Chapter 295 Replacement
As soon as the word "take action" was uttered, Mu Xi and Dai Xin hurriedly left the study.
Startled, Shen Qiao shouted, "Take him down!"
A fight immediately broke out in the courtyard.
Shen Qiao rushed out almost simultaneously, but immediately covered his mouth and nose. Outside the hermitage, the entire Qingwei Temple, along with the mountain behind it, was shrouded in a white mist.
Shen Qiao quickly pulled out a porcelain bottle from his pocket, poured out some pills, swallowed them, and then distributed them to the elite soldiers around him. He then said confidently, "It's just a trick. You really think this smoke can stop us? You don't know that the Qinzhou area is full of mountains and fog. The local elite soldiers have their own ways of resisting. You are already surrounded and won't last long. They will break in from outside soon."
"Fight? Why fight? Just catching you is enough." As soon as Mu Xi finished speaking, she took several steps back.
"What?" Before Shen Qiao could react, Dai Xin had already led his men to make their move.
The two sides clashed, and in no time, Shen Qiao's elite guards were no match for Dai Xin's personal guards and were all captured.
Shen Qiao, a scholar, knew no martial arts at all. He simply stood still the whole time, watching his Jingwei guards being captured one by one without panicking. But when he heard the sounds of fighting outside stop after a while, he looked surprised and said, "Impossible, why did the fighting outside stop?"
"Why did they fire?" Mu Xi retorted. "What did you think that white smoke was? Where did Doctor Luo get so much bewitching smoke in such a short time? Those were just traces of burning grass, just to temporarily delay your signal flares."
Shen Qiao still couldn't understand. Mu Xi had already made a gesture, ordering Dai Xin to take the rest of the Jingwei out of the courtyard, while binding Shen Qiao and taking her back into the Jingwei.
Back in the retreat, Mu Xi sat cross-legged on the futon and began to wait.
As time went by, Shen Qiao, who was bound, seemed to realize something, and his expression gradually became very interesting.
Mu Xi didn't offer any explanation until she heard footsteps outside the study, at which point she looked up.
The next second, a figure with the same face as Shen Qiao, and even dressed in a gray scholar's robe, walked in surrounded by a group of people.
As soon as he entered the courtyard, he saw Shen Qiao standing there dumbfounded, and he stopped in his tracks.
The divine physician Luo and Qi Qingyuan, who followed behind him, also stopped.
Dai Xin then came out of the residence to greet the guard captain who was coming from behind, asking, "How is it? Have you found it?"
The captain of the guard bowed and replied, "No, I have already led my troops to control all of Lord Shen's men who followed him, and after confirmation, there is no trace of Young Master Mu."
Hearing this answer, Mu Xi finally couldn't hold back any longer and turned to Shen Qiao to ask, "I'll give you one last chance to tell me where Mu Xun is?"
Shen Qiao was stunned when he saw the real Shen Lun, but his eyes clearly showed that he understood everything.
Zhen Shenlun stared intently for a long while before sighing, "Alas, after all these years, I never imagined that you and I, brothers, would meet again outside the tower."
Shen Qiao narrowed his eyes and finally spoke to confirm: "You were the one who impersonated me and stopped Qin Zhoubingwei's attack just now?"
"You've already guessed it, so why ask?" Shen Lun said calmly.
“Even so, this shouldn’t be…” Shen Qiao gritted his teeth and looked Shen Lun up and down. “How come you’re wearing the same clothes as me? Even if the clothes are the same, after so many years in Guanta, my temperament and appearance are completely different from mine. How could they easily believe your words? Besides, I have the handover token on me.”
Shen Lun seemed to want to smile, but his facial muscles remained stiff. He flicked his sleeves and said, "This gray-blue robe was the style and color I liked back then. You've been impersonating your brother for so many years, it's become a habit, have you forgotten? If I told you what clothes you would wear today, what actions you would take, and what you would do that I knew perfectly well, I could guess it out of thin air, would you believe me?"
Shen Qiao's eyes widened, her expression one of disbelief mixed with an undeniable conviction.
In fact, although Shen Lun had indeed deduced that he would wear a gray-blue scholar's robe, he had also sent people in advance to purchase several men's robes of similar style but different colors from the well-known clothing shops in Qinzhou City, just in case.
It wasn't until the scouts spotted Shen Qiao leaving the city from afar and confirmed the style and color of his clothes that they rushed to report to Shen Lun, who then changed into the same style and disguised himself as Shen Qiao.
Shen Lun stared at Shen Qiao's ever-changing expressions, a hint of comfort in his eyes, though his facial expression still couldn't keep up: "However, you are right about one thing, our temperaments and appearances have become quite different over the years. But the biggest problem is that you overestimate yourself. You've spent little time in Qinzhou over the years, and unless you're very close to someone, how many people really care about or know what you look like?"
“You…” Shen Qiao could no longer maintain her noble and elegant demeanor; her face darkened.
Shen Lun then pulled out a bronze token: "As for this so-called handover token, it's not a tiger tally or military power token, so it's not difficult to get one. Of course, we have to thank Brother Qi for this matter."
Shen Lun refers to Qi Qingyuan behind him.
At this moment, Qi Qingyuan stood there staring at Shen Qiao, his eyes full of hatred: "You killed Ying'er. Ying'er was someone you even watched grow up. How could you do that?"
"Hmph..." Shen Qiao still sneered disdainfully, "You are the one who killed your daughter. If you and your daughter hadn't been so greedy, trying to take advantage of the former prince, and disobeying orders, why would I need to give you a warning?"
"You're not human..." Qi Qingyuan roared and lunged forward, grabbing Shen Qiao's neck.
With her arms bound, Shen Qiao was unable to resist and could only let herself fall down with Qi Qingyuan and be tightly choked, but she gritted her teeth and didn't utter a sound.
It was Doctor Luo who went up and painstakingly pulled Qi Qingyuan up to persuade him: "Master Qi, there's no rush. You still have questions to ask. After you've asked, he will naturally be at your disposal."
"Cough cough..." Shen Qiao coughed twice on the ground, unable to stand up on his own, but his face was fierce. "You don't need to ask anymore. I will not tell you where the prince is. But you should know that the prince is in my hands. If I don't return for a day, the prince will have no food or water. Let's see how many days you can hold out and how long the prince can last."
This was the worst-case scenario. Although she had anticipated that Shen Qiao might threaten her like this, Mu Xi's heart still sank.
He didn't hold much hope for interrogating Shen Qiao at the moment, and instead turned to Shen Lun and asked, "Uncle, do you have any way of figuring out where he hid Mu Xun? Qinzhou City is only so big. If we search it thoroughly, we should be able to find him, right?"
After spending the past few days together, Mu Xi felt that although Zhen Shenlun's uncle had been trapped in the tower for many years, his knowledge and wisdom far surpassed those of ordinary people, and he seemed to have been unaffected by his imprisonment.
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