put all one's eggs in one basket
As A-Qiu watched her retreating figure, she finally couldn't help but say, "No matter how times change, everyone's destiny must still be in their own hands. Aunt, you've done very well before, and you don't need to lose heart in the future. We always have hope."
The head palace maid paused, realizing that A Qiu was referring to her act of disfiguring herself to survive. For some reason, even though she knew the situation was hopeless, A Qiu's words made her straighten her back a little more, and she led the younger palace maids away.
That's right. Even if the imperial court falls, in chaotic times, an individual's fate is like wild grass. But after trying their best, they will always find a way to survive.
Even ants and weeds can survive.
That night, after everyone had fallen asleep, A Qiu finally left Chunhua Garden quietly.
Using the cover of night to conceal herself, she fully activated the "Earth Concealment" technique, using her body as a pivot. Within a radius of ten feet, no subtle sound or movement could escape her notice, not even the chirping of a cricket in the grass.
She darted up and down, constantly observing the terrain of Zichen Palace, avoiding the surveillance of sentries and the patrols of the guards, and finally settled on a palace eave, thus pinpointing the location of Deyang Hall.
That should be a large palace located on the central axis, at the highest point, built on a high platform. Visually, it is the most magnificent and ancient building among the various groups of buildings in the Zichen Palace complex.
At this moment, Deyang Palace was dark and silent, as it was the daytime office of the imperial court. Now that it was late at night, there was naturally no one there.
A Qiu dodged a patrol of soldiers and rushed into the Deyang Palace at lightning speed, using his photographic memory to scan, judge, and memorize the locations of various places.
Sure enough, the chime bells and drums were already in place, displayed in the center of the high platform, which indicated that the performers would be located in front of the altar the next day.
The seat of the new emperor, Huli Jin, should have been a nine-dragon chair carved with overlapping mountains and seas, about five zhang away from the main pillar in the hall.
The enthronement ceremony consists of the following steps: offering sacrifices to Heaven, ascending the throne, receiving the swearing-in, and the ceremony concluding.
The most opportune time for the assassination was during the performance of "Shao" and "Wu" as part of the sacrificial ceremony to Heaven, because at that time, the Emperor Huli Jin, as the chief officiant, would inevitably be in front of the altar.
This will be the closest she, as a geisha, will ever be to Hulijin.
If a suitable opportunity is not found at this time to ensure the successful conclusion of the sacrificial ceremony, the next step will be for Huli Jin to lead the civil and military officials into the Deyang Palace from beneath the open-air altar, where the emperor will ascend the Nine-Dragon Throne to receive the congratulations of the officials and foreign envoys.
At that moment, Hulü Jin would inherit the Han throne and become the rightful new ruler of Wei.
By then, these dancers would have already finished their performance and might not even have had the chance to enter the palace. Dancers were servants, not subjects, and theoretically, they were not qualified to enter the palace. At that time, Huli Jin sat high on the emperor's throne; for ordinary dancers, to enter the palace and reach him in full view of everyone was virtually an impossible task.
If Hulü Jin had lived to this point, his last chance to assassinate him would have been when the Southern Dynasty's envoy presented the letter of surrender and state gifts.
At that time, unless she managed to infiltrate Gongyi Xiu's side and act as the state envoy, she would not have had a chance to assassinate Huli Jin.
However, regardless of its success or failure, this move will directly draw the Southern Dynasty into the risk of retaliation from the Northern Qiang.
Her assassination attempt on Huli Jin was a well-thought-out decision, a desperate attempt on behalf of all the Han people in the world, regardless of whether they were enslaved or oppressed.
She did not want to involve the Southern Dynasty.
However, if the actual situation dictates that the assassination can only be completed in the final stage, she would not be so stubborn as to give up the opportunity.
One of the reasons was that she felt that the Southern Dynasty's sending of envoys to surrender might not be a ploy to assassinate her.
Judging from the delegation's composure in dealing with the situation in Zhongzhou, the last-minute defection of the musicians and dancers, and even the fact that the music and dance troupe is still missing one person, A Qiu instinctively felt that this surrender was probably not really for the purpose of surrendering.
The mission acted with meticulous planning and efficiency. Although its members were few in number, to A Qiu, who was well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Southern Dynasty, it seemed more like the result of careful scheming.
Not one was idle.
The existence of geisha serves as a cover.
Before the performance, the Northern Qiang people would not remove the masks to check each person individually; they would only check the leaders. At this time, the beauty of Cui Luzhu and Zhang Exu would lull the Northern Qiang people into a false sense of security, making them think that they were indeed all beautiful dancers, without paying attention to the fifty-four Divine Hound Camp soldiers following behind them.
The final number of people had been reduced to the bare minimum for ease of operation. The remaining people, even the seemingly weakest, Sun Neiren and Zhang Exu, were all resilient, courageous, and decisive.
Such a mission could be used for attack or self-destruction; it could provide cover or kill.
Not to mention the sixty-fourth person who has yet to appear.
A Qiu judged that if the Southern Dynasty's trip was indeed an assassination attempt, then this person was the main assassin, while Gongyi Xiu and Xiao Chang'an, who had already revealed themselves to Hulü Guang, were merely there to cover for him.
Besides herself, where else in the Southern Dynasty could there be such a good assassin?
Thinking of this, A Qiu couldn't help but recall Gu Yi's other good intentions towards her.
If she had still been the Grand Master of Music in the Southern Dynasty at that time, she could have been the protagonist of this plan, which was ostensibly a surrender but was actually an assassination.
By banishing her to the mountains and seas, Gu Yi not only cut off her chance to continue existing in the Southern Dynasty palace, but also removed her from the plan.
As the former Queen of Assassins, having her take action is naturally much safer than having others.
If Xie Lang were to ask her to participate in this trip, an opportunity with no chance of return, he would not mind, no matter how much he feared or disliked her.
But Gu Yi let go of this golden opportunity that he could have used or even eliminated her.
This also shows that Gu Yi has never been a utilitarian person.
The moment she thought of this, a sudden warning appeared in her mind, and she immediately dodged and flew backward.
Only after he had firmly stood atop a vermilion palace wall did he have the strength to raise his head and look across.
In fact, as soon as she arrived at Deyang Palace, a continuous stream of thoughts suddenly surged into her mind, and the heat emanating from her brow had already given her an unusual feeling.
But at that time she was busy surveying the terrain and memorizing the location, and did not have time to pay attention to it. How could she, who always acted on her own mind, have so many sighs of vicissitudes?
Until that person appeared.
A gentle yet desolate wind blew fiercely past the Northern Qiang King's banner atop the palace walls.
In the darkness of night, Gu Yi's gaze upon her was deeper and more complex than the starry sky and moonlight of the Forbidden City in the Central Plains.
He gracefully ascended the city wall and suddenly appeared before her.
He landed right beside her.
A Qiu had a thousand words in her heart, but she couldn't utter a single one.
She overlooked one thing.
Gu Yi knew from the beginning that she was hiding in the delegation.
Gu Yi already knew of her existence when the envoy's caravan bid farewell to the Southern Dynasty at the gate of Jianzhang City.
But she never expected that Gu Yi would appear so abruptly in this place, in the Luoyang Imperial Palace, a foreign land.
Gu Yi seemed to know what she was thinking and said, "Every palace has its own secrets, Jianzhang Palace is like that, and so is Zichen Palace. But because these palaces were built by Han craftsmen, these secrets are ultimately in the hands of the craftsmen. Even though the craftsmen are now buried underground, Zhulong knows these secrets."
A Qiu immediately understood that Gu Yi was saying that this place, Zi Chen, also had secret passages and underground palaces. However, since the Northern Qiang had seized this palace by plundering with their weapons and slaughtered the entire royal family of the previous dynasty, they naturally did not obtain the inheritance of these secrets.
The various structures and construction methods of palaces were passed down through generations of craftsmen, and could not be created or invented by any random person from the common people. It can be said that whether it was the Daming Palace in Chang'an, the Zichen Palace in Luoyang, or the Jianzhang Palace in the Southern Dynasties, they were all made by the same lineage of craftsmen.
Gu Yi... He was a prince a hundred years ago, and also a close friend of Zhulong, the guardian of the underground palace. It's not surprising that he obtained these things.
After a moment's thought, A-Qiu understood the key point. She said, "But no matter how secret the passage is, it's impossible to let an army in, right?"
Gu Yi seemed surprised that she understood so quickly. A look of astonishment flashed in his eyes, but he nodded and said, "No."
However, he did not answer whether this impossibility was due to practical limitations or to ancestral legal provisions.
Based on the scale of the Jianzhang Palace that A Qiu had seen, it wouldn't be difficult to hide an army of several thousand men. However, A Qiu also realized that if such a large-scale deployment of troops were to enter, the secrets of the palace would be rendered useless. After all, the palace was a secret passed down through generations of emperors, meant for saving lives in critical moments, not for usurping the throne. Therefore, according to custom, the use of troops was generally prohibited.
A Qiu then remembered something and asked, "Since both Zichen and Jianzhang have underground palaces, why did neither the previous rulers of the Central Plains, the Sima family, nor the last emperor of the Southern Huan, escape with their lives and die in the palace chaos?"
Gu Yi's lips moved, but he only uttered four words.
But A-Qiu heard those four words very clearly.
"Winning the country is unfair."
If a ruler gains power illegitimately, that is, through usurpation or rebellion, the previous emperor would naturally not hand over the secrets of the underground palace to rebels and traitors.
That means that the only person who has inherited these skills now is Gu Yi, the crown prince from a hundred years ago.
A-Qiu pulled herself out of her wandering thoughts and had to focus on the more important matters at hand.
She added, "All of the Junior Tutor's arrangements are perfectly sound and appropriate. There is only one last question."
Although raising this question is too difficult for the person who set up the trap.
But for some reason, Ah Qiu just wanted to bring it up at that moment.
Gu Yi stood beside her, his gaze fixed on Deyang Palace, but he did not respond to her words.
Gu Yi didn't respond, but A Qiu still asked the question.
"Does this group have any chance of survival?"
In the past, in Lanling Hall, each hall had its own professional division of labor for tasks such as surveying the terrain and arranging routes before an assassination, clearing the area beforehand, clearing the way afterward, and planning the retreat route and cover after the assassination.
Therefore, although A Qiu appeared to be a lone figure who struck and fled far away when he assassinated the thirteen states, he always made meticulous calculations before and after the event.
This is also why Lanling Hall has been able to be passed down for thousands of years.
If every assassination attempt results in the loss of an assassin, it's treating our disciples as disposable items; no one can sustain such a business for long.
Now that Gu Yi has appeared in Zichen Palace, she is certain that her guesses are almost certainly correct.
This mission was originally there to assassinate Huli Jin.
Therefore, even though Gu Yi knew she was involved and guessed her intentions, he didn't stop her. Because everyone had the same goal.
Therefore, she asked Gu Yi this question.
But A-Qiu also knew that among all the assassination schemes throughout history, there was one that was destined to end in certain death.
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