The fire on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, the day of Duanmu Anguo's birthday banquet, has become an unforgettable memory for the people of Songzhou. Especially for the Duanmu family, it was a disaster, a shame, and a fear and hidden danger buried deep in their hearts.
When the Lotus King brought up the topic of the fire, Duanmu Cong's expression changed immediately. The five fingers holding the wine cup suddenly clenched together, his arms trembled slightly, and even his eyes were blazing with fire. He gritted his teeth and said, "The Duanmu family will avenge this vengeance!"
Prince Lian laughed, "Revenge?" She shook her finger, "I'm afraid I can't! I heard that the fire was set by the princess of Dashun, a little girl in her teens, but you all had so many people in the General's Mansion but couldn't catch her. Instead, she killed half of her troops. You want revenge with this little ability?"
In the art of conversation, the most feared thing is to expose someone's shortcomings. It's fine to have a good chat, but if you expose someone's shortcomings, people won't like to hear it. But this Lotus King doesn't follow the usual path. He specifically picks on the shortcomings and pain points of the Duanmu family and pokes at them. He hits a hole with every poke, and it's so accurate!
Duanmu Cong was almost insane because of her anger. He managed to stay somewhat sober, but he also lost most of his reason. People who originally did not dare to provoke the Lotus King now began to confront him. Would they expose his shortcomings? He would also - "Humph! Qian Zhou sent the sharpshooter to Dashun to kidnap the princess's brother, hoping to threaten the princess. What was the result? Didn't they sacrifice the lives of all the Jingwei and the sharpshooter, and only spared a finger of the child? We are evenly matched, so no one should laugh at anyone."
Prince Lian covered his mouth and laughed, and after a while he said, "They are a bunch of stupid people, but they want to compete with the Dashun with hundreds of years of foundation. If they don't suffer a few losses, how can they remember the lesson? What's more, every grievance has its perpetrator. They don't have the ability to fight against the Ninth Prince and Princess Ji'an, but they attack a child. They are so useless."
"Your Highness Prince Lian is very open-minded." Duanmu Anguo interrupted after hearing the conversation, "Has Your Highness forgotten how Princess Ji'an treated Princess Ru Jia of Qian Zhou?"
Prince Lian raised his eyebrows and looked at him, very puzzled, "Rujia is my brother's niece, not my own, why should I worry about it! Besides, Kang Yi dared to go after Rujia with her personality, it's obvious that he wanted his daughter to die. Her own mother wanted her life, how can I control it?"
Duanmu Anguo looked at King Lian for a while and said nothing. Duanmu Cong said, "In my opinion, Qian Zhou only took a finger of Princess Ji'an's brother, which was too good for him. He should chop that boy off and mix it into dumpling stuffing."
King Lian grinned, looking disgusted but surprised, and said, "So the son of the governor likes to eat this kind of human flesh dumplings? That's great, the people who were burned to death in the governor's mansion the other day can be chopped up for you to eat, and they are roasted, so they taste even better."
Duanmu Qing deeply realized what it felt like to be on a different level with someone else. He returned to his seat in frustration and secretly made up his mind never to say another word to King Lian again.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the man who had gone to the Fu family to deliver the silver and then to the Xianzi Pavilion to pick up the portrait came back. He knelt down in front of Duanmu Anguo and reported, "I went to the Fu family and found out that there is indeed a daughter named Fu Ya, and she was selected during the recruitment of the Illusion Pavilion." As he spoke, he raised the three scrolls in his hands above his head, "These are the portraits stored in the Xianzi Pavilion. Please take a look, sir."
Duanmu Anguo nodded and signaled the servant to bring the portrait over. Feng Yuheng raised his head, as if intending to expose his true appearance to Duanmu Anguo.
The three portraits were opened by three servants and presented to Duanmu Anguo. The girls in the paintings had delicate features and natural expressions, neither smiling nor sad, as if nothing had to do with them. They were beautiful, but not bright and beautiful. They looked like an ice flower, with frost in its bones.
He turned his head to look at Feng Yuheng standing behind the Lotus King. His appearance was almost the same, but he was a little more lively and energetic than in the portrait. But this was the most fundamental difference between the real person and the portrait, so there was nothing abnormal about it.
Duanmu Anguo frowned. Although the girl in the portrait was indeed Fu Ya, why did he think she looked like the one who set the fire that day? He asked the guard who came back from his errand, "Is this portrait really kept in Xianzi Pavilion?"
The guard nodded and said, "Yes, it is a portrait of the young lady from the Fu family painted by Xianzi Pavilion within three years. I personally saw the painters take it down from the attic. The date is even marked on it."
Duanmu Anguo glanced at the date and stopped asking. He could see that the portrait was real. If it was painted recently, the ink would never look like this. Could it be that he was overthinking?
With such doubts, the banquet lasted until 15:30. When Duanmu Anguo finally announced the end of the banquet, Feng Yuheng reached out and poked the Lotus King who had fallen asleep on the table, frowned and called her: "Hey, wake up."
The two maids holding the ice flower lanterns looked at her for a while, but didn't say much. One of them moved the ice flower lantern closer to the Lotus King, and the cold air and the smell of incense from the lantern immediately woke the Lotus King up.
The woman took two deep breaths, stretched comfortably, then stood up, ignored Duanmu Anguo, and walked out of the venue with Feng Yuheng.
Ever since Duanmu Anguo expressed his intention to surrender to Qian Zhou, Qian Zhou has set up an inn in Songzhou. This time when King Lian came to visit, he stayed in Qian Zhou's inn.
Feng Yuheng followed the Lotus King back to the inn. Before leaving the Winter Palace, she did not see Ban Zou again. She did not know whether it was because of the change of post or because he had found a new job. Feng Yuheng thought that Ban Zou should know everything she had experienced in the Winter Palace. So, at this moment, in a dark place around her, was Ban Zou hiding there? Just like before, being her shadow?
"This cloak was just touched by Duanmu Anguo. Take it and burn it." After entering the inn, Prince Lian took off his cloak and threw it to the servant. "The old man Duanmu Anguo has a stench on him. It's disgusting."
Feng Yuheng deeply agreed with this statement.
A room was allocated to her in the inn, and King Lian did not mention what she should do on a daily basis. It seemed that her treatment was different from that of ordinary servants.
After Feng Yuheng returned to the room, he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes to rest. He had a intensive training in the Illusion Hall yesterday and almost didn't sleep all night. In addition, he had been busy these days, so he was really a little sleepy now.
Unfortunately, he had just dozed off for a while and hadn't fallen asleep yet when he heard a slight noise at the door, and then someone sneaked in. Although the footsteps had been lowered as much as possible, they were still very loud in Feng Yuheng's ears.
She sighed softly and said helplessly, "I can't even get a good night's sleep!" After saying that, she sat up suddenly.
The man who had sneaked in was frightened half to death by her sudden words. He cried out in shock, covered his chest and kept shouting, "I'm so scared! I'm so scared!"
Feng Yuheng rolled his eyes, "Your Highness Prince Lian, what can I do for you?"
"Oh, it's not fun at all." The person who came was the Lotus King. He seemed to like red clothes very much. Although the clothes had obviously changed, they were still eye-catching red, which was very abrupt against her pale face. "Just pretend to die for a while?" As he said this, he took a sip of the red date tea in his hand, and then handed it to Feng Yuheng: "Try it too, it's delicious, it replenishes qi and blood, and nourishes the skin."
Feng Yuheng shook her head, "I'm still young, I don't need this stuff." She had a good impression of King Lian, and not just a little bit, but she had to control the spread of this good impression and the increase in her favorability, because the other party was from Qianzhou, and was from the Qianzhou royal family. She had a great hatred for the Qianzhou royal family. In this life, she never planned to let go of a person with the surname Feng, and those running dogs raised by the surname Feng.
Feng Yuheng stepped back, not wanting to get too close to the Lotus King. Although they were both women, the feminine nature of the other party still made her feel a little uncomfortable.
Prince Lian was not unhappy at all, he just said to her: "I asked someone to prepare food for you. You must be tired and hungry after standing in the Winter Palace for a whole day. Duanmu Anguo, that old man, is only good at those useless things. He can sing and dance for so long. It's so annoying."
Feng Yuheng did not accept her kindness, "I'm not hungry, I'm full."
"Huh?" King Lian was puzzled. "When did you eat it?"
"I finished eating your fish while you were sleeping at the banquet." Feng Yuheng told the truth. The fish was really delicious and she still had an endless aftertaste for it.
King Lian opened his mouth wide and looked at Feng Yuheng with admiration: "Oh my god, you are really good! You dared to eat your master's fish in front of so many people. But, hey! Tell me, what was the expression of that old man Duanmu Anguo when you ate the fish?"
Feng Yuheng carefully recalled Duanmu Anguo's expression at that time, but shook his head after a while: "I can't remember, I was so busy eating that I didn't even look at him."
King Lian was a little disappointed. "Alas, you must have missed the most exciting expression of the year. Let me tell you, Duanmu Anguo pays more attention to these fish than to living people. Didn't you see how he looked when the two fish were served? Really, you should have taken a closer look at that time, or woke me up. It's a very pleasing thing to see that old man eat."
Feng Yuheng was puzzled. "What is the grudge between you and Duanmu Anguo? Also, why did you want me here? Aren't you afraid that I'm a bad guy?"
Queen Lian waved her hands, "There aren't so many bad guys in the world for me to run into. I don't think you look like one, so you definitely aren't one. As for my feud with Duanmu Anguo, humph!" As she spoke, her face turned cold, and in the blink of an eye, her previously smiling face was suddenly covered with a thousand-year-old frost, like a human turning into a ghost or a monster, just like the most terrifying transformation in the ghost stories that have been passed down by the Chinese nation for five thousand years, which makes people shudder at the sight of it.
Even Feng Yuheng shuddered and asked tentatively: "What's wrong with you?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
