Mundadeva stood up and looked at Tanmaraka's legs with a serious expression.

Prajna and two other personal soldiers gathered around the bed and whispered a few words with Mundadeva.

Everyone looked gloomy.

On the contrary, the seriously ill Tanmaraka looked the calmest. He swept his cold eyes over the faces of several people and whispered something.

Prajna wiped her tears and nodded in agreement.

They were speaking in Sanskrit, and Yaoying could not understand a word. She only felt that Tanmarajaka's hoarse voice, despite his illness, still carried a certain elegant melody.

The footsteps that woke her up were getting closer. A personal guard lifted the curtain and walked quickly into the inner room, speaking in a foreign language: "King, the prime minister and his men are here, and they insist on entering the palace to see the king!"

Prajna and the others looked at each other.

"We can't let them in!" Prajna stood in front of the couch and asked, "Where is the Regent?"

The guard said, "General Su went to Gaochang not long ago and has not returned to the city yet."

"Where's Princess Chima?"

"General Ashina has escorted Princess Chima to Yunfu City. They are not in the city anymore. We have sent someone to invite them." The guards were sweating. "The Prime Minister and his men are about to break in!"

The guards were at a loss, and Mundadeva did not want to interfere in the royal court affairs, so he sighed helplessly.

In the suppressed silence, the drowsy Tanmaraka sat up. His thin shoulders were tense like a string. There was no panic on his pale face. He said softly, "Help me to the main hall."

The voice remains calm and unhurried.

Prajna wiped the corners of her eyes, bent her waist and supported Tanmaragha. Her movements were extremely skillful, as if such a thing had happened countless times.

Yao Ying took a step forward and said, "You'd better not get off the ground."

Tanmaraka raised his eyelids and stared at her with his deep blue eyes.

The way he looks at people is as cold and indifferent as he is. It seems as if he is looking at you, but also as if he is looking at other things through you. Perhaps everything in the world is mundane in his eyes.

An invisible pressure lingered around him, not sharp, but vague.

Yao Ying stared at him for a while, then her eyes fell on his legs. She frowned slightly and said in a not-so-smooth way, "Your legs are so swollen that you must stay in bed to recuperate. If you go out, even if you have sleeping pills now, your legs will be completely useless."

She didn't know how Tanmarajiva died of illness, she only knew that he was carried to the altar by believers during his last public sermon. Now looking at his legs, she guessed that his legs must have been disabled at that time.

Prajna was greatly shocked and asked with sobs, "King, tell Daxiang and the others the truth!"

Tanmaraka lowered his eyes and looked at his legs, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and said lightly: "Nothing."

The northern barbarians were eyeing him covetously, and the situation in the court was unstable. The news of his serious illness could not be leaked.

Prajna and her personal soldiers looked at each other, not daring to say anything more, and helped him up.

Yaoying's brows furrowed even more tightly.

Since Tanmarajiva did not care about his own body, did the people around him really regard him as a god?

He is a human being.

The slaves said that everyone in the royal court, from the nobles to the common people, hated the Han people, but this monk was the only one who was compassionate. He not only regarded all the slaves as his subjects and treated people of all ethnic groups kindly, but also encouraged believers to live in peace with Zoroastrians, Manichaeists, and Nestorians.

If this man lives one more day, the Northern Rong will not be able to break through the royal court, and the Northern Rong will not be able to withdraw its main force to attack the Central Plains.

Yao Ying thought for a while, stopped Prajna, and said, "Your king cannot go to the ground now, find a reason to send the prime minister and others away."

Prajna looked at her warily: "Da Xiang is stubborn, and ordinary reasons cannot stop him..."

"I am the reason."

Yaoying interrupted Prajna and stroked her hair with her hand. The corners of her eyes curled up slightly in a playful way, and her eyes were as bright as autumn water. She was like a branch of flowers with buds that suddenly smiled and bloomed in an instant, with a face so radiant that people dared not look at her closely.

Suddenly, the room was filled with spring.

"Go out and tell the Prime Minister that the Princess of Wei is obsessed with me and I can't get away from her."

Prajna blushed and looked down at Tanmarajiva.

Tanmarajiva did not look up at Yaoying. Instead, he lowered his eyes and looked at the pair of tattered straw sandals on the girl's feet.

Along the way, he forgot to instruct his subordinates to take good care of the Wei princess. She traveled with slaves and must have suffered a lot.

Tanmaraka coughed and said, "No need, this matter has nothing to do with the Seventh Princess."

Yao Ying was surprised to find that he spoke the northern Mandarin of the Central Plains, and spoke it more fluently than Monda Deva, an Indian who had stayed in the Central Plains for a long time, and without any accent at all.

It is said that he was precocious and had mastered seven or eight languages ​​by the time he was in his teens, and surprisingly, Chinese was one of them.

If such a person simply became a monk who devoted himself to the practice and study of Buddhist principles, it would probably not be so hard.

Yao Ying was filled with emotion, but she smiled and said nonchalantly, "I was in danger, and the Buddha saved me from the water and fire. I should repay you."

As she spoke, she squatted down and looked into Tanmaragha's eyes, her dark and shiny eyes reflecting the other's pale face.

"Your legs are like this, so don't walk anymore."

Without waiting for him to say anything, Yao Ying stood up, untied her hair tie, took off her tattered straw sandals, stepped barefoot on the carpet, with her long hair draped over her shoulders, and walked out step by step, her steps graceful and her back elegant.

Between the gorgeous animal patterns lies a pair of shiny, smooth, snow-white jade feet, faintly exuding a fragrance that makes one's mouth dry.

The guards in the room were stunned.

Outside the main hall, a group of middle-aged men in their forties and fifties strode up the stone steps.

The man leading the group was none other than the Grand Chancellor of the Royal Court, Kang Mozha. He was wearing a short robe with a lapel and short sleeves with a bird pattern, a belt, long boots, a sword at his waist, and a ribbon tied behind his head. As he walked, he scolded his guards, "The King came back last night, why didn't you summon the ministers immediately?"

Prajna went up to them and pointed at Li Yaoying, who was blocking the palace gate and crying. "You don't know, Prime Minister. Princess Wei Chao is trying to kill herself and is determined to marry you. You are really unable to spare the time."

Kang Mozhe was stunned and looked in the direction of his finger.

It was a delicate and beautiful silhouette, bright and beautiful, even more graceful than the flowers that bloom all over the canyon in early spring.

Everyone just took a quick glance and couldn't help but breathe easier.

Yaoying faced the scrutiny of the crowd and sobbed softly, her tears becoming more and more heartbroken.

Kang Mozha had heard from his private soldier that the princess of Wei Dynasty proposed to him in front of thousands of soldiers, and he thought the private soldier was exaggerating. But now that he saw her in person, he realized that the private soldier had not described half of the princess's beauty.

The beauty was really short-sighted and actually fell in love with a monk who was not moved by beauty.

Kang Mozha rolled his eyes and said with a smile: "There is such a beauty in the world."

The others looked at each other.

The king is a Buddhist, and he is obsessed with a beautiful woman. At this embarrassing moment, should they go in or not?

"We can't stop the Princess of Wei." The guards all acted anxiously. "She is a woman, and a princess of the Central Plains. We dare not hurt her. As long as the king appears, she will follow him closely. The king can't do anything with her and can only hide in the bedroom."

Everyone chuckled in understanding: With such a stunning beauty entwining him, what can the king do?

If it were them, it would have been a good thing long ago, and only the king could resist such temptation.

Prajna straightened her back and said, "Ministers, please go back. Once the king has resolved the issue of Princess Zhongyuan, he will summon you."

Kang Mozha narrowed his eyes slightly.

The others laughed out loud. Even a Buddhist with pure mind would encounter such a thing. "We just wanted to confirm whether the king has returned to the city safely. Since the king is safe, we will take our leave now."

They winked at Kang Mozhe and said, "Prime Minister, now is not the right time to meet you."

Kang Mozhe's gaze lingered on Yao Ying for a long time, a cold light flashed in his eyes, and he turned and left with the others.

Only when their figures turned around the palace gate and disappeared from sight did Prajna let out a sigh of relief.

Outside the palace gate, Kang Mozha said goodbye to everyone and called his followers: "Tell General Xue that a stunning beauty has come to the city, and she is a Han woman."

He followed the order in person.

Prajna was sure that Daxiang had really left, so she returned to the temple gate with a bewildered look on her face: "Daxiang actually left like this."

Yaoying stood up, wiped away the tears from her eyes, and tied up her long hair.

The ministers were not at all worried about whether her presence would harm Tanmaragha's reputation. Instead, they all showed expressions of gloating over the misfortune.

It seems that the royal court is not stable. The monarch is wary of the ministers, and the ministers have their own thoughts.

No wonder the royal court fell into disarray after Tanmaragha's death.

Yaoying returned to the inner hall. It was quiet behind the curtains, with only the sound of burning candles.

Tanmaraka fell into a deep sleep.

Prajna ran back to the bed, knelt down, turned around and looked at Mundadeva with a face full of expectation.

Mondadeva sighed and said, "Acupuncture can only relieve pain."

Yao Ying nodded: "Acupuncture can only delay the disease for a while, he can't hold on for too long. When can the people you sent to the Central Plains to seek medicine return to the royal court?"

Monda Deva shook his head with a sad face: "The regent was afraid that the news would leak out, so he could only secretly send people to infiltrate the caravans heading east to look for medicine. He sent more than 20 people in total. Now the trade route has been cut off by the northern barbarians, and the caravans heading to the Central Plains have disappeared. The only caravan that returned safely went to Tubo, and the guards did not bring back any useful herbs."

Yao Ying recalled what she had seen along the way. The royal caravan that Prince Yelu had killed was likely to have included the personal guards who were looking for medicine for Tanmo Luojia. The Northern Rong stood between the Western Regions and the Central Plains, blocking the traffic. It would be extremely difficult for the royal court to successfully bring back medicine from the Central Plains, and those personal guards were likely to be dangerous.

And it's too late.

Yao Ying said: "I know where the water moss is in the Western Regions."

Prajna and Mundadeva both showed surprise in their eyes.

Yao Ying looked at them: "In Haidu Aling's camp."

She was born with a deficiency and had to take medicine for many years. One of the herbs in the Condensation Pills was water moss. When she married into the Yelu tribe, her dowry contained a large number of rare herbs and prepared pills. When she and her personal soldiers escaped from the Yelu tribe, they only took some Condensation Pills with them, and all the dowry was left in the tribe.

And the entire Yelu tribe finally fell into the hands of Haidu Aling.

Yao Ying said confidently: "I have inquired about it. The property looted by Haidu A Ling has been transported back one after another and hidden in the camp."

The son of Wakhan Khan would not raid Haidu Aling just because of a few rumors. His camp contained a lot of treasures brought back from the Central Plains.

Mundadeva was stunned.

Is the medicine that can cure the Buddha in Beirong?

"The Northern Rong will not be kind enough to send us the medicine, and we cannot let them know how important the medicine is to the king." Prajna stood up, looking worried, "We cannot rob them either. Wang Ting has just signed an alliance with the Northern Rong, so we cannot attack them."

Mundadeva was silent. When it came to military and national affairs, he never spoke.

Prajna paced back and forth anxiously: "The Regent is not here! General Ashina is not here either! There is no one who can make decisions! What should I do?"

Yao Ying glanced at Tanmo Luojia on the bed and said, "The royal court does not need to attack the Northern Rong. That is my dowry."

Prajna turned around and looked at her.

Yaoying walked to the desk and wrote a letter on the silk: "As the princess of Wei, I ask the Khan of Beirong to return my dowry."

She paused for a moment and raised her eyebrows to look at Prajna.

"As for whether the Northern Rong will honestly return my dowry, it depends on who sends this letter. If the person who sends the letter is the royal court's central army, the Northern Rong Khan might personally urge Haidu Aling to return the dowry."

Prajna understood the hidden meaning of her words.

When the royal court asked the Northern Rong for a dowry on behalf of the Wei princess, wasn't it equivalent to announcing to the world that the Buddhist had accepted the Wei princess's proposal?

Then this Han woman can stay here openly and honestly?

"No!" Prajna shook her head decisively.

Yao Ying threw up her hands and said, "Now the Buddha's life is hanging by a thread. The only medicine that can save him is right before my eyes. I have no soldiers or generals. Bei Rong will not return my dowry just because of a letter from me. What should I do? You guys make the decision."

After all, she is not the one who needs water hyacinth now.

For one thing, Tanmarajaka's life was hanging by a thread. The ministers had just been sent away, and within two days they would ask to see the monarch again.

There was no escape for them.

Prajna's expression changed, sometimes angry, sometimes worried, and sometimes hesitant. She looked back at Tanmarajiva who had fallen asleep, struggled for a while, and then took the letter from Yaoying's hand.

"Han woman, do you dare to swear that what you said is true?"

Yao Ying smiled and looked at Monda Deva: "Master, every word I say is true."

Mundadeva put his hands together and said: "The poor monk believes in the princess."

Then he nodded to Prajna and said a few words in Sanskrit.

Prajna tightly grasped the letter, her fingers twisted with force, and raised her neck: "Okay! I will go to Yunfu City to discuss with Princess Chima and General Ashina. If the princess and the general agree, I will deliver the letter in person!"

He gritted his teeth, turned around and rushed out.

The other guards sent Yao Ying to a side hall and kept her under guard. Mengda Deva said apologetically, "Princess, please forgive me. The news that the Buddhist son is critically ill cannot be spread."

Yao Ying understood his concerns, smiled and shook her head to indicate that it was okay.

They are now in the same boat, and she hopes that Tanmaraka can get through this difficult time.

Her hope of returning to the Central Plains from the northern route of the Western Regions rested on him.