CH 103

The moment she looked up, she ran through the events in her head.

This kidnapping seemed to be done in one go, but in fact it was not easy, and it was not something that any of Lu Shi Qing’s ordinary political enemies could do. From the very beginning, she only thought of two possibilities: one was Ping Prince, and the other was Xi Ju.

Judging from the whole incident, the other party must have been planning for a long time, it was not a day’s work.

First of all, Yuan Ci Xian gave birth ahead of schedule, but the child who was used to be swapped seemed to be born around the same time, and the difference was hardly more than one day. This was by no means something that could be arranged properly in a hurry. Which means, it was very likely that the other party had gathered several women who were close to her pregnancy from all over the place, and placed them in the capital in advance to wait for orders.

Secondly, that secret passage was basically Lu Shi Qing and Zheng Zhuo’s lifeline. After Lu Shi Qing left the capital, this passage had never been used again, and Xu Mansion was more tightly guarded than usual. To say that it was exposed recently was really unbelievable. So Yuan Ci Xian thought, afraid that the secret passage had been discovered earlier.

And from this point alone, it could be concluded that the initiator of this plan was not Ping Prince, but Xi Ju.

Because when the secret passage was exposed, it meant that the identity of “Xu Shan” was also exposed. Once Ping Prince found out about this, he would not use it to kidnap people at all, but he would stop targeting Cai He and instead chased Lu Shi Qing fiercely, or revealed the existence of this secret passage to Emperor Huining.

But Xi Ju’s standpoint was different. After learning about Lu Shi Qing’s connection with Xu Shan, his first reaction was not to expose it to the world. He did cooperate with Ping Prince, but it was impossible to be his forever friend. It was a good thing for Nanzhao to let Zheng Zhuo and Lu Shi Qing to continue fighting with him and let consume each other.

Therefore, he chose not to tell Ping Prince or Emperor Huining about the secret passage, but secretly planned to kidnap people.

But this plan, he alone would not work.

From kidnapping people to dividing troops into four groups, all the actions took place in the second half of the night. At that time, the gates of Chang’an City were closed, and if several warrant to leave the city were not prepared in advance, it would not have been possible. However, he, a Nanzhao prince, could not get such things as going out of the city warrant, so he had to rely on Ping Prince.

Therefore, Xi Ju found Ping Prince in advance and persuaded him to help him complete the follow-up plan of sending people out of the city.

However, Ping Prince would not take risks for some unprofitable things, so why did he agree to this? Compared to Xi Ju, his purpose was relatively simpler, that was, to use Yuan Ci Xian’s mother and son as bait to take Lu Shi Qing’s life.

He may not be aware of Xu Shan’s link, but after so many years, it was impossible for him to be unaware of Lu Shi Qing’s needle-like manipulation of the court, and his existence as an obstacle to his succession.

What could not be used should be destroyed. After Lu Shi Qing was sent as an envoy to Nanzhao and Huihu one after another, and his momentum became more and more powerful, he felt even more threatened, so it was not incomprehensible to use Xi Ju’s power to get rid of him quickly.

Yuan Ci Xian’s train of thought was very clear until this step, but when Lu Shi Qing said the phrase “Kill the old king of Nanzhao”, she found that her thought was still lacking.

She began to think that since her and Shaohe’s pregnancy were so close, Xi Ju might want to send her child to Chang’an as the so-called “hostage prince”. Then she and Lu Shi Qing could see the child so close at hand, but could not be reunited with him. They would feel anxious every day, and even for the safety of the child, they would do anything for Nanzhao at the critical moment.

But now it seemed that Xi Ju knew that Lu Shi Qing was not a mediocre person, it was already reaching the limit to lose his beloved son by accident, and it was impossible to continue to let Nanzhao do whatever they wanted. So although the plan was perfect, it was actually very difficult to realize.

Therefore, since he knew that this plan would most likely come to nothing, why did he insist on taking so much trouble?

Yuan Ci Xian thought that it was because, even if the plan failed, Xi Ju was still profitable.

The child’s whereabouts were unknown, Lu Shi Qing intended to find Lu Yuan Zhen in the shortest possible time, and the only way was to let the “hostage prince” enter the capital as soon as possible. So he had two things to do: first, assassinate the old king of Nanzhao, so that Xi Ju could ascend the throne as soon as possible; second, transfer the child back before he arrive in Chang’an.

And these two things were within Xi Ju’s calculation.

Let start with the first one.

Ever since Xi Ju went to Great Zhao as an envoy and reached a peace agreement with the imperial court, he had the upper hand in the battle with his second brother, and his momentum had been flourishing for more than half a year. But if the old king did not die for a day, he would not be able to ascend to the throne for a day. In order to avoid long nights brings many dreams, he had already thought of killing his father.

It was just that this thing was too risky. He could kill the old king, but it was difficult to ensure that no one would notice it, and that it would not leave any clues behind. It was inevitable that the political situation would be unstable when he first ascended the throne. If someone took this opportunity to rebel on the grounds that he killed his father and usurped the throne, he would have been done everything in vain.

Therefore, the more ideal situation was: he doesn’t do it himself, but deliberately neglect the defense of the palace and let others kill him. It would be even better if the murderer happened to be a member of the power center of Great Zhou.

Let’s talk about the second one.

No matter whether Shaohe’s pregnancy was true or not, it was certain that Xi Ju never planned to send his biological child to Great Zhou. Long before he deliberately released the news about Shaohe’s pregnancy, he had already arranged a suitable candidate in Nanzhao to give birth to the so-called “hostage prince”.

Only later, when Yuan Ci Xian also became pregnant at about the same time, did he think of this “better” plan.

But fooling Emperor Huining with a fake child was just risky.

Xi Ju could not guarantee when Great Zhou would notice his scheme, nor could he guarantee that when Da Zhou notice the scheme, whether he had already secured the throne and whether he no longer need their support. In order to add a guarantee for the unpredictable future, it was best to design a “swapping” incident to shirk responsibility.

When the matter was exposed, he could insist that the child he sent was real, but was transferred by Lu Shi Qing halfway, and he could even turn the table and ask Great Zhou to return the child to him.

Lu Shi Qing could see Xi Ju’s motives clearly. But this was an overt plot. For the sake of the child, he must do these two things.

After figuring out these links, Yuan Ci Xian couldn’t help but wrap her arms around him worriedly.

But Lu Shi Qing smiled: “How can there be such a cheap deal in this world, all the benefits are given to him alone? My knife is already on the neck of Nanzhao’s old king. If I really killed him, wouldn’t it be too stupid? ”

Yuan Ci Xian’s eyes flickered for a moment, she stopped her tears and said: “You mean…”

“Fake death.” He blinked lightly, “Father-in-law will tell him to come back to life at the most exciting time.”

That night, after listening to Lu Shi Qing’s detailed account of the incident, Yuan Ci Xian knew that her father had “assassinated” the old king of Nanzhao twenty or so days ago, and had stolen his “corpse” for another day. So in fact, Xi Ju had already ascended to the throne at this time, and sent his “son” out of Nanzhao, but she didn’t know about these things because she stayed in the house for confinement.

But Xi Ju, in order to avoid any trouble, did not take Lu Yuan Zhen to Nanzhao after kidnapping him, but hid him in Great Zhou, and carried him into the carriage after the team that sent the hostage prince to the capital passed by.

Therefore, the child did not suffer the long journey.

It was also at this time that Yuan Ci Xian finally understood why Lu Shi Qing named the child “Zhen”. At first, she always thought that he took the word “Zhen” to mean “complete”, and hoped that her son would be able to excel in both civil and martial arts in the future. But it wasn’t.

The word “Zhen” first had the meaning of “coming” before it was derived as “complete”.

He was looking forward to his child’s return as soon as possible.

The reason why he didn’t hold the Winding Stream banquet or the full month banquet was because he didn’t want others to have a chance to see the child who replaced Yuan Zhen, he didn’t want to cause any criticism to Yuan Zhen, and he didn’t want anything that belong to Yuan Zhen to fall into the hands of others.

Lu Shi Qing looked so cold and calm, but he was a father who protected his cub to the extreme.

Two years ago, Yuan Ci Xian would never have believed such an incredible thing.

Lu Shi Qing didn’t break his promise, saying three days then it would be three days.

Three days later at dusk, Yuan Ci Xian was standing in front of the mansion gate like husband-watching rock, waiting for him to finally get down from the carriage with a bright yellow swaddle in his arms, and a baby boy was sleeping in the swaddle.

She rushed forward, and the moment she saw the child, her heart felt agitated and she almost burst into tears.

Lu Shi Qing held the baby in one arm, and walked inside with her in the other: “Don’t cry, it’s a waste of water, didn’t you always want to feed Yuan Zhen? Come on, let you feed enough.”

Yuan Ci Xian originally wanted to cry, but she laughed when he said this, then twisted his waist fiercely.

The couple still didn’t know how to tell Xuan shi about this matter, so they secretly carried the sleeping Lu Yuan Zhen into the bedroom like thieves. They invited the doctor to confirm that he was in good health, and that he had eaten and drank well these days, only then they could rest assured.

When the doctor left, Yuan Ci Xian remembered Lu Shi Qing’s reminder, and the long-standing desire in her heart became more and more intense, and she urgently wanted to breastfeed Yuan Zhen.

In fact, she had a lot of milk. At the beginning, when Lu Shi Qing said that her body was weak and did not have enough milk, he was bluffing. If it weren’t for Yuan Shu’s small size but her amazing appetite, and she would come to sip her every hour, Yuan Ci Xian might be driven crazy by her excess breast milk.

But even so, there were several times when her breasts became unbearable. At that time, she had vaguely guessed that the child was not Yuan Zhen, so she didn’t propose to feed him the extra milk, thinking about squeezing it out by herself.

It was just that Lu Shi Qing never left her side every day, and whenever she felt uncomfortable, he would notice it, so naturally he wouldn’t let her do the work herself, and sincerely came to help. At first, he used his hands, but then thought it was a waste, so he changed to his mouth.

Yuan Ci Xian looked back and thought about it, this father really robbed his son of food for a month.

Now that Yuan Zhen was back, she wanted to make it up to him.

Yuan Ci Xian pulled open the front of her clothes, picked up the baby who had just woken up familiarly, and prepared to feed him.

Lu Shi Qing was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her intently. Seeing his son turned his head and looked like he didn’t really want to eat, he thought for a while then said: “Maybe he’s full, let’s feed him later.” After finishing speaking, he added, “If you feel uncomfortable, I’ll help you first.”

Who the hell need his help.

Yuan Ci Xian threw a sharp gaze at him and insisted on trying to make Yuan Zhen suckle.

In fact she was not being domineering. But because her son was not by her side for a month since he was born, she was afraid that he would not be close to her.

She coaxed Yuan Zhen nervously for a long time, and finally saw the little guy turn his head to suck on her.

Yuan Ci Xian was overjoyed, and was about to flash a smile full of maternal brilliance, but unexpectedly, after he sucked her hard, he suddenly let go of his mouth and turned his head away.

With a “swish”, the milk splashed and shot straight at Lu Shi Qing’s face who was close at hand.

The instigator, Lu Yuan Zhen, evaded in time and was unscathed. He looked at his father, who has white foam all over his face, and then at his mother who was stunned in place, “giggling” heartily.

After a while, Lu Shi Qing wiped his face with his hand, swallowed, and said, “It’s definitely my son this time.”

Small theater:

Yuan Zhen: Borrowing milk to offer Buddha. Baba, do you like the meeting gift I gave you?