In the dark night sky, the crescent moon is like a hook, emitting a silver light. The night is hazy and the cicadas are chirping.

Walking along the road, there are lanterns hanging on both sides, which look like fireflies from a distance.

As soon as Shen Qianchen returned to Chengguang Palace, Jingfeng told her that Gu Jue had returned.

Shen Qianchen was cheered up and rushed into the study room in a hurry.

"Jiu Xia!"

As soon as she entered the room, she smelled the faint scent of ink and painting in the air, and her nose twitched.

Gu Jue stood behind the desk, writing with a pen.

He had already bathed and changed his clothes. His dark hair was loosely tied behind his head with a silk ribbon. He was wearing a loose moon-white Taoist robe, and he exuded a lazy and comfortable aura.

Just by looking at him, Shen Qianchen's heart would calm down, and he couldn't help but smile, as if his heart was filled with something.

Gu Jue heard someone coming into the room, put down his brush, waved to Shen Qianchen, and said softly: "I just drew a picture, do you want to see it?"

His smile was like the cool breeze on a summer night, blowing gently and softly.

Painting?! Shen Qianchen's eyes lit up instantly, and he remembered what he had agreed to during the day: "Have you finished painting?!"

She couldn't wait to walk up to him, stand side by side with him, and admire the wet ink painting in front of her.

The scene in the painting is very familiar; it is exactly where they pick flowers and herbs during the day.

Compared to the painting of Gu Jue at the age of thirteen, the technique of this painting is naturally more skilled and more at ease. The artistic conception revealed in the two paintings is also very different. If the painting he painted when he was thirteen years old represents the boy's willfulness and unrestrainedness, then the painting in front of him shows a kind of calmness and fearlessness in the face of wind and rain.

Shen Qianchen's gaze finally fixed on the two horses, one black and one red, in the lower right corner of the drawing paper. The corners of his lips curled up, as if this moment in the painting was eternal.

"I'll frame this painting tomorrow!" Shen Qianchen said with a smile.

He paints and she frames the paintings, the husband and wife follow their lead.

Shen Qianchen carefully admired the painting for a while, and found a missing part. He waved at Gu Jue and said, "You didn't sign it!"

Gu Jue wrote his signature, and Shen Qianchen volunteered to help him stamp the painting. Finally satisfied, he thought of the important matter in his mind.

She took Gu Jue's hand and walked to the window to sit down, and said coquettishly: "Jiu Xia, please help me check Pei Linye!"

Last month at the Shen residence, Shen Qianhuang told her about Pei Linye's proposal. After Shen Qianchen returned to the palace that day, he told Gu Jue about it, so Gu Jue also knew about it.

Seeing that Shen Qianchen was in a good mood, Gu Jue could roughly guess that Shen Zhi might have some good news.

He smiled and said, "What do you want to know?"

Shen Qianchen felt that Gu Jue must know Pei Linye better than she did. After thinking for a while, she said, "Then let's start with the Pei family." She leaned on his shoulder lovingly.

While Gu Jue was gently touching her hair, he started talking about the Pei family.

The Pei family is a family of military generals. Starting from Pei Linye, all five generations above him were military generals.

Pei Linye's father, Pei Tingyang, was a third-rank general of Zhaowu, now guarding Youzhou. Pei Linye was his eldest son, who lost his mother at the age of five. After Pei Tingyang mourned for his wife for a year, he married Xia, the cousin of Lady Mu, as his second wife.

The Pei family was relatively harmonious. Xia later gave Pei Linye two younger brothers and two younger sisters. There were also two illegitimate sons and daughters in the family, all of whom were married.

After talking about the Pei family, Gu Jue started talking about Pei Linye: "Pei Linye was a clean person when he was in the North. He didn't have any bad habits like drinking or gambling. He was taciturn, careful, cautious, brave and resourceful. He also made many military achievements in the North..."

"In the past, there were many people in the North who wanted to be his matchmaker, but he rejected them all."

At this point, Gu Jue suddenly remembered that a few years ago, Tang Yuchu once said to Pei Linye jokingly after getting drunk: "Old Pei, you are such a boring person. Whoever marries you in the future will definitely be bored to death!"

Gu Jue usually doesn't care about his subordinates' private affairs unless they come to him for help, so he never advised Pei Linye to get married as soon as possible, nor did he ever ask him why he didn't get married.

Now he thought about the fact that Pei Linye had not married for many years, and he could roughly guess why.

Shen Qianchen nuzzled Gu Jue's shoulder and said in a soft and tender voice, "So, Pei Linye is not a bad person?"

"That's right." Gu Jue said with a meaningful smile, "He is a thoughtful person!"

Shen Qianchen first said "hmm", then said with a smile: "It's definitely not as good as my Jiuxia!" Her mouth was as sweet as honey.

Gu Jue enjoyed it very much and leaned over to kiss the corner of her lips.

No one can compare to his little girl!

Gu Jue silently calculated the time in her mind: It’s almost time, there are less than twenty days left until her coming of age.

His pupils seemed to be rippling with golden light under the candlelight, and even his eyelashes seemed to be dancing with tiny rays of light.

Speak of Cao Cao and he will appear.

At this time, Jiang Yuan came to report that Pei Linye had arrived, so Gu Jue let him in directly.

Pei Linye was wearing a bright red dragon robe, with an upright figure and a resolute look. After a busy day, he did not look tired at all.

Judging from the bits of grass on his body and the mud on his boots, he had most likely just come from the hunting grounds.

Shen Qianchen looked Pei Linye up and down, as if he wanted to see through him inside and out, top to bottom.

Pei Linye naturally saw her as well. He saluted the two of them with a normal expression. Without further ado, he simply reported the business: "Master Jiu, Zhu Yong chased the three surviving wolves and found a wolf den. He discovered that the den had been sprinkled with a kind of medicine powder, and there was also a female wolf that had been killed and two wolf cubs that had just reached full term."

"This is the powder in the wolf's den."

Pei Linye took out a paper bag from his sleeve and presented it to Gu Jue. Half the size of a fingernail’s worth of brown medicine powder was wrapped in the oil paper.

Gu Jue handed the paper bag to Shen Qianchen. Shen Qianchen looked at the powder, sniffed the smell, and confirmed it.

She nodded, indicating that this was the western Vietnamese grass.

Combining these existing clues, Gu Jue and Shen Qianchen have been able to roughly figure out the cause and effect -

Someone went to the wolf den today and killed the mother wolf and her cubs. He also gave the wolf leader powder of Xiyue grass to stimulate the wolf's hatred and bloodiness, and guided the mad wolf to chase and kill Gu Jue.

Gu Jue said calmly, "Wolves are cold-blooded to their enemies, but they are loyal to their species, loyal to their partners until death, and take great care of their cubs... The leader must have been following my scent."

Smell? Shen Qianchen's mind moved, and he held Gu Jue's hand, saying with certainty: "Fragrance, maybe it's the fragrance of Hengwu."

It’s not so easy for outsiders to get hold of Gu Jue’s personal belongings, so the only thing Shen Qianchen could think of was “fragrance”.

On weekdays, Gu Jue only used two kinds of incense. One was Hengwu incense. All the clothes Gu Jue wore daily were fumigated with Hengwu incense; the other was the sachet she made by herself. The spices inside were blended by her personally and had the effect of calming the mind. Apart from Gu Jue, she only gave the sachet to a few relatives and friends.

Shen Qianchen felt that she was still careless, and thought that in the future, whether it was the spices used to fumigate Gu Jue's clothes or the sachets he used, she would have to use the spices she specially made, a spice that belonged only to her and him.

Gu Jue and Pei Linye looked at each other, also thoughtful.

Just as Shen Qianchen was thinking, Jingfeng came in with a pair of squinting Jinyiwei.

The Jinyiwei clasped his fists respectfully and said, "Your Majesty, we have just captured the man who drugged the wolf leader and have taken him outside the palace."

Gu Jue tapped his knuckles on the coffee table twice, then stood up and asked Shen Qianchen, "Want to go take a look?"

Of course I have to go! Shen Qianchen also stood up.

Seeing this, the narrow-eyed Jinyiwei wanted to say something but stopped himself, fearing that the queen would be frightened by the villain outside. But seeing Pei Linye silent, he also remained silent.

Several people surrounded Gu Jue and Shen Qianchen and came to the outside of the hall.

Two chairs were placed under the eaves outside the main hall. Two rows of tall and mighty Jinyiwei stood on both sides of the hall, walking down the stone steps, each holding a torch, illuminating the open space in front of Chengguang Hall.

I saw a sturdy man in black kneeling on the ground in a miserable state, with messy hair and his arms tied behind his back with several ropes. There were several scars on his face, shoulders and arms, and there was a faint smell of blood.

After Gu Jue sat down, he made a gesture to Pei Linye, who immediately understood and began to interrogate the man in black kneeling on the ground: "Tell me, who ordered you to do this?"

The man in black said nothing, his lips pressed into a straight line.

The next moment, a square-faced Jinyiwei made a lightning-fast move and directly dislocated the shoulder joint of the man in black. The man in black shook slightly but made no sound. He clenched his teeth tightly and cold sweat covered his forehead.

"Tell me, who instructed you to do this?" Pei Linye asked again.

The man in black still didn't say anything, his back was straight.

Pei Linye raised his hand and snapped his fingers again.

As a result, the other shoulder joint of the man in black was also dislocated. He was sweating more and more and his lips were almost bitten to bleed.

The square-faced Jinyiwei said calmly: "Next time I will break your knee joint." The dislocated shoulder joint can be reconnected, but the broken knee joint cannot be restored to its original state, and he will become a disabled person.

"Bah! Who do you think you are? You're just a bully!" The man in black spat on the ground and gritted his teeth.

Then, a line of black blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, and a strange smile appeared on his face.

More black blood spit out of his mouth, and his body fell limply to one side. His eyes were wide open from beginning to end, just like the wolf that was shot dead by Gu Jue's arrow, and died with his eyes open.

Even if Shen Qianchen didn't pry open his teeth to check, he could be sure that he committed suicide by taking poison.

This is a well-trained assassin!

The surroundings were quiet for a while, and the night breeze brought the sound of insects chirping in the distance.

"His Beijing dialect is really not that good!" Shen Qianchen stroked his sleeves and said something seemingly casually, but it was actually very meaningful.

Everyone present could hear the strange accent of this assassin. He could not distinguish between "you" and "Li". Before his death, he pronounced "Who are you?" as if he were "Who is Li?"

This is a common mistake made by many Nanhao people when speaking Qi.

The narrow-eyed Jinyiwei looked at Shen Qianchen in surprise. He didn't expect that the queen, a delicate little woman, could be so calm and cheerful after seeing such a bloody scene.

"Indeed." Gu Jue agreed, and then instructed Pei Linye, "Pei Linye, go call the Third Prince and the Second Princess of Nanhao over."

Pei Linye immediately responded and personally led a team of people to invite Wuhelangnan and Saya siblings.

Shen Qianchen admired the moon with great interest. There was little smoke from cooking in the mountains, and the air was better than in the capital. The night sky also seemed brighter and clearer. The stars and the moon complemented each other, like countless gems embedded in the night sky.

Such a beautiful night scene made Shen Qianchen feel like having a drink under the moon. He asked Amber to bring a pot of wine and enjoyed the mood of "fine wine in the luminous cup".

After she slowly sipped two glasses of wine, Wu Helangnan and Saya brother and sister followed Pei Linye over.

The brother and sister also saw the body lying on the ground. Saya seemed startled and pulled her brother's sleeve. Wuhelangnan patted his sister's hand soothingly and blocked her view with his body.

The two siblings continued to walk towards Gu Jue and Shen Qianchen.

After the brother and sister saluted, Gu Jue pointed directly at the body on the ground and asked, "Third Prince Wuhe, do you know this person?"

Wuhelangnan and Saya looked at the man in black on the ground again.

Both the brother and sister seemed to be frightened by the hideous appearance of the corpse. Saya looked away in fear and reluctance. Wu Helangnan opened his eyes slightly, with a look of nervousness and trepidation.

After hesitating for a while, he nodded and said, "I recognize him. He is from Hao. There should be an eagle head tattoo on his left arm, which represents the Eagle Guard."

The square-faced Jinyiwei squatted down and cut the sleeve of the black-clad warrior's left arm with a knife. After looking at the left arm of the corpse, he reported: "Your Majesty, there is indeed an eagle head tattoo on his arm."

Gu Jue raised his eyebrows and asked, "Aren't the Yingyang Guards the personal guards of Emperor Hao?"

"It was." Wu Helangnan said hurriedly, with an expression that was difficult to speak, and said with embarrassment, "The Eagle Guard was trained by the late emperor and was once the monarch's personal guard. But after my father ascended the throne, the Eagle Guard was loyal to the late emperor and was unwilling to submit to my father."

"My father also issued an edict to pardon the Eagle Guards and was willing to recruit capable people from them, but the surviving Eagle Guards all disappeared without a trace and no one showed up."

After a pause, Wu Helangnan added: "The last commander of the Eagle Guard, Song Mo, was the Grand Tutor who was responsible for teaching Wu Hejialou martial arts. Now the whereabouts of Wu Hejialou and Song Mo are unknown."

Although Wuhelangnan did not say it explicitly, his implication was very clear. He tactfully told Gu Jue that after the death of the former emperor of Hao Kingdom, the Yingyang Guard would only be loyal to the former emperor's son Wuhejialou.

Gu Jue narrowed his eyes and made it clear: "Are the Yingyang Guards from Wuhejia Tower?"

"That's right." Wu Helangnan nodded, and Saya stood aside with her head down, still in shock and looking pale.

"I see." Gu Jue smiled and sent the man away without saying a few words, "You two, please go back."

Wu Helangnan's eyes flashed, he bowed solemnly, and then retreated with his sister.

Pei Linye called four Jinyiwei to escort the brother and sister back to their palace.

Gu Jue and Shen Qianchen also stood up and returned to Chengguang Hall. Shen Qianchen did not forget to ask Amber to take her bottle of wine with her, as she wanted to continue drinking under the moon with Gu Jue.

As Shen Qianchen walked, he quietly scratched Gu Jue's palm with his fingers, asking him with his movements: What do you think? Gu Jue smiled slightly: "Uhadu Luo is scared."

After Wuhedu Luo ascended the throne, he has not been able to truly secure his position in Nanhao. From the people to the vassal kings, everyone is watching whether Wuhejialou is alive or dead, wanting to see if he can restore the throne. Wuhejialou has now returned to Nanhao. I am afraid that Wuhedu Luo has guessed that he is in Nanhao and is worried that his throne is unstable, so he is anxious.

"These Nanhao people are so annoying." Shen Qianchen complained with a pout. It was rare for her to hang out with Gu Jue, but they ruined her mood.

As they were talking, the two returned to the study.

Gu Jue personally poured a glass of wine for each of them, took a sip of the wine elegantly, and saw Shen Qianchen pointing an index finger at him: "Another glass." She only allowed Gu Jue to drink two glasses a day.

"Okay." Gu Jue smiled and agreed. All to her! His obedience earned the girl a satisfied smile.

Jiuxia is so good!

Shen Qianchen was not actually drunk, but after drinking, his whole body was in a strange state of relaxation, feeling light and fluttery.

Without thinking, she leaned over and kissed him on the lips as a reward.

She tasted the mellow wine on his lips, subconsciously sucked it slightly, and then wanted to retreat, but the back of her head was pressed down by the man's big hand, and her lips were also sucked lightly by him.

Shen Qianchen's mind went blank for a moment, and his whole body became hot as if it was burned by fire.

After a while, he let her go. Her consciousness was still a little fuzzy, and she vaguely heard him say the three words "troublesome".

"Not worrying?" Shen Qianchen asked foolishly.

Gu Jue curled his lips and smiled, his brows and eyes were tender, and his slender fingers gently stroked her cheek, and said with a smile: "This Da Qi is no less troublesome than Hao Kingdom."

Shen Qianchen: "..."

Shen Qianchen nodded subconsciously, and his consciousness gradually became clear again.

The court of Da Qi was indeed a troublesome place.

Although Gu Jue has only been on the throne for three months, this period of time has been enough for her and him to see the various problems of Da Qi.

From the court system to the army to the imperial examination system to the royal family and nobles, etc., each has its own problems. These problems are not only due to the late emperor Gu Lang, but also to some of the drawbacks that have accumulated in the Great Qi for more than a hundred years.

Gu Jue continued, "The division of Da Qi and Nan Hao into north and south is the best form at the moment."

The mutual restraint between the North and the South is also a way of maintaining stability.

Initially, the reason why Gu Jue chose to cooperate with Wuhejialou was to leave a retreat for himself, Qin Yao, and all the people in the Northern Army, so that he and Qin Yao could retreat to the northwest and the north, forming a three-way confrontation.

Because of Gu Lang's death, he adjusted his plan accordingly, which led to the current situation.

Shen Qianchen just smiled and said nothing.

Anyway, no matter what choice Gu Jue makes, she will stand by his side without any regrets.

The night deepened and everything was silent.

(End of this chapter)