CH 60

“After being ordered by shaoye and the Prince to go there, it was already late evening so today, I woke up early, got dressed, picked up my basket and then hid by Yuan Manor’s back door, waiting for their servants to come out to go to the market to run errands. When I saw them come out, I followed them from a distance. When I saw an opportunity, I approached to strike up a conversation, can you guess….. Owwww!”

Zhao Ji was narrating like a storyteller in a teahouse, and was getting quite worked up and in high spirits, when Zhao Su suddenly hit him on the head: “Stop exaggerating and tell us properly!”

Everyone laughed, even the Prince of Yu was unable to resist.

“Shaoyong, I think your pageboy is quite interesting, just let him speak!”

After receiving the Prince of Yu’s recognition, Zhao Ji was even more enthusiastic. “I pretended to be one of the servants of an imperial official of the court, to throw him off the scent, but instead, he ended up trying to curry favour with me. I chatted with him about the day to day errands in his household, and he wasn’t suspicious of me at all, and even laid out his grievances to me. He said that, these last few years, his master’s health wasn’t too good, which meant he was also in a bad mood. The servants of the manor had suffered a lot as he took it out on them, luckily, the last few days, their master was not at the manor and everyone was feeling quite relieved.”

“Yuan Wei was not at home?” Chen Yiqin asked.

Zhao Ji nodded: “So I asked him where his master was, he said he didn’t know, and he had just seen that a few days ago, his master had rushed out and had still not come home.”

“Zhao Su said: “This is already quite good to be able to get so much information from a servant. I doubt he’d be able to know much more.”

The Prince of Yu was anxious: “That means our suspicions were correct, Yuan Wei is not at home, that means he’s probably with my brother. Now, there’s absolutely no contact with the palace, who knows, he’s probably, probably……. ahhhh!”

Chen Yiqin said: “We must immediately find a way to make contact with the palace, so that we can know what is going on, otherwise, when they come knocking at the gate, it’ll already be too late.”

“My Prince, you are mistaken. Qi Jiguang is not attached to the Prince of Jing. It’s just that previously he had some dealings with the Yan faction. He just wanted to get some funds so that he could fight his wars, and he needed to pay his respects to the Yan faction, in case there was anyone who caused any trouble for him on the battlefield. Now the Yan faction has disintegrated, he was also implicated and lost his position, but he is not resentful at all. All he wishes is to return to garrison the borders. This person is a master of strategy, even Xu da-ren and Zhang da-ren have spoken highly of him.”

Prince of Yu was not totally convinced: “Truly?”

Chen Yiqin said: “I’ve also heard of him. Taiyue2 and Shaoyong often go over to visit Qi Jiguang, and have a close friendship with him. Taiyue is Secretary Xu’s most trusted student, so Secretary Xu must have tacitly agreed to it.”

Zhao Su: “That’s correct. If the Prince enters the Palace, I will follow. I will also ask Qi Jiguang for a few personal guards to bring with us. At the moment, the Palace is trying to keep something under wraps, there must be something that has not yet been realised. They won’t try to make it too difficult for you, my Prince. Qi Jiguang’s guards are also war heroes who have climbed out of pits of hell. There’s nothing further to add, the Prince’s safety will not be called into question.”

Chen Yiqin looked pensively for a moment and then replied: “Shaoyong, what you mean to say is, the Prince of Yu should personally enter the Palace to find out what is happening and then he must get the word out to us so that we can gather forces on the outside?”

“Correct.”

Chen Yiqin frowned: “There’s a problem, I am a Civil Official. I am unable to command the Warden’s Office and the Embroidered Guards.”

Zhao Su also laughed, when no one was watching, Zhu Yijun had secretly stuck his tongue at him.

“I heard everything that you were saying from outside.” When Zhu Yijun smiled, his face would reveal dimples which were unbelievably adorable. “Teacher and father will enter the Palace. I will go with the two tutors to seek Qi Jiguang, and following that, I will go with Qi Jiguang to seek the Commander of the Embroidered Guard, Liu Shouyou6 to ready the troops. As soon as we hear from you, we will immediately make a move.”