Chapter 122: You Must Have Some Misunderstanding of

"You all..."

Under the gaze of a dozen or so tigers, the middle-aged man's heart leapt into his throat, his mouth parched, and he swallowed with great difficulty.

"You know these tigers?"

"Yep!"

Yi Jiang nodded quite naturally.

"Da Huang and the others were all raised by Yu'an. Don't be fooled by how big and burly they look, or how fierce — they're usually very well-behaved, and they even act cute."

Well-behaved?

The middle-aged man glanced at the tiger pack closing in around him, every one of them with green glinting in their eyes, several Tigers baring their bloody maws, drool dripping onto the ground — clearly ravenous for this old hunk of meat.

You call this well-behaved?

You must have some misunderstanding of the word "obedient"!

Yi Jiang rested her hands on her knees and sized him up.

"Old Master, it's getting late. We should head back to the city."

"I know you're worried about me, but you shouldn't have come. If Shang Jie and his father had found out, it would have been trouble."

"How's Old Seven on this end?"

Yu'an knit her thick brows and tried to recall.

The middle-aged woman turned to look at the arrivals, and when her gaze fell on one figure among them, her eyes widened slightly, and the cold tears welled up.

……

"True, we're both pretty fair-skinned."

A mere eighty strokes — what was that even worth mentioning?

"Uncle?!"

"But how come I don't look anything like Gu Shang?"

"Uncle, since you came to Xiaoyin, has the army made arrangements?"

"Yes!"

"There must be some resemblance, right?"

"Feng Dongnian?"

"Hiss!"

"A Gu!"

But I braced my hands against the small tree in front of me, pushed hard, and quickly straightened up.

Qingmu tilted his head up slightly and replied.

"Da Huang!"

Zhixiang supported me, looked at my tattered clothes and the wounds on my body, and asked worriedly.

"The Seventh Prince's Consort threw a small fit before getting word of it, and slipped out of the Residence to pay a quiet visit to the Gu Family."

"That old fellow is sickly, spends all day obsessed with seeking immortality and the Dao, and on top of that Situ Kuo and Zhixiang's brothers are fighting each other, stirring up all kinds of trouble — we don't have the leisure to pay attention to you."

"All those years, he really suffered."

"So this old grandpa is Gu Shang's uncle."

Wrong — the injured middle-aged woman was not Shang Xiaomin.

Cheng Chengxuan curved his lips meaningfully.

"If he could just sit quietly for a while, the candlelight would have flickered enough to dazzle your eyes."

Chu Yuan rested his hands on the table.

Shang Xiaomin let out a cold laugh.

"How do you feel? Where are you hurt?"

"As for the Seventh Prince, he's been recuperating in the Residence the whole time. One more thing — that day, when the guards of the Prince's Residence went to the Imperial Medical Bureau to summon a physician, no one paid them any heed, but Physician Feng secretly went over."

That single sound scattered every bird and beast for thousands of meters around.

Shang Xiaomin shook his head.

On the seventh day and night after receiving the letter from 'Qingye,' Cheng Chengxuan's guards intercepted a letter the Cheng Family had sent to Shang Xiao Hui and Cheng Jiuling.

"Then you've asked the right person!"

The uncle and seven nephews behind: "……"

"Let me take you to treat your wounds first, then I'll talk to him properly."

"It's no serious injury — hurry and tell Uncle, how have you been getting on all these years?"

Shang Xiaomin pulled Gu Shang back and forth, looking him over from every angle, her eyes red as could be — a woman of nearly seventy, crying with snot and tears streaming down her face.

"It's precisely because I truly love you that I let you leave."

I tried to bend my legs and stand, but my ankle had been dislocated by the fall — any movement brought pain.

"It wasn't me."

"Send word to Bingma Si, have our men ready at all times these next few days — we can't afford to lose focus."

The words 'little brat' had just reached his lips when he swallowed them back again, thought it over for a moment, and decided to switch to a different form of address.

"Uh... heh, hehehe..."

"You two young friends, do you know how far Beihuang City is from here?"

I truly never imagined that the youth who had followed at my side, the deputy commander who had gone through fire and water with me, was actually a spy!

"As for rankings — the traitor has already been rooted out. The matter of my coming here, no one in the army knows."

But to his disappointment, right up until the late night of Noble Consort Ning's death anniversary, not a single word of news came from the Imperial Palace.

The contents of the two letters were slightly different, but both said Yu'an had contracted smallpox and was beyond cure, urging us to hurry back.

Gu Shang sighed.

Zhixiang hurried over with quick steps.

Yu'an: "..."

Chu Yuan: "What???"

"Uncle, how did you end up there?"

Hearing my words, Yi Jiang first thought for a moment, then nodded solemnly as if nothing were amiss, and leaned close to Yu'an's ear to whisper.

Watching the backs of the two of them, Yi Jiang said loudly to Yu'an.

"Young Master Yi Jiang!"

"Your Highness, the National Lord dotes on the Seventh Prince so dearly—would he really let the Seventh Prince leave Ducheng?"

The middle-aged man: he laughed it off and decided to stay silent.

"Roar—"

At the Seventh Prince's Residence.

"Looks like Father Emperor still dotes on Seventh Brother quite a bit."

"That was you forcing me!"

Situ Kuo's injuries only looked serious; in truth they were just flesh wounds. Besides, he had been on the battlefield many times leading troops—where blades and swords have no eyes—and had suffered wounds far worse than this more times than he could count.

"You're going to Beihuang City?"

Gazing at the thick white night outside the window, his brows remained tightly knit.

After resting a night, he was already able to move about on his own.

Chu Yuan paced anxiously around the room.

"By the day after tomorrow, at the very least, Father Emperor will summon me into the palace for a meal together, right?"

There was a mole on the right earlobe, and the shape of the eyes was also quite similar.

Thinking of the traitor he had just dealt with, Shang Xiaomin's gaze turned sharp.

Seeing that he had difficulty moving, Gu Shang simply carried him on his back and headed up the Mountain.

Zhixiang Ju closed the book in her hands and cast him a helpless glance.

Inside a certain room of the Seventh Prince's Guest Courtyard.

Cheng Chengxuan laughed, his meaning unclear.

Thanks a lot for making sure to say it out loud, ha—because we could totally hear you!

"Young Master!"

Noticing his movement, Gu Shang also glanced over in that direction, and in that single glance he froze on the spot.

"Who said it cost a single soldier?"

"How can he still read a book?"

Qingmu was a little worried.

Situ Kuo flipped the tea table beside him onto the ground, a glint of resolve flashing in his eyes, and stared at the door with a darkened face.

Yu'an reached out and patted Big Yellow on the head. Big Yellow understood and nodded, then threw back his head and let out a long howl.

After reading them, Zhixiang Ju placed the two letters over the candle flame at the edge of the table and set them alight. The flickering firelight danced across my face, lending the air about me an even more eerie quality.

Just as he was about to continue speaking, shouts suddenly rang out from the distance.

"Um, you two..."

"The Seventh Prince has been banished to his fief, and the Seventh Prince won without losing a single soldier—they resolved the dispute peacefully, which ruined our plan to have them both end up badly wounded!"

He glanced at Qingmu.

Zhixiang Ju raised an eyebrow slightly.

The day after tomorrow is Mother Consort's death anniversary, yet Father Emperor hasn't sent a single word of news from his side.

What he said was true—Cheng Chengxuan and Zhixiang Ju, the two brothers, truly had no mind to spare for anything else at the moment.

"Wuwuwu... A Gu, look at how pale he's gotten!"

"What a pity, though—Seventh Brother, I fear, cannot see this point, and will surely fail to live up to Father Emperor's loving father's heart."

Zhixiang Ju shook her head with a faint smile.

"Hah!"

Meanwhile, on the other side, two guards from the City Lord's Manor rushed over at the sound.