Chapter 26
"Since I have arrested you, I must have clues pointing to you two."
Song Yunlan turned around and picked up the torture instruments neatly placed on the table. He turned around with the long whip and personally dipped the whip into salt water under the gaze of the two men.
"If you don't speak, the Dali Temple has plenty of ways to make you speak."
A trace of emotion flashed across the faces of the two people who were chained to the wooden frame. They exchanged glances and were about to speak.
But just as the words came out of his mouth, the two people seemed to have seen something horrible and immediately changed their words. Tears of unknown emotion flowed from their eyes and they screamed and cried out for justice.
"Your Highness, we really don't know anything!"
"Your Highness, although we two are not important officials in the court, we are still considered as subjects. A gentleman can be killed but not humiliated. If you want to force a confession from us, we two will absolutely not obey your order."
"Your Highness, the butler is calling you!" Nan Qi rushed from outside to Song Yunlan.
It was already late at night, and when the emperor summoned Song Yunlan, he immediately felt something was wrong.
But after all, it was an urgent summons from the emperor, so he had to go, so he asked Nan Qi to prepare clothes for him to meet the emperor.
My body is stained with blood and it is not suitable for me to meet the emperor.
Song Yunlan was worried about something going wrong, so he specially asked Nan Qi to stay here and instructed the prison guards of the Dali Temple to carry out the execution.
"Give him thirty lashes first, and the rest will be dealt with after I return."
After Song Yunlan left, the jailers who were carrying out the execution did not dare to be careless. Nan Qi watched them until they were whipped with thirty lashes of salt water, and then waved to have the two men, who were half dead from pain, sent back to the cell.
The cell was extremely hot and humid, with only a small window high on the wall for ventilation.
The jailer unlocked the door and left.
The two of them climbed up from the thatched bed.
"Will the adults come to rescue us?"
"Perhaps the two of us have become abandoned by the adults."
"Can……"
The sudden sound of iron chains rang out in the silent cell.
"You two lords have good eyesight."
The prison door that had just been chained was opened again with a key as the sound of people were heard.
The newcomer slowly stepped into the cell and said, "My lords, it's been a long time."
Now that they were closer, the two finally recognized the identity of the person.
He was the messenger sent by the mysterious person behind the scenes to hand over the mission to them.
"It's you! What have you done to my son?!"
"How come my son's longevity lock is in your hands!"
The two men became instantly excited when they saw the jailer.
They wanted to tell everything they knew before being tortured, so that they would at least avoid suffering physical pain.
But at that moment they saw the jailer standing behind Song Yunlan take out the two longevity locks belonging to their eldest son from his arms.
They immediately realized that this was a blatant warning.
The jailer said quietly, "Don't worry, your family is doing well now. But if you two can't control your tongues, that might not be the case."
"Master, are you going to abandon us?!"
The jailer smiled and said, "You can't say that. The lord, in recognition of your two past efforts, is willing to protect your family. You should be content."
"But if you don't obey, don't blame me for being ruthless."
"My Lord sent me to give you two some advice. You should know what to say and what not to say."
"That's all I have to say. Take care of yourself."
The jailer left as quietly as he had come.
The two men were exhausted and slumped down on the worn stools, which creaked under the weight of their heavy bodies.
"I don't want to die..." Lord Lei's raisin-sized eyes were filled with anxiety and helplessness about the coming death.
The shadow of death hung over the two of them.
Lord Zhu was so nervous that he kept swallowing his saliva.
Recalling the past, he slammed the table and said indignantly, "We did so much dirty work for the Prime Minister, and in the end, we were ruthlessly abandoned."
"He asked us to buy the golden sky lanterns so that the dirty money could be laundered cleanly and smoothly went into their pockets. Although we were paid, this little money is not as important as our lives."
Lord Lei realized it later, "I thought so. In the past, it wasn't just the two of us who went there. There were also many colleagues."
"Those people kept making excuses this year. I thought they were afraid of His Majesty the Xuan King and stayed away. Now that I think about it, they knew we would be exposed and pushed us two out to take the blame."
"If we tell the Fifth Prince everything we know, given his character, he will help us, right?"
Lord Lei thought about it and felt that what he said made some sense.
"The Fifth Prince is the most favored by the Emperor. He has been intensively trained since childhood. Even knowing that our dynasty values civil service over military service, they were willing to send him to the frontier military camp for training. This clearly shows that he is being groomed to become the Crown Prince."
“Maybe this method will work.”
The prison cell was unusually hot and humid. Lord Lei wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "But we can't figure out the Fifth Prince's intentions right now."
"If there is even the slightest mistake, not only the two of us, but also our families will be in an irretrievable situation."
"You and I have many concubines in our house, and we can have more children, but we only have one life."
Lord Zhu held Lord Lei's shoulders and gave him a reassurance.
"As long as the green mountains remain, there will be no need to worry about running out of firewood. If you and I die, there will be nothing left."
"We have no way out, we can only take a gamble."
…
"After all this time, you let me listen to this?"
Outside the window hanging high on the wall of Zhu's cell, You Yang and Cang Xu took great pains to avoid the inspecting officials from the Dali Temple and sneaked here. They had been eavesdropping here since Song Yunlan was interrogating people.
"The people behind Chun Hongfang are indeed powerful. The current prime minister is actually one of them."
"Can you really hear it?" Cang Xu wanted to throw his ears inside, his ears pressed against the wall, and he could not hear anything.
"The Prime Minister has always been honest and kind. He has no concubines besides his wife, and he often does good deeds for the people. How could he be related to Chun Hongfang? Did you hear correctly?"
In contrast, Youyang was very relaxed. He found a stone block on the side, held a piece of foxtail grass in his mouth, and sat there leisurely listening.
Hearing this, You Yang rolled her eyes at him and said, "Believe it or not."
"The master believes you, so I naturally believe the master. What else did you hear?"
Cang Xu hurriedly brushed off the wall dust that had rubbed against him. Since he couldn't hear anything anyway, he simply went to squat next to You Yang.
"I heard that Song Yunlan didn't get anything out of the interrogation because the two officials were threatened, threatened by the so-called "master" they mentioned."
"Threatening them with their children's longevity locks."
"Hasn't the Fifth Prince noticed this?" Cang Xu scratched his head, puzzled. "Master Lei and Master Zhu don't look like they would be threatened by this?"
"If you really care so much about your family, why would you go to Chun Hongfang to find a girl?"
"I guess it was just too sudden and I got scared." You Yang made a vague guess based on the few partial sentences he heard.
"Song Yun... ahem... your Fifth Prince was called away by the Emperor. It must be something important."
"These two people don't want to die and want to wait for the Fifth Prince to return and seek his protection."
"Did you hear all this?" Cang Xu was shocked. He leaned over and stared at You Yang's ears. "How come you have such sensitive ears?"
He looked around and said, "They look similar to my ears."
You Yang glanced at him in surprise, "Haven't you ever practiced martial arts? People who know martial arts have good ears, right?"
She remembered that she had been not concentrating during her ear training and was always punished by her master by being spanked on the hand.
Cang Xu recalled his brothers in Xuanyouwei, and none of them had excellent hearing.
He said, "Can't hearing be used to determine direction?"
No one in the Xuanyou Guard has the ability to hear through walls with their hearing, let alone someone like her who can hear the sound of breathing so accurately.
Youyang recalled the day when she first met Song Yanting in the teahouse. He was the first one to discover her existence, so his hearing must be pretty good.
"Your master's internal strength is so strong, his hearing can't be that bad, right?"
"Uh..." Cang Xu's face turned pale when he heard that and he was about to say something but stopped.
"Next time, don't mention the matter of his ears in front of the master, otherwise he will be very scary when he gets angry."
Is this the villain's Achilles' heel? You Yang needs to understand it clearly, lest she accidentally anger Song Yanting and end up in his hands.
"Why?"
Cang Xu thought about it over and over again, struggling over whether or not to tell You Yang clearly.
On second thought, if he didn't explain clearly this time, with You Yang's personality, he would probably ask the person himself. If he was betrayed by then, he would definitely be punished with thirty military sticks.
"Forget it. Since you and I are both the master's guards, I'll tell you the truth."
"The master was once assassinated by a villain and suffered a serious injury. His left ear was hit by a palm and became deaf. He has seen various miracle doctors, but they all said that he could not be cured. Now he does not want to be treated."
You Yang understood, "So that's how it is..."
"But how long do we have to wait to hear it?" You Yang clapped his hands and killed the fat mosquito that had his blood on it.
"This mosquito is too poisonous. It itches so much."
Ever since she sat down here, mosquitoes have been buzzing around her non-stop, and some of them even persistently crawled into her wide sleeves to bite her.
In just a short while, she had at least ten mosquito bites all over her body.
Cang Xu has thick skin and tough flesh, and even mosquito bites are painful to him.
He waved away the flying insects. "There are only so many mosquitoes in the weeds. I'm used to it. Let's wait a little longer. If there's no movement, we'll retreat."
You Yang stood up and jumped on the spot, trying to drive away the mosquitoes on her body, "Okay."
Realizing that this was of no use, he turned his gaze towards Cang Xu who was sitting at ease on the side.
She pointed at him and threatened, "Help me drive away the mosquitoes, or if I miss anything, I'll tell your master that you're slacking off!"
Cang Xu: "No, I'll just help you chase it away. Do you still use this to threaten me and consider me your brother?"
Suddenly You Yang was stunned for a moment, his ears moved, and he keenly heard the muffled sound of two bodies falling inside.
She frowned slightly and urged Cang Xu, "Hurry up, there's movement inside, I'm distracted."
I listened for about half an incense stick of time.
"Let's go, there's nothing else to listen to." You Yang said this and jumped onto the roof on tiptoe.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com