Li Miaozhen's message

The Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review left the room and went up the stairs to the main hall, where Constable Chen, two censors, and Yang Yan sat at the table, silently drinking tea.

A writing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone were laid out on the table.

The Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, in his early forties and still considered young and vigorous in officialdom, silently sat down at the table, picked up his brush, and wrote on the Xuan paper:

"Not Warlock!"

There was another line of text on the Xuan paper, written by Constable Chen: "Something is hidden in his right hand."

Next, two imperial censors entered the room and spoke with the female spy. After they came out, one wrote "did not ask about the case," and the other wrote "showed great interest in Xu Yinluo."

Yang Yan crumpled the Xuan paper into a ball, and with a gentle push, the paper ball turned into powder.

He casually tossed the contents aside, expressionless, and climbed the stairs. When he reached the room door, he didn't knock; he simply pushed it open and went inside.

"The princess has gone missing; you Nightwatchers bear primary responsibility," the female spy said in a deep voice.

Yang Yan sat at the table, his features as if sculpted from stone, lacking any lifelike variation. He coldly replied to the female spy's accusations:

"Get to the point."

"Alright!" The female spy nodded and slowly said, "I'll get straight to the point: where is the Princess?"

"What are you holding in your right hand?" Yang Yan asked instead of answering, his gaze falling on the female spy's right shoulder.

"As expected of Jinluo, you saw through my little trick at a glance." The female spy raised her hand hidden under the table, opened her palm, and a small octagonal copper plate lay quietly.

"The Bureau of Astronomy Bureau's Law Artifact can distinguish between lies and truth." She pushed the octagonal bronze plate aside and said calmly, "However, this is ineffective against someone at the peak of the fourth rank. To determine whether you are lying, a sixth-rank Warlock is required."

Yang Yan didn't look at the octagonal bronze plate, and answered her question earlier, "I don't know where the Princess is."

The female spy's second question followed immediately, "Where is Xu Qi'an? Did he really return to the capital injured?"

Yang Yan raised his hand and said, "You ask one question, I'll ask one question."

Beneath the cloak and mask, a pair of deep, dark eyes stared at him for a moment before slowly saying, "Ask."

"Why would the barbarians target the princess?" Yang Yan's question went straight to the heart of the matter.

The female spy did not answer.

Yang Yan nodded. "Let me ask another question. Was Chu Xianglong insisting on traveling by water that day because he was waiting to meet you?"

"Um."

The female spy gave an affirmative answer and asked, "Where is Xu Qi'an?"

Yang Yan shook his head. "I don't know. Why didn't the spies return to the capital to escort them secretly? Why did they insist on meeting them at the border of Chuzhou?"

I don't know. That means Xu Qi'an didn't return to the capital seriously injured. The female spy said in a deep voice, "We have our enemies. Does Duke Wei know about the Princess's journey north?"

Unable to spare manpower, Yang Yan's eyes flickered slightly, and he said, "I know."

The female spy left the post station and did not go out of the city with Lieutenant General Li. She went to Wanzhou Garrison (a local military camp) alone. She rested in a tent. At night, she suddenly opened her eyes and saw someone lift the tent flap and come in.

The newcomer was also wrapped in a black robe, wearing a mask that only revealed his chin, with a light blue stubble around his mouth, and a hoarse, low voice.

"I just rushed back from Jiangzhou City and found two locations. One was where a fierce battle had taken place, and the other had no obvious signs of fighting, but there was spider silk left by the Golden Wood Tribe's Feathered Spiders. What about yours?"

The female spy responded in the same low voice:

"It matches the intelligence I gathered from the mission. The northern Demon Race and barbarian tribes sent four fourth-rank officials: the snake demon Hong Ling, the dragon tribe's Tang Shan Jun, and the Black Water tribe's Zhar Muha, but not the Golden Wood tribe's leader Tian Lang."

"While the three fourth-rank officials were entangled with Xu Qi'an and Yang Yan, Chu Xianglong ordered his guards to take the princess and her maids away. Furthermore, the members of the delegation were unaware of the princess's special status, and Yang Yan was unaware of her whereabouts."

The male spy grunted, "It seems we've been ambushed by Tianlang. Chu Xianglong's chances of survival are slim, as for the Princess..."

The atmosphere inside the tent became heavy.

"Wait, you just said that Chu Xianglong had his guards take the maids and the princess away to escape?" the male spy suddenly asked.

"To be precise, he escaped with the princess, and the guards escaped with the maids," the female spy said.

"Heh, he's not one to be soft-hearted," the male spy said with a mocking tone, then continued:

"It's obvious that the princess he brought was a fake; the real princess was mixed in with the maids. It was a clever yet foolish move. Clever in that he confused everyone, but foolish in that such an action could not possibly have fooled Tianlang and the others."

"Even in a moment of crisis, he fled with his maidservants, which tells them that the real queen is among them. Hmm, he has extreme distrust of the mission, or perhaps, in Chu Xianglong's view, the entire mission was bound to be wiped out at that time."

The female spy nodded and said, "It was Xu Qi'an who intervened to stop Tang Shanjun and Zhamuha, and his true cultivation level is probably around the sixth rank."

She recounted Xu Qi'an's recent exploits, saying, "According to the chief constable of the Ministry of Justice, Xu Qi'an was able to defeat the outstanding disciples of the Celestial Person and Human Sects thanks to Confucian School Law Technique texts. Chu Xianglong probably didn't expect him to still have them in stock."

The hoarse-voiced male spy said, "That's not all. External resources will eventually run out, and fourth-rank martial artists are too difficult to kill. In the end, Xu Qi'an will still run out of supplies, so Chu Xianglong chose to abandon them."

"Reasonable."

The female spy sighed, worriedly saying, "What should we do now? The princess has fallen into the hands of the northern barbarians; I'm afraid her fate is grim."

The male spy chuckled, "It's not that bad. Send out four leaders and have them ambush the queen. The barbarians will surely know about the queen's special abilities."

"So, who most desires to become the princess?"

The female spy suddenly realized, "The leader of the Qingyan tribe."

The man's head, hidden under his hood, moved slightly, as if nodding, and he said, "Therefore, they will take the princess back to the north first, either to divide the spiritual essence equally or because she has been promised enormous benefits. In short, the princess is safe until that Qingyan tribe leader gets involved."

The female spy agreed with his view and tentatively asked, "Then now, the only option is to inform His Highness Prince Huai to seal off the northern border and launch a full-scale search for Tang Shanjun and his three companions within Jiangzhou and Chuzhou, in order to reclaim the Queen?"

The man neither nodded nor objected, and said, "Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Yes! The organizer, Xu Qi'an, didn't return to Beijing. Instead, he secretly went north. As for where he went, Yang Yan claimed he didn't know, but I think they must have some special way of communicating."

"How do you know?" the male spy asked in return.

"Xu Qi'an was ordered to investigate the massacre of three thousand miles. He was afraid of offending Prince Huai, and even more afraid of being monitored. Therefore, using the delegation as a cover to conduct a secret investigation was the right choice. It is normal for a genius who can solve cases with divine insight and a meticulous mind to have such a response; otherwise, it would be unreasonable."

The female spy continued, "Moreover, the delegation is internally divided. The officials of the Three Departments and the Nightwatchers dislike each other. The delegation is actually not very useful to him. Staying might actually make him more vulnerable to being controlled by the officials of the Three Departments."

The man stroked his pale blue chin, his fingertips brushing against his short, stiff beard, and murmured, "Don't underestimate these civil officials; perhaps they're putting on an act."

"But if you knew that Xu Qi'an once stopped civil and military officials outside the Meridian Gate and wrote a poem mocking them, you wouldn't think that way," the female spy said.

She paused, then added, "Does Wei Yuan know that the Princess Consort has traveled north? Is the matter concerning the barbarians related to him?"

The man chuckled. "Don't ask me. We can't fathom Wei Qingyi's thoughts. But we can't afford to be careless. Hmm, distribute Xu Qi'an's portrait. If it's discovered, keep a close watch on him. As for the delegation, focus on monitoring Yang Yan's movements. As for the civil officials of the Three Departments, we'll see how that goes."

The next morning, the princess, covered by Xu Qi'an's robe, woke up in the cave and saw Xu Qi'an squatting at the cave entrance, holding a copper basin that appeared out of nowhere, his entire face submerged in the basin.

The princess was still angry, so she hugged her knees and watched him act crazy for a full quarter of an hour.

Then, the man turned his back and secretly rubbed his face, only turning back after a long while.

"Ah!"

The princess screamed, shrinking back like a startled rabbit. Her bright eyes widened as she pointed at him, her voice trembling, "You... you... Xu Erlang?"

Is this some kind of ghost story?

She recognized the man; he was Xu Qi'an's cousin, Xu Erlang. But why was Xu Household Erlang here?

"Don't make a fuss." Xu Qi'an smugly chuckled twice, "This is my special skill of changing faces. Even the most skilled martial artist can't see through my disguise."

As he spoke, he poured out the medicine from the copper basin.

"Why did you become your cousin?" Hearing the familiar voice, the princess felt reassured and looked at him suspiciously.

"This woman really has no brains. She's probably used to swaggering around in the Prince of Huai's mansion, and nobody's going to have any power struggles with her, just like my aunt, "Xu Qi'an said irritably.

"Are you stupid? Do you think I'd enter the city with Xu Qi'an's face on my back? That's basic counter-surveillance awareness."

"Rebel against what?" The princess didn't understand either, and pouted, "I'm hungry."

"The porridge is ready. There's a freshly hunted pheasant outside. Go and prepare it, clean it, and then roast it," Xu Qi'an instructed.

"Oh!" The princess obediently went out.

During this time, she learned how to prepare and roast her prey, the whole process, which was of course at Xu Qi'an's request. The princess had also gotten used to being bullied by him; after all, she was now under his roof and had no choice but to bow her head.

Of course, the princess was also a cunning woman; she never confronted Xu Qi'an directly, but often retaliated in private.

For example, hide his clothes while he's taking a bath, leaving him in a state of impotent rage in the water.

Another example is smearing bird droppings from leaves onto prey, then roasting it for the prey to eat.

Recently, she's been thinking about spitting on roasted prey.

The price I paid each time was either being forced to listen to his ghost stories at night, being too scared to sleep, and almost crying from fright, or going a whole day without food and having to travel long distances.

While I'm sleeping at night, saliva keeps drooling from my mouth.

After a long while, the chicken was roasted. The princess, who had been spitting for a while, gave a sinister smile, set the roasted chicken aside, and turned back to shout towards the cave:

"The chicken is ready, I'll have some porridge."

Xu Qi'an eats meat, while the princess drinks porridge; this is a tacit understanding the two have recently developed, or more accurately, a consequence of hurting each other.

Xu Qi'an was very angry, so he refused to let her eat meat. The princess was also unhappy that he wouldn't let her eat meat, and she retaliated fiercely.

A vicious cycle.

Xu Dalang, now sporting Xu Erlang's face, emerged from the cave, sat by the campfire, and said, "We should reach Sanhuang County before dusk today."

The princess's face lit up with joy, which meant that the arduous journey was finally over.

Xu Qi'an glanced at her and said calmly, "This chicken was hunted for you."

The princess's face suddenly went blank.

"What, you don't want to eat? Or did you smear bird droppings in the chicken again?" Xu Qi'an squinted and questioned.

"You, don't judge a gentleman by your own petty standards." The princess grabbed a chicken, brought it close to him, and said, her tone fierce but her voice weak, "Look for yourself, where's the bird droppings?"

"Then you can eat it." Xu Qi'an nodded.

"..." The princess opened her mouth, then weakly said, "I... I have no appetite, I don't want to eat meat."

"Then hurry up and eat, don't waste food, or I'll get angry," Xu Qi'an said with a smile.

Her ordinary face immediately scrunched up in a frown.

At this moment, Xu Qi'an felt a surge of excitement. After many days, someone in the Earth Book chat group had finally sent a book.

He picked up the porridge, got up, and returned to the cave, saying as he went, "Hurry up and finish eating, or I'll leave you here to feed the tigers."

The princess made a face at his back.

Xu Qi'an sat down with his back against the cliff wall, staring at the fragments of the Earth Book. He took a sip of porridge, and a line of small characters appeared on the jade mirror:

[Second: Master Jinlian, please shield everyone from view.]

A few moments later, Li Miaozhen's message arrived again: [Xu Qi'an, have you arrived at the Northern Border?]

Xu Qi'an put down the bowl, used his finger as a pen, and typed: [We should arrive at the Northern Border today. Have you found any information?]

PS: Thanks to "Secondhand King Yang Qianhuan" for the generous donation, great name!!!

Thank you to the leader of "Aa of Time for Monuments" for the reward, okay?

Please help correct any errors, thank you.