chsdbacks Chapter 310 Xu Longxiang was troubled and didn't understand why!
Chapter 310 Xu Longxiang was troubled and didn't understand why!
Sikong Xuan shifted his gaze from Zhao Laosi to Xu Longxiang's face.
The young face was now hidden in the shadows of the candlelight, making his expression impossible to discern.
Only those eyes, gleaming with a cold light in the darkness, resembled a wounded wolf licking its wounds.
Sikong Xuan's gaze fell on Zhao Laosi again.
He looked at the man carefully.
From his tattered clothes to his muddy body and his bare, wounded feet.
From the swollen wound on his left shoulder that stretched his clothes out of shape, to the blood-soaked patch of his clothing under his ribs that still reeked of a foul stench.
Two festering, lacerated knife wounds ran diagonally from his left shoulder to his right rib on his back.
His brows furrowed slowly.
He's a worldly man; after so many years in the North, what kind of wounds hasn't he seen?
Knife wounds, arrow wounds, falls, frostbite—there were many wounded soldiers carried off the battlefield who were in far worse condition than Zhao Laosi.
But those wounded soldiers were injured on the battlefield. They had military doctors, medicine, people to bandage them, and people to carry them down.
Zhao Laosi is a single person.
A person walked here from Liyang Imperial City.
A journey of three thousand miles.
There were no horses, no carts, no provisions, no water, no medicine, and no companions.
He was covered in wounds, barefoot, his left shoulder was swollen, the wound under his ribs kept reopening, and the two knife wounds on his back smelled of festering pus even through his clothes.
Several of his fingernails were broken, and his fingertips were covered in dried blood. Some of the wounds on his soles had scabbed over, while others were still bleeding, soaking a small patch of the carpet beneath his feet.
How did he manage to get through it?
Sikong Xuan's gaze fell on his face.
His face was so thin it was unrecognizable, his cheekbones protruded high, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, and his lips were chapped and peeling.
Only those eyes held a tranquility that only comes from having seen through life and death.
Sikong Xuan suddenly remembered something.
He remembered Zhao Laosi, of course he did.
Eight years ago, he personally selected this person from the Northern Army, personally handed him the map, and personally sent him on his way.
Back then, Zhao Laosi wasn't called "Tie" yet; he was called Zhao Tiezhu, a blacksmith in the Northern Army. He was thirty years old, a second-rank martial artist, taciturn, and inconspicuous, like a stone you could pick up anywhere by the roadside.
He chose him because he was unremarkable.
Only those who are inconspicuous live the longest, and only those who live the longest can accomplish great things.
But he didn't expect that this unremarkable stone was as hard as granite in the northern mountains.
Eight years of infiltration, a three-thousand-mile escape, a body full of wounds, half-dead, yet he persevered to this point and managed to deliver the message to him.
Sikong Xuan's Adam's apple bobbed.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but it felt like something was stuck in his throat, and he couldn't squeeze out a single word.
Xu Longxiang finally moved.
He slowly stood up.
He lowered his head, looking at Zhao Laosi kneeling in front of him.
His lips parted slightly, then closed. Then they parted again, then closed again.
"Liu Hongyan..." he began, his voice hoarse as if it were being dug out from the depths of his throat.
He only managed to say those three words before he couldn't say anything more.
He turned around, his back to everyone.
His hands were braced against the window frame, his knuckles were white, and the veins on the back of his hands were bulging.
Outside the window was the vast, dark night of the North, where neither stars nor the moon could be seen.
"Pass on the order."
Xu Longxiang spoke, his voice hoarse like rusty iron.
Sikong Xuan leaned forward slightly.
Xu Longxiang's gaze fell on Zhao Laosi.
"Take him away, find the best military doctor, and use the best medicine."
Zhao Laosi's lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to say something.
Xu Longxiang did not give him a chance.
"To live is an order."
Zhao Laosi's tears finally flowed.
He knelt there, his forehead touching the ground, his shoulders trembling violently.
A guard stepped forward and bent down to support his arm.
He helped him up from the ground. Zhao Laosi's legs could no longer support his body, and he leaned against the guard like a tree broken by a storm.
As he reached the door, Zhao Laosi suddenly turned around.
He watched the prince's retreating figure, his lips slightly parted.
"Your Highness, take care."
Then he turned his head and disappeared into the night outside the door.
The hall returned to silence.
Sikong Xuan stood still, motionless.
The hem of the gray robe remained perfectly still; only his deep-set eyes narrowed slightly in the candlelight.
He stared at Xu Longxiang's retreating figure for a long time.
Then he spoke, his voice flat.
"Your Highness, this old minister has something to say, but I'm not sure if I should."
Xu Longxiang did not turn around.
"speak."
Sikong Xuan took a deep breath.
"Liu Hongyan has served His Highness for many years. She is exceptionally capable and meticulous, not someone who can be easily bribed. Her betrayal this time may not be a genuine act of loyalty to the Great Qin; perhaps..."
He didn't continue.
Because Xu Longxiang suddenly laughed.
"Perhaps what?" He turned around and looked at Sikong Xuan.
"Perhaps she was forced? Perhaps she was enduring humiliation? Perhaps she had her own reasons?"
His voice remained calm, yet every word was like a sharp blade tempered with ice.
"She stabbed Zhao Laosi with her own hands."
"I will personally ambush and kill him."
"I personally uprooted the intelligence network that the Northern Border had been cultivating in Liyang for many years."
"Father, tell me, what kind of hardship could have driven her to do these things?"
Sikong Xuan remained silent.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but couldn't utter a single word.
Xu Longxiang turned around and looked out the window again.
The nights in the North are long, the winds are strong, and you can't see the stars or the moon.
There was only endless blackness, like his heart at that moment.
"Order the entire Northern Army to be on high alert."
He spoke, his voice soft and flat, like an undercurrent beneath the ice.
"All spies stationed outside the borders are to be withdrawn to the northern frontier. All checkpoints are to be thoroughly inspected. All patrols are to be doubled."
Sikong Xuan's pupils contracted slightly.
"Your Highness, what is this about...?"
"Prepare for battle," Xu Longxiang interrupted him.
"Liyang is gone, and the Great Qin will arrive soon."
"We cannot wait to die."
Sikong Xuan remained silent.
He stood there, the hem of his gray robe motionless, only his deep-set eyes churning with turbulent emotions.
Then he bowed deeply.
"Your humble servant obeys."
He turned around and walked out of the hall.
He stopped at the door without turning around.
"Your Highness, I have examined Zhao Laosi's injuries."
"The wound on my left shoulder has become infected, the wound under my ribs keeps reopening, and the two cuts on my back almost hit my spine."
"He risked his life to get this far."
He didn't say anything more.
He pushed open the door and went out.
Inside the hall, only Xu Longxiang remained.
He stood by the window, gazing at the vast, desolate nightscape of the North.
The wind blew in through the cracks in the window, ruffling the stray hairs at his temples and his dark python robe.
He stood there, like a silent statue.
a long time.
After a while, one of the candles on the bronze lampstand burned out. The flame flickered one last time inside the lampshade and then went out with a "hiss," dimming the light in the hall.
The maid quietly replaced the candles and withdrew, keeping her breathing as low as possible.
The flame of the new candle flickered a few times inside the lampshade before settling down.
The orange-red light once again filled the hall, illuminating the dark figure standing by the window in a half-light, half-shadow.
Xu Longxiang's gaze fell on the vast darkness outside the window, but his eyes saw nothing.
There was only one image in his mind.
The little girl with her hair in a bun and wearing a blue cloth dress stood under the porch, looking up at the plaque that read "Zhenyue Hall".
She said she could learn.
When she said this, her eyes were bright, as bright as stars in a winter night in the North.
That was ten years ago.
At that time, Liu Hongyan was only fifteen years old, as thin as a bean sprout, and her face still had some baby fat.
When she was brought to the Prince of Zhenbei's mansion, she was wearing a faded blue cloth dress with short sleeves that revealed a section of her thin wrist.
There is a scar on my wrist from a burn I got when I was a child. It has faded, but you can still see it if you look closely.
She stood under the porch, looking up at the plaque for a long time.
Then she looked down and saw him.
She wasn't afraid of him.
This was Xu Longxiang's first impression of her.
He was seventeen years old at that time, and had been training in the Northern Army for two years. He carried with him the indelible killing intent brought back from the battlefield.
The servants in the mansion would lower their heads and walk around him when they saw him, and the new staff members would stutter when they first met him.
But she wasn't afraid.
She stood there, looking up at him, her eyes shining like stars in a northern winter night.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Liu Hongyan," she said.
The sound is crisp and pleasant to hear.
How old are you?
"fifteen."
"What can I do?"
She thought for a moment and said, "I can learn."
He made her learn it.
She learns very quickly.
Learn to read ledgers, learn to analyze intelligence, learn to navigate the complex factions in the North, and learn to remain impeccably discreet in front of those old foxes.
She was like a dried-out sponge thrown into water, desperately absorbing and growing.
When she was sixteen, he took her to an official banquet in the North for the first time.
She wore a lake-blue brocade dress, her hair was styled in a cloud-like bun, and she wore a jade hairpin.
The clothes were made by the best tailor in the mansion, made of brocade from Jiangnan, embroidered with silver thread in the shape of intertwined branches, which would shimmer in the candlelight.
She stood behind him, hands at her sides, her posture submissive.
But when the officials from the North turned their gaze toward her, she looked up and smiled slightly.
That smile astonished everyone present.
Liu Hongyan's beauty is the kind of beauty unique to women from the North, with a touch of heroism.
There is a natural sharpness in his eyes, like an unsharpened knife. You know it can hurt, but you don't know when it will hurt, how deep it will hurt, or who it will hurt.
But what makes her most captivating is not her beauty, but her sense of propriety.
She knew where she should stand. Half a step away from him, neither too close nor too far.
She knew what she should say and what she shouldn't say.
When she needed to speak, her words were always perfectly timed.
She knows who she should look at and who she shouldn't look at.
Her gaze was always slightly lowered, but when she needed to look at someone, the way she raised her eyes and her gaze shifted was enough to leave a fifty-year-old high-ranking official stunned.
After that night, a name began to circulate in the officialdom of the Northern Frontier: Liu Hongyan.
Those who have seen her say that the woman beside the Crown Prince is no ordinary person.
Those who had never seen her said, "What could be so extraordinary about a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl?"
People who have met her laugh and say, "Go and meet her, you'll see."
Later, she displayed exceptional martial arts talent, growing stronger and stronger, and did many things for him.
Xu Longxiang remembers,
In Jiangnan, there was a salt merchant named Shen Wanlin who controlled 30% of the salt transport in the northern border region.
This man is very good at business and also very good at interpersonal relationships. He never skimps on the tributes he gives to the Northern Territory every year, and during festivals, the gift list is always the first one sent to the royal palace.
But he also had a flaw—greed.
He wasn't after the money from the North, he was after the salt.
He mixed smuggled salt into official salt, adding three ounces to one pound, and half a pound to three ounces. The more he mixed, the more he embezzled.
He caused the price of salt in the North to fluctuate wildly, leading to widespread discontent among the people and endless complaints from merchants.
When Xu Longxiang received the secret report, he frowned all night.
This person cannot be killed.
Kill him, and the salt transport from the North will be cut off.
But we can't just not do it.
If we don't do it, he will only become more and more greedy, and the more greedy he becomes, the more ruthless he will be.
He summoned Liu Hongyan and presented her with the secret report.
She smiled after reading it.
"Your Highness, leave this matter to me."
She went to Jiangnan.
He brought no soldiers, no swords, only a maid and a coachman.
She wore a pomegranate red dress, as intense as a ball of fire, with her hair tied up in a high bun and adorned with a gold hairpin. As she walked, the hairpin swayed gently by her ear, making people's eyes burn with desire.
She sat across from Shen Wanlin, crossed her legs, drank tea, and talked to him about business.
They talked about the price of salt in the North, the profits of government-run salt, and the risks of smuggled salt.
Her voice was unhurried, with a soft and gentle quality unique to women from Jiangnan, like glutinous rice candy slowly melting on the tip of the tongue.
But inside that candy was a knife.
"Boss Shen, do you know what His Highness the Crown Prince hates the most?" she suddenly asked.
Shen Wanlin's smile froze for a moment.
"What I hate most is... infidelity."
"Infidelity." She repeated the two words, her voice still soft and sweet, but those two words sounded like two red-hot irons to Shen Wanlin's ears.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead.
Liu Hongyan put down her teacup, stood up, and walked to him.
She leaned slightly closer, her voice so low that only the two of them could hear it.
"Boss Shen, don't worry. His Highness said that you are an old friend of the Northern Border. If an old friend makes a mistake, he can correct it. Once he corrects it, he is still a friend."
She straightened up, took a step back, and the smile on her lips deepened.
"Mr. Shen, don't you agree?"
Sweat dripped from Shen Wanlin's forehead, landing in the teacup in front of him and creating a small ripple.
He repeatedly said, "Yes, yes, yes."
From that day on, not a single pound of smuggled salt remained in the official salt collection system.
Not only did he not lower the price of salt, he also voluntarily reduced the price by 20%, saying that he was "doing his part for the people of the North."
When Liu Hongyan returned to report, Xu Longxiang was sitting in Zhenyue Hall looking at a map.
She stood before him, hands at her sides, her posture submissive.
He looked up and glanced at her.
"Thanks for your hard work."
She smiled.
"It's no trouble at all. It's my honor to be able to share Your Highness's burdens."
The smile was light and faint, but in Xu Longxiang's eyes, it reminded him of the little girl who stood under the porch many years ago, looking up at the plaque.
She smiled then, her eyes curving into two crescent moons, filled with a clear, bright light unique to the snowy plains of the North.
Sometimes he would think that once he had accomplished his great task, once he had pulled that tyrannical emperor off the throne, once no one in the world could threaten the northern border, he would give her a proper title.
She wasn't an advisor, nor a subordinate; she was Xu Longxiang's woman.
He would build her a courtyard behind the Prince of Zhenbei's mansion, filled with her favorite plum blossoms, so that she would no longer have to travel, scheme, or shield him from open and hidden attacks.
All she needs to do is stand there and smile.
He never told her about this idea.
He felt there was no rush; he would wait until the great undertaking was accomplished before making any decisions.
It would be more meaningful to talk about it after he sits in that position and she witnesses him ruling the world.
But he didn't live to see that day.
Xu Longxiang's mind flashed again to the image of Zhao Laosi kneeling in front of him, covered in wounds and mud.
Then, looking at him with eyes that had been stung by the fire for half their lives, they said,
Liu Hongyan betrayed us...
They betrayed us...
Why...
Why?
Why?!