Chapter 22 Tempering the Starfire "I also want to be someone who looks intimidating..."
Ji Ming raised an eyebrow and glanced at Zhu Dacheng, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"How have you been, General Zhao?"
"I was unaware of Lord Xie's presence. Any offense caused is my fault." Zhao Yue sheathed his sword and glanced around, saying, "I've heard that Lord Xie has been conducting clandestine investigations in Changzhou. I wonder..."
"You are in the army, taking care of Prince Jing and me at the same time. You must be very busy."
Ji Ming fiddled with the edge of the medicine bowl with his fingertips, then looked at the village chief who was already kneeling by the door.
"This humble official dares not. This humble official... received Your Excellency's imperial decree to inspect the area, and then..."
Snap—
The medicine bowl on the table suddenly cracked open, and Zhao Yue swayed, immediately kneeling on the ground, not daring to say another word.
Ji Ming carefully parted the fragments, speaking calmly: "Lord Zhao has done his duty faithfully, why panic? Prince Jing is under house arrest, and the Emperor is constantly worried about him. With you here..."
He swirled his tongue in his mouth, lowered his eyes, and his voice grew increasingly somber: "Both the Emperor and I can rest assured."
Zhao Yue bowed deeply in gratitude, and within moments he was covered in a cold sweat.
The autumn wind rustled, the door rattled, and Ji Ming raised his chin slightly: "Get up."
"Thank you, sir."
Zhao Yue staggered to his feet, not forgetting to kick Zhu Dacheng, who was kneeling beside him, hard.
“I was ordered to arrest the rebels, but today I was misled by a villain and did not know that it was Your Excellency the Grand Secretary who was here. I have offended you. Please forgive me, Your Excellency.”
Zhu Dacheng leaned back and knocked over the old village chief who was following behind him.
The village chief opened his mouth, as if he wanted to explain and plead for mercy, but before he could finish speaking, he didn't say anything. Instead, he bent down and knelt on the ground, bowing his head.
Zhu Dacheng, on the other hand, quickly got up from the ground and kowtowed vigorously.
"My lord! I was blind to your greatness! I was utterly ignorant!"
"This villain deserves to die! This villain deserves to die! He deserves to die..."
Bloodstains were visible on the cement floor, but Ji Ming remained silent throughout.
The person on the ground couldn't hear anything and didn't dare to look up directly, so he banged his head even harder.
Gradually, the sound of the impact on the ground grew fainter and fainter. Zhu Dacheng could no longer lift his head off the ground, and his body trembled uncontrollably.
A puddle of water flowed from between his legs, silently washing away the bloodstains on the ground.
At this point, his eyes, as deep as ancient wells, narrowed slightly as he glanced at Zhao Yue.
The man pretended not to see him, bowed familiarly with a smile, and asked again, "This humble abode is simple. If Your Excellency has completed your business, I will escort you back to Changzhou."
"Escort?" Ji Mingwei tapped his fingertips lightly on the table, a barely perceptible smile playing on his lips. "My health has always been poor. If I were to suffer even the slightest bump or bruise on the road, how does your prince plan to explain it to the Emperor?"
"You jest, sir."
The man sat upright on the bench, pondered for a moment, and then looked up again, revealing another scheme.
“Since it’s an undercover investigation, there’s no need to alarm the local authorities.” Ji Ming recalled Ning Lu’s earlier words and said slowly and deliberately, “It would be a waste of manpower and resources, and I’m afraid I’ll have to bear even more infamy.”
The color of Zhao Yue's official robes on his back had deepened with sweat. He remained silent and dared not even breathe loudly.
For a moment, the room fell into a deathly silence.
Outside the courtyard, the hooves of horses thundered. Before anyone inside could react, a chaotic shouting erupted, and a dark figure crashed straight into the house.
Immediately afterwards, chaos erupted, with chickens running wild and dogs barking, and ashes flying everywhere.
Inside the cramped, dark thatched hut, everything was in complete chaos.
The sounds of coughing and shouting filled the air, swords were drawn, and curses were muffled.
Ji Ming was also so agitated by the dust that he couldn't lift his head and coughed repeatedly.
The next instant, a sweaty little hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him forcefully to the doorway.
"I knew it, you idiot, all you do is sit and wait to be caught."
"Why are you trying to be a hero and let me go first? You still need your aunt to save you."
Before he could react, he had already been pushed onto the horse.
Her fair and delicate face was covered in soot from both sides, making her look quite disheveled.
Ning Lu turned her head to look at the soldiers rushing out the door, and grabbed his shoulder as he lay on the horse's back.
"You can ride a horse, right? Run! I'll catch up with you soon!"
Before Ji Ming could catch his breath, Ning Lu slapped the horse's rump hard.
The horse leaped a considerable distance. When he turned back, he saw her take a deep breath, pull a bag of stones from her waist, and hurl them one after another at the soldiers who were trying to squeeze out of the door.
Her erratic, dodging movements betrayed her panic.
With a firm grip on his palm, the reins tightened, and the horse's hooves leaped into the air.
In the blink of an eye, Ning Lu, who was baring her teeth and claws, was picked up around the waist and thrown onto the horse's back.
Almost simultaneously, Zhao Yue leaped out of the window.
The moment he raised his knife and roared in anger, he was struck hard between the eyebrows and fell backward.
The man had an extremely stable lower body. He simply bent backward, then spun around and stood firm, drawing his sword from its sheath.
In a short while, Ji Ming had already spurred his horse and galloped toward the village entrance.
As they brushed past each other, Ning Lu looked up and turned around, her eyes meeting Zhao Yue's directly.
"The scarred man?!"
"Witch!!"
Ning Lu suddenly tightened her grip on Ji Ming's belt and tugged hard, yelling, "Ah Ming, help! Faster!"
Before he could finish speaking, Ji Ming steadied himself and gave the horse a sharp slap.
Ning Lu's exclamation reached my ears.
Dust billowed, and the horses' hooves faded into the distance. The soldiers followed them out of the house, only managing to catch up with Zhao Yue, who was lagging far behind.
As the figures disappeared, Zhao Yue slowed his pace, and the soldiers accompanying him also gasped for breath, kneeling and groaning.
"General, should we pursue or not?"
"That woman isn't dead, of course we have to chase her. If she's alive, none of us will survive."
Zhao Yue, exasperated, put his hands on his hips and rubbed them together, pacing back and forth for a couple of steps.
Although that glance was fleeting, he was certain that the woman on horseback was the one Prince Jing had been searching for.
"Falling off a mountain and still alive? That's a miracle." Zhao Yue casually pointed to two people: "You two go after them first, don't lose them."
"You, go and report to your magistrate that you have found traitors. Tell him to send a few capable men to assist in the investigation."
"That female thief kidnapped Vice Minister Xie. Should we report this to General Wei and the others first?" The clerk from Pingcheng Prefecture, who had been singled out, wiped his sweat and asked, panting heavily.
"Abducted? Which eye of yours saw that he was forced?" Zhao Yue grabbed the questioner by the collar, his eyes bloodshot with murderous intent: "That woman is a traitor, she holds the secret of the Prince Xian's rebellion. Xie Qinghe colluded with the traitor, his crime deserves to be punished."
"But... wasn't the Grand Chancellor ordered to investigate..."
"Didn't you hear me? He was on an undercover investigation! Do you understand what an undercover investigation means?"
Enraged, Zhao Yue raised his hand as if to chop down, the bowl-sized scar on his face making him look even more ferocious and terrifying.
A soldier squeezed forward from behind, blocking Zhao Yue's path, and replied with a smile, "General, please calm down. We understand. We will return to the city to gather troops and hunt down the rebels."
"That's more like it." He shoved the trembling soldier to the ground and said viciously, "If that woman surrenders to him, you, all of you, me, and Prince Jing, none of us will survive."
"What are you waiting for? Let's go!"
The officers and soldiers scrambled to get to their tasks, and the echoes of Zhao Yue's shouts gradually faded away in the village.
The surroundings were silent. As if remembering something, he pulled out the crumpled document from his pocket, unfolded it, and immediately saw the word 'thank you' at the end.
What a lovely word of thanks.
Words stop at the mouth, and thoughts are uttered in the inch.
Zhao Yue thought about it again and realized that Xie Qinghe's deliberate avoidance of the red ink in his writing was something he, a military general who was often stationed on the frontier, was well aware of. The magistrate of Pingcheng County was a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations, yet he was pretending to be stupid and pushing him to the front. Zhao Yue was indignant.
He pointed to the soldier who had just helped someone out of a predicament: "You, send a message to Prince Jing, saying that Xie Qinghe is in Pingcheng..."
"Yes, General."
"Wait, you... send this document to His Highness urgently. There's no need to say anything else."
With the reins in hand and the horse galloping, Ning Lu's warm body pressed tightly against his back.
Sometimes, as it passed through the bushes, branches brushed past its ears, and that palm-sized head would shrink back against its back, gripping the fabric at its waist even tighter.
His heart started beating faster.
Ji Ming gripped the reins tightly and took a deep breath.
Surprisingly, despite the howling wind, the biting cold, and the pungent smell of blood in my throat, the dull pain in my chest did not flare up.
Ning Lu gradually adapted to the speed on horseback, and her little head began to rest on his shoulder, looking around.
His hair brushed against her face, tangling with the hair at her temples.
Ji Ming's earlobes and the tip of his nose were tinged with pink, and the cold and gloomy look in his eyes dissipated in the wind, giving rise to an extremely rare vitality.
That was a radiant look she had never seen in that thatched hut.
Ning Lu sniffed, rubbed her chin against his back, and turned her head to observe her current situation.
Night, mountain road, life-or-death escape, her and Ji Ming.
It felt like I was back on that night when I first arrived, and everything had returned to where it all started.
Ning Lu nervously tightened her grip on Ji Ming's waist, buried her head in his neck, and pressed it heavily against his neck.
Before she could console herself with the thought that at least she now had a teammate, she heard the horse whimper sharply and wobble for a while.
Immediately afterwards, a piece of fabric, imbued with Ji Ming's aura, was draped over his head.
The two slid down the dry grass by the roadside and fell heavily to the bottom of the slope.
Fortunately, it had rained recently, soaking the ground, which was now soft. It was late autumn and early winter, so she was dressed warmly.
fine……
"Get down."
The 'soil' beneath him shifted, and his voice betrayed his helplessness.
Ning Lu snapped out of her daze, frantically patted the soft 'soil' a couple of times, then quickly rolled over and went to the side.
Sure enough, the ground was still hard in late autumn and early winter.
She sighed, half relieved and half grateful.
"How are you?"
In the dim light, his face was not visible, but his disordered breathing seemed to pause for a moment before becoming slow and restrained.
After a moment, Ji Ming tilted his head in her direction and said, "Thanks to you, I won't die."
Ning Lu chuckled twice, then shamelessly moved back to his side and gently bumped his shoulder.
“Ji Amin, I’ve saved you again. This time you’re conscious, so you can’t pretend to be stupid.”
The man frowned deeply, his lips twitching slightly, and he remained silent for a moment.
It's really hard to say who saved whom in today's events.
But no matter what, his current situation is indeed thanks to her.
Seeing that he remained silent, Ning Lu had no choice but to add her own words: "Of course, you saved me when I fell off my horse."
"I already told you to leave, why did you come back?"
His voice was not as deep as usual; instead, it was filled with a heavy weariness and weakness.
With those words, she was left speechless.
After a long silence, Ning Lu replied in a muffled voice, "I wanted to run away too, but I felt it would be very unfair to just leave you like this."
The man was injured, yet he shielded himself as he rolled down, so he probably couldn't move much.
She dusted herself off, resignedly got up, gathered up the surrounding branches, picked out a few relatively dry branches and put them together, then tried to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, just like in her textbook.
“I brought you down from the mountain, and I also found someone to treat you. If I just left you without doing anything, I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep for days.”
She didn't want to travel through time and leave a stain on her life.
Besides, putting aside Xie Qinghe's visit to him, those people today were clearly here for the jade pendant and the documents.
The branch developed thorns from being rubbed, but not a single spark was seen.
Ning Lu frowned and muttered defiantly, "I always said that the technique of starting a fire by rubbing sticks together is very impractical."
Despite her words, her hands continued to move, displaying an attitude of determined to fight those two pieces of wood to the bitter end.
Ji Ming supported himself on the ground, slowly sat up, bent his knees and leaned over to listen to her continue.
"It's my fault. I shouldn't have dragged you into this mess in the village. If I hadn't asked you to help them write letters, we wouldn't have gotten into all this trouble."
Ning Lu hadn't forgotten the shock she felt when she rushed into the thatched hut and saw the village chief and Da Cheng.
She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, forced a smile, and turned back to comfort Ji Ming: "But I also helped you get revenge."
“I caught those chickens from the village chief’s house, and I collected the ashes from Da Cheng’s stove.” Ning Lu’s voice was filled with excitement, and she said smugly, “This is their punishment for betraying you.”
Reminded by her, Ji Ming remembered the basket of birds that were running around the house, and the chicken feathers flying up and down.
Not to mention him, even Zhao Yue, who had fought on the battlefield for many years, had never seen such a chaotic scene.
"I feel a little bad for Yu Niang. When I was overturning the stove, I broke several of her bowls."
A few sparks flew out from under her palm, and Ning Lu's eyes immediately lit up. She moved her little hands even faster.
She hid the regret and disappointment in her tone very well, but the man still caught it keenly.
Ji Ming silently clenched his sleeves, his gaze towards her becoming increasingly complex.
"It's done!"
A spark landed on a dry leaf and instantly ignited into a flame.
Ning Lu's soft cry startled several birds into flight, adding a touch of embarrassment to the joy she felt as she looked at him.
She covered her mouth as if she had done something wrong, chuckled, and tiptoed to pick up two sticks and put them in to make the fire burn brighter.
After enduring the inexplicable dull pain, Ji Ming's face paled even more. He swayed, but still asked with focused attention, "Are you alright?"
Ning Lu looked up in surprise, meeting his gaze through the leaping flames.
What could possibly be wrong with me?
She instinctively retorted.
Time seemed to stand still. She pressed her tongue against her palate, repeatedly savoring the overly unfamiliar and strange expression of concern.
My nose started to sting more and more, and I slowed down my movements as I added more firewood to the fire.
"Ji Amin, are you concerned about me?"
The smile that had been forced at the corners of his mouth couldn't be maintained for long, and even his voice had a heavy nasal tone.
The situation before him startled Ji Ming, leaving him speechless.
"you……"
She doesn't look well.
Her face, still covered in soot and mud, was now scorched by the fire. While not exactly charming, it did manage to evoke a few words of pity.
The shimmering water gradually blurred Ning Lu's vision. She pouted and sat on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum.
His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, like a child who had suffered injustice but was trying his best to endure it.
But at this moment, her eyes were unusually resolute, and she looked straight at Ji Ming with her chin slightly raised, which made her look even more resentful.
Sitting opposite each other, he shook his head and chuckled.
After a long silence, Ji Ming clenched his fingers and sighed softly, "Do you want to cry?"
"what?"
He turned his body slightly to the side with difficulty, took out a plain handkerchief from his sleeve, and pointed to his right shoulder.
"I'll lend it to you."
"What kind of girl cries and then goes to borrow someone's shoulder to cry on? Ji A-ming, you..."
"I'm sorry... I really don't have the strength this time... Thank you for your hard work..."
Upon hearing this, Ning Lu's lips twitched, and she burst into tears.
She practically rolled over and crawled to Ji Ming's side, clutching his coarse linen clothes and sobbing incessantly.
The crying was as loud as the sound of a heartbeat, making one feel intensely dizzy amidst exhaustion.
Ji Ming gripped the handkerchief in his hand tightly and listened quietly to her muttering.
She asked, "Didn't they say girls help girls? Why did they lie to me?"
She said she felt so regretful, so sad, and so fortunate. She wondered if there would be more good people in the world if everyone's life were a little easier.
She said she hadn't had a single good day since she came here; she was either being cheated or suffering from exhaustion. She had such a miserable life.
She said she hated being deceived and homeless.
She wanted to go home and find her mother.
Ji Ming was stunned, his heart skipped a beat, and he stared at her blankly.
...
When she finally finished crying, she forcefully snatched the handkerchief from his hand, wiped her tears and then her snot, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Ji Amin, I learned a big lesson from this incident: you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
"Look at you, so sinister, scheming and suspicious, but cold on the outside but warm on the inside. You say you don't care about other people's business, but you do what you're supposed to do, and no one dares to lie to you easily."
"I also want to be someone who looks tough and hard to fool."
A few startled magpies took flight, the distant cries of crows drew nearer, the shadows of trees swayed, and the night fog thickened.
Ji Ming looked at the long road they had come from, his expression shifting, and he remained silent.
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