“It’ll only bring us more trouble if we take it back, so we can only leave it to you. You’re great martial artists. We can rest assured then,” Long said with a smile, “But you’re right. We really need to take more antidotes. Fortunately, Zhang Yuan’s medical skills are not bad. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Liu also smiled. “Right. In addition, Zhou Huan’s blood is useful. It will help you a lot.”
“Well, that’s an unexpected surprise,” Long said.
They secretly discussed a plan of action later.
Afterwards, Long and Shi left fifteen Shadow Guardians for Liu and they left.
The reason why only a few men were left was because Liu and Ouyang were both powerful enough.
In addition, even if Mr. Chen had gathered a lot of people, it would be easier for their small group to retreat.
There were no so many people left on the list, so a few Shadow Guardians would be enough.
Zhang Yuan and Zhou Huan stayed in a carriage, while Long and Shi in another. There were two carriages, hundreds of Shadow Guardians and Qiu Ming’s army following not far away.
Long and the others hurried to the imperial palace.
Eight days later, they arrived at the imperial city.
In the past few days, Long and the others had been on the way, but they had given a lot of orders.
The war escalated in the border area of Eastern Darkness, while Shi Qingshan kept the troops immobilized for the time being, because Ying Qiu and the others hadn’t arrived yet. Besides, there was a spy in Shi Qingshan’s army. If he took action, that spy might be irritated and do something desperate.
Moreover, on the third day of Long’s departure, ten Shadow Guardians were sent to the border of Eastern Darkness to protect Qin Yuechun.
At present, Qin Yuechun and Shi Qingshan were the pillars of the nation. As long as there was nothing wrong with them, it wouldn’t matter what the conspiracy of Eastern Darkness and Northern Barbarians was!
In addition, a man in Shi Qingshan’s mansion who was good at disguising had also joined him. With this skill, he might help a lot later.
With Qin Yuechun’s effort, the war on the eastern border escalated, and the spies of Eastern Darkness in the nation had almost been eliminated.
Without Long and Shi with them, Liu and Ouyang became more efficient.
When Long was there, Liu and Ouyang had to care about a lot. Now that both Long and Shi had left, they travelled fast and killed quickly!
Therefore, when Long and the others arrived at the imperial city, Liu and Ouyang had finished their task in a city. There were only two cities left.
According to the news, Liu and his men were attacked by Mr. Chen’s team furiously.
Luckily, they had fewer people, so they escaped quickly.
Originally, Mr. Chen and his subordinates were like hunters, because they were in the dark. It wasn’t easy for Long and the big group of people to hide themselves.
However, this was not the case anymore.
Liu and Ouyang had become hunters. Instead of fighting Mr. Chen’s people to the death, they just killed as many as they could and focused on the people on the list.
Those on the list were not stupid and many of them had hidden away. However, it wasn’t a big problem for Liu and Ouyang.
As long as they were still in that city, Liu and Ouyang could find them out!
Anyway, it delayed their action a little, so Liu and his men only killed those people in one city in eight or nine days.
Back to the imperial palace, the first thing Long did was… to go to sleep with Shi!
It was already evening. What would they do if they didn’t go to sleep?
It was true that there were still many things waiting for them.
But during these days, Long had been sitting in the carriage and he felt that his butt was aching!
He really didn’t want to sit anymore. Now that he’d been back home, he thought the most important thing was to rest!
Only when they had a good rest, could they have the energy to do other things, right?
Therefore, after Long returned to the imperial palace, he took Shi to the hot spring first and then they went to sleep.
They didn’t have sex and had a sound sleep at night.
The next day, Long woke up before the morning meeting was held.
Liu Xiangyang was already waiting outside.
During the time when the Shadow Guardian was disguised as Long, Liu took care of many things.
After Zhou Qing’s rebellion, Liu was promoted to chief manager of eunuchs and he became more and more stable.
With Liu’s help, Long got dressed properly.
“The empress is still sleeping. Nobody can disturb him, understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” Liu said immediately.
Long nodded and then walked outside.
After Liu went out, he quickly told the servants that they must guard the palace and no one could disturb the empress. Then, he hurriedly caught up with Long’s sedan chair.
The morning meeting was nothing special.
A lot of people even didn’t know that this emperor was actually real!
Because many ministers knew that the “emperor” was a fake, they would naturally not show much respect.
Moreover, the “emperor” didn’t say much during the morning meetings lately.
At the beginning, Long didn’t want to be exposed.
Until…
“Your Majesty, an envoy from Northern Barbarians has asked many times for an interview. I think that we should meet him.”
“Oh?” Long raised his eyebrows immediately. An envoy from Northern Barbarians? If he remembered correctly, he had already ordered someone to kill all of them.
So where did this envoy come from?
“Your Majesty, the other night, several envoys from Northern Barbarians were attacked by many assassins. In any case, those envoys were in our territory. Those attackers dared to hurt them in the imperial city, which showed contempt for Your Majesty! That was outrageous! Fortunately, the leader of the envoys was smart and escaped. Later, he ran into me, so I brought him here.”
“Oh, so that man is staying outside now and it’s you who brought him here?” Long looked at the minister with a smile.
This minister was named Li Bing, a third-ranking official in the Ministry of Personnel.
“Yes, it was a coincidence that I saved him… When I heard that they were attacked by the assassins, I was furious, so I brought him here.”
“Oh, that’s it. The assassins attacked openly. It was really irritating,” Long said.
The minister felt happy. “Your Majesty, shall we summon that envoy to ask about the details?”
Long smiled again when he heard this. “The envoy from Northern Barbarians… will be asked, but I want to ask you first. Minister Li, he did you save the man who managed to escape by such a coincidence?”
Long’s words immediately shocked Li Bing.
He said cautiously, “Your Majesty, I’m stupid. I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You don’t understand?” Long smiled. “Why don’t you understand? I just admire Minister Li’s good luck. Don’t think too much about it.”
Although Long told him not to think too much, the cold sweat had rolled down his forehead.
The ministers in the imperial court were not stupid and they immediately noticed something strange.
Some people looked at Long thoughtfully.
They found the emperor was different this day.