Chapter 15: Alone
The sky gradually brightened.
Qiandeng hid in a strange deserted house, waiting quietly.
She thought about what had happened in the past few days, from the death of the Northern King to the fire in the shrine. It was obvious that someone was targeting her and repeatedly setting up traps to kill her.
However, who can do it?
That day, the Northern King and she had a temporary agreement. The only people who knew about it should be those who were close to them at the time.
Apart from her several husband candidates, there were only a few relatives of the royal family.
The Kucha royal family gathered in the mausoleum this time. If it was really their plan, they would never use such dangerous means to put everyone in the sea of fire.
In addition, there were several prominent figures in the court, such as the Imperial Master.
Judging from the state of the Imperial Preceptor as he escaped the fire, he must have been in grave danger. And would the others... cause the Kucha royal family to perish in the struggle for power?
But if they truly intended to seize power, they would never choose to do so during the Tang Dynasty's inspection tour. After all, if they had concealed their actions from the Tang Dynasty, they would still have a chance to ascend to power. But now that the Tang Dynasty's troops were here and the situation was in their hands, with the entire Kucha royal family decimated, the Tang Dynasty would naturally quickly arrange for support for its own forces. By ruthlessly annihilating the Kucha royal family, the other side would only be paving the way for others.
Apart from them, the others who were present and knew about this incident included Her Royal Highness the Crown Prince and her three candidates for fiancé.
The Western Regions were currently in turmoil, and the Crown Prince's western tour was intended to stabilize the situation; he would never attack Kucha. Otherwise, if the Tang Dynasty's northwestern border defenses were compromised, half of it would fall, and the imperial court would be in imminent danger.
If the political situation was not unstable and the stability of the border was not too important, how could the emperor and empress be willing to let their only son, the crown prince, personally patrol the border and cultivate his reputation?
And Xue Xiyang...
Qiandeng thought quietly about him.
The Minister of Music, who was known to be a romantic figure throughout the world, was talented in playing the piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and his attainments in music, singing and dancing were even more extraordinary.
Because of this, he has a somewhat frivolous personality, loves to stir up trouble, loves to wear fancy clothes and have fun, and loves to tease her openly or covertly to get close to her, but he is also very tactful and knows when to stop.
After being in contact with him for so long, she never saw any interest in his court affairs, let alone his concern for the suffering on the border.
——The only thing related to the border may be that he is proficient in music and dance from all over the Western Regions.
But the Minister of Music was naturally proficient in the ten types of music, just as he played the Su Mu Zha of Kucha when they first met; and it was also he who played the music praising her grandfather for her when she was confused and helpless.
Speaking of which, his painting skills were also very profound. She had confiscated the portraits he had secretly painted. Now that she thought about it, the way he imagined her wearing the Kucha costume was almost identical to how she actually looked when she put it on.
But what did this prove? She couldn't see how a person obsessed with romance could have any connection with the changes in Kucha.
In comparison, the ones who had deeper involvement with these two cases were Cui Fufeng and Ji Linyou.
After all, the only people who knew she would flee at that time and happened to pass by the spirit hall were the two of them who helped her make the plan.
But Cui Fufeng did not have the opportunity to commit the first crime.
When the Northern King died, he was in the shrine and never left. It was impossible for him to move the three sacred treasures to kill people.
Ji Linyou, on the other hand, lacked opportunities in the second case.
When the fire broke out in the mausoleum, he was leading his men to sneak into the palace to take her away.
Moreover, according to what he said, Cui Fufeng gave him the blue belt as a mark just before the action. How could he have arranged in advance to let the assassins disguise themselves and enter the temple to kill people?
She went through all the people in her mind, but found that no one could have committed the crime - in comparison, the most likely person was actually herself.
"We have motive, time, ability, witnesses, and physical evidence..."
It's an ironclad case.
Who is the person who set up the trap to frame her?
Whose method could be so brilliant that it left her helpless and unable to think of any way to break the impregnable situation in front of her?
While I was thinking hard, footsteps were suddenly heard outside.
Qiandeng hid in the cellar vigilantly, secretly holding the dagger left by Ji Linyou in his hand.
Two people dressed as ordinary Kucha people walked into the yard and looked around in the hazy sky which was not yet fully bright.
Seeing that there was no movement inside or outside, they went into the room, sat down on the ground, and took out some dry food and water to eat.
"Where did that Tang County Lady go? The whole city was searching for her, but after a whole night, they found nothing."
Qian Deng, who was less than five feet away from them, held his breath and did not move.
"Logically, it should be nearby. We were ambushed near the Spiritual Temple and followed it all the way here, but we lost our trail—there's not much else around here."
Qian Deng's heart moved slightly, and he looked at the two people carefully through the gap in the cellar.
They were wearing ordinary coarse cloth clothes, but their bodies were obviously stronger than ordinary people. The way they sat with their legs spread out made Qiandeng subconsciously think of Feng Yi's group of rebel soldiers.
It seems that it was no coincidence that they found this place, but they had been secretly tracking her all the way here, but they lost her in the end.
So... what are the identities of these people who are lying in ambush near the spirit temple waiting for him? Qian Deng naturally has the answer in his mind.
As if to verify her guess, they tore out two pieces of cloth from their side, rolled them up, found a crevice in the rock and stuffed them in.
But Qiandeng had already figured out what the strip of cloth was by the light coming in from outside the house.
The green sheen that shone through the dark cloth was exactly the green cloth belt they used as a symbol.
After grabbing a handful of grass roots from the ground and firmly blocking the gap where the belt was hidden, the two men looked at the sky and discussed, "How are we going to get out when the inspection outside is so strict?"
"What are you afraid of? They're investigating the Tang Dynasty Princess, and we don't have any marks on us," the other man said nonchalantly. "Besides, didn't Ximen pay us for it? We can just say we're merchants, and we're afraid the current situation will delay our caravan's progress, so we need to leave the city as soon as possible."
As they talked, they wiped out all traces in the house, checked the surroundings again, and then left the yard and disappeared in the gradually brightening sky.
Qiandeng hesitated for a moment. She knew that the appearance of these two people was suspicious and she should not take the risk alone, but if she didn't learn the tiger's blood, she would lose the chance to grasp the clue.
She finally came out of the cellar, and with a dagger, she hastily drew an arrow pointing to the arched city gate on the wall where the blue cloth belt was inserted, wrote the word "West", then wrapped her clothes and headscarf tightly and followed the two men.
The two men were obviously very familiar with the King's City of Kucha. They avoided all the search teams by making many detours, walked through the deserted alleys, and came to a small city gate with few people.
This was clearly an unimportant entrance and exit point for Kucha City. The soldier guarding the gate was quite lazy. He took a look at the portrait in his hand and showed it to them with a smile: "Have you seen any lone girls along the way? They look like this!"
The two men shook their heads repeatedly, and the soldier waved his hand and let them go immediately.
Qiandeng thought that it should be his own image, but he didn't expect that the city gate was already guarded. Now he didn't have the tools to disguise himself, so it was obviously not easy to escape, let alone leave the city to follow the group of people who disguised themselves.
She turned around and was about to look for a place to hide, but when she looked up, she saw dust rolling in front of her and a group of soldiers riding towards her on horseback. She was not far from the city gate and was stuck on the road. She could only quickly pull her headscarf to cover her face and retreat under a tree by the roadside with her head down.
"Keep a close eye on the city gates! General Yuchi has ordered that no suspicious individuals be allowed to pass through!" the leading soldier shouted at the two men at the city gate, "Especially women, young ladies from Chang'an!"
The soldier guarding the gate raised the portrait in his hand and responded hurriedly, "Don't worry, Captain! We are always keeping an eye on the portrait and watching the person!"
"Other strangers are not allowed to leave the city! That Tang County Lady has accomplices!" He said, his eyes swept over to Qiandeng standing by the road, and he shouted, "You, which neighborhood are you from? Why are you here so early in the morning?"
Qiandeng had no idea what kind of neighbors were nearby, and she secretly thought something was wrong, but she acted calmly and pointed to the house next door. "I live over there, the second one past the karez. Two of my sheep were missing last night, and my father went out of town to look for them. He hasn't returned all night, and my mother was worried, so she asked me to wait here for him this morning."
Thanks to the fact that she had been learning under the supervision of her family since childhood, her Kucha pronunciation was fluent and even had some local accent of the royal city, which dispelled some of the other party's doubts.
Looking at her again, the veil covered her mouth and nose, revealing only a pair of eyebrows and eyes that resembled her father and grandfather, clear and bright, clearly the charming Kucha style.
This girl doesn't look like a Han Chinese from the Tang Dynasty.
The leading captain lowered his guard, and seeing that she was alone, he dismounted and approached her to examine her. "In that case, I'll find a brother to take you home. Something happened in the city last night, and it's not peaceful."
"Okay, thank you very much." Qian Deng looked calm, even stroking his horse's mane. He turned his head and looked out at the bushy wilderness. "I'll wait until Daddy comes... Hey, my Daddy is back! I'll go get him!"
When everyone subconsciously looked towards the suburbs in the direction of her hand, she had already pulled out the dagger given to her by Ji Linyou, and with a fierce swing, she cut the reins in the man's hand.
Then she jumped on the horse, grabbed the whip beside the saddle and lashed it hard.
The horse was whipped and subconsciously spread its hooves, rushing towards the outside of the city.
In a blink of an eye, a horse kicked up dust and rushed towards the mountains like an arrow, rushing through the winding and undulating mountain road, and was about to rush into the shelter of wild trees.
This was so sudden that it took five or six breaths for the captain to look at his empty hands. He came to his senses and shouted, "Chase!"
A group of people hurriedly pulled their horses over, quickly mounted them, and chased after them.
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