CH 33

He told this to his two uncles, firstly because he wanted to ask them for help. Yuan Jiangxing had some private soldiers under his command; though not many, but they could be of use in critical times, and they had been on the frontier and had never shown their faces in the capital. Yuan Jiangwen had been doing business all around the world for a long time, so when they escaped from the capital, they could dress up as a merchant family and follow the caravan. It would be a disguise to prevent someone from recognising them.

Secondly, it was to let his uncles prepare and make arrangements in advance so that the Yuan family could be safe and would not be implicated.

“I will definitely help!” Yuan Jiangxing slapped the table and said excitedly, “I don’t want to guard the frontier for this emperor, and he can’t control me all these years anyway!”

Yuan Jiangwen touched his moustache, and there was no worry on his face: “My business is in the south, the sky is high and the emperor is far away. The capital’s hands can’t reach that long. At that time, I will take you and Wanyun to Jiangnan and buy a big house by the river. You can watch the flowers every day, it is much more enjoyable than here.”

Fu Zhiyu was relieved when he heard such a promise, bowed his head and then explained some things to the two of them.

What he was talking about now was basically the details. Fu Zhiyu had no idea about the next step yet. It mainly depended on how Fu Rongye handled the imperial examination fraud case, and whether Shen Yang, an unstable factor, would do something to make the whole thing deviate from his expectations.

“Okay, if there’s anything else we can do in the future, just let us know.” Yuan Jiangwen thought for a while and then added, “I will leave a few carrier pigeons at home, they will find their own way, and their speed is also very fast. After the letter is delivered to my house in Jiangnan, someone will notify me quickly, and then I will find a way to notify Big Brother.”

The conversation went smoothly. Afterwards, the three of them looked as if nothing had happened.

But in the afternoon, Yuan Jiangwen and Yuan Jiangxing were obviously in a much better mood. Even Old Mrs. Yuan wondered what a good thing happened to them. Even the huge amount of meat on the table was eaten cleanly by the two of them while drinking.

After dinner, Fu Zhiyu was about to leave. Before he left, he didn’t forget to hand the two uncles a box of medicine.

The two opened it and saw that there were some small black pills in the jade box, smelling of medicinal herbs faintly.

“What is this?” Yuan Jiangwen asked, “I am in good health, I don’t need to take medicine.”

In fact, it was made from a mixture of Fu Zhiyu’s blood, with the addition of some mild qi-supplementing herbs with no side effects to cover it up. Both uncles travelled far, and food like pine nut candies could easily get spoiled, so Fu Zhiyu thought about it and made these pills, easy to carry and easy to store.

“It was prepared by Dr. Chen. It’s good for your health. Just one pill a month,” Fu Zhiyu explained. The concentration of this pill was higher than pine nut candies; there was no need to take it every day. “Moreover, the aunts, Yuan Xi and Yuan Lu can also take it.”

When they heard that it was the handiwork of Dr. Chen in the palace, both uncles were relieved and immediately agreed to take the pills on time.

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The carriage gradually moved in the direction of the palace, but the smile on Yuan Mingdao’s face had not dissipated. He dug into his sleeve, fished out two small cloth bags and handed them to Fu Zhiyu like a treasure.

“What is this again?”

Fu Zhiyu opened them and saw that one cloth bag contained beef jerky and the other contained some black candy.

“That little fool Yuan Lu stuffed them to me,” Yuan Mingdao said with a smile. “It was brought to him by his father from a business trip. The quantity was not large and he ate little by little every day. When he gave it to me, he almost cried again. He also repeatedly told me that I have to think of him when I eat these things, not forget him after he leaves the capital and be nice to him in the future.”

Fu Zhiyu took a small piece of beef jerky and put it in his mouth. It had a different taste from the things in the capital. A layer of chilli was sprinkled on it. The taste of air-dried meat was blended with a special spicy flavour. It was indeed delicious. Chilli was still rare in the capital. Fu Zhiyu had heard that it was eaten more in Sichuan.

As for the black candy, it tasted a little bitter but felt sweet after a while, and there was also a special rich fragrance.

“This is cocoa candy,” Yuan Mingdao explained seriously. “It is said to come from the West.”

Fu Zhiyu took a bite and asked Yuan Mingdao to put it away. Since Yuan Lu gave Mingdao these special treats, he couldn’t be greedy and eat too much.

It was important to respect the friendship between children.

Yuan Mingdao called Yuan Lu the little fool, but he cherished the things the little fool gave him and put them in the most intimate place.

“By the way,” Yuan Mingdao remembered suddenly, “Master, do you want to take Consort Yun out of the palace? What do you plan to do?”

Fu Zhiyu said: “It’s actually simple, as long as you have the courage, come back in time, and aren’t discovered in the process. I plan to choose the evening after tomorrow. The emperor will host a banquet in the palace. This is the time when the generals stationed in various places return to the capital for debriefing. Hosting a banquet is a tradition. The elder uncle has nothing to do with these people. He didn’t want to join in the fun anyway, so he had already told the emperor that after he returned to the capital, he had a hard time acclimatising and took a leave of absence. The emperor granted it.

The banquet will take a long time, and the generals will drink at least until midnight. Most of the guards in the palace will be there. At that time, no one will pay attention to Liuli Palace.”

“But what about the inspection by the palace guards?”

Fu Zhiyu said, “I have a way.”

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The inspection of the palace guards was actually a trivial matter. The most important thing was for no one to find any abnormality in Liuli Palace. Aside from the emperor, there were spies placed in the palace and they were the problem.

He told Consort Yun about it the next day. Although she was happy, she was still worried: “Will it really not be a problem?”

Fu Zhiyu comforted: “Don’t worry, I have been out of the palace a lot during this period of time. Palace guards don’t check Wang Zhao’s carriage much. They naturally treat different people differently.”

“But lifting the curtain is inevitable, right?”

Fu Zhiyu put down the cup of tea in his hand calmly and smiled faintly, “The largest carriage in the palace has a hidden compartment.”

“I know,” Consort Yun was still puzzled. “That’s not a big secret, quite a few people know about it. But the secret compartment is very small. It’s impossible for the palace carriage to have a big hidden compartment. If I were six years old, maybe I would be able to stuff it in.”

“Well, so we need to find something to cover it.”

When Emperor Qingyuan came to Liuli Palace at noon, Fu Zhiyu mentioned this matter to him.

“… When I went to the Yuan residence yesterday, I was stunned. They are eating and sleeping in the open in the frontier. Yuan Xi is a young woman with calluses on her hands, not to mention General Yuan,” Fu Zhiyu sighed, his face full of sorrow, as if he had seen something in the Yuan residence that shocked the world and made ghosts and spirits weep. “Yuan Lu’s family is even worse, the merchants are already lowly, for a little money, they run around all the time. The man is so skinny; at least he is the elder brother of Mother Consort, how can he live in such misery?”

Consort Yun also took out her handkerchief in time and wiped the corners of her eyes.

Of course, that was all Fu Zhiyu’s nonsense. The two uncles, one thin and the other sturdy, were born this way. The calluses on Yuan Xi’s hands were from her martial arts practice and had nothing to do with the life of misery.

But the emperor was very happy after listening to it, especially the section about Yuan Jiangxing. He originally came to Liuli Palace to say hello at noon today and leave, not planning to stay for too long, but now he was interested.

“It’s true that the land there is too hard to live in,” Emperor Qingyuan listened with pleasure and his mood improved. “What does Xiao Jiu want?”

Fu Zhiyu took a step forward and said, “General Yuan will set off for the frontier in the afternoon of the day after tomorrow. I want to give him some rewards. This girl Yuan Xi doesn’t even have any beads on her head. How can she marry in the future? It’s really detrimental to the imperial face!”

“Reward them, reward them,” Emperor Qingyuan, happy to hear it, waved his hand. The last thing he lacked was these material things. The warehouses in the palace were piled up and there was no place to store everything. “Go to the warehouse and take a look. Whatever furnishings and accessories, jewellery and silk you want, go pick some.”

“Many thanks to Father Emperor.”

Fu Zhiyu took the imperial order to pick things and picked the large ones. There were several celadon vases that seemed to be just waiting for him.

The emperor was very satisfied when he saw the list. He felt that Fu Zhiyu was foolish enough to pick just right, just the way he wanted it. He picked these things that looked gorgeous and dignified, but were actually of no great use, and there was no special benefit to them except for taking up space.

Many things were also fragile. Fu Zhiyu took time to choose the things and in the evening of the next day they were loaded into the carriage one by one. Fu Zhiyu kept talking about being very anxious; General Yuan would leave tomorrow, so he only had this night to deliver them.

He used the largest carriage in the palace with great fanfare, and even piled some of the most valuable things into his own carriage, followed by several carts, making the whole procession so cumbersome that people in the palace had to avoid it when seeing it.

The palace guards naturally knew about it, and knew that Wang Zhao had the emperor’s order to deliver some things to the Yuan residence. During the routine inspection, as soon as they lifted the curtain, they saw the folded pieces of clothes. The pieces were shining brightly, and the guards didn’t dare to touch them.

There were also shelves above the clothes, with some accessories, as well as some fragile purple clay pots, cup holders and the like. They were all excellent items from the palace. The palace guards didn’t dare to make a sound, took a look and let the carriage pass.

In addition to these things in the carriage, there was obviously only Wang Zhao alone. Besides, Wang Zhao had been out of the palace many times recently, and the guards had become accustomed to it. The identity of the Wang originally meant that Fu Zhiyu was free to enter and exit the palace, not to mention this time there was the emperor’s order. The inspection was naturally much more relaxed than at other times, and the guards were also afraid of offending the most favoured person in the palace.

After the guards let the carriage pass, they heard Wang Zhao giving orders from inside the carriage: “Be careful with the boxes at the back, don’t bump them. If one is broken, you’ll be responsible!”

Inside the carriage, half of Consort Yun’s body shrank in the dark compartment and the other half exposed outside was covered by the boxes and the piles of clothes. At a glance, it was indeed impossible to notice that there was another person inside.

After leaving the palace, Fu Zhiyu hurriedly pulled his mother out. In order not to be discovered, Consort Yun wore a thin coarse cloth dress without any beads and embroidery. She looked like an ordinary maidservant. She was curled up, looking really uncomfortable.

“It’s all right,” Consort Yun’s forehead was sweaty, she was nervous and stuffy, but her face was excited, “I, I’m finally out, finally…”

She wanted to look at the street outside, but held back her hand and didn’t dare to lift the curtain.

While wiping her sweat, Fu Zhiyu admonished: “It’s just that you can’t stay for too long. The time you can spend out of the palace is at most one hour. Even if the emperor’s banquet goes on till the middle of the night, there are many people watching Liuli Palace. What’s more, there is the Crown Prince’s spy in the palace. Even if Caiyan does her best to prevent it, it’s hard to guarantee that there will be no omissions. If something really goes wrong, it will be too late to remedy it.”

Consort Yun nodded quickly, indicating that she knew.

When the caravan of rewards arrived at the Yuan residence, everyone in the family came out to welcome it, a necessary courtesy.

The scene was chaotic as boxes of things were handed over in a flow, and now that it was completely dark, no one noticed a maid walk in through the Yuan residence’s side door.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t participate in the meeting between his mother and the two uncles. He knew that it was not appropriate for him to disturb them at this time, so he just waited outside, looking up and counting the stars above his head.

His mother had been protected by her two brothers since she was a child. When she married Fu Qingyan, the two of them were very dissatisfied. They didn’t expect their premonition to be a prophecy that would really come true.

The elder uncle could do such a thing as beating the emperor, and the younger uncle was not much better. During the period when Yuan Wanyun first entered the palace and had a bad time, he used to bribe the servants in the palace so that her situation could be at least a little better. Even Dr. Chen had become Consort Yun’s man because of Yuan Jiangwen’s connections.

This was why Fu Zhiyu dared to tell them all these things.

When his mother came out, there were tears on her face, but her expression was obviously happy.

“I’m leaving,” she said, taking the hands of her two brothers and making a solemn promise, “But the future is long, and we will still have the opportunity to be together afterwards. Then we won’t have to risk losing our heads to see each other.”