The Eldest Daughter Is Beautiful and Saucy
Chapter 801: Bewitched
Chapter 801 Bewitching
Bai Qingyan raised his eyes and looked at Shen Qingzhu with a smile, only to see Shen Qingzhu nodded.
The brazier in the big tent was burning very fiercely. Shen Qingzhu used long copper-wrapped tongs to fiddle with the red charcoal fire, and his whole body was warmed.
Bai Qingyan smiled, lowered his eyes and stared at his mother’s letter, and slowly said: “At that time, I had the protection of the female guards around me, and my grandfather, father, uncle, and brothers behind me, so I dared to rush forward without any worries. But now… How can I be so reckless?”
She still has to protect the Bai family and fulfill the aspirations passed down from generation to generation in the Bai family. How could she let herself die?
Shen Qingzhu looked at Bai Qingyan, who had lost a lot of weight recently, and felt extremely guilty. As the young lady’s personal bodyguard, she did not follow the young lady to the battlefield, but instead stayed in the peaceful place of Dadu, leaving the young lady to take risks alone. It was really wrong of her.
In the letter, Dong told Bai Qingyan that everything was fine in Shuoyang and asked Bai Qingyan not to worry. She also implicitly told Bai Qingyan that Manager Liu and his men were acting prudently and had done a very good job in everything Bai Qingyan had asked them to do.
“What did the madam say?” Shen Qingzhu couldn’t help but ask curiously.
“Mother said in the letter that Bai Qihe, the head of the Shuoyang Bai family, knew that I needed a large amount of medicinal herbs in Daliang, so he led the Bai family to work together. Not only did he buy a lot of medicinal herbs to support the army attacking Daliang, but he also donated money and materials from the entire family… He also bought a batch of food and sent it to us this time. Even if it’s just a drop in the bucket, it’s a token of the family’s kindness.”
Bai Qingyan turned a page in the letter: “The rest are just some trivial instructions.”
Bai Qingyan read his mother’s instructions carefully word by word, turned around and touched the fox fur cloak that his mother had sewn by hand in the bag beside him, with a warm smile in his eyes.
Seeing Bai Qingyan fold up Dong’s letter, Shen Qingzhu took out another letter from her chest and handed it to Bai Qingyan: “This is the letter that the second lady asked me to bring to the eldest lady.”
Bai Qingyan hurriedly took the letter, opened it, and sat under the lamp to read it carefully.
“Since the second lady knew about Fan Yuhuai’s unusual behavior, she has mobilized enough people to keep an eye on Fan Yuhuai and the people who interacted with Fan Yuhuai…” Shen Qingzhu recounted what she knew to Bai Qingyan in a steady and orderly voice. “I don’t know if Fan Yuhuai is being cautious or if he really just wants to reminisce with his colleagues. He has been gathering with his old subordinates in the patrol camp and his subordinates in the imperial guards every now and then.”
“When I learned about this, I bribed the waiter of the restaurant and wanted to sneak into the restaurant to take a look, but I ran into the people sent by the second lady. No matter what the waiter said or the people sent by the second lady to investigate, they didn’t find anything unusual. Apart from reminiscing about the past, they didn’t say anything else that couldn’t be said.”
Shen Qingzhu stayed in the capital city. In addition to taking care of his master, if he noticed anything unusual, he would also investigate for Bai Qingyan.
In addition to what Shen Qingzhu said, Bai Jinxiu also said in the letter… Even the money Fan Yuhuai spent on banquets was almost the same as his salary.
But it was this little difference that made Bai Jinxiu extremely wary. The Fan family naturally had some means of making money, and the frequency and scale of banquets could be controlled within their own salary. It had to be said… it was obviously carefully calculated.
However, no clues have been found yet, but the good news is that… the people who were placed in the imperial guards by Bai Qingyan and whose names were not given to Fan Yuhuai, two of them were recently called by Fan Yuhuai to attend his “small gathering”. If Fan Yuhuai makes any unusual moves, those two people, who think they are loyal to the prince… will definitely report it.
“There is one more thing…” Shen Qingzhu put down the copper-wrapped charcoal clip in his hand, looked at Bai Qingyan across the red charcoal brazier and said, “General Fu Ruoxi followed the order sent back by the eldest lady and found an excuse to swap the position of the high-ranking captain of the patrol camp who was close to Fan Yuhuai with the relatively low-ranking centurion who was relatively distant from Fan Yuhuai. Fan Yuhuai did not alienate the demoted captain.”
Bai Qingyan nodded, raised his eyes and asked again: “Then…what about the centurion who was promoted to the position of thousand-man captain? Did Fan Yuhuai deliberately get close to him?”
Shen Qingzhu shook his head: “Not before I left.”
Bai Qingyan turned the page of the letter. Bai Jinxiu wrote that she had found out who recommended Fan Yugan and Zhang Duanning to escort the grain and supplies…
It was Fan Yuhuai who sent a gift to Hongmei, the most favored person in the Prince’s Mansion, to pray for his son’s future. After Hongmei told the Prince about this, the Prince called Fan Yuhuai to his side to show his goodwill, saying that Fan Yuhuai was his own man and he could go to the Prince in person to pray for his son’s future.
As for Zhang Duanning, Prime Minister Lu was worried about Fan Yugan, so for the sake of safety he recommended Zhang Duanning to go with him.
After writing these things in detail, Bai Jinxiu also mentioned something about Qin Lang in the letter…
Now that the crown prince is in power, considering that Qin Lang is Bai Qingyan’s brother-in-law, he sent Qin Lang, who compiled books and wrote history, to Baiwo City to serve as a county magistrate. Before the order came down, the crown prince called Qin Lang aside and said clearly… because Qin Lang is Bai Qingyan’s brother-in-law, so as long as he stays outside for a few years… and makes achievements, the crown prince will transfer Qin Lang back to the capital city and give him important positions.
Qin Lang has packed everything and will go to Baiwo City to take up his post after the New Year.
Furthermore, the construction of the Nine-Layered Terrace has been nearly completed. The Minister of Works said that it is expected to be completed by June next year. Now, rumors are spreading in the capital that the emperor will gather five hundred boys and five hundred girls in March after the Chinese New Year to go to the Nine-Layered Terrace to seek elixirs. This matter will be handed over to Li Mingrui. Although no clear decree has been issued yet, the prince has indeed given Li Mingrui manpower.
Nowadays, there have been cases in the capital city where noble families have bought young boys and girls to make elixirs, but the matter has been kept secret and since the bought boys and girls have contracts and their lives and deaths are decided by their masters, the matter has never become a big deal.
The reason why Bai Jinxiu was so worried was that she was afraid that the emperor would go astray in his pursuit of immortality and be bewitched by the evil Taoist priest and have evil thoughts.
Because Qin Lang was once praised by the emperor as a model of aristocratic family and had performed well in the spring examination, the emperor would sometimes summon Qin Lang to sort out the bamboo slips that contained information about seeking immortality and the way.
Qin Lang said that he had seen records of Qin Shi Huang seeking the elixir of immortality in those bamboo slips. One bamboo slip stated that Xu Fu’s voyage with 500 boys and girls was a cover-up. In fact, the lives of these 500 boys and girls were used to refine the elixir, and the lifespan of these 500 boys and girls was transferred to the people who took the elixir.
Bai Jinxiu was afraid that the emperor had summoned these five hundred boys and girls because he had been influenced by the evil Taoist priests and the bamboo slips and wanted to use these children’s lives to make elixirs.
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