, and slowly knelt on the ground, his forehead touching the cold stone slab.
"I... have failed to discipline and manage my subordinates properly, allowing them to be misled. I am willing to hand over the names of all my personal guards to Pharaoh and the Queen for investigation and prosecution. I have no complaints."
This is exactly what Ding Wei wanted.
She immediately stepped forward and personally helped the old general to his feet, her attitude gentle and sincere. "General, you have fought for your country for many years and have made outstanding contributions. How could you suffer an injustice because of the mistakes of a few villains? There must be something else going on. How about I and the general jointly oversee the distribution of the disaster relief grain from now on, to clear your name?"
Seti raised his head and met Ding Wei's frank and clear eyes. There was no arrogance of a winner in them, only the calmness of doing things impartially.
He knew she had won.
Not only did she get the list of his personal guards, she also tied him to the chariot of disaster relief, making him unable to move.
He took a deep breath and finally squeezed out a word from between his teeth: "Okay."
The party ended in a bad mood.
Under the cover of night, Ramses caught up with Ding Wei in the corridor leading to the harem. He grabbed her hand, his eyes filled with admiration and fear. "You really took a risky tactic today. You didn't damage his dignity, but you took away his most powerful weapon. What a good move."
Ding Wei gazed at the brightly lit Temple of Amun in the distance and sighed softly, but there was no smile in her eyes. "The storm has only just begun. We have only temporarily tied the claws of a lion, but he is far more than the only one manipulating all this."
She turned her head and looked at Ramses, her eyes as deep as the night. "Behind Seti are the military aristocracy, and behind the temple is the faith of all of Egypt. What we do today will inevitably lead to backlash from theocracy. Those high priests will never tolerate royal power interfering in their domain."
Her voice was extremely low, like a fatal prophecy: "We still lack a real sword, a sword that can make all the gods bow their heads."
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