Chapter 80: Going After His Wife (I)
Chapter 80: Going After His Wife (I)
Though Shi promised that he wouldn’t make himself too tired, he didn’t go back to his palace that night.
Long waited on the imperial bed for the whole night but sighed because Shi’s absence.
Naturally, Long didn’t have a good sleep that night.
The next morning, Long had an early wake-up.
Long went to the outer hall since it’s not time for morning meeting.
The eunuchs and palace maids waiting outside were startled and rushed to pay their respects to Long.
Long signaled them to leave but only beckoned one younger eunuch who was a henchman of Shi to come over.
The eunuch rushed to follow him inside. "Your Majesty."
Long asked calmly, "Is the empress still in the chamber?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." The eunuch answered immediately.
Long frowned and went silent for a long time.
The eunuch was on his knees quietly, after a while, Long waved at him. "Alright, you may leave now."
The eunuch paused and then left.
After the eunuch was gone, Long looked at the sky outside and gave out a long sigh of relief.
The morning meeting with the emperor was about to begin. Long walked out of Qiankun Palace slowly…
Meanwhile, down at the dark room.
Shi drank the tea leisurely.
The one hung before his was undoubtedly Fang Hui.
But his state was not even close as being good.
A mark of wound on him looked like a scar left by whipping or something else.
More importantly, however, the look in his eyes was different from that sharpness when he was in Qiankun Palace. His eyes were blank, as if he was suppressing some feelings, with a touch of depression.
It was inferred that he must have had a rough night.
"What time is it now?" Shi asked indifferently.
A Shadow Guard answered immediately, "Your majesty, it’s time for the morning meeting."
"Oh…" Shi nodded and threw an indifferent look at Fang. "Have you decided what you are going to tell me?"
Fang looked at Shi. His eyes were slack and carried a sense of inexpressible fear.
Shi smiled gently. "Still nothing? No problem, I got time to stay here with you."
Demon…all of a sudden, this word came to Fang’s mind.
Shi at this moment stood up nicely and shook out the non-existent dust on him, "I will come back after breakfast."
Fang twitched his lips and finally spoke out four words. "I will tell you."
Long didn’t have a good mood during the morning meeting and he wouldn’t mind letting it out.
The courtiers knew that an assassin broke into the palace during daytime yesterday. It was also said that this had something to do with the Mr. Xu the emperor had brought in. And it was predictable to see the emperor in a bad mood.
That’s why all the courtiers were jittering throughout the morning meeting.
And they were reluctant to bring up their reports if they were not significant ones.
And the duration of this morning meeting was record short.
After the end of the meeting, Long couldn’t help but think maybe he should pretend to be in a bad mood everyday so that those courtiers would stop whining and bothering him with trivial matters non-stop.
Long headed towards Qiankun Palace as he was thinking about this in his mind.
He saw Shi who was drinking tea as soon as he arrived at Qiankun Palace.
Long quickened his pace to his front and gave him a big hug.
Shi smiled lightly and asked. "What happened?"
Long darted a glance at him. "You didn’t come home last night and was still asking me what’s going on!"
Shi blinked his eyes. "You know where I am."
"What I also know is that someone said he would make sure he wouldn’t get too tired."
Shi gave out a sound of "hum" and expressed that he didn’t mean it.
Long kissed him on his face, "You know I worry about you."
Shi closed his eyes as he was soft-hearted. "I know, I was about to get some rest after breakfast."
"Yeah, go get some rest." Long caressed his eyes.
Shi smiled.
Long soon ordered someone to get the imperial breakfast.
In no time, the imperial breakfast arrived and Long
"Hum, I get it." Shi nodded to show his complete compliance.
Shi had some porridge and a piece of scallion pancake. The scallion pancake made by the imperial kitchen was really good and was one of Shi’s favorite food as it was not greasy at all.
Long, on the other hand, preferred the egg pancake type.
After Shi had his meal, Long made sure he wandered around the residential palace before he went to bed.
Shi found this both funny and annoying; he was wondering maybe having some boxing practice will do, but apparently Long didn’t even think about that.
Never mind, wandering was also not bad.
Long left after he saw Shi go to bed.
Shi had a nice sleep and woke up just before lunch.
Long meanwhile, had finished examining all the reports.
While the right Prime Minister and Xu Yang had been on their way to Quanzhou, the Shadow Guards would always transfer the secret information about them back.
Currently the people were still on their way and what the shadow guards report was merely their itinerary, nothing important.
They still needed two or three days to get to Quanzhou.
Long saw Shi wake up as soon as he walked in; his eyes were lit up. "Are you awake?"
"Hum." Shi nodded and yawned. "What time is it now?"
"Just about the time to eat lunch." Long smiled and said.
"What?" Shi raised his eyebrows. "It’s time to eat lunch? I have slept for so long…"
"Just under six hours." Long pouted and said.
Shi smiled. "Actually, I have been sleeping long enough."
Long helped him get up, "Is this enough?" and then checked him a bit. "Good news, no dark circles."
Shi chuckled and said. "Well, good news to me."
Long helped Shi get dressed in person; though a bit uncomfortable, Shi remained silent.
After the dressing part, Long looked at his artwork satisfactorily.
"Well, not bad! Not bad!"
Shi made a forced smile. "Never knew that Your Majesty can do this, looks like you got no worry about your future living."
Long blinked his eyes. "What you meant is that if I am no longer an emperor, I can still make a living for both of us out of my talent, right?"
"Yeah." Shi nodded in a relaxed way.
"Well, this is fine…" Long touched his jaw. "The feeling of enjoying yourself in the outside world should be fine." Shi didn’t bother to be a slick talker and asked solemnly, "Have you checked if they get anything out from Fang?"
During the interrogation, words will be recorded by the Shadow Guards.
Those records should now be handed over to Long.
Long nodded and said, "I have seen the records, the situation is really a mess now inside the Tianyin post."
But the dealer making business with Tianyin post seemed to be very mysterious.
He would go to Tianyin post three times a year.
But, nobody outside the post had ever met him before.
Meanwhile, the head of the post and his wife who used to be merrily married couple, had gradually started to quarrel with each other now and then in the study.
And the head of the post began to stay overnight in the study instead of his wife’s room.
Later on, the son of the head of the post fell in love with a man, which both his parents were against. This helped fix their relationship to some extent, but only a limited one.
The head of the post and his wife had always wanted their son to marry the daughter of the wife’s elder brother, which also happened to be their niece.
But what the head’s wife didn’t know was that his husband was actually the one together with his elder brother, doing the business of smuggling the horses.
Fang also said that he came here this time with the order from the head of the post.
The son of the head had been detained secretly, but his wife had no idea about that at all.
His wife still believed that her son went missing when he was faced with strong enemies, but had no clue that it was actually because of his husband.
And the reason he came here was to lure Xu You back.
The head was aware that Xu was now in the city, even though Xu had no idea what happened in Tianyin post; after all, he was someone from the post.
Fang Qiuhua was afraid that Xu You caught the attention of the the court about Tianyin post, so he wanted to use Fang Shuoyang’s connection to lure Xu back. If Xu refused to leave, they would knock him out and took him away.
If necessary, Xu could be sacrificed. That’s all the orders from the head Fang Qiuhua.
As for other inside stories of Tianyin post, Fang Hui had some knowledge of them but not a clear view.
About the most important smuggling of horses, what Fang only knew was that the head and his wife’s elder brother were both involved.
And people in the post kept this to themselves very well.
"Indeed, this is complicated." Shi nodded as he understood. "What do you think of this?"