Chapter 51, Page Fifty-One: The Disappearance
Snow in September is truly an unusual phenomenon.
The snow was too heavy to make marching difficult. Jiang Jinyi felt uneasy. After giving his instructions, he left the main force behind and rushed back to the capital.
The wind and snow cut like knives on my face, and even with thick fur gloves on, my hands were so frozen I couldn't feel them.
At dawn, Jiang Jinyi finally arrived in the capital. There was no one at the Jiang residence. At the Prince's residence, Qi Lingjun was unusually still in bed. The servant said that Qi Lingjun had fallen the night before and had drunk a lot of wine, which was why he hadn't gotten up.
Although it was strange, Jiang Jinyi had no time to care about Qi Lingjun. He entered the palace directly without being informed. When he saw the winding bloodstains and Zhu Huantang lying in a pool of blood, almost frozen, he immediately understood what had happened. He drew his sword and was about to kill Zhu Huantang.
Unexpectedly, Cui Jiu appeared instantly, blocking Jiang Jinyi's sword strike, and said, "My master ordered that this person must not be moved."
Jiang Jinyi then realized that Cui Jiu, whom he had raised for so long, was actually Zuo Qinghou's man. He didn't have time to investigate further. Although he hated Zhu Huantang to the core, he still held back and hurriedly asked, "Where is Zuo Qinghou?"
"I don't know, my master was already gone when I came here. My master ordered that if Zhu Huantang wanted to stay in Sui, he should be given the official position he deserved; if he didn't want to, he should be killed."
Jiang Jinyi looked at the blood all over the ground, suppressed his urge to go crazy, and said, "Take him and get out of here."
Jiang Jinyi exhaled a breath of stale air and headed towards the Prince's residence. Regardless of Zuo Qinghou's plans or why he needed to leave a spy, everything would become clear once he found Zuo Qinghou.
Zhu Huantang woke up instantly. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the brocade canopy of herbs above him and Cui Jiu standing to the side with his arms crossed. He instinctively reached for his sword to attack, but his hand was empty; the sword was gone!
Jiang Linzhi isn't here either!
Cui Jiu maintained his cold expression and said, "I won't hurt you."
Seeing that Cui Jiu showed no murderous intent, Zhu Huantang remained skeptical. He picked up Zuo Qinghou's knife and asked, "Where is she?"
"She was no longer with me when I arrived."
He didn't know if Cui Jiu was lying or not; his mind was filled with Zuo Qinghou's face during the final sword strike, hovering like a vulture. Zhu Huantang got up irritably and found that his several fatal wounds had almost healed. Even if he didn't want to admit it, it was definitely Zuo Qinghou's doing.
His arm, which was almost severed by Zuo Qinghou, has healed; Zuo Qinghou will surely heal as well.
Cui Jiu suddenly asked, "Is she dead?"
"No!" Zhu Huantang blurted out, meeting Cui Jiu's puzzled expression with a cold snort, "Isn't she immortal? Didn't you know?"
Doubts lingered in his mind like dark clouds. Cui Jiu did not restrict his movements. Zhu Huantang followed the footprints and bloodstains again and finally arrived at the secret room.
Zhu Huantang suddenly remembered that Fan Qi was still there. Startled, he hurriedly ran into the secret room, where there was a pool of blood.
Beside the blood was his broken sword.
So much blood, is it Fan Qi's or Zuo Qinghou's? But Master was rendered unconscious by Zuo Qinghou's witchcraft, how could he possibly kill someone? When they were alone in the secret room, no matter what method he used, neither Master nor Mu Tou reacted.
The more he thought about it, the more horrifying the result became. Zhu Huantang knelt down, trembling, and asked Cui Jiu, who was following him, "Where are the Crimson Flowers outside?"
Cui Jiu didn't know what he meant, but still replied, "It's just heavy snow, you won't die."
Zhu Yan will never die, and Zuo Qinghou will never die.
If Zuo Qinghou does not die, Zhu Yan will not die.
Zhu Huantang suddenly knelt down and pounded the ground with his fists. Sure enough, he had been deceived!
Zuo Qinghou is not dead at all!
The messenger walked through the winding corridors and finally arrived at a courtyard. The tall guard at the gate searched him and, after confirming that he was not carrying any weapons, opened the door for him.
The servant went inside, and there was another door ahead. He was checked three times in this way, and after crossing three doors, he finally arrived at a magnificent room.
I doubt even an audience with the emperor could be more troublesome than this. The servant dared not complain, nor did he dare look at it for long. He handed the secret letter to a nearby attendant and then withdrew.
Xia Kuan, the patriarch of the Xia family, sat behind his desk made of golden nanmu wood, a jade pipe dangling from his mouth. He took a puff of his pipe, carefully read the words on the secret letter, chuckled, and handed the letter to an official in purple robes standing beside him.
The official laughed and said, "Congratulations, sir. The Northern Army's Lieutenant General has been imprisoned. Those lowly commoners who try to climb the ranks are no longer a threat."
This job was an unspoken rule among the aristocratic families: whoever took a share of the merits passed down from their ancestors would be sent to the State of Sui to be fed to the fish.
On the surface, he may be promoted in rank, but in reality, his life is in danger, and the emperor will not notice.
Xia Kuan glanced at the man with drooping eyelids and said, "Zhu Huantang ranked third on the Lone Goose List of chivalrous figures at the age of eighteen, and became a Lieutenant General of the Northern Army at the age of nineteen. Do you think someone like that can get away with being imprisoned?"
The official hurriedly said, "Sui is not like our Wu. It is a place that eats people, with corpses strewn everywhere and starving people all over the land. Even if he is really capable, life and death are still decided by that person."
Although none of the men sent to Sui Kingdom to investigate Baiyao returned alive, Xia Kuan was still uneasy. Zhu Huantang's ancestors were brave and skilled in battle, but because of their humble origins, when the founding emperor held a grand banquet for the vassal kings, he only granted them the empty title of King of Xijing, without even the right to sit at the table. His descendants were probably all harboring resentment.
Emperor Wu had strictly prohibited snuff bottles since his reign, but the temporary enhancements to intelligence and martial prowess from their use meant that even if it led to madness and death, most people continued to use them in their pursuit of advancement. This was impossible to eradicate in the Wu Kingdom, where advancement relied heavily on the imperial examinations. Every year, Wu had to purchase "white medicine" from the Sui Kingdom, costing one or two thousand coins, resulting in a loss of hundreds of millions of taels of silver annually. Since it was impossible to ban them anyway, what if the Xia family could master the production method…?
Xia Kuan puffed out a cloud of smoke. "If he really manages to get the recipe for Baiyao, we'll deal with him once he brings it back; if he doesn't, someone else will take care of him. Let's talk about the situation in Shu first. We suffered a defeat at the front and lost Shu this time. Do you think you can just let it go like this? I remember someone made a pledge, didn't they?"
The person who made the pledge was a distant relative of the Liu family. He thought he couldn't conquer Shu, so he found a comfortable job. Unexpectedly, the Sui Kingdom split its troops into two groups and launched a surprise attack to take over Shu.
The matter had not yet reached the emperor, but the Liu family was not easy to deal with. They needed to think of a scapegoat and where there was a larger place to grow grain.
Seeing that Xia Kuan was not in a hurry to get rid of Zhu Huantang, the official changed the subject, saying, "Sui is just a tiny country. This time it was just a stroke of luck. It's only a matter of time before we recover our lost territory. If Fan Qi hadn't suffered a defeat, Sui would have already been taken over. Why should our great nation be controlled by others because of a mere medicine?"
Such sycophancy might be acceptable under other circumstances, but with such a large granary in Chu lost, the situation is quite serious. Xia Kuan gave him a cold glance and said, "General Fan is a figure even His Majesty respects. Who do you think you are, daring to speak ill of heroes?"
The official hurriedly knelt down, slapped himself several times, and said, "I deserve to die, I really deserve to die. I received intelligence this morning, which is a good thing, but it's not certain yet."
Seeing that he was keeping him in suspense, Xia Kuan became displeased and said coldly, "Speak."
"All the beautiful flowers in the Sui Kingdom have been burned."
The story of burning the Crimson Flower was indeed true. Zhu Huantang went mad, and since no one cared, he set fire to the frozen Crimson Flower field.
The buds of the Crimson Flower melted into the fire, turning a red color that matched the flames. The firelight distorted Zhu Huantang's face, and soon someone subdued him and extinguished the fire.
Jiang Jinyi had been frantically searching for Zuo Qinghou these past few days and was already feeling depressed. Now, seeing the flower field, which was three or four tenths of the way burned down, he was so angry that he kicked Zhu Huantang in the face and said angrily, "Do you really think that with Zuo Qinghou's words, we won't dare to touch you? You're useful to us, so you'd better know your place."
Zhu Huantang lay on the ground, sneering. His posture was humble, but his eyes were cold, as if he were the one who was high and mighty. He sneered, "Jiang Jinyi, you are nothing but Zuo Qinghou's dog. We are the same, so why fight like dogs?"
The words had barely left his mouth when another foot landed on Zhu Huantang's ribs, a kick so heavy that Zhu Huantang clearly heard the sound of his bones breaking. Perhaps because his collarbone was in a sling every day, this excruciating pain was nothing to Zhu Huantang; he didn't utter a sound, only panting heavily as he said, "Wake up! Zuo Qinghou schemes against everyone. If she truly trusted you, why didn't she tell you where she is now? What is she planning?"
Every word was scathing, and Jiang Jinyi didn't want to hear a single one. He told Cui Jiu to take him back and subdue him immediately.
After returning to the manor in a daze, Jiang Jinyi was already waiting for him in the study by Qi Lingjun. Seeing that Jiang Jinyi looked absent-minded, he said, "Your Highness, the Ministry of Personnel has drafted the appointments for Shu, but the Cabinet has not yet approved them. We still need to arrange our own people."
"Okay, you can arrange it," Jiang Jinyi said casually. "Is there anything else?"
“Although Zhu Yan has been burned, Your Highness need not worry. Wu has been defeated and lost its granaries. The first priority is definitely to solve the granary problem. Snuff bottles will certainly be in short supply, and the production of snuff bottles has always been the responsibility of Zuo Qinghou. We don’t know how to make them, so we need to find out the production method first.” Qi Lingjun explained one point at a time, as if it were not a big deal.
Jiang Jinyi's brows furrowed deeper as he listened: "She didn't even tell you?"
“No, she always buys a lot of medicinal herbs before making snuff bottles. But those herbs are for making wound medicine for the soldiers on the border, and no one knows how to make snuff bottles. However…” Qi Lingjun suddenly raised his eyes, glanced at Jiang Jinyi, and continued to lower his eyes respectfully, “Zhu Huantang might know, but it’s hard to get him to talk about it.”
“Forty-nine punishments? I don’t believe he can endure them,” Jiang Jinyi said. “Otherwise, do you expect him to be of one mind with us?”
Qi Lingjun shook his head and said, "Torture is probably nothing to him. If it were effective, he wouldn't have stabbed Zuo Qinghou. Besides, he comes from a prominent family. I think it would be difficult for him to betray his family. If you doubt someone, don't use them; if you use someone, don't doubt them."
“Lord Qi and I have said this,” Jiang Jinyi raised his eyes and looked at him intently, “you must have a solution, right?”
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