CH 67

Chapter 67: The Secret Letter

Ren Yaoqi looked out of the window in deep silence.

The air was still moist after the rain, and out of nowhere, a swallow flew out, skimming low over the courtyard and suddenly dropping to the ground with a few tiny cries.

Li Tianyou walked out of nowhere with his hands behind his back to the place where the swallow had fallen. He knelt, then poked the poor little bird that kept hopping but could not fly with his right hand. He tilt his head to look around for something, and when he saw the eaves of the house, he grabbed the swallow into his hands.

“Dong Sheng, is there a ladder in this yard? A stupid bird has fallen out of its nest.” Li Tianyou’s pleasant voice rang out in the courtyard.

Dong Sheng apologized to Ren Yaoqi, hurriedly ran out to Li Tianyou, and whispered back.

Li Tianyou then handed the little one that kept fluttering in his hand to Dong Sheng and waved his hand, “Then you can put it back.”

Dong Sheng bowed his head and took it carefully, running back again.

Ren Yaoqi then saw Li Tianyou standing in the middle of the courtyard with his hands behind his back, excitedly giving instructions.

After a while, Dong Sheng came back. He hold a rough cloth handkerchief that he had just wiped his hands on.

Outside, under the eaves of the house, the sounds of Ren Yaohua and Li Tianyou tussling over something rang out again, very lively.

“What kind of person is that who intercepted the secret letter from the court?” Ren Yaoqi asked in a soft voice.

Baiyun Temple was located in the middle of Baihe Town and Yunyang City, right near the official road that connects north and south.

Dong Sheng stood next to Ren Yaoqi’s hand again and said in a low voice, “I didn’t see the fight, so I can’t judge. But the letter was about the court’s order to cut the Yanbei Army’s pay.”

Ren Yaoqi was shocked at the words.

It was related to the Yanbei Royal Family?

Although the Yanbei Army was nominally the army of the Great Zhou Dynasty, in reality, they were the direct line of the Prince Yanbei or the “Xiao Family Army”.

Ren Yaoqi had once heard Teacher Pei mentioned that most of the taxes in Yanbei had to be paid to the court, but the court only paid a very small portion of the Yanbei army’s salary every year. In fact, the majority of the salary was borne by the Yanbei Royal Family itself.

She remembered that in her previous life, there had been a mutiny in the Yanbei Army. At that time, some soldiers in the lower ranks of the Yanbei Army were dissatisfied with the court’s cut in pay, so they banded together and robbed the shops of rich families in the city, causing a riot.

In the end, someone submitted a petition to impeach the Yanbei Army for being too large. Too many young monks were in the temple which caused the turmoil, and people demanded the Yanbei Army to be reduced.

Shortly afterward, a small border dispute broke out in Ningxia caused by small-scale party clans over a horse farm with rich grazing resources. At the request of Wu Xiaohe, the General Officer of Ningxia, Yanbei Palace sent the Yanbei Army to help pacify the turmoil. For several years afterward, that part of the Yanbei army was stationed in Ningxia, and the court’s plan to reduce the Yanbei army was not implemented.

However, Wu Xiaohe was the son-in-law of the previous Prince Yanbei and brother-in-law of the current Prince Yanbei, Xiao Yan.

A lot of people believe that the entry of the Yanbei Army into Ningxia was actually a strategy made by Prince Yanbei to preserve the Yanbei Army and divert the attention of the court.

Unfortunately, three years later, the General Military Officer of Ningxia, Wu Xiaohe, died so the court sent in Zeng Yu. It was a move made by the Yanbei Prince’s Mansion.

The court also thought that Zeng Yu was just a nepotism between his family, the Marquis of Xichang, and Empress Dowager’s maiden family, the Yan Family, to get the post. People only focused on Lu Dexin, the supervisor who took office with Zeng Yu.

In the end, Zeng Yu’s performance was far beyond everyone’s expectations. Most of Wu Xiaohe’s army was incorporated by him, and the Yanbei Palace was caught off guard.

It was the rise of Zeng Yu. But it was the beginning of the Ren Family’s disaster.

Ren Yaoqi’s eyes dropped slightly at this thought.

Ever since she woke up, she had been thinking about how to change the ending of her last life.

But the temple was too far away from her.

If she had followed the original path, Zeng Yu would still have been sent to Yanbei as a pawn in the court’s confrontation with the Yanbei Royal Family, and with Zeng Yu’s ability, the Ren Family would still want to bend to him.

When she thought of this, she would always have nightmares.

In this life, even if she did not want to avenge her last life, what could she do if her enemies still came to her? She was a woman in a boudoir. All she could do was pray.

How it will end is hard to say.

In her previous life, she could not remember exactly when the court had planned to reduce the Yanbei Army. It was probably almost two years ago. The secret letter that Dong Sheng had mentioned was most likely the precursor to this matter.

What could be done to stop Zeng Yu from succeeding as the Ningxia General Military Officer, or how could Zeng Yu become the Ningxia General Military Officer in name only?

Ren Yaoqi’s heart was pounding.

“Young Miss?” Dong Sheng saw that Ren Yaoqi was not looking well and called out softly.

Ren Yaoqi took a deep breath and calmed her heartbeat. She reminded herself not to rush and to take her time. She didn’t believe that she lived a new life just to repeat the mistakes of the previous one. There is always a way.

“Young Miss, the person who intercepted the secret report from the court was most likely sent by the Yanbei Royal Family. The secret report mentions that the person who received the letter was told to provoke the bottom-ranking generals of the Yanbei Army to cause trouble when the court ordered a cut in military pay. I heard that the Second Young Master of the Yanbei Royal Family is recovering from illness in a nearby villa, do you think he could have sent them…” Dong Sheng whispered.

Ren Yaoqi raised her head and frowned when she heard the words, “You mean Xiao Jingxi, the Second Young Master of the Yanbei Royal Family? He’s near the Bailong Temple?”

Dong Sheng nodded his head.

Ren Yaoqi, however, suddenly recalled the man she had met earlier in front of the Longwang Hall at the Bailong Temple. She and Xiang Qin had mistaken him for the nun’s lover that the women were looking for.

But afterward, Ren Yaoqi was a bit suspicious of his identity. Judging from his poise and bearing, he did not look like someone who would be a male prostitute. Especially when he gave her the string of goldstone wood beads, her mind became more and more doubtful.

She had seen a lot of good things so she was sure that string of beads was definitely considered a rare treasure. But he gave it to her casually, simply to repay her for a not-so-great favor she had done.

Then Li Tianyou appeared, and Li Tianyou admitted that he was the love interest of the nun who was being chased, so who was that man?

Why would he want to avoid those women?

He was also wearing white clothes. Was he mistaken for Li Tianyou by those who were chasing Dong Sheng? And what was he doing near Bailong Temple? And why was his sleeve torn?

Thinking of the legendary appearance of the Second Young Master of the Yanbei Royal Family, Ren Yaoqi could not help but suspect that he was Xiao Jingxi. But was he the one who sent someone to intercept the court’s messenger?

Thinking this, for some reason, Ren Yaoqi shook her head with her intuition: “I heard that the Second Young Master of the Yanbei Royal Family is extremely intelligent and amazingly talented. Even if he wanted to intercept the court’s secret report he would not use such extreme means to wind up his career. For such an important matter, the messenger sent by the court to Yanbei to deliver the message should be more than just this. The letter would still end up in the hands of the person to whom it should be sent, while the Yanbei Royal Family is the one who has alerted the snake.”

If Ren Yaoqi could think of something, she did not believe that Xiao Jingxi, who had been praised by Teacher Pei, would not think of it.

Dong Sheng thought about it and was also out of ideas, “Then who could it be?”

“I said it wasn’t the Second Young Master Xiao, I didn’t say it wasn’t someone from the Yanbei Royal Family.” Ren Yaoqi was not very sure, all this was just her guess.

The information she had was too little, and she had no way to judge. Besides, if the person she met was Xiao Jingxi, the timing of his appearance was too coincidental.

Over here, Ren Yaoqi and Dong Sheng were speculating about the identity of the man who had intercepted and killed the imperial messenger and finally collected the corpse.

On the other side, someone was also trying to trace the whereabouts of the secret letter.

The young man had changed into a blue robe with wide sleeves and was now standing by the window, listening to the man in black who was on one knee. His dark ink eyes quietly looking out of the window as the continuous rain gradually became smaller and thinner, seemed to be covered with a fog that was hard to see.

The rain dripped down intermittently between the cracks of the roof tiles into a pair of old granite fish tanks with lotus patterns under the eaves, overflowing it with water.

The young man’s low, dark voice rang out soothingly in the room. His voice was not loud but it managed to drown out the sound of the water dripping outside: “Send the body to Xiao Jingyue and ask him what to do with it, I’m only here to recuperate from my illness at Bailong Temple.”

The kneeling subordinate froze and carefully glanced up at his master and asked tentatively, “What if the Third Young Master denies that he is the one who sent it?”

The young man tilted his head at his words and gave his subordinate a smiling look, saying with some surprise, “Can he still deny it?”

The subordinate immediately bowed his head, “I understand. It’s just that the letter that the Third Young Master wanted to intercept is still in the hands of others, should I send someone to…”

The young man withdrew his gaze that had fallen out of the window, seeming to think about it, and asked in a light voice, “Are you sure that person is from the Li Family?”

“I am sure, that man is the attendant beside the former Prince Xian’s son, Li Tianyou, and there was a woman with him at that time, a young lady from the Ren Family from Baihe Town.”

“The Ren Family?” The young man’s tone was still soothing and calm, but there was a somewhat thoughtful look between his brows, but in an instant, he smiled lightly and nodded, “Understood, you go.”

The black-clothed subordinate was stunned, did his master not want to care about it anymore?

But with the Third Young Master’s character and methods, many people may be implicated and lose their lives, even the Heir of the Li Family may…