Chapter 1115 Carefully Fabricated Rumors
Jiang Xue took off her apricot-colored cloak and wrapped it around his thin shoulders: "Even if you rule the world in the future, with your aunt here..."
She tapped the boy's chest with her fingertips: "There will always be that little dumpling who steals the steamed cheese."
Amid the sound of a night owl flying over the glazed tiles, she suddenly felt something warm hitting the back of her hand.
When the fifth watch gong struck for the third time, Jiang Heng stood stubbornly in front of the palace gate.
Under the dragon-patterned brocade robe that was wet by the morning mist, the boy stood straight as a pine tree: "You must send a letter home every month."
He stared at his aunt's fluttering pomegranate skirt as she disappeared at the end of the official road, until the morning sun turned the wheel tracks into golden lines.
In the carriage, Jiang Xue was clutching half of a tiger-patterned jade pendant—it was something the little emperor had secretly stuffed into her bag last night.
The northwest wind blew gravel against the window frame. She swallowed the fishy sweetness in her throat and drank the medicine in one gulp.
Outside the car curtain, hundreds of thousands of mountains are opening their bloody eyes.
In the twilight, Yun Zhen tightly grasped the reins and stared at the carriage ahead with his knuckles turning white.
When Xiao Zhan rode his horse closer, he could clearly see the blood marks on his palms caused by the reins.
"His Highness said he would use you sparingly tonight."
The young man in black threw the water bag over and said, "When we get to the Northern Frontier Camp, you'll have the chance to help out."
Jiang Xue heard this when she lifted the curtain, and the corners of her pale lips slightly raised: "Yun Che really understands me."
Her eyes swept across Yun Zhen's bloodstained palm, and her voice suddenly turned cold: "If you dare to use your original true energy again, I will send you back to the capital immediately."
When the wolf smoke flag at the border came into view, the commander of the Qingluan Guard suddenly lifted the curtain of the car.
Jiang Xue buckled the silver armor wrist guard onto her wrist. When she turned around, the tassel of the jade hairpin in her hair brushed against the back of Yun Zhen's hand: "It's your turn to fulfill your promise."
Lan Feng leaned on the tiger-skin military couch and fell asleep without taking off his armor.
It was not until the familiar scent of medicine filled the tent that he suddenly opened his eyes and saw Jiang Xue slowly unfolding the scroll.
The image of the child holding a wooden sword in the painting made his throat tingle with a sweet taste. But the princess touched the child's brow with her fingertips and said, "Little Zheng can recite the entire Wei Liao Zi."
"I will cut off the Tianshui King's flag with my own hands."
Lan Feng grabbed the battle report on the table, and the blood that seeped out from between his fingers dyed the military emergency report red.
Suddenly, the sound of soldiers training was heard outside the tent, which made the candlelight on the desk flicker.
Xiao Zhan looked at the snow falling on the training ground and suddenly took off the black jade flute from his waist: "If you want to stop the gossips, you have to turn the rumors into a joke."
He spun a copper coin from his fingertips and flicked it on Jiang Xue's scabbard. "Three hundred chattering soldiers are enough to make the entire northern border sing a new nursery rhyme."
Jiang Xue took the copper coin with her backhand, and her gilded armor shone coldly in the snow. "Send a message to all camps. Anyone who can come up with ten different rhymes to compose a poem for the King of Tianshui will be rewarded with gold coins by me personally."
When she turned around, her cloak blew up the north wind, and the military flags in front of the tent fluttered, just like the sharpness of the red-dressed generals in the past.
The cold wind on the tower swept across the battle flags. The deputy general clenched the sword at his waist and said, "Your Highness, do you really want to respond directly to the shouting and cursing of the Tianshui Army? We have tried to shout at each other, but after each fierce confrontation..."
Jiang Xue raised her hand to brush away her messy hair. Her bronze armor shone coldly in the sun. "The other side will double the humiliation of General Lan's widow?"
Seeing the deputy general bow his head in agreement, the female general suddenly turned around and stared at him: "Do you believe those nonsense?"
The adjutant swallowed his tension with a rolling Adam's apple. The rumors repeatedly spread by the enemy these days, combined with Lan Feng's abnormal performance during combat, had indeed planted the seeds of suspicion in the army.
At this moment, cold sweat was oozing out of his back - he could not afford to offend the commander-in-chief who was as close to General Lan as a brother, but he also did not want to lie against his will.
The sound of armor colliding suddenly sounded. Jiang Xue had already walked to the ledge and looked at the enemy camp: "Don't worry. If even you are shaken, how can the army not be confused?"
She tapped the blue bricks with her fingertips. "Tomorrow I will call over 300 soldiers with the loudest voices. I will let them see clearly that the truth is just a piece of rice paper that can be scribbled on at will."
After the deputy general left, the white-robed counselor who had been silent all this time suddenly spoke up: "Why not invite some fierce women from the streets? They have more ways to curse than the men."
Jiang Xue's eyes suddenly lit up.
At dawn the next day, thirty-six cowhide war drums were set up on the city wall.
When the first ray of sunlight broke through the morning mist, the sentinels of the Tianshui camp were surprised to see a sea of figures standing on the city wall with their hands on their hips.
"Have you memorized them all?"
The silver-armored female general glanced at the eager soldiers and the market ladies behind her and said, "Whoever scolds the best will be personally rewarded with ten taels of silver!"
Before he finished speaking, the entire city wall suddenly erupted with a deafening roar.
The fat woman in a red headscarf was the first to speak, and her slang and proverbs were fired at the enemy like a barrage of arrows;
The veteran soldiers coordinated by beating their shields to keep the beat, and turned the arranged rumors into ironic rhymes; a few sharp-tongued soldiers even brought up the embarrassing stories of the enemy generals to make fun of them.
The camp gate opposite burst open, and Guo Zihui rushed to the front with his personal soldiers, looking at the flying posters with a grim face.
Those rumors they painstakingly fabricated were now being broken down into hundreds of absurd versions and blown away by the wind.
Among the insults coming from outside the city, the slanderous content was surprisingly similar - they were all attacking the bloodline of the new emperor Huangfu Shang.
It was said that soon after his biological mother was crowned as queen, she secretly had an affair with his cousin. The late emperor was furious and killed his brother Huangfu Shen. But he was forced to become the crown prince, and eventually he died and his country was usurped.
The scouts on the watchtower felt a chill down their spines when they heard this, especially when they thought of the coincidence of Huangfu Shen's sudden and mysterious death and the new emperor's sudden ascension to the throne. Their hands holding the reins could not help but break out in cold sweat.
The scout leader whipped his horse whip hard, and three fast horses immediately rushed back to the camp to report the news.
That night, torches were lit continuously in the Tianshui camp.
The commander-in-chief personally led the armored guards to defend the city, and all he could hear were shouts of "bastard regicide" one after another.
He grasped the horse's mane tightly - even if he believed it in his heart, he had to shout at the top of his lungs to vindicate the new emperor.
However, the national army had obviously planned this in advance, and the well-arranged insults actually suppressed the voices of Tianshui.
In the shadow of the battlements, Jiang Xue suddenly took off her silver armor wristbands and asked, "How true do you think these arrangements are?"
The deputy general looked at the boiling battlefield below the city and said hesitantly: "I think... besides the fact that the death of the former crown prince is indeed strange..."
"I made all of this up last night."
The woman in red suddenly put an arrow on the bowstring, and the black iron arrowhead shone coldly in the moonlight: "Did you see that? As long as the story can match the scattered facts, the rumor can spread like wildfire."
Xiao Zhan wiped the joint of his sword and said, "Storiest people on the streets of Chang'an have long understood this truth."
Amid the creaking sound of the taut bowstring, Jiang Xue's voice suddenly became sharp:
"When Madam Lan used her body to block the poisoned dagger to protect my reputation, her blood splattered all over the three-foot white silk. Now, I want those rumor-mongering tongues to be silent forever!"
The sound of breaking air tore through the night sky, and the triangular arrow pierced through three layers of cowhide flags, falling into the dust with the torn words "Tianshui" on them.
The deputy general looked at the arrow feathers that were still trembling after being nailed into the flagpole, and suddenly remembered the legend of the eldest princess who rode alone to save her master at the age of fifteen.
At that time, she rode a white horse in red clothes and flew through a rain of arrows, and was known as the "Red Sky Double Blades" together with General Lan Feng.
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