But to say that she wanted him to go... Chu Yue felt a strange sensation! After all, wouldn't she just become an object, a prize in a duel between the Marquis of Jining and the Marquis Changqing?! And even if the Emperor heard this news, would he agree to it? He might even be furious! At this moment, she didn't want Wei Tingyu to be in any danger!
But just as Chu Yue's eyes darted around, unable to make up her mind, Wei Tingyu turned and disappeared into the crowd with long strides.
"I..." It wasn't until a full quarter of an hour later that the girl's mind, which had been a tangled mess, returned to clarity. She was about to say something else, but saw that Wei Tingyu had long since vanished.
"Where is he?" Chu Yue's eyes widened as she looked around, then she turned to her maid with a bewildered expression and asked.
"He left a long time ago!" The maid was also helpless, thinking, The County Princess was in a daze for a full quarter of an hour. How could he still be here?
Fortunately, Chu Yue was a reasonable master and didn't blame her servants for the mishap. She just sighed and pursed her lips in frustration. At the same time, she reached up and took the flower from her hair, holding it in her hand and examining it carefully.
"Marquis of Jining..." She examined the flower and pouted, a look of a young girl's shyness on her face as she slowly walked forward. But her eyes were fixed on the flower, and she wasn't watching where she was going. Her maid reminded her a few times, and Chu Yue finally came to her senses.
"Wearing this with a riding outfit is too incongruous!" Chu Yue looked at her maid, afraid she would laugh at her for staring at a flower for so long. She cleared her throat and said, then she held the flower in her hand and put both her hands behind her back, completely unwilling to throw it away.
But this behavior only made her maid laugh.
"Right! Come with me to buy some clothes! It would be a shame for this hairpin to have nothing to match it with..." Chu Yue's next words nearly made the maid bite her own tongue. She had thought the County Princess found wearing the flower with her riding outfit unsightly and was planning to discard it! But now it seemed she was going to buy a few dresses to go with the flower!
And you say you're not moved?! The maid couldn't help but grumble in her heart.
But she only dared to grumble in her heart. After all, the County Princess was holding the hairpin tightly, and the smile on her lips was impossible to suppress.
As she finished speaking, she walked straight ahead, heading for the largest dress shop in the market! It was clear that nothing could stop her now!
If the Duke had seen this scene, he wouldn't know whether to be happy or sad! Happy that his wild daughter was finally dressing like a lady, but sad that besides Marquis Changqing, another Marquis had appeared! And the County Princess's change was all because of this Marquis of Jining!
Who knows what a stir this would cause in the An Kingdom's court in the future?!
…
"Gold dust has always been an instrument of death! The other guests who drank the Jade Spring Black Stone are all fine! This was clearly an attack on my father!" In the Duke Wang's manor, chaos reigned. The son of the Duke Wang knelt before the First Prince, his face filled with terror.
The Duke Wang had just coughed up half a pint of blood and died! He had been poisoned! The entire Duke Wang manor was in a state of panic, and all the masters and servants were trembling with fear. Their only hope now was their son-in-law, the First Prince of the An Kingdom!
"It must be the Second Prince! I will go and report this to the Emperor now!" The First Prince was also terrified by the scene before him. Without thinking, he slammed his hand on the table, stood up, and rushed toward the palace.
…
Ten days later, a carriage departed from the An capital, accompanied by dozens of guards, and rattled along toward the territory of the Sha'zhong tribe... The occupants of the carriage were none other than the First Prince of the An Kingdom, Li Shouji, and his brother-in-law, the Duke Wang's son!
The two of them were unhappily drinking in the carriage. The First Prince had gone to the palace to accuse his second brother, but without any evidence, the An Emperor did not entertain his request. Resentful, he had plotted to frame the Second Prince, ordering his men to hide an imperial robe in the Second Prince's sleeping quarters.
However, when he brought the An Emperor to expose his second brother's disloyalty, he was shocked to find that the imperial robe had been switched with an ordinary python robe. The An Emperor naturally understood the animosity between his two sons. The eldest had tried to frame the second, and the second had set a trap for the eldest to fall into! The two of them were now vying for the position of Crown Prince!
In this round of scheming, the Second Prince, Li Zhenye, had clearly been more cunning! So the An Emperor stripped the eldest son, Li Shouji, of his official position in court and ordered him to rest in his mother's family, the Sha'zhong tribe.
Of course, everyone understood that this was tantamount to exile! The First Prince was now far away from the An Kingdom's court, and his hopes of becoming Crown Prince were essentially dashed!
"Stop! Stop!" Just as the First Prince was recalling these events, filled with resentment and plotting a way to return to the An capital, the son of the Duke Wang suddenly widened his eyes, a look of nausea on his face, and shouted at the driver.
As soon as the carriage stopped, the son of the Duke Wang jumped out and began to vomit violently in a nearby patch of grass.
The First Prince helplessly got out of the carriage as well. Looking at the retching man, he said with a look of exasperation, "You're like this already, just after leaving the capital?"
"If you don't want to accompany me to the Sha'zhong tribe, turn back now and go home to your sister!"
"I won't go back!" The Duke Wang's son was no fool. He knew that the First Prince had completely lost power in the capital, and as his brother-in-law, he was naturally one of his followers! If he were to return to the capital now, he would be killed by the Second Prince in short order, just like his recently deceased father, the Duke Wang!
"I am just sad for my father! And sad for Your Highness!" Thinking this, the Duke Wang's son quickly said, "How did things turn out this way?"
"Sigh!" The First Prince also looked helpless. "The Second Prince is malicious!"
"I just stumbled into a trap!"
"Fortunately, the Emperor knows the truth in his heart, so he has kept my princely title!"
"Once this blows over, I will surely..."
The First Prince was drawing a picture of a glorious future for his brother-in-law and was slowly walking toward him, patting him on the shoulder.
"Rise again... Ah!" But before he could finish his promise, an arrow suddenly shot out of nowhere and pierced the First Prince's thigh!
The First Prince was completely unprepared. A sharp pain shot through his leg, and he let out an instinctive scream!
The Duke Wang's son was quick to react. He quickly caught the First Prince, who was about to fall, and shouted loudly, "Guard His Highness! Guard His Highness!"
At the same time, the two dozen or so guards who had been protecting the carriage all rushed forward, drawing their swords and looking around with great vigilance.
At this moment, lightning flashed and thunder roared in the night sky, and a torrential rain began to pour down at the same time.
It was as if everything had been prepared in advance. The road through the woods looked particularly eerie in the flashes of lightning.
The First Prince and his entourage did not yet know where the arrow had come from. But as another flash of lightning illuminated the darkness, the First Prince and the others were startled to see a mysterious figure in black standing just twenty paces away from them.
From the figure's silhouette, she appeared to be a woman, holding a sharp sword in her hand and wearing a bamboo hat that concealed her face.
This woman was none other than Ren Ruyi. She had been waiting for the First Prince's carriage here for the better part of an hour!
The First Prince's guards were no fools. They saw her attire and the timing of her appearance and knew she was an assassin. They rushed forward with their swords drawn without a word.
Unfortunately, the fallen First Prince's guards were not very skilled, especially when facing Ren Ruyi, who was the strongest martial artist in the An capital at the moment.
It could be said that besides Wei Tingyu and the two female Golden Shadow Guards, Ren Ruyi had no equal in the current An capital!
Her sword never left its sheath. With a few flashes of her figure, she moved like a ghost among the guards! The unsheathed sword in her hand was a blur, and every guard she struck with the scabbard immediately collapsed, unconscious.
The First Prince, Li Shouji, watched helplessly as all his guards were taken down by the female assassin in a matter of moments. His heart was filled with terror. Then he saw her draw her sword and lunge straight toward him.
Li Shouji instinctively pushed his brother-in-law, the Duke Wang's son, in front of him, using him as a shield to block Ren Ruyi's sword thrust. But a moment later, he saw Ren Ruyi's hand flash, as if she had thrown something at him. Then, his eyes went black, and he lost consciousness!
…
He did not know how much time had passed, but Li Shouji slowly woke up to the sound of thunder and the pouring rain. After his eyes could barely make out his surroundings, he realized he was in the tomb of the late Empress Zhaojie.
And the female assassin who had just killed all his guards and knocked him unconscious was standing a few paces behind him, looking at him with an icy cold gaze.
"Who are you?" Li Shouji, gathering his courage, looked at her and asked, "Are you one of my second brother's people?"
"He's mad! You cannot be mad!"
"Do you know what a great crime it is to assassinate a prince?!"
At this moment, the First Prince, Li Shouji, would say anything to survive. He even knelt before Ren Ruyi, still trying to persuade her with his words.
"What about forcing the Empress to her death and bringing chaos to the country?!" Ren Ruyi sneered, looking at the First Prince, Li Shouji, with a cold, expressionless face.
Li Shouji was stunned by her words, then he frowned, as if he had understood something! At the same time, his eyes fell upon the altar in front of Empress Zhaojie's tomb, where two human heads were placed!
"Ah!" In the light of the lightning, the two heads, with their horrifying expressions, were a terrifying sight that made Li Shouji scream and collapse to the ground.
"That is your good father-in-law, the Duke Wang! And the former Vice Minister of Personnel, Tao Wei!" Ren Ruyi looked at the cowardice of Li Shouji and sneered, saying coldly, "You don't recognize them?"
"Tao Wei?" The First Prince, Li Shouji, shuddered. Now he was even more certain that this assassin was not his second brother's person.
"He, along with your father-in-law, submitted a memorial to falsely accuse the Empress!"
"And he, the Duke Wang, and you! You were all accomplices who tacitly allowed the An Emperor to collude with the Northern Barbarians and bring disaster to the people!"
Ren Ruyi spoke word by word, and the iciness in her tone sent a chill down Li Shouji's spine.
"Who are you, really? What do you want?" He no longer had the strength to argue and could only look at Ren Ruyi and ask with a helpless expression.
"I am Ren Xin!" Ren Ruyi slightly raised her head, revealing the beautiful face that had been hidden beneath her bamboo hat.
The First Prince, Li Shouji, was startled, then he quickly raised his head, and in the flash of lightning, he saw Ren Ruyi's face clearly.
That's right! Even in ten or twenty years, Li Shouji was certain he would never forget this face! After all, he had once lamented that such a beautiful woman had died!
"It's you? You're not dead?!"
"You did all of this?!"
Li Shouji was now completely bewildered. He thought back to everything that had happened recently... from the Duke Wang being poisoned to the news of his plot to frame the Second Prince being leaked... all the way to today, when he was ambushed and killed by Ren Ruyi...
It was as if all of these events were a grand trap that had been laid out in advance, and the one pulling the strings was the woman standing right in front of him!
"You cannot kill me! I only wanted to depose her, not kill her!"
"I know you want revenge for the Empress. Go find the Emperor!"
"All of this was done with the Emperor's tacit approval!"
Li Shouji now knew that Ren Ruyi's ultimate goal was to take his life. Otherwise, she would not have gone to the trouble of bringing him all the way to the tomb of Empress Zhaojie. It was clear that she intended to place his head on the altar alongside the other two heads as an offering to the Empress! So he no longer cared about anything and quickly began to beg for his life, even trying to shift the blame to the An Emperor.
When Ren Ruyi saw the First Prince, Li Shouji, in this state, she couldn't help but sneer. What a touching display of filial piety, she thought with a hint of sarcasm.
But to Ren Ruyi, Li Shouji's pleading and calculations were of no use, for the An Emperor was also on her list of vengeance! Neither of them would escape. It was simply a matter of who came first!
"Close your eyes!" With this, Ren Ruyi spoke two cold words, and Li Shouji was so terrified that he wet himself!
"I beg you... please don't kill me..." But his final pleas were cut short as Ren Ruyi's blade flashed, and another head rolled to the ground.
A quarter of an hour later, Ren Ruyi arranged the three heads in a row on the altar. Then she took out a tinderbox and tried to light the candles. But because of the heavy rain, her tinderbox was soaked. After several attempts, no flame appeared.
At that moment, a hand suddenly reached out from behind her, holding a blazing torch.
Ren Ruyi looked up at the person, then took the torch and lit the candles on the altar.
The man was, of course, Wei Tingyu! He had been secretly watching Ren Ruyi the entire time. This act of vengeance was something she had to experience for herself. Wei Tingyu knew he could not do it for her!
Ren Ruyi also understood this. So her heart was filled not only with gratitude but also with a deeper appreciation for Wei Tingyu's silent protection!
At the same time, back at the site of the ambush, the Duke Wang's son slowly regained consciousness. Ren Ruyi's earlier sword thrust had not hit a vital point; he had only fainted from fear and pain.
Now, looking at the bodies scattered on the ground, he was terrified but happened to touch a tiger-head plaque on the ground.
"A tiger head?! It's the tiger head of the Sha'dong tribe! It was the Sha'dong tribe's people who killed the Prince..." The Duke Wang's son screamed in terror as he ran back toward the An capital!
In his hysterical state, it would not be long before the entire An capital learned of this major event!
…
Three days later, at noon, in the main hall of the Duke Chu's manor, Duke Chu, the father of County Princess Chu Yue, stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes closed in troubled thought. He paced back and forth, his expression alternating between hesitation and resolve. Finally, after about a quarter of an hour of deliberation, he suddenly opened his eyes as if he had made a great decision, and turned to shout at a maid outside, "Quick! Go and bring A'Yue here!"
Soon, County Princess Chu Yue came bouncing in. But the moment she saw the serious expression on her father's face, she immediately froze in place.
Ever since she could remember, she had rarely seen her father this serious!