Chapter 62 Tearing Off Faces, House Arrest
Inside the Honglu Guest House, Helian Mingzhu stared blankly at a chessboard, the scattered pieces mirroring her turbulent emotions. The stench of blood from the pile of corpses outside the courtyard gate still seemed to linger, making her restless and unable to eat or sleep.
Just then, Wuzhu hurried in, his face grave, with even a hint of barely perceptible panic.
"Princess!" Wuzhu lowered his voice, his tone urgent.
Helian Mingzhu looked up and saw his expression, her heart skipped a beat: "What happened again?"
“Princess, don’t you think… something’s not quite right in the capital lately?” Wuzhu didn’t answer directly, but instead asked in return.
Helian Mingzhu frowned: "Something's not right? Besides our people being purged, what else is happening?"
“It’s precisely because the cleansing was too thorough!” Wuzhu said gravely. “Our spies, whom we’ve planted for years, were uprooted overnight, which is unusual in itself. What’s even stranger is that in the past few days, my subordinates tried to contact several deeply embedded informants who weren’t directly under our mission, and discovered… they’ve all disappeared without a trace!”
Helian Mingzhu's chess piece fell to the ground with a "thud" onto the chessboard: "All of them...?"
"Yes! It's as if an invisible net has been cast out, removing all the spies in the capital connected to our Northern Kingdom!" Wuzhu's voice carried a hint of fear. "This is no accident. Yuwen Che... he probably already had our entire list!"
Helian Mingzhu gasped.
Wuzhu continued, "Furthermore, today I used the excuse of going out to do some shopping to scout things out, but I found that the guards around the inn... seemed no different from usual, but the number of people secretly watching us has more than doubled! We... we are practically under house arrest!"
Helian Mingzhu suddenly stood up, his face deathly pale: "What does he want to do? Kill us?"
“Not for now,” Wuzhu analyzed calmly, though cold sweat beaded on his forehead. “We are, after all, an envoy, and killing us without cause would put him in an unjust position. But… he has trapped us here and eliminated all our spies; he must have a bigger scheme!”
He looked at Helian Mingzhu, his eyes filled with worry and determination: "Princess, I suspect... Yuwen Che may be planning to wage war against the Northern Kingdom! He is holding us here to prevent the news from leaking out, or perhaps... he wants to use us as bargaining chips, or... bait to provoke His Majesty!"
Helian Mingzhu was struck dumb, staggering before grabbing the table for support. A military campaign against the Northern Kingdom? Detaining the delegation as bait?
If that's the case, then their current situation is a thousand times more dangerous than they imagined! They are no longer simply disillusioned people, but have become pawns in the power struggle between the two countries, who could be sacrificed at any time!
"Brother...Does brother know about the situation here?" Helian Mingzhu's voice trembled.
“Our carrier pigeons… have probably already been intercepted.” Wuzhu smiled bitterly. “Princess, we are now truly birds in a cage, fish in a net.”
Helian Mingzhu slumped back into her chair, her body ice-cold. Before, she had only felt humiliated and defeated, but now she truly realized that she was in dire straits, her life and death entirely in the hands of that cold-blooded emperor.
What should she do? What will the Northern Kingdom face next?
Helian Mingzhu was in a state of turmoil and paced anxiously around the room.
"No...we can't just sit here and wait to die!" She stopped abruptly, looked at Wuzhu, her eyes filled with final determination, "We must find a way to tell my brother! To make him prepared! Otherwise...if we wait until Yuwen Che's army is at the gates, it will be too late!"
She immediately turned to her trusted maid: "Quickly! Bring me the carrier pigeon my brother gave me!"
It was a pure white, exceptionally handsome homing pigeon, carefully bred by Helian Bobo for many years for the most urgent communications. Its speed and endurance far surpassed those of ordinary homing pigeons.
The maidservant dared not delay and quickly brought over an exquisite birdcage, inside which was the carrier pigeon.
"Quickly! Wuzhu, write a letter! Briefly and concisely write down our guesses and our situation!" Helian Mingzhu urged, his voice trembling slightly.
Wuzhu knew this was his last chance, so he immediately spread out a small piece of paper and wrote furiously. He quickly wrote down his assessment that the secret agents in the capital had been purged, the delegation had been effectively placed under house arrest, and that the Great Zhou might use force against the Northern Kingdom. He added at the end, "The situation is critical. I hope you will make a decision soon!"
He carefully rolled up the paper and stuffed it into the small bamboo tube on the pigeon's leg.
Helian Mingzhu opened the birdcage himself, took out the carrier pigeon, walked to the window, silently prayed, and threw the pigeon with all his might toward the northern sky!
The white figure shot into the sky like an arrow, carrying their last hope.
However, just as the carrier pigeon flew over the inn's courtyard wall and rose into the air—
"call out!"
A black arrow pierced through the air, moving so fast that it left only a blur, and pierced the carrier pigeon's body with perfect accuracy!
White feathers mixed with blood exploded in the air. The magnificent pigeon didn't even have time to utter a mournful cry before it plummeted straight down, crashing onto the bluestone slab in the courtyard with a "thud," and remained motionless.
The color drained from Helian Mingzhu and Wuzhu's faces instantly, and they stared in horror at the direction from which the arrow had come!
On the high walls of the inn, four dark figures had silently appeared, three wielding swords, the other holding a black longbow, its string still trembling slightly. They wore cold metal masks, and the leader was none other than Han Ying, the chief of the Shadow Pavilion.
Han Ying's gaze, piercing through the mask, fell coldly on the pale-faced Helian Mingzhu and Wuzhu below, his voice flat and emotionless:
"Your Highness, Your Excellency, I advise you both to behave yourselves. Nothing that shouldn't fly can escape the skies of this capital."
He paused, his tone chilling:
"Similarly, no one who shouldn't be allowed in can get in either."
Seeing the snow-white carrier pigeon shot down by an arrow, her hope shattered in an instant, Helian Mingzhu was both shocked and furious, a surge of anger rising within her. She didn't recognize the origins of the black-clad, masked figures on the wall, assuming they were just some madmen from who-knows-where.
She stepped forward, pointed at Han Ying and the others on the wall, and sternly rebuked them, attempting to intimidate them with her status:
"Who are you?! How dare you shoot arrows at this princess?! You shot and killed my carrier pigeon, disturbing the Northern Kingdom's delegation! Aren't you afraid I'll report you to the Emperor of Great Zhou and have you punished for a grave offense of disrespect, accusing you of deliberately sowing discord between our two countries?!"
Her voice was slightly shrill with anger and fear as she tried to intimidate the other side by using the grand claim of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
On the wall, the guard with the bow remained motionless, while the other three swordsmen watched with indifferent eyes, as if observing a clumsy performance.
The leader, Han Ying, seemed to have a faint, mocking smile playing at the corners of his lips beneath his mask. He didn't answer her question directly, but instead, in a chillingly calm tone, slowly countered:
"Your Highness, do you think... we dare to stand here without the master's permission?"
This one sentence was like ice water poured over his head, instantly extinguishing all of Helian Mingzhu's anger and wishful thinking!
She froze on the spot, her pupils suddenly contracting.
Master's permission...?
In this capital city of the Great Zhou Dynasty, who else could possess such skill, dare to so openly intercept the Northern Kingdom princess's carrier pigeon, and even address her as "master"?
The answer is obvious!
It's Yuwen Che! These people are Yuwen Che's men!
He not only knew their every move, but had even sent men to guard this place, just waiting for them to walk right into his trap! That arrow just now not only shot down the carrier pigeon, but also completely shattered the last shred of hope and wishful thinking in her heart!
A bone-chilling cold instantly spread from her feet throughout her body. Helian Mingzhu's face turned ashen, and her body swayed uncontrollably, almost unable to stand. All her previous roars and questions now seemed like a colossal joke.
Wuzhu immediately understood and rushed forward to support the almost exhausted Helian Mingzhu, his face equally grim.
Han Ying coldly observed their dejected state and, as if delivering a verdict, uttered the final words:
"Behave yourself and you might save your life. But if it happens again, it won't just be a pigeon that gets lost."
As soon as he finished speaking, the four dark figures vanished silently from the high wall like ghosts, as if they had never been there at all.
All that remained was the pigeon's corpse in the courtyard, and the Northern Kingdom's princess and envoy, their faces ashen and utterly despairing.
The shadows on the high wall had long since disappeared, but Helian Mingzhu remained frozen in place, her gaze blankly fixed on the pool of glaring pigeon blood and snow-white feathers. Wuzhu, supporting her, could clearly feel the coldness and trembling of her body.
"Princess..." Wuzhu's voice was dry and hoarse, carrying an unprecedented heaviness, "Do you... understand?"
Helian Mingzhu slowly turned his head, his eyes filled with fear and a lingering sense of being completely seen through: "He...he knew we would do this all along...he knew everything..."
“Not only that,” Wuzhu’s voice was extremely low, as if afraid of being overheard by invisible ears, “Princess, think about it, how could our spies planted in the capital of the Great Zhou for so many years be wiped out so accurately and quickly… what a terrifying intelligence network that must require?”
He paused, took a deep breath, and uttered the chilling guess: "And our communication with the royal court seems to be completely under his surveillance. We hid this carrier pigeon so well, yet they were able to ambush it beforehand and kill it in one shot... This can only mean..."
Helian Mingzhu suddenly grabbed Wuzhu's arm, her nails almost digging into his flesh, her voice filled with disbelief and horror: "This means... there are his people within our Northern Kingdom's court?! And... their positions are definitely not low?!"
“I’m afraid…that’s exactly right.” Wuzhu nodded heavily, his face pale. “Yuwen Che’s reach is much deeper and more terrifying than he has shown. We…we have been under his control from beginning to end, like chess pieces on a chessboard.”
This realization is more despairing than mere defeat or imprisonment. It means that their greatest reliance—the Northern Kingdom itself—may already be riddled with holes, and has virtually no secrets left to Yuwen Che!
Helian Mingzhu's legs went weak, and she collapsed completely onto the cold ground, unable even for Wuzhu to support her.
"It's over...it's all over..." she murmured absentmindedly, "Brother...the Northern Kingdom...we...it's all over..."
She had previously been thinking about revenge, how to escape, and how to pass on messages. Now she truly realized that in the face of absolute power and control, all struggles were futile. Not only were they in danger of losing themselves, but even their motherland could be plunged into an abyss because of their actions, or rather, the trap set by Yuwen Che using their actions.
“Princess, the only thing we can do now is… do nothing,” Wuzhu said bitterly. “Perhaps… staying quietly might… offer a glimmer of hope.”
Helian Mingzhu didn't answer, but just stared blankly at the sky, where there was no trace of carrier pigeons, only a suffocating grayness shrouded in an invisible cage. For the first time, she clearly felt what it meant to be caught in a net, what it meant to have no way to escape.
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