No wonder Sir Jibei, who was used to seeing thousands of soldiers and horses kill each other, was so out of control. He was already old enough to retire, but he was still coming all the way to Shazhou, night and day, with his old wounds. For what? Just to investigate the attack on Jiang Qizheng and her other party?
No!
His real purpose was to settle the dispute between the first, third, and fourth branches!
On the way, Sir Jibei had already thought it over that the dispute between his nephews and grandnephews had become so acute that it could no longer be suppressed! So, this time, he couldn’t listen to Marquess Qin and he had to make the first branch and the third branch compensate the fourth branch so that the Jiang Family wouldn’t be at war with each other once they, the old, died!
If necessary, he even intended to let Jiang Yayue and Jiang Yaqing withdraw from the Western Army!
But now…
The two men had to be sent away from the Western Army even without his words because they were already dead!
Looking at the two dead bodies in front of him and recalling the children who chased after him and called him grand uncle years ago, Sir Jibei suddenly felt his blood rushing to his head!
In stark contrast to his anger, Jiang Yadan was not far away, holding a pot of hot tea and sipping it with narrowed eyes. He was so relaxed that he looked like an elegant man seeking plum blossoms in the snow, his tone lazy and casual, “Dear grand uncle, your anger might hurt your body. Why don’t you come over and let me accompany you to drink a pot of tea to calm down? After that, you can ask questions, can’t you?”
“Yadan!” Sir Jibei always knew that Jiang Yadan was an example that being bright at an early age didn’t necessarily bring success upon growing up. But at this moment he was still so angry that his body shivered, “No matter what Yayue and Yaqing did to your fourth branch when they were alive, you are still official cousins! Now that they’re both dead… Aren’t you even at least a bit sad?”
Jiang Yadan said lightly, “Listen to your words, grand uncle… Why do I have to be sad?”
Hearing these words Sir Jibei was already furious, but Jiang Yadan still continued with aplomb, “If I were sad, then why would I have killed them?”
“You!” No wonder no one answered after he had questioned him for so long. Sir Jibei’s eyes were so red with hatred that they were almost dripping blood! He snarled and grabbed the long knife of the guard beside him, “You did this?”
The old general’s hair was on end as he pounced on Jiang Yadan like a raging lion, “I’ll kill you. You are ruthless!”
“Calm down, Sir! Calm down!” The generals around him were frightened and rushed to pull him, “Perhaps there is something hidden, or perhaps the Eighth Young Master is speaking out of anger.”
The second trueborn son of the first branch and the eldest trueborn son of the third branch were already gone. If the eldest son of the fourth branch were killed, all of them wouldn’t even have enough people to be punished or killed when they returned! So how could they dare to let Sir Jibei hurt Jiang Yadan?
Fortunately, Jiang Yadan reacted quickly. Seeing that Sir Jibei was not pretending, he realized that he had made his grand uncle really angry and he even might kill him… Without saying a word, he threw the teapot onto the ground, turned around, and left.
The wind blew under his feet as he was walking. Even Jiang Gan was running, otherwise, he could not keep up with Jiang Yadan!
“When grand uncle calms down and doesn’t intend to kill me anymore, you shall come back and call me!” As he walked, he instructed the guards he met, “Lest grand uncle should do anything wrong in his rage that will make him regret later… It is only filial piety to suffer the little and walk away when the great punishment is coming!”
Jiang Gan and the guards he met had the urge to vomit blood. They thought, “You not only killed his two official cousins, but also left the corpses for his grand uncle to see, and afterwards openly told him that you did it. Sir Jibei was lucky enough not to die on the spot, but you still had the face to mention filial piety.”
The temporary barrack was in a mess. In the tent at the center of the barrack, Ling Zui was on pins and needles, seeing Jiang Qizheng calmly practicing her handwriting, while Ou Qinglan was lying on the soft couch, holding up her chin, meditating and smiling sweetly from time to time… He finally couldn’t hold on and went to Jiang Qizheng’s side, “Princess!”
“I have told you not to call me like that. It’s so uncomfortable!” Jiang Qizheng and he had shared weal and woe. Especially, when Ling Zui did not feel at ease with Han Jishan’s men, he was dying to guard her side every inch of the way, which made Jiang Qizheng very moved, and thus she planned to recognize Ling Zui as her stepbrother when she returned to Jing City. It would be a promotion for him and also cover up the problem of the reputation as they had stayed together in private for several times after being taken captive. Seeing him walking towards her, she stopped writing and said, “If you’re not used to calling me by my name, you can just call me by my title!”
Ling Zui smiled awkwardly and whispered, “There’s a lot of noise outside. Can it be that Sir Jibei has arrived?”
“It must be!” Ou Qinglan, who seemed to be lost in thought, suddenly turned her head and said, “Otherwise, who else dares to be so noisy?”
“And then the things happened before…?”
Before he finished half of his words, he was interrupted by Jiang Qizheng with a smile, “Brother Yadan will take care of it. You don’t need to worry!”
“No worries?” Looking at her calm look and then looking at the collected Ou Qinglan, Ling Zui suppressed the urge to lift the table. He thought, “I watched with my own eyes. You came up with the idea and Xing did the work. Chunjun’s men came to help. You sneaked into the barrack and killed Jiang Yayue and Jiang Yaqing right here in this tent. But you then made Jiang Yadan the scapegoat… The roar of Sir Jibei is now almost overturning the place through the tents. How can I not be worried?”
If this was exposed, even if he was not completely involved but just a spectator, according to the style of the Jiang Family, the whole Mansion of Earl of Jingchuan would not have a good ending, right?
It seemed that Ou Qinglan saw his worries and said comfortingly, “Don’t worry. We were sent over by Qiu’s men after Jiang Yayue and Jiang Yaqing’s death. The whole battalion can attest to this! Qiu is so powerful that his subordinates must be tight-lipped. As long as we don’t tell anyone, who dares to say that their death has anything to do with us?”
“All you think about is your Qiu!” Ling Zui twitched the corners of his mouth, “So, as soon as Chunfu Princess said that killing Jiang Yayue and Jiang Yaqing would be of great benefit to Chunjun, you drew your sword without saying a word! You didn’t even think about what disaster it would bring to the Ou Family if it failed… How many sins had the Ou Family accumulated in its early years as mountain bandits so that it gave birth to such a scourge like you! Compared to you, someone like me who was sent to the south for a year and a half and returned to Jing City without going to see my parents first is a model of the greatest filial piety!”
At that night when Ou Qinglan pretended to be the maid to serve the wine, she pulled out a short knife from her sleeve and slashed the two unsuspecting cousins to death. At that time Jiang Yaqing even couldn’t finish his suspicious words, “This maid looks familiar…” The scene seemed to appear in his mind again. Although the poor Ling Zui was a famous playboy in Jing City, he was not the person who had never seen the killing of people but the one that had never seen such a cruel kill.
He threw up for two days!
In these two days, he had seen what it meant to be the most vicious woman. Jiang Qizheng, the mastermind, was very quick to manage the aftermath, teaching Jiang Yadan how to deal with the questioning afterwards, instructing Ou Qinglan to rehearse the acting skills she would need to use, and even spending time cooking a bowl of chicken soup for him to nourish his body!
As for Ou Qinglan, after throwing her knife and taking off her bloody clothes, she soon threw herself into the exercise of acting skills and imagined the scene of her lover’s success with her help and finally marrying her in a palanquin…
In short, the princess and the young lady, who grew up in care and wealth, had not experienced even a bit of shock of bloody scene, not to mention the guilt and burden of committing fratricide! They didn’t even have a trance-like look afterwards, not to mention vomiting. They were as calm as if they had killed two chickens and t hadn’t even done it by themselves!
So, Ling Zui didn’t dare to say anything about it and said resentfully, “Can Jiang Yadan really hold it? Listen to the noise. It’s getting louder and louder!”
“He is just coming towards us!” Jiang Qizheng shoved the pen into his hand and greeted Ou Qinglan with a smile, “Xing, we should go in!”
“Sure!” Ou Qinglan agreed readily and the two of them entered behind the screen arm in arm!
Ling Zui was left dumbfounded with her pen, not knowing what to do or say.
A few moments later the furious Sir Jibei barged in with murderous rage and when he saw him at first glance, he asked, “Why are you here?”
“I…” Ling Zui opened his mouth before remembering the words Jiang Qizheng had told before, “I was uncertain in my mind and so…”
Before he uttered the following words about asking for calligraphy and so on, Sir Jibei had already waved his hand impatiently, “Since I have heard that this is now the place where Jiang Qizheng and Xing are recovering from their illnesses, what is the decency of you coming here as a man? Get out! Don’t ever come here again! If you need anything, ask the maid to send your words!”
Ling Zui was so relieved that he didn’t mind his attitude and hurried away.
Before he could walk out of the tent, Sir Jibei shouted towards the screen, “Qizheng, Xing, how are you?”
“Dear grand uncle! Are you really here?” Ling Zui was sure that Jiang Qizheng and Ou Qinglan were both carefully undressing behind the screen and definitely didn’t have time to hide into the quilt!
But Jiang Qizheng acted with her voice sounding like that she was so weak and a little surprised and was even choking. The feeling of survival after the upheaval, even behind the screen, was so vivid that Ling Zui crooked his mouth and was incomparably grateful, “Fortunately, my father and mother were strict with me and so I didn’t have messed with any women of the Gu Family and the Jiang Family… If I had seen the beauty and innocence of Chunfu Princess and thus seduced her…”
Even without the Jiang Family to stand up for her, Jiang Qizheng would turn eccentric after being stimulated and he definitely couldn’t afford to offend!
“Just now the maid came in and said, but I still couldn’t believe it!” Jiang Qizheng’s performance wasn’t over yet. After the joy of surviving the attack, it immediately turned into grievances. The miserable and sorrowful tone made Ling Zui, who had already walked out with one foot, want to shed tears. “I thought I would never see my home in Jing City, my parents, and relatives, nor my poor nephew in my lifetime! Woo woo…”
As the tent curtain was lowered, Ling Zui heard Sir Jibei speaking. The murderous intent and fury that Sir Jibei had when he entered the tent had apparently subsided and there was a hint of a sigh, “Poor kids! You have been wronged! It is fortunate that you are all right… Alas, it is lucky that you are all right… Now… Your bodies… Don’t worry… I am here… Don’t be afraid…”
“Tsk!” Outside the tent, Ling Zui drew back his hands into sleeves. He hesitated about his ambition for the first time in his life since childhood, “Wives and concubines are all over the yard as mothers-in-law are all over the world or something else… It seems… quite dangerous…”
If a woman like Jiang Qizheng got into his backyard, it was a sure bet that he would die without knowing how!
The worst part was that for more than ten years before Jiang Qizheng’s sudden change, everyone thought she was gentle, beautiful, kind, considerate, and generous. Even if he went back to Jing City now and told people that Chunfu Princess was actually ruthless and vicious as she had killed two of her cousins without blinking her eyes… Probably everyone would think he was crazy, right?
“Qiu Feng, I have not seen you for so long, not knowing whether you are alive or dead.” Ling Zui shivered, “I was hoping you would be alive because of Chunjun, but now I think for your sake I should pray that you had better be dead…”