CH 64

Wei Su wanted to enter the tent but was stopped by the soldiers guarding it. They didn’t know who he was, nor did they know his status, so they didn’t allow him to come in.

In his eighteen years of life, Wei Su had never had the experience of not being able to go anywhere he wanted to, so it was a little refreshing. He didn’t get angry, he just raised his voice and called out, “Ah Qing!” The soldiers were only doing their duty, Ji Qing was the one who had brought him here without giving a clear explanation, so he should have been found to settle the score.

The two soldiers’ expressions changed a little when they heard it, but they knew their duties well enough to remain silent from beginning to end.

Immediately afterwards, the curtain of the tent was lifted and Ji Qing stood by the entrance, saying softly, “You can come in.”

Wei Su glanced at him and walked in. This was the tent where the commander lived, and it was large and tidy inside, divided into two rooms separated by a curtain, the outer room for work and the inner room for rest. Seeing that Ji Qing was walking straight in, Wei Su followed him.

In the inner room of the tent there was a bed, and a man was lying on it. Wei Su couldn’t see his face as the man had his back turned to him. But as soon as he entered the place, he smelled the strong smell of medicine and blood and couldn’t help but frown and ask, “Ah Qing, who is that?”

Ji Qing opened his mouth as if to say something but didn’t say anything after all. The man on the bed heard Wei Su’s voice and slowly turned around. He had a pale, sickly face that looked a bit like Ji Qing’s. He said slowly, “Your Majesty!”

Wei Su was stunned. He looked left and right, his eyes shifting back and forth between Ji Qing and that man, and after a long time he said, “What is going on here?” If you were someone familiar with Wei Su, you could hear from his seemingly calm tone that he was starting to get angry.

Seeing “Ji Qing” open his mouth to speak but hesitate to do so, the man on the bed sighed and tried to sit up. His hands were trembling so badly that he couldn’t support himself. “Ji Qing” immediately helped him up and said softly, “Big Brother, be careful.”

“Your Majesty, this subject is ill and couldn’t come to rescue. So I asked Ah Yang to go, ahem…” Halfway through speaking, the man suddenly coughed so badly that he couldn’t breathe. After a while the cough subsided and then he continued: “If Ah Yang was disrespectful, this subject…”

At this point, Wei Su couldn’t help but recognise that the sickly, bony man on the bed was Ji Qing, Wang Changning who was leading the army and guarding the northern border for the Great Yan. He waved his hand and motioned that the man didn’t need to say anything else, turned to “Ji Qing” and said, “Are you Ji Yang?”

Ji Yang pursed her lips and nodded earnestly with a death-defying expression. Wei Su let out a long sigh, suppressing the sudden surge of anger in his heart, and said in a deep voice, “So you are Xianyou County Lord. Why didn’t you deny it when I asked you earlier if you were Wang Changning?”

Ji Yang turned her head to look at Ji Qing, and seeing that her elder brother’s face was still calm, she raised her eyebrows and said, “If I had said I was Ji Yang, would Your Majesty still have come with me? You said in the letter you wrote to Big Brother that you never wanted to see me again in this life, and even if you did, you wouldn’t care about me…”

“You…” Wei Su was extremely angry, blocked by Ji Yang’s words so much that he couldn’t speak. He hated his clumsy eyes that failed to see that Ji Yang was a woman dressed as a man. He was even more angry that Ji Qing didn’t keep his promise and showed Ji Yang their correspondence. It was no wonder that Ji Yang didn’t show any flaws when they chatted on the road.

Ji Qing silently listened to the dialogue between the emperor and Ji Yang. At first, he didn’t say a word, but seeing the emperor’s expression showing displeasure, he immediately said: “Ah Yang, don’t be rude, ahem…” His sister was good in every way; just her temper, it was hopeless.

Ji Yang had never been afraid of the emperor, not before, and even less now. But as soon as she saw her elder brother coughing, her expression immediately changed and she said repeatedly, “I won’t say anything, I won’t say anything, Big Brother, don’t be angry, didn’t Senior Brother say you are absolutely not allowed to get angry?”

Wei Su couldn’t really say he was mad, he was actually more upset. After all, apart from that encounter in his childhood days, he and Ji Yang had no other grudges. However, in the past two days, the chasers and ambushers sent by the Empress Dowager were all top masters and without Ji Yang’s full protection, it would be impossible for him to come to Shuozhou Camp safely, let alone plan for the future. Seeing that Ji Qing’s condition was really bad, he couldn’t help but ask somewhat apologetically: “Ah Qing’s illness is the sequelae of that poisoning?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

The brother and sister spoke at the same time and gave completely opposite answers. Wei Su immediately understood the truth.

Ji Qing wanted to say something else when someone outside reported: “Master Wang, the medicine is here.”

Ji Yang went out and brought in the medicine. Ji Qing took the medicine bowl silently and drank the medicine.

Ji Yang took the empty bowl and said in a low voice, “Big Brother, you should rest. First I will tell His Majesty what we have discussed, and if he has doubts, it is not too late to talk to you again.” In order to be able to successfully welcome Wei Su, Ji Qing exhausted all his strength and couldn’t afford to persist anymore.

For the first time in his life, Wei Su stood on exactly the same footing as Ji Yang and agreed: “Xianyou County Lord is right. I will discuss with her and won’t bother Wang Changning. Just have a good rest! This is an imperial decree and cannot be disobeyed!”

Ji Qing didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, and said helplessly: “This subject obeys the decree, many thanks to Your Majesty for your grace.”

After leaving Ji Qing’s tent, Ji Yang took Wei Su to an empty and convenient place where they could talk, but for a while the two were speechless.

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After a long time, Wei Su asked solemnly, “Xianyou County Lord, tell me the truth, how is Ah Qing’s condition?” He and Ji Qing exchanged letters for many years, but Ji Qing had not mentioned a word about his health, so Wei Su had always assumed that he was still in a stable condition despite not being able to practise martial arts.

Ji Yang was silent for a moment and said somewhat helplessly, “Originally, he was fine. As long as he was calm and didn’t strain his mind, he could live like a normal person, but… my father died a violent death and I am a daughter, so the burden of the family fell on my elder brother’s shoulders…”

Wei Su frowned deeply and didn’t speak for a long time. Ji Yang glanced at him and continued: “I have discussed the situation encountered by Your Majesty with my elder brother, and we feel that it is not yet the worst situation. At the very least, Wang Chu has not answered the summons to go to the capital.”

“Are you sure?” Wei Su’s face showed joy, and a glimmer of surprise flashed in his eyes. Xie Yi wanted to finish him off with the sole purpose of having Wang Chu replace him. If Wang Chu himself didn’t cooperate, no matter what the Empress Dowager did, it would be useless.

Ji Yang raised her chin slightly and said with certainty: “Of course I’m sure, gathering information is my old business.”

Wei Su nodded softly, silently doing some mental calculations, and then said, “In this case, we need to meet Wang Chu.”

Ji Yang seemed to have expected him to say something like this; she snapped her fingers and said, “No problem, I will accompany you.”

Wei Su’s eyes showed a flicker of incredulousness as he looked Ji Yang up and down and suddenly said, “Let me just say, when I came with you before, I always felt that something was wrong. Now I finally understand. You were imitating Ah Qing at that time. No wonder it was a bit awkward.”

Ji Yang gave the emperor a blank look: “Your Majesty, don’t put the cart before the horse. Before you met Big Brother, you never doubted me. To be honest, it’s not your fault that you couldn’t recognise me. The Great Yan and Tiele have fought many battles, and yet no one has found out that Wang Changning was fake, right?”

“What? How dare you pretend to be Ah Qing!” Wei Su always knew that Ji Yang was very bold, but he didn’t expect it to be to this extent.

Ji Yang waved her hand and smiled wantonly: “What do you mean by pretending? It’s so unpleasant to say something like this, can’t Your Majesty put it in a better way? In fact, in the name of my elder brother, I occasionally wander around the battlefield while fighting against Tiele, so that people can’t say that Wang Changning is an invisible commander. However, all the plans of the battles between the two armies are arranged by Big Brother behind the scenes. I don’t understand the arrangement of troops, I’m just a facade.”

After he listened to what Ji Yang said, Wei Su’s expression became extremely solemn, and he blamed himself: ”It’s all because of me…” Although he was young at the time, he clearly remembered that the old Wang Changning once said that his children’s martial arts talents were all first-class.

Now, he had seen Ji Yang’s skills with his own eyes; she was definitely a rare top expert; otherwise, how could the people sent by the Empress Dowager be easily dealt with by her? If Ji Qing hadn’t been poisoned back then…

Before Wei Su finished speaking, he was interrupted by Ji Yang. She looked at Wei Su with an expression of unprecedented seriousness: “Your Majesty, please don’t doubt the loyalty of Wang Changning’s family to you. It is an honour for everyone in the Ji family to be able to die for you. You don’t need to think about it.”

Wei Su looked straight at Ji Yang, his face gradually easing up, as if today was the first day he knew her.

Ji Yang didn’t care about Wei Su’s scrutiny and continued the previous topic: “Your Majesty, the courtiers are confused and may not see some things clearly, but my elder brother and I both feel that it is true that the Empress Dowager wants to suppress you. However, Wang Chu, he… really doesn’t look like he wants to go ahead.”

“He is already a prince, what does it mean for him to go ahead?” Wei Su growled in a low voice.

Ji Yang smiled and reminded him carelessly: “Wang Chu has no children. Even if he goes ahead, what can he get?”

Wei Su took a deep breath and quickly calmed down: “No matter what, we have to see Wang Chu first.”

After resting in Shuozhou Camp for two days, Wei Su and Ji Yang packed their bags and prepared to go south. Ji Qing’s health improved slightly, and he personally sent them out of the camp. He said that if they didn’t reach an agreement with Wang Chu, he would lead his troops to kill him on the way to the capital.

Looking at Ji Qing’s bloodless pale cheeks, Wei Su secretly decided that when the dust settled on this matter, as soon as he returned to Yujing, the first thing he had to do was to transfer Ji Qing back to the capital. If he continued to fester in Shuozhou, he would lose his life there.

The road south was better than going north. Wei Su only encountered two groups of people that tried to block his path. Their combat effectiveness was very average, and Ji Yang easily dealt with them. When they entered Zhuozhou, Wang Chu himself sent someone to meet them, and Wei Su and Ji Yang had a smooth journey without any trouble.

Before their trip, Ji Yang had told Wei Su that Wang Chu had no desire to go ahead, but Wei Su didn’t think so and didn’t believe it.

However, after meeting Wang Chu, Wei Su realised that not only did the man have no desire to go ahead, he simply had no desire to live.

Wei Su wasn’t yet born when Wang Chu went to his fief, and he never asked for permission to return to the capital, so the uncle and nephew had never met before. When Wang Chu first saw Wei Su, he exclaimed “so alike” twice, and when Wei Su explained his intention, he wrote a letter on the spot and asked him to pass it to the Empress Dowager.

As soon as Wei Su read the contents of the letter, he knew that he had temporarily escaped the calamity and saved his precarious throne.

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With Wang Chu’s letter, Ji Yang escorted Wei Su back to the capital. On the way, Wei Su jokingly said, “Xianyou County Lord, I have some regrets.” If he had known that Ji Yang was so capable, he should have married her and let her enter the palace, so that he could have someone to accompany him in his battle of wills against the Empress Dowager.

“Regrets about what? Not making me the empress?” Ji Yang didn’t even look at Wei Su and said calmly, “Your Majesty would only regret it if you really married me… Do you need an empress who can’t preside over palace affairs and only goes around slashing people with a sword?”

Wei Su frowned and said suspiciously, “You haven’t learnt all those things that a noble lady should learn?”

Ji Yang rolled her eyes angrily and complained: “Your Majesty, I am a human being, I am not a god. Learning martial arts and swordsmanship occupied all my time other than eating and sleeping. Where did I have time to learn other things, I would be exhausted to death, okay?”

Wei Su actually didn’t expect Ji Yang to say things like “replying to the jade words of Your Majesty, I’m also sad that I’m not married to you”, but Ji Yang’s too straightforward answer still shocked him deeply. Before he could figure out how to respond, he heard Ji Yang say: “Even if Your Majesty didn’t mind that I couldn’t do anything, I don’t think Empress Dowager Xie and Empress Dowager Sun would agree to let a divorced woman to enter the palace to be the empress, especially the woman who was once the daughter-in-law of the Jun family.”

“You are divorced! When? Why?” Wei Su knew about Ji Yang’s marriage into the Jun family, but he didn’t know that she and Jun Ya had divorced. Today was the first time he heard of it. He couldn’t help but be a little curious.

“Last year’s Qixi.” Ji Yang seemed to be talking about other people’s affairs; her tone was very calm: “What else can be the reason? Of course, I am not good at the feminine arts and can’t be a housekeeper. As a result, I was disliked by my in-laws. I am not a person who will simply endure, so I went back to my parents’ home.”

Although Ji Yang’s expression couldn’t have been more serious when she spoke, Wei Su was doubtful when he heard her words. It was possible that Ji Yang wasn’t good at the feminine arts and didn’t know how to manage a household, but would the Jun family dislike her for that? Obviously, there had to be a mystery there.

Ji Yang turned her head inadvertently, and seeing that Wei Su’s mood was a little depressed, she couldn’t help but say, “Your Majesty, I’m not the object of your infatuation, why are you so disappointed? Otherwise, I have a younger sister who is more beautiful and gentle than me…”

Before Ji Yang could finish speaking, Wei Su’s face suddenly changed its colour as he said coldly: “How did you notice?”

Ji Yang glared at him with her beautiful eyes and said innocently, “Your Majesty, are you really stupid or are you pretending to be stupid? I’ve read all the letters you wrote to Big Brother. They are even cornier than the love letters my husband – oh no, my ex-husband – wrote to me. It would be odd if I didn’t notice.”

Wei Su stared at her and said frantically, “Who asked you to peek at the letters I wrote to Ah Qing, who gave you permission?”

Ji Yang blinked and said solemnly: “I didn’t peek, my elder brother showed them to me. But Your Majesty, if you really want to be good to Big Brother, don’t make things clear. That may not be a big deal to you, but it will very likely kill him.”

“What use would it be to make things clear? Xianyou County Lord, you are so naive.” Wei Su said with a self-deprecating smile, “If you can see what I’m saying between the lines, I don’t believe Ah Qing can’t see it. But he just pretends not to know, he does it on purpose, on purpose…”

Ji Yang glanced at Wei Su sympathetically, and in a rare moment of kindness explained: “Your Majesty, you think about it upside down. You can’t possibly make my elder brother enter the palace to be the empress anyway, but no matter what happens, he is your most loyal subject, and this is something that can never change.”

Wei Su originally wanted to ask: is loyalty the same thing as liking? But he didn’t say it, because he realised that for people like Ji Qing and Ji Yang, loyalty was above all feelings, even stronger than love, and he couldn’t force more than that.

But what Ji Yang was thinking was that Wei Su had never completely known Ji Qing. Instead of getting disillusioned and losing each other in the future, it was better to stay in the positions of the monarch and the subject from the beginning. She didn’t want to see the tragedy of Emperor Shizong and Wang Changning repeat itself.

If the accident had not happened back then, her brother might have been the gentle and elegant person that Wei Su remembered. If that were the case, she would never have objected to them breaking through the many barriers to get together and would have sent her most sincere blessings.

However, this was not the case in reality. Consort Li’s poison meant to kill Wei Su, and the poison was so strong that it was obvious that Ji Qing was lucky to have survived. Having spent so many years on the edge of life and death, now there was too much gloom and despair in his character.

Ji Yang didn’t want to imagine how Wei Su would feel when he learnt the truth someday in the future.

Back in the capital, Wei Su should have come to the palace directly but on a whim he followed Ji Yang to Wang Changning’s residence first.

That day, he met two people who would hold great weight in his future life, Ji Wan and Jun Lin.