Chapter 1081: What a clever chain of tricks
The four words "food and grass for the northern border" on the memorial gradually blurred into a blood-stained towel in the midwife's hand. Jiang Heng suddenly stood up and pushed the window, startling the white doves in the corridor and flying up.
He looked in the direction of the official road and bit his tongue. The smell of blood mixed with the fragrance of ink rolled in his throat - this vast land was supported by the blood and tears of women and children.
Green smoke rose from the gilded beast furnace in the imperial study. Jiang Heng stared at the third ink stain on the memorial and threw down his rosewood wolf-hair brush in annoyance.
Just as he was about to ask someone to change clothes, he suddenly heard an argument outside the hall.
"Please have mercy!"
A crying female voice pierced the silence: "I want to see His Majesty! The eldest princess is in danger!"
Jiang Heng suddenly pushed open the carved door, and the person kneeling in the courtyard was Feng Ziqing's personal maid Zhuier.
The girl's forehead was bleeding, her hair was stained with snow, and when she saw him appear, she staggered towards him: "Your Majesty, go and save the princess! The Queen Mother..."
"presumptuous!"
Jiang Heng grabbed her wrist, his eyes like icy blades: "The dog that Queen Mother has kept for twelve years is actually barking at its old master?"
Her knuckles turned white from the exertion, but Zhuier trembled as she took out a gilded phoenix hairpin from her bosom.
"The day before yesterday, while the palace servants were changing shifts, I hid under the agarwood couch in the Queen Mother's bedroom."
She unscrewed the mechanism at the end of the hairpin, revealing a half-written letter in the secret compartment: "At 3:30 pm, someone sneaked in and said they wanted to destroy the temple in the south of the city..."
On the tattered letter paper was Feng Ziqing's handwritten red ink mark "诛".
Jiang Heng grabbed the jade paperweight on the desk and slammed it down. "Someone, come here! Check the entry and exit registers of each palace gate!"
He then turned to the leader of the secret guards and said sternly: "Immediately bring two teams of men and turn over the Cining Palace for me!"
"Your Majesty, please understand!"
Zhuier suddenly kowtowed heavily: "My life was saved by the Prime Minister from the hail of arrows from the chaotic army. The Prime Minister regards the princess as a treasure, and I..."
Before he finished speaking, the guards who were searching came in quickly and reported: "A witch doll was found in the secret room of the Cining Palace, with the eldest princess's birth date pierced on its heart!"
Snowflakes fluttered on Jiang Heng's eyelashes, and he vaguely recalled the time when he had a high fever as a child and his aunt held him and sang Jiangnan folk songs all night long.
He took off the dragon-patterned token from his waist and threw it to the secret guard: "Order the twelve dark night guards to assemble, seal the four gates and strictly inspect the carriage. Send light cavalry with my handwritten order, and order the nine-gate commander to lead the imperial guards to surround all the temples in the south of the city!"
The Twelve Dark Night Guards acted as swiftly as the wind, and in less than three hours they confirmed that a palace maid holding the eldest princess's token had indeed left the city through Zhaode Gate at noon.
Jiang Heng clenched the teacup in his hand as he listened to the report - Fu Dong had always been inseparable from his aunt, so such an abnormal transfer was strange.
What is even more shocking is that although the guard at the city gate insisted that Feng Ziqing was not there in person, he repeatedly mentioned that the woman was taller than an ordinary palace maid.
"Disguise..."
The young emperor suddenly recalled the martial arts secrets that Xiao Zhan had taught him a month ago, and banged his bony knuckles heavily on the table.
If what Zhuier said was true, then the matter of Jiang Xiaowei's difficult childbirth, who was far away in the suburbs, had probably already become a dragnet.
As dusk gradually enveloped the palace walls, the secret guards brought even more shocking news: the carriage of the Princess's mansion was already more than 20 miles away from the city.
Jiang Heng stood up suddenly, and the dragon-patterned jade pendant on his waist hit the bronze beast head with a crisp sound: "Take my golden scale armor!"
When the iron hooves of three hundred imperial guards crushed the palace gate and the evening drum sounded, Jiang Xue was holding on to the wall of the carriage to steady herself.
The sudden severe pain in her abdomen made her fingertips turn white. The five-month-old fetus seemed to sense something and kicked out uneasy arcs under the brocade palace dress.
"Your Highness, be careful!"
Fu Dong held his sword in front of him to stop the carriage that had suddenly stopped. Through the raised curtain, he could see that a large group of assassins had formed a siege a hundred steps away.
The cold iron reflected the setting sun, spreading a cold silver light on the official road.
Jiang Xue gently stroked her slightly bulging belly with her bare hands, and a cold light flashed in her eyes: "What a clever chain of tricks."
The image of Jiang Xiaowei grabbing her with red eyes last night was still vivid in her mind. The cold sweat soaking through his clothes and his trembling voice even fooled her.
"Fudong, take my Phoenix Mark Order."
She suddenly broke the gilded forbidden step at her waist and slapped half of the tiger talisman into the attendant's palm: "Do you see the birch forest three miles away? The beacon bomb given by the late emperor is buried in the southeast corner."
When the black-clad leader's hideous grin penetrated the carriage curtain, the eldest princess suddenly pushed open the carved door.
The evening wind blew up her scarlet shawl, and she looked like a phoenix reborn from the ashes. "Since you dare not harm my life, why don't you tell me what you want?"
Before he finished speaking, the poisoned silver needles in his sleeves had already pierced into the throats of the three killers nearest to him.
"One last thing."
Jiang Xue traced the lines on the wooden window with her fingertips: "The plague in Luoshui City came strangely. If Yun Che has noticed something, he must be rushing back at full speed now."
She suddenly grabbed the attendant's wrist, and the white jade bracelet made a crisp sound when it hit the wooden board:
"If he comes back while I am still a prisoner, you must stop him - tell him that I would rather see him guarding the border than see him spill blood in the imperial city!"
Thinking back to the time when I almost gave up the world for him, a bitter taste rose in my throat.
As the car curtain rolled up, she was already standing in the cold wind.
More than thirty masked men in black formed a half-moon formation, except for a woman wearing a gold-thread mask standing in the southwest corner, the Southern Xinjiang silver bell on her waist trembling with her breathing.
"I underestimated you for being able to mobilize the Southern Border warriors to penetrate the Imperial City."
Jiang Xue's wide sleeves fell, revealing a black iron bracelet on her wrist that only the secret guards could recognize.
A harsh laugh came from under the veil: "When Your Highness poisoned my three brothers, did you ever think about retribution?"
Yin Ling shook violently with her emotions: "Now let's see how you can speak eloquently!"
"I am afraid of death, but I am more afraid of dying stupidly."
Jiang Xue suddenly took two steps closer, shocking the assassins so much that their swords rang out: "If you want to kill me, why go through so much trouble? Unless..."
She suddenly pulled off the veil, revealing half of her face covered with burn marks: "Princess Ateli wants to restore her country, but also wants the secret box of the will in my belly?"
Ateli staggered back, and the silver bell around her waist fell to the ground.
Jiang Xue stepped on the bell and sneered: "If you can get that old fox Huangfu Shang to lend you troops, you must have promised him the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun?"
From the corner of his eye, he saw that one of the assassins was holding a knife in a familiar way, and his heart suddenly tightened - that was clearly the method used by the Imperial Guards' instructor.
"It really is him. I can't escape him this time."
Ateli ordered the accompanying secret guards to step forward in a cold voice. The friction of the armor startled the crows in the forest.
The guards of the princess's mansion instantly formed a sword formation, protecting Jiang Xue at the center of the circle. The frosty blades glowed with a cold silver light under the moonlight.
Amid the flashing of swords and sabers, Fu Dong seized the opportunity and leapt out of the encirclement.
Jiang Xue stroked her slightly bulging belly and walked forward slowly. Her cloud-patterned brocade robe fluttered like waves in the night wind. "Since we want to save the lives, why bother adding to the casualties?"
She gently pushed away the sword at her throat with her fingertips: "I will follow you."
Ateli's pupils shrank slightly. This reaction was totally unlike that of the Princess Changle, who was rumored to be ruthless and ruthless.
His eyes swept over the other's left hand that was protecting his abdomen, and the corners of his lips curled up in a mocking arc: "It is said that Your Highness has thunderous means, but now you have the heart of a bodhisattva?"
"Do you want to learn from the reckless man and show off his courage?"
Jiang Xue's sleeves fluttered lightly, and the Nine-Phoenix Pearl Hairpin in her hair did not move at all: "Wouldn't it be better to save some energy to clean up the mess?"
"Your Highness really is... very aware of the current situation."
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